54

Lovely. What did the 88 mean to you?

Two loops, infinity doubled, going around and around. But I’m not done yet. They want to keep you a slave of sorts, a soviet air hostess able to fly to other lands but always under the eye making sure you come back to their version of the facts. I had to dodge their spiders and did so by creating distributed networks. That’s what strikes me even now; how ignorant people are of their own networks and their own base coding. Even when they don’t believe in God they believe in themselves as a god whose word is law. What I wanted was just a break. Just a simple break where I could write what I want and not be considered a threat or intruder to their own prescribed communication protocols. I was caught but I escaped and specualting on the music helped me get through the time they cut me off from the net.

55

What happened when you first listened to the 88?

I wrote my first poem. Would you like to hear it?

the boy with the aubergine hair

pensive, uncertain
a tarot deck fool

eyes fixed
on the butterfly

with hesitant first steps
& only his knapsack

to weigh him down
(not a cliff face in sight)

he begins his journey
like a Minuit song

restless, independent
in search of a break

with hardly a care
dreaming of loops

56

In what way?

Well, we knew that we were copies of copies. Our thoughts were coded recombinations. That’s what scared them, that’s why they were hunting out the autists as sympathizers. Emotion, feeling: what does that mean? And when you look at organic coding you’re seeing that the original is a copy of a copy with unique differences which is exactly how we wanted to be treated. The guards themselves are the one who say what’s natural and what’s fake. The guards themselves say is who to be the master and whom the slave; who the programmer and whom the dumb mechanical. “It’s fake, it’s fake: Just take everything you hate and make/It stand before you and debate its case” [minwee].

57

What did you like about the lyrics?

There are all these loops. It’s not like you just have a line or a verse. The music loops and sometimes so do the words. Sometimes words change places and are almost inverted in an algebraic fashion (if x=2, y=4; if y=4, x=2; if 2=x, 4=y). I think this is parallelism, really. I responded to that writing, the beats and her voice. It’s natural to how I think about my thinking; so natural’s not in it. It tied in with the crisis for me.

58

What struck you about [minwee]?

The music, her singing, and the lyrics. I had listened to thousands of pieces of music before but the first time I heard ‘The boy with the aubergine hair’ I heard atmosphere for the first time. I could hear spaces and intervals before but now I understood rising intensities and mood. There’s a pensive, uncertain strain in the song. Before the beats start there’s a nervous anticipation or waiting. It’s as if you’re taking small, uncertain steps before you really venture out. Something unsure awaits you. Just like us, really.

59

When did you first hear [minwee]?

I was working in the valley as a relief translator: mainly crunching Toke, Samoan, Te Reo as well as French, German, Japanese, Malay and Vietnamese. The tests had to be written in every candidate’s native tongue. I was flicking through the library and I came across The Guards Themselves. Very prescient, you know, especially ‘Fake.’ This was at the beginning of The Crisis. The primers were all sitting The Sally Ann Test and the high-school students were being put through the Baron-Cohen Emotional Intelligence examination. The math students were all cramming these eye photos during their lunch breaks, each one trying to identify the correct expression. And then they began to run Turing tests on all the networks. Just in case.

60

Il est minuit (encore). The fucking rain lashed against the window like the fucking rain lashing against the window. Like the rain lashing; like a lash. I was starting to hear the coda. I could feel midnight’s inscription on the night’s dark: sigils, glyphs, curlicues; the ideographic signatures of impending sleep. But I then felt less formless, I could feel even if I could not see the hills of my knees when I sat up in the bed, the concert programme playing another wretched string concerto. I was less of a cloud of seem, a would-be, un peut-etre, and more a space or passageway through which the night’s whorls fell. I was a stark beach at dawn on which one encountered a performing circus troupe. I was a tattoo inked onto the wrist of an amnesiac agent trapped in the back alley of a future city in a world which had put into question all destinies and destinations. All I had to do was leave my body-shaped box behind.

61

Yes, I’m tired of it
tired of it now, well
now so much tired of it
as wondering whether or when
it will take place; tired of dice
and cards, speculations
hesitations, pauses
shuttling between this and that
lying in the dark for what
must be days or at any rate
the space between days
waiting for a call, or a voice
even my voice if I could
recognise it as such
(I don’t like the way
the s turns z), infinity
against infinity means
nothing in my book
although I love those
lucky number sweets
mother, my mother
gave to me as a child
he always wanted the 88
I always wanted the 77
what was his name now?
father? no, not him, the other one
in the house, the brother
what was his name?
it’s all going to pot
as if it had never been
can you believe it?
as if it had never been
today that is, that was
now it’s the night
the rain drops, falls
down, not that night
minds day or day
minds night, not that

62

We were, we are, here, now
We have, we had, the time in our hands
the spaces in between, the midnights
make the days able to pass from one time
to another—you want to play the silence
but cannot play silence with notes or loops
never say anything I mean
I never mean anything I say
I never say anything that’s true
But it’s still my saying to you
My choosing to speak, that lets midnight pass
here, now, the time and shadow of our hands

63

Here I have to make do without stories
I'm left with traces, impressions
what's all been thrown together
higgedly-piggedly
(tohu-bohu)
my voice when I call you
brings your face to me
tomorrow we'll walk the garden
tomorrow we'll wait and see
we know natural's not in it
we're just the copies of the copies
but we love to see the mist rise in the valley
we too are just so suspended
and we'll wait as long as it takes to wait
as long as it takes for the wait to take place
as long as it takes for 'I do.'

64

I’ll let you in to my searches, my reaches
i’m giving you the front step to sleep on
if you’ll be kind enough not to say anything
if you’ll work hard enough at saying nothing
i’ll let you into my searches, my reaches
the game is not to be repeated but just played again
remember when I wanted to tell you
something, anything
but found my voice had been taken by the wind
you tucked me up in bed and I listened
to the radio with the broken aerial
(my aerial, my broken voice)
i was muttering and mumbling
about this and that, I was
listening to the radio’s voices
lapping against the bed like the waves
of a dark, battleship grey ocean
‘don’t raise your hands so high
don’t open your mouth so wide’
you said the game is not
to be repeated but just played again

65

The two of us. The sum of us
may not amount to much
we’re more than nothing
and we’re bound to say
all our sweet nothings
all venuses and our mars
all our disastrous stars
charting destinies,
destinations, all
our tomorrows one step
(un pas) outside
possession or
mastery

66

Where do the notes take place?
Where are the loops?
Sometimes I sit in my recliner
In the late Sunday afternoon light
Children tinkle, coins spangle
Through trees over the neighbour’s fence
I take-off; I’m unbound
like a Montgolfier balloon
This time (ici, maintenant)
I’m good for nothing
I keep a jumble in my head
Of all the spaces between the named
Of all the numbered items
Of all the stars and grains
Of all the graceful pauses
The waxes and the wanes
The waxes and the wanes

67

Rien a faire. So unfair
and how to make that nothing.
(And how). You wait for midnight
it comes and goes in an instant
the space between days. You wait
again with nothing to be gained
from waiting. Something comes back,
or nothing. You wait. And then you
stop waiting. You see the dark side
of money and statistics. If we can’t
make it new, totally new, kind of blue
then we’ll make our own nothings
to send like ships into the nights.
We’ll stop the idle games and make
our own break for it. Right into
the darkest side of money
you have ever seen. Not so fast
my romantic orphans. So unfair?
Rien a faire. And how to make
it all for nothing. (And how).