I originally sent the same maze to the Jerry Bruckheimer Films department involved in the development of the upcoming National Treasure project as I had high hopes that the enclosed maze could play the same pivotal role in the hands of Nicolas Cage as John Wilkes Booth’s diary had played in the past. You see, the Infinitely Printable Maze has been part of my family’s estate for many generations and is in fact the only item of value that my grandfather was able to carry with him to the old continent when he made the perilous journey by sea in the hopes of finding a better life as a university professor in post-68 France. Well versed in French Theory but barely fluent in French, he was unfortunately never able to capitalize on the infatuation with self-reference and all things meta en vogue at the time and finally returned to his home country after many unsuccessful attempts to popularize printable mazes as an object of study. Regret and dementia made a potent mixture in the following years, which is why I cannot say with certainty how many of his stories about the origin of this particular printable maze were completely fabricated, but as far as I could tell the setting of most of his tales seemed to vacillate between a carpet weaving mill on the outskirts of Shiraz and the desolate hinterlands of the Basque countryside. In either case, it seemed that some time in the 14th century, one of our ancestors, the original Creator, had realized how much time could be saved in the production of printable mazes if only their construction could be mechanized somehow and thus went on to devise a rudimentary set of instructions to teach others the art of drawing printable mazes with just the right level of difficulty. But since each of these mazes had to be unique, their creation turned out to be impossible to automate on a printing press and so dozens (hundreds in other versions of the story) of local children were instructed in the interpretation of these maze drawing commands, to the point where this subject was judged more prestigious than Basque music (or Persian poetry, depending on the story). But when the Creator suddenly died, his creation nearly died with him, as his students began to fervently advocate for different maze drawing techniques, all of them slightly different and changing from generation to generation. Peaceful discussion turned into heated debate, debate into heresy and before you knew it most of the Basque countryside (or the entirety of the province of Fars, depending on the story) had been ravaged by a supposedly holy war. This dark age ended only when one of the daughters of the original Creator realized that only a canonical source of the drawing instructions, inscribed in the maze and reproduced with every maze drawing, could put an end to the senseless bloodshed by irrevocably linking the maze with its architecture^[2], the source with its expression. She quickly found out that this endeavour was more difficult than initially imaged, as not only the instructions for drawing the maze had to be included in the maze, but also the instructions for drawing the instructions for drawing the maze and so forth. After what must have seemed like an eternity, she finally succeeded, but not without considerably changing the language of instruction that had heretofore been used, which in turn extensively shaped the language spoken in that area. Some of my relatives have attributed the unique features of the Basque language to that episode, others see the refined beauty of Persian poetry as emblematic proof. In any case, every maze produced by the Creator’s Daughter and her ancestors henceforth carried with it a copy of its instructions which itself contained instructions for drawing both the maze and its instructions and have not changed to this day, as far as I was able to trace the lineage of the maze in my possession.

Now, I know what you will object to my version of these events (and it is exactly what the production team at Jerry Bruckheimer responded to a similarly worded letter of mine): How could it be that the instructions for drawing the Infinitely Printable Maze are valid PostScript, given that PostScript was only invented and formalized in the 80s by Adobe? I myself have long been puzzled by this fact and actually once took it as proof that the stories my grandfather told me must have been a product of his vivid imagination. Perhaps my memories of seeing the Infinitely Printable Maze on our wall as a child in the early 80s were merely hazy recollections of similarly looking mazes, or perhaps my memory was off by a few years and my grandfather had manufactured the maze just after PostScript printers had first hit the market?

