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GHOST
~1990
Rev: July 7, 2009
The original file called "ghost"
was about something too recent (as
of 1990 or so) and someone too Typo of the week:
local to be made public (and now "Exercising ghosts".
it's long since lost).
Also, as I remember it, it was
rather slight: the central feature
was an incident where I was I would *hope* that I
hanging around in downtown Palo had something else to
Alto, and I saw a woman I knew say about it, and no
(and had been rejected by) walking doubt I went off on some
by with some friends, and I maudlin rambling and
decided to just play ghost and act free association.
like I wasn't there.
For example, there's
Once, these writings the question of whether
were commentary from the I was simply wisely
afterlife... I spoke doing the obviously
freely about people and correct thing, or was
events that seemed I being too wimpy and
distant and unlikely to unassertive?
be touched by the words.
Questions like that
The internet was this were weighing on my
strange underground, mind a lot back then.
a new world I was
moving through where They're still around
there was little fear There are people out in my life, I just
of any accidental there who think it's don't obsess about
contact with the possible to maintain them so much: there's
nominally real one. a second existance no real way to know.
with an "anonymous" You take your best
The web changed the internet identity guess, play out the
character of these unconnected to meat hand and move on.
things quite a bit. space, to the "real
world"...
I think they're
deluding themselves.
Leaks are common
enough to be the
norm --
The best strategy:
don't hide from And yet: there
the world. are secrets out
there that aren't
(Or so it *my* secrets,
seems to me...) and I can't justify
going on about
just anything
without getting
permission from
all the players...
And informed
consent may be
impossible to get.
How would you
describe
alt.gothic
to the facenorth
generation?
Is it a public
place? An
underground
place? Is it
likely to stay
as it is?
Once upon a time, I was addicted
to playing the ghost...
I would sneak out of the house
and walk the Long Island streets KEROUAC
alone at late at night, noting the BRONSON
glowing TV sets inside every window...
I invented a game I called
"Light Ray": when you see
One of my favorite things the glow of a car's headlights,
to do on New Years Eve you immediately take cover,
was to go out alone, walking and hide until it's dark again:
in the school field behind You try to move down the
the houses, listening to street without being seen.
sounds of parties on all
sides. When I was around 12, I
taught this game to
some friends of mine...
I did that once with the and it actually caught
Jefferson Airplane song on with them.
"When the Earth Moves
Again" running through Some of my solitary
my head, and it stuck me rituals are more
as the perfect New Years popular than others.
music.
SOLITARE
I fantasized about
recruiting a group
of friends to join
in on one of those
walks... something More recently I made a half-hearted
that never happened. attempted at getting people to join
me on one of my New Years Eve walks
across the bridges of Manhatten,
also with no luck.
At age 18 or so, Hanging back at a
party (once again), I was watching
something that was going on... a
friend commented: "They should hang a STAPLEGUN_WARRIOR
sign on you that says 'Observer'."
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