Ccru Writings 1997-2003 Time Spiral Press 2015 timespiralpress.net
[email protected] Foreword This volume gathers together finished texts written under the Ccru name. Excepting pieces that have been irrecoverably lost, it is – to the best of our understanding – complete. The material it compiles has been accessible in other places before, primarily on the Ccru website, but also in certain cases elsewhere. This is the first time that it has been brought together in a book. The Ccru website has flickered in and out of existence over the last decade (or more), without anybody in the old Ccru circle fully – or even tentatively – grasping how this facility has been sustained, or accepting responsibility for its preservation. It now appears to have disappeared permanently. This terminal submergence of the principal Ccru archival deposit has prompted the present publication. There is nobody positioned to accept attribution for the ‘work’ of the Ccru, nor has there ever been, so this compilation has been guided by a principal of editorial modesty. Whatever it is that occurred ‘here’ – during these years of the Numogram’s initial ingression into recent human history, triggering an outbreak of digial hyperstition – is not considered a matter to be resolved in this volume, even in part, through retrospective commentary. This book is sheer documentation. It is not expected to clarify anything, but much rather the reverse. The order and grouping of materials is roughly topical. No attempt has been made at consistent chronological reconstruction. All editorial commentary and notes attached to these texts belong to the original. Editorial intervention has been restricted to syntactical regularization (with a bias towards logic over convention). On occasion, some signs have been added to mark breaks in passages originally separated only by spacing, and the definite article has been added to some titles. Otherwise, stylistic infelicities, factual errors, conceptual absurdities, and ethico-political monstrosities have been left undistubed. Although original (to the Ccru site) the Ccru Glossary has been categorized as an appendix due to its extremely general application. The second appendix (on TV demonism) belongs outside the timeframe and micro-sociology of this collection, but was attached due to its obvious – and extreme – pertinence. The Tale of the End There was a time when Murrumur asked Katak and Oddubb a question, and although this was very long ago it was the last question she has ever been known to ask. It was Ummnu – the last of the demons who provoked this question, since Murrumur felt her to be always nearby, and yet never ceased to be confused by her, so that eventually she asked: “How can the end be already in the middle of the beginning?” So this was Murrumur’s final question – and probably also her first – but it was no use at all. Neither Oddubb nor Katak has ever noticed Ummnu – because she is half hidden in the depths of Murrumur, and half hidden deeper still – so Oddubb was puzzled, and said nothing. Katak – however – found Murrumur’s question extremely irritating, and replied scornfully: “What nonsense! I have travelled around forever, and there was never any suggestion of an end, or of a beginning.” With those words she swirled off, as if returning to her lair, but secretly to patrol time again – which was also the first time – just to be sure. After that Katak was more sure than ever that she was right, or at least no less sure, and that was very sure indeed. Oddubb was so perplexed that she soon became muddled about what it was that had perplexed her, and so forgot all about it, and probabl