imomus | Body Week 7: Flinge-Lurgie Syndrome and the koalas of love

Body Week 7: Flinge-Lurgie Syndrome and the koalas of love

'He was carried off by a combination of the Flinge and the Lurgie.' That's what people will say, shaking their heads, when I go. I can feel them already at work in my body, the Flinge and the Lurgie. They're gnawing away at the fibrous cells of my lungs, they're depositing stones in my kidneys, they're dropping poops in the core of my spine. At the moment they're not really doing any serious damage, they're just mucking about. But little by little, year by year, they'll dig in deeper, take over more. As entropy makes me weaker, the Flinge and the Lurgie will get stronger, until, like parasite assassins or rock critics, they decide the time has come to kill the host and move on to another victim.

It's a weird age I'm at right now. In a way nothing has changed since I was, say, 21. At 21 I might have had 50 years of life ahead of me, and I might still have 50 years of life ahead of me. At 21 all my nuclear family was still alive, and they're still alive now. When I was 21 The Cure were making records, and they're still making records. At 21 I started making records, and I'm still making records. In more than 20 years, everything has changed and yet, in some ways, hardly anything has changed. I haven't reproduced. The world hasn't ended in a nuclear conflagration (a real possibility when I looked into the future from 1981). Some things changed: the Soviet Union disappeared, the internet came along, some James Bond villain-type billionaire who lived in a mountain cave flew jets into important bits of New York City. Well, I lived through three big bits of history, and perhaps I'll live through three more events on that magnitude before the Flinge and the Lurgie carry me away.

The main difference between me at 21 and me now, apart from not feeling quite so great when I get up in the morning (thanks to the still-benign Flinge and Lurgie) is that I don't expect either disasters or miracles to happen any more. Things will probably just go on pretty much the way they have been (and overall I must say I'm having a tremendously good life so far) until that fateful moment when a doctor tells me 'I'm afraid you have chronic Flinge-Lurgie syndrome, I give you six months.' I no longer expect (or want) to 'become famous', for instance. My next record will be greeted with the usual widescale indifference, no matter how good it is. I don't expect to earn or win significant amounts of money. I don't even expect to fall in love with some amazing person who'll change my whole life. Will I have children? It seems unlikely. I can't even afford proper dental treatment, let alone a kid. Will I die? Oh, obviously. I can feel it in my bones.

Somewhere in his diary, Paul Klee says, with admirably Swiss asceticism: 'You can disregard the stomach by giving it neither too little nor too much. I regarded marriage as a sexual cure. To work I needed stability, and I found that stability wrapped up in monogamy.' Klee always had a sardonic take on mortality. One of his drawings is entited 'Sick Man Making Plans'. Late in his own life, when he knew he would soon die, he made a series of drawings of angels. 'How does one make an angel when one knows, when one suspects, that the angel being formed is the shape of one's own dying?' Klee's epitaph reads: 'I cannot be grasped in the here and now, for I live just as well with the unborn as with the dead... somewhat closer than usual to the heart of creation, but far from close enough.' Identifying with 'creation' rather than the self or the body seemed to give Klee a sort of immortality.

'Death to all who are not pirates!' writes my son in his LiveJournal. Well, he's not really my son. He's some guy in Massachusetts called Rob. In fact I don't even know if that's his name. Let's just call him Koala. I stumbled on his journal, Koalas in Love, pretty much by chance. Maybe he left a comment on mine, I can't remember. His userinfo page tells us:

'i like to dance around in my room to nintendo music with scary glasses on..but most of all i want to travel, mostly to japan and finland!!! i draw waaaaaay toooo much, cause i don't do anything else. i have fucking righteous friends who, along with me and my girlpal, are in the "we are totally cooler than scene kids" gang. we like to make cookies/cakes/brownies while watching bad fantasy films. these things keep me happy, along with my stuffed dolphin, synthesizer and playmobils.'

I was dancing around in my room last night to an early Beatles record I found in a fleamarket. Like father, like koala. I travel to Japan and Finland. I don't draw as much as Koala does, but I know enough to recognise that he's visually talented and will go far with the skill and motivation you can feel radiating from his page. His journal reminds me of the most optimistic and excitable and motivated moments of my own life. Koala could be my biological son, because he's 21 and I'm twice that. He's not my biological son, but I could consider him a member of a big tribe of 'cultural kin'. I don't need to know that my genes are in him, it's enough for me to know that he shares a lot of the memes that I feel most strongly about. Japan, design, glamour, appetite, colour, freedom, embodiment, the quest for value in art.

