sumwhere between the nation's capital + NYC

Dear Internet (a.k.a. Here Comes Everybody),

Woke up in DC ... 14 Nov 2014. Our position in place + time. W/in the District of Columbia we caused our bodies to move round the city + look at stuff (tho unseasonably frigid + we came ill-prepared) ... at architecture + landscapes + peepole. Occasionally stopping to fuel up on hot food.

The streets in DC carry names of other places—U.S. states ... the major streets anyway, running parallel to a grid assigned w/ letters + numbers.

Case u didnt notice, since the last post revert us back to avoiding the verb to be ... inspired in part cuz the parrot in us be mimicking the style of peepl (predominantly of African-American descent) occupying the place we in, but also cuz transition us back to the mindset of continuing The Becoming (in which we not 1x used the verb to be). Not that know us yet what we gonna say ... thinking more bout how we gonna ssey it.

«Show pics or it didnt happen»—seems the mantra of the day ... we'd oblige (re: DC) but the city not so photogenic ... + just us there last year.

Waited for our better-½ to become done w/ what came she to do + diagonalled us together now down Massachusetts Ave to Union stn. Waited w/ the horde til the bin # called then joined the swarm to vacate empty seats ... local commuter train back to Baltimore. Don't ask why ... in the scheme of things, again, place + time all that matters. Didn't take pics either from the train cuz getting dark + sure we've shown blurry autumnal pics out a train before.

Just in time for happy hour ... our hotel (pier 5) even hired sum court jester type w/ a clownish hat for the occasion ... what struggling artists in Baltimore have to do for gainful employment, helping to «keep Baltimore weird» ... but weird not so weird when u trying, fool.

Ate at sum Italian place in «Little Italy» undoubtedly for laundering mob money. The poor schumuck who gets sent by the Jersey boss to manage a restaurant down in Baltimore. Didn't matter what u ordered, most everything resembled fettuccine Alfredo (which D.N.E. in Italy). Back to our hotel, crowded w/ kids dressed for sum sort a prom ... or maybe kids just dress like that every friday night we wouldn't know. Couple in room next to us comes back drunk after 12 pm fighting in the hall + slamming doors. Fighting continues in the room ... screaming + yelling at each other til the sun came up. Slept w/ a pillow over our head for the 3^rd night in a row ... have us less + less tolerance for noize as the years go by. Like Schopenhauer. What's wrong w/ people anyhow? Night before in DC heard a couple yelling + fighting in the hotel ... sumthin to do w/ hotels or do couples also fight this way at home? Or maybe they inspired by that scene in Godfather II ... «It wasn't a miscarriage ... it was an abortion.» (—we can use the verb to be there cuz we quoting) ...

«... an abortion, Michael. Just like our marriage is an abortion ... something that's unholy + evil. I didn't want your son, Michael. I wouldn't bring another 1 of your sons into this world. It was an ABORTION, Michael. It was a son—A SON—+ i had it killed cuz THIS must ALL END ...»

... the whole while a cigarette burns in Pacino's right hand. Even when he hits her (w/ his left) then slumps onto the couch. Couples in hotel rooms round the world presumably having this same fight, over + over. Anywho, woke up + flâneured round sum cuz our better-½ didn't get the chance to see much the 1^st time thru ... + in lieu of our regular Maphattan Project:

On the train read Instant of My Death/Demeure: Fiction and Testimony by Maurice Blanchot/Jacques Derrida. Instant of My Death = just a 3-pg short story by Maurice Blanchot. The rest of the 114-pg book = Derrida's waxing engagement w/ the story (+ this = our engagement w/ his engagement). As the sub-title implies, Derrida's 97.4% of the book = a treatise on fiction + testimony ... «the context of the relations between fiction and autobiographical truth. Which is also to say, between literature and death.» The death he specifically refers to here, Paul de Man. Despite the recent allegations as to De Man's anti-semitism, the 3 (De Man, Derrida (a Jew) + Blanchot (a staunch anti-anti-semite)) always seem contextualized together (even in our 'SSES" 'SSES" ^"SSEY" (due from the printer any day!) they appear together, often on the same page) in a sort of bizarre love triangle (typically contextualized over the topic of death).

