CYCLE 7
He was turned to steel
In the great magnetic field
When he travelled time
For the future of mankind
— — — —
Heavy boots of lead
Fill his victims full of dread
Running as fast as they can
Iron Man lives again!
-Black Sabbath, Iron Man (Surviving Fragments)
I was seventeen when I realized that I had been watching a broken television set. I was unaware that I spent my entire life chasing an elusive signal through deep distortion. That was around the time that Nathan Cohen opened my eyes to the fictional aspect of history. He told me that historical events are nothing but stories seen at a distance. Despite my initial skepticism I learned that this perspective is not at all counterintuitive. Nathan taught me that it is unwise to make judgements about history without considering “Factor F.” Without the mind-reading function of the fictional lens, momentous events can only be discussed as if they involve faceless mannequins or robots on autopilot, dynamic characters appear flat; personalities are non-existent, motivations are mathematical. Without the right tuning device, it is easy to fall into the trap of confusing a narrow band of reality with the full spectrum, he argued. If our analytical equipment isn’t tuned to the correct frequency, we are unable grasp the solitary sufferer or the pulsing psychic flow of the masses. We are color blind, tracing around the outer edges of history instead of seeing the kaleidoscopic mosaic of life. Remove the fictional factor and our capacity to bracket the multidimensional aspects of individuals with any real psychological depth is stunted.
As Nathan took me under his wing, small insignificant details suddenly emerged out of the tapestry of time, shimmering as if illuminated from new angles. Living breathing beings sprung from a lifeless paradigm. I started to experience life in full sound and violence. I had been granted admission into a maniac mansion and became a fully-fledged member of the only surviving artistic community on Earth. The Apthorp, Nathan’s very own living pavilion, was home to the walking wounded. The artistic personality in all its fragility and neuroses was on display each and every day. I was surrounded by so much artistic production it was almost horrifying. I’m not suggesting that there was any underlying danger to residing in the building. Quite the opposite, in fact. Once the community embraced you, there was safety in belonging. However, my first impression of this strange society never really left me. It sometimes felt like a sanitarium where art therapy was the only treatment for whatever nameless syndrome had afflicted everyone around me. This much creativity is never healthy. The line between life and art was written in invisible ink and coloured in every shade of grey. I got the sense that by simply residing in the building I became an unwitting participant in a colony of collective thought and action. Every movement was chemical. Walking down a hallway or opening a door could kickstart an experiment that had to run until some unknown hour and end state. Displacing the air in a room could have unexpected consequences. The Apthorp was one giant body but every limb and appendage had a mind of its own. One thing was for certain, life would never be dull again.
—end of recording—
The rest of the disks in this cabinet appear to have been erased. I will try to piece together their contents from other files. If only I had access to Localized Anti-Entropic Spray, I could reverse this erasure and finish sampling these recordings (JS)