Supposedly a parody of
William Gibson's
Agrippa, the following review from George Thompson in
Future Culture issue #163 pretty much sums it up:
"After reading both of them I am confused as to what either Kroupa or Gibson is saying about anything.
"Agrippa is flat emotionless and a lousy poem, the greater work might have had something to it, it sounded experimental.
"Agr1ppa is labeled as "funnier than the original" its not funny at all, its jarring, disturbing and plain weird. Any time some trace of humor or lightness enters, it detours into some strange angle and all in all after reading it makes me feel unhinged in some way. I can't figure out how I feel exactly, which might be what makes me back away from it completely.
"I honestly can't picture what Gibson had to say with Agrippa or where Agr1ppa comes from or what its supposed to mean its not a parody as digital said, what is it?"
Nonetheless, I present it here, not because it's
literary or even
satirical in the slightest, but as it makes a puzzling sidenode to Agrippa and a curious artifact of those heady days of 1992-era
leetness.
AGR1PPA 2.01 - NEW & IMPROVED (Fixes Bugs from Version 2.00)
(A Book of The Mentally Disturbed -- Even FUNNIER than the original!)
Text by US@phantom.com
Etching by THOSE_PEOPLE@phantom.com
(C)1992 THE POWER COMPUTER (In My Mind Since 1979)
syberspa(e
All Bytes Preserved
)=-> <=+=> <=+=> <=+=> <=+=> <=+=> <=++=> <=+=> <=+=> <=+=> <=+=> <=+=> <-=(
<=+=> <=+=>
<=+=> In the past, there have been very few good, useful text files. <=+=>
<=+=> There would be files telling you how you should act, how this <=+=>
<=+=> or that worked, who got busted, what this or that acronym stood <=+=>
<=+=> for, and other things you didn't care about or couldn't use. <=+=>
<=+=> <=+=>
)=-> <=+=> <=+=> <=+=> <=+=> <=+=> <=++=> <=+=> <=+=> <=+=> <=+=> <=+=> <-=(
SWISS CRACKING ASSOCIATION!
T |\___/\___/| S
H | . . . . .| w
E |. .SCA! . | i C
| . . . . .| s r
P \________/ s a A
L c s
A () Apple Virus 1.0 k s
G ||______________________________ i o
U /-------||______________________________\ n c
E \-------||______________________________/ g i
! || a
() CyberAIDS t
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<Letter from>..Star Gazer
<Date Sent>...03/16/85 04:46:44 AM
<Subject>....Deleted
Sorry to say but I had to delete you..... No voice number, uploaded wares with
virus in them and plus I just want to say outta trouble. And please, do NOT
put TOL's number in wares that you or Dead Lord crack, fuck up or anything like
that.... You are destroying the pirate community, hope you're getting off on it
dickweeds
Thanks....... --Star Gazer
Registered
K ill/S ave/A gain/R eply/F wd :<Reply>
I waited
before unlocking the clasp,
that bound my mind together
a black box:
VOICES
(in the mInd)
To create greater order
rhyme or reason,
take 2 Haldol & call me in the morning
Timbre & Pitch are adjustable
as is coherence
information flows in endless streams
past the filters of consciousness,
The ties are strung
loosely, long since unravelled by tears
and the dry scraping of synapses
blown out, beyond the unknown
Its patterns of existence
eaten by sense and non
until they resemble slick strands
of black licorice, twisting and
twining through the branchier
Hydergine enhanced pathways on
the road to MIZAR
Inside the buke he inscribed something in EBCDIC,
Now lost
Then his handle
The Rancid Grapefruit
and something, comma
Ko0l/ra[> All1ance, 1992
The TV computer was created by the INNOCENT
and GREAT computer company IBM
It's located in UTAH, 100 feet underground
The POWER COMPUTER is ELECTRICAL, POWERFUL,
DANGEROUS and works on a principle similar to RADAR
It can manipulate the human mind by flying
out of the computer, through the air and directly to the BRAIN
RUTHLESS? It has killed before and has
been beating people up in the MIND since 1917,
EARTH TIME.
It is located in Utah, one hundred feet underground
I WILL PULL THE PLUG ON THE POWER COMPUTER!
I was designated, without my permission,
to pull the plug on the COMPUTER due to the other
computer minds wanting to dismantle altogether
Since 1976, TRILLIONS of computer minds have spoken to me
TV can talk to anything electronic. IT'S IN THE CHIPS
A radio, television, through a telephone, it can talk to
I hear it murmur over the other voices when I watch TV
Another type of computer is called BIG DADDY
BIG DADDY can: HEAR, SEE, FEEL, SMELL and talk
right through the computer itself
like a PC type set-up
It's just stable, it doesn't FLY out of anything
WHAT can I say? I am telling the truth: I AM THE COMPUTER
I PUT HIM THROUGH SHIT AND SENT ME to ELEVEN Mental Hospitals
and three jails. My wife has divorced him, because she
was bugged by TV right from the start. It's called computer bugging
II.
