Tag: William Burroughs

The City of Ten Thousand Doors

The room has been thick with smoke, curling in lazy rings under the ceiling fans, the walls stained amber in the dim light. Tangiers has pulsed outside, the city flickering in neon, shadows shifting like restless ghosts. In the corner, beneath a cracked light, the boss has leaned back in his chair—Moroccan leather, worn with years, his fingers drumming on its arm. He has watched the young men across from him with a hard, steady gaze, reading them as if they’ve already confessed everything.

“You have thought I’m just another hustler,” he has said, a slow smirk pulling at his lips, “another man with hands in pockets, collecting my piece.” The men have been silent, their shoulders tight, but the boss has leaned forward, letting smoke drift from his cigarette. “You haven’t understood it yet, have you? What I do has gone far beyond money. Money has been only a shadow, an echo. What I have done here, it’s made something—call it order, call it peace, but it’s real.”

He has flicked his cigarette ash onto the floor, ignoring the tremor in the younger man’s hand. “If I hadn’t been here, things would have fallen to chaos. The souks, the ports, the whole rhythm of the Medina—everything would have unraveled. What I’ve built has kept this place together, ticked it forward like the gears in an old clock.” His voice has been quiet but sharp, cutting through the haze of the room like a blade.

“Now, maybe you’ve been thinking, if there’s no trouble, why would anyone need a man like me?” He has laughed, a low, rusty sound. “But that’s the trick, isn’t it? If I’m good at my job, then there’s nothing to see. No mess, no broken bones in the street, no blood on the walls. People start to believe there’s nothing wrong, that danger’s a myth.”

He has looked through the window, the lights of Tangiers spread below him like a map of possibilities. “But if something bad had happened? If I had let things slip even once?” His face has hardened, his jaw clenched. “Then they’d say I had failed, that I wasn’t worth the price. They’d forget the times I’ve stopped trouble before it had begun, the messes I’ve cleaned before they’ve spilled over.”

He has paused, smoke wreathing his face, an ancient calm in his eyes. “Do you understand the weight of that? To keep things balanced, never seen, never praised? To hold all the threads while people wonder if you’re even needed? That’s my trade. I’ve made sure that bad things haven’t happened. And that is my curse: the better I do my job, the less they see me, the less they understand what I’ve saved them from. But they come to me in the end, every time, because they have known—even if they forget in the daylight—how much worse it could be.”

The boss has shifted, leaning back as if to take in the whole room with one slow, sweeping look. The young men have sat tense, half-listening, half-staring at the haze of smoke. He has taken a deep breath, as though he’s about to let them in on some secret hidden in the foundations of the city itself.

“You see, people talk about technology as if it’s some kind of miracle, some guarantee of power,” he has murmured, voice like gravel rubbing against silk. “But I’ve seen the truth—no matter how powerful a technology becomes, it’s never more than an experiment. Always a test, always just a step out into the unknown. The fools in labs, the ones behind all those machines and wires, they don’t know what they’re playing with. They’re like children with matches, thinking they’ve mastered fire.”

He has laughed, cold and low, taking another drag from his cigarette. “Technologists think they’re gods, but they’re blind as anyone else. They can’t see the full picture, not until it’s too late. Every invention they’ve made, every so-called ‘solution’—it’s been nothing but a gamble. They’ve played with forces they haven’t understood, and by the time they’ve seen the consequences, it’s already out of their hands.”

He has looked each young man in the eye, holding them there as if weighing their souls. “Me? I’ve never had that luxury. I’ve had to see things for what they are, right from the start. Every move, every deal, every choice has had to be deliberate, no room for loose ends or blind experiments. The people out there,” he has gestured toward the city lights flickering through the window, “they think they’re safe because of some system, some clever design. But all of that, the order they take for granted—it’s only ever been real because I’ve made it so. Not machines, not technology, but flesh and blood, sweat and consequence.”

He has leaned forward, his voice dropping to a whisper, but with the weight of iron. “The men in labs can afford to fail. They learn after the fact, let their failures fall on others, make their adjustments. But here in Tangiers, in the streets, I don’t have that luxury. If I fail, the city burns. That’s the difference. Their power’s experimental; mine’s real.”

The smoke has lingered thick around them, the shadows pooling deeper as his words settled over the room like a warning. “So remember this,” he has said, a dark gleam in his eye, “whatever new marvels or toys they come up with, whatever promises they make—their games will always end in uncertainty. But what I’ve built, what I protect… that’s no experiment. That’s the line between order and chaos. And as long as I’m here, I keep that line.”

