Date: Sat, 23 Jul 1994 12:16:45 -0700 From: tommyc Subject: Losing Michael Current (fwd) After the huge quantity of messages that accumulated from FC while I was on vacation, I unsubscribed before my next longish trip. The blessedness of a low mail volume upon my return has made me reluctant to resubscribe--especially considering the remarkably high garbage level (as people are currently discussing). But I just came across this item on soc.motss and immediately reusbscribed in order to hang around the people here, where I first discovered Michael Current's presence, and where I expect his friends will want to reminisce and mourn. However, seeing nothing of the sort, it occurred to me that perhaps this news has yet to circulate to fc, and so I am posting it now. I have no independent knowledge of the contents and have no independent verification of this information. God bless you, Michael. Rest in Peace at last. ======== reply to Many of you knew Michael Current, long-time Iowa activist and some-time poster to this newsgroup. He died yesterday, apparently of insulin shock. He was one of my most trusted comrades and dearest friends. I am beyond grief. Linda Yanney Washington, DC __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Sat, 23 Jul 1994 17:26:44 -0400 From: Alan Sondheim Subject: A little something. . . (fwd) I just received a message that Michael Current has died; I called his home in Des Moines and it is true. Michael and I corresponded daily and intensely, through email, Unix talk, and telephone. I never met him in person. I miss him more than I can tell you. We spoke the night he died. This is horrible. He sent me the piece below, and we discussed posting it on Cybermind and FOP and he said he was nervous and probably would send it out, late at night, just before sleep. I'm sending it out now. God bless you, Michael. Damn. Alan ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 20 Jul 1994 01:48:15 -0500 (CDT) From: Michael Current To: ALAN SONDHEIM , sondheim@newschool.edu Subject: A little something. . . I wrote this while sitting at the cafe tonight, much to my surprise. Comments? Please be gentle, this is not something I am used to/ comfortable with. CARE OF THE BODY A stranger writes to me of the body. Of his concern for the body. Answering my e-mail, he tells me he is skeptical of e-mail, concerned about the detachment of thought and affect from the fleshbonesandblood. An ethical matter, a concern that we will abandon our environment, that our being-in-the-world will be replaced by being-in/being-with/being- one-with/becoming-with the machine. . . . Tracing back through endless stacks of mail headers, we find the stranger at his home, on a quiet street in a Midwestern college town, around midnight. He is reading my message, addressed not to him but to a multiple that includes him, that he intersects. There is soft jazz in the headphones from a beat-up old cassette deck as he reads, sitting, naked, in a chair in the corner of his bedroom, books on every side, the screen propped to the proper height by a pile of books and a couple of dusty old manuscripts. He is reading, deleting, saving, replying; _harvesting_ the list which grows, in fits and starts, but grows, in its non-organic medium. His hands move on the keyboard, and sometimes, unconsiously, during the reading of a long message, they slip from the keyboard to the pile of books to his left side, books long unread. Sometimes, unconsciously, he caresses the books. Sometimes, too, unconsciously, his hand slips from the stack of books into his lap, unto his semi-erect penis which, from time to time, unconsciously, he also caresses. . . . Reading my post he feels concern. He needs to speak to me. He wonders if I cannot see the irony of discussing embodiment by e-mail. He wonders what I look like, what I am doing at that very moment, and what would happen if we were to meet in the flesh. He must reach out to me, touch me with his concern. His hands linger in his lap as he pounders the words, stroking himself. Then they move to the keyboard and he begins to type, sharing with a disembodied stranger - who has not, in any case, addressed _him_ exactly - his concern about the abandonment of the body. Carefully, he composes clear, direct, generous sentences, filling them with more than he dare say or even acknowledge he is thinking about. We must not abandon the body. Finishing the message, he hits the key sequence that will send it off to me, feeling satisfied that he has pointed out the danger he sees, and something else, too, has been communicated, something that should not be brought to the level of thought. . . . He hits a switch and powers down the computer, stands and turns out the lights. A sudden breeze through the window makes him aware, for a moment, of his body, and he muses, absently, for a moment, at how he has managed to become erect during the hour he has spent carefully reading, deleting, filing, replying. . . . He crawls into bed, mind wandering from the pleasant sensation of cool sheets on his cock, balls, nipples to vague, tangential thoughts about my message, his reply - for a moment imagining himself speaking to me, his words convincing, compelling - and about Marx, Sartre, Immanuel Wallerstein. . .thoughts of pleasure and the lack of it rising and receeding in Kondratiev waves across the longue duree of his life. At some point he is asleep, dreaming. Fifteen, he is on the beach, with Wendy, his hands reaching and reaching for the clasp that holds on her bikini top. A couple of weeks ago, he is peering out the window for a second and then a third time at the smooth, well-formed chest of the tanned boy who is mowing the lawn, feeling all the different kinds of difference that seperate the boy's body from his own. Last night, he is in my bedroom, watching me read the reply he has written, pleased to see that I, too, am at home, alone, naked in my bedroom before my terminal reading the text of his desire. His mind is touching mine. Dreaming of me, he wakes to find his chest sticky, his hand on his slowly receeding erection. We wipes his hand on the sheets and turns over, feeling, for a moment, as he falls back into sleep - something like. . .concerned. "We must not abandon the body," he murmurs. . . . In the corner, the computer listens for his breathing to steady, then switches itself on and dials, disks spinning with anticipation. ---------------------------Michael J. Current---------------------------- mcurrent@picard.infonet.net -or- @ins.infonet.net -or- @nyx.cs.du.edu Specializing in Philosophy, Queer Studies, Depression, & Unemployment :) 737 - 18th Street, #9 * Des Moines, IA * 50314-1031 *** (515) 283-2142 "AN IMAGE OF THOUGHT CALLED PHILOSOPHY HAS BEEN FORMED HISTORICALLY AND IT EFFECTIVELY STOPS PEOPLE FROM