Interzone report of December 2012 – January 2013

"Don't wait for your ship to come in; swim out to it...”

Paul O'Donovan

Hi all,

Best wishes for 2013:

From :

• • Galerie Ecritures: meilleurs voeux : http://interzone-news.blogspot.fr/2012/12/galerie-ecritures-meilleurs-voeux.html

  • Anthony Rousseau : http://interzone-news.blogspot.fr/2012/12/anthony-rousseau-meilleurs-voeux-2013.html

  • A. D. Winans: http://interzone-news.blogspot.fr/2012/12/ad-winans-happy-new-year.html

  • Jean Puijalon: http://interzone-news.blogspot.fr/2013/01/vux-de-jean-puijalon.html

Updates of Interzone sites:

In “La sémantique générale pour tous”:

• • A. Korzybski, livres et traductions http://semantiquegenerale.free.fr/doc.htm

  • Articles Sémantique Générale http://semantiquegenerale.free.fr/doc02.htm

  • Sémantique Générale et physique quantique http://semantiquegenerale.free.fr/doc06.htm

  • Sémantique générale et sciences humaines http://semantiquegenerale.free.fr/doc03.htm

  • Pour une économie non-aristotélicienne (blog) http://generalsemantics4all.wordpress.com/

  • Autres articles non-A http://semantiquegenerale.free.fr/doc05.htm

  • Bibliographie http://semantiquegenerale.free.fr/doc04.htm

  • Les différentes étapes de l'évolution de l'Occident: Aristote, Descartes, Korzybski, Trois visions de l'homme et du monde : http://semantiquegenerale.free.fr/Articles/evol_occ.htm

    • Extracts of «Science and Sanity» – French translation: Isabelle Aubert-Baudron: Translated with the permission of Alfred Korzybski Literary Estate.

  • Introduction (ch. III) http://semantiquegenerale.free.fr/Articles/S&SIntro.htm

  • Généralités sur la structure (ch.IV) http://semantiquegenerale.free.fr/Articles/onstructure.htm

  • Du symbolisme (ch. VI) http://semantiquegenerale.free.fr/onsymbolism.pdf

  • Réactions conditionnées aux niveaux supérieurs et psychiatrie (chap XXIII) http://semantiquegenerale.free.fr/Articles/reactions.htm

  • De la notion de simultanéité http://semantiquegenerale.free.fr/Articles/Simultaneite.pdf

The texts hosted in the site La sémantique générale pour tous are copyrighted. Though they have been reproduced in a number of sites, often anonymous ones, and highjacked from their original source, integrated in contexts without relation with general semantics. I regularly correct and update them, therefore the only reliable versions are the ones hosted in La sémantique générale pour tous and the blog Pour une économie non-aristotélicienne (blog) .

The structure of Interzone:

As foreseen in the previous report (Literature / Interzone Editions) here are some explanation on the structure of Interzone :

As a network of William Burroughs' readers, from the start (1997) Interzone had a specific structure : its members were related, at least for the most of the American and English members, by their reading and knowledge of Burroughs'work. As a result, they had a common base of reference which made possible exchanges resting on a common agreement and vision (see Interzone Manifestos http://www.inter-zone.org/manifesto.html ).

As a writer, Burroughs, who had followed Korzybski's courses, applied general semantics to writing through his literary work, in collaboration with Brion Gysin. As a result, they described and experimented new functions of writing which had not been put in evidence before in literature.

As a coordinator of Interzone, I applied GS to the management of this network, without refering to any management doctrine in economy, but applying the researches of the French biologist Henri Laborit on the structure of living organisms, based upon his application in biology of Korzybski's work :

• • A structure is the set of the relations between the different elements of a set.

  • For human domains of activities to be reliable, their structure must be similar to the structure of human organism, i.e. based upon relations of non-dominance, complementarity, interdisciplinarity, informative opening. Therefore, the ancient Aristotelian relations based upon dominance, competitivity, informative closure, which still structure our societies, institutions, models of management, etc., and more widely, our so-called human “sciences”, are not compatible with our organic structure and are doomed to failure. Knowing that, the only sensible possibility I had as an Interzone coordinator was to try something else. 

The results of this experiment can be found in the reports of activities (Interzone Reports) and the common accomplishments in writing (the anthology “The Time of the Naguals”) , music, arts in general (Interzone Creations), research (medical , economy , The Time of the Naguals: Tome 2: Research , Le Temps des Naguals: Autour de Burroughs et Gysin ) etc.

I would not say that those results confirm our expectations at the start of the network, as neither me nor anybody else had any expectation in the circumstance: Interzone was not foreseen nor planified; it started from contacts established through Malcolm Humes'memorial, The William Burroughs' Files , in the days following Burroughs' death. Now if somebody had told me then what would come out of it, I doubt I would have believed it. Interzone was an unforeseen and imprevisible factor, the results of which are, 16 years later, far beyond what we could have expected then.

In this context, considering the facts with the distance of those 16 years, in the framework of a scientific step, I can say that those result confirm the hypothesis of the start, i.e. the validity of general semantics in the structure and management of the network, and of Burroughsian domains of research, which escaped our understanding when apprehended through the angle of obsolete rationalism, but started to make sense through a quantic vision of mankind and the world.

More info on the structure: Alfred Korzybski: “Science and Sanity”: “General on structure” http://esgs.free.fr/uk/art/sands-ch04.pdf

Literature:

William S. Burroughs, Andy Warhol. Conversations

A new book by Victor Bockris : It's a great pleasure to read this book, which is kind of a new tome of “With William Burroughs”. Thanks to Victor Bockris for publishing it !

“William s. Burroughs, Andy Warhol. Conversations», translated by Jérôme Schmidt et Nicolas Richard, Éditions Inculte, 179 p., 16 €. http://www.inculte.fr/Conversations

In 1980, Victor Bockris organized and recorded four meetings between William Burroughs and Andy Warhol. Informal meetings that took place at the Factory and restaurants in New York. The Pope of Pop Art and the figure of the Beat Generation necessarily had much to say. Warhol and Burroughs, during these four appointments will make a tour of the Factory, discuss about the work Warhol had just finished, talk about everything and nothing, culture, sex, love, drugs and vodka-tonic. Sometimes other personalities invite themselves at their table. So Mick Jagger appears as a luxury guest star. Embellished with fifty photographs, “Warhol, Burroughs: Conversations” sweeps broadly the cultural landscape, captures the atmosphere, the excitement of the beginning of the 1980s and shows a budding friendship, a complicity between these two great figures of American culture. Victor Bockris is a journalist, he accompanied Andy Warhol in adventure of the Factory and has written many books and articles on this period and its main protagonists (Lou Reed, Andy Warhol, among others). He claims that it is Andy Warhol, who taught him how to conduct an interview. His advice: "Never prepare your questions. Do as if it were a cocktail. '

Vinyles Vintage de Jérôme Pintoux

One of the new books by Jérôme Pintoux, "Vinyles Vintage ", has just come out at the editions "Les Presses du Midi"