
"if i could get the president down here, maybe i could get my pipes
 cleaned properly."

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 number one                                             june 1994


 <  contents copyright individual authors                     >
 <  [except scrytch, see ##--* ]                 <            >
    unspecified-- dave meesters, 1994 or other   >             

__________________________________________________________________

within:
   --   hello
   --   splinter text
   --   special supplement: scrytch
   --   colophon

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

HELLO this is the first issue of _splinter_, a journal of text
fragments and broken writing, sound bites and simple indulgences.
we're late and it's a little skimpy this time.  hoping that
submissions will pick up after this first issue gets out.

*** a special supplement to this issue of _splinter_ showcases
writing from the "scrytch" on-line collaborative writing project.
find it at the ##--* mark.

SUBMIT to _splinter_ if this looks like your thing.  address all
correspondence, submissions, comments, subscription requests (free),
anything to <dave1@gibbs.oit.unc.edu>.

ARCHIVES: this and future issues of _splinter_ will be available via
gopher or ftp at etext.archive.umich.edu, in a directory to be named
later.

thanks to everyone who sent stuff in.  can't do it alone.

enjoy.

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


a parable >>>>>>>>>


when the man had dug down down all the way through to china, the last
  heave of his shovel planted the spade firmly into the tired man's
  unsuspecting skull.  then he knew that he had reached all the way
  through, that he had come out the other side, and the death of the
  tired man became symbolic of his descent into the underworld and
  reascent into the world of man, a world transformed by his descent.
  he was so pleased that he kept the man's teeth on a cord around his
  neck for the rest of his days, to remind him of the sacrifices necessary
  to accomplish changes in
                                                               |
                |                                              |
                |                                              |
Received: from chip.ucdavis.edu by gibbs.oit.unc.edu (5.64/10.1)
     id AA29527; Sat, 23 Apr 94 04:35:13 -0400                 |
Received: by chip.ucdavis.edu (8.6.8/UCD2.50)                  |
     id BAA18873; Sat, 23 Apr 1994 01:27:14 -0700              |
                |                                              |
to = me / sometimes                                            |
                |                                              |
                |                                              |
entry from journal:                                            |
                |                                              |
(car ride through benicia, ca, toxic waste extravaganza)       |
somebody singing in their truck.  looks like the chorus.  my burps smell
like japanese food.  i can now eat reasonably well with chop sticks, but
i still hate sushi.  last fortune cookie i got said:           | 
Hell is pave with good intentions.  My mother said,"looks like the 
sages know."  reminds me of the dreams i have where my teeth fall
out in sheets of tooth grit or when my scalp peels off.  my spanish
flatmate in england said, "Your life is in decay." and "My mom has that
same problem."  |                                              |
                |                                              |
my photo prof brings her tibetan bowl to class ... we meditate in
the forest grove and she bings it when we should stop.  Yuck.  |
I believe in the Buddha who found enlightenment within the people.
which is more difficult?  Mountains or people?  my other prof, the
artist, the one everyone thought was completely full of shit, found
out last week (after all these years) that he got a degree and a 
masters in china, then went to florida state and got another masters
and almost a phd in chinese theory.                            |
one positive thing to meditate on:                             |
Someday my features will shrink into the middle of my face, just like
my dads.        |                                              |
aaron calls me a forty year old magnet.  i can't seem to attract anyone
decent that is even relatively close to my age.  the one from the nude
beach said as he pushed the joy stick over to me, "Okay, your turn."
and i said, "No, I suck at these things, I just like to watch."  
Then he said, straight into my eyes, "So, we're a voyeur are we?"
I laughed, drank my beer and left.                             |
                |                                              |
                |                     -- wendy chisholm        |
                |                                              |
                |______________________________________________|