Thankfully, I finally learned the truth one fateful October morning, when I met some distant relatives of mine that I had not had the chance of meeting before. Our family has been spread out over multiple continents for many generations (which is one reason why I like to think that perhaps both versions of the story have certain grains of truth and the events described here took place both in the Basque countryside and around Shiraz, merely at different points in time), and so it was not unusual to meet distant cousins for the first time in my 20s or 30s. As it turned out, one of these distant second cousins had worked under Charles Geschke at Adobe in the late 70s and early 80s and was responsible for the design of most of what later became Postscript. He found it entirely surprising that I had ever doubted the family story (apparently his mother had been more lucid in her retelling of the family tale than my grandfather had been) and assured me that he had made sure to include all of the instructions in the PostScript standard that were necessary to draw the maze, with a single exception: Of course our ancestors had no notion of “seeding” a random number generator, they simply used two 8-sided dice to generate a single integer between 1 and 64, but this fact proved problematic in the PostScript standard. Without such a seed every PostScript printout would have generated the same printable maze, which of course would have completely defeated the purpose of the Infinitely Printable Maze. To accommodate this fact, my distant second cousin had included the realtime" and srand" instructions in the PostScript version of the Infinitely Printable Maze, which marked the only departure from the original instructions in hundreds of years. As I later learned, this actually lead to a feud between different factions in our family and while I am certainly not unsympathetic to the purists that emphasize faithful reproduction over modern convenience, I took the liberty to send you the slightly modernized version of the Infinitely Printable Maze that will supply you with a unique maze every time you print it. (In fact, I also addressed it to the FBI FEM-CUT Quine Division and hope you will forward it accordingly, should this not be the correct email address.)

I hope that you can see what a huge mistake Jerry Bruckheimer films have made by passing on my offer to include the Infinitely Printable Maze in the upcoming National Treasure 3, but perhaps it is all the better if the maze can now take a place in your arsenal for cyberwarfare instead.

Yours faithfully,
Herbert Quine

Here is a recent e-mail from ‘Ginny’. I’m hoping that, if I publish the exchange here, then you out there can help me figure out how to fix this.

From: Ginny <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: I’d love to contribute a guest post
Date: Thursday, May 07, 2020 1:04 PM

Hello,

I would love to contribute a guest post. May I pitch you some ideas?

p.s. let me know if you want to see samples of my writing or anything else to help you make the decision

BR,

Ginny, Content Strategist @ storytelling.delivery

The CAN-SPAM act of 2003 compliance:
Address: 525 3rd Street N. Jacksonville Beach, Florida 32250
If you don’t want to hear from me ever again, reply with “no” or follow the link:

Her wish is my command.

From: Kicks Condor <[email protected]>
To: Ginny <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: I’d love to contribute a guest post
Date: Thursday, May 07, 2020 4:09 PM

Ginny -

I would love for you to contribute a guest post. Go ahead and send it! As part of your post, I also would like your answers to the following questions.

• Your website is storytelling.delivery. I love this idea! What sort of delivery options do you have for your stories?

• You are a content strategist. Is doing guest posts one of your strategies? Or is it just a fun thing that you like to do?

• Have you had any supernatural experiences in your life?

• At the end of your e-mails, the final line is “If you don’t want to hear from me ever again, reply with ‘no’ or follow the link.” It was very jarring to read this at the end - the thought hadn’t occurred to me that perhaps I should shut you down and banish you and your e-mails to some faraway quadrant. It made me feel awful to read. But perhaps I don’t quite understand the tone of this sentence. Are you saying it in a humble, grateful way? Or is this sentence supposed to sound bitter and harsh, so as to make me feel inhuman if I click the link?

Good to hear from you!
- kicks c

After this - silence.

On the other hand, it’s only been 13 days. She could still be crafting something very wonderful and surprising.

Here’s one that I’ve been working on for eight months now.

From: Watchideas <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Great Article About Wristwatches!
Date: Friday, August 23, 2019 12:02 PM

Hi real quick message for you,

It’s Julian here from Watchideas, a site dedicated to wristwatches.