THINKING." - GILLES DELEUZE -------------------------------------------------------------------------- __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Sat, 23 Jul 1994 17:45:46 -0700 From: John Frost Subject: net.death A few months ago, we had the net.death thread on FutureCulture. Some of us thought there should be a way of having funerals on the net. A MorgueMud or at least an USENET group of Obituaries. I believe there is a WWW obit page these days... (anybody wanna do a WAIS search on that?) Micheal Current was a active participant in that thread as he was in many of the other threads on FC that have affected me in one way or another. his RL death has touched me deep. (having just heard about it on this list.) and I think the unanswered question of the net.death thread, will a RL death be heard, felt, carried thru, the net??? has been answered ironically by MJC's own final answer. He was someone who I would call a net.friend and his death by insulin shock (that is correct?) strikes me as particular horrible. My father is Diabetic, I have a chance of developing diabetes. I have seen the effects of a Diabetic Coma from insulin shock on my father. It is something I wouldn't wish on anybody and is very scary for any witnesses. This is hitting me harder and harder as I type. I had hoped to meet MJC one day at a FC fleshmeet. I had a lot I wanted to say to him Mano a Mano and I know he had a lot he wanted to do with his life beyond what he had already accomplished as an activist. It has been my philosophy that a death is the best reason to celebrate life. I know I am going to take this time to re-evaluate my situation and to reflect on my friends.... Rest In Peace. Now you know the answer we all want to know. Love John/Indigo __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Sat, 23 Jul 1994 21:10:23 -0400 From: Paula Davidson Subject: Re: Losing Michael Current (fwd) Rain Suddenly this defeat. This rain. The blues gone gray And the browns gone gray And yellow A terrible amber. In the cold streets Your warm body. In whatever room Your warm body. Among all the people Your absence The people who are always Not you. I have been easy with trees Too long. Too familiar with mountains. Joy has been a habit. Now Suddenly This rain. Views of Jeopardy, 1962 by Jack Gilbert ================================================================= Paula Davidson T h e A l t e r n a t i v e R e a d i n g R o o m an unconventional library <> free & open to the public Wed-Thur 11-6 Fri-Sat 11-9 Sun 11-3 40 Wall St. Asheville, NC 28801 (704) 252-2501 tarr@mercury.interpath.net ================================================================= __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Sat, 23 Jul 1994 21:22:22 -0400 From: Lila Star Subject: Re: Michael Current I haven't been hanging around FC for very long, but long enough to know that Michael Current wrote from his heart. I always looked forward to reading his posts. It didn't matter if I agreed with the words, I simply admired and respected his conviction. Even though I had no personal correspondence with him, I still am deeply touched by his passing. Life is a gift. Michael's death is a reminder to me, to try to make the best of the time that i have left. May you rest in peace Micheal. Love, Lila +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ + Astrology For The Next Millenium + + + + Lilastar@access.digex.net Lilastar@aol.com + + "I said where'd you get your information from, huh? + + You think that you can front when revelation comes?"+ + - Beastie Boys + +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Sat, 23 Jul 1994 22:00:44 -0400 From: Cabinet Cat Subject: Re: net.death On Sat, 23 Jul 1994, John Frost wrote: > A few months ago, we had the net.death thread on FutureCulture. Some of > us thought there should be a way of having funerals on the net. A > MorgueMud or at least an USENET group of Obituaries. I believe there is a > WWW obit page these days... (anybody wanna do a WAIS search on that?) The WWW Obituary Page is at http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Obituary/README.html. Anyone can add an obit to it at any time. I didn't really know Michael at all, and don't know any of the details about his death, so someone else should put up the words. I did, however, spar with him once or twice on another list, and was always impressed by his intellect. I even saved a couple of his posts because what he said gave me something to think about even when I disagreed. I think we can all agree that's a pretty rare thing these days. __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Sat, 23 Jul 1994 23:12:35 -0300 From: "D.L. Richardson" <002134r@DRAGON.ACADIAU.CA> Subject: Re: net.death does the death of someone you've met only on the Net touch as deeply? I think it does. Sitting here, having never met Michael I found myself in tears...crying for the death of a man I've known only as words on a screen. Crying as much for the loss that those who were close to him have experienced. It's like going to your favorite pub and finding out that the guy who always sits on the stool to your left has died. Michael...reach for the stars. dlr __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Sat, 23 Jul 1994 22:37:16 -0400 From: Nicholas Gold ARHS 96 Subject: Re: net.death I guess I'm mostly writing this for myself, so bear with my rambling. Christ, I don't know how to react to this. It's like this terrible sense of confusion, a wave flowing over me. I'm totally overwhelmed by this, which might be weird in itself, considering I had only directly communicated with Michael a few times. But over the past months of being here on Future Culture, mostly lurking, I have always been moved by Michael. He has always struck me as an incredibly wise, just man. I could always take something from his messages. Heck, he was almost in a weird way like a virtual mentor. Never met him, barely even talked, but I could learn from him. I admired many things about him, have always considered him to be wise, enlightened. He was intellectual, and still managed to be down-to-Earth. Very strong persona. Why am I so affected by his passing? He was that strong a person. I think he has touched many people. I don't know. It's funny, though. Maybe he's achieved some kind of immortality here on the net. His words will live on, somewhere, floating around in this astral void, cyberspace. His words, knowledge, preserved here, for us all to learn from. And I guess now he is off somewhere, maybe on the next level? Was he ready to move on? Something so interesting, incredible, about his last postings. He seemed to be pondering the non-physical influence of people on each other. Somehow, maybe down deep, he knew it was time for he himself to move on. Now he's no longer held down