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=============================================================
Date: 01 FEB 1994 09:59 -06
From: Merciful Lee Dickens<DICKENS>
Subject: ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARD
To: Donkey
Where the hell's a sniper when you need one? The Fat Lady wasn't here
yesterday and it was so nice and peaceful. She's here today, already
done the loud monologue (rehearsed no doubt in the van on the way over)
on how she prepared her chicken livers last night and the resultant
familial acclaim, a brief treatise on who should live and who should
die (which, as you see, generated mine in turn) and is now exercising
the monotonally stage whispered gossip mandate (impugning that, while
the whole room may be cleared to receive the former revelations, the
latter information is classified much too confidentially to be
entrusted to the unwashed ears of the common peasantry).
This is a formula that she will employ in endless loop procession
throughout the entire day.
We're all learning about how uncomfortably hot she is now. She is of
the belief that the only sure way to learn is by rote memorization,
and to effect that end she is now squawking her complaint over and over
and over. And over. And do you know what? I think I am starting to
get it...
She's of the Old School - it shows, oh, does it show! - one of strict
Puritan work ethics with built-in guilt triggers and snitch incentives.
An academy of higher repression, they taught careful enunciation as the
key to proper elocution and instilled belief that a public speaker
should sternly hold at all times during recitation the fixed mental
image of a hypothetical axis travelling a straight path from the corn-
cob clutched tightly in the fundament all the way up the rigid spine
to the Holy Bible - King James version - balanced unwaveringly in
precise, non-repudiative conviction atop the flat and devoutly pious
head.
As should be obvious to even the most severely learning disabled among
you, I despise this woman's brain. Were it not for the occasional
glimpses of an innocent and childlike soul, I would have long since
taken up the sniper's position. But I've digressed...
We seemed to have attained the Bonus Lightning Round:
The Hillbilly Woman has now joined the discussion in progress, regaling
us with her profound medical insights! Direct quote, so help me God:
"I had the chicken poxes on my HAID! I also had these places on my
back? I went on to the doctor and he give me this Zorex cream to clear
'em up? But they wasn't a-healin up fast ENOUGH! I thought I's gonna
have to go clear on up to Birmingham--"
At this point, the doddering old dunderhead who runs their department
(and be advised I use the verb loosely) - the criminally insane Harley
"Babbling" Brooks - comes barging in, interrupting the Blitherfest in
true Imbeciliac fashion by insisting that everyone look at the little
cartoon which has caught his attention. The little cartoons that catch
his attention, between his frequent naps, are never funny. Never EVER
funny. This adds to the excruciation of Your Humble Narrator, who must
leave the room at this time, to step outside and scream.
We pause for station identification. I hope that each of you finds a
more pleasant, less nerve-wracking environment in which to misbehave.
Peace Be With You,
Merciful Lee Dickens,
a/k/a Felonious J. Cubensis
"Cube"
==========================================================
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 09:39:46 -0500 (EST)
From: <LIBWCA>
Subject: On the culture gap
To: Donkey
Pamela Koch, modern now-a-go-go kids have never seen even a single
episode of _Underdog_. One might as well ask them to extemporize on
the puzzling relationship between Johnny Quest and his little magical
Indian friend, Haji, or to describe the circuitry of the Wayback
Machine. They are deprived. They are dumbfounded. They may sneer
at you and call you "bogus", or they may turn on this music they're
so fond of and sit about drinking Smart Drinks, wondering what in the
hell you're talking about. They don't do drugs, and many of them are
monogamous. I swear.
Malibu Skipper
Having a Generational Problem
==========================================================
Date: Tue, 01 Feb 1994 09:21:07 -0500 (EST)
Subject: About Last Night
Sender: Now more accessible than ever! <BCPALMER>
To:Donkey
Dear Merciful and Callous Friends,
My wife's arm materializes across my back last night in something resembling
an embrace. I squirm around so I can at least stroke her hand withoutcutting
off my circulation to anything. My wife says, "I either have an ulcer or I'm
pregnant."
As many of you know, we have a six-month-old miracle running around now. I'm
not sure if a burnout-fellow as depressed as moi could stand having twolittle
miracles running around. Being confronted with miracles regularly can bequite
jolting. (I suppose there are always new and better sedatives.)
Personal Note: Cynthia, I think I'll need lots of shaving cream (!)
My profoundest paternalities to you all. The Kitten now naps.
Brent "Help me! I'm becoming normal!" <Pollux>
Kill me before I grow.
00bcpalmer
==========================================================
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 16:04:39 -0500 (EST)
Sender: <LIBWCA>
Subject: Arthur sheds his feminine side...
To: Donkey
Brent, I know this potential-dad-again thing must have you all
a-flutter, and congratulations - but please don't loose sight
of your primary objective, which is to keep me entertained. All
of you. You're sleeping on the job, and I won't have it.
But that's not why I called...
I think attention should be paid to the departure of Young Melaney
Willis, who served the cause well and truly for many months, and who
now finds herself enmessed in that most scintillating of traps,
Philosophical Differences. Melaney wasn't like you and me -
particularly she wasn't like you, Rollins - but she was a hoot and
a holler, and I'll miss having her around.
Did I really say that? Who gives a damn, anyhow?
MS
==========================================================
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 1994 08:22:10 -0500 (EST)
Subject: The God of the Witches
Sender: Now more accessible than ever! <BCPALMER>
To: Donkey
Dear Readers of _DONKEY-L: Illumination for the 21st Century_ by Doc Foss:
Last Night I was reading _The God of the Witches_, a pseudo-scholarly work
written in the earlier part of this century, when it was okay to talk about
arcane things without citing sources or producing evidence, and each word
was like a potato chip, I had to eat another.
Somehow it occured to me that several pretty-boys wouldn't have jobs if it
weren't for television. And that television is most plausibly (sp?) the re-
turn of the Horned God, what with its (originally) rabbit ears and Jackie
Gleason and Uncle Miltie (sp?) with these horns coming out of their head,
these chrome horns, this England.
We no long-donger use antannae (sp?) so much and when we do, they often hoop
rather than splay, which is obviously part of the robitization, the KenDoll-
ing, the emasculation of men by the Japanese whose repressed femininnyty(sp?)
is manifesting in their Sony Trinitrons. Who says only the USA exportsculture?
Tanya (sp?) Harding metaphorically wields the deadly phallus while her male
slave-do-her-biddingers sit on ice and try to implicate her, helplessly,like
Rabin and Arafat slowdancing in their wives' best anything-but-Sundaydresses.
Then there's the great hero of the Star Trek epic, in a moment of crisis,right
after his son's death in ST III, saying "I know nothing". What sort of herois
that? Yet here I remain, using/abusing my many talents to teach The NextGener-
ation the alphabet. Does that satisfy you?
Deliberately and Methodically Raving, Brent <Pollux>
00bcpalmer
=======================================================================40
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 94 21:50:04 EST
From: "Daniel A. Foss" <DFOSS@ccvm.sunysb.edu>
Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook
Subject: am no use at this time
To: Donkey
Will not be sending mail for a week, this station is off the air except
for receiving mail, no earthly use to any organism at this time, sorry
was not in better shape, time to go. Give my fondest regards to lizzy
who has abrubtly vanished from my life.
Daniel A. Foss
========================================================================
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 94 15:03:46 EST
From: WHIPLASH
To:Donkey
Subject: So take a good look at my face...
i am leaving the internet indefinitely. i have enjoyed your company,
and wish you all the best. i would especially like to thank dana, arthur,
bill, pamela and scott lesser for being my friends. you have been good
friends to me, particularly dana. i will write you when i can. i'm
returning to denver to see what i can work out with janice... it's a long
story, and we almost certainly can't stay together forever... i'm leaving
this tuesday, i think. maybe i can stop by atlanta and auburn for a day
each to say goodbye again for awhile--this time i'll be better company, etc.
i may not be able to; i'll call.
i would like to think of brid as my friend. i find her very difficult to
read. but i admire her. she is smarter than i am and she drinks herwhiskey
neat. i became inspired with her style and tried the neat whiskey thing
the other day at my mom's house, and spent the afternoon composing a long
"farewell" letter to you all, but when i read it the next day, it's all just
about how great i am at jacking off... you'll notice i haven't included
brid in my distribution list; arthur, please forward her a copy of thismessage.
in place of my accounts of my autoerotic virtuousity, i will leave you with
some SONG LYRICS, by the mighty mighty bosstones...
there was a place
and the name of the place escapes me
when i can't remember
it irritates me
could be i can't remember...
could be i choose to not...
let's move the song along
and try to find a plot there was a girl
and i don't know her name either
she gave me love and i said i'd never leave her if i did
i'd come back someday and find her
maybe i will
i should write down a reminder
someday
one day, who knows?
someday
someday i suppose...
the more i sort it out
the more it gets distorted
i sort of think i'm better off just leaving it unsorted...
the more i try to changes it's course
the more off course it goes...
i'm sure i'll reach my destination someday i suppose...
-- from "someday"
Ya'll Come Back Now, Y'hear?
love,
whiplash
==========================================================
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 1994 08:10:12 -0500 (EST)
From: <LIBWCA>
Subject: War & Peace
To: Donkey
>Whew! I am being overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of mail. Hey, guys,can
>you cut it back just a bit?