I noticed that in your article https://www.kickscondor.com/ you referenced http://507movements.com/ who were talking about Watch Movements. I actually wrote a very similar article recently with tons of research and great information that I thought might be useful to your readers, and wondered if you would be interested in linking to it at all?^[2]

You can check it out here https://www.watchideas.com/watch-movements-differences-between-mechanical-quartz/

I’d love to hear your feedback!

Thanks,

Julian

Julian B.
Watchideas.com
Your Trusted Source for Wrist Watches

Just click here if you don’t want any more emails from me.

Julian then presses me again, before I can reply.

From: Watchideas <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Great Article About Wristwatches!
Date: Tuesday, August 27, 2019 10:31 PM

Hey me again,

Checking in super quick.

Did you get the chance to check this out?

I’d love to work with you on this. If you’re not interested then perhaps we could collaborate in a different way, I could even write a guest post or something for you if you like?

Thanks,

Julian

Julian B.
Watchideas.com
Your Trusted Source for Wrist Watches

Just click here if you don’t want any more emails from me.

Ok ok! Yes, Julian. Yes, I will take some. I will take some watch ideas.

From: Kicks Condor <[email protected]>
To: Watchideas <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Great Article About Wristwatches!
Date: Wednesday, August 28, 2019 1:07 AM

Hi - hey Julian B. Sorry to just now reply. My site is just a personal blog - and, unfortunately, I have no interest in wristwatches or product sales.

However, since you are so eager, I would love to interview you, if that would be cool. If you’re interested, please reply to these questions, and we can continue the conversation from there.

• I’m afraid I don’t like watches, so what else do you think we could discover that we have in common?

• As a watch enthusiast, what is your favorite time of day?

• Do you believe in ghosts?

• At the end of your e-mails, the final line is “Just click here if you don’t want any more emails from me.” It was very jarring to read this at the end - the thought hadn’t occurred to me that perhaps I should shut you down and banish you and your e-mails to some faraway quadrant. But perhaps I don’t quite understand the tone of this sentence. Are you saying it in a humble, grateful way? Or is this sentence supposed to sound bitter and harsh, so as to make me feel inhuman if I click the link?

That is ok for now. Thank you and nice to meet you!
- kicks

Since he followed up with me, I felt to extend the same courtesy.

From: Kicks Condor <[email protected]>
To: Watchideas <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Great Article About Wristwatches!
Date: Monday, November 11, 2019 12:09 PM

Julian -

Hey, I’m quite surprised I didn’t hear back from you. You seemed very eager to collaborate. Do you think I’m toying with you or something? Because I’m quite serious about interviewing you.

I understand if you don’t trust me or are somehow intimidated. We just don’t know each other at all.

Either way, good luck.
- kicks

Ginny, Julian - I am serious. I would like to interview you. I am concerned that my e-mails somehow came off as condescending or something. I agree that they are flippant - but that is just for fun. I still want to have a conversation with you.

I also believe that their initial requests were sincere. There are touches of personality in those e-mails that I have fallen for. I don’t believe that this is spam, even though it may have been sent through automated e-mail software of some kind. (Thus the “if you never want to hear from me again” jargon - but even that evokes some humanity. Oh the pity those words stir within me.)

But perhaps I am merely attempting to will these people, their replies and their watch ideas into existence…

One thing is for sure though. I not going to click some link to make you go away forever.

Things are at a good point right now where I can find small websites and pass them up the chain. I’ve got Andy Baio looking in now and then. Seems like I’ve got Warren Ellis from showbiz. I worked hard to score these big guys. Pretty nice, pretty damn decent. Everyone who I want to have reading is now reading. It’s perfect right now.^[1]

But now let me explain with some of the problems I’m facing that you are all causing.