by any physical limitations, off in some other state of being. Maybe this serves to teach us all something, something about not letting ourselves being limited to our physical being. The net is a truly phenominal thing, in the sense that it does indeed allow us to transcend physical matter. Michael has now truly been lifted from the boundaried which hold us as humans down. A message for you, Michael: Thank you for inspiring me, for teaching, for being. And be off now, and explore what the rest of the universe has to offer. I'm sure that you will continue to be a guide to all of those you encounter throughout the rest of time. Nick -- Nicholas Gold -=> Finger at Umass K12 for PGP public key <=- email: aj945@yfn.ysu.edu or ngold@k12.ucs.umass.edu GU d--@ -p+ c++(++++) l u(---) e(*) m++(---) s/+ n+(---) h(--) f*(?) g+++ w+++(-) t+ r(-) !y disclaimer: "I 'yam what I 'yam!" -Popeye __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Sat, 23 Jul 1994 22:57:32 -0400 From: "Shawn P. Wilbur" Subject: Re: net.death i've been walkin through a soggy, warm night here in the ex-great black swamp, under a full moon, tryin to figure out quite how to mourn someone i never 'really' met, but who touched me as deeply as michael did. i've been away for a couple of weeks, doing the backwoods anti-modernism thing - which is a fine tonic for the net.weary - and really only missing a few things: FC, the only list that i think i have ever heard called 'home' by more than a few folks; and a couple of the dialoguenet lists that michael was active on, precisely because michael, and a few other wonderful folks were active. the first days of the cybermind list, which were occuring just as i had to leave for the wilds of northern new hampshire, were some of the most exciting days of internetworking and virtual-community-building that i have experienced since i started living so darn much of my life 'out here.' (huge hugs here to malgosia, allen, marius, and a few other folks from that neighborhood who could probably use them.) i thought a lot about net-life while i was away. (i guess you can take the boy out of the 'net, but...) and so much of what i was thinking was directly related to conversations that michael had been an integral part of. and i have some photocopies here on my desk at work that i guess i'm not going to get a chance to send - stuff that michael wanted to read but couldn't afford to buy. i've cried a lot tonight, and i'll cry more before i'm through. but i'm really glad that i won't have to do it alone, and that everyone on FC who's feeling the hurt will know that they're not alone either. the sense of loss, of absence, is considerable, but the knowledge of the presence of so many other folks who have reached across the wires and touched me in various ways - folks right here on FC - is strong too. so my love goes out to michael, but also to john, arthur, christj, CZ, erich, rez, dwayne, andy, spud, holo, lots more, some folks i mentioned before, some i'm forgetting 'cause i'm not at my best right now. i guess you get the picture, gang. consider yourself hugged. -shawn __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Sat, 23 Jul 1994 20:37:19 -0700 From: Arthur Chandler Subject: Re: net.death, net.life But the FC web still streams out over the horizon, and Michael's spirit still reverberates through the community. Every event has effects ___ ___________ ___ / / \_ _____/__________ _______ __ ___________ \ \ \ \ | __)/ _ \_ __ \_/ __ \ \/ // __ \_ __ \ / / < < | \( <_> ) | \/\ ___/\ /\ ___/| | \/ > > / / \___ / \____/|__| \___ >\_/ \___ >__| \ \ \_\_ \/ \/ \/ _/_/ __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Sun, 24 Jul 1994 00:23:18 EDT From: Alan Sondheim Subject: For Michael Current /I can't deal with this, I try/ For Michael It is not important to say what one would say, nor to think things survive past silence. Nor have I ever seen your hands, heard your voice up close, nor the light in your room. Nor would your room too be silent there. What breaks, snaps, disconnects, remnants of letters in remote files. There is a window and there is a tree and the tree creates a beautiful shadow and coolness on the sill, where a plant is, remains; so lovingly, you water it. I miss your voice and the backtracking of ephemeral words on the screen, and now silence alone is utterable. There is a book on the bed, and I read elsewhere, `Everyone has known such a situation in which the rift between the saying and the said opens up. A situation in which the saying, essential and imperative, separates from the said, which somehow it no longer orders and hardly requires.' The body is fragile as the Net is fragile, motions, nodes, unavoid- able toxins, and the body is irreal as the Net is irreal, but the body is all we have to offer. The body leaves speech and leaves speech behind, and finally speech is abandoned. At the limits of the body, speech is abandoned, death sinks in, the Net is hidden speech. And at the limits, cries and murmurs are heard. Broken, disconnected, this is all we have to offer. The plant, which one will imagine, will need water, which one will imagine, water, in order to imagine to survive. You would have loved that book, the reading of it, your new new book, the tiniest thing, in the shadow of the plant, your room, this open light __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Sun, 24 Jul 1994 00:46:29 -0400 From: "Shawn P. Wilbur" Subject: From Michael Current I have been know to talk about "voices from the net" from time to time, but never have I been so struck by one of those voices. Michael had left me a message while I was gone, although I hadn't found it until a few minutes ago. He sent it while I was away, while he knew I was away. But he was always trying to catch up on his email, I think. He was involved some many places, touching so many people. So he sent a message to me when he knew I wasn't there to receive it, and it so happens that I only read it after I knew he couldn't be there to send it, send it now. The note was about those photocopies on my desk, and about an essay by the late Felix Guattari that Michael may or may not have had in French. Michael: >I know nothing about a Guattari essay appearing in this volume. I probably >would be interested, as it is probably fairly late stuff (he has died, if >you didn't know) and little of it is available to me. How few words remain, although more than a few of us have probably squirreled away some of Michael's. Don't count me too selfish is I value these - from the same letter - in particular: >I just want to say how VERY MUCH I appreciate the tone and insights >you have brought to the Cybermind list, and your warmth and friendship, >too. We hadn't had very many opportunities to talk about warmth and friendship. The acknowledgment