"Where are you?" He asked her.
"I'm in Trigue... in Trigue..." She said.

I've always been intrigued by the way that old media attempts to compete with new media by assimilating their styles and forms: the way that kids TV shows style their visuals after CD-Roms, streaming video, web pages, just like they did about twenty years ago when video came along, using basic editing effects to simulate Fast Forward, Pause, Rewind, even going so far as to style entire shows on the theme of 'Video Show': "Rewind", "Ovid Video", "The Kenny Everitt Video Show".

I'm always warey of new warez. Innovations in communications exclude as much as they include. But even I can see that the increasing availability of digital phones with camera capabilities has created all kinds of possibilities for a new kind of discrete spy-cam subversiveness. An example that hadn't occured to before: why buy the magazine / paper when you can visit its web site, or in the case of video phones, scan-snap the pages you like the look of.

Link via Gibson blog archive.

In the last years of his life, William Burroughs paid a visit to fellow writer Whitley Strieber, hoping to initiate some form of contact experience before he 'passed on', suspecting, as Strieber still does, that 'they' are somehow involved in death and dying.

On their first meeting, Burroughs found Strieber disturbing, claiming that there was something insectoid and "mask-like" about his face. It turned out that Strieber had been stung, in the face, by a wasp.

An overnight guest remarks on a number of small, brightly coloured toothbrushes resting in a small beaker beneath the sink.

"They're for my children." I tell her. "They are ghosts. I mean, they may be ghosts but still, clean teeth are important, especially for children."

It doesn't occur to my guest to ask their names.

"I'm only joking," I tell her, "they're not ghosts, they're invisible."

I may have mentioned this story before, but I happened upon it again this afternoon and it still really touches me:

Jarrianne Sexton: "I was extremely emotionally stressed at the time. I took a drive to Mt. Solidad in La Jolla and later to Las Jolla Cove. I sat on the edge of a high cliff, wondering if life was worth it, then walked back to my car and drove down La Jolla Blvd. There out of nowhere a man in a suit, carrying a briefcase, standing on the side of the street, held out his arm and pointed to me. The traffic was thick and I passed him by. I looked in my rear view mirror and saw him looking right at me from the road, so I stopped and he walked quickly up to me and asked, ‘May I join you?’

"I had never picked up a hitchhiker in my life before. I said, ‘If you want to.’ This person’s name was Daniel. He was well dressed, n a dark, pin-striped suit, white shirt with an open collar, and wearing black, open heeled shoes. He asked me if I’d gone to church that morning. I told him I was at Mt. Solidad, where there is a big cross on top of the mountain. I took him there, and on the way he asked if I would stop at a store. He went in and came out with grape juice and raisins. He asked me what my name was and when I told him, he asked me to repeat it several times, then said, ‘Don’t ever forget who you are.’

"I spent six hours with this man, and here are a few of the things he showed me. He could levitate, and spun in a circle about 3 feet off the ground. He could turn street lamps on. He could make the ocean waves rise 3 to 4 feet higher. He could calm a barking half wolf/half watchdog and make him heel and pet him. In his briefcase he carried a necklace and earring and told me that if I wore them, I could read people’s thoughts. I didn’t want to wear them.

"We talked about earth problems. He had many answers, but said people won’t do the right things to make the best of life and he didn’t understand why. He told me many things, but after reading that you wrote a book about a visitor, I wanted to let you know about mine, before I read your book.

"By the way, he was thin, about 5’9’’ tall, blond, blue-eyed, with a pasty white face and no tan. When we parted, he asked if I would take him to a hotel. The last time I saw him he was walking into the lobby. This was about nine o’clock at night.

"I told some people about him, but they all thought I was nuts. Sometimes I do think I’m a little stranger than other people." www.unknowncountry.com