• You are ruining me. If this blog turns into some hip, exclusive thing, then people will think that Kicks Condor is a sweet brand or something. No - when I quit blogging I want to give up kickscondor.com so that no one will go near it after that.^[2]
• Recognition is like poison. All of this will turn into worthless popular shit and you will regret ever having liked me. And I will be trapped in here, pretending to be twenty-one and scrambling to “give back” to my community. I will be paying the price of it. But YOU. You will have done this to me! Does anything even happen to YOU?
• You will think you’ve moved on and that your life is better now that you’ve put me behind you. But how could it be better? You gave up on Kicks Condor, the one person who could really help you find quality Neocities sites! Your life will not be bad per se, but you will feel off kilter for sure.
• You are bringing bad actors to my door. People are now coming in droves to take what I have. I get e-mails from people who say, “Show me what you are doing to find success?” They want to see my deepest thoughts and impressions naked on the printed page. Others harshly defile my name on imageboards. I just had a bad experience on ratwires.space recently where a guy said he would kill me and I just had to observe it all happen dispassionately. So now I’m checking msgbored.cf, just waiting for the next attack.
• I’ve even been threatened with a lawsuit. A celebrity figure has been sending the dogs after me for stealing the KICKS CONDOR name, the chair avatar and my very idealism for the World Wide Web!^[3]
• People are not going to like me linking to them if I just send them a bunch of link cowboys. Imagine if this just turns into a bunch of YouTubers going to your links and making faces about it? In a way, that’d be pretty nice, pretty damn decent. But it’s actually a terrible thing for future generations.

I got a really nice e-mail from Justus Grunow a few days ago. But I’m not going to destroy his life by linking to him all the time! He has published GIFs of his close friends and associates on that web site. What would it do to him if those GIFs were suddenly taken over by link cowboys and used as dogwhistles for global coffee thieves?

It would absolutely destroy him. I can safely link to him ten more times here in the dense matter of my hypertext. But the eleventh time will destroy him.^[4]

I know I talk a lot about “Let Me Link to You”. But sometimes things get evil. What if Google had realized, on the day they became evil, that they needed to say something to all of us, to let us know? How easy would it have been for them to post a message, explaining that they’d become evil, that we should stop, that we should go away and never return. I think we could have recovered the Earth!

I am not evil yet, I promise you! But I am certainly ALMOST THERE. It’s around the corner. Maybe the 8th. And all you have to do is shut up. Can you do that?

You can share this blog with your enemies however. And, of course, if you are a CIA operative, and sharing this is part of your current assignment, I get that.

Now, let’s all try to calm down and forget about this. Forget about this message, forget about me, forget that I spent so long talking about myself, and most important of all: deny ANY KNOWLEDGE THAT YOU HAVE OF THIS BLOG, even if you are tortured or held at gun point. If you think about it, this kind of secrecy will make you much more of an insane hipster than you already have been during the last five years that you have ardently followed this blog.

Okay, I think we can safely say this is the nail in the coffin for this blog.

Omniscience comes up quite regularly. People speak of “their life flashing before their eyes” when they die - or the ability to rewind and call up memories in some post-death review. But there are also characters such as “Janet” from The Good Place or the precogs from Minority Report, who are aware of everything and can be queried like a database. The concept of “The Singularity” often is meant to refer to a superintellegence that approaches omniscience.

So, could I ask an omniscient source: “Bring up all my conversations where Nicholas Cage is mentioned?” Given that sometimes I may be referring to National Treasure or other times I may be mentioning “Nouveau Shamanic” acting with him in mind. The index needs to include references to my conversation history, my context for understanding Nicholas Cage, and a many-to-many join between them.

To what degree does that query return every conversation I have? Am I constantly alluding to Nicholas Cage?

If humans have difficulty agreeing on an exact weight for a racist tweet or extracting the true meaning of any given pull-quote from the Mueller Report, how does an omniscient source ultimately mine all possible meanings from a given conversation? Couldn’t it become stuck on one sentence, infinitely paralyzed during indexing?

It seems an insurmountable problem that an omniscience could track everything as time continues. This makes me wonder if the inate desire of an omniscience would be to slow or stop time, rather than to accelerate it out of some voracious appetite.