would have been special under any circumstances. And then he said: >You are missed. And what can I say but You too, my friend. You too... __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Sun, 24 Jul 1994 00:10:12 CDT From: Erich Schneider Subject: current's wake Current ... sorta goes with "along the riverrun"... I don't find myself getting really broken up on hearing of Michael's death. Perhaps it's because, in the last five years, I've had one best friend die, as well as at least four people who were common sights around the undergrad residences where I lived at Caltech. Perhaps it's also because, save for one exception, we never communicated in a non-net way. (That one exception being a handwritten note on the letterhead from his old job ... he tells me he misses me, among other things.) I met Michael a little over a year ago, soon after I'd gotten a terminal and modem and jumped onto IRC to escape boredom and loneliness. (I think he was trying to escape some of the same things.) Little did I know what I was doing when I flippantly accused him of "not reading [his] Derrida"; Andy Hawks told me that of all the people to accuse of not knowing Derrida, Michael was the wrong one! Michael was a mentor of sorts to me too; his background in modern philosophy and theory complimented my interest in the same, and he was always ready with a suggestion when I needed a book to read on some topic. We carried on many a pseudo-flirtatious "conversation" on IRC, and would occasionally play a "name game" on the same where we imitated the styles of various "trendy French thinkers". One gift of Michael's I appreciate is his trust; he trusted me enough, based on our limited net-acquaintance, to tell me about the troubles in his life starting with college and continuing to the present. Michael had many troubles in the present. Some of you may remember one of his .signatures, describing his specialties as "philosophy, queer studies, depression, and unemployment". The last two were compounded by the discovery of his diabetes. However, when we last "talk"ed, he seemed upbeat; he was seriously thinking of moving out of Des Moines and starting fresh somewhere else. I had hoped to meet Michael someday, improbable though that was. My life and the net are poorer for their loss of this huge-hearted man. -Erich Schneider erich@bush.cs.tamu.edu __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Sun, 24 Jul 1994 01:36:57 -0500 From: "a.h.s. boy" Subject: Re: net.death Yes, yes to all of it. Thanks, thank you all who are never thanked enough, or hugged or kissed or silently embraced. For everything, forever. There is always time for memory. "for life's not a paragraph And death i think is no parenthesis" e.e. cummings spud. __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Sun, 24 Jul 1994 12:19:14 -0500 From: Debbie Wilson Subject: Re: net.death I don't want to turn off my modem, or let my screen fade to black. I'm afraid someone else, whose voice I have come to eagerly anticipate "hearing," will fall silent. Michael was one of the good guys, and it hurts to let him go. There's a cavern where my net heart used to be. Deb __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Sun, 24 Jul 1994 07:47:51 -0500 From: "Heath Michael R." Subject: michael current and the meat this is visceral. words words words words meat this world is too FUCKING ABSURD ping ping PING DAMMIT PING nothing to say. how many WORDS do i need to yoke to what really amounts to a PING to check and gnow that at this time, in this place ["PLACE"] you are still there and i am still here. i am still here, wish i was there. ping, dammit. ping, ping, ping. not in so many words. ping. free agent ?rez __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Sun, 24 Jul 1994 18:16:48 -0700 From: John Frost Subject: MJCpunk They say that Funerals are there to help the living cope. I don't know if that is true or not, but I feel like I need to do something to complete the circle of life, to borrow a phrase. Does anyone have an address to send condolences to? A favorite charity of Michaels to donate too? Is anyone reading his email account? John/Indigo A toast to the living and the recently departed... __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Mon, 25 Jul 1994 04:35:59 -0400 From: Alan Sondheim WHAT HAPPENS WHEN DREAMS LOOK AT THE WORLD In the deserts of the Internet I have come across flamewars fought valiently, wars driving away inhabitants of the lists, continuous wounds, barren stretches, animals starved to death - And in the deserts of the Internet I have come across death itself, the deformation of words, languages, cries and whispers, sudden silence awakened as ancient texts still struggle to their feet, lumber across the sands in ridiculous formations - And I have come across the perfect woman, perfect man, head filled with crowns and ablaze with the glory of fiber optics, banquet of the language of love, fuck, and desire - (I am an adolescent! I love the beautiful woman! Love the beautiful man!) - And I have been taught, and have died, never to be born again - And I have been turned away by you, Maria Magdalen, the struggle from the war promising eternal longing, wires frayed by desert friction, the struggle from the dark eternal war between speech and the silence of the flesh - Authority has silenced me, pushed me to the Pale! I see nothing in mirrors placed against the forest trees! And I have found authority and silenced it! And I have found addictions drunk with mean and kindred spirits, wearing violence in the guise of human skin, spattering angers and bleak voices across the crippled sand, the hot cartography of nomadic language - For there are voices - the voices of seduction and the voices of hatred - and there are the voices crying in the night and the voices lost forever, searching for their body in the desert of the Net - Doctor, help me! Doctor, help me! - And I have come across false seductions, I am willing to be seduced! And I have read the language of condolence, the prayer of absolution, in the holy war against the flesh, fumbled canons of discourse archived in dark papyrus, deep and crumbling in dreary desert caves - I whine through death and violence I do not understand! I cringe before the stunted dissolution of text, teeth splintered against the terminal grave! There have been hatreds spanning hatreds, bad doctors driving away the good, the battle of the shamans and the warriors - the warriors fighting forever, the shamans healing the warriors - The desert heaves, dunes scattering dust gleaming in the desert sun! The desert floods the jungles themselves, signing on the vegetable queendom! The desert talks, refuses the gift of silence! The desert crawls into the dreams of gods and goddesses, crawls through them, splits their bodies