Derrida seems to always reflexively refer to the language he uses (French—the essay originally delivered as a lecture in Belgium—De Man's turf + also a country contentiously divided by language) so strange to read translated in English.

«This instant, at this very instant, I am speaking French, we are speaking French. This is testimony. And this instant, as I am saying this, I pass and I have already passed from I to you. I am speaking French, we are speaking French. I can only say I am speaking French if it is assumed, as soon as I speak, this instant, in this very instant, that someone here, now, at least someone is able to understand this language that I call and is called French, and [...] I am not only speaking French, I am saying that I am speaking French. I am saying it in French [...]»

What all does this mean in English? Elsewhere he talks about a similar passage in another book so self-referential in regards to its own lingual bootstraps that in the translation omitted them the passage altogether, deeming it useless or unintelligible ... perhaps could've them done the same here. Sometimes Derrida gets so stuck in these navel-gazing reflexive feedback loops that it = a wonder he ever gets out of bed in the morning or to travel tween pts A + B (which he did w/ frequency).

It all boils down to testimony ... why we write. Why blog us here, w/ u—Internet—to bear witness.

unoccupied carry out

«There could be no witness—not only no witness who attests, who bears witness—without speech act, of course, but above all without someone who can be assumed to have at least a sufficient mastery of the language. This is an endless problem, a dramatic problem whose critical, political and juridicial dimensions it is not necessary to underline. To what extent can this competence be shared? How and on the basis of what metalinguistic criteria can it be evaluated?»

Intresting his choice of words—competence—in light of our entering the state (in the name of Raft Manifest) of conscious incompetence ... this after method-acting 2012-2013 (in the name of The Becoming) here on 5cense in a practicing state of unconscious incompetence (et aussi sans utiliser le verbe être). Not that begin to speak us again here in Chinook jargon ... kumtux wake de language. Not sure yet what means «conscious incompetence» ... tho seems a lot more straightforward then becoming unconsciously so. Does it mean we aware of our birth + how to make babies but not yet of impending death? Essentially the state of 97% of adult humanity?

Like the title word ... demeure ... per google translator it means «residence» but per Derrida (in typical etymology-crazed mode) the meaning depends on context— sumthin we cant grasp w/ our limited French. Demeure could mean abode or also abide ... as in the dude abides. Remains, stays put ... in the crib. Even what it phonetically sounds like to anglophones—demure ... soberly shy, but seeped in reserved, from old French demoure, past participle of demourer ‘remain, stay’ in turn influenced by old French mur ‘grave,’ from Latin maturus ‘ripe or mature.’

Not lots of abiding in the blight of Baltimore.

Far from the land of ...

Stopped at the above cafe for coffee + to warm up then to the train station to stationarily flâneur stroboscopically flickering (ala dreamachine):

(still dont know why they paint landscapes in NJ ... to condemn?)

It matters not what Blanchot's story = about ... Derrida never even goes into the plot. Sseys he sumthin intresting in response to lines spoken by a character in the story— a writer tells another about a manuscript seized by Nazis ... no big deal, just reflections on art «easy to reconstitute» ... whereas a true work of art cannot be reconstituted. Perhaps this should = the definition of literature—sumthin not about sumthin, not readily reconstituted (or for that matter translated). The other day we thawed along these lines in re: plays (walking thru the theatre district) ... what in particular like us not about them. Besides it just seeming like a pain for the actors to have to go thru it every night over + over (+ we in the audience feel bad + awkward) ... to recreate the piece becomes more like craft rather than art. Loses its significance as testimony. Performance can = testimony or art, but question us this when the same spiel done nightly, becomes routine. Why not just capture it on film or on paper + move on? Even in our music phase, obsessed us more over recording, not playing live.