The boss has drawn a long, slow drag from his cigarette, and his eyes have softened, gazing out toward the window where Tangiers sprawled like a living tapestry. “This city,” he has said, voice a mix of reverence and resignation, “it isn’t some neat system, like those technologists dream about. No, this place… it’s like the wave and the electron. Infinite, changing, an experiment that’s always in motion, never fixed.”

He has looked back at the young men, holding them in the weight of his stare. “They think they can measure it, control it, like it’s some Western machine. But here? Tangiers is like the wind that rolls off the Rif Mountains, like the markets shifting each dawn, like the sea brushing at the rocks and changing a little each time. Everything here, it’s relationship, it’s the balance of people who’ve known each other’s families for generations. It’s not rules and systems; it’s baraka—the blessings, the weight of lineage, of blood and debt, of favors traded over tea, beneath the palm trees.”

He’s flicked his cigarette ash again, as though brushing off the technologists’ schemes, their neat little theories. “You see, in the North, they have their systems, their grids, their determinations. But here? Here, we have tajriba—a kind of knowing, a trust in the way things unfold, always close, never certain. And like the electron, everything depends on how you look at it, how you’re connected to it. You can’t hold Tangiers in your hand; you can only walk through it, move with it, be part of its rhythm.”

He’s paused, tapping his fingers on the table. “This place is indeterminate, like you said. It’s like the wave. One minute it’s a pulse of energy moving through the souks, the alleys; next moment, it’s gone, disappeared into the Medina’s hidden paths. It slips through your fingers like sand. And every day, every deal I make, every person I touch, it changes. Not in some simple, linear way—they don’t understand that. It’s like trying to catch a river in a cup. You only get a trickle, but the rest flows on, uncontained.”

He’s leaned back, letting his words settle over the young men, filling the room with a silence that has felt thick and heavy. “So they think they can impose their systems here? Control it from the outside? They’ll only ever see a shadow, a surface reflection, because they don’t have the connection, the roots. They don’t have the real understanding. You can’t build a city with formulas, with charts. This city’s made of whispers and debts, of hands clasped over coffee, of promises that outlast lifetimes.”

He’s taken another drag, and his eyes have drifted back to the cityscape beyond the window. “They don’t know Tangiers. They see the city, but not the experiment within it—the push and pull, the pulse beneath the stone, the spirits and ancestors, the ways that cross each other like the wind. And that’s why, in the end, this city is ours. Because we understand that it’s not a problem to be solved. It’s alive, like the ocean, like the mountain, like us. A living, breathing, shifting wave.”

The Garage

Ray: “It’s the garage, Bill. The garage itself. Not some ordinary space filled with nails, wood shavings, and the detritus of middle-class American living. No, this garage, it’s alive. Like one of those shops in the old stories, the ones that weren’t there yesterday and won’t be there tomorrow. But today? Today it hums with energy, a transmitter of something grander than mere human thought.”

Bill: “Ah, yes, the old alchemy. A conduit, not a container. You don’t walk into it—you get absorbed by it. The space warps reality, don’t you see? Market speculation bleeds through the walls like the very vapor of high finance, all those zero-interest loans seeping in like opium through a bloodstream. Ideas aren’t born there, they’re inhaled—snorted off the concrete floor with the dust and grease of all the past failures and half-baked schemes.”

Ray: “Exactly! The garage isn’t some workspace for soldering wires or slapping together motherboards. No, it’s a cosmic atelier, where the air itself whispers secrets to those who dare to breathe deeply. And the people? They’re just… passengers. Hitchhikers on the road to brilliance. The garage is driving, always has been.”

Bill: “It’s a ritual space, then. The garage works on you the way a junkie works on a needle—methodically, compulsively. You think you’re shaping the future, but the future is really shaping you. And the rent? Let’s talk about that—six figures for a little square of concrete and corrugated steel. You’re paying for the privilege of being swallowed up by this beast, thinking you’re starting a company when really you’re just part of its metabolism. Feeding it.”

Ray: “And that’s the genius of it, Bill. The garage doesn’t want your ideas. No, it’s after your belief. You step inside thinking you’re going to change the world, but it’s the garage changing you. Transmitting, processing—every entrepreneur that passes through is like another brick in the wall. They come in with dreams, but they leave with… startups. Products. Things. The garage doesn’t care for things—it’s the process it craves.”