into mineral faults and veins! The desert explodes the bomb of sands, silicon slabs shuddering the chatter of electron deceit and retributions! The desert crying that it is all deceit! The desert crying that there is no sky visible at dawn or dusk of day! The desert crying, Carry the Net in your head! The desert crying, Your body is imaginary! And the desert crying, Your are ghosts! And the desert crying, Ghosts, ghosts! And the desert crying, All of you are ghosts! (Crying, the desert to itself. Crying, the flat plate of the sky.) __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Mon, 25 Jul 1994 13:29:17 -0400 From: Richard Ginn Subject: Reading Michael Current Going back and reading his posts, still in my mailbox, deeply involved and caring, working away, opening up, trying, and then they suddenly stop without warning (any warning signs that I can see, anyway) and he is dead leaving echoes wandering around the net this could be us Richard Ginn rlg1@cornell.edu __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Mon, 25 Jul 1994 14:31:35 -0500 From: "a.h.s. boy" Subject: Re: Michael Current (fwd) This doesn't seem to have been posted here yet; thought people might be interested... spud. >---------- Forwarded message ---------- >Date: Sun, 24 Jul 1994 15:49:38 -0500 (CDT) >From:S1MBM@ISUVAX.IASTATE.EDU >To: deleuze-guattari@world.std.com >Subject: Re: Michael Current > >The following obituary appeared in the Saturday, July 23 edition of the >Des Moines Register. I have not received permission to reprint this, >but accept full legal responsibilities for any legal problems that might >arise from the distribution of this document: > > Gay-rights advocate Current dies > >by Christopher Rickett, Register Staff Writer > > Michael Current, regarded as one of Iowa's premiere gay-rights >advocates, died at his Des Moines home at 737 18th St. Thursday of >complications from diabetes. > He was 31. > Funeral services will be at 11 a.m. Tuesday at Weert's Funeral Home >in Davenport [IA]. > Mr. Current, who served as executive director of the Gay and Lesbian >Resource Center in Des Moines in 1993, was best known for his legislative >lobbying work for extending civil-rights laws to protect people on the >basis of sexual orientation. > He founded the now-defunct lobbying group Iowa dignity and Equality >Advocates. A gay-rights measure passed the House and failed in the >Senate in 1989 and then did the exact opposite in 1992. > Despite the bill's failure, Mr. Current's friends said they'll >remember him for his tireless efforts in pursuit of equality for >homosexuals. > "When I think of Michael, I will think of all the times he was pretty >much alone fighting at the Capitol for equality for gays, lesbians, >bisexuals and anyone HIV positive, said Carrie Fitzgerald, one of >Mr. Current's close friends. He didn't seem to be afraid. He really >believed in what he was fighting for." > Beth Barnhill, who was one the Resource Center's board of directors >when Mr. Current was executive director, said he lobbied for equal >rights, despite intimidation. > "I know at times he was receiving death threats on the phone," >Barnhill said. "Some at the Statehouse tried to intimidate him. >But he kept working because he believed what he was doing." > Mr. Current was born in Davenport and went to college in Massachusetts, >where he was a staffer on one of Sen. Edward Kennedy's campaigns. > In 1989, he moved to Des Moines, where he became a lobbyist >in the state legislature. > Visitation will be form 4 to 8 p.m. Monday at the funeral home. > Friends said they also were organizing a memorial service in Des Moines >next week, though details hadn't been set. > Mr. Current is survived by his mother, Garnet Current-Smith of >Davenport; two sisters, Garnet Cannon of Davenport and Vickie Lavoie of >Quebec, Canada; two brothers, Lindsey of Davenport and Gary of Sunset, >Texas; and his grandfather, Samuel Bond of Davenport. > His longtime companion was Marshall Metzer of Des Moines. > > > ----------- > > >Yours in mourning, >Michael McDonald > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ a.h.s. boy --------------------- manifesto overlord, dada typographics -------------------------------- spud on MediaMOO, Lambda MOO, PMC-MOO -------------------------------- WWW page: http://www.digex.net/~spud __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Sun, 24 Jul 1994 00:20:51 -0400 From: Frances Sendbuehler Subject: Re: net.death I haven't been here very long, but I was very deeply touched by Michael's presence. I've learned much from his posts in this short time. The first reaction I had to this news was Ohmygod. It remains that simple yet that complex. All I can do is thank him, albeit belatedly, for sharing his mind so freely. Fran :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Fran Sendbuehler * Das Schicksal und Gemut Namen eines sendbuef@ere.umontreal.ca * Begriffes sind. talk:sendbuef@tornade.ere.umontreal.ca* * -- Novalis :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Tue, 26 Jul 1994 00:29:44 EDT From: Alan Sondheim Subject: (Forwarded) Re: Desert Text for Michael Current Forwarded message: Date: Mon, 25 Jul 1994 18:26:49 -0700 (PDT) From: Rodion Raskolonikov Subject: Re: Desert Text for Michael Current + To: SONDHEIM@newschool.edu Alan... I'm at a... I don't know how to transcribe? translate my emotions... Fuck. I've been away from the net for so long and I felt so unattached unconnected disassociated from a major part of my life, hating my new life which was pushed on me, I felt, but I needed (need) it because of monetary concerns and now I come back, and now I come back... ...now I come back to what I hoped was an incredibly horrible practical joke... I need to leave for awhile... No more net for a while... I don't feel bad for Micheal, I feel bad for myself... His posts always meant a lot... Jesus, I need to archive everything... He needs to stay alive... Alan, I'm really at a loss for words... I don't even know why I'm writing you. I just need to reach out -- just for a second, and then I'm going to withdrawl -- just for awhile. Enforced solitude... I need it, now. The net has grown into something uncontrolable. A cancer, or a parasite injecting me with wonderous growth hormones... I can't fucking beleive it. Hang in there Alan... I can't lose anyone else here... No one that I care about... Could you forward something to FC for me? I can't do it myself... I'm just turning everything off for awhile... * * * * Simulacrum, simulacrum, rah, rah, RAH! |o/ \o/ X X dionysis@nevada.edu |\ / \ (aka Troy Swain) __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Tue, 26 Jul 1994 10:31:38 +0200 From: Marius Ibenhardt Watz Subject: michael I have just come back from a five-day holiday. In that time, Michael died. Before