[CX-L] literary politics and the 'beautiful disease'

[Kevin Sanchez]

{ the following is a complete chapter from william s. burroughs' novel, 
exterminator! - 1977, pgs52-4. i included one possible tagline below (though 
it can be run on both the affirmative and negative); it's basically a short 
morality tale about unintended consequences. i think it'd work very well 
with foucault and his criticisms of totalizing alternatives. if this 
interests you, see also: http://www.ndtceda.com/archives/200305/0067.html }
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"Johnny 23"

hillside over the sea. man sitting there on a cane seat . . . he is dressed 
in old-fashioned puttees green sport coat of English cut he has a sandy 
mustache stained with tobacco pale blue eyes . . . near him we now see 
several convulsed forms, the closest a few feet away outstreched hand 
clutching a handful of grass . . . the camera pans out convulsed corpses to 
the sky back to the man sitting there on his cane seat . . . the man takes a 
chicken sandwich out of a wicker lunch basket . . . "safe at last" he says 
and starts eating his sandwich . . . the man you see here is Doctor Lee . . 
. Doctor John Lee . . . he was a sensitive man and it lacerated him to walk 
streets and enter restaurants where he encountered living organisms 
manifesting wills different from and in some cases flatly antagonistic to 
his own . . . "the situation is little short of intolerable" . . . Rock Ape 
waiter there with the wrong wine . . . he was a timid man in a way you see 
and not able to fix the waiter with Mandrill eyes and ugly American snarl . 
. . "bring me red win you hairy assed Rock Ape or I drink it from your 
throat!" . . . now the doctor was a man of independent means and could 
usually avoid such disturbing incidents but the possibility was always there 
. . . this disturbed him and he was a man who did not like to be disturbed . 
. . he decided to end the whole distasteful thing once and for all by 
turning everyone into himself . . . this he proposed to do by a virus an 
image concentrate of himself that would spread waves of tranquillity in all 
directions until the world was a fit place for him to live . . . he called 
it the "beatiful disease" . . . his first attempts to activate the image 
meal failed . . . he realized of course that to administer a dead or 
weakened strain of the beautiful Lee virus would invite the disaster of mass 
inoculation . . . he had to be quite sure you understand . . . some of his 
"canine preparations" as he called test cases died in quite unpleasant ways 
that disturbed him for he was a humane man and did not like to be disturbed 
so these unworthy vessels only increased his resolve to make a better world 
. . . one day it occurred to him if perhaps the image meal were radioactive 
. . . he painted a culture of image meal with radium paint and put it in an 
iron box covered on the outside with layers of human skin and now he 
chuckled "let it steep" and made himself a cup of tea . . . he finished his 
tea and opened the box . . . "ladies and gentlemen of planet earth 
introducing 'Johnny 23'" . . . his cat hissed made an abortive attempt to 
walk on its hind legs and fell in convulsions . . . in its dying eyes he 
read an almost human hatred . . . he attributed the death of his cat to a 
short circuit of overburdened synapsis occasioned by a too rapid conversion 
to the human condition . . . "now we must find a worthy vessel" . . . 
remember the good doctor was a humane man who did not like to harm anyone 
because it disturbed him to do so and he was a man who did not like to be 
disturbed . . . he had convinced himself that "Johnny 23" would simply 
remove from the planet hostile alien forces manifesting themselves through 
other people that this would come about through peaceful penetration in the 
course of which no lives would be lost . . . "Johnny 23" would simply make 
friends of everyone . . . the doctor was not a man who argued with himself . 
. . the first public appearance of "Johnny 23" demonstrated a miscalculation 
. . . worthy vessels clutched at an often imaginary mustache and fell in 
convulsions looking at some invisible presence black hate from dying eyes . 
. . "Johnny 23" was one hundred percent fatal . . . the good doctor had a 
spot of bother a narrow escape in fact when the worthy vessels found out who 
"Johnny 23" is . . . fortunately the epidemic was well advanced by that time 
and "Johnny 23" finished the job . . . he finishes his sandwich and licks 
the grease off his fingers . . . he puts a cigarette in a stained bone 
holder . . . he sits there smoking . . . it is very peaceful there on the 
hillside nothing to disturb him as far as the eyes can see he gets up folds 
his cane seat and walks down a path toward the sea . . . his boat is moored 
by the pier . . . it is a small boat and he can handle it alone . . . last 
awning flaps on the pier . . . last man here now.

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{ The affirmative case tries to fiat an end to the antagonistic differences 
which it considers intolerable, to make friends of everyone, to remake a 
peaceful world in our own universal image. Yet if we're too certain to argue 
with ourselves, if we're undisturbed by our past mistakes or our utopian 
futures, then like the humane Doctor Lee, we may find ourselves only too 
safe at last under the ugly reign of the Pax Americana.

... welcome any comments, queries, rebukes here: 
http://www.cross-x.com/vb/showthread.php?t=949109                  .k 
(kevin.sanchez at gmail.com) }