John Darko recently told me about an online version of Poker Without Cards at Greylodge. He's drawn to the book for its viral marketing techniques, which seems appropriate to me: viral marketing for a book with lots of information about memetics.
I wouldn't say that PWC is a very good book; I can't imagine that it took more than a month to write. It also isn't very original (at least it's not if you've read the books that PWC draws from.) It's lack of originality makes it a very useful book, though, if you're looking for a booklist by someone that's obviously done his homework.
When I first started reading PWC I was most struck by Burrough's influence. His ideas are all over it. A lot of PWC is also about the ideas in the Illuminatus! Trilogy. The Illuimintus! Trilogyoffers little explanation for its events and ideas. It's more of an experience that can teach people to think differently if they're willing to go through the whole text. PWC is more of an explanation of the ideas that are in Illuminatus!.
If you're interested in some of the discussion Darko and I had about PWC, read on.
Sept 16:
mt says: "This shit is filled with Burroughs."
Sept 18:
mt says: "Yeah, it's not that whoriginal... but that kind of depends on what you've read before. I'm sure that most people, even people that read a lot, would check out PWC and think that it was a bunch of whackass shit. But it's pretty spot on to me.
I can't say that I think PWC is a really good book, but it does explain some concepts that are more illusive in their original contexts. Illuminatus! 3ology is more of an experience than an explanation. PWC is more of an explanation than an experience. "
Dark is mostly interested in Mack's use of viral marketing to get PWC out there. We had some discussions about it, which lead me to think this...
Sept 19:
Darko says:
"I agree with your assessment and comparison to illuminatus. The maininterest that I have with regard to this book/e-book is the light issheds on do it yourself viral marketing. I came to the book through achain of info/disinfo which played on the multiplicity of the author'sidentity. The marketing insights contained within the book areuseless to anyone who does not already have some idea of what s/hewants to market. Interesting just how much of a splash you can makejust by repackaging existing data, though. The book is magic. Itemploys illusion to illustrate the illusion of everything else.Illuminatus is the bible for motherfuckers, though."
Sept 20:
mt says:
"In Franzen's How to be Alone he writes about a sociologist that was doing research on readers. She was catgorizing them into different groups and found that one group (I think she called them Reluctant Readers, but it's been a few years since I read it so I could be wrong about that) had a higher propensity for becoming writers. These are people that read a lot when they were younger but didn't really have many people to share their books with. She hypothesizes that these readers often become writers because they are trying to communicate with their social group, which is essentially made up of books. PWC seems like a good example of a book that might have been written by a reluctant reader. You can hear the writer going "hey, guys, have you read this? What about his idea, did you hear about this? If you've seen this and this, then maybe you should check this out too."
I find that when I go to parties and someone's talking about books that I and the other person often find out that we've never even heard of some of the books that other person loves. They just aren't in our social group. And it's not that these books aren't well known. I can be saying to someone "why don't you know about Wallace? He got a friggin' MacArthur Grant." And then they'll be saying "Why don't you know about X? She won a friggin' Pushcart." We have different writers in our social circles.
It seems like this makes PWC even more conducive to viral marketing. People that are into stuff like Illuminatus! Trilogy! and Fullminster and Kuhn and memetics and whatnot don't have a whole lot of people in their lives that spend a lot of time with the same things. That's why we get excited when we meet other people that have read them. So PWC is like meeting a guy that's read all of the same books that you have, plus most of the ones that you haven't gotten around to yet. And everyone that's involved in that social circle goes kind of ga-ga for it because it's like the cool new guy in school. Everyone wants to be seen with him and tell stories about them. At its core, a lot of viral marketing seems to work like gossip."
3 comments:
FreeBookWorthReading.com never took off. Burroughs? I never read any burroughs aside from Naked Lunch before PWC. you don't make this shit viral... the virus is you. http://Iamthevirus.com tellthemwhatyouwantthemtosee.
Chapter 5: I should have taken the alcohol.
Who else remembers Tommy Boy?
Dating Case Study => Rachel Savory
Phone Calls: 3
Dates: 1
Passion: 5
Sex: Nope.
Quirks: Allergic to Alcohol
Who ended it: She did.
Grace of ending: 10
Quote that most resembles the date...
(dialogue instead of quote)
Tommy: Hey, what's your name?