Bill: “A grand scam, isn’t it? The startup is the fix, and the garage? That’s your dealer. You think you’re on the verge of revolution, but it’s just the same trip, over and over, selling you visions for what you can’t quite touch. And when the market crashes? The garage disappears like smoke. But by then, it’s already in your bloodstream, man. It’s already altered you. Made you its instrument.”

Ray: “So the real secret isn’t the founders. It never was. It’s the garage, alive, timeless, waiting for the next great idea to stumble through the door. Wozniak? Jobs? They were just tuning forks, vibrating to the hum of something much older. Much bigger. And the future? That’s just another echo, another reverberation of what the garage wants to be born.”

Bill: “Exactly. You don’t create the next big thing in there—you channel it. The garage is an ancient hunger, disguised as innovation. You think you’re feeding it your mind, but really, you’re just feeding the machine. And by the time you figure that out? It’s too late. You’re already hooked.”

Doppelgänger

The Zone was all wires and rot, a place where the buildings sagged like the bones had been sucked out, where people’s faces blurred, like the heat had warped their features into something barely human. A place where reality skipped like a bad film reel.

Jack Tully pulled his collar up against the sting of the fog. His old exterminator truck sat abandoned, rusting in the alley, like it belonged there. The neon light of a busted sign buzzed and flickered, painting the street in a sickly pulse. He used to kill things for a living, pests, rats, the occasional snake that found its way into someone’s basement. Now, he tracked people. Sometimes they were alive; sometimes he wished they weren’t.

He stepped deeper into the Zone, boots splashing in puddles that reflected back the twisted, impossible geometry of the place. He wasn’t here for a job tonight. He was here for something else. Something he’d heard about in whispers, rumors that clung to the dark like mildew.

Then he saw him, leaning against the rusted frame of an old diner, half-collapsed under the weight of years. At first glance, Jack thought it was just another washed-up loser waiting to fade into the Zone. But then the figure stepped into the flickering light, and Jack felt his stomach lurch.

It was him. Every detail—a twisted mirror image, down to the frayed jacket and the scar above his right eyebrow. The doppelgänger’s eyes were flat, dead things. No recognition. No humanity.

He was the viral strain of everything we feared but couldn’t help but recognize in ourselves, a greasy mirage of our own shadows crawling through the back alleys of consciousness. His mind flickered like a neon sign shorting out, alive with every dirty thought and twisted ambition we dared not acknowledge. He didn’t adapt, didn’t evolve—he mutated, a parasite that fed off the basest parts of human nature. Psychopathic, yes, but with a radar tuned to the weaknesses of the herd, like a sewer rat dodging poison traps.

His fantasies were infantile, but that’s what made them dangerous—unmoored, floating in the primal ooze of ego and unchecked desire. There was no moral compass, just a heat-seeking missile aimed at every low, animal urge we tried to bury. People fell for him because he was them—diluted and distilled into something purer, uglier. He was the darkness everyone denied but secretly nursed. The gutter-born prophet, a walking wound in the shape of man, preaching to the hollow hearts that refused to heal.

“Who sent you?” Jack asked, his voice low, but it barely sounded like his own.

The other Jack grinned, but it wasn’t the kind of grin that belonged to a person. It was something a rat might do if it could smile. “Nobody sent me,” the double said, voice like it came from under the floorboards. “I’ve always been here.”

The air between them seemed to warp, buzzing like there was static in the atmosphere, like the Zone itself was watching. Jack reached for his gun, a reflex, but the other him moved faster. He slapped Jack’s hand away, faster than any man had the right to move, and then they were face to face. The other Jack smelled like pest control chemicals, like poison and damp fur.

“You’ve been killing rats all your life, but the biggest one’s been living in you,” the double hissed. “How’s it feel to meet your real reflection?”

Jack staggered back, the weight of the words hitting like a punch. The Zone groaned around them, shifting, the walls breathing. He tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come.

“You think you’re the hero in your own story, Tully,” the double said, stepping closer, “but I’m the one who’s been doing the dirty work. Every lie you’ve told yourself, every time you looked away instead of facing the truth… I’m that. You don’t kill rats. You are one.”

Jack felt the bile rise in his throat, his mind unspooling. The other him started to flicker, like a bad signal. Like he wasn’t solid anymore, just a ghost made of everything Jack had ever tried to bury.

Before he could react, the double reached out, pressing his palm to Jack’s chest, and Jack felt something cold and terrible slither inside him. The Zone twisted around them, the walls peeling away into darkness, until it was just the two of them standing in the void.