I searched Koala's page yesterday for the word 'Momus' and couldn't find it, but today, just as I'm writing about Koala being my secret 'meme son', I see he's updated with an entry saying he's been listening to my 'Summerisle' record! What an amazing co-incidence! But it's not really so surprising. You see, we're related. This is how meme kin communicate. Much more than normal families, who share mere genes, we're on the same wavelength, with a kind of sixth sense, which is art. We share aspirations, culture, talent, memes.

Anyway, what I wanted to say about Koala (and perhaps a hundred other 'meme sons' and 'meme daughters' I've identified) is that if I died tomorrow (in, say, a suicide bomb attack on the master tapes to Sting's new album), Koala would carry on the battle. He would march on with the values. The meme son would complete and expand the work of the meme father. Death cannot hinder our meme army, nor Flinge-Lurgie Syndrome halt our missionary work. Let meme-copulation thrive, and let the revolution continue!

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I don't know what to say except that I enjoyed this entry very much. It makes me happy that you can see yourself in kids like "Koala." Yet somehow I imagined your son to be a "Billy Elliot" type...maybe not the dancing so much, or maybe the dancing so much. Anyways, I liked that movie.

Koala aka Matthew Douglas Lock. ^___^

'meme kin'. Great concept . . .

Maybe we could all carry cards listing 'Next of Meme Kin', so that if we're knocked over by a bus or something, the meme work can carry on unhindered.

"a suicide bomb attack on the master tapes to Sting's new album" would be an honourable way to go indeed.

Amen to that.

i've only been reading your journal for a couple of weeks now but i'm so impressed- i love your brain!!! and i also like your concept of meme kin.... thank you for being.

You made me realize that Patty Hearst will be a robot in my art-comic!
Thanks.

Could there be warring meme clans? My meme kin fear the unreliability of bodies and have contempt for the superficiality of visual as compared to textual information. I imagine our respective meme-kin holding some kind of stylized gang fight involving lots of finger-snapping and quoting of continental philosophers.

Jimmy here. Reminds me of a sonnet by William I very recently read:

When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves,
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.

In terms of "cultural kin" I think breeding goes on everyday in this LiveJournal. Another Thank-You extended from me,

Jimmy.

yes, I like this train of thought.

the internet wasn't even a gleam of lust in al gore's eye when you were 21. i'm surprised you didn't mention the internet at all considering that you spend so much time on it, that you're concerned about your balls frying.

i've been listening to your Summerisle record all week. its a good sound track to jack off to at the end of a long day and chaotic subway commute because it helps me relax.

"Will I have children? It seems unlikely. I can't even afford proper dental treatment, let alone a kid."

That sounds like a pre-parental perspective.

We have children later in life these days. I suspect that a lot of people feel a bit jaded in their 30s and 40s. Having a son or daughter hits them like a "new experience" that rivals listening to Poison Boyfriend for the first time.

Nick - Imagine the effect a child would have on your music and your LiveJournal entries. Can anyone suggest possible lyrics for the first song Momus writes after the birth? :-)

- Lex

i am totally flattered by this!
thank you ever so much!!!!
i wrote about it all here:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/koalas_in_love/
yes,we are related..through our thoughts/creativity/intrests as well as imagination.and i think this meme kin idea is wonderful..

you know, reading your journal and seeing stuff like koala's has helped me make a weird little decision in my life about what kind of art i should be making.

xoxoxo, sir!

i must say that the coincidence continues on my end because i must have favorited koalas journal at some point long ago and last night i happened to go through my favorites and check it. i saw that he had written about momus and i was like oh thats cool i read momus's journal, and then you wrote this and omigod the wavelengths. i'm going travelling in may with a friend, we don't know exactly where we're going, but we're going. and i'm really really looking for fucking righteous friends, because i feel infinite inside but i need good people to bring out good things in me. i've tried to bring myself out without other people, but it's only helped me to realize that i like people alot and then sort of orient myself towards the future. and i lost my stuffed dolphin. and so you know what i'm trying to say is that i am your son too, but i'm just not as good at it, but you have to love me too because i have the essence.
i should be an artist, but then i can't help but feel like there's something more. i have so much potential that i do nothing. if you could see inside me there would be bright lights and colors and amazing creations just sitting against the wall, but all lined up as far as you can see, and chatting with each other about their day sitting against the wall.

excellent entry. I'm intrigued by this idea of meme kin and how we have the ability to create relationships and family in a way that would never have been possible or even imaginable for so many people fifty years ago. I fell close to people I've never seen. Its all so strange and exciting.

After this article you're artistic principles and views seem less like something i've stolen and more like an inheritance. Hurrah! May meme fathers always be so kind!

Dude, you are totally famous.