Speaking of Chaulky White + Baltimore, it seems Omar from The Wire has usurped our name ... he = Chalky White in Boardwalk Empire (not that ever we watched it ... tho now we got a reason)—Michael Kenneth Williams IRL.

will the real Chaulky White please stand up

now heading home thru NJ

± speaking of Derrida (whose Archive Fever u could perhaps sey gave rise to our Ark Codex ± 0) ... been continuing w/ our archival genealogy project. 2 posts ago we summarized our genographic data spanning ~5,000 to ~70,000 years ago w/ the promise to continue the double-helixed thread into more recent years. Not that we plan on becoming that creepy uncle obsessed w/ genealogy ... but fascinate us it does. Our angle perhaps diffrent than most in that we dont have kids + dont intend to so investigate us the bloodline we intend to sever.

Surely nothing we proud of ... for the most part WASP American thru + thru. When in grade school they tasked us w/ doing a report on the country from where came our ancestors we had to do ours on America. On both sides, couldnt get us past the United States ... on our father's he could go back as far as Pennsylvania + on our mother's, California + Utah. But before that?

As we mentioned in the last post, they (National Geographic) deemed a genetic correlation for us w/ Spain + Portugal + Russia ... + by virtue of our surname (White on our father's+ Collins on our mom's) u could assume sum sort of anglo-euromutt heritage. 1 thing u, Internet, have enabled peepl to do—easily trace their genealogy w/ a few clicks of a mouse. Our genographic study came w/ axess to sum site forget what but rather useless ... but yesterday signed us up for a free trial on ancestry.com to find what we needed to find out (+ then cancel before we got charged). If u haven't had the pleasure, its pretty nifty ... all u have to do, put in a name or 2 + it automatically starts populating links based on data other genealogy geeks have entered + next thing u know u get hooked into the web (of lies, perhaps) + your tree has xpanded out 100s of years ...

What we wear on our skin, beneath the «I Exist» shirt we showed us wearing in the last post:

Which reminds us ... still need to add Remus + Romulus suckling on our Chinook wolf tat + add a «u r here» to 1 of the branches of our bellied phylogenetic tree. Forgive us father, been a while since we got inked.

While we sad to ssey (contrary to what we'd been told) cant trace us our paternal lineage to the 1 + only Peregrine White (sposedly the 1^st known pilgrim chile born in America), we do have plenty of incestors born in Plymouth, Massachusetts—e.g. Sarah Rogers in 1625, whose parents (despite the speculation if u google round Internet) our family tree says come from Rhode Island circa 1589 ... so not sure what xactly it means that Peregrine White = 1^st English «pilgrim» child born in U.S.? Have us quite a few relatives born in the U.S. in the early 1600s .. + both the grandparents of Sara Rogers (our g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-grandparents) came born (circa 1550-1560) + died in England, so not sure how this = possible unless sailed them to the U.S., made babies, then went back to England to die. We have another set of g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-grandparents where this = the case (they (Robert + Rebecca Bennett) both came born in the U.S. (in 1618-1620) but their parents came born + died in England.

Following our White line down thru the fathers leads to 1 of our more recent points of entry into the U.S ... John White, born in Ireland in 1760 + died in Pennsylvania ... our great-great-great-great-grandfather ... his wife (Catherine Sproul, our g-g-g-g-grandmother) also born in Ireland.

Our other nomadic points of entry into the U.S. of America (on our father's side):

• Our g-g-g-grandfather John Wilson, born in Ireland in 1826, died in Oregon
• Our g-g-g-g-g-g-g-grandparents John Strawbridge + Jane Miller, both born In Ireland in 1715 + died in Maryland
• Our g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-grandfather James Maffitt, born in Scotland, died in Pennsylvania
• Our g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-randfather Richard Knight (married the above mentioned Sarah Rogers), born in 1589 in England, died in Rhode Island