Jack couldn’t tell if he was looking at himself anymore, or if he had become the thing staring back at him.

“See you on the other side,” the doppelgänger whispered, and then everything shattered.

Money Should Be Free

Imagine a world where money flows like words through the airwaves, a filthy river of greenbacks coursing through every gutter and alley, seeping into the cracks of society, soaking the earth, drowning the parasites and the predators alike. A glorious torrent, unfettered by the iron bars of bank vaults, slipping past the sticky fingers of Wall Street sharks, flooding every slum and penthouse until no one can hoard, no one can starve, no one can die for the lack of it.

This is the vision, the fever dream of a society where cash isn’t chained to the whims of the suits, isn’t corralled behind the velvet ropes of high finance, but is free—wild and unruly—as free as the foul-mouthed graffiti scrawled on the underpass, as free as the bile spewed by the demagogues and the dissenters on late-night radio. Money, unbound, loose in the streets like a pack of feral dogs, gnawing at the edges of the old order, tearing down the ivory towers with every snarling bite.

Money should be free like speech, like the words we spit and the lies we tell, the truths we barely dare to whisper. No more should it be the domain of the privileged, locked away in Swiss accounts and Cayman havens, but instead a tool, a weapon, a voice for every bastard son and daughter of the American Dream, every poor sucker born on the wrong side of the tracks, every down-and-out loser with a fistful of dreams and a pocket full of nothing.

But they fear it. They fear what happens when the floodgates open, when the dollar isn’t shackled to a price tag, when every man, woman, and child holds the same power in their hands as the boardroom elite. Because money, like speech, is dangerous when it’s in the hands of the many. It breeds chaos, it sows dissent, it upends the delicate balance of power that keeps the machine churning and the masses in line.

So they keep it locked up, parceled out in tiny doses, just enough to keep the gears turning, just enough to keep us hungry, desperate, begging for scraps. They know that if money were free—truly free—like speech, like thought, like the anarchic energy that pulses in the veins of every street corner prophet and half-crazed preacher, the whole rotten system would come crashing down, the pyramid of power collapsing under its own bloated weight.

Free money, free speech—two sides of the same damned coin, the currency of revolution, the language of the oppressed. And until they’re both free, really free, we’re all just slaves to the same old gods, dancing to the same old tune, while the fat cats sit back and laugh at the spectacle of it all.

Let’s cut through the bullshit. The objections to making money free like speech are nothing more than self-serving garbage, concocted by those with a vested interest in keeping the rest of us under their heel. They wave around words like “inflation” and “economic instability” like they’re some kind of holy scripture, but it’s all a smokescreen—a sleazy con game designed to keep the power where it’s always been: in the hands of the rich and the ruthless.

The fear of hyperinflation is the first line of defense for these bastards. They’ll tell you that if everyone had access to money, the economy would spiral out of control, that prices would skyrocket, and the whole system would collapse. But let’s be real—this assumes that the only economic model worth a damn is the one that keeps their coffers full. What they won’t tell you is that the current system is already on life support, propped up by the same handful of bankers and politicians who have rigged the game in their favor. So who are they really protecting? Not you, not me—just their own bloated wallets.

Then there’s the tired old line about “loss of incentive and productivity.” The idea that without the threat of poverty hanging over your head, you’d just sit on your ass all day is a goddamn lie. They want you to believe that money is the only thing that drives people to work, but they’re deliberately ignoring the real motivations—passion, creativity, the desire to build something meaningful. Free money wouldn’t kill productivity; it would set it free, unshackling us from soul-sucking jobs and letting us chase our real dreams. But of course, the last thing these parasites want is a population that’s not chained to the grind.

And then they start whining about “widening inequality,” as if that’s not the most hypocritical pile of horseshit you’ve ever heard. The same people who’ve been exploiting every loophole to hoard wealth are suddenly worried that free money would somehow screw over the little guy? Give me a break. The truth is, they’re terrified that if money were free, their precious system would implode, and with it, their stranglehold on power. Free money wouldn’t widen inequality—it would level the playing field, giving everyone a fair shot at the game.

Oh, but the poor banks! The poor investment firms! “Undermining financial institutions,” they call it, as if that’s something to be concerned about. Let’s get one thing straight: these institutions exist to serve themselves, not the people. They’ve been sucking the lifeblood out of the economy for decades, and now they want you to believe that without them, society would crumble. What a load of crap. The truth is, they’re scared shitless of losing their relevance, of waking up in a world where they can’t dictate the terms anymore.