The Marquis de Puss-in-Boots

Have you been reading about Nanobacteria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanobacteria)?

Have you seen this (http://briancotts.tripod.com/cottsweb/thirty/2001/thirty47a.html)?

I think I read that when it came out. You know, when I say that I don't really want to be famous, it's really because of reactions like that one. Reactions that make you feel 'God, all that work wasn't in vain. Someone noticed. Someone's life was made better by work I did.' That makes everything worthwhile. It's beyond fame, and beyond money.

Well, you know, what is written there echoes my own sentiments. I do think it's a shame that more people do not listen to your work. It might interest you to know how I first encountered your music. Well, here goes:

I was in Japan, of all places, and I had made friends with a student called Komatsu. He had long hair, which he often wore in a tail, and reminded me of a young, Japanese Michael Yorke. (Later, at my farewell party, a girl was to describe him to me as "the strangest person in the entire medical faculty", which I thought was odd, because he seemed eminently sane and human to me.) Anyway, we had got talking at some party or other, and, since he knew I was British, he talked to me about British music, in which he was very interested. We shared an interest in The Smiths, (and incidentally in H.P. Lovecraft), but his knowledge of British music was far greater than mine. I went round to his tiny flat and his walls were lined with CDs. He played me music while we drank whiskey. One of his favourite musicians was someone called Momus, of whom I confess I had not heard before. But he played me some of it - starting with Circus Maximus - and I was intrigued. I taped (sorry!) that album and Learning to be Human off him, and later was to buy or have people give me Hippopotomomus, The Little Red Songbook, Stars Forever, Folktronic, Summerisle, Oskar Tennis Champion and Ping Pong. I am looking forward to collecting more.

Komatsu's great passion was travel. During the time I knew him, while he was still studying medicine, he would suddenly disappear and make a trip around India or somewhere. This led, eventually, to him dropping out of his medical degree.

I hear that he is now living in Korea, has married a Korean girl and started a family with her. I still think of him now and then. He was always asking me why Momus wasn't more popular in Britain. "He has great tunes! It's pop music," he would say. I had to confess my bafflement, but say that it was probably something to do with the songs having intellectual content.

Interestingly, when I asked him to recommend me some Japanese music, he answered briefly that he didn't know anything about it.

For myself I am very happy indeed to have discovered a musician who is not afraid of having intellectual content in his work. That is something I have always looked for. You're one of the few musicians I still give a damn about.

And that, very simply, is the story of two of your fans.

Well, that was priceless, Q.Crisp, thank you! I always love to hear those stories, because the records just go out blind, and sales figures tell you nothing about the actual life the music is having in people's minds.

Now I'm feeling a bit guilty for being so brusque about the interview thingy we did earlier in the year... I must have been in a very stroppy mood for some reason. Unhappy in love or something...

Please don't worry about the interview thing. I enjoyed it very much. On the contrary, I was rather afraid that I might have come across as a bit loopy and pushy. Anyway, I have come to hold a policy of open-ness (by which I mean non-judgemental-ness, I suppose) about electronic communication, because I have seen how often wrong impressions can be formed or given when there is no body language, voice and so on.

Gary Snyder on cultural replication:

Axe Handles

One afternoon the last week in April
Showing Kai how to throw a hatchet
One-half turn and it sticks in a stump.
He recalls the hatchet-head
Without a handle, in the shop
And go gets it, and wants it for his own
A broken off axe handle behind the door
Is long enough for a hatchet,
We cut it to length and take it
With the hatchet head
And working hatchet, to the wood block.
There I begin to shape the old handle
With the hatchet, and the phrase
First learned from Ezra Pound
Rings in my ears!
"When making an axe handle
the pattern is not far off."
And I say this to Kai
"Look: We'll shape the handle
By checking the handle
Of the axe we cut with--"
And he sees. And I hear it again:
It's in Lu Ji's Wên Fu, fourth century
A.D. "Essay on Literature" -- in the
Preface: "In making the handle
Of an axe
By cutting wood with an axe
The model is indeed near at hand."
My teacher Shih-hsiang Chen
Translated that and taught it years ago
And I see Pound was an axe
Chen was an axe, I am an axe
And my son a handle, soon
To be shaping again, model
And tool, craft of culture,
How we go on.

-B

Less divergent than my last post, but...