>
>Jim
War and Peace, indeed. Given the rate of attrition over the past
week, I believe it's time we faced the possibility that Mr. Jim
"Tippy" Von Hellstrom might just be an assassin, possibly in the
employ of the devious and fecund Hope A. Greenbaum. Ms. Greenstone,
as some of you know, is a highly-trained agent of Tsar Nicholas I
and a former symbolist poet and multi-million-dollar record exec,
who left her home in Georgia just a'heading for the Frisco Bay one
enchanted evening in late December back in '63, and ain't been back
home to see Mama since then... till now.
In light of these undeniable facts, I think we can safely assume
that Leggy Supermodel Jim "Tippy" Lo Bianca is just a little bit
more than the cuddly Panamanian Strongman and Astral Medium he
passes himself off as.
Dickens, see what you can get out of him.
Malibu Skipper
Really, Really Suspicious
=============================================================
Date: Fri, 04 Feb 1994 14:16:14 -0400 (EDT)
From: lesser <LESSER>
Subject: WHERE THE DONKEY FELL
To: Donkey
i stood in the middle of a parking lot at 9:30 pm
a few nights ago in the freezing cold, looked up
at the stars in the winter sky, thought about rob
holder's voice which was still ringing in my ears,
and realized i had tears in my eyes. those tears
were not for rob, but for all of us.
with every drink of whisky and soon forgotten kiss,
it all seems clearer to me.
don't the omens seem to point towards The End?
==========================================================
Date: Mon, 07 Feb 1994 23:06:26 -0400 (EDT)
From: scott lesser <LESSER>
Subject: Re: WHERE THE DONKEY FELL
To: Donkey
sometimes we sense something important, but miss recognition
of that thing which it is we're really sensing.
additionally, in retrospect i suddenly realize that perhaps if It
didn't start to think that Its fall was so important, It would see to get up
off its ASS.
[inappropriate tittering]
...let me show you how.
i'm off to broadcast live, my friends - i have a eulogy to
write and deliver in honor of a great mother, nurse, and
professor. then i'll be back to try to convince you of how
great your works have the potential of being; even though
rob taught me to think about the experience above all that
all other making a scene/nurturing a cause stuff.
and i have this great story to tell you about how beautiful
life can be at its end - and how tacky and absurd funeral
shopping can be.
trusting his instincts;
loving his friends;
at peace with an experience;
but, still, grieving in his loss;
and deciding to pass on the
purchase of a new $800 armani
suit i though i would buy -
just because it was black and was
the only one that would've fit -
in favor of the old brown one
she would've wanted me to wear;
yerple,
scott
p.s. in the last few days i've noted that
the catholic serenity prayer is just a plea
for the attitude most anarcho-nihilists take
for granted.
==========================================================
Date: Wed, 9 Feb 1994 16:40:03 -0500 (EST)
From: "E.J. Ford CFS" <EJFORD>
Subject: What in the wide, wide world of sports...
To: DONKEY
Is going on here!?!
You guys are, by afreeman's accounts, jumping ship like a buncha rats
with firecrackers up their butts!
I won't stand for it!
Frankly, I wouldn't sit for it either, but my butt happens to be on a
chair at the time I am typing this and lord knows I need my CREATURE
COMFORTS!
So cut that horse-hockey out right now or I swear to god I will haunt you
worse than Brent's poetry. Where the hell IS everybody, anyhow. I mean,
I'm gone for two weeks and suddenly this place is starting to look like
the Fucking Language Network.
I mean it. You guys get back in here or I swear to Brent that I will
turn this car around right now and none of us will get a summer vacation,
even me and MY DIET PILL IS STARTIN' TO WEAR OFF.
Brent's poetry was lovely, by the way. Just haunting.
EJ "Captain Stubing" Ford
==========================================================
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 1994 10:34:05 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Suburban Joy
Sender: Now more accessible than ever! <BCPALMER>
To: Donkey
Dear Friends,
First, I am declared to be quite the nutty one by the State.
Then, How better to use the money I get than put it toward a
roof over my head? It didn't look as though we were going to
get 2300 Ivanhoe, but now theyore drawing up a contract.
Someday soon I will be writing you from a brick castle with
vaulted ceilings, and more rooms than I can enter or exit in
a day. The Mrs. and I like the house so much we are consider-
ing retirement there in about thirtysomething years or so.
Can you forgive me for living the white picket fence dream?
The one with a chicken in every pot? It is a very few steps
though it may take years and I'll be chatting about our wine
cellar, the new African motif of the living room, and the big-
screen television. Suddenly I don't feel nuts.
Brent "Stepford Wife" <Pollux>
00bcpalmer
Main Street, USA
=============================================================
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 1994 09:36:44 -0500 (EST)
Subject: I Have An Idea
Sender: Now more accessible than ever! <00bcpalmer>
To: Donkey
THE PARABLE-IST
A Journal Devoted to the Work of a Selct Group of Writers Who Seek to Give
Students and Critics a Definable Artistic School After Post-Modernisms and
Post-Post-Modernism. Parable-ists write eternally modern tales with little
morals at the end.
Volume One, Number One Spring, 1994
TARZAN'S SECRET 3
by Brent C. Palmer
BUS RIDE 19
by Melanie Willis
ETC.
Please send submissions to me. I will try and market us.
Brent <pollux>
==========================================================
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 1994 12:37:18 -0500 (EST)
From: Doctress Neutopia <neutopia@educ.umass.edu>
Subject: The Exit Meeting
To: Donkey
THE EXIT MEETING
I didn't realized until a few days before the January 15th
dissertation deadline for the graduate school that I needed to have
an exit meeting with the Assistance Dean of the School of Education
in order to graduate. He had to sign the final copy of the
dissertation after the other committee members had signed it. So,
I made an appointment to meet him, Dean Jay Carey, for the exit
meeting. I asked Phyllis Rodin, my mentor and best supporter of my
research to join me on this joyful occasion.
It was strange when people began congratulating me on
finishing up my dissertation. What were they congratulating me
for? Was it for having enough money to make it through the system
after a decade of struggle with the financial aid bureaucracy?
Were they proud that I had conformed my behavior enough to sit
through hours of boring and meaningless lectures? Or, were they
congratulating me because now I was an official doctress and now I
had the credentials to pursue an upper-middle class professorship
which will enable me to then buy into the American dream? The only
way I managed to get through school was that I found that if I
brought my sketch book with me to class then when I became
frustrated with the discussion, bored with the lecture, or feeling
oppressed by the teacher, I would take out the sketch book and
begin drawing and writing down my own thoughts.
I knew better than to feel elated by the "accomplishment." I
thought of my African-American friend, Isis, who the philosophy
department wouldn't allow to continue her degree. And I
thought of Willow who the School of Education didn't accepted into
the counciling Ed.D program because they didn't agree with gestalt
therapy and that is what Willow expressed an interest in
studying. No, there really wasn't any reason to celebrate because
the Higher Educational System was oppressive to all those people
who are not smart enough to enter into the higher education game.
For me, an accomplishment doesn't have to do with the
Establishment measures of success, like economic status, education
degrees, tenure professorships, but with the ability to move the
human species into a radically new direction. My dissertation was
written for this purpose. I never aspired to be a Doctor of
Education so that I could be part of the Administrators of
Americanism. The Doctorate was simply a byproduct of my work of
creating a new Vision of Education which is why I have refused to
compromise my Vision in order to fit into the system. If I had
accomplished anything it was this: that I had not compromised and
I had told the truth about the educational system the way I
perceive it, as a corrupt, brown nosing system which makes people
into friendly fascists.
My exhusband had taken a different approach to writing his
dissertation. His real passion is writing poetry and working on
literary magazines. However, he wasn't accepted into the creative
writing program and being from a ghetto family, he didn't think he
should pursue his love because the world is about how to make
money and poetry is definitely not a lucrative profession! When he
was accepted into the Communications Department to study rhetoric,
he decided that that is the direction he should pursue because
there were plenty jobs in that field leading to professorships.
Now Charles, exhusband, is at the stage of writing his
dissertation. His committee didn't approve of his first choice for
his dissertation topic, analyzing death in Mapplethorpe
photographs, but they did approve of him expanding a paper which
was assigned by his committee chairman. Needless to say, Charles
is not very inspired to write his dissertation. Throughout our
marriage, I tried to persuaded Charles to follow his passion and
give up rhetoric. But he wouldn't listen to me. He said he was
going to be the first one in his family to have ever received a
doctorate, so he was going to get it. Plus, he was the only one
from the ghetto where he grew up to have receive such an advanced
degree.
When I saw Neal in the grocery store who is working on a
degree in philosophy in he congratulated me on earning the degree.
He said that when a fellow graduate student of his turned in the
final copy of his dissertation, he felt higher than when he took a
hit of opium and hallucinated for several days. He asked me if I
was experiencing such a high. When I said no, I saw nothing to
celebrate since I was now demoted into the category of an
unemployed futurist, he looked shocked. But, then again Neal
didn't realized that what I am advocating in my dissertation is a
social revolution so that education is turned around by a feminist
philosophy.
The day arrived for my exit meeting with the Dean. It was all
very informal. As soon as I arrived, the Dean's secretary asked me
to fill out some bureaucratic forms and a School of Education
questionnaire. One of the questions was: What are your career
plans after you graduate? I had to laugh to myself at that one
since I had never thought of education in terms of career plans.