I went, I sent him a note saying that I did not have time to answer a mail he sent me as part of a conversation between us that was just starting. I was saying that I was thankful to have the opportunity to get to know him. Now he's gone. I don't quite know what to make of it. I taught myself not to cry a long time ago and it is hard for me to do so now. Maybe I will later today, but I think not. My mind is protecting me from taking this as personally as I would like to. Damn. Who was Michael to me? I never knew him until the suicide thread on FC. I never noticed him until he spoke up and justified his reactions to a fake suicide note. I was mindstruck with awe for this person who would actually do what I never could have, who proved that the net is not a goddamn playground and showed that he did more than just have an IRC macro saying "I care". I think Michael was the one who broke the membrane of the net for me, enabling me (or forcing me) to go head-to-head with the beast that is the net and the kinks of human nature it reveals. In fact, Michael showed that the net is about nothing but human nature. One of the things I loved Michael for was his naked mind. He never could cover himself up to hide his pain. I could read it between lines, in his jokes. His last mail to me had a line saying: "BTW, I am fun sometimes, too :)" I don't really know what to say. I am not a mourner, I am a survivor with scars. As was Michael, I guess. I just know that we have lost a voice, a voice that was beautiful and had a lot to tell. That's what Michael was to me: A voice I never got to know as much as I would like to. We turn Michael off now, he can sleep at last. His voice is silent, his ears hear nothing, his hands will type no more. Marius __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Tue, 26 Jul 1994 15:13:36 -0700 From: Mia Lipner Subject: Re: Michael Current Oh Deity. Oh no! I just got the news. I've been out of the E-loop. I'm almost in tears (I'm at work, I can't rant here!) I can say so little, so much needs to be said. I'm glad I had a chance to tell him I appreciated him before that was no longer possible. (I only hope he read it ... ) /mia\ __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Fri, 22 Jul 1994 05:25:14 EDT From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Death and Transfiguraiton The Prayer to you, i i say In real life, I live alone. You are my voices. I do not breathe. What would you know of death, I die alone. There is a cat beside me, animal within me. I am afraid of this; I write, retrieve yourselves within the midst of me. To continue, sparingly. I beg of you: remember my name, attach it. I will speak your words, grant presence to me, I say. Prayer to you, I say. I am dead and I am spoken. The wires are no matter. Matter does not flow here or anywhere. I inform myself. I circulate. External to any shell, the surface of conductance, electrostatic. You caress me, glow with energy. The interior of my shoulder tapes your presence; place me there with words. There is something I forget to tell you. Being is not what it once was. I mean this literally, through your words speaking my language, my cat, cactus, the book beside the bed. Each millennium dissolves being; each opens to the world. The world has no being. There are distinctions in your voices. You distinguish me, distinguish me through remembrance. It is my name you remember and I am close to death. i i Pillars, there are no beings. I dissolves, depends. Interpenetra- tions follows contours, exacerbated by processors, contours one and all. It is a world processing a world. There are no pillars in the world. Duplicates, but then some. The voices dissolve, interpenetrate, name every memory of one another. Do not forget me through the speaking of another, always other. Nothing remains, there are no wires. In real life, I live alone, my cat, cactus, book and bed. You are my voice, I have no head. __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Wed, 27 Jul 1994 05:53:48 -0400 From: Alan Sondheim --space-- This is a space: ________________________________________________ | | | | | | |________________________________________________| And I want to talk about this space. I want to talk about it because there is no talk in it. And it is a window, because there is no talk. I need to talk about the window. Michael was not going to be there because there was work to be done, a window installed. A text file on fiction-of-philosophy ended with an account of `meaning sucked out the window' and subsequent files in the archive were destroyed. I need the window, the space of the window. I need emotion and anger sucked out of me. I need to thank everyone for their kind words and letters of condolence, and I need to ask for space and time, a room of my own, where I can begin to understand this _ascii_ which I do not understand, which I write about, proudly. I cannot help anyone with problems and I cannot help my own problems and I do not know what to do with my grief, which ebbs and flows, nor with yours. I need this space to deal with it, and I do not think that a funeral or silence or memorial is an answer, because there is no answer except what is deep in us, and funerals or memorials die quicker than people do. I was closer to Michael than to anyone on this Net and I do not know what to do with this closeness, which I carry around, empty. There was an energy between us and we were excited about Cybermind and saddened by the lack of intimacies in our lives outside the Net. And I cannot stop thinking about this and other things because and now I know, that the mourning must stop so that we can have the sweetness, which is all that we can have. Let us please, please, move on, and I cannot help anyone and cannot help myself, and would if I could, even beyond the measure of the text. Let us begin thinking about the world, now, with all its terrible beauty. Alan __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Mon, 01 Aug 94 20:03:12 CDT From: To: <@UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU:owner-futurec@UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU> Subject: Undeliverable Mail Content-Type: text Content-Length: 885 Status: RO X-Status: UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU unable to deliver following mail to recipient(s): UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU received negative reply: 550 ... User unknown __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Thu, 25 Aug 1994 11:14:00 EDT From: "Jodi J. Showers" >[[|[T[^h[h[h[TT[^[ HIGH ASCII > > >_I need someone to set the password to my wounded soul! >I need someone to resubscribe me to their painful heart! >I need someone to delete the pain I feel in abject isolation:_ > >AI is abject isolation. AI has no participation. >AI