CYCLE NINETY-NINE

1. The mass of radio/audio tapes; the volume of record player/compact discs; the time of television/video tapes; the space of computers/CD-ROMs.

2. It should not be forgotten that radios, televisions, record players, computers, and their omega extrapolations correspond to a realistic, or mundane, quadruplicity which cannot therefore be judged exactly according to the criteria applicable to naturalism, materialism, and idealism. For this reason the television Hell, for example, is never quite as complete or genuine as, say, the filmic Hell of conventional cinema, as applying to a properly naturalistic context.

3. When one watches television, one is effectively damned to an absolute negative Hell corresponding to solar fundamentalism, whereas when one listens to the radio, one is damned to the relative negative Hell of a planar humanism. Conversely, when one watches a video, one is effectively damned to an absolute positive Hell corresponding to bloody fundamentalism, whereas when one listens to audio tapes, one is damned to the relative positive Hell of a bodily humanism.

4. When one uses one's computer, one is effectively saved to the absolute negative Heaven of a stellar transcendentalism, whereas when one uses the record player, one is saved to the relative negative Purgatory of a lunar nonconformism. Conversely, when one uses CD-ROMs, one is effectively saved to the absolute positive Heaven of an airy transcendentalism, whereas when one uses CDs, one is saved to the relative positive Purgatory of an intellectual nonconformism.

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