The Steve Machine. Mike Hoolboom

      Published with the generous assistance of the Canada Council for

      the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. Coach House Books also

      acknowledges the support of the Government of Ontario through

      the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Government of

      Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development

      Program.

      All characters in The Steve Machine are fictional. There exists a real Steve Reinke, who shares some qualities with the Steve Reinke in this book, but this is by no means an accurate depiction of him, nor is it intended to be.

      LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

      Hoolboom, Michael

      The Steve machine / Mike Hoolboom.

      ISBN 978-1-55245-202-8

      1. Reinke, Steve, 1963- --Fiction. I. Title.

      PS8615.O515S74 2008 C813′.6 C2008-905272-2

      ‘The most complicated machines

      are made only with words.’

      – Jacques Lacan

       One morning I picked up a book, I can’t remember which one, and as I read I began to hear a voice inside, as if it were speaking to me. Ever since, whenever I read, I hear that same voice. It took me many years and many more books before I discovered the owner of those summery tones, and this volume is a record of that quest. But not only that. It is also a machine for producing this voice. When the book is finished, you will be able to hear what I hear: the voice of Steve Reinke. This may take some getting used to at first, but I want to reassure you that the transition is generally effortless. When it finally arrives, you will very likely ask yourself: how did I ever make it through a book without this accompaniment? How could I have waited so long? Every book is part of the library, and inside that library there is a voice already waiting for you. And you won’t have to turn the last page of the last book before the promise of well-being and comfort issuing from that voice belongs to you.

       You’ve come home.