vienne-en-plage, jan. 2004

Dear fellow buccaneers,
Allow me to address you with this possibly new term. 'Buccaneer' is a kind of a pirate, a freibeuter. I think we do agree by now that the Manoa Free University is a ship. A very odd one, but clearly dedicated to naval activities. You might remember that we launched it about a year ago, and it was more of an escape then a well-prepared enterprise. Over the course of the 13 moons that passed the deck, we faced some rather weird adventures, most of them on board: I remember a long discussion about the ship's name when we took course to the danish island of Soerup. If I don't get things wrong, there were delirious nightly ideas about naval anarchitecture: the story of a ship where a swiss sailor (homesick for the mountains?) was constantly drilling a hole in the hull, defending it and caring for it just as if it was bettter than any commonly known motor. The swiss sailor was put on a nutshell, pulled along behind the main ship, and there he had time to improve his drilling method to unknown dimensions. After a while he completed his studies and shared his knowledge with the rest of the crew. And true - the ship progressed!
Let me share the preacher's words with you here:

A good name is better than good ointment, and the day of death than the day of birth. (Eccl. 7, 1)
(Besser ein guter Name als Parfüm - / und der Tag eines Todes als der Tag einer Geburt)

Manoa, we have learned, bears a double-edged history: on the one hand, it's the paradise of the American natives, that mystic golden city, on the other hand it's also Eldorado, the colonial motif, the mad quest for irreal wealths. You will certainly testify that you have sometimes seen Aguirre (the wrath of god) restlessly wandering aboard at night. And he sure didn't look like Kinski this time...
But then, I ask you, is there a better proof that Manoa is REAL - than this ambivalence? Is there a motivation more honest to stand up to one's desires and dreams, to sail on from island to island, from disco to disco?
Of course, the troubles we face are not new, neither to us nor to the waves of the ocean. And still, it's up to us to set the sails every morning before sunset, to peel the potatoes and take a swim, to get drunk at night and then check the charts and stars for orientation. We have the highest duty to start mutinies against ourselves over and over, and we took an oath to write multidimensional logs about all this!!!

bucaneer.daegseingcny

P.S. Feb. 2004

Another moon has passed with adventurous storms, and we didn't have time so far to exchange on these encounters. Many new questions appeared in the dark sea. In fact, I do not feel able to address them properly right now. But they are very much connected with some thoughts recently stated in another paper: "The definition of knowledge shifts more and more into our focus. How is knowledge produced and how is it transferred between subjects? Any collective organizing has to be based on a permanent analysis of such questions." There is a big diversity on this ship and sometimes it's more like a fleet. Or a swarm. Whatever, send over a fuckin carrier pigeon! It's also time for some islands in the sun and trips to other universities...