the ticket that exploded-1

Well this is quite an interesting read. I hate it when I read this book, it feels like my comprehension level is at 0. And I do actually read a lot so it should come easy to me. But this book does not at all. Its the hardest read of my life. I keep trying to get into it but I feel like once I do the author just goes off on a random tangent which has nothing to do with what I was just reading, and I'm back to square one.





One thing that I thought about during Tuesdays discussion (1/20/2009) was the idea about disease and computers. But I'm wondering why you can get rid of a 'virus' on a computer, but when you get a virus such as Mono or HIV you are stuck with it forever. your body will have to produce antibodies against it but you are always a carrier of that virus. But for computer virus's you can get anti-virus spyware and it will most likely get rid of all the traces of the virus on the computer.


Which brings me to another point of who creates virus's for computers anyways? There is that theory out there that companies like McAfee (sp?) and the virus software companies pay people to create virus's so people have to buy their product. Think about it though, why in the world would anyone make a virus? someone in their free time would want to ruin peoples computers if they couldn't make any money off of it. That's what doesnt make sense to me.





Burroughs believes the virus is language? In the chapter "operation rewrite" he said "the word is now a virus" and talking about how you can not have 10 seconds of inner silence and an organism will force you to talk. and the organism is the word. It is strange to me how the author goes from saying it is a virus to begin with, and then changing the word to an organism.


I feel like the author also refers to sex as a virus. that is something the hasn't escaped from the whole book. it is something looked at as unavoidable between everyone and everything. Like a virus has overcome everyone, and no one can not have sex, or no one can not want to be loved.


So what do you do to get rid of this virus? You cant silence it.



What i dont understand either is why the author puts these alien creatures in such realistic and humanistic settings. like in the chapter combat troops in the area, he has the alien creature in a bar playing pinball. and then the pinball machine is able to tell him that there are combat troops coming to the area.



The authors grammar is i think supposed to give away a lot in the book. on page 103 when the Scorpian Electrials is screaming and says "Show me your controller quickly-or i kill-" I think its interesting the way the author made it a point to capitalize the name of the creature "Scorpian Electrials" and gave it a proper name and used correct grammar when saying its name, but then when the author has the Scorpian Electrials speak, when it says "I" it is lowercase. I think that the interpretation of that is to show that humans are the only significant beings. And they are 'smaller' then human beings. Or who knows maybe im making a big deal over nothing, and the author just forgot to hit the shift key, and the publishing company thought that he meant to do it because the rest of his writing is so weird, it just fit. And as I skim through the book and look for these lowercase 'i's it becomes apparent that he uses the lowercase i's half of the time and the uppercase "I's" Im sure there is a point to this, I just cant figure out what it is.

I think its funny how on page 129 in the chapter 'the last round over' the author makes a reference to "ghost rectums of cotton' as if ghosts were actually like they are on Halloween with a white sheet over them and two cut out holes for eyes. And then the next sentence he goes to talking about semen. So its almost as if he is going for a joke saying cotton ghosts leave behind cotton balls, and then he talks about something so mature and utterly un-funny its weird. I think its strange how the author just makes transitions between different subjects and expects his readers to be able to be on the same train of thought that hes on. Like does his book make sense to him? Did he make any rough-draft to this book or did he just wing it the whole thing?

I personally do not like the style of writing of the author. I believe anyone could talk about aliens have sex, and semen and weird things such as that and make it into a novel that noone understands.

Overall I personally did not enjoying this book. I just feel like I wasnt able to get hooked by the book, I didnt understand any themes or plots that was going on because the author would change subjects on me too often so right when I was understanding something he was saying, he would switch gears on me. It was interesting though, I would love to have a conversation with the author and find out what was running through his head when he was writing certain parts in the book.