So for the most part (on dad's side) we = Irish w/ a bit of English + Scottish. + all 4 of our paternal great-grandparents from Oregon come (their parents came on the Oregon trail in search of/escaping who knows what). In between that, they seem to have come thru Pennsylvania, Maryland + Rhode Island ... nothing terribly unusual or intresting, specially to the casual reader ... + obviously u got to take this data w/ a grain of salt + most of the lineages (24) we can trace a little ways back w/in the U.S. but cant determine where the heck they came from before that.

our g-g-g-grandfather Elisah Harding (born 1828 in PA, before shifting to OR)

our g-g-g-grandmother Hannah Dickey (born 1845 in PA)

our g-g-g-grandfather Joseph White (born 1825 in PA)

On our maternal side however, things become different, cuz her mom born mormon ... + mormons = freaks about genealogy cuz 1 of the core tenents of the mormon cult says they can baptize u once dead, w/o your permission or knowledge. Sure our mum might read this + take it personally (she has fond memories of her mormon cousins (as do we)), but sorry, we not dissing mormon people, but their so-called «faith», the institutionalized cult that so overzealously needs to convert non-mormons. No matter how u slice it this = fucked up ... posthumously baptizing Jews that died in the holocaust?! Try to posthumously baptize us + come us back from the dead to eat your unborn children!

Anywho ... the only benefit to this deeply embarrassing mormonic legacy—meticulous records them mormons kept. So in the spirit of Derrida + testimony (for surely what says more than place vs. time + the surnames we carry), in thinking bout constructing our Raft Manifest (+ also for the sake of our brother Chaulky, seemingly plagued by this blood legacy we carried, ever in pursuit of where came us from), compiled us this list of our relatives (on mum's side) at the xing point they immigrated to America ...

Chaulky White's points of entry (on maternal side) into the U.S.:

* appear in our table x2 ... i.e. sum inbreeding going on, peeps marrying cousins (in 1 case only 2x removed...)

All in all, the tally:

# of 1^st generation Gⁿ-parents we have born in America: 167

... those accounted for anywho, even w/ this comprehensive LSD—err... LDS data there exist gaps + dead-ends + likely questionable guesswork/fudging ... + again, this all if believe u the cult—err... church of LDS ... perhaps they on LSD, wanting to stuff the ballot boxes w/ made-up names so more souls they can save. For that matter, who can say how many mormon relatives have us really ... perhaps them only deemed mormon posthumously.

Still, essentially a good portion of the pilgrims in Mass (mostly in Plymouth + Middlesex) + Jamestown, Virginia we can trace ourselves back to. S.O.S.

+ the country of origin breakdown:

# of Gⁿ-parents emigrated from England: 163
# of Gⁿ-parents emigrated from Ireland: 25
# of Gⁿ-parents emigrated from Germany: 17
# of Gⁿ-parents emigrated from France: 6
# of Gⁿ-parents emigrated from Scotland: 6
# of Gⁿ-parents emigrated from Wales: 5
# of Gⁿ-parents emigrated from Switzerland: 3
# of Gⁿ-parents emigrated from West Indies: 1

Earliest year a Gⁿ-parent of ours comes born in the U.S. = 1605 (John Baynham, born in Jamestown, VA ... tho according to this his parents didnt arrive til 1616 + he also born in England). But if not 1605, 2 others come born in 1608.

Dare ssey us we also distantly related to this Col Richard Lee I, the largest landowner (w/ that comes slaves) in Virginia + g-g-g-g-grandfather of Confederate general Robert E. Lee + great grandfather of President Zachary Taylor?

Col Richard «the immigrant» Lee

Most recent Gⁿ-parent whose parents come foreign born = 1858 (Sarah Giles, our g-g-g-g-grandmother). Her spouse (likely she = 1 of many)—Lorin Farr ... 1^st mayor of Ogden, Utah. Farr's parents (our g-g-g-g-g-grandparents), from New Hampshire + Vermont (born 1794/99, both in Utah died):

(Olive Hovey the 1 whose parents = cousins 2x removed)

... which also means related us distantly to John Smith .. the 1^st prez of the church of LSD ... + our g-g-g-g-grandfather = John Taylor, 3^rd prez of the LSD church ...

