Joyce Carol (p)Oa(s)tes 😱
@basicchunnel.bsky.social
1.9K followers 759 following 24K posts
John WM Thompson. Shirley Jackson nominated editor (MOONCALVES, 2024). No subversion, only vandalism. Out east, out west, up north. NO Press is a cute place for books! www.no-press.org
![the end. Afterwards I bought the house. I bought the out-buildings. But those two still irritate me, scratching about in their failed life as if they had no right to anything. When I look round this place, I remember the clutter of it before I took possession.
[No date, some charring): It's sometimes quite affecting when a receiver tries to speak to you. By then, they can't commu-nicate, of course. They make their whistlings and flutings, an occasional gargling or gagging noise. What do they see, if they see anything? The same future as my instruments? Or something else altogether? Their experience, after all, is as the detector, not the data it receives. There's a central distinction here. Their subjectivity, if they retain one, consists in being whatever the iGhetti built them to be - and we don't even know what that is.
[No date, extensively charred]: Down in the town, behaviour comes in discrete knots. Long before the iGhetti arrived, everyone was playing out a separate fantasy. Unable to pretend to sleep and suddenly needing something familiar, I go and sit with the system. There isn't much help there. Less and less is familiar any more, I realise. I no longer belong to myself, let alone anyone else. A dangerous condition to be in. In the morning, I sit on the sofa and the sun shines across my eyes, making it impossible to concentrate. Time draws out. This isn't the first time I've felt alienated in this house. I'm still grinding my teeth.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:rwr4qlpo3yvnqyvr4hrtmzkd/bafkreidtpotsk62i5bnnby7rp7kxglbbhmaimnrgta7aozkfn2elfkgdh4)
![For Tan, this alleged away-blower of a robot "called my dental insurer, [gave] it my member ID, answered a security question and waited on hold before transferring me to the representative." Wow, you can really wait on hold. "For now, a limited number of Muse users have access to the call feature," notes Tan, which presumably means the offshore call center is currently only staffed up to handle the demands of one New York Times reviewer. It also put his credit card statements in a spreadsheet and identified a duplicate subscription, it "could efficiently fill out online forms," whatever that means, but it couldn't buy movie tickets or baseball tickets. It made an annoying podcast that even he couldn't stand. And finally, it offered to take over "one of my favorite pastimes," buying secondhand ceramic bowls. "While the agent worked," writes Tan, "I watched its movements through a tiny browser window, where it navigated websites like a human with a mouse and cursor."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:rwr4qlpo3yvnqyvr4hrtmzkd/bafkreidiajxjdqpc5xzql7hx3joeghoky5f323si44vehbjvfs5bgd43dy)
