Short, Sharp, Shocked an Interview With LoFiVinyl

Short, Sharp, Shocked an Interview With [URL=http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/member.php?userid=8729]LofiVinyl[/URL]

[IMG]http://home.comcast.net/~dlites/faceanifinal.gif[/IMG]

You have to imagine her somewhere in the cosmopolitan biomass of the Pacific Northwest, listening to Devo and whatever else she does while reading your odd little words as they come across the screen from out of an uncharacteristic latter summer cold-snap here in Chicago.

Her official bio reads:

"Very impressive 17HH chestnut. Oozes
personality, which she passes on to all
her young stock. Currently jumping grade
A and has competed very successfully in
the dressage arena. Lofivinyl has a very
easy mouth and is a pleasure to ride. She
passes her height, quality bone and
superb temperament on to all her
offspring. By: France's top breed
stallion the famous Templeton Foggy Pea.
Dam Torrid Negrillo 1X By Alchemist
Stompwit."

But LoFiVinyl spent most of her life in Washington State, growing up in an intense religious commune sans the modern conveniences. Taking on the work load of an adult by age 13 and spending nights sleeping out among the stars. What it’s produced is a modern, hip, intelligent and ultimately urbane girl who has her own sense of the world and her own compass, moral and otherwise by which she follows.

Today she gave me a little taste of her own magnetic North.

Her only requests for the interview? She wanted it short, sharp and shocked, “I want it in and out,’ she told me.

Hey, don’t we all?

Parkaboy: I know you have an affinity for William Gibson, as do I. So I'm going to start with some cyber-punk questions, OK?
LoFiVinyl: ok
Parkaboy: The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over. But it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping. I mean you're not helping!
Why is that, LoFi?
Parkaboy: That’s Blade Runner
LoFiVinyl: I was looking it up
LoFiVinyl: I would be turning it over.
Parkaboy: very clever of you
LoFiVinyl: I turned it over lots of times.
Parkaboy: the tortoise?
LoFiVinyl: last time I turned it over it shat on me.
Parkaboy: why did it do that, LoFi?
LoFiVinyl: I assume it was a reflex
Parkaboy: so, it wasn't shitting on you as a comment about your general person? You don’t have that sort of complex about the world?
Parkaboy: or turtles?
LoFiVinyl: you mean to ask me, am I the sort of person who would turn over a tortoise, and then when it shat on me, make certain assumptions about the world and my place in it, based on a glistening pile of tortoise defecate on my hand?
Parkaboy: Yes, that's what I'm asking, are you sort of person who thinks that helping out gets you shat on in this life?
LoFiVinyl: way to rephrase my question in the most mundane possible way!
Parkaboy: Oh, my! We’ve touched on something here....
LoFiVinyl: every job I’ve ever had has involved shit.
LoFiVinyl: well except that one job at the bookstore
LoFiVinyl: but that job involved rabid football fans in search of red and black clothing and paraphernalia with bulldogs on it....and that was close enough
Parkaboy: Then, growing up in the church taught you that sacrifice brings with it a certain amount of shit?
LoFiVinyl: what is this sacrifice /shit motif you're trying to make happen here, man?
LoFiVinyl: shit is life.
LoFiVinyl: life is shit
LoFiVinyl: sacrifice is all a matter of perspective
LoFiVinyl: it's all mental
LoFiVinyl: if you don't think it's sacrifice...well...it isn’t
Parkaboy: Ah, but many Christians believe that sacrifice, the shit of this life, can be redemptive.
LoFiVinyl: oh I see
LoFiVinyl: Calvinism
Parkaboy: yes, that bear
Parkaboy: shitting in the woods
Parkaboy: as it were
LoFiVinyl: Calvinism
Parkaboy: yes
LoFiVinyl: it's a trap
Parkaboy: and you don't like traps, how is this a trap?
LoFiVinyl: it's a way to sort people
LoFiVinyl: based on self control
LoFiVinyl: and based on willingness to deny oneself
LoFiVinyl: and based on a sense of superiority morally
LoFiVinyl: all those three things
LoFiVinyl: woven together
LoFiVinyl: into an itchy hair shirt of asinine
Parkaboy: Would it be fair to say though, that all forms of systemized control over populations are traps and that your particular distaste for them, stems, in part, from you're early inculcation into a very rigid form of said control?
LoFiVinyl: sure
Parkaboy: Now you're patronizing the interviewer
LoFiVinyl: lets move on to another line of questioning
Parkaboy: yes, Perry Mason

I decided to get to a question that I thought everybody would want to ask LoFi if they had her on the other end of an AIM chat, so I went ahead and brought up her status on the Cult as resident sex pot.