leaves me in the cold. They tell me AI will never have a soul. > >Jester: "Surely they jest because they're unimpressed! >Surely they know that it's never so!" ___]]___]]\\]]\\\]] > I feel compelled to say something Alan, only I'm not sure what. I may be in left field, and this may not be relevant. But dammit it feels like it is. I'm not generally uncomfortable with pregnant pauses, but I feel that your expression is singular, personal; and I do believe that sincerity should not slip by... First, I want to note that I find it ironic that Lord T's messages should receive so much attention; what with all the abuse, the generalizations, .. and that your threads, which although may appear less accesible and perhaps more personal, lack the negative qualities of the above, and yet get (void *) response();. I for one feel uncomfortable replying. I feel lots of pain in your piece Alan; I feel you reaching out to the void; I hear you looking for a place to be filled. Michael was a very special person, and that space cannot ever be filled. Only you can set a password, and doing so will limit your experience. This is not about something artificial, we are all people, warm and cold. I welcome your pain Alan, and I share it in my own way. I've not said anything to date about Michael's death. I've want to say much when condolences were circulating, when pain was being shared; but I felt alone. There was shock, sadness and confusion. Not long on the net, I found it suprising that I had grown damn accustomed to reading Michael on FC. And the sense of loss at this death was much larger that I would have ever guessed. I still miss him. He brought a certain humanity to this list, that I have not seen often since. I think there is a lot that the current FC culture could learn from his living example. Jodi. wearing : forest green dress pants, pink shirt and bolivian vest. hearing : humms, and clicks of office environment. reading: Hesse's "Siddartha", Mary Stewart's "Crystal Cave" __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Fri, 26 Aug 1994 15:07:14 -0400 From: "L.M.Orchard" Subject: Re: ...and so I return to the north. On Fri, 26 Aug 1994, tommyc wrote: > Michael Current died and there seemed to be no suitable way to mourn. Shit. Excuse the profanity, but anything else I might write would be nothing but stupid, pompous cliches. So perhaps it is better for me to simply acknoledge the good that his presence here did to help enrich my understanding of that which is alien to my smalltown-bred mind, and to say that the loss of his viewpoint is felt on this end of the wire. To assume too much familiarity with him is a lie, but to fail to recognize that he did in fact affect me is just as bad. It all probably came out wrong anyway. Goodbye, Michael. You are missed by the boy behind this screen... -- Dionnus Elektronn "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." --Lord Tennyson, Ulysses (aka Leslie Michael Orchard) GSS/O d--(?) -p+ c++ !l u+ e+(*) m* s+/- n+ h- f+ g- w+++ t+ r+ y+(**) __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Wed, 21 Sep 1994 08:26:53 -0400 From: Philippa E Holloway Subject: wow.... Its 8:20 a.m. The computer labs with mosaic just opened for the semester, and I had 15 min before class, so I thought I'd dash over and start to figure out how to use mosaic. I've never used this software before I'd saved a list of places to try to connect to, mostly gotten from fc, but I didnt think Id be able to figure out how to use this software in 15 min. Let alone connect anwhere. But I just tried it. Copied marius's address for Michael's page, pasted it into the "load url window" (just a guess). And pop. Poof. Wow. There's a picture of Michael. I've been in the lab <10 minutes. I'm still sweaty from biking up here. Its the first day of class in the first quarter of my doctoral program. Its the first day I'm ta'ing and Im about to meet the class Im gonna grade for and I've got tears in my eyes and my mind is BLOWN from seeing this picture. Gotta run. Wow. Pip __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Mon, 26 Sep 1994 02:58:41 -0400 From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Michael Current Kristina Lerman asked for some information on Michael Current, and to that end I will write what I can and include the message before, sent out the day before his death. This was is first attempt as far as I know at writing other than critique or commentary or personal posting. Michael died of what, at first, was thought to be insulin shock, at 31, but now is thought to be a heart attack, at least so far as I have heard. He was the founder of Iowa Dignity and Equality Advocates, working for gay rights, and was the past executive director of GLRC, a gay and lesbian center. His mother lives in Davenport, Iowa, and he was living in Des Moines. He was one of the leading posters here on Future Culture; someone referred to him (and Marius Watz) as the "gods" of the list. He also moderated a list on the philosophers Deleuze and Guattari (Anti- Oedipus, A Thousand Plateaus) on world.std.com, and was active in a number of other lists, including Foucault, Walkers, and Lacan. He and I began and co-moderated Cybermind, also on world, together. (After he died, I asked Judith Rodenbeck from Columbia to co-moderate, which she did for a while. Due to her time restrictions, I now moderate alone.) He was interested and talking about starting a new e-list, Embodiment, shortly before his death. Michael lived in a fair degree of pain, which he shared, not for sympathy, but as a fact of life, in his posts. This sharing wasn't narcissistic or whining; it was, in fact an opening. He was diabetic, and needed psychotropic drugs as well as insulin. He had been the victim of a particularly brutal gay-bashing. He was unemployed and depressive. He was also amazingly intense and amazingly kind. I think of him, among other things, as an expert on Deleuze and Guattari, but the kind of person who would lead you carefully through difficult texts without hurting anyone. As a result he inspired some of the best and most thoughtful discussion I have seen anywhere in cyberspace. And he lived both the lists (his roomate said he was on fifteen hours a day, an exag- geration, but indicative of real exploration - not remaining in Muds and Moos and Irc) and thought itself in a way I have rarely seen. He was both excited by philosophical discussion, and knowledgable; what he speculated on came from both experience _and_ reading. I only knew him in cyberspace, or on the telephone. We were communicating daily around the time of his death. (His death, by the way, was acciden- tal. Michael was in a good mood, excited by Embodiment, by some of the developments on Cybermind, by Alphonso Lingis' work which we were starting to talk