Thanksgiving Is Ruined

The Personal is Political. The Political is Personal.

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December 07, 2007
 
Alexandrines all

                                                              (not this kind)

Future centuries -- after the oil    runs out and, with it, the electricity -- will probably look back on the internet the way that we now look back on the ancient library of Alexandria.

We have previously noted that we seem to be participating in, increasingly, a project that purports to be, among other things, an expanding bulletin board of messages from everybody in the world to everybody else in the world.

When the big plug is pulled, what will happen to all the messages in digital-only form? To this library's scrolls?

We, of course, admit the theoretical possibility that its entire electronic contents will somehow be aufhebened into some bigger, more dematerialized system of toobz, one even more ridiculous & horrifying (but fun) than the present version.

Or perhaps the electronic privvy     diggers or tomorrow will have advanced data-retrieval methods at their disposal --
kinds that we cannot even imagine today, kinds that today only government officials in the USA envision, when they wake up from nightmares, dripping sweat, screaming --
to make the "mute stones" (or melted chips) speak.

But we kind of tend to doubt it.

Where, then, will the digital scrolls go?

We assume the answer to be: To nowhere.

They will vanish into the aether. Forever. Gone.

And with them, we assume, will go a lot of stories. And fragments of stories. The fragments are more intriguing and haunting than are the formally "complete" stories.




The most recent story fragment that stopped us in our tracks is the one contained in the third comment appended to this article, from only just about six weeks ago.

One wonders: What happened on that Valentine's Day, 34 years ago, in Australia?

Whatever became of the person who wrote lines like "coneducated by masters on the streettravelprison"?

Her name appeared as one mosaic piece among others who were a part
                                                                                                            part
                                                                                                            part
                                                                                                            part
                                                                                                            part
                                                                                                            part
                                                                                                            part
                                                                                                            part
                                                                                                            part
                                                                                                            part,

    each story or fragment in its own way very haunting, during the past year in this enormously absorbing gallery exhibition.