The dim light reveals the backstage and dressing rooms for the cheesy theatricals performed on the Moulin stage. The local dramaturge is hard at work on a skit entitled "A Theory of Electronic Writing." Fragments of script and diagrams are tacked all around the walls. A sandwich board advertising the play is partially finished:

THE BALLAD OF TEXTUAL DEPENDENCY, OR THE WORK OF CRITIQUE IN THE AGE OF DIGITAL INFORMATION

FEEL the heat as paradigms clash! THRILLS ABOUND as words, images, and sounds cast off their causal chains in a valiant struggle for freedom! IT'S A BATTLE TO THE FINISH as Aldus fights Aldus in the house of Adobe!

tcox and jbess are here, rehearsing.

tcox says: "Just as Picasso opposed the illusionistic "unity" of the representational image, I oppose the feigned "unity" of a narrative or argument. I envision a practice of writing that, rather than suturing the gaps within a narrative/argument, opens them up and explores the possibilities enabled by the "original" narrative/argument's fragmentation. MOOville lends itself to such a practice of writing. E-space isn't bound by spatio-temporal continuity; thus the links within a MOO-narrative are free d from such constraints of traditional logic.

jbess hands tcox a bouquet of roses.

jbess says: "In hyperspatial applications like MOOville, the traces of ideology purloined in everyday life are foregrounded. Students and teachers find the tools to interrogate life. We must recognize that reading is a constant activity, not restricted to alphabetic texts. We have begun to import and export the reading of spaces, images, and sounds into the paradigm of critical thinking.

You see a monument to Plato:

go to the analogy