Parkaboy: ok, let's get at one thing on everybody's mind.
LoFiVinyl: ok lets!
Parkaboy: LoFi's reputation on The Cult
Parkaboy: listen here missy
Parkaboy: false enthusiasm for my questions will get you nowhere
LoFiVinyl: it's what we call gallows humor.
Parkaboy: I hang corrected.
LoFiVinyl: I think before we delve into that particular question
LoFiVinyl: we should examine the greater question
LoFiVinyl: of "e-reputations"
Parkaboy: ok, let's!
LoFiVinyl: you tickle yourself
LoFiVinyl: that's charming.
Parkaboy: because you aren't here
LoFiVinyl: e-reputations are gained and /or assigned by the perception people have of the content you generate.
LoFiVinyl: on the internet
LoFiVinyl: generating content is key
LoFiVinyl: if you don't generate content, then you are useless
Parkaboy: Yes, it's the ultimate form of capitalism really
LoFiVinyl: fair enough
LoFiVinyl: so if a person is smart
LoFiVinyl: they can control the spin that their content creates
LoFiVinyl: if they are stupid and blonde, then maybe they can’t
LoFiVinyl: and that's all I have to say about that
Parkaboy: the internet, or the Cult in particular, becomes a microcosm of any mediated network, each "persona" a minor celebrity in a very small tabloid ridden America of "content" consumers
LoFiVinyl: memetics play a role
Parkaboy: they always do
LoFiVinyl: memetic engineering specifically

Authors Note: Taken from: Memetic Engineering
PsyOps and Viruses for the Wetware
Michael Wilson
Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, in his book The Selfish Gene, proposed a concept he termed 'memetics,' a corollary to genetics, but in the domain of the mind rather than molecular biology. A 'meme' is a basic unit of memory, but like a gene, can be transferred (via replication); better than a gene, memes can be reproduced by a variety of mechanisms beyond those of conventional biology.
If you think about how you think, you will find your mind is made of memories, facts, and that sort of thing; you picked these up through continual reinforcement and having been there for it (some things can be taught, others need to be learned). Using a computer metaphor, your mind is hardware (the grey matter, providing you with senses, nerve endings, neurons) and software (combined from that odd core of your being that is doing the reflecting, and the material it is reflecting upon, kind of like a computer program and its data).

Parkaboy: but the meme that has gotten out about you
Parkaboy: which you didn't engineer intentionally, is that you are a bit of a...shall we say slag? Or, did you engineer that intentionally?
LoFiVinyl: only my hairdresser knows for sure.
LoFiVinyl: let’s strike it up to the question you asked
LoFiVinyl: let me think how to OPTIMALLY answer this
Parkaboy: ok, lets!
LoFiVinyl: I’m an exhibitionistic person. but I don’t know if I’m a slag. I’m going to leave it at that. and as far as spin control goes... I am in no way Machiavellian enough for that shit.
LoFiVinyl: but I admire it in others

We next moved to more traditional opinions of The Cult and what it means in LoFi-Land.

Parkaboy: What do you think of the Cult?
LoFiVinyl: it's a harmonic convergence of insecurity and clumsy jockeying for position. and yet I love each and every one of the cultists and everything they do.
LoFiVinyl: and I don’t count myself above these goings on
Parkaboy: You posted some risqué photos of yourself on The Cult, what about the memes you set up there? The adolescent boy fantasies that surely were given some modicum of form by those pics and by your willingness to post them, however briefly?
LoFiVinyl: oh god, a girl posted her tits on the internet!!@!!{O-[93e[piroejpog}
Parkaboy: Yes, good point.
Parkaboy: How important is the Cult in your life? Even your "cyber life"?
LoFiVinyl: well I’m glad you distinguished the two
Parkaboy: You're avoiding the question Ms. Vinyl
LoFiVinyl: the cult is SOMETIMES an interesting way to wile away a few hours. it's pretty good when people post drunk. I wish they would more often. Prensa is stellar for this particular thing, also she has fallen off of late.
LoFiVinyl: I would encourage those reading to go out right now and purchase a bottle of something hard
LoFiVinyl: and come back here
LoFiVinyl: and drink.
Parkaboy: Funny
LoFiVinyl: I’m serious
LoFiVinyl: never more serious
Parkaboy: I know, that's why it's funny.

And the obligatory questions about the man himself…

Parkaboy: What do you think of Chuck and his works?
LoFiVinyl: I think chuck is able to synthesize the flotsam of our culture into some interesting stories.
LoFiVinyl: I don't think he's "great" like flannery o'connor "great"
LoFiVinyl: but I like him
LoFiVinyl: ok so, any more q's?

We idled a while about where to go next, finally she pressed me…

Parkaboy: I was going to give you a few Proust questions but then I thought not
LoFiVinyl: well give me SOMETHING , goddammit
LoFiVinyl: the turtle thing was genius
LoFiVinyl: incidentally
Parkaboy:OK, where do you want to be in 5 years?
LoFiVinyl: see. I live in the moment
LoFiVinyl: that's my charm, innit.
Parkaboy: it is.
Parkaboy: ok, this is from Blade Runner as well:
LoFiVinyl: ok
Parkaboy: Describe in single words. Only the good things that come in your mind. About your mother.
LoFiVinyl: humble
LoFiVinyl: psychic
LoFiVinyl: insane
Parkaboy: Ok, one more then
Parkaboy: In a magazine you come across a full-page photo of a nude girl.
You show the picture to your husband. He likes it and hangs it on the wall. The girl is lying on a bearskin rug.
LoFiVinyl: I once saw this amazing picture taken by art hansen (grandfather of Beck hansen) it was in typical 70's porn style...naked blonde on bearskin rug
LoFiVinyl: but she had a large white feather stuck up her ass
Parkaboy: Having a feather stuck up your ass doesn’t make you a chicken, you know?
LoFiVinyl: but it makes you stand out from the crowd....yes?
Parkaboy: It does indeed.

And you can’t imagine this girl ever being a wallflower, but you can imagine a bunch of horny Cult boys hoping she might post another nude pic and they might be able to Photoshop a feather in her ass.

After all, at the end of the day….

It is internet.