Weird Fiction

The Append Age is upon us.   As much is revealed in reverse on occasions wherein appendages are equipped upon unexpected sense organs of humble humanoids! Be they perhaps few and far between occasions,  such as having one’s maw fine-tuned by men of science, these operating theaters are laden with instrumentation!  I digress. Point is: any time-consuming surgery will lock you down in space, may well affix odd endodontic bric-a-brac, crucially it will numb certain senses and thus amplify attention elsewhere.

That ready-at-hand swill of distraction, the glocal anesthesia that humanoidal eyes/ears consume so rabidly in the always-on information environment is vanished in this netherworld of alien appendages. Imprisoned, locked down in space one is amplified temporally,  freedom found in the fourth dimension, as the late, great Augusto Boal would argue.  Great swathes of epiphany, insight and illumination– sensory experience typically drowned out by the loud hum, and correctional facility of contemporary iDolatry.  Clamoring will commence undoutedly for meditation, focus, a sense of spiritual balance to achieve such clarity of mind.  To those ideas I say humbug! Unless there is some techno-appendage to amplify or amputate sense ratios, earbuds or eye-phones, muscle stimulants or hands-free devices, it DOES NOT COMPUTE in the Append Age!

Som(e)ambulant, gadget equipped denizens of this “small planet held in suspension in the electronic ether of our modern means of telecommunication,” —as that canny Paul Virilio has described such phantom limbo—find themselves locked down temporally, prisoner to the duration of devices, macro/micro, teleprescent/teleprescient.

In the 16th century the air was thick with ideas.   They were a dime a dozen, inspirations, factoids, anecdotes, novelties, apparitions, one hit wonders, fads, phenoms, news and notices.  It was far worse than the iPhonies that clog the streets today, this ancient populace was chock-a-block know-it-all without worrrying about reception.

The 16th century was a real boon for panopticonfidence men like Nostradamus who realized the future was where they would make their marks. Aggregating feeds from the heavens, angelic shills, nutmeg-induced visions and other divine schemes, Nostradamus knew how and when to author prophecies, as he pre-empted the virtual economy by several centuries.   

All that info-pollution and data smog was churning in the open air in the 16th century, being without the cybernetic filters that now funnel so much of those excess emanations onto wayward blogs, and other abysmal outlets. Old Michel de Nostradame offered a difference that feigned a difference, staking a claim on swampland in virtual space long before scam became spam.

Dispatch from the Intradimension.  Simultaneous Environments:

“Since Sputnik and the satellites, the planet is enclosed in a manmade environment that ends “Nature” and turns the globe into a repertory theater to be programmed.” – Saint Mcluhan.The mage, tuned in to heralds thru vectors unknown, proclaimed “Since Sputnik and the satellites, the planet [has been] enclosed in a manmade environment that ends “Nature” and turns the globe into a repertory theater to be programmed,”

WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN GEO ENGINEERS (((WFT))), a repertoire in its own right, channels derelict theory objects.

Global programming by humanoids started out bluntly. Including but not limited to rejected screenplays, programmed into ficto-quizzical milieus…but i digress. Humans have always been geo-engineers, but up until the 21st, this was mostly an artisanal enterprise with primarily local feedback loops. The result of the Cold war listening services, the transistor, and as of yet unknown incidents in Roswell, New Mexico was a global remix culture that eats away at any attempt at silence and reflection, by amplifying everything into ear shot. The Ethnosphere was diverse, robust and at times oppressive, and I approved.  Shots are fired and ears consume. But then the temporary procurement of petrochemicals allowed man to overshoot his carrying capacity. Because, of course, there is no such thing as an “earlid.”

The existential threat of atomic annihilation that caused puny humans to realize that to intervene with wisdom, one must constantly monitor Gais’ heartbeat. There is no such thing as a blink reflex to protect the ear from foreign bodies. The creation of Weapons of Mass Destruction was a sad birthing pang of Climate Hacking culture. Project Mogul, however, single-handedly ushered in an emerging market for majestic eyes only. In the face of unprecedented degradation at the hands of the human species, Gaia has started to create conditions for human self annihilation. Foreign bodies, capable of emitting a sound that can travel over 3,000 miles though Earthôs noisy oceans are feared. Luckily in the pointless race to out-arm rival nation states, humans created disembodied ears that could hover over the planet, seeking out sound waves signalling the testing of atomic weapons.  Despite numerous reports from scientists who say that this would require an incredibly large noise-making apparatus, one much bigger than that of a flying saucer , rumors persist.