During a period between courses of food at a X-mas party last night I found myself drawn to a video of Bruce Sterling lecturing at a university in Germany. I only got about twenty minutes in before stopping for dessert, but I did get to hear his intro and thesis, and have since assembled an image of how he might explain that thesis that now seems to relate to this whole "blog the body" thing. He starts by saying that he sees the trends of electronic interactive ID of objects, electronic positioning information(GPS chips, etc), search engines, 3D virtual design of objects, computer production of objects and "cradle to cradle" or "design for disassembly" as converging into something that could be called a new breed of object. From this he describes these as objects that build a log, a history of their existence, that have a narrative or trajectory. From that he makes the claim that he sees the histories/logs of these objects existence becoming more important than the objects themselves. The phrase he uses is, "the objects become just hard copy"(from memory) This is the point where I stopped, and have yet to resume.

I thought for a moment and found myself with one possible way that he could argue that thesis, although I should probably watch the rest at some point and see what he actually says. It fits with what Mr. Gates said not to long ago, which everyone took as stupid and self centered, which it probably was, but I think was actually very likely true. He said that he saw a future where hardware was free or near free and software was not. I could see that happening, maybe not for the rest of this world life, but I do see it as a possibility that hardware capabilities will equal or surpass everything that 99.9999% of users could want or need from a processing power stand point, thus giving manufacturers time to perfect the production methods. But I don't see people reaching a plateau with what they want to try to make the computer do from a creative stand point.

Both of these say that at some point the construction will become irrelevant(perfected manufacturing techniques, or 3D virtual design of objects and computer production of objects), and at that point all that will matter is what you do with them/they do. The actual physical presence being ancillary, because they are easily reproduced, and common. At this point, or really several hours later when I'd finished not thinking about it, I saw the connection to this wonderful week of blogging you've been up to. People already are easily reproduced. We leave larger trails of searchable data in the world than ever before. We appear to value, when looking back, our actions and their effects much more than the physical thing that might have been involved. We have a whole class, or whatever word fits best, of intellectuals. We, as a culture, value the life led more than the thing doing the living, and for the same reasons as those tech users above predicted. Now I'm not devaluing the body by saying that we don't need it, I'm jest saying that when you point to someone and say "they're great" or "they're F'ing evil" you're talking about they're actions. In other words, the remarkable thing is by definition not the thing that is common and unremarkable, even if it is what makes the remarkable stuff possible.

This is just a little thought, that ,as per usual, I'm not even sure I agree with. But it seemed relevant to your theme week, so I thought I'd shove it in before that was over.
oh, and here's the link to the video on the off chance that someone reading this does not also read boingboing. http://www.iconic-turn.de/staticpages/index.php?page=StreamSterling

I think this (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4104731.stm) is a very significant story today. People are bidding real money for virtual land which they can make real money from managing. This was one of the subjects of my Folktronia art show -- the idea of an 'electronic goldrush', with banjo-plucking frontiersmen and pioneers saluting HTML folk heroes and rushing for virtual gold. It seemed, after 9/11, very 90s, very Al Gore, but I think this sort of stuff is unstoppable. But I also think that there'll be a countermovement which will be all about 'post-digital re-embodiment'. People like me will start saying 'I NEED TO REDISCOVER MY BODY! I MUST USE IT OR LOSE IT!'

I actually agree with your prediction, which I suppose your blog the body week is a current version of. I hope the cultural reaction to cyberspace as a replacement for those aspects of meat-space that don't need replacement will be strong. Hmm... Here's a simple autobiographical narrative that explains why I've just said that. I remember reading Asimov when I was younger and thinking how great those giant dome shaped climate controlled cities/"caves of steel" were. Then it dawned on me one day when I was standing in a mall, that this is what those cities would be like. Soft artificial light, stale air, endless hallways with no visible sky, et cetera... Now every time I walk into a mall I quake in fear that this might be what people associate with the word city. Hey, I'm about as optimistic as I can possibly stand on most things, but the realization that we could all live in giant shopping malls has had a really strong impact on me, and made me understand the movement of fresh air fans(or whatever the people in those books who chose to go outside called themselves). I think that the those characters represent, in a more minor way, the same kind of discontent with artificial reality that you mentioned, and which may, also as you and Asimov both said, end up as a fringe movement.

Oh, and here are some links that you, or whoever reads this, might have already seen, but that relate to the link you posted in the previous comment.
http://www.gamingopenmarket.com/
http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,65865,00.html

By the way, thanks for that Bruce Sterling video link, I just watched the whole thing and it's terrifically interesting.

he makes the claim that he sees the histories/logs of these objects existence becoming more important than the objects themselves. The phrase he uses is, "the objects become just hard copy"

Yes, and I have very mixed feelings about this thesis. It seems like a high-tech version of Platonism. My table is just the 'hard copy' of some ideal table up in the sky... or on a computer screen. The data traces left by the table are more important than the table itself. It seems like a very literary approach to objects, and I don't mean that in a good way. But later Sterling says that the object is merely a nexus for a set of social relations, and that sounds rather like Marx, and I'm back onside. And if I think of what I said just a few inches up this thread, that I'm so grateful that my work touched someone and that that makes everything worthwhile, I'm possibly saying that the information traces I -- a human 'spime', an entity moving through space-time -- leave are more important than my body itself. Feelings like that seem inevitable for artists -- 'it's the music that matters... the music is timeless... etc'.