Teaching to me is a calling and once one accepts the call, well it
certainly is not a capitalist venture! So I put down that my
plans were to create a global youth revolution in Cyberspace. It
felt hopeless to think that I was going to become a tenure faculty
person and live happily ever. I couldn't see any positive future
for me if there wasn't a revolutionary writer's movement.
One of the Dean's secretaries signaled for me that it was time
to enter into the Dean's office. The Dean had a number of
secretaries in the front room who were responsible for doing the
mundane bureaucratic work. Phyllis and I enter into his private
office where there were comfortable chairs, plants, a good view of
Marksmeadows the adjacent elementary school, and his personal
computer. On the table was a copy of my dissertation.
Immediately, one of the secretaries came in with a camera to take
my picture posing with the Dean and with Phyllis holding a picture
of Peter Wagschell who was the last director of Future Studies.
Earlier in the week, I had told Bob Wellman, my dear friend and
chairman of my dissertation committee, that I had thought twice
about wanting my picture taken with the Dean. The Administrators
were those with whom I had been fighting for the last decade at
Umass and now to have my picture taken with him felt like a picture
of defeat. Yes, they had won. I was now a certified idiot who
went into 33,000 dollar debt to get a piece of paper with their
signatures on it. And no one reads dissertations anyway. That
was a commonly known fact. They are written to sit on the library
shelf and collect dust. I finally realized that it was a joke to
think that anyone would ever take my research seriously. I knew
that the Dean had not read my dissertation, but this was my last
meeting with the Dean and I wanted to explain my work to him.
So I proceeded to give him a lecture about how racist,
classist, and sexist Umass was even though the School of Education
taught courses in social justice. I said, "It is a miracle I got
through the system without compromising my values. The system was
flexible enough to once in a while allow a radical to squeeze their
way through, but now with the budget cuts eliminating most of the
non-traditional programs, radicals will find it much more difficult
to get through."
"Yes," he said. "But, once out, there are no jobs for people
who specialize in nontraditional fields. We really shouldn't often
have such fields because once students graduate there is no place
in the system for them. This is one of the reasons why we cut such
programs as Future Studies out of the curriculum. We do a
disservice to students to allow them to go through school and then
for there to be no way for them to get into positions of power.
Academic programs have got to be responsible for the community and
have connections with the outside world."
"Dean," I stated, "it seems that what we need is a
system which allows for innovation. The people must start
supporting creative research and making positions for revolutionary
scholarship. Believe me, I have been what happens to people like
me. Seekers of wisdom are not allowed to make it in this system.
Take for example Phyllis. Phyllis is the wisest elderly crone that
I know and she has been forced to leave the campus. Because it is
difficult for wise women to find faculty positions in Higher
Education, then they have to find employment in jobs which are
meaningless to them and a waste of time which means that they have
to do their real work on the side, or else they have to live on
family income. So Phyllis has had to make her small apartment into
an office space. She has no money to employ secretaries to help
her with her work. It is a crime that Phyllis has been treated all
these years like an outcast because her wisdom is priceless. She
should be around young college students because she is an
experienced teacher and they aren't going to find many women like
her in this world. This university has told her that she is
welcome to hang around, everybody loves her. However, she is not
free to finish her dissertation in the department which means she
doesn't have access to the media lab which she needs to complete
her video work. The School of Education thinks she has been around
here too long. It acts as if she is too old to mingle with the
young people."
Dean Carey replied, "Well, it is a shame that Phyllis can not
stay around the university anymore, but now that Future Studies is
no longer a program there is no faculty person who can oversee her
work in "Education for a Space Age." And yes, women do not have
the same resources as men. I agree with what you are saying, but
its going to be a long time before we have social equality. There
just isn't enough money for that idea to become a social reality."
"Why not, Dean? It it because we are paying Administrators like
you enormous salaries to maintain the status quo? Why doesn't the
system let revolutionary thinkers into the classroom? If education
would just embrace a revolutionary feminist agenda then we could
revolutionize the economic arrangements. But if the educational
system continues to simply reproduce ruling class values for the
purpose of education for economic development to make the rich even
richer, then education will continue being to be a great lie which
corrupts the souls of the youth.
I am tired of being an outsider of the system which treats me
with contempt and callousness. Education as taught in this school
should be about life-long learning as a way of life, but it is not.
Now that I have graduated, I have no more university privileges.
I can't even use the interlibrary loan or the gym for exercise.
Without an ID, it is as if my membership to the club has run out.
I have been a member of the club for more than a decade. The little
sense of community that I do have centers around the university.
But now, it is as if I have been kicked out. My library job that
I had for the five years is no longer open to me because I have
graduated and I was happy with my job there as a library guard. It
isn't fair that the dullest and least creative minds are the one's
who get the jobs while the true teachers are without students. It
all boils down to this: the system is doomed! The School of
Education is a dysfunctional institution. Even the physical
architecture of the School of Education is schizophrenic. Half of
it is on one side of the campus and the other side is here. There
is one central place where people come together to discuss issues
in education. It is one of the most alienating and unfriendly
places on campus. It isn't an organization which produces holistic
thinkers who have learned the joys of seeking love and wisdom.
Rather it is an organization that trains teachers in sophisticated
methods of brainwashing techniques.
The Dean's head started to bob around like those car-bobbing
heads that some people use to put in their cars in the 70's. Then
he shook my hand and said that he must cut the conversation short
because here was another doctoral candidate waiting for her exit
meeting. As I passed a woman, who was a member of my graduating
class, whom I had never laid eyes on before, I felt extremely
empty. There was no true colleagueship at the School of Education.
No one knows or cares what research the other is conducting. There
was no forum for one to express one's ideas or a journal in which
to published one's findings. The School of Education was just an
assembly line and I have passed the final examination. Now I was
being lifted off the conveyer belt and thrown into the garbage as
a reject.
Last semester, I was horrified when I heard at a Civility
Commission meeting the chair called the students "customers".
I asked him to please explain to me who were the "customers". He
said, "The students, of course. The university provides a service
to them." Was calling students customers only offensive to me?
Somehow, I didn't want to be a customer. But the masses have no
idea what the role of the scholar is. It was indeed a sad state of
affairs when scholarship becomes a consumer product. Now, having
earned a doctorate in Future Studies, the Dean had just told me I
had produced nothing which the public wanted to buy, so, what would
be my future: homelessness, starvation?
When I arrived back to the house from the exit meeting with
the Dean, I called Mother to tell her about the wonderful news.
She said my job now was to take a job in whatever I could so that
I could start paying back my student loans. Even if it was a job
at McDonalds, once I got my foot in the door she believed I would
be able to rise into a more prestigious position within the
corporation.
I told her I was thinking about doing child-care work again
for six dollars an hour, but I didn't know how I would be able to
pay for rent and food with that kind of work. During the course of
the conversation, she told me the story of my five year old niece.
When Daddy told her he didn't have any friends, she got upset and
said that he did have friends because he always had God and Jesus.
"Where did she learn that?" I asked. Mother replied, "Your sister
takes her to sunday school classes." I laughed and replied, "When
I was with her six months ago, I told her I didn't believe in
Jesus, but in the Goddess. I guess those ideas didn't stick with
her!" Mother gasped and replied, "Libby, how could you have told
her such a thing? That's like telling her there is no Santa Claus.
No wonder your sister doesn't like you taking care of her.
You will never get a babysitting job if you tell children things
that their parents don't want them to hear even if you believe
them. You better wise up if you want to have a roof over your
head!"
"Well, then, Mother, do you think Clinton will appoint me to
the position of Mistress of Education so that I can begin to
implement my theory of education? I wrote him a letter when he was
first elected about my ideas about what needs to happen to
education if it is to become a liberating force. But, of course,
why would a President listen to me, a nobody woman scholar? His
plan is for people like me to pay off our student loans by becoming
policeperson in the poor neighborhoods. I guess that would mean
that I would need re-training to learn how to shot a gun at the
young criminals who don't follow the American dream. Now, Mother,
can you see me out there in a police uniform pointing guns at the
students who I ought to be teaching the Neutopian Dream?
========================================================================
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 94 10:49:50 EST
From: "Daniel A. Foss" <DFOSS@ccvm.sunysb.edu>
Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook
Subject: only thing to be said for justice is it's not like women
To: Donkey
-------------------------------------------------------------br>Date: Mon, 14 Feb 1994 00:36:48 EST
Reply-To: DFOSS@CCVM.SUNYSB.EDU
Sender: General Anthropology Bulletin Board<ANTHRO-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From: "Daniel A. Foss" <DFOSS@CCVM.SUNYSB.EDU>
Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook
Subject: cultural currents & crosscurrents buffeting nonexistent&
To: Multiple recipients of list ANTHRO-L<ANTHRO-L@UBVM.BITNET>
microtrivial quasioccurrences:
------------------------------------
[Continuing "a very long post about practically nothing at all."]
------------------------------------
SPECIAL OFFER: BOHEHEAD COHORT T-SHIRTS, LAMINATED ID CARDS, SEE BELOW
------------------------------------
[We all despise autobiographical posts, don't we, given - but notrestricted
to that - whose autobiography it turns out to have been. Hence this one,sequel
to the abominable, "smart people as outliers in cultural analysis modeling,"as
subtitled and dated below; "cultural analysis modeling" was substituted atthe
last moment for "sociology of knowledge" as properly phonier.]