John Taylor, born 1808 in England, died in Utah

+ check out the painted-on eyebrows of his son (our g-g-g-grandfather), Richard James Taylor (of Utah, of course):

Richard James Taylor (1848-1905)

Cant believe we admitting all this to u, Internet ... probly LDS spys gonna hunts us down try to steal our souls.

our g-g-g-g-grandfather John Pendleton Gaines
(born 1816 in Virginia, died in California)
(perhaps where derive us our bad-ass stare)

our g-g-g-g-grandparents Samuel Ball + Belinda Wilson
(born in Pennsylvania 1820-21)

our g-g-g-g-grandmother, Louisa Ward, born 1808 in Virginia,
then made the journey to Utah by covered wagon in 1864

our g-g-g-g-g-grandmother, Anna Bannerman, born 1786 in Scotland, died 1871 in Utah

our g-g-g-g-g-g-grandfather Zerubabbel Snow (1741-1795) whose g-grandfather
(our g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-grandfather) = John Snow (1638-1706) ... not to confuse w/:

... the last 4+ generations of incestors, all born in the U.S ... not sure even NJ boss Springsteen can make this claim. Not that we at all proud of all this crusty whiteness (tho Zerubabbel Snow = a pretty bad-ass handle). What up w/ these in-breeding homebodies? Between 1605-1858 not a single peep wanted to up + leave the U.S. or marry some 1 foreign/non-WASPy? Xcept 1 Gⁿ-mother who died in Guatemala ... evidently a Bahá'í missionary. All this time + not 1 fell in love w/ say, a Tillamook or Nooksack? Exist there plenty of dead ends + peeps of dubious or unknown origins, so if, say sum hanky panky w/ slaves went down we can't say fo sure cuz likely sum shamefull supressing going on. 1 dude (Higginbotham) came via Barbados, West Indies, but before that Sussex ... more likely a slave-owner than a slave (tho in the next post show us some of his descendants + u decide).

Again, say who the accuracy of genealogy data, not just cuz of mormons cooking books, but generally peeple inclined to lie ... all peeps have skeletons in closets. No science has geneaology ... not looking at genes ... call it fuckology rather. Say who our grandmother had a portuguese sailor on the sly + our cuckolded grandfather couldnt tell the difference? Or that our other grandmother IRL = a Russian mail-order bride + our grandfather gave her a WASPy identity to appease society? How else to xplain our genographic data saying high correlation w/ Spain/Portugal/Russia but not a single 1 accounted for in our fuckology? As a scientist, we more inclined to believe genes, not who got into whose jeans ...

Regardless, truth = we shamefully Anglo all-American. As Diane Keaton (Kate) well knows, the only way to stop the madness = abort ... or not propagate the madness to begin with.

While we walked around DC, Minor Threat tunes kept popping into our head ... along w/ Bad Brains. Seems DC has changed a lot since the early 80s days of Dischord.

People comment that we never show people in our photos ... so here u go, Internet. Plenty of incriminating mugshots in this here post ... specially in light of Thanksgiving—pilgrims biting the hand that feeds. Perhaps our new rule: only show dead peeps. Like Chalky White in Boardwalk Empire, he dead.

Crazy tho, all these peepole reduced to date + place + maybe a few sketchy biographical notes or a portrait or daguerreotype ... if u lucky. All the life in between, ours to imagine + theirs to have lived.

Working backwards in the archival scheme of things—caught us up now to circa 1849 ... before a slew of our incestors migrated like lemmings even further west in search of gold ... (subject of subsequent post). Tho remains a gap between ~500 + ~5,000 years ago that never us to know but speculate.

+ this just in—hot off the press (tho cold from shipment)—9 boxes of 'SSES" 'SSES" ^"SSEY' by the 1 + only Chaulky White!!! Plenty nuff to fill a coffin. Any 1 wants a copy let us know.