But I think the relationship between object and blueprint, between real and ideal, between spime and info-trace, between langue and parole, is much more interactive and mutual than Sterling allows. I think a Japanese potter or gardener would know that. It disturbs me that Sterling is so keen to say the object itself doesn't matter. Even in the Christian story, think how incredibly important incarnation is.

Wow, I feel like such an idiot for not recognizing the obvious Platonism of his claim. But, and I might be missing something important here because I know my knowledge of Plato is really limited at the moment, I think there is a real difference between primarily valuing an objects "data traces" and primarily valuing a person's. It seems like the reason for valuing the information about an objects history is in order to find out what design creates objects with the greatest possibility of serving their proposed purpose. In other words some sort of all the time every where prototyping, which quickly leads to platonic ideals because no one can argue that we shouldn't make all [insert object name here]s like this, when this is a massive record of success at achieving the object's spime-telos or something. I agree that just is "techno Platonism", as I understand it. When talking about people on the other hand I, and I imagine most people, find it kind of hard to think in terms of ideals. Without getting into that any further, mainly because I don't want to make any more of a fool of myself, I think your last point was interesting.

"I'm possibly saying that the information traces I -- a human 'spime', an entity moving through space-time -- leave are more important than my body itself. Feelings like that seem inevitable for artists "

I think that the internet has made many more people into casual artists in that sense than ever before. It has created a whole culture of people who live for their own log of existence, and the way that interacts with people other than themselves. Does this value of your creative output's continued existence over all else fit into some definition of artist? Gack, scratch that. I hate inadequate definitions, and that would inevitably be one.

A couple of brief questions before I leave this point to rest for the time being. You seem to both support and understand Marx, as well as appearing to be pretty smart. My knowledge of Marx is limited to having read the communist manifesto and some stuff in political science text books; I found them both to be laughable. What site(s) or book(s) would you recommends if you were trying to convince someone that he had some worthwhile points/ideas?

Finally, I've been having a real blast watching various academic lectures online, is there some sort of all, or most, encompassing site for these that I don't know about, or do they just need to be found individually?

I would very much like to be some sort of odd relative that never makes it (or is never invited too) any of the family gatherings, and is rumored to be a witch.

If that fits into this entirely online, made-up strange sort of family watermelon vine.

Just thought you'd like to know that Radio2 have a documentary on Jake Thackray on Christmas Eve, presented by Victor Lewis Smith! It promises interviews with friends and never before heard performances.

i have no idea how i found your journal a month ago imomus, but i've checked it almost daily ever since. it's the only one i read (although koalas' looks interesting). im 19, have no idea where im heading in life, im passionate about art and thats one of the few things i'm sure about. the reason i come back to your site, is because the subject matter that you put foward for me to think about over the course of my day, seems to be the right sort of material for my growth as a person to continue towards a direction that im liking (japan most probably). anyway, i guess that kind of makes you my internet dad.

Should inevitability strike with a diamond edged lurgie, there is an Arab woman who wouldst mourn you. Atop a mountain of quicksand shall I sink in black Abiya and Naqaab. Wailing...then gurgling your name as I am sucked under into the primordial swamp of a meme-less desert. sigh. and don't poo-poo your teeth too much...after all, there's a plethora of tasty mush-dishes to satisfy.

A List for you in your old age:
Lentils
risotto
hommus
shark fin soup
chicken in a blender
molasses
and
cream of wheat

xoxo

Wow, you're blogging from Cairo, superb! I caught myself wondering the other day 'Will I see Cairo before I die?' (Other places I catch myself wondering that about: Ispahan. Although in that case it's 'Will I see Ispahan before the Americans invade it and put McDonalds on every corner?')

it seems like the meme of willy wonka passing on his chocolate factory to charlie are floating around in the air.
must be the new movie coming out thats doing it...

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Body Week 7: Flinge-Lurgie Syndrome and the koalas of love

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For unto Momus a child is born

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i think you'll live forever.

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It's comforting

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Flinge-Lurgie Syndrome

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we will shape the handle by checking the handle of the axe we cut with

Oops, I accidently put this in the comments for the previous post; please disregard that version.

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Le Grand Jake

keep writing your words spawn new meme kin

wallow in the quicksand

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