------------------------------------
It is much to be regretted that stupidity of the genre of the present
post is all you are ever likely to get out of me again. Unfortunately, it
is presumed that the person or persons who provoked it desire exactly the
outcome in question. Yet, in all, I have twisted slowly slowly in the
wind, and have got all due consideration HUMAN GARBAGE has a right to
expect; for this reason only, I CAN DO NO OTHER. (Forget what I used to
be; I already have. Whatever that was. Must have been something better.
Who, though, needs it, ever did?)
------------------------------------
This continues "A very long post about practically nothing at all," Fri,11
Feb 1994 00:04:02 EST. Why don't I just stop right here, go somewhere else,
soak till I croak, or *something*, that I shall need to figure out later,after
finishing up. There's still a portentous professorish heading I chalkedacross
the left half of the blackboard on that night of Feb 10-11, still there,
haunting me:
Decline of the Cyberspace/Virtual Culture
I. Short-Term
II. Long-Term
[Because? As often noted in this column, any idea, notion, or shall wenow
add, meme, commonly enough accepted or believed is almost guaranteed to have
something wrong with it; and what would the Explaining Industry do without
those Seeds of Decadence under your nose had you just looked a teeny bit,which
are inevitably to be found in the most meteorically rising cultural and even-
pardon the expression sociopolitical - Thingies past-present-crosscultural-
yet-to-come. Why do you ask?]
Last time I credited one Stephanie J. Nelson with a piece of advice ofthe
tenor of social bias that, were a resurrected-among-us St Paul to emulate it
in his own variant of our "vivid-contemporary" type style, he could hardly
improve upon it. The interpretation was, inevitably, so conjectural that,with
greatest regret, I have postponed perusal of Friday-Saturday ANTRHO-L mail.One
must anticipate no less severe charges, "character assassination," "racism,"as
aforenoted; but why not escalation, for if the Progressive SociologistsNetwork
resorted to "paranoid schizophrenic," why should present company dawdle
behindhand.
Another nearnonevent, detectable only with the electron-microsociomicro-
scope, arrived dated Fri, 21 Jan 1994 07:50:18 -0500; my sentience hereat
was mostly out of town, partly in New York City; partly in Poisoned-Blanket-
Genocide-General-Town MA; the fragment in this room was fixated on devouring
the ration which blue-helmet-giant-Punjabi would dole out to fortunate few
refugees with craving-hunger so intense we are driven to seize it. Thedocument
was identified by <username>@node>, former part ignored (and lowercasebesides)
but latter provocative, HUSC.HARVARD.EDU.
------------------------------
Some of you, nay, a whole bunch, an awful-lotta you, have beenmasticating
the squishy cud comprising - with surrounding crumbly gunk - *how*, youknow,
*culture* and *consciousness*, the former we ourselves cannot readily define
but the latter we rest content to presume that some neuroscientistsomewhere,
philosopher as a fallback, has triumphantly defined into the groud be itthat
we ourselves wouldn't have heard of it, *do their Thingie together*.
Culture and consciousness, one and indivisible, yet perforce there areMany
Levels, every undergraduate pseudointellectual in my day knew there wereMany
Levels, rent asunder by reductionism, by levels of analysis, by units of
analysis holistic or discrete as these latter tend in these times to be.
Not to mention that, in the whole issue matter question of thepenetration
of culture into an organism's consciousness and for sure vicing the versa:
Surely this whole la banza would lie in the province of anotherDepartment,
another building's occupant, where floorplans, office numbers, and
denizens-possessors of offices are all alike unknown; and you, dear ANTHRO-L
subscribers, are no dilletantes!
What I'm telling you is how it happens, what kinds of *stupidity* are for
certain going on. Few of you are as much hopeless cases as myself; and *for
this very reason* find it that much more difficult to *observe yourselves*.
Because, as you know, as you assume to the innermost depths, you simply donot
find yourselves Up To Something behind your own backs such that you quite
urgently bear watching.
In this matter, you should be duly thankful, I am here to help you.
------------------------------
It is relevant that I'd just read Arlette Farge, Fragile Lives: Violence,
Solidarity and Power in Eighteenth-Century Paris, 1992. (Conoisseurs ofethno-
racial slurs shold note p. 175, where it is is noted that Frogs, "les
grenoilles," originated as a supercilious-derogatory designation of theParis
poor by the court aristocracy.) Whatever this *aristo* says, there'll be a
lesson taught, come eighty-nine! Harvard becomes the Versailles of academia!
And the poster did write of Daniel A. Foss, dripping with Harvardysarcasm,
"Sometimes HE gets a bit tiresome (i.e., the Jew thing), but I'm alwayswilling
to except this because it usually the LEAST tiresome thing going on at the
moment." There follows an entirely false account of ANTHRO-L customary usage
and practice: "There are those who are occasionally offended by something HE
says. These people are usually shouted down by the MAN himself. Lurkers and
Contributers alike follow by expressing a vote of confidence in the MAN and
the matter is usually settled quickly. I guess the problem with Foss (1) is
that almost everyone is afraid to second-guess his god-like aura, I'm NOT."
I do not mention the poster's name, as we are interested in consciousness*
culture, not the photo-ID cards with validation stickers the local conden-
sations of culture/consciousness carry arround with them. I did not read the
latter-cited passage until just now, and it has set me to wondering whereinand
how the victim who wrote the lines acquired or developed the near-delusional
perspective upon yours truly's [nonexistent] significance on ANTHRO-L which,he
says, does not faze him.(2)
But I didn't bother to read it on Jan 21. The double-usage of "tiresome,"a
word more deadly even than "tedious," had shoved me into the mindset of asans-
culotte of ninety-three; *aristos* must be shown that The People are nolonger
fooled, neither are they fools. You laugh, do you, *monseigneur*? We shallsee.
I strode briskly (physically impossible outside fantasy) toward Marat'soffice;
from that hotbed of class war would I disseminate the Anger Of The People:That
post, "nothing funny about this at all, sir!" Fri, 21 Jan 1994 08:00:20 EST,
was much more rabid than the target of Stephanie J. Nelson's and RafaelCandido
Alvarado's censure, "the vileness of the offense," etc., etc. A parody, in
miniature, of the class warfare I have waged against the ANTHRO-L list as a
whole since 1992. (E.g., "My objections to the upper middle class include,are
in fact headed by, the fact that I am not in it.") And whereto Nelson and
Alvarado are administering, they hope, the definitive squelch.
The true Daniel A. Foss cycle, as it is memorable to Daniel A. Foss, the
present writer, whose successful tenured famous near-namesake would beappalled
at the casual use of diminutives, single-syllables, and other fragmentary
representations of the accurate name (and has been properly condemned herein
anticipation of and exculpation from charges filed by attorneys representing
Daniel C. Foss), is utterly different.
(a) The opening stage is a succession of posts which are written withsuch
extremely time-consuming care, inclusive of embedded humor, usages requiring
extensive search of memory for precise wording necessitated by objective of
inducing, as I once put it, the "experience of having read the ostensibly
spontaneously composed." There is a vast amount of time thrown out rather
inefficiently, since lookups of references or disinterring of printed matter
packed away (the purpose of reading, as I have explained time and timeagain,
is *exclusively* the filling to the brim of cardboard cartons with paperback
books read cover to cover; any acquisition of "learning" or "truth" or such
is a byproduct) require forays from computer room to office and back, using
elevators - saves on hard breathing from emphysema - both directions,includes
search time, and rarely takes less than half an hour).(3)
Writing posts takes a staggering amount of work; this work isoccasionally
motivated by such limited objectives as, "What do you suppose it takes inthe
way of backbreaking toil, to shovel intellectual content of indubitablequality
in a vast stinking pile over the collective lot of them to preclude their
getting sucked into the ooze of yet another 'Well, what *is* culture,anyway'
debate?"
Persons with normal verbal fluency, non-deteriorating cognitivefaculties,
and the mastery of seemingly insignificant, piddling, picayune, and commonly
obliviated social rituals or appropriate behaviors such as "carring on anormal
conversation," "holding forth," and "looking like a professional/authority
figure" never have to worry about or problematize such "trivial nonsense";they
pick it up as if by osmosis. With another not insignificant percentage ofyou,
most of the behavior in question is just "a doin'-whut-comes-naturally,"with
problem areas requiring serious work in order to attain the degree ofpresenta-
bility that gets you hired. (Some have problems with English as a *second*
language; few, with English as a *first* language.)
The time comes from *doing nothing else*.
Practices necessitated for getting words out misfire into irrational,
uncontrolled, unforeseen, and delusional tirades and rage fits. These are
becoming more seldom, but still occur. Nothing of the sort occurred in the
posts censured by Stephanie J. Nelson; but she does apparently retain total
recall, or something like it, of those which did occur. (I would myselfinclude
such embarassments as the Pam Leader mess back in October or November or one
of those months in there, which shocked me into hiding and was entirely my
fault.) In her "Angry Jewish men" post (op. cit., part 1), she charges
"character assassination" as if it were my standard operating procedure and
not something undesirable and frequently accidental; or if not accidental,
takes on an inintended character: When awareness and control is attained(this
pertains to verbal control only, as I do not move my body very much very faror
in any sense rapidly), the remorse evinced is genuine; where as we shallsee,
Stephanie J. Nelson has accused me of fakery and dissembling in that regard.
