[9]       Acutely sensitive to the inseparable involvement of     speech, script, and print with the visual, the auditory, the     kinesthetic and other modes of expression, Joyce roots all     communication in gesture: "In the beginning was the gest he     jousstly says" (468.5-6).  Here the originary nature of     gesture (gest, F. %geste% = gesture)^15^ is linked with the     mechanics of humor (i.e., jest) and to telling a tale     (gest as a feat and a tale or romance).  Gestures, like     signals and flashing lights that provide elementary     mechanical systems for communications, are "words of silent     power" (345.19).  A traffic crossing sign, "Belisha beacon,     beckon bright" (267.12), exemplifies such situations "Where     flash becomes word and silents selfloud."  Since gestures,     and ultimately all acts of communication, are generated from     the body, the "gest" as "flesh without word" (468.5-6) is "a     flash" that becomes word and "communicake[s] with the     original sinse" [originary sense + the temporal, "since" +     original sin (239.1)].  "Communicake" parallels eating to     speaking, and speaking is linked in turn to the act of     communion as participation in, and consumption of, the     Word--an observation adumbrated in the title of one of     Marcel Jousse's groundbreaking books on gesture as the     origin of language, _La Manducation de la Parole_ ("The     Mastication of the Word").  By treating the "gest" as a bit     (a bite), orality and the written word as projections of     gesture can be seen to spring from the body as a     communicating machine.^16^  The historical processes that     contribute to the development of cyberspace augment the     growing emphasis, in theories such as Kenneth Burke's, on     the idea that the goal of the symbolic action called     communication is *secular, paramodern communion*.^17^[10]      The _Wake_ provides a self-reflexive explanation of the     communicative process of encoding and decoding required to     interpret an encoded text, which itself is     characteristically mechanical:          The prouts who will invent a writing there ultimately          is the poeta, still more learned, who discovered the          raiding there originally.  That's the point of          eschatology our book of kills reaches for now in          soandso many counterpoint words.  What can't be coded          can be decorded if an ear aye seize what no eye ere          grieved for.  Now, the doctrine obtains, we have          occasioning cause causing effects and affects          occasionally recausing altereffects.  Or I will let me          take it upon myself to suggest to twist the penman's          tale posterwise.  The gist is the gist of Shaum but the          hand is the hand of Sameas.  (482.31-483.4)     The dreamer as a poet, a Hermetic thief, an "outlex"     (169.3)--i.e., an outlaw, lawless, beyond the word and,     therefore, the law, "invents" the writing by originally     discovering the reading of the book and does so by "raiding"     [i.e., "plundering" (reading + raiding)].^18^  This reading     encompasses both the idealistic "eschatology" and the     excrementitious-materialistic (pun on scatology) within the     designing of this "book of kills" (deaths, deletions,     drinking sessions, flows of water--a counterpoint of     continuity and discontinuity),^19^ a book as carefully     crafted or machined as the illuminations of the _Book of     Kells_ are.  Seeing and hearing are intricately involved in     this process, so the reader of this night-book also becomes     a "raider" of the original "reading-writing" through the     machinery of writing.  It is a production "in soandso many     counterpoint words" that can be read only through the     machinery of decoding, for "What can't be coded can be     decorded, if an ear aye seize what no eye ere grieved for"     (482.34).  The tale that the pen writes is transmitted by     the post, and the whole process of communication and its     interpretation is an extension of the hand and of bodily     gesture-language: "The gist is the gist of Shaum but the     hand is the hand of Sameas" (483.3-4).[11]      Orality, particularly song, is grounded in the     machinery of the body's organs: "Singalingalying.  Storiella     as she is syung.  Whence followeup with endspeaking nots for     yestures" (267.7-9).^20^  The link is rhythm, for     "Soonjemmijohns will cudgel some a rhythmatick or other over     Browne and Nolan's divisional tables" (268.7-9).  Gesture,     with its affiliation with all of the neuro-muscular     movements of the body, is a natural script or originary     writing, for the word "has been reconstricted out of oral     style into verbal for all time with ritual rhythmics"     (36.8-9).  Since the oral is "reconstricted" (reconstructed     + constricted or limited) into the verbal, words also are     crafted in relation to sound, a natural development of which     is "wordcraft": for example, hieroglyphs and primitive     script based on drawings or mnemonic devices.^21^  Runes and     ogham are literally "woodwordings," so pre- or proto-writing     (i.e., syllabic writing) is already "a mechanization of the     word," which is itself implicit in the body's use of     gesture.[12]      Joyce's practice and his theoretical orientation imply     that as the road to cyberspace unfolds, the very nature of     the word, the image, and the icon also changes.  Under the     impact of electric communication, it is once again clear     that the concept of the word must embrace artifacts and     events as well.^22^  Writing and speech are subsumed into     entirely new relationships with non-phonemic sound, image,     gesture, movement, rhythm, and all modes of sensory input,     especially the tactile.  To continue to speak about a     dichotomy of orality versus literacy is a misleading     over-simplification of the role that electric media play in     this transformation, a role best comprehended through     historical knowledge of the earliest stages of human     communication where objects, gestures and movements     apparently intermingled with verbal and non-verbal sounds.     Marschak's study of early cultural artifacts, the Aschers'     discussion of the quipu, and Levi-Strauss's discussions of     the kinship system demonstrate the relative complexity of     some ancient, non-linguistic systems of communication.