By borsky

Introduction

Fnord woke up in mid-dream. At first he couldn't make up the difference between reality and dream. Fnord woke up in mid-dream. He couldn't see what he would define as reality and what he would define as dreamality. Fnord woke up in mid-dream. He couldn't decide what his current state of delusion and confusion would come up with to confuse and delude him even more in this hypnopompic state. “Mnerdrne”, he thought.

The four previous days had changed his state of awareness forever. After last night, he could never stop questioning every bit of information his neurological system would feed to the beast of his interpretation. He would doubt even his doubts.
It all began as a beautiful day. He had driven a while in his perfect Ford convertible. The sound of the Mustang engine roared as he drove through the barren plains of Kansas.
He had stopped at a Restaurant called 'Tinto Kalachnikow', a lair of anarcho-punks and crypto-revolutionaries. He liked to hang around those subcultures, although he never felt like being a part of it. At the bar a cute girl had struck his attention. In his most suave ways he had tried to get in touch. Her name was Simone Ikaros. She would rock his world.

(…)
He read the leaflet written by Simone Ikaros. It was a review of a book by a guy whose initials made him smile.

“Pretty heady stuff you’re dealing with, lady”, said Pnerfnect. “I never was much of a thinker myself…” “Oh but that seems about to change” said Ikaros mysteriously. “You know, WAR was only an acro-crypto-pseudonym, an attempt at Operation Mindfuck in the Temporary Autonomous Zone of mainstream thought… I used to hang around the guy behind it all, a fascinating man. Wrote tons of books under a multitude of different names. He’s gone now, sadly.”
At the same time gas was poored through the door lock into the room, and Pnerfnect started to become dizzy until he completely lost his consciousness.
And there was Chaos.

Chapter One. Eyeh Asher Eyeh.

Location: Dublin.

Fnord awoke, his head sore and stood up in what looked exactly as his own bedroom. Simone Ikaros stood next to him. He looked out of the window and to his amazement, seeing an infinite array of grey slabs he realized he wasn’t in his own bedroom at all, at all. “Where are we?” he said. “In Howth Castle, Dublin” answered Ikaros, staring outside, but she seemed much less anxious than he was. In fact he was nearly in shock: “What is it you want? Who are you? Who’s number One? I am not a number…” “Calm down, man,” said Ikaros, “I feel as lost as you do, but I don’t let fear take over control. Stop the issues – I mean the isses – I mean maybe the ‘is of identity’ might prove less useful in our particular predicament…” “There you go again, you’re using complicated words so I’m more and more taken over by chaos so I’m panicking and that’s not a nice thing to do-“ “Hey look over there, next to the intrance wall” said Ikaros. In the distance they could see the silhouette of a guy in a wheelchair waving at them. “Come on, let’s go see. And try to focus on your subjective experience for a change.” Fnord muttered along, not understanding what she meant. They went down the impressive stairs following a non-euclidean course, out of the hallway and walked towards the unknown.

Simone Ikaros shrugged, recognizing the old man in the wheelchair. “Professor!” she yieled, “you’re supposed to be quite dead. Or so I read on the internet, they even put up a statue of you in Ingolstadt!” The old man, who looked like a joyful trickster, replied: “It seems true in some sense, false in some sense, meaningless in some sense, true and false in some sense, true and meaningless in some sense, false and meaningless in some sense, and true and false and meaningless in some sense.” Fnord had no idea how to react to this strange fellow. “He died on February 22, 1994 you know”, said Ikaros. “And on January 11, 2007 as well”. Again the old guy spoke: “I seem to have lead a dozen different lives in one lifetime. I don't see how to take death seriously. It seems absurd.”
“Who the hell is this guy?” asked Fnord.
Ikaros looked up at Pnerfnect, smiling extatically. “You can call him ‘Olaf the black the Younger’, as his ancestor from the Island of Man went by the name of ‘Olaf the Black’. Or Phineas Promethix. Or Spardabo Perturicus. Or gCopaleen the uncooked. Or just give him the name he sometimes takes in his books, professor de Selby.”
De Selby’s spiral-ringed finger pointed at the box on his knees. A strange feline smile seemed to evolve on the surface of the box, as if projected from the inside. “Maybe a cat lives in the box, maybe not. He calls him ‘Random Chance’ like one would say ‘God’.”, Ikaros said. The box started to purr. “Not that he believes in it. He just likes to call the damned thing that way”. “Oh, an atheist, hey?” asked Pnerfnect. “On the contrary, an agnostic” answered Ikaros. Again de Selby spoke: “I can conceive of a principle of organisation within the universe that makes things work out in a certain way but I cannot conceive of a personality. I do not believe anything, but I have strong suspicions. I have no dogmas, but one catma”
“Oh, now I understand, it’s a kitty kat inside the box?” asked Fnord, “Can I see it?”. De Selby sighed. “Cosmic schmuck”, he said and gave a gentle tap on Fnords back. Fnord almost had his first illumination. Almost.