The mouse cursor that I saw was of a simple Jersey cow, lowing in the field. I was not looking for a new mouse cursor at the time, I was simply drinking from a clear canister. The circumstances could not be less intriguing. I was drinking from a clear canister and I had my hand resting on the bough of a tree.

Normally I close my eyes while I am drinking. I close them very tight actually. Sometimes my eyelids hurt from closing them so tightly! I have to tell myself to not close them so tightly. And that’s what I did in this moment: I was telling myself not to close my eyelids so tightly. I was repeating to myself the phrase: Decci Estefani Epcot—which is a phonetical reading of an acronym which stands for “Don’t Ever Close Your Eyelids So Tightly That the Force of Your Entire Person is Concentrated There.” I repeated this again and again in my mind. Decci Estefani Epcot. Decci Estefani Epcot. In my mind, many times.

I am very careful to say it precisely, as it is a slight tongue twister. Not a notable one at all. But a minor one. My eyelids love it. Let’s just say: they were doing fine. And as I said, the vision of this Jersey cow mouse cursor was conjured in my vision, moving across my neighbor’s yard.

I was standing on a ladder, looking into this neighbor’s yard, while this mouse cursor clicked on different things. The grass. Then an in-ground trampoline. Then a bush. A bird flew out of the bush. It clicked on a screen door and it rattled slightly. It clicked on the bush a few more times, but there were no birds there, just a rustling.

I marveled at this cursor—I hadn’t even thought to look at the bush or the in-ground trampoline before. I wouldn’t even have tried. Not before this. But now I looked, I really looked! And I truly saw them in all of their splendor. The pleasant thump of the trampoline’s tarpaulin! I thought to myself that it would be lovely to have a mouse cursor in my life that would click on various things, bringing my attention to them and making them fully interactive. It didn’t occur to me that I actually did have one now. I looked, and it seemed totally independent and detached from me, not mine in any sense, not belonging to any of us, but just a translucent layer, existing on top of the projections of my eyes. It shook its head from side to side, nervously. But I could see that it was beaming with a raw, youthful embarrassment.

Now, this is not the revelation—many of you have written in to tell me about your mouse cursors and what you like to do with them. And also I should say, I worry about bringing up the wrong thing here. Do you ever say something offhanded to someone and then two days later you suddenly throw yourself BACKWARDS against the wall in the middle of the day and you yell HEY WAIT THIS IS A BAD SITUATION! Of course, when someone notices you, you laugh playfully, as if it you were just kidding around—but in secret, you struggle to breathe again and you close your eyelids way too tight, and you find you are trapped in this situation from then on, paralyzed by what you can ever do right again.

What I am saying is—well, first off, I have many times seen a wolf on top of my neighbor’s house. It is usually just licking its paws or staring at children who are playing. It’s sitting on shingles as if they were just another natural biome. But what I’m saying is that I’m afraid that many of you will think I am saying “wolf”—as in “German.” (Because I often used that word to derogatorily refer to Germans when I was a young person. And it was true back then—many Germans were wolves in those days, they would steal my train tickets. But it’s no longer true—so I no longer say it, but I’m afraid to now even bring up the word “wolf” even if I have a good reason, like if I want to tell you that I’ve seen one on my neighbor’s roof.)

So this is the revelation—why exactly I struggle to use the word “wolf” on this blog or even in my private life, in the most intimate moments. Well, no, I do use it there very frequently.

Now it is nighttime and I am confronting this digitally, to see how it goes. The FBI and the KGB are here watching my every move. They love to peep in and to announce their presence on my screen. There is a little icon of a man’s face. It appears in my system tray and it winks once at me. But if I try to show anyone else the man’s face, it fades into an ordinary Dropbox logo. This is quite maddening. But, being a former computer expert, I do know what it takes to make a smooth fade transition.

So, yes, this is what draws me to the surrealist community. And to bee videos, which is the closest thing I have right now to my mouse cursor.