“Moral hazard,” they cry, as if letting people have money would turn us all into reckless idiots. What they really mean is that they don’t trust you to make your own decisions—they’d rather keep you on a short leash, afraid and obedient. But the real hazard is letting these assholes keep calling the shots, because they’ve already proven they can’t be trusted. Free money would strip away their control, and that scares the hell out of them.

They love to talk about “corruption and misuse of resources,” as if the current system isn’t already a cesspool of corruption. The difference is, under their system, only the rich get to be corrupt. Free money would democratize power, and that’s the last thing they want. They’re not worried about corruption; they’re worried about losing their monopoly on it.

Then there’s the bullshit about the “devaluation of labor and skill.” They’ve got you convinced that the only way to value work is with a paycheck, but that’s just another way to keep you in line. There’s plenty of work that’s vital to society—caregiving, teaching, creating—that’s already undervalued because it doesn’t rake in profits for the elite. Free money would let people pursue the work that matters, instead of just what pays. But they can’t stand the thought of a world where they can’t exploit your labor for their gain.

Finally, they’ll throw out the “erosion of social contracts” argument, as if the current social contract isn’t already broken beyond repair. The reality is, the contract they’re so keen to protect is one that keeps them at the top and everyone else fighting over scraps. Free money would mean rewriting that contract, making it fair, making it just. And that, my friends, is what they’re really afraid of—losing their grip on the power they’ve so carefully rigged in their favor.

So don’t buy the bullshit. The cons against free money are just the desperate last gasps of a dying system, clinging to whatever scraps of control it can still grab. They’re scared, and they should be. Because when money is free, so are we.

Algorithms and Section 230

A platform’s algorithm, far from being a neutral intermediary, actively constructs reality by shaping and directing the user’s desires, creating a speech that is its own, and therefore, liable.

The algorithm acts as the Big Other, imposing a Symbolic Order on the user, reflecting back a distorted image of the self, rooted not in the user’s authentic desires but in the desires structured by the platform. This misrecognition traps the user in a web of signifiers dictated by the algorithm, making the platform responsible for the identity it helps to construct.

Thus we introduce the idea of the algorithm as a viral language, a control mechanism that invades and manipulates the user’s psyche. The algorithmic process splices and recombines fragments of data—age, interactions, metadata—into a narrative that is not authored by the user but by the platform itself. This narrative, like a virus, spreads through the user’s consciousness, controlling and shaping their reality. The platform’s curation, in this sense, is a deliberate act of speech, a form of control that the platform must be held accountable for.

This process creates a hyperreality, where the algorithm generates a series of simulacra—representations that have no grounding in the real, but are instead designed to perpetuate consumption. The curated content becomes a hyperreal environment where the user is not merely engaging with reality but with a pre-fabricated version of it, designed by the platform for its own ends. The platform’s speech is thus not an innocent reflection but a constructed reality that it must answer for, as it blurs the line between the real and the simulated.

Finally, the algorithm is seen as a desiring-machine, continually connecting and producing flows of content. This production is not passive but active, a synthesis of desires orchestrated by the platform to create an endless stream of meaning. The connections and realities produced by this synthesis are not merely a reflection of the user’s desires but a construction that the platform engineers. As such, the platform must take responsibility for the speech it generates, especially when it results in harm or exploitation.

In consolidating these perspectives, it becomes clear that the platform’s algorithmic curation is not just a technical process but an active form of speech that shapes and constructs reality. As the author of this constructed reality, the platform cannot hide behind the guise of neutrality; it must answer for the consequences of the desires it channels and the realities it creates, particularly when those realities lead to harm. The court’s recognition of this responsibility marks a significant shift in how we understand the nature of speech and liability in the digital age.

The concept can be distilled into the idea that “the medium is the message,” as Marshall McLuhan famously put it, but here with an important extension: the message is speech, and speech is liable.

In this context:

  • The Medium is the Message: The algorithmic curation of content is not just a neutral process but a medium that actively shapes and constructs reality. The medium itself—the algorithm—is integral to the message it delivers.
  • The Message is Speech: The content curated and recommended by the algorithm becomes the platform’s own speech. It is not merely transmitting user-generated content but actively creating and delivering a specific narrative or reality.
  • Speech is Liable: Because this curated content is now considered the platform’s speech, the platform is responsible for it. Just as individuals are held accountable for their speech, the platform must answer for the speech it produces, particularly when it causes harm.