^23^     Adapting Vico's speculation that human communication begins     with the gestures and material symbols of the "mute," Joyce     early in the _Wake_ presents an encounter between two     characters whose names deliberately echo Mutt and Jeff of     comic strip fame.  Mutt (until recently a mute) and Jute (a     nomadic invader) "excheck a few strong verbs weak oach     eather" (16.8-9).[13]      Beginning with gesture, hieroglyph and rune, Joyce     traces human communication through its complex, labyrinthine     development, right down to the TV and what it bodes for the     future.  For example, an entire episode of the _Wake_     (I,5)^24^ is devoted to the technology of manuscripts and     the theory of their interpretation--textual hermeneutics--in     which the _Wake_ as a book is interpreted as if it were a     manuscript, "the proteiform graph is a polyhedron of all     scripture" (107.8).  At each stage, Joyce recognizes how the     machinery of codification is implicit in the history of     communication, for discussing this manuscript, he observes     that          on holding the verso against a lit rush this new          book of Morses responded most remarkably to the silent          query of our world's oldest light and its recto let out          the piquant fact that it was but pierced but not          punctured (in the university sense of the term) by          numerous stabs and foliated gashes made by a pronged          instrument. . . .  (123.34-124.3)     This illustrates how the beginning of electric media (the     telegraph) is a transformation of the potentialities of the     early manuscript, just as any manuscript is a transformation     of the "wordcraft" of "woodwordings."  "Morse code" is     indicative of the mechanics of codification, for while code     is essential to all communication (thus prior to the moment     when the mechanical is electrified), the role of     codification is radically transformed by mechanization.[14]      The appearance of the printing press demonstrates the     effect of this radical transformation:          Gutenmorg with his cromagnon charter, tintingfast          and great primer must once for omniboss step          rubrickredd out of the wordpress else is there no          virtue more in alcohoran.  For that (the rapt one          warns) is what papyr is meed of, made of, hides and          hints and misses in prints.  Till ye finally (though          not yet endlike) meet with the acquaintance of Mister          Typus, Mistress Tope and all the little typtopies.          Fillstup.  So you need hardly spell me how every word          will be bound over to carry three score and ten          toptypsical readings throughout the book of Doublends          Jined . . . .  (20.7-16)     As "Gutenmorg with his cromagnon charter, tintingfast and     great primer" steps "rubrickredd out of the wordpress," the     dream reminds us that "papyr is meed of, made of, hides and     hints and misses in prints."  Topics (L. %topos%) and types     (L. %typus%) as figures, forms, images, topics and     commonplaces, the elemental bits of writing and rhetoric,     are now realized through typesetting.  Implicit in the     technology of print is the complex intertextuality of verbal     ambivalence, for "every word will be bound over to carry     three score and ten toptypsical readings throughout the book     of Doublends Jined."  Printing sets in place the "root     language" (424.17) residing in the types and topes of the     world and potentially eliminates a multitude of alternate     codes such as actual sounds, visual images, real objects,     movements, and gestures that will re-emerge with the     electromechanical march towards VR and cyberspace.[15]      By the 1930s, in a pub scene in the _Wake_, Joyce     playfully anticipated how central sporting events or     political debates would be for television when he described     the TV projection of a fight being viewed by the pub's     "regulars" (possibly the first fictional TV bar room scene     in literary history).  Joyce's presentation of this image of     the battle of Butt and Taff, which is peppered with complex     puns involving terminology associated with the technical     details of TV transmission, has its own metamorphic quality,     underscored by the "viseversion" (vice versa imaging) of     Butt and Taff's images on "the bairdboard bombardment     screen" ("bairdboard" because John Logie Baird developed TV     in 1925).  Joyce explains how "the bairdboard bombardment     screen," the TV as receiver, receives the composite video     signal "in scynopanc pulses" (the synchronization pulses     that form part of the composite video signal), that come     down the "photoslope" on the "carnier walve" (i.e., the     carrier wave which carries the composite video signal) "with     the bitts bugtwug their teffs."  Joyce imagines this     receiver to be a "light barricade" against which the charge     of the light brigade (the video signal) is directed,     reproducing the "bitts."  Although (at least to my     knowledge) bit was not used as a technical term in     communication technology at the time, Joyce is still able,     on analogy with the telegraph, to think of the electrons or     photons as bits of information creating the TV picture.[16]      Speech, print and writing are interwoven with     electromechanical technologies of communication throughout     the _Wake_.  References to the manufacture of books,     newspapers and other products of the printing press abound.     Machineries and technological organizations accompany this     development: reporters, editors, interviewers, newsboys, ad     men who produce "Abortisements" (181.33).  Since complex     communication technology is characteristic of the later     stages, in addition to newspapers, radio, "dupenny"     magazines, comics (contemporary cave drawing), there is "a     phantom city phaked by philm pholk," by those who would     "roll away the reel world."  Telecommunications materialize     again and again throughout the night of the _Wake_, where     "television kills telephony."[17]      The "tele-" prefix, betraying an element of futurology     in the dream, appears in well over a dozen words including     in addition to the familiar forms terms such as "teleframe,"     "telekinesis," "telesmell," "telesphorously," "televisible,"