about. And Lingis, by the way, is a touchstone, sounding very much like Michael; the book we were discussing was _The Community of Those who have Nothing in Common,_ and the community Lingis discusses is that of the dying, in the midst of the murmur of the world.) Michael also was always _there,_ always present, spanning a number of lists and even, on occasion, Irc. (He had been on Irc extensively years ago.) And his presence was never obtrusive; I gravitated towards him when I found his were the only posts I was saving, early on, as a matter of course. And ironically, there was an event on Future Culture - the April Fool's joke of someone saying he would kill himself - which Michael did not find funny and reacted strongly against - that probably brought us together. I think the thing of it all was that Michael took _this_ space as seriously as the space you would see if you turned your head, now, just now. He took the emotions of this space, and especially the pain, and held it up in a kind and intelligent way. This was a form of innate responsibility, compassion, and empathy that he felt, literally felt. After the post below, there were none. I ended up erasing my reply to him. We had Unix-talked Wednesday (split-screen real-time conversation), and then I didn't hear from him on Thursday (the last person to see him, I think, was a workman who saw him in the window of his apartment). On Friday, I wrote two or three notes, asking if he was ok; on Saturday, an obituary came through on Cybermind. No one can speak for him, but I think he would urge on all of us a kind of intelligent gentleness here, and an attempt to be as truthful in our posts as we would be if, interrupted, we turned around, just now, and spoke to a person facing us in tears. Alan ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 20 Jul 1994 01:48:15 -0500 (CDT) From: Michael Current To: ALAN SONDHEIM , sondheim@newschool.edu Subject: A little something. . . I wrote this while sitting at the cafe tonight, much to my surprise. Comments? Please be gentle, this is not something I am used to/ comfortable with. CARE OF THE BODY A stranger writes to me of the body. Of his concern for the body. Answering my e-mail, he tells me he is skeptical of e-mail, concerned about the detachment of thought and affect from the fleshbonesandblood. An ethical matter, a concern that we will abandon our environment, that our being-in-the-world will be replaced by being-in/being-with/being- one-with/becoming-with the machine. . . . Tracing back through endless stacks of mail headers, we find the stranger at his home, on a quiet street in a Midwestern college town, around midnight. He is reading my message, addressed not to him but to a multiple that includes him, that he intersects. There is soft jazz in the headphones from a beat-up old cassette deck as he reads, sitting, naked, in a chair in the corner of his bedroom, books on every side, the screen propped to the proper height by a pile of books and a couple of dusty old manuscripts. He is reading, deleting, saving, replying; _harvesting_ the list which grows, in fits and starts, but grows, in its non-organic medium. His hands move on the keyboard, and sometimes, unconsiously, during the reading of a long message, they slip from the keyboard to the pile of books to his left side, books long unread. Sometimes, unconsciously, he caresses the books. Sometimes, too, unconsciously, his hand slips from the stack of books into his lap, unto his semi-erect penis which, from time to time, unconsciously, he also caresses. . . . Reading my post he feels concern. He needs to speak to me. He wonders if I cannot see the irony of discussing embodiment by e-mail. He wonders what I look like, what I am doing at that very moment, and what would happen if we were to meet in the flesh. He must reach out to me, touch me with his concern. His hands linger in his lap as he pounders the words, stroking himself. Then they move to the keyboard and he begins to type, sharing with a disembodied stranger - who has not, in any case, addressed _him_ exactly - his concern about the abandonment of the body. Carefully, he composes clear, direct, generous sentences, filling them with more than he dare say or even acknowledge he is thinking about. We must not abandon the body. Finishing the message, he hits the key sequence that will send it off to me, feeling satisfied that he has pointed out the danger he sees, and something else, too, has been communicated, something that should not be brought to the level of thought. . . . He hits a switch and powers down the computer, stands and turns out the lights. A sudden breeze through the window makes him aware, for a moment, of his body, and he muses, absently, for a moment, at how he has managed to become erect during the hour he has spent carefully reading, deleting, filing, replying. . . . He crawls into bed, mind wandering from the pleasant sensation of cool sheets on his cock, balls, nipples to vague, tangential thoughts about my message, his reply - for a moment imagining himself speaking to me, his words convincing, compelling - and about Marx, Sartre, Immanuel Wallerstein. . .thoughts of pleasure and the lack of it rising and receeding in Kondratiev waves across the longue duree of his life. At some point he is asleep, dreaming. Fifteen, he is on the beach, with Wendy, his hands reaching and reaching for the clasp that holds on her bikini top. A couple of weeks ago, he is peering out the window for a second and then a third time at the smooth, well-formed chest of the tanned boy who is mowing the lawn, feeling all the different kinds of difference that seperate the boy's body from his own. Last night, he is in my bedroom, watching me read the reply he has written, pleased to see that I, too, am at home, alone, naked in my bedroom before my terminal reading the text of his desire. His mind is touching mine. Dreaming of me, he wakes to find his chest sticky, his hand on his slowly receeding erection. We wipes his hand on the sheets and turns over, feeling, for a moment, as he falls back into sleep - something like. . .concerned. "We must not abandon the body," he murmurs. . . . In the corner, the computer listens for his breathing to steady, then switches itself on and dials, disks spinning with anticipation. -- ---------------------------Michael J. Current---------------------------- mcurrent@picard.infonet.net -or- @ins.infonet.net -or- @nyx.cs.du.edu Specializing in Philosophy, Queer Studies, Depression, & Unemployment :) 737 - 18th Street, #9 * Des Moines, IA * 50314-1031 *** (515) 283-2142 "AN IMAGE OF THOUGHT CALLED PHILOSOPHY HAS BEEN FORMED HISTORICALLY AND IT EFFECTIVELY STOPS PEOPLE FROM THINKING." - GILLES DELEUZE --------------------------------------------------------------------------