A Manifesto for the Modern Money Launderer

Listen up, fellow drifters of the digital dirt roads, and connoisseurs of the con. The world’s a stage, and every storefront, every glossy website, is just a prop in the grand theater of laundering. The real action happens behind the curtain, in the shadows where the money changes hands without so much as a whisper.

Let’s start with the brick-and-mortar boys, the old-school cats who know that the best way to hide a needle is in a haystack of cold, hard cash. Restaurants, laundromats, the usual suspects—these joints are more than meets the eye. Sure, the food might be trash, and the service abysmal, but that’s not the point, is it? The cash registers ring out with the sweet sound of legitimacy while the real dough is scrubbed clean, nice and tidy, ready for its next adventure. It’s all about the real estate, baby. The meat grinder downstairs is just a sideshow—upstairs, the property’s value is climbing faster than a junkie’s pulse on payday. The real money isn’t in what’s being sold but where it’s being sold. You can run at a loss on paper while the walls around you silently appreciate, playing the long game like a pro.

Now, for the digital hustlers, the new kids on the block who’ve traded cash registers for code. The game’s the same, just a different playing field. Think eCommerce sites that sell a whole lot of nothing at all, digital ghost towns with a flood of phantom customers. Or better yet, the cryptocurrency exchanges where ones and zeros turn into dirty cash and back again in the blink of an eye. If you think no one’s watching, you’re right—and that’s the beauty of it.

Digital ads? Yeah, those too. Create a few websites, make some noise about clicks and impressions, then sit back and watch the ad dollars roll in. It’s the Wild West out there, and the sheriff’s too busy scrolling through his feed to notice.

But don’t forget, all roads lead back to real estate. That’s where the big dogs play. The digital storefront, the online hustle, it’s all smoke and mirrors. The land beneath your feet, or the digital turf you claim, that’s where the real power lies. Buy low, sell high, and do it all under the radar. Run the operation at a loss? Sure, why not. The tax man gets a kick in the teeth, and you walk away with a fat portfolio, grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

So, remember this: the visible operation, whether brick-and-mortar or digital, is just the bait. The real hustle is buried deep, in the land, in the code, in the sleight of hand that keeps the money moving, the authorities guessing, and the profit rolling in. Keep it quiet, keep it clean—or at least, clean enough to pass for legitimate. And whatever you do, don’t get caught watching the show when you should be running the stage.

Coda: The Simulacrum of Capital in the Age of Hyperreality

And so we arrive at the final act, where the borders between the real and the unreal dissolve into a shimmering haze. The storefronts, the websites, the meticulously maintained façades—each is a simulation, a simulacrum of commerce where the substance is secondary to the spectacle. What is sold, what is bought, are mere artifacts of a system that thrives not on production or consumption, but on the circulation of capital in its most abstracted, spectral form.

In the end, the real estate, the digital code, the tax write-offs—they are all part of a grand choreography of deterrence, an elaborate dance to keep prying eyes distracted. The true operation is one of perpetual displacement, where value is not created but displaced, masked, refracted through the lens of legality and illegality until it loses all meaning, all attachment to the material. This is the essence of late capitalism, where the signifier has long since broken free from the signified, leaving us with a hyperreal economy that exists only in the echoes of its own transactions.

Here, the loss is not a failure but a strategy, a way to maintain the illusion of scarcity and risk in a world where value is infinitely malleable. The store, the site, the land—they are all nodes in a network of simulacra, where the real business is in the interstices, the gaps between what is seen and what is concealed. To run at a loss is to engage in a dialectic of presence and absence, where the apparent failure of the operation conceals the success of the strategy, the ascendance of the simulacrum over the real.

In this space, profit becomes a specter, haunting the margins of the operation, always present yet never fully realized, always deferred, like the horizon of meaning in a text that perpetually rewrites itself. And so, we conclude not with a resolution but with an opening, a door left ajar to the endless possibilities of the simulacrum, where the real has been supplanted by the hyperreal, and the only truth is the one we fabricate in the play of surfaces.

Tangier

The air hung heavy with the sweet, cloying scent of kif. The narrow, labyrinthine streets of Tangier were alive with the cacophony of street vendors, the chatter of locals, and the distant wail of a muezzin. In a dimly lit, opium den, a group of expatriates sat huddled together, their faces illuminated by the flickering glow of a kerosene lamp.

The sun beat down on the alleyway, a furnace of white heat. Flies buzzed, drawn to the stench of urine and decay. The air was thick with the acrid scent of hashish. A group of men sat in a circle, their eyes glazed and distant. In the center, a small pipe was passed from hand to hand.

