Death at the Parasite Cafe

Part 1 Prefacing the meal that follows: when words become flesh and flesh becomes words - an editor's preface; questions of access and excess - a translator's preface; terror of the simulcra - an author's preface; my first confession - a graphic artist's preface; death of an author - a copy(w)riter's preface. Part 2 A story of the eye/I: a story of the eye/"I" - the parasitism of postmodern sociology; the double of no-thing - social structuring rituals and sacrificial power; elementary forms of untramodern social life - hyper-primitive doublings; totems and taboo - narcissism, death and the uncanny; infantile recurrence and overdevelopment - "scenes from World War III". Part 3 A return of the doubles: elegy for a world of dead fathers - the sublime aesthetics of global networking; death screen of the gift - ultramodern capital, cybernetics and excremental culture. Part 4 Beginning again - flesh before words: Venus in video - new world mas(s)ochism and the "cool memories" of the code; a desire for allegory - postmodern (w)riting and the fifth person plural; the orphans' revenge - sociological deconstruction at the crossroads. Part 5 After-words and before.