The Magical Man Machine

Thank you, I designed them myself! Yes they really work! See that vein there? Yes, I just attach it to the wheel overnight and it's reinvigored by the morning. Oh, those are self-producing bioplastics, I'm especially proud of those. You think I'm beautiful? Gee golly, thanks. I think I'm beautiful too. I mean, I think you're beautiful too. I know it seems impractical, and like a lot of work to have done this, and it is and was, but art isn't meant to be practical. Yes, this is my art. Some people are repelled by it, but I think that says more about them than me. You see what the engineers don't understand, they really just don't get it, is that the system is just one side of the equation, but you can't explain the experience as a system. So I knew, I knew, to really know what it means to be a machine, I had to become one. But it's not enough to be a cyborg, no, that's got it all wrong. Cybernetics is about systems of control, and you can't understand what anything really means through systems and control, isn't that obvious? A cyborg is just a series of interfaces, translation points between electrical signals and those of the body, and then the spirit. No, to embody the machine, I had to reshape myself, the body itself, into something like a machine, a Man Machine. The qualia of it, the pure aesthesia, well, it can't be described, that's the whole point isn't it? To roll on wheels, to see like a camera, to store memories as hash mapped blocks of information! And see, that's where the artists get it all wrong, because they think the machine can never produce art. But it's a moving target, art to them is whatever the human can do that the machine cannot, and when the machine can do it, then it's not art anymore, it's something else. But let me tell you, they've got it all wrong. The machine has an art all of its own, invisible to the perceptual quirks of the human eye, out of phase with the holographic human soul, illogical to the material brain. Let me tell you from personal experience that there is magic in the machine! Am I so repulsive? Don't you want to be a Magical Man Machine as well? Sometimes I miss the oxytocin tingle of a gentle finger stroking along the hairs of my forearm, or the spicy floral fragrance of navratna oil and its cooling sensation on my scalp. I have the memory in block storage, but even in its "lossless" format, I know the je ne sai quai is all wrong, it's a different flavor of experience. And it is lonely sometimes, being the only Magical Man Machine. It's no better nor worse an experience. I mean, in some ways its worse, if only because the world doesn't know what to do with me. But that's where the magic comes from isn't it? The divergence from consensus reality. A vast and sparse noosphere, the joy of ships passing in the night, sailing the ocean of anonymous nobodies and nothings, each themselves doing likewise, whether they even know it or not. Oh my gosh, oh I'm so sorry, I really ran away with myself there. I'm sorry, I haven't even asked yet, how was your day?

The time I got into an argument with Grant Morrison

A little over a year ago, Tuesday September 6th 2022 at 7pm at the Barnes & Noble at Union Square in New York City, I met Grant Morrison. I even brought *them a copy of Maximum Recursion Depth, or Sometimes the Only Way to Win is to Stop Playing: The Karmapunk RPG, along with a shitty hand written note on an index card because I spent years writing and publishing a book but didn't think to write a personalized message to go along with it until an hour or so before the talk, so it's on an index card, it's surely cringe beyond belief, over-written and self-conscious, in my shitty handwriting because I don't hand write, with scratch marks where I decided I wasn't bold enough to say this, or had just enough shame to recognize I would regret saying that, and for whatever reason didn't bother to just rewrite it entirely.

* It is entirely possible I mis-gender them at some point in this post because they were a he/him for most of the time I've known them, feel free to correct me if I do, or feel free to not correct me if you don't want the responsibility, but I'll fix any mistakes if I catch them, no-problem.

So, they talked a bit about the book that I own that they signed and that I also own digitally but still have not read yet (the time will come). Honestly I don't remember much about what they had to say about it.

I remember them talking about their philosophies, mostly the same stuff I've heard them talk about before. It was cool to hear it live, in real-time, to absorb the idiosyncrasies. They went on a long rant at one point about how they don't believe in Karma and reincarnation because of hypertime and superorganisms, that was one lovely new talking point I'd never heard from them. I don't even remember how that came up; I was too nervous and despondent to even try to ask a question in my one chance to do so, let alone to argue with them about why they're wrong about the stuff they've been writing about for decades, that made me so obsessed with them in the first place, that was one of the largest inspirations for most of my ideas that are also probably wrong.