None of the preceding is applicable to the present dispute. What I didwas,
in my view, work long and hard over a succession of long posts ofindubitable
intellectual content. I then indulged in some Rest & Relaxation with the
contrivedly muddled "gainesville" post (where as I said, even the "angry"parts
get guffaws from my "test audience," named Steve Jacobs, microeconomist).Here
the reaction of the personality of Stephanie J. Nelson is irrelevant to the
cyclic character of the behavior of members of the list.
*It has been repeatedly demonstrated that prolonged backbreaking toilwith
the intent to post theoretical contributions or historical-examples/case-
studies or both HAVE BEEN DISMISSED BY MAKING MYSELF THE ISSUE; THEIDEATIONAL
CONTENT OF THE POSTS HAS BEEN IGNORED UTTERLY AND WITHOUT MENTION*. Period.
I have one thousand pages of laserprintout in my office; another fourthousand
pages of laserprintout is stored outside this building. To this I alludeunder
"evidence."
Stephanie J. Nelson said, Mon, 24 Jan 1994 13:37:00 PST:
"And what is this 'evidence' you refer to?"(4, see below)
*That* is the evidence. Which omits private correspondence betweenStephanie
J. Nelson, from the time *she* initiated said correspondence, in 1992, and
Daniel A. Foss; covering the entire period up to the point that Daniel A.Foss
became incapacitated for writing personal letters; with sporadicresumptions;
the last of said resumptions commencing with the futile negotiationscommencing
Wed, 26 Jan 94 23:41:25 EST. Broken off due to exorbitant and escalating
demands for admission by Daniel A. Foss of entire guilt for whollyirrelevant
matters, inclusive of developments on ANTHRO-L instigated by Stephanie J.
Nelson herself; the latter documented and proven by sequences of postings.(4,
see below.(4)
My documentary evidence proves that, on each occasion upon which I madethe
most strenuous effort to introduce my views to ANTHRO-L in all seriousness,and
there was no doubt expressed or articulated as to the quality of saidideation,
the latter was utterly obliviated from the discourse by making mypersonality,
style inclusive of humorous and facetious usages whose intent was to infuse
readability and where possible *compulsive* readability into an otherwise
dreary text or narrative, or even *conformist efforts* the sole andexclusive
admissible topic concerning what I wrote.
Example: In the ANTHRO-L discussion of "race," September-October 1992, I
changed style to the maximum consistent with both readability and "Academic
High Style." The effect was the charge by our departed colleagueSteve_Maack,
<Steve_Maack@qmbridge.calstate.edu>, Internet address now inoperative, tothe
effect that my posts were written by "five or maybe even six differentpeople
using the same account." There ensued the most bizarre debate I have ever
witnessed on this list, to whit, as to if I was or wasn't. Similaroccurrences
may be adduced, with lesser consequences if having similar if analogous
effects, for other occasions when I played the "good boy," attempting to
impress - and make no mistake about it, I am an exhibitionist which, given
social isolation at Stony Brook, is a necessity - by content with stylistic
flourishes subordinated. The social norm generalized from these sequences of
events is that the content I believed present was precluded from having
cognizance given to it by the ANTHRO-L community as a whole.
It is this repeating pattern of successions of events, of predictable
outcome, which has imparted to my humor its nihilistic edge; and hasfostered
my transition from utopian-minded egalitarian political radicalism tocramped,
crabby, cynical negativity. This I regret in myself; and despite loss of the
socially critical thrust, with associated intellectual narrowing, promisesto
eviscerate my "contributions" even more, so long as I *need* ANTHRO-L morethan
vice versa.
Culturally, that is, in the local subculture, it is taken for grantedthat
my possession of the faculties of cognition, including Knowing andTheorizing,
is patently impossible, the artifact of my own delusion and that of others
momentarily taken in. This is beyond question. It has induced rage fits,most
of which I now throw off line; then I get back to the pointless grind whenthey
subside.
Steve_Mack or Stephanie J. Nelson, for whatever motives, arespokespersons
for social hierarchization. The social norm which has clotted around me, and
a priorism anent my incapability of formulating any ideation qualifying for
taking up the Valuable Time of the readership, is an artifact of social
hierarchy and the original, John Dollard (Nature of Prejudice, 1940),version
of the "self-fulfilling prophecy": Dominants impose, using such forcible
sanctions as this may entail, negative stereotypes and normativelyprescribed
behaviors taken as evidence of assumed Inferiority, upon Inferiors; then
punish them for violations of prescribed Inferior-like conditions. Thisapplies
here in full feathered finery of fatuity-festooned academic civility. Thosenot
on the career escalator bear presumptive stupidity; stupid means literal
inability to talk (which in the present case happens to be true); andwhether
essential, as for the Retard; or [socially] constructed, for theoccupationally
defective, has the identical effect of the *denial of the social validity of
one's presence*.
It follows that what I wrote last week; what I write now; will make no
difference for the treatment accorded what I say such as I may deem topossess
intellectual content *even if agreement to the effect that it so possessessame
is obtained from isolated members of the list here or there. If or when
annoyed beyond the DELETE-key tolerance point, there will emerge from the
lurker or peripheral constituencies a crescent mutually reinforced angerwhich
will relish, savor, and deploy such evidence of stupidity the members in
question believe has been observed; and even the statement that they cannot
understand it is brandished as the most conclusive evidence of stupidity in
that which is beyond what they are willing to attempt to understand.(5)
There is no fighting social class and its miasmal contamination of
consciousness pari passu with its noxious toxic fumes of ideological
minimization of necessary thinking and time spent thinking it: Both of
the latter, of course, are every bit part and parcel of what makes armenian
civilization such a wonderful thing.
What is to be gained from the position I have taken here and in the first
post, as well as in the posts which led up to the latter posts and merelyhad
the mass-cretinizing effect of further stimulating personal hatreds (whichare
not the *cause* of what I speak of here, but the *social-structurally-
determined effects*) is merely and simply *recognition* that such social
conventions, pervading as they do the wider society, *are present here and
cannot be dissipated by imputing magical powers to academic civility* or any
other form, shape, or manner of *normative idealism*. Secondly, thereshould,
*must*, be constant, invariant awareness of the inference heuristics derived
from the hierarchized outside society, hence present in the localsubculture;
*where their absence would be nothing short of miraculous*.
If this weren't you, then, *how many anthropologists could dance on the
head of a pin*?
Imagine, capitalism without hierarchy. Fantastic.
**************************
(1) Make sure by all possible means that the use of this four-letter-wordhas
been cleared with the attorneys, publishers, publishers' attorneys, and
literary agents representing Daniel C. Foss or acting in his behalf.
(2) Widespread ignoring of my posts should rather be indicative of the
ubiquity of kill files, or failing this, hairtrigger-finger DELETE-key
artistry. Nothing I have yet said on ANTHRO-L has left the least trace.
Only the usage Thingie betrays my sometime presence.
(3) Splendid argument for sitting in this bluish itchy swivel chair forminimum
twelve hours at a stretch, as I have just done for the past twelve hours.The
effort to stir off the chair will most certainly invalidate the Access Code
Number by habitual punching of a '1' instead of the necessary '2', so why
lose things and drop things, rendering it impossible to get back in into the
bargain, just for some normative-idealistic fantasy of exercise, whateverthat
is. Mind you, however, take heed to move ever so slightly, lest motionsensors
report to Headquarters one has disappeared into thin air.
(4) The following is the most venomous slander in the entire loathsomedossier
of the ANTRHOgate scandal, considering merely what is on the public record.
While it is undoubtedly the saner thing that I should have ignored the whole
sickening business and forgotten it, this is not psychologically possible.The
truth must be told, at the cost of ensuring that none of it is ever read due
to the visibly pointless character of the present exercise. It is necessaryto
discuss the paragraph below, cited from "Smears, lies, misses & disses,"Mon,
24 Jan 1994, 16:20:22 PST, line by line, word by word:
>I am loath to be that single dissenting voice, Dan, but sometimes a cigaris
>just a cigar,
Which upon occasion it is not. The freedom of the interpreter to encode the
symbol table and decode specifics is illegitimate even in the cigarstained
hands of Sigmund Freud in the face of prior premeditation as to what should
be taken to mean what; and not much less legitimate elsewise, too.
>...and sometimes a misreading of an ambiguity is just a misreading
>of an ambiguity.
So tell me, did you ever *dare* to operate on this principle in school? Even
supposing you ran into a lot of easy-marker deconstruction freaks, you aresure
to have been *dead wrong*, flown in the face of centuries of scholarship, if
you costrued interpretation reducible exclusively to what you could get away
with! What you are trying to get away with in the present instance,moreover,
is *egregious*, ignoring the words. Even the words, if observedmicroscopically
as on a slide, say, quickly appear farcical when scanned as a paragraph.Where
I myself cannot honestly state what I intended each phrase or clause to"mean,"
yet *did* intend each composite construction to "mean" other than what the
segments meant, which I did not care what they were, you have got *somenerve*
claiming you have some privileged mystical insight which says this meansthat,
not the other thing. Having a load of guilt a mile wide, were I convincedI'd
been serious, however transitorily, about anything mean, nasty, orthreatening,
I'd have apologized straight off.
