Re: <nettime> Heise and the truth about LB's seppuku

[Luther Blissett <luther@syntac.net>]

Dear Ashley Benigno,

you keep mistaking one thing for another, and now that I got your angry
response I suspect you may be doing it on purpose. I hope you're not.
You write:

>With all honesty, how can Luther Blissett, considering his essence and
>intentions, come out and speak THE truth about Luther Blissett. Is it
>actually possible to do so?

The paradox of censorship!

It depends on what you understand of his (her) "essence" (aaarrggghhh!) and
"intentions".

In the past years we've been dealing ad nauseam with such fundamentalist
misconceptions, by people who thought that Luther Blissett's main features
were secrecy and anonymity. Although those people never adopted LB's name,
they grew more fanatical than we ourselves ever were, and started to foster
such paradoxical censorship. 

Luther Blissett (sorry to disappoint you) is just a name, and it does have
very little to do with anonymity. If the latter were the most important
thing, why not refuse to use *any* name? No, man, the most important thing
was and still is mythopoesis. Since 1994, there was never any contradiction
in using both the multiple name *and* other names. I myself never did it
until the Five Year Plan was about to expire, but many people used to do it.

Now, don't I have the right to speak out - not as a Luther Blissett priest
(I hope they will never exist): just as *myself* (a man who has been using
the name for five years)- and honestly state that I'm gonna cease to adopt
that name, because I feel that after all these years it might become a
prison, "frozen style", a set of rules to comply with, that my experience
is over and other people will probably use the Luther Blissett moniker in
more fruitful ways? Several dozens of people decided to do the same. Who
are you to tell us what we may say and what not?

When I wrote that I should "set the records straight", I talked about *my*
records, because I am one of the authors of *Q* and you wrote a lot of
moronic innuendos about us.

But then you showed a fair amount of ignorance by citing this:

>"If you want to tune in to the Net's wave, you need to be initiated to its
>culture. It is a spontaneous and natural initiation. You can't be online for
>more than two days without finding out what a manga is, who the Simpsons
>are, what kind of philosopher's stone Trash promises, who William Burroughs
>is, and so on, without end"
>(p.27, Luther Blissett, net.gener@tion, Oscar Mondadori 1996)

Well, I suppose you're the only person who doesn't know what this text
(which I wrote myself) really is, why don't you read the truth (yeah, the
TRUTH) at: <http://www.syntac.net/lutherblissett/mondadr.asc>?

And you aroused my suspicions again by writing?

>First the auhtors of Q, now you
>
>>Roberto Bui, aka Fabrizio P. Belletati

If you're so in touch with the scene, how come you don't konw that
"Belletati" is one of those authors?

Bests,

R.

<http://www.syntac.net/lutherblissett>
A clear, thorough LB primer - last update: August 1999 - English

<http://www.LutherBlissett.net>
The (in)Complete Archives 1994-99 - Italian/English

<http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Leftbank/6815>
Luther Blissett and the "Huelga de Arte"(Art strike 2000-2001) - Spanish

<http://www.contrast.org/kg>
Luther Blissett and Kommunikationsguerilla - German


#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net