00010008476
This is a number which sometimes      The green grass is not like your 
shows up on screen when you wand       face in the winter.  Nor is it
over the bar code on my belly.         exactly like your face at anytime.
                                       Perhaps with age your face will
                                       disappear.  The birds will sing or
|| || || |/ \| || || ||                talk or make their whatever sound,
|| || ||//   \\|| || ||                and you will still be listening.
|| || |//     \\| || ||                The lipstick is smeared on the
|| || //   @   \\ || ||                woman's lips above slightly.  Do
|| || \\       // || ||                the wrinkles agree with the ground.
|| || |\\     //| || ||                Intensify the wrinkles.  Hard to
|| || ||\\   //|| || ||                believe the cells are regenerating.
|| || || \\ // || || ||                Time is ticking.  Are we making the
                                       best of it?  No time like the
This is my belly bursting through      present time.  Scattered thoughts
the barcode and stealing away in       about a room making the room seem
the night.                             like a thought gymnasium lockeroom
                                       with the water puddles and the
                                       living fungus growing on the tile
(notcontested,capableofbeing)-ly       floors.  Not exactly something that
the most advantageous affective        needs to be extinguished.  This
mental he got it wrong state           morning was a perfect morning.  The
developed not to ride atop the         waking was superb.  If the light
dumpster truck or blare from the       was any brighter I would not have
steeple to tell us to behideware.      believed I was on earth.  The
flak that explodes on your chest       cooing of the doves was a perfect
cavity just makes you cold and a bit   reminder of the existing repetition
silly and who would anesthetize the    of the day.  I tried to remember
brain?  i don't lick the sores         something different this morning. 
because they taste good, they taste    I remembered a dream.  The day was
good because i can lick them.          short.  It was shorter than the day
                                       before.  All the clocks were wrong.
       -- (name withheld)              I tried to fix them all, but had no
                                       control.  A few of the clocks were
                                       in arms reach, especially the back.
                                       I could read the words "soft" and
"loud" on the back.  I could not get my hand in the correct position to
wind.  When I woke up, I thought that waking was the perfect thing to do at
this point...nothing mattered more.  Then I remembered what myself had
planned for the day.  Planning to be around in things...to do this and
that...perhaps make up a portion of myself to be another portion of myself
to govern the lacky parts of myself and get things straight.  Maybe the
parts that would rather organize would like to take a vacation.  Not exactly
like walking. A warm breeze isn't exactly like an arctic breeze.  

       -- John Hudak
                                  *************************

i still seem to find that no matter what i do, no matter what bank i go
to, how many times i move my money around, how many times i stand in
front of the dairy case trying to decide how many percents of what all i
want in my milk, how many times i wince or even just close my eyes or
lower my boom, no matter what the effect of the affect or the destination
of the antecedent, i can no longer transcend being a mere marsupial.
                   i can no longer transcend being
                   i can no longer transcend
                   i can no longer           be
                   i        long   t         be

--------------                                                --------------
                   i would very much like to wallow some.     

              ------------------------------------------------


So then, each to each a response can locate - two styles, one proof of the
other's puddingness. This distaff and datstaff kind of mellowhole whizway
will mightily my mind attempt/confuse/confute.  And one of you can 'lay out'
almost as if concrete poemsending.  I am (continuing) to examine the sortways
in which this spelltwist(ed) universe complies/complicates/disarranges
without careful but and rebutting attention to detail.  I am watching myself
watching myself (meanwhile the cloche is running away with the
spoon(erismes). Thanks for the connnection to splinter - that's exactly what
i'm talking about here and always inafter.  I shall now attempt a concrete
one:
               t      h
                 i s
                  a
                  s
                gooeyes
                as the go
                oooohgets!
\               i am now about to exi(s)t!
  \
i   \           -- david cole, the paumonock traveller.
am    \
one big \
run on    \
sentence    \
consisting of nothing but monosyllables connected with ....'s yelled from the
open window of a yellow bus on the last day of 4th grade rhythmic
vngngngngngng of a pencil scraped across the metal ridges of the
un-upholstered back of the seat mashing in on the spiral spine of the
notebook on my lap encreasing the zipper in my jeans folded arrow to the
treads bottoming my shoes pausing to dig out orange dog shit poking this into
a vinyl brown hole pokepokepokepokepokepokepokepokepokepokepokepokepokepoke
pokepokepokepokepokepokepokepokepokily B.O. waddles down the limb narrowed
aisle on bare feet despite which were won busdriver of the year three years
running by Ruby Dillard who tells us all to shut up and me to take names that
i will put many many checks beside if you are my enemy.