Or maybe, any time there is anything posted by Stephanie J. Nelson, weshould
all take every single word on the screen/paper to mean "turkey," and alllarger
textual units in the posting should also be taken to mean "turkey." Same
principle. What's even better about this idea than the original by Stepanie
J. Nelson is, Stephanie J. Nelson has been, if you read carefully, been bent
on taking everything I write as indicative or symptomatic of moral andcharact-
erological depravity *FAR LONGER* than I have taken what she has written ormay
henceforth write as "turkey."
>But you and Mr Lieber are trying to change the subject of my complaint.
Just what right did you have to assign the content you did to the so-called
complaint in the first place? Your arbitrary assignment of meanings as you
please to whatever is written or elsewise output by Daniel A. Foss strongly
militates against your confection of a "complaint" as you see fit. Even were
you correct, which you are not as you are diametrically wrong-o, *you do not
know the facts in question*. You not only do not know the nature of my
ephemeral connection with "Doctress Neutopia" as of that time; you do not
know or care to know why or wherein I could well tolerate ribbing of myself
but not of that person. At that time. Which is all academic, so to speak,and
I shall "sit with folded arms" should Elizabeth N. Hubbard/Doctress Neutopia
henceforth get reviled till the cows come home.
*But what gives you the right*, Stephanie J. Nelson, to assert that any
woman *you do not know* but whom *I know* may be reviled at liberty without
consequences for the fun of it in public *in a manner you would most likely
kill before you allowed to happen to you*, Stephanie J. Nelson, by *any male
(more inclusive than man, which, for example, excludes me, Daniel A. Foss)
who so happens to be in a reviling mood*? This is feminism? This is any kind
of morality at all?
No!!! This is sick, depraved, and poseur-posturing pastyfaced plotting!
My position prior to yesterday became the following: Elizabeth N. Hubbard
should have in the past, and should in future, take all steps in her powerto
avoid making enemies. Those enemies not attributable to her formidabletalent
for making enemies hitherto would be considered under separate heading.
>...I complained because you were trying to bully Seeker1 into
>either apologizing to you or leaving the list,
Whatever I'd wanted in this connection from Steve Mizrach I forgot almost
immediately. Trouble was, my test audience laughed his head off, finding it
hilarious (not threatening) as it was, so it stayed in. (Offstage, there was
no intent, aside from waxing wroth, to remove Steve Mizrach from the list, I
could make it rain lots easier). At the time, I did believe he should have
apologized, not to me, but to Elizabeth N. Hubbard; as should everyone who
insults her on Leri@gossip.pyramid.com, hundreds of people. Let her takecare
of herself, all bad things must come to an end, and never more shallElizabeth
N. Hubbard and I exchange aught for aught.
It is a cinch that Stephanie J. Nelson's father's sitcom scripts might have
looked scary typed on plain bond typing paper. Some things whencontextualized
are funny; others when decontextualized are funny.
I swear, chopping up this paragraph into little pieces is just cracking meup,
never laughed so hard in months.
>...and because you said that the Jews were solely responsible foreverything
>good about this country.
See "smart people as outliers in cultural analysis modeling," Fri, 11 Feb1994
00:04:02 EST for canonical interpretation of this passage, which requiresthe
reader to actually read the words, and somewhat closely, too. It means, as I
said, well, I might have "said, 'Thanks to the Jews, the sun will come up in
the morning.' But why bother...."
People today just don't read the words when they read. Atrocious.
>...Your statements were not ambiguous in my view...
Maybe you ought to move into a new apartment with the windows facing inother
directions.
>...nor was my interpretation of them in any way clouded by my self-imageand
>occupational status.
The foregoing exhibits such an overwhelming set of tendencies toself-deception
in locating absolutely everyone or anything in social space that, if in the
least true, suggests that, in accordance with her own admissions, Stephanie
J. Nelson is duty bound to retire forthwith from the social sciencebusiness:
She has literally stated that she can never under any circumstances betrusted
to not fool herself.
>...As for smears and lies, well, since there is no evidence of them inmy
>post,
See "smart people as outliers in cultural analysis modeling," Fri, 11 Feb1994,
00:04::02 EST, it's in there. Furthermore, the observed actions and writings
on this question cannot be abstracted from what is contained on five hundred
floppy disks, in scattered locations of course, and five thousand pages of
laserprintout, in scattered locations. A sufficiently large army of clerical
workers without question can assemble the "smoking gun" wherewith the charge
that Stephanie J. Nelson was prepared to pounce on any remotely likely bitof
fun and games to level charges of the most scabrous moral defalcations canbe
substantiated beyond any doubt, reasonable or otherwise.
>...they must be your projections....
Can the Freud, please. Evidence! Evidence! Evidence!
>...And what is this "evidence" you refer to?
See above.
>...Since when is your interpretation of a text "evidence," and mine aclass-
>bound "bias"?
Those of us who come from long lines of petty clerks and most juniordetectives
in the station house know from putting away little pieces of paper fromyears
ago which just might prove interesting in some entirely unforeseen back then
matter years hence. Patience, pettifogging, paper. That does it, every time.
Best of all when one's possibilities of life are diminished and this is the
most interesting game in town.
>...Don't try my generosity, Dan--
Lo, a threat!
>...unlike others on this list, I respect you enough...
This part of the sentence is known in the Shrinkish profession as "the
sandwich," part of one of a set of practices used in training the "client"
or "patient" in the art of lying or faking out opponents, as in powerlunches,
power meetings, and such. The truth value of any variant of "the sandwich"is
always FALSE, as it is abstracted from the lie wherein it is integrallyembed-
ded.
>...to hold you accountable for what you say and to take it seriously.
A Shrinko usage, meaning, YOU ARE GUILTY AND NOTHING MORE THAN FULL AND
COMPLETE ACCEPTANCE OF FAULT AS DICTATED BY HIGHER AUTHORITY AS YOUR
COMMISSION INTO THE RECORD IS CONSISTENT WITH YOUR ADMISSION OF GUILT. Most
commonly known as "take responsibility." There is no negotiation possiblewith
anyone demanding you "take responsibility," hence the confession is either
part of some "therapy" wherefor money is exacted or it is a very seriousthreat
uttered by a highly confident enemy.
>Thus in my book you are guilty as sin of (another) swaggering,over-aggressive
>power play. This also has nothing to do with (your presumptions of) myviews
>on abortion. Don't repeat the infelicity of your original post byattempting
>yet another character assassination.
Translation: I, Stephanie J. Nelson, herewith and with all due solemnity and
finality, pronounce myself the absolute and unquestionable arbiter of factand
truth regarding you, Daniel A. Foss. Consider, carefully, Daniel A. Foss,that,
given the disparity in socioeconomic status, nobody has any reason tobelieve
you, HUMAN GARBAGE, yet has every reason to lend credence to me, a SOLID
CITIZEN! So give up, you have no choice, you must lose, Who the **** areyou,
anyway, to question my infallible judgment for the merest fraction of asecond!
Still, it is false, she lies. (Who cares, though; the truth is true, that'sall
one may say for it.
>It doesn't become you.
Which of course is yet another threat. (What becomes me, around the Upper
Middle Class, is steering clear of it.)
******************
(5) How else is one to take the squeals of pain uttered by one Michael Shere
<mshere@; in "good-bye," Tue, 25 Jan 1994 14:04:12 -0600.The
temporal sequencing, where Stephanie J. Nelson's "Smears, lies, misses &
disses" is dated Mon, 24 Jan 1994 16:20:22 PST, lends support to theproposi-
tion that the latter, that is, of the day before, *most immediatelystimulated
and legitimated* the amorphous feelings of, perhaps, inadequacy roilingMichael
Shere's equanimity hitherto. Which, notwithstanding, he had stifled,restrained
and constrained himself from uttering, found unnameable, or elsewiserendered
himself inarticulate due in part to absent social support or opinionleadership
*which could articulate for him* what he could not so squeal on his ownbehalf.
That is, where previously this Michael Shere might have doubted that hewas
bright enough, perhaps not bright at all, to grasp the flow of thediscussion,
where Daniel A. Foss himself contributed but a fraction of the posts but,most
significantly, *both of the posts flayed by Stephanie J. Nelson* in hers ofJan
21 and Jan 24 (and note carefully, we are not in the least interested in the
"deep underlying motives of Stephanie J. Nelson" in so doing, on whichmatter
Daniel A. Foss has received, unsolicited, one [at least] highly baroque
armchair analysis relating her persecutory mania to Daniel A. Foss' pres-
cription drug consumption, construed by Stephanie J. Nelson as the root of
all evil, according to this fantasist, by reason of her alleged immersion
in the subculture of a California-centered octopuslike conspiratorial entity
- initial character of said entity's name 'S' - whose ostensible goals,
methods, and objectives were directed with approbation at the treatment or
cure of drug addiction, supplanting same with its functional equivalent in
the form of *peapodism*. Those turned into peapods are in popular fancy
regarded as never having shed or escaped their psychic captivity and slavery
(to their programming if not to specific controllers).
Which illustrates what kind of just-about-anything some people believeabout
what Californians are capable of turning into or doing.
On no occasion, at no time, has Daniel A. Foss ever regarded or suspected
Stephanie J. Nelson of having become or mutated into a peapod. This is true,
and beyond question. Stephanie J. Nelson is not a peapod. (Note: This means
exactly what it says, but is contrived as provocative, you damn betcha.)