(…)
Celia FX Login folded away in two dimensions, as she was a cinematographic projection of Francis Ford Copula’s priapic libido.
Fnord had his first illumination. And there was Discord.

Antichapter One. General Semantics.

Outline: Alfred Korzybski, Ezra Pound and William Burroughs in a closed box-like room.

(…)
Burroughs said: “Goddamn floating whorehouse. Death is the navigator” and the box collapsed.

Chapter Two. Ewige Blumenkraft.

(…)
Hanelore Octool Bali the surreal killer approached the trio, her hands covered in blood. Suddenly the lights went out. “It’s… it’s the silence of the lamps!” yieled Pnerfnect in terror.
“Isn’t that exceptional, a female jewish black serial killer?” asked Pnerfnect. “I haven’t met an average serial killer yet”, answered Ikaros, as shown in Murphy’s law… de Selby added: "The normal does not exist. The average does not exist. We know only a very large but probably finite phalanx of discrete space-time events encountered and endured. Unless you're an illiterate and malnourished Asian with exactly 1.04 vaginas and 0.96 testicles, living in substandard housing, you do not qualify as normal “.
“Besides,” said Ikaros ”she’s a surreal killer, not a serial killer”. “After killing she disposes the bodies in such a fashion as to create a pareidosis or the illusion of something else”. “I call that my ‘paranoïa-critical method’ of dealing with decay.” added Bali. “I should add she only kills half of her victims, when in manic state; when in depressed state she plays the victim, calls herself ‘Eve Whitehead’ and lets the antisemites beat the hell out of her.”
The very embodyment of the two main archetypes in literature according to de Selby…
Belic R. Goda entered the room, a gun pointed at Bali. He said, “If my dog had a face like yours, hanged if I wouldn’t shave his arse and teach him to walk backwards”. “Weird way to seduce a lady”, said Pnerfnect. De Selby answered “The most beautiful affaires are those in which both parties suspect the other of deception but can never prove it. There are Wheels within wheels…”

(…)
“Makes one wonder whether god has a willy” said de Selby. At that moment something fell. All were silent looking at Belic R. Goda’s detachable penis on the floor.
“Eeew, gross” was Fnords only remark. The door slammed open, and Ergoda’s evil twin, Bébé Toutout ran inside, took the penis and took off with it. “Hey it was my turn to use it this week”, R. Goda yieled and ran after him.

(…)
The female two-in one and the male one-in two were at last alchemically combined.
Fnord Pnerfnect had his second illumination.
And there was Confusion.

Antichapter Two. Conspiracy theories.

Outlines: Wilhelm Reich, DAF de Sade, Niels Bohr in a closed box-like room.

(…)
Niels Bohr threw away his mask. Underneath was the sacred Chao, and its thunderous silence made Reich and de Sade hide in the corners of the box.

Chapter Three. Three Quarks for Muster Mark.

Location: Copenhagen.

(…)
Fernande Vito Peaurickson received the box from de Selby, let Random Chance escape who took refuge into Fnord’s back pocket, and showed its contents to Lanicko Loïc LaTess. He turned into the lineaments of his essence: a mathematical abstraction and was sucked into the box. “Bell’s theorem PO free energy”, said Peaurickson and took off. “According to Bell’s theorem”, said de Selby, “everything in the universe affects everything else every which way in space-time.“
Fnord Pnerfnect had his third illumination. And there was Bureaucracy.

Antichapter Three. Quantum Physics.