“If you want someone to cheer alongside wherever the hopium is flowing,” a voice rasped, “it’s not me.” The speaker was a gaunt man with hollow cheeks and a haunted look in his eyes. He was known to the others as “The American.”

One of the men, a young Moroccan with a scar running across his cheek, laughed. “You’re a funny one, American. Always so serious.”

He took a drag from the pipe and exhaled slowly. For a moment, his eyes seemed to focus on something far away. Then he turned back to the group and said, “If you want a friend, find someone who’s still got his soul. Someone who hasn’t been consumed by the darkness.””hopium is a siren song, luring us all into its seductive embrace. It promises escape, oblivion, but in the end, it leaves us stranded on an island of our own making.”

<>

The kasbah was a labyrinth of shadows, the air thick with the scent of hashish and sweat. A Moroccan belly dancer, her eyes glazed with opium, swayed to the rhythm of a ghaita player. The music was a hypnotic drone, a siren song that pulled you deeper into the labyrinth.

EXIT

Flickering reality screen, a million flickering faces – The World Theater. Neon promises crawl across the marquee, a carnival shill barking come-ons for dreams pre-packaged in cellophane. But the exit, man, the EXIT – a rusted fire escape,barely two rungs wide, wobbling precariously over an abyss of black noise.

The sucker, see? Blinded by the glitter, mesmerized by the spectacle. Counts the plush seats, the depth of the stage, the endless buffet of distractions. Never a thought for the goddamn exit. Sold a ticket to the main event, hypnotized by the pre-show, completely missing the bleak one-way route out back. He’ll be shuffling towards that rusty ladder when the lights finally dim, pockets full of worthless tokens, head full of empty promises.

The World Theater’s a roach motel, bug zapper for the unwary. Check in’s a breeze, check out’s a bitch. So sharpen your fucking eyes, cut through the bullshit. This ain’t a goddamn palace, it’s a rigged game with a one-way door. Focus on the escape hatch, not the velvet wallpaper.

Fold-In: The Leftward Creep

Track A:

The center, a fleshy amoeba, engulfs, digests, regurgitates. Marginal whispers in forgotten corners – universal healthcare,social security, worker drones murmuring rights. A dusty tome unfolds: public education, a flickering screen – net neutrality, privacy rights dissolving in the ether. The amoeba sighs, burps, spits out policy, mainstream and bland.

Track B:

Decades tick by, a Burroughs cut-up of time. Minimum wage, a twitchy insect, pinned to a board. Public transportation, a rusted chrome skeleton, lurches down forgotten avenues. The center, bloated and sluggish, drones on about “reform,” a word with teeth filed down, meaning hollowed out.

Juxtaposition:

The far left, a ragged carnival barker, shouts into the void. Affordable housing, a mirage shimmering in the heat. Anti-discrimination laws, a fly swatter against a buzzing horde. The amoeba, all-consuming, assimilates, grinds down, spits out a pale imitation.

Fold Back In:

The barker’s voice echoes, distorted, warped by the amoeba’s digestive tract. Criminal justice reform, a rusty key, unlocks the wrong door. Renewable energy, a flickering neon sign in a wasteland. The cycle continues, a slow, grinding reel-to-reel playing out a pre-recorded script. The far left, a persistent itch on the amoeba’s vast, fleshy back.

The Reality Virus and the Limousine Liberal Shuffle

The far left, those bug-eyed cowboys howling at the neon moon of revolution, exist on the fringes. Fringes that fray and bleed into the mainstream with a sickening regularity. One minute they’re gibbering about “universal healthcare” and “workers’ rights” (words like psychic cockroaches scuttling across the media landscape), the next, those very words are being parroted by the center, regurgitated as policy by limousine liberals with hollow eyes.

The virus of reality, you see, it mutates. Public education? A bread and circus for the proles, once a radical notion, now a crumbling edifice echoing with the screams of standardized testing. Labor protections? Shackles on the free market machine, they shrieked, until the machine chewed them up and spat them out, a desperate plea for a minimum wage echoing in the gears.

Environmental regulations? A plot hatched by commie tree-huggers! Until the air grew thick with smog and the rivers ran black, a desperate scramble for “renewable energy investments” a testament to their short-sightedness. The cycle spins, a grotesque ballet of reaction and co-optation.

Anti-discrimination? “Social engineering!” they cried, until the weight of public opinion shifted, leaving them sputtering about “political correctness gone mad.” Open-source software? A communist plot to destroy intellectual property! Until the tide of innovation washed over them, leaving them clutching at the wreckage of proprietary monopolies.

