I apologize for the rant...

I have heard the POE album, it was more art and creepy noise than music. Clips both of her brother reading House of Leaves and their father, as well as clips of her as a child. Freud would have a field day with that family I think.

I know you asked for a blog on Writing Machines but I kept thinking that for some reason a regular email doesn't do the book justice. Just after I read it, I wanted to write letter with the script all over the page in random colors and fonts, I'm not even sure why. I also thought that I would put in random web links that are somehow poetically connected to who I am, but might not relate to the work on the whole.

Would those aspects of a written "work" even if they aren't totally understandable by the general public, still make it art/literature? This is what question came to mind as I was reading Hayles' section on "Lexia to Perplexia." Being a novice at html language, I was baffled by the work. I went online myself to see if by playing the game/book I could better understand it, but no luck. The open and close carrots mean nothing to me in terms of their interrelatedness. It is nifty because of the graphics and computer animation, but I think somehow I'm missing the point by not being familiar with the lingo. Of course, my understanding doesn't grant something artistic intergrity, I happen to be a fan of "Jackass" and other such televised expressions of youth culture, but most find that to be the last thing that would be called art.

According to Hayles, "Lexia to Perplexia" is a comment on the loss of the individual to the machine through interactions that accumulate to subsume the self. I was reminded of the book Neuromancer and the power that 'jacking in' held for the protagonist. It was a total loss of body sensation to the point of death; an embrace of the freedom of nothingness in the internet. As a video gamer, I know what it is like to lose hours and bodily awareness while engaged with the screen. As fun as it is, it is also very eerie. This loss of reality is a sense that Danielewski explores as well, through his many characters and ultimately in the house that creates nothingness. I have to say, his book was one of the most psychologically frightening visual interfaces that I have encountered in years.

-Corey