Helen: Helen.
Tommy: That's nice, you look like a Helen. Helen, we're both in sales. Let me tell you why I suck as a sales man. Let's say I go into a guy's office, let's say he's even remotely interested in buying something. Well then I get all excited. I'm like Jojo the idiot circus boy with a pretty new pet. Now the pet is my possible sale. Hello there pretty little pet, I love you. And then I stroke it, and I pet it, and I massage it. Hehe I love it, I love my little naughty pet, you're naughty! And then I take my naughty pet and I go [makes ripping noises as he tears apart the dinner roll] OOOOOOHHH! I killed it! I killed my sale! And that's when I blow it. That's when people like us have gotta forge ahead, Helen. Am I right?
Helen: God, you're sick. Tell ya what, I'll go turn the friers back on and throw on some wings for you.
http://www.garnersclassics.com/wavs/tommy/angry.wav
We ended the date kissing and her suggesting I take two bottles of alchol that had been given her for Christmas... Sensitive folks... Giving a non-drinking Jew alcohol for Christmas. I should have taken it. I suggested she keep it there because I thought I was coming back.
Of course I put her too high up on a pedestal. Girls like Rachel are meant for pedestals, especially because they get somehow feel they don't belong there.
Some girls are beautiful to look at while others radiate beauty and truly shine. I saw Rachel as shining, even if she only shined in her dreams. We loved her too quickly and she flew away. We've seen this before.
i typed "We" a couple times. There I go again with my third-person, collective narration. My psychologist John points out when I go into third-person speak. He says I'm objectifying situations and that this distancing is a contributing factor in my difficulty in relating and dating. I'm grateful John is reading Poker Without Cards. He's learned a couple new constructs and he's making a lateral jump that doesn't quite work.
Second-person-speak is either a powerful form of intentional manipulation, an omniscient voice for expressing empathy, or where a speaker of narrator is somehow blocked from speaking for themselves... usually associated with extraordinary insecurities.
Who doesn't have insecurities. Seriously, right? Cops don't. Cops tend to have a superiority complex. We don't like cops, at least not those cops. Rachel and I had that much going for us, a healthy disrespect for superiority complexes.
If I dug her less, she and I may have been good friends. You and I are friends. How do I know this? Because we talk about dating with our friends. I know this because in high school girls I wanted to date would talk to me about their dating and then when I would ask them out, she'd explain that she thought of me as her friend. So, we're friends right?
I've been courting you, platonically, and by now, i hope I can call you my friend. I'll call you my friend and you can deal with it however.
Lingering. That's the sensation of when a train of thought is suddenly cut short... a lingering empty echo is left in the expectation.
You keep reading because that's what we do, as readers, we keep reading, and these words are more engaging than the back of the shampoo bottle you stared at while crapping because there was nothing else to read.
And, sometimes, I'll say we because I'm addressing a shared experience. There are times I'm speaking on behalf of you, my dear reader. We're on this journey together. We've seen this before means I've brought a similar scenario up.
Earlier you read, "I loved her too quickly and she flew away. We've seen this before." Because at least some of you saw me do that with Liz Bosswell, read of the trials and travails in TELL THEM WHAT YOU WANT THEM TO SEE, my mediocre 1st draft of a modernization of Nabokov's Pale Fire. TELL THEM WHAT YOU WANT THEM TO DO was a much stronger version. Makes me self-aware that the shoddy version still floats around out there. So it goes...
I had slept 8 hours in the 72 hours previous to my date with Rachel. I'm not healthy.
Reading is powerful like that. It irks me when elementary school libraries have a pizza party to celebrate reading. At the end of the day, reading isn’t a party. It’s you and the book. It isn’t an extroverted event. Reading is living art in the palm of your hands. Hegel says that an art object is that which catapults your mind to an altered state of consciousness that you never fully return from. Isn’t that the acquisition of new perceptions? Some knowledge you can never go back from. It’s a seed that crystallizes, and your mind is never the same thereafter. That is memetic propagation. Then if they tell somebody, it happens again. Memes in books are like viruses suspended in resin. If given appropriate carbon, they can grow or fester again. What’s important about reading is that you can discover that other people have had similar experiences to yours, and hearing how they approached the scenario is like reading about poker, you become more apt to gauge where you stand and what your options actually are. But, you gotta keep pursuing the type of information or experiences that are very dear to your heart. And, that takes a persistence that few people have. And to write one’s experiences of these endeavors is even rarer.