                    -- (name withheld)
    



..end: splinter text------




        _____________________________________________________
   /--------------------------------------------------------
  //
 //
//
\\ 
|\\   ##--*  Special supplement:  SCRYTCH   
| \\
| |\\      samples from the compost silo of the 
| | \\     scrytch (brand) collaborative writing
| | |\\    project, recycling itself through perpetual
| | | \\   iterations.  
| | | |\\        scrytchers write, then sift through, appropriate, and
| | | | \\       remix each others' writing in endless new combinations,
| | | | |\\     always adding fresh material to the stew.  the result 
              is a nameless, faceless mulch that is simultaneously end-
           product and raw material.  the following snippets, though
       worthwhile, won't give you a feel for the collaborative nature of
  scrytch.  if you're interested in seeing/doing more, join the FIXION
mailing list by sending a subscription request to
                                       <fixion-list-request@netcom.com>.
dig.

                                          __________________________
                                         /                          \
                                         | the me-that-feels is     |
                                         | surrounded by the scar   |
                         /---------------| tissue through which the |
                       _/                | me-that-cuts is always   |
                      |                  | cutting.                 |
                      |                  \__________________________/
                      |
                      |                      
 ____________________\|/____________________________________________________
/                                                                           \
quite clearly, something is afoot.  two slices of toast, two cups of tea, two
packettes of wiz and the day is set to begin.  i gaze out the winder for a
momentary two.  eating up the murky morning distance, SOPOPOPAPOPIOPOLIS
shimmies and stretches like the industrial-strength cybermatic alley-kittie it
is.  "i could snap your neck like a twig," i whisper.  "meow."

step out the front door with an empty shiver in the process of fading to grey;
dawn streets in silent english drizzle; a child's woollen mitten; a dog turd;
\___________________________________________________________________________/
  |                                                  |
  |                                                  |
  |  on the way i meet this Kerrie-Girl,             |
  |  scrytching with the high street hubbub,
  |  ducking, weaving, sometimes crouching down
     listening, sometimes scrytching the
     air with her hands, sometimes standing
     crane-like, taking it all in.  The bits
     of barbed wire and razor blades woven into
     her prismatic dreads cut the sunlight
     into colours that no-one knows the names
     of.      
             |       i save off on Flan for the moment, follow
             \---    a whim; we go for a walk down the
                     motorway, six lanes of pure metal speed,
                     hand in hand down the fast lane facing
             /------ the oncoming traffic, horrific pile-ups
             |       unfolding in our wake:
               
"You know," she murmurs huskily    she is obsessed, livid, feral, nubile. 
into my ear, "the world wants      "You know what the world wants... and
plastic trolls.  It wants TV ----> you know that you'll give it to them...
Dinners, it wants Poppin' Fresh    debauched and desperate as you are, no
Dough.  It wants neon eyeliner,    manner of angel will succor you."  she
FuckMe-Red lipstick, Teen Spirit,  kills me sometimes.  her breath is hot
Gerry Curl.  The world wants       on my neck.  "If an angel came, you'd mash
people dressed as hot dogs."       it into cherubic cuteness and sell
           \ /                     it as Fred Meyers.  Because you are the
            |                      world {you are the children}.  And you
           \|/                     may not know art, but you know what you
            |------<--------<----- like.  Don'cha, hhhhhhhhhoney?"  and
            |                      she is right.
           \|/               
            |           
            |            {a self-organizing pattern}
            |
            |
/----------------------------------------------\
| riches and fame belong to pothunting          |
| hollywood whitehouse special interest         |  "Operationalize an
| dicks.  it is hidden in an element of fear     |  individualized apprehension,
| and mystery stuffed deep down in the mattress  |  with an eye toward a
| on which they sleep.  the mattress is          |  goal-oriented
| propelled  upstream by the grunts and screams  |  instrumentality"
| of people.  some of them have forgotten how to |
| exist; when the people remember how to exist   |  but we constantly,
| some of them sigh and look downstream.  when   |  and in best Human action
| the mattress occasionally comes in contact    |   typically,
| with the streambed there is explosion and     |
| the pothunting hollywood whitehouse special   |  diverge,
| interest dick comes all over itself like a    |  converge,
| wet dream.                                    |  merge,
|                                             | /  emerge
\_____________________________________________|/
                                                   as new under the Son
                                                   but not new under the Sun

