Memorial
Allen Ginsberg or Kathy Acker or Robert Creeley dies and the lists swell with memorials, ephemera, anecdotes, quotations, odes, forwards, from friends, strangers, almost always loving, sometimes websites are created, people might travel a little bit in real life, people cry, tears are written, the swelling grows, levels, subsides, the loss is present, some might say ever-present, others sutured over, it's moment's like these that lists, communities, online and offline, come together, at least appear to
We're all vulnerable, we all wait our turn in the wings for our memorial, our moment, of passing, the whisper which fades, can only fade, in this most fragile of media, these archives that disappear as well, without memorial, passing comments at best
Before the Net, what then?, rumors, telephone calls, almost always one to one immediately, then perhaps the newspaper or radio announcements, if one is sufficiently famous, perhaps a gathering at St. Mark's or other space turned place for memorials, always carried in memory, not even the arc- hive, someone might have made a video of the event, or an audio, anything, but not publicly accessible, now online the archives are there, present, naked to anyone, susceptible to hacking, damage, but at least momentarily present, at least the denouement
What will happen to us, to me, when the words cease and others suture in, or at least one hopes for the suturing, the swollen and marked, remarked, residue, communal ripples, there
Or as lists increasingly list, to the side of the dead, thanatotic, encom- iums, tottered graves, true memorials of eternal battered words, the dead praising the dead, the graves full from one end of the infinite Net to the other, guarded against intrusion, archives infinitely duplicated, words presenting at the last judgment
Thomas Browne and a quincunx of urns in his honour
Lance Armstrong and the hearts of his fellow countrymen and women
Alan Sondheim and synaptic release of hard disk flash mem spasm
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