Rather, the salient motives are intermediate-level or even superficial.The
two posts wherein she mounts her soapbox to vilify Daniel A. Foss on such
ironic and incongruous charges as "character assassination" are *documentsof
list micropolitics*, whose objectives are the mobilization of theconstituency
known to exist, comprising the Michael Sheres (Much less the Dawn Atkinses;the
latter, Dawn Atkins, finds the list boring, who doesn't, why should she be
different); the unknown, the unsung, the silent (not a silent majority; nota
silent anything; just silent), the occupant of the Tomb of the Unknown
Subscriber, and the owner of the Mail Clogged Account. Suchlike.
Thus saith Michael Shere:
>I cannot believe the level of childish squabbling and empty wordplay
>rampant on this list. I have been a member for several months now and
>have found nothing but narcissistic ramblings and empty debate. There is
>the occasional insight, but hardly worth wading through the likes of
>that asshole Foss and his bonehead cohorts. I am still interested in
>finding a worthwhile list concerning things anthropological, and would
>appreciate any help locating such a phenomenon (should it truly exist).
>Please send any reply directly to my address, as I am signing-off this
>list. Thanks and good-bye.
Who are the "bonehead cohorts"?
There is a mostly-facetious offline letter I wrote to a person who cannot
receive this post, where I suggest a possible membership of the "bonehead
cohorts," said group having been fantasized, reified, imagined by Michael
Shere under impetus of *marking* by Stephanie J. Nelson of myself;*suggestion*
impelled by legitimation of Shere's discontents by Stephanie J. Nelson tothe
effect that a *pattern* existed hence might be recognized; and *imputation*to
the correspondingly recognized pattern (where the principle is, you try tosee
Thingies made up of stars in the sky, you'll End Up with Constellations,Zodiac
and all of that stuff in there) of *magical powers of causation and
coagulation*. Where the latter word suggests the well-known Paranoid rule of
thumb that conspiracies which do not clot do not exist. (Millions have metLee
Harvey Oswald; few were in the same meetings.) I wrote:
>Who are these bonehead cohorts? I suggest the social or just plainParanoid
>construction of a clique or cabal of bonehead cohorts out of, given the
>context, the round-robin succession of posts of comments by givenbonehead
>cohorts of prior posts by [DA]Foss or other bonehead cohorts. If thecommunity
>should concur in the suggested list, or add names missing here orsubtract
>those incongruously listed, this would be a great help, most notably inthe
>rigor of formulating a valid boundary definition of the "they" we wishto
>identify, not *qua* they, but *qua* notional they as - presumably vaguely-
>fancied by Michael. The fact that said they have nothing really incommon,
>do not like each other, or would summon police and neighborhood watchers
>should
>their notional leader, [DA]Foss, materialize at their homes is notrelevant.
>
>My starter list would include:
>DAF [ex officio]
>McCreery
>Read, Dwight/D. Read
>Seeker1/Steve Mizrach
>James G. Carrier
>Mike Lieber
>SS51000/Bob Graber
> Due to the usage "bonehead cohorts," women have been a prioriexcluded
>from the suggested starter list, e.g., Susan Love Brown
Daniel A. Foss
=============================================================
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 1994 12:32:05 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Nietsche Was Wrong!!!
Sender: Now more accessible than ever! <00BCPALMER>
To:Donkey
Dear Ghost Writers of The Donkey,
Realizing that my spousal unit and I are buying a lovely and huge
estate in which I will probably live out the rest of my years, no longer
gypsying about, and realizing the intrinsic loveliness of my daughter, The
Kitten, I have decided to aggravate my psyche by dropping one of my daily
dosages of Xanax, the 10 am .5 mg dose. I am assuming I will either confront
the continued joy-of-it-all while going through withdrawals or I'll return
to a pre-Ravenwood Estates = Birdiewood Estates state o' mind.
Nietzsche [Sorry for the mis-spelling in the Subject line] said that
philosophers of the future [that would be us] would find no pleasure in con-
templating the truth/Truth. Fuck that and Hello, Birdie!
Brent <Pollux> not too doped up, really.
=============================================================
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 1994 11:09:07 -0500 (EST)
Subject: The Way You Make Me Feel
Sender: Now more accessible than ever! <00bcpalmer>
To: Donkey
Dear Co-Winners,
Congratulations on being selected for the new Citizen's Bank credit card.The
Marxist tenor of the word "Citizen" is amusing next to the playfullycapitalist
"Bank". Also, as though in a Chinese box, the word "zen" is found in"Citizen".
This amusing repartee is brought to you courtesy of my joy guide, Firefly,who
wishes you and yours:
"lemon" and "toaster"
Gracious! These spirits can be quite quixotic! I am picking up the "lemon
toaster" vibration in relation to c-bg in particular. Sometimes, a cigar is
just a cigar, though. So don't put too much creedence in it. "Creedence":Now
*there's* a word for ya. The Native American "Cree" followed by the too too
Latin "dens[e]". Surely the makings of a rock group name for the Seventies.
It being too too true that all times are now this time, I must go now evenas
I also am coming. I guess you all still give me little quickies as you areall
sweet as a pert young gymnast. Listen to the warm.
Ho Ho Ho My Ass,
b<p>
=============================================================
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 1994 08:48:05 -0500 (EST)
From: "E.J. Ford" <FORD>
Subject: Re: The Way You Make Me Feel
To:Donkey
Brent, "lemon," "toaster," and "creedence" are all very nice words but as
I have mentioned before, the best word in the English language is
"nozzle." Please make a note of it.
EJ
=============================================================
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 1994 15:07:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: "...just a bad penny" <LESSER>
Subject: livers of the world UNITE!
To:Donkey
livers, perhaps the easiest forgotten organ in
modern western society, are increasingly
unhappy with the working condition which they
are regularly subjected to. this trend was
first spotted by church organist, clem
schneider, during a survey he conducted in
1989 of livers ages 34-54 in the american
mid-west.
"'dem livers were just all uppity about how
the peoples they was inhabitin' were treatin'
them," noted schneider. "and we're not just
talkin' 'bout city folks livers, neither."
neither, indeed. livers of individuals
residing in urban areas have traditionally
born the brunt of active lifestyle, often
pressed to perform the filtering of the latest
designer drugs from the blood stream, along
with mankind's deadly staple - alcohol. but,
it would eventually be a suburban liver,
thrust into the public spotlight, that would
change history forever.
in 1887, the liver of the famous painter,
vincent van gogh, was heard to utter the now
immortal words, "j'ai soif," translated into
english as, "i'm thirsty," after having
filtered over a liter and a half of absinthe,
a liquer containing dangerous traces of the
toxic plant wormwood. van gogh misunderstood
the irony of his liver's words, and consumed
a large pitcher of water before passing out on
the floor. the liver got the last laugh when
van gogh woke up the next morning, soaked in
his own urine.
but, still, historically the liver was a
a dependable friend, if a bit mischievous on
occassion. that is until crispus attucks,
a liver who took the name of the famous
american patriot of the same name who, was
killed in the boston massacre, began to openly
taunt the digestive tract and endocrine system
of the body he had been born into service to,
that fateful day was february 4, 1968.
before the day was over, the nearby kidneys
and pancreas had shut themselves down in
sympathy to attucks' revolutionary fervor,
and the entire alimentary system had been
disabled. the body slowly shut down,
and died eight hours later.
as news of events spread to other livers
around the globe, a groundswell of support
built for the radical liver cause...
==========================================================
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 1994 08:50:53 -0500 (EST)
From: "E.J. Ford CFS" <EJFORD>
Subject: Re: Sing Along
To:Donkey
Those of you familiar with the work of former Turtles, Flo and Eddy <sp?>
will no doubt remember this wonderful memory trick with which you can
amuse your friends (note: The following is based on cumulative
progression. say the first line. then say the first line and the second
line. then the first, second and third lines, etc, ad nauseum). Ladies
and gentlemen, I give you a poor, mnemonically rendered transcription of
the Tibetan Memory Trick:
One hen.
Two ducks.
Three squauking geese.
Four limerick oysters.
Five corpulent porposes.
Six pairs of Don Alvarso's tweezers.
Seven thousand Macedonians in full battle array.
Eight brass monkeys from the ancient, sacred crypts of Egypt.
Nine apathetic, sympathetic, diabetic old men on roller skates with a
marked propensity for procrastination and sloth.
Ten lyrical, spherical, diabolical denizens of the deep who haul quay
around the quivy of the quary of the quo...
All at the SAME TIME!!!
Believe me, it's a great trick. That's how I got my present wife.
OK, not the wife.
EJ
==========================================================
Date: Sat, 19 Feb 1994 16:57:31 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Update On Friend Pakks and Miscellany
Sender: Now more accessible than ever! <BCPALMER>
To: Donkey
Welcome to a new edition of "Correspondence from Brent,"
I am on a third medication now, to combat the nasty side-effects
of the haldol; the doc put me on Cogentin.
I promise that the Friend Pakks will someday be sent, but I'd be
looking to late summer. We really are moving to a home we are buying she's
a brick ... house. and I can't do everything I want but I keep my promise
you will get your friend pakks I promise.
Cogentinally Yours,
Brent "Walking Pharmacy" <Pollux>
00bcpalmer
=============================================================
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 94 11:11:25 CST
From: GR4302
To: Donkey
Subject: Socrates, you dog!!