SOPOPOPAPOPIOPOLIS
was intimately connected with all of the dreams
we have given up for lost; it was and is a sort
of "dead-letter-office" for humanity's dreams.

_________________________________________________________________________
|                                                                       |\
| SO MANY ADJECTIVES! i will not ever find them all in my dictionaries  | |
|        SO MANY ADJECTIVES! i will not ever find them all in my        | |
| dictionaries                                                          | |
|   I'm NOT FREE...  I'm NOT FREE...     I AM SO LONEL   I AM SO LONELY | |
|    SO MANY ADJECTIVES! i will SO MAI NOT FREE...NY ADJECTIVESnot ever | |
| find them all in my dictionaries                                      | |
|               I AM SO LONELY       I AM SO LONELY                     | |
|       SO MANY ADJECTIVES! i will nSO MANY ADJECTII AM SO LONELYVESot  | |
| ever find them all in my dictionaries !                               | |
|     SO MANY ADI AM SO LONELYJECTIVES! i will not ever find them all   | |
| in my dictionaries                                                    | |
| I'm NOT FREE...I'm NOT FREE...I'm NOT FREE...I'm NOT FREE...I'm NOT   | |
| FREE...I'm NOT FREE...                                                | |
|         I'm NOT FREE...   SI'm NOT FREE...O MANY ADJECTII AM SO       | |
| LONELYVES                                                             | |
|        SO MANY ADJECTIVES! i will not ever find them all in my        | |
| dictionaries !                                                        | |
| I AM SO LONELY                SO MANY ADJECTIVES I AM SO LONELY       | |
|     SO MANY ADJECTIVES! i will not ever find them all in my           | |
| dictionaries !                                                        | |
|      SO MANY ADJECTIVES! i will not ever find them all in my          | |
| dictionarie                                                           | |
|     I'm NOT FREE...      SO MANY ADJECTIVES! i will not ever find     | |
| them all in my disctionaries                                          | |
| I'm NOT FREE...I'm NOT FREE...I'm NOT FREE...I'm NOT FREE...I'm NOT   | |
| FREE...                                                               | |
|         SO MANY ADJECTIVES! i will not ever find them all in my       | |
| dictionaries                                                          | |
|        TOO MANY ADJECTIVES! i will not ever find them all in my       | |
| dictionaries           SO MANY ADJECTIVES!                            | |
|                      TOO MANY ADJECTIVES                              | |
|    TOO MANY ADJECTIVES                                                | |
|_______________________________________________________________________| |
 \_______________________________________________________________________\|


My apology to the Association will be short and to the point.  I can no longer
pretend to uphold the virtues so indicative of the fellowship of my peers.

you are not words.  but that is all of you i can see.  you are not your
actions... because you wish to exclude your words.  you cannot do that, that's
against The Rules.  you are no more or less your words that you are your
actions, and In Here, WORDS ARE ACTIONS.  steps taken, trax made.

