Dose of literature for today II

(for your dose of literature for the day I + high court story + the original dose of literature)

...

(painted on my eye the impenetrable blue jelly of 'this world')

Poe I think of Poe with the opium horrors groping his way to the writing table at dusk or is it dawn: 'There came to my nostrils the strong peculiar odor of moist earth.'

...

NEMA LIVE SU REVILED
On another level all this word soup has generated another presence, just as IAO generate the alifbet and just as deep structures generate surface structures. I have called the other presence tentatively God. It may not be God. It may not be another presence. It may originate from:
(1) The machine or part of the machine.
(2) My brain or part of my brain.
(3) Some physical outside source, neither machine nor brain.
(4) Some non-physical outside source.
(5) Nowhere and nothing (in the case it really is God).
(6) One of the ten combinations of (1) through (5), in pairs.
(7) One of the ten combinations of three of (1) through (5).
(8) One of the five combinations of four of (1) through (5).
(9) All of (1) through (5).
(10) None of the above.

It all operates like some think tank, where all the words, in crisp shirts (plastic pocket protector for slide rule, red pencil, black pencil, pen) confer - run around conferring - the important words forming their teams of lesser words, talking up enthusiasm for this project: 'All right, fellas, the buzzword around here today is going to be "epiphany". Bounce that idea around, examine the macro-structure, get the big depth picture. Sam, you'll be handling the theological end of this, I want to see you work nice and close with Bud's team, they're looking at the "weak force" angle. Let's get at the interface of this problem, guys. Let's state our tentative objective as the answer to "Who made you?" '

Then in the beginning was the word, only now there's too much word, its face is like a teleprompter and the answers keep rolling across, answers to questions I haven't thought of asking yet - have I? - and there isn't any way of shutting it off. Maybe my mind is doing all its thinking at the same time, maybe there isn't any 'time' here...

- Bob Shairp presumably whilst trapped in limbo after being uploaded to Muller-Fokker computer tape, in The Muller-Fokker Effect, John Sladek (pp43-44, Panther Books 1972 paperback ed.)