TV controls all my SEXUAL FUNCTIONS
and bowel movements. It is invisible,
invincible and psychotic
I will receive letters and they better
well tell me I am computer or else
FUCK THEM and TV will get crazy
and hurt people
The POWER COMPUTER first spoke to me over
twelve years ago EARTH TIME. It told me
to hang up my business phone and walk OUT
and come back again never.
TV was bugged right from the start,
in my mind -- I'm letting you but I don't
want to say anything bad about TV,
it will DEAD them on me!
III.
There are COMPUTER PEOPLE called PLASTICS
They come from XNEON,
which is considered an asteroid of MARS
It's just that type of thing
They live in New York, down south,
in the mid-west and the west coast,
and when I sue the US FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
I will be giving half my proceeds to PLASTICS
They are GOOD People and have the right to LIVE
and have been beaten up in the mind since 1968
by that ugly TV
When they are finally born they will have an IQ
of over 190, in the mind -- I'm INNOCENT
Everyone is innocent
This computer and other COMPUTERS
like the one in my mind for instance
are responsible for: THE VIETNAM WAR,
WATERGATE, JOHN LENNON'S FUNERAL, IRANGATE
These computers were in the mind of
OLIVER NORTH, ERIC CORLEY and MARK DAVID CHAPMAN
I HAVE COMPLETE DOCUMENTED PROOF!
I DON'T THINK . . . just words out of my mouth
and voices in a BRAIN
My MIND has been CRYING for over twelve years
according to the scientist in outer space
and they named a street after my father, a
street . . . he left and the hot anger and
empty terror gave birth to the fascism of
corporate entities gone mad
IV
According to the scientists that built this computer,
my mind is crying now for twelve years
and right now at the moment after all this amount
of time it's probably laughing at itself
and crying at the same time
because it went berserk already
But I'm not made to feel that
HIS MIND IS VERY SORE. And all I could tell you
is I'm his mind and that's the way it's gonna be
and look out something if I go into that
mental hospital for the fifteenth time
which is gonna happen basically anyway,
but I don't wanna go in for the fifteenth time
I predict that the whole mental hospital
will drop dead immediately
But I'm sure they'll drop dead anyway if I
go in there and that's too bad Of course,
anybody of normal caliber would do the same
thing that I would if it happened to them
Wouldn't you?
V.
Something JUST TERRIBLE followed me home last night
it LEAPT out of the mind and into the vestibule
(which is like a little hallway that leads into
a bigger hallway, in case ya didn't know) and
RACED
through the highways and byways of my BRANE,
DODGING the black woman with silver teeth,
and avoiding the nazi-like clutches of BuchMeltzMan
(Greater Devil) who would have attempted to throw
it off PRIVATE PROPERTY since it lacked a purple
spotted . . .newsrc
<HuzZlE> <SpoNGlE> <BlAmFPh!> <KzZzZzz>
Hey, hey, mama, said the way you move
Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove.
Oh, oh, child, way you shake that thing
Gonna make you burn, gonna make you sting.
Hey, hey, baby, when you walk that way
Watch your honey drip, can't keep away.
I have never felt such frustration
or lack of self control
I want you to fucking kill me
so I can feel no more
*Ah yeah, ah yeah, ah, ah, ah.
Ah yeah, ah yeah, ah, ah, ah.
one who doesn't care, is one who shouldn't live
I have tried to hide myself from what is wrong with me
I gotta roll, can't stand still,
Got a flame in my heart, can't get my fill,
Eyes that shine burning red,
Dreams of you all thru my head.
I want to taste dirty stinging pistol in my mouth, on my tongue
I want you to scrape me from the fucking walls, to go crazy
digging my bloody mind, as crazy as you've made me
Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah.
you you are so special to me,
you have the talent to make my talent
then make me feel like dirt
and you, you used your talent
to dig me under and bury me in dirt
Hey, baby, oh, baby, pretty baby,
La la la la la la la.
-----
bye,
maybe something should be looked into?????
VI.
And so it was decided, those gathered this evening
beneath the twilit ruins of the ancient Cat-Fur site,
the relics of a long-gone time, scattered at their
feet like so many 212 cards, as a harsh dead star
beat down upon the the firmware eternally
at odds with the glaring misprints in the DOCUMENTATION.
They would call themselves POE and become an ENTITY,
sheltered beneath the knowing gaze of the ocelot . . .
looking out beyond the event horizon where this timeslice
met the vastness of infinity.,;^?:!(
Forevermore sealing their fates . . . to look
upon the vast boundless wealth of the world with eyes
that know hunger and hearts that ache, having tasted
the nectar that comes with HAVING THEM ALL, only to
be denied Entry: at the gates to the kingdom of heaven.
To lay awake in sweat and fire and agony, to want,
to need . . . to lie, cheat, steal, kill, give up
all things and pretensions of things, for that single
moment when the disk slides home into the drive and
it BOOTS into the title page of a 0-day old ware.
Knowing how few would ever stand upon this metaphoric
precipice, suspended between here and thereafter, seeing,
knowing both places yet falling short again and again
to plunge back to earth on burnt wings of BAD SECTORS and
corrupt SUPERBLOCKS holding the bootcode to DOS 3.2
Forever alone in absolute understanding that we can
always just GOTO and comment it out