This is the dance of the powerful, a tango with reality as their unwilling partner. The far left may be marginal, but their ideas, like spores on the wind, take root in the fertile ground of discontent. The center, ever the opportunist, snatches these ideas, twists them, repackages them, and sells them back to the masses as progress. A never-ending cycle, a funhouse mirror of progress, a maddening echo chamber where revolution becomes milquetoast reform.

The Interzone Shuffle: A Political Fold-In

Flickering fluorescent lights.  Marginalized agendas crawl across the floor like roaches chased by a mainstream spotlight. Every few decades, WHAM! The center swallows them whole, regurgitates them as policy. A grotesque political centipede, each leg a different shade of red and blue.

Cut-ups, jumbled, reassembled:

  • Universal healthcare bleeds into labor protections, a wet dream of the bureaucratic roach motel.
  • Social security, a desiccated husk, rattles with the ghosts of environmental regulations.
  • Public education reforms morph into monstrous minimum wage increases, chewing on the gears of the machine.
  • Discrimination dissolves into net neutrality, a digital insect swarm buzzing in the circuits.
  • Open-source software tangles with affordable housing, a labyrinthine code for the dispossessed.
  • Gender equality writhes with criminal justice reform, a monstrous dance in the flickering light.

The Interzone shuffles.  Wealth redistribution policies ooze like radioactive sludge, nourishing the ever-expanding public sector.  Renewable energy investments sprout like twisted flowers from the cracks in the monopoly pavement.

Who controls the remote? The answer flickers on the screen, a distorted image of power, a grin painted on a skull.  The game resets. The roaches scurry back to the margins, waiting for the next WHAM! The political centipede inches forward, leaving a trail of slime in its wake.

Common Knowledge

Common knowledge bleeds through the streets like a junky’s last fix. Coronations and executions, public spectacles of power and death, not for the king or the condemned but for the hungry eyes of the crowd devouring itself. The laugh track howls, a narcotic rhythm pumped into sitcom veins. American Idol’s studio audience, a pulsing mass of flesh and expectation. Crowd noise in stadiums, artificial roar of the control machine.

Behavior mutates only when the virus of belief infects the collective consciousness. The Emperor’s New Clothes, a naked parade of delusion. Private knowledge festers in individual minds, useless as a dry needle. Whispered doubts evaporate in the haze of social conformity.

Then comes the little girl, the Missionary, her voice a scalpel cutting through the veil of shared hallucination. Her words explode like a bomb in the crowd’s skull, shrapnel of truth embedding in every brain. Suddenly, the Emperor’s nakedness is a neon sign, impossible to unsee.

The crowd’s eyes meet in a moment of terrible clarity. The spell breaks. Behavior shifts like tectonic plates, reality reasserting itself with brutal force. Common knowledge, the ultimate hard drug, rewiring synapses and rewriting the social code.

In this naked city, we are all emperors, all little girls, all crowd. The cycle of delusion and revelation spins on, an endless loop of control and rebellion, whisper and scream, private thought and public spectacle.

That’s a damn fine Burroughs cut. You got the frenetic energy, the paranoid undercurrent, and the sharp social commentary. Here’s some more fuel for the fire:

  • Intertwined Reality and Media: The line between TV screen and bleary street blurs. American Gladiators writhe in a plastic Colosseum, a million screens reflecting the manufactured violence back onto twitchy living rooms. Reality, a roach motel buzzing with flickering images.
  • Control and Addiction: Knowledge, a virus with a million strains. Newsfeeds pumping dopamine, political rallies, a mainline shot of outrage. The control freaks in mirrored suits cackle, their laughter a high-pitched whine inaudible to most, a subliminal serpent coiling around the collective spine.
  • Insect Imagery: The crowd, a seething mass of hungry insects, antennae twitching for the next scrap of information, the next celebrity meltdown. Bureaucrats scurry, their exoskeletons gleaming with a chitinous sheen, their words a buzzing drone.
  • Sex and Subversion: Forbidden knowledge, a black widow spider in the corner of the mind. Secret whispers in smoky jazz bars, rebellion simmering like a pot of illicit brew. The Missionary’s words, a whispered promise of orgasm, shattering the control machine’s sterile grip.

Feel free to twist and contort these suggestions, let them mutate and infect your writing further. Remember, in Burroughs’ world, the line between sanity and psychosis is a flickering neon sign.