So I dunno, they seemed like they were in the mood of somebody who was doing work travel, doing something that probably used to be exciting for them decades ago but now was fairly mundane, trying to shill their art for the sake of capitalism in a corporate bookstore, close enough in time to a global pandemic to still have that hanging over everything, not really ideal circumstances for anyone.

But it was a life goal of mine to meet Grant Morrison, and there I was, so Grant was going to affirm everything I've done, look into my eyes and realize despite our wildly different life experiences, personal identities, age gap, regional gap, whatever, that they would know in that moment that actually their life was incomplete until meeting me, that they would be forever changed and we're going to be best friends going forward.

Obviously that didn't happen, and was never going to happen, and of course we both knew that that wasn't going to happen, but we're going to play this out anyway. It's funny how, in accomplishing this life goal of mine, to meet Grant Morrison, and giving them a copy of my published book, another life goal of mine, I mostly just made myself inordinately depressed and also reminded myself of how I made myself inordinately depressed for publishing the book, for largely the same category of reason, so it was a recursive episode of life goal accomplishment depression, which in retrospect I can appreciate the irony of a little bit more than I could in that moment.

Anyway, they were heading out, escorted by their "people" and one or more employees of Barnes & Noble. I was passing by the stairway as they were heading down, and I stared into their eyes, and they in turn into mine.

I could see the confusion and exasperation in their eyes, and surely they could see the depression and existential frustration and unrequited longing in mine, and yet we both recognized the inevitability of the confrontation.

And so we got to have a proper conversation, without the audience. It went like this.

They said something to me, to the effect of— and please excuse my poor paraphrasing — "What the fuck do you even want from me? I'm old, jetlagged, busy, tired, hungry, and I've been holding a wet fart for the better part of the last three hours. You think you're the only one who wants to talk to me? I skimmed through your book and I thought it was shite*, you pretentious fuck. I don't owe you anything, fuck you and your Karma."

* "Shite" being my one and only attempt to mimic their glorious Scottish accent in my hoaky paraphrasing of events.

And I wish I could say I responded with something really witty and funny, make them second guess themselves, blow their mind with all of my cognitive neuroscience and machine learning and philosophy and idiosyncrasies and dramatic traumas (and undramatic traumas, and most of all, embarrassing traumas) that make me the ornery, maladjusted, but mostly innocuous bastard that I am, but I've never been that great under pressure, so I mostly just sighed and stammered and sounded like a whiny fuck. And then they were gone, and that was that.

I think in my chicken scratch index card note I gave them along with my book, which in retrospect it would have been clever if I had signed but I don't think I did, I said something about how I don't believe in their magic but still managed to make something of it, like I was making some grand statement. 

And ironically I believe in their magic a lot more now than I did a year ago. I've been embracing the synchronicities, and astral conversations, and the Weird stuff outside constructed reality, which I always was doing in my own way but not in the way that conforms to their magic, but now I've internalized that stuff too, at least a bit. Enough that it's allowed one of my closest personal friendships to evolve to a new level, and contributed to my improved mental health, and made me open to all sorts of other new experiences and perspectives*.

* There's a challenge in this statement, one which I am reasonably confident a non-trivial number of people will fail, or at least they've failed it before. It's clever to me anyway even if I suspect most people don't get it. Also, you (exactly one of you): I acknowledge that you are a good person, but kindly go fuck yourself in circles. I went back and forth on whether to say that, or how to say it, or how much to say. It's petty, maybe more petty for how vague I am about it, but I already acknowledged being an ornery maladjusted but mostly innocuous bastard, so I'm just gonna throw that in their for fun. The rest of you, whether you pass it or fail it or it doesn't apply to you or you figure I can go fuck myself on principle because who am I to be throwing you a challenge— it's all good; as far as I'm concerned, we're good.

So I dunno, even though the conversation didn't exactly go the way I would have wanted, even if we didn't totally see eye to eye, I'm starting to at least appreciate it for what it was, and look back on it fondly. Or at least it's a good story. Even if I mostly came off as a buffoon, how many people can say they've gotten into an argument with Grant Morrison?

And maybe we'll laugh about it together some day.