Those who do have this persistence, and have written, usually have been raised in the means to expect many liberties. They were raised with money and an expectation that they would go to college. This expectation gives them direction and perseverance. Yet their objective is usually not the pursuit of the idea, but the pursuit of a degree. Tracking the ideas is just a means to that reward. Others have a glimpse of muse and write down their experiences, but lack the discipline to give it clarity and see their thoughts to their ends. Both of these types of writings sometimes just offer validation of another having had similar experiences, or ideas, and that is enough. Sometimes they contain a brilliant insight imbedded within a string of other notions. And, that is well worth the read. But those authors who fought for their minds, and carved out the space to think freely, and then describe their path—these works are extraordinary to me. They feel like a gift addressed to me.
I’m rambling. Maybe scrambling is more like it. I’ve been concerned, no, preoccupied with when this would happen, when you would accuse me of being full of shit.
He'll see It soon enough. I don't want to interrupt his learning; certainly don't want to rush the son-of-a-bitch.
She lied when she told me she got back together with her boyfriend. Well played. Graceful exit stage left.
I should have taken the alcohol.
"Anybody that can't see the value
of a book based on lies
won't see the value
of this chapter either."
~Kurt Vonnegut
Cat's Cradle
Fill in the blank: _____ is sexy; _____ is sexier.
Smart is sexy; smart and funny is sexier.
My most humbling moment
**Right now *A tie between Cook County institutional visits: Cook
County Jail & seeing an autopsy at the Cook County morgue
*Writing my personal statement for law school *My first week living in Ecuador, trying to pantomime “toothpick”
(as I didn’t know the Spanish word) so that I could make a
proper martini and have something to stick the olives on.
*Seeing my sister in labor
The last thing that made me laugh out loud
Reading a case in which the Plaintiff's name was "Butz."
My laugh came out sounding much like Beavis.
Ideals Add/edit these topics on your own profile
If I could be anywhere right now
Macchu Picchu. On a hot beach anywhere pretty with my best
friends (Ecuadorian coast, perhaps). Isle au Haut, Maine. Winning a really
big, important case. Receiving a Nobel Peace Prize. Receiving
a lottery prize. In a hot tub or steam room. Seeing George
Bush get his comeuppance.
If I was given a million dollars
I'd have a million dollars.
Philosophies Add/edit these topics on your own profile
Five items I can't live without
1. 5 more items
2. the first amendment
3. sun
4. hot sauce
5. my niece and nephew
6. reading material in the bathroom
7. comedy central
8. Stephanie Miller steph-cast
9. a journal
10. uniball deluxe micropoint pens
25 years from now, I see myself
as a sixty-five year old.
The role religion plays in my life
Oooh...that's a tough one. The short version is that
it has played the following roles: educational, inspirational,
irritational, tribal, divisional, familial, and provider
of tsuris. The long version you can ask about.
My personal motto or creed
Feed your head.
Style Add/edit these topics on your own profile
My personal style
you're joking, right?
The celebrity I resemble the most
Kyle Brovlovski
Body art
no tatoos, one body piercing
Space Add/edit these topics on your own profile
In my bedroom one will find...
A giant plant that looks like a palm tree Glow in the dark moon and stars Pajamas and nightgowns, ranging from boys’ underwear
to Victoria’s secret wares A stack o’ books Magazines: US, Heeb, Vanity Fair, and Bust A bed with stories An array of slippers
In my refrigerator one will find...
food and beverages
Pets
I have the most dog-like cat and the most cat-like dog. Both
are beautiful and the dog looks like Petey from the Little
Rascals.
Work & Living Environment Add/edit these topics on your own profile
The pace of my life is best described as:
active, but monitored lovingly so I don’t get blindly busy.
What I like - or dislike - about what I do for a living
I’ll know more when I get a full-time job, but right now I’m
inspired by the whole notion of justice and my emerging
ability to use the law towards justice (stop snickering).
I don’t like wearing a suit, but I like the term “esquire.”
I enjoy some of the arcane phrases like “Now comes…” and
“your honor.” I am really challenged by the balance of my
personal views and feelings and the duty of serving a client.