   //////////////////////////////////////
  // "Formulate a nonverbal clientele" //
  ////////////////////////////////////// 

   /--------------------------------------------------\
 /                                                     \
|  "What we need is a good walking stick," he says      \
|  over his shoulder, the blood now dried rust down     |
|  his chin, left from that turgid septic winter        |
|  when a little force still went a long way.  His      | 
|  walking stick, blunted on both ends, lay miles       |
|  away in his cellar.  "We'll never get the necessary  |
|  penetration that way."                               |
|                                                       |
she's screaming again.  shit, i hate it when she does that.  she screams and
scratches and curses.  she'll be out of it again soon...  back to the flacid,
drooling, mewling, pathetic creature she is most of the time.  maybe i'll get
some sleep.  i light a cigarette, pour another cup of that awful coffee i made
this morning out of spite.  we used to take our shots together, you know.
listening to the radio, sitting on the porch, an innertube tied around each
right arm.  it was communion, worship, the sun on our faces.  sometimes i
cried, it was so good.  i was in love.  what did i know?  i always knew it was
her trip, though.  it was always her idea.  and now she's gone so far.  i don't
take the stuff anymore.  i just wipe up the mess.  when will she quit that
fucking screaming? it's getting longer and longer...

pour some orange juice into her favorite red mug.  some granola and milk in a
milmac bowl.  brought you some breakfast, honey.

                                          <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
                                              <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

                               the
                  beautiful moon has been hiding,
             obscured by metaphor.  the city is here
      wanting to take me into its arms. the city says "maam,
              are you ok?"  i hang up the phone on
                   the city. there is dignity
                          in dreaming;
                               ***
                                *

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

"i died with a gypsie once.  she was very
good at what she did.  she did nothing all day long
but chop her fingernails off with slim knives.  she had no fingers.
no hands.  but that didn't stop her fingernails from growing long. they grew
from her wrists with the speed of a young fool's death.  twisted and tangled
she chopped and screamed.  her fingernails tore holes in my chest; blood
trickled and she smiled; blood gushed and she laughed.  ranting and raving
she ripped through my body until our gnothings touched; the touch excited me,
i withered; and her nails grew and grew.  behind my back they entwined.
became one.  the pressure crushed my ribs.  my insides dripped out and my
outsides slid in.  she caught the bloody, thick spray with her tongue like
      snowflakes.  i did the same.  we consumed ourselves.  i loved her.  she
                 raised me; with my toes tickling the sand she made me dance,
                       and we danced to our scream      --      when morning
                               came i killed her.  she fought me; i escaped
                                   with only cuts.  when it rains my chest
                                       still aches."

                                          <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
                                              <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>                                     <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>--------
                                  |
       ___________________________|_______________________________
      /                                                           \
      |  the goal here, see, is one that's hounded me for a long  |
      |  time.  i really long to fuse each and every style in     |
      |  my immediate grasp into one that i can call my own.  i   |
      |  want to fuse the Scholarly Essay with the Core Dump, i   |
      |  want to fuse autobiography with fiction, i want to       |
      |  fuse literature and disposability. that's the only       |
      |  tactic i can conceive of in response to my               |
      |  surroundings. that's the only way i can think of the     |
      |  get a fix within the flux.                               |
      \___________________________________________________________/
           |                                               |
           | "it all started that sunday night, o so long  |
           |  ago... the words had refused to admit        |
           |  static.  every stream of letters and         |
           |  numerals had congealed into some semblance   |
           |  of meaning.  this was a problem; i had       |
           |  turned the television on to channel 23; i    |
           |  had tuned the am radio to a buzzing sub-hum. |
           |  no help, no help. still the words came."     |
            \______________________________________________/
                                  |
                               ___|____
                              /        \
                              |  >and  |
                              \________/



..end: special supplement------


goodbye.

=======================================================================
like it matters:  _splinter_ was edited and published by dave meesters.
this issue was created using text editors including WordPerfect 5.1,
and distributed by PINE electronic mail software.
for information mail <dave1@gibbs.oit.unc.edu>.  _splinter_ is archived
at etext.archive.umich.edu.  copies also available from the publisher.