So, you've come back from your long trek to explore strange new worlds,
seek out new life and new fuckin' barbarian non-hellenic excuses for
civilzations, to boldly go where no self respecting Greek would be
caught dead or alive! I've heard you've become a pragmatist over the
centuries and it makes me wanna puke!! I know you didn't approve of
our little pro-Spartan espionage, and so what if we managed to send
the pennisula into 2500 years of war and dribble and then the Turks and
Nato and all that crap? Well what did you expect from an firey-eyed,
elistist bugger like myself. Oh, and that nasty little comment about
preferring Aristophanes' description of yourself above mine did NOT,
as you intended, get my daubber up! I put him up to it, if you must
know. So I've spent centuries fucking up Western thought and making
you look like an ass! So what??!! I've been dead so long now that
I hate everyone! And most of my books are still in print, which is
more than you can say for Xenophon or that buggering Aureolus friend
of yours. Rot in hell.
Sincerely,
Plato
==========================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 1994 10:51:52 -0500 (EST)
From: <LIBALP>
Subject: Re: TEMPLE OF ZOOM
To:Donkey
On Fri, 18 Feb 1994, Pamela Koch wrote:
> Oh, hey! Here's a thought: I believe there's enough space for each of
> us to habitate a wing. Yeah, yeah, that's the ticket! And if the
> newly-unixed libalp is still able, I would like to nominate him as
> chant-master. He did that well (I think that was he; if not, please
MAIN GUY CHORUSDo not serve Do not serveHalf manHalf dog All meatDo not serve (or fill or molest, which is another story, but we digress)Do not digress It's too much troubleSo am I We noticedDo not serve Rotate.
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 94 15:57:36 EST
From: townsley (Bill Townsley)
To: Donkey
Subject: luxophilia
Dictation from Robert Holder 3:55 pm 22 Febuary, 1994:
Fetch out your garlic cloves and wooden stakes muthafuckas.
Much love Azrael.
=============================================================
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 1994 11:49:23 -0600
To: Donkey
From: cmbg (Cynthia)
Subject: Re: It *got* me
Dear Scott,
You must be telling us this just to satisfy your urge to share as I refuse
to believe that a seasoned shape-shifter like yourself would be the
slightest bit concerned about a little change. Think of this as a
springlike time and behave accordingly. I see no reason not to keep the
black sheets though. They hide dirt and blood stains so well. Why, even
I, a late 30's, married-mom with another on the way, have black sheets. I
also have some peach floral print ones. Granted I got most of my sheet
collection from the stuff the police left behind after they arrested my
cousin, but she won't be out for many years and told us to make use of
anything they didn't impound in the mean time. I have a lot of her clothes
too.
Side note: I find it odd that she has been incarcerated for 15 months
already and is not scheduled to be sentenced until March. Is that really
legal?
The point is, she was not arrested for having black sheets.
In your message you forgot to tell us what kind of sheets A prefers you to
have. I notice things like that.
By the way, while you all are worrying about love and death, I'm here in
the trenches with the 4 year olds. Apparently Chance and Cason insulted
Alex by saying that I have a big vagina and a big doody in my diaper. He's
been upset for days. So today in the playground in front of everyone,
rather loudly, I explained to Chance and Cason that a vagina is simply a
useful body part and not an insult. They acted like I had shot them.
Score one for mom.
Cynthia "gettin into it with the kiddos" Bock-Goodner
=============================================================
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 1994 10:07:12 -0500 (EST)
Subject: please decipher
Sender: Now more accessible than ever! <00bcpalmer>
To: Donkey
alt.ants.we.are.magic.ants
subj: Burning Down The House
*** House in Flames ***
My mother, in her pea green days. We pray.
Ants appear in the front yard. Suddenly, all is well.
They say, "We are magic ants," giving each syllable equal and heavyemphasis,
but in their tiny tiny voices.
Later, there is a flood, and I save people by having them stand on a
picnic table.
b<P>
Increasingly withdrawing from all concerns save attentions to The Kitten.
=============================================================
Date: 25 FEB 1994 09:01 -06
From: Merciful Lee Dickens<DICKENS>
Subject: THE LESSER DIARIES 2/25/94
To:Donkey
Feb.25
I bear the scars of Love gladly. Had three tears tattooed under my
left eye after reading American Psycho to a beautiful goddess/artist.
She is my Muse. I proudly wear the pink rhinestone collar she has
demanded I publicly don to show obedience. It once belonged to her
childhood pet, a toy poodle named Mephistopheles. I savor the inherent
irony. Life is delicious and I the starving peasant invited into its
kitchen by a benevolent hostess to sup in divine munificience.
I shall show my gratitude tenhundredfold this evening. Mistress is
planning to videotape a private artistic performance in my loft. I
must rush to fill the list of demands she gave me in preparation for
the Great Event. Where, during my fleeting lunch hour, will I find
clothespins with the requisite tension? I am aroused in anticipation
of their imminent embrace. Nightfall shall be long in coming.
I must remove the dry wax from my blistered foreskin now and dress for
work. I realize in a sudden brilliant epiphany that the elusive tune
I've been whistling is The Castrati Procession from Gluck's Orfeo ed
Euridice. Appropriate accompaniment to a day ordained by the Ching
as Joyous Lake! My bittersweet smile compliments the tattooed tears in
a stouthearted way in which I feel certain Robert Holder would approve.
I Must Now Away.
Orfeo
=============================================================
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 1994 23:50:39 -0400 (EDT)
From: scott lesser <LESSER@faxon.com>
Subject: that was not *my* foreskin... (don't worry)
To: Donkey
Sender: scott lesser <LESSER@am.faxon.com>
To: Merciful Lee Dickens<DICKENS>
>I must remove the dry wax from my blistered foreskin now and dress for
>work.
Silly Wabbit! I burned my *hands* with hot wax, when I picked up thetea-light
candle that had burned down, heating the aluminum base, and causing me tojerk
my hand when I touched it, thus splashing myself with the remaining heatedwax.
Did I ever tell you about the play I was in once that was based on characters
from children's fairy tales. I played Prince Charming. My favorite line was,
"Ooooooh reeeeaaallly - this all toooooo much!", which I'd recite as Iflipped
my long, perfectly coiffed hair, off to the side of my head with my hand.
That always got a laugh.
There was this other charater, The Gringe, a sort of composite farily talebad
guy. He was my nemesis. His favorite line was from his theme song, "I loveit
when they bleed, blood to mingle with my seed... IT'S A TURN-ON!" I rescued
Princess Stephanie from him.
David, my roommate and best friend, played an elf. David wasmanic-depressive,
recently kicked out of the Navy, and absolutely stunningly beautiful. Thiswas
complemented by a sturdy set of fucked-up English teeth.
I was obsessed with the actress who played Stephanie, and was enraged when I
woke up from being passed out, in the middle of the night, to find her in
David's bed. (So tactless!) The story twists when I heard the next day that
David had been caught in bed earlier that evening with the woman's bestfriend,
a guy named Michael.
David recently married our former mutual best friend, a woman named Maureen,
and moved to China with her.
I wasn't invited to the wedding, as David and I had a falling out when Ifound
out he was sleeping with my girlfriend, and blasted the front window of his
apartment with a 12 gauge in the middle of the night.
She ended up in the locked ward of mental hospital, after trying to commit
suicide two days after I left her.
At least he visited her; I refused.
I forgot to mention what I started this all to tell you. David and I shared a
two-bedroom apartment with these two other guys, Joe and Bret. Bret was a
Shakespearian actor, who reminds me of a younger Dana Rollins. He lampoonedme
mercilessly. I loved catching him and Joe doing impersonations of me behind
my back.
Joe was a complete preppy. He wore a Rolex and dressed up in cufflinks.His
father, however, was in the mafia. Met him once, he was total schmaltz from
the top of his hair-weave to the bottom of his white golf shoes. Sent hisboy
to Choate, though.
Sorry, but I get in these moods somtimes. Hope you all (y'all/ya'll)
understand.
REELING/LEERING
=============================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 1994 16:15:53 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Today
Sender: Now more accessible than ever! <00bcpalmer>
To: Donkey
When I woke up this morning I was suicidal: a really nasty variety, the kind
where all the world seems like the reflection off of a bottle which holds a
liquid called "Ouch!". Everything skating and floating on the surface of a
vast ocean called "Uncle"! And the only thing keeping me from doing the deed
was thinking on the pain I would cause you my friends, oh yeah, and my wife
and kid.
*Perfect Timing*
Mr. Lesser called. Good thing he did. If he had not called and if I had not
decided to get a salad before going to the Haelen Center for Natural Well
Being, I wouldn't have arrived exactly when someone who had an appointment
for weeks wasn't showing up, ... so I got the slot. But for what? I didn't
know what the Haelen Center was ... Would I get a past life reading? One of
those pit and the pendulum chakra-balancing?
Three words, boys, and occasional girl: Full Body Massage
Fuck Suicide. I told this chick things I don't remember though. I hope she's
not working for the Commies.
Sitting proud and tall: Day turned around ... your week can too!
Brent <Pollux>
p.s. she told me with a hug that the massage was a "gift" ... I didn't have
to pay!!! Thank you. Thank you very much. Oh, and no black sheets involved.
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