CYCLE TWENTY-FIVE

1. To be saved to the quasi-fundamentalism of video cassettes from the idealism of television, thereby passing from Space to Time.

2. To be saved to the quasi-transcendentalism of audio cassettes from the naturalism of radio, thereby passing from Time to Space.

3. To be saved to the quasi-humanism of personal computers from the materialism of personal computer wordprocessors, thereby passing from Volume to Mass.

4. To be saved to the quasi-nonconformism of compact discs from the realism of long players, thereby passing from Mass to Volume.

5. A midi system comprised of radio, cassette deck(s), record turntable, and compact-disc drive is superior to a record-player and/or compact disc-player, but inferior to a radio and/or cassette-player/recorder, for the simple reason that it is a combination of both phenomenal (turntable, CD drive), and noumenal (radio, cassette deck) planes rather than either phenomenal or noumenal, the former being 'lower' than it and the latter 'higher', i.e. appertaining to the divine planes of Time-Space. A midi, by contrast, will usually combine Time-Space with Mass-Volume, thereby compromising between divine and masculine parallels ... as the 'rising vegetation' of long players/compact discs takes its place beside ('beneath' would be a more philosophically correct description in relation to the phenomenal planes in question) the 'rising air' of radio/cassettes.

6. Similarly, a multimedia computer system comprised of compact-disc drive, hard disc, compact disc, and video and/or television card is superior to a conventional personal computer and/or wordprocessor, but inferior to a television and/or video-player/recorder, for the simple reason that it is a combination of both phenomenal (PC, PCW) and noumenal (TV, video) planes rather than either phenomenal or noumenal, the former being 'lower' than it and the latter 'higher', i.e. appertaining to the diabolic planes of Space-Time. A multimedia system, by contrast, will usually combine Space-Time with Volume-Mass, thereby compromising between diabolic and feminine parallels ... as the 'falling water' of compact floppies/hard disc takes its place beside (once again 'beneath' would be philosophically more correct) the 'falling fire' of television/video.

7. The inclusion of CD-ROM in multimedia PCs (which is, after all, the component that confers a multimedia status in the first place) does not change the gender of computers. On the contrary, such computers are akin to clever or brainy women whose status remains fundamentally humanist even with a nonconformist dimension. For the hard disc is to computers what pregnancy is to women - their guarantor of humanist salvation from the vanity/vacuity of materialism. Yet just as expectant mothers still have a tongue, so hard-disc computers still retain a compact-floppy drive, after the fashion of PCWs. Such a drive, or rather the use of compact floppy in relation to it, gives to PCs/PCWs a tongue-like aspect which is more conspicuous at those times when a disc is being retrieved than inserted, since retrieval takes the form of a partial ejection of the compact floppy in response to manual depression of the drive's button. Such an ejection more than superficially parallels the protrusion of a tongue!

8. Yet computers are not only feminine with regard to the tongue-like factor of compact-floppy ejection or, indeed, with regard to the womb-like fecundity of inclusive hard disc. The notion of 'falling water' is even more prominent in the relaying of words through reformatted margins, where the suggestion of a basin-like context in which water is finding its own level is hardly fanciful, in view of the alacrity with which words go about accommodating themselves to the new margins, like water in a well. Verily, there is more femininity to computing than first meets the eye, even though a majority of computer users tend to be women, seemingly with good reason!

9. It could be argued that whilst a radiocassette-player/recorder is preferable to a radio ... to the extent that it signifies a step towards sensibility, a cassette-recorder and/or personal cassette-player is preferable to the latter, and for a similar reason, viz. that it signifies a further step (away from sensuality) towards sensibility. Hence to ascend, in rising air, from radio to cassette-player via radiocassette-player, as from sequential Time to spaced Space.

10. Likewise to descend, in falling fire, from television to video-recorder via televideo, the latter a stage in between the spatial alpha of television and the repetitive omega or, at any rate, quasi-omega of video.

11. Likewise to ascend, in rising vegetation, from record-player to compact disc-player via those midi systems which play host to both conventional turntable and compact-disc drive, thereby standing in between the massive alpha of record-players and the voluminous ... quasi-omega of compact disc-players.

12. Likewise to descend, in falling water, from personal computer wordprocessor to personal computer via multimedia, the latter standing in between the volumetric alpha of PCWs and the massed ... quasi-omega of PCs, and pretty much as midi systems in between record-players and compact disc-players.

13. Hence there is a sense in which, just as personal cassette-players would be preferable to radiocassette-players from a purist's standpoint, so video-players would likewise be preferable to televideos, compact disc-players preferable to midis, and personal computers preferable to multimedia computers - though only in terms of their closer proximity to the respective modes of sensibility which properly accrue to the omega of each plane.

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