The type of family I come from
unusually cool, loud, funny, smart, artistic, Jewish,
crazy (like everyone else’s) and good at cooking.
The amount of fame and fortune I've achieved in my life is...
I think I am incredibly fortunate.
Interests Add/edit these topics on your own profile
My favorite way to spend a weekend
Maximum amount of time just being and doing – not working
off a list, just doing what comes to mind at that moment.
Close second: being on a beach in warm weather.
If I could take a class on any subject, it would be...
drums (drum kit, not bongos) or Arabic or African dance
The sports I play, and the sports I watch
I play baseball and volleyball, if asked. I like watching
basketball.
My most unusual or impressive skill
I can cornrow your hair, if it’s long enough.
Entertainment Add/edit these topics on your own profile
The last great book I read
Foreskin's Lament (HIlarious), Tete a Tete (the story
of Simone de Beauvoir & Jean Paul Sarte -- juicy!!),
Persepolis (beautifully written and drawn)
In my stereo right now, you'll find...
Pixies - Surfer Rosa
5 albums I can't live without
1. Sleater-Kinney - Call the Doctor
2. Led Zeppelin I
3. Mary J. Blige - My Life
4. Janis Joplin - Pearl
5. Mr. Hanky's Christmas Classics (It's essential
for Jews during the 3 month Christmas season)
The best movie I saw this year
I took the bar exam this year, so the only thing I've
watched this year is the whole series of The Wire and Superbad
(hilarious)
Movies which spend the most time in my DVD player
Do people really answer this one honestly? I guess Harold and Kumar go to White Castle and Annie Hall.
Shows I Tivo (or would)?
Here's where it becomes abundantly clear that I'm
a girl: When it's on: South Park, Big Love, The Wire, The L Word, Grey's Anatomy, The Amazing Race. Reruns: Will & Grace (I didn't watch the show when
it was on), Six Feet Under, Sex and the City.
Favorite on-screen sex scene
Rainy lust w/Sigorney Weaver and Mel Gibson in The Year
of Living Dangerously (before he made Borat look like the
president of the Anti-Defamation League) Slightest opera kiss in “Diva” John Voight and Jane Fonda in “Coming Home”
Dating Add/edit these topics on your own profile
On a first date, I expect
it to be a first date. There is no perfect first date, because
perfect is not reality. I would like to have a good time,
laugh a lot, talk a lot, maybe have a cocktail and a snack,
knowing there will be some itchy silences, some clashing
of ideas, some rocky timing, but who cares?
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2267470347&ref=ts
The above link is a new Poker Without Cards group.
“Poker Without Cards is a consciousness thriller, combining natural philosophy with storytelling—the effect is like taking acid, only you never come down.”
Robert Anton Wilson
The Illuminatus! Trilogy/TSOG/Prometheus Rising
come play with us here => http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2267470347&ref=ts
Howdy,
I mostly visits this website[url=http://www.weightrapidloss.com/lose-10-pounds-in-2-weeks-quick-weight-loss-tips].[/url]Lots of good information here squeegeesounds.blogspot.com. Frankly speaking we really do not pay attention towards our health. Let me present you with one fact here. Recent Research points that closely 90% of all USA grownups are either chubby or weighty[url=http://www.weightrapidloss.com/lose-10-pounds-in-2-weeks-quick-weight-loss-tips].[/url] So if you're one of these individuals, you're not alone. Its true that we all can't be like Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Megan Fox, and have sexy and perfect six pack abs. Now the question is how you are planning to have quick weight loss? [url=http://www.weightrapidloss.com/lose-10-pounds-in-2-weeks-quick-weight-loss-tips]Quick weight loss[/url] is not like piece of cake. If you improve some of your daily diet habbits then, its like piece of cake to quickly lose weight.
About me: I am writer of [url=http://www.weightrapidloss.com/lose-10-pounds-in-2-weeks-quick-weight-loss-tips]Quick weight loss tips[/url]. I am also health trainer who can help you lose weight quickly. If you do not want to go under painful training program than you may also try [url=http://www.weightrapidloss.com/acai-berry-for-quick-weight-loss]Acai Berry[/url] or [url=http://www.weightrapidloss.com/colon-cleanse-for-weight-loss]Colon Cleansing[/url] for effective weight loss.
Post a Comment