MIND CHILDREN GET EARACHES Majestic eyes only know what they see, and to see is to believe, but believe me you, it is the ear shot that has been overlooked, nay, overheard!

Prior to the first artificial satellite that was supposedly launched into orbit in 1957, humans’ disembodied ears took the form of high altitude balloons. “A swarm of great invisible bees might have been about me in the air.” These floating ears  hovered over the planet, seeking out sound waves signalling the testing of atomic weapons. The sound seemed to thicken the very atmosphere, and I felt that my lungs worked with difficulty,” claims one denizen of the post-world.

Did the shadowy listeners with their telematic ears know they were unleashing an always-on information environment that converted the globe “a repertory theater to be programmed”.  Humans never got around to inventing earlids, and the telematic listening devices of post human progeny have stupefied —yet linger on— phantom limb-like. With everyone acting the part, and making music there were not enough eyeballs on the planet!!! When colonies collapse they are tasked elsewhere, a forced migration to a netherworld or intra-dimensional space using Internet Protocol technologies to securely intervene in the cloaked form of deep sound channels, or often enough, more mysterious bloops. In built early warning systems of planetary illness manifest locally and everyone was too busy listening to the human echo chamber!  “It’s their sound,” one whispered gravely. Can you really blame them?  “It’s the sound of their world, the humming in their region. After all there is no such thing as an ear lid. The division here is so thin that it leaks through somehow.

Even Mind Children get ear aches. “But, if you listen carefully, you’ll find it’s not above so much as around us.” A ringing in the ears. “Symbols of Project Mogul that inflict us.” Humans never got around to inventing earlids, and the telematic listening devices of post human progeny are phantom limb-like. Project Mogul is not a disease but a symptom resulting from a range of underlying causes that can include ear infections, foreign objects in the always-on information environment, unexpected iruptions in the audiosphere. Ear lids are like firewalls? Project Mogul was an original sin of techno-utopianism. Information limiters I suppose.  To think that a psycho-accoustic geography of the entire planet could heighten what was local. Imagine if the always on information environment was auditory and not textual. As with cell-phone induced insect diaspora, the bee colonies are collapsing, unnoticed because everyone is manning the spy satellites. At least with text you can stop reading…..

Fluttering betwixt and between an aggregation of billions of queries, data from multiple sources, The Polterzeitgeist, is a “scary spirit of the times” indeed!  A long-tailed apparition, a free-floating signifier with varied appendages – several terminating in USB ports, another in a “trumpet”, and still another phantom limb affixed with a yellow globe; a whimsical reminder of this haunter’s conquest over the global brain!  This eccentric spectre  grazes on even the most infotoxic terrain— honing in on patterns, for better and worse, kicking up a shitstorm, then dissolving again into the ebb and flow of our networked cosmos.

Schooled by the orb-like, plate-tossing “noisy ghosts,” yes, of course. Duly informed by the so-called “proto-poltergeists,” too.  The Society for Paranormal Investigation characterizes these techno-spirits with “unexplainable behavior in electrical and electronic equipment. Lights flicker, strange sounds come from speakers, phones dial themselves, computers get odd errors, etc…also been known to destroy appliances and more delicate items.” Following such behaviorial tropes of the proto-poltergeist, a degraded comparison to the presence of the Polterzeitgeist might be satisfied with a nod to the electrical blackout in the Northeastern climes of the United States in the latter part of the previous millenium.  Indeed there were reports of UFO sightings during that infamous power outage, strange bright objects claimed some.  When a massive blackout again occurred, in 2003, the  uncanny “strange glow” was  an after-image: Humanoids thoroughly spooked by the absence of light pollution.

Estranged from its obvious shadow form, a miasmic data cloud in its own right, The Polterzeitgeist could be construed as an emblematic husk of the Spiritual Telegraph, albeit ambiguously, if not dubiously, aligned in its intentions and unfathomably amplified in its capacities for teleprescience.

Advanced forms of the Polterzeitgeist service diabolical data-veillence and censorship schemes concerning as-of-yet unknown cultural codes.  Such theory objects are pilfered from the daydreams churning forth out of grandiose wish fulfillment fantasies imaged incessantly by the hive mind.  Mind Children get headaches, as would you, if your thoughts were snatched away by this pavor mentum!  The rise of second-wave vampling is often over simplifed as an analgesic defense mechanism for such disturbances.   Query:  Recurrent Spontaneous Psycho Kinesis, if you please, and if you dare! This Owl is up to its elbows in panopticoncentrated ubicomic relief as it is —for now!