Outlines: Carl Popper, Buckminster Fuller and John Dillinger in a closed box-like room.

(…)
Buckminster Fuller said: “Universe is non-simultaneously apprehended”. Dillinger threw away his mask. Underneath was a younger Dillinger, who threw away his mask also. It kept going until Fuller and Popper started to yawn when finally from the packet of clothes they heard a baby voice say: “A beaver annoys houyhnhms, or a thousand cash debts.” And the box seemed to have never existed.

Chapter Four. Making the grass green.

Fnord sighed: “Random Chance, Random Chance, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore!”

(…)
Elrom de Rohy made some magickal signs with his stick, the pookah jumped out of his hat and Olga Peacock-Babel turned into a white rabbit. Still talking in tongues, but this time cursing in thousands of maledicta as she was chased after by Random Chance.
Fnord Pnerfnect had his fourth illumination.
And there was Aftermath.

Antichapter Four. Magick.

Outlines: Israel Regardie, Orson Welles and Howard P. Lovercraft in a closed box-like room.

(…)
Howard P. Lovecraft threw away his mask and there it was, the YogTsogToth, the mythical retarded übermind. In a casual voice it said: “Do not adjust your reality. We shall provide new television sets.” And all lights went out inside the box.

Chapter Five. Ricorso – immanentizing the eschaton.

Location: Capitola.

Fnord finally decided to get out of bed, still contemplating what happened the last four days. “Mnerdrne” he thought again.
There was a ring at the door. He walked slowly down the stairs and opened up. Ikaros stood there in utter excitement. A helicopter stood in the background, the engine throttling. “You got to see this to believe it. Come on, get in the copter!” “But I’m in my pyjamas” said Fnord, yawning. “Doesn’t matter, come as you are”.

(…)
A huge yellow submarine was surrounded by a multitude of people wondering what it was. Ikaros and Pnerfnect pushed their way through to the front, where Professor de Selby stood waiting for them. “Professor, you can walk?!” asked Fnord. "I figure if I learned to walk twice I can learn to walk three times” was the laconic reply. On one side of the sub, a strange symbol, looking as an anus between two cheeks. At the other side, in vivid letters, the strange word ‘Sombunall’. “Now he invented a machine as well”, asked Pnerfnect in awe. “It’s a Tuning Machine. Helps you to shift paradigms really easily”, said Ikaros. De Selby added: “Since my inventions are by definition eccentric, I regard them as a hobby. Life itself may be a hobby, since it also appears eccentric on close examination. Curiosity ties all my interests together. I seem surrounded by epistemological quandaries like that, how can my mental life ever cease, I always got something to wonder about.”

(…)
de Selby took off his mask. Underneath was the face of the evil Belic Ergoda, laughing out loud, waving his penis around. “You!” yieled Fnord. I don’t believe it!” “Don’t believe anything”, said Ergoda, and he took off his mask as well, revealing the face of Celia Login. “It cannot be! I don’t believe it!” shrieked Fnord. “Don’t believe anything”, said Celia, playing with the penis, and took away her mask. Underneath was the face of Elrom de Rohy. He made a magickal movement and the penis turned into a giant pookah, running around scaring the crowd away. “I don’t…” “Don’t believe anything!” said de Rohy, taking away his mask revealing the gentle face of professor de Selby, again. “Don’t believe anything! Think for yourself. “

“Namu Amida Butsu”, said de Selby. Immediately the sub turned into a levitating lasagna. He made a giant leap and landed on top of it. A feline smile jumped on his shoulder and started to purr. De Selby turned into a joyfull Santa Buddha. “It is doubt, not faith, that makes life worth living.” And he added with a big smile: “And don’t you dare mourn me!”
Simone Ikaros laughed and cried and waved at the professor and his catma, flying away on his magic lasagna towards Sirius passing by planet Eris with tons of hilaritas and she laughed even more and she cried even more and she yieled: “So long, and thanks for all the fnords!”
From afar she could hear the reply directed to all: “I love you!”

All dialogues by de Selby are words from Bob, mostly either from ‘Nature’s God’ or from the audiobook ‘Robert Anton Wilson explains everything’.

<bgsound src="music/2TheAna.mp3">