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=============================================================
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 09:19:13 -0500 (EST)
From: <LIBWCA>
Subject: Re: The Weight of the Word
To: Donkey
On Fri, 18 Mar 1994 TIPPY wrote:
> Mr. Devil,
> I wish to complain about the shoddy treatment of my children at the
> hands of one your employees, namely a Mr. Commander Zod, currently
> the graveyard shift manager at one of your many fine Barney T. Devil
> carwashes now blanketing the globe and coming soon to a corner near
> you. When my wife and I left our three children unattended for a
> weekend at one of your conveniently located establishments, we quite
> naturally assumed that the aforementioned Mr. Commander Zod would
> see to their well-being and ensure that they received their recommended
> daily allowance of just desserts in a clean, well lit environment.
> Imagine, IF YOU CAN!, our dismay when, after a whirlwind tour of the
> seedier districts of Mexico City in search of financial backing for
> a business venture of questionable legality, we were informed by your
> Mr. Commander Zod that he had no idea where they were! Further, he
> claimed to have been unaware of their presence there at any time!
> Indeed! Fortunately the wife had the foresight to scrawl this illegibly
> on the side of a passing train, so you can see we are in fullcompliance
> of the law. I should expect to hear from several disembodied voices in
> regards to this matter. Perhaps you should as well.
>
Dear Mr. Beauty,
You will be happy to have been informed, should we ever choose to
inform you. You should be aware that our fine Barney T. Devil
establishments ("Serving various obscure functions for an undetermined
amount of time") cater only to the finest crushed-white porcelain
demitasse flatware desiring to dance with the ones as brung 'em; it
will be readily apparent, then, that the problems of two little
people (yourself and your lovely wife; please give her my regards)
don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Commander Zod
regrets the inconvenience, and has been promoted to an active-duty
assignment in our Fine Outerwear division, coming soon to your
neighborhood or a fine neighborhood near yours. If and when your
alleged children choose to reveal their true identities to an
astonished viewing public, you will be among the many thousands
honored to watch it all unfold in the current time slot. Please
do not ignore this advice, as it will be repeated. Please press
number sign for assistance. Thank you.
Barney T. Devil
=============================================================
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 13:36 GMT
From: H.UNIATZ
Subject: RE: exotic bad puns from the middle eastTo:Donkey
Dear Arthur C.X. Parker,
Thank you for your recent submission, "exotic bad puns from
the middle east", herewith enclosed. As you know, we are still a
small concern and cannot yet afford to employ a condiment specialist
for our cookery section. You will be pleased to learn that you are
ranked 7th in our list of prospective recruits for the position.
We hope to hear from you again.
h760
Rejection Dept
=============================================================
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 13:43 GMT
From: H.UNIATZ
To: Donkey
Subject: RE: just subscribed to dqmw-l and...
Dear Daniel Foss,
Thank you for your recent submission, "just subscribed to dqmw-l
and...", herewith enclosed.
You commence by stating that your intention is to survey the state
of affairs on DQMW-L with a view to predicting, if not determining, future
policy. We cannot see where it is in the text that this is accomplished.
Your first digression, presented as it is by way of clarification,
is excusable, though I would contend that attributing any rationalism at
all to Tippy is over-optimistic, and I feel that by taking a side-swipe
at Robert Holder you encroach upon my own territory. However, proceeding
blithely past the next paragraph, which does little other than to slander
Dr Neutopia, you speak at length of the motives and practical considerations
behind your lack of a television. While I am in the fullest sympathy with
you on this point, myself having, as I have never hesitated to mention,
no car, no van, no camera, no vcr, no tire-swing, no high-power binoculars,
no cd-player, no coatrack, and no television, I cannot help but feel that
you so belabour the issue as to enter the realm of autobiography rather
than attend to your declared aim of producing analytic criticism,
an effect heightened by your implicitly parenthesized introduction of your
companions.
We invite you to resubmit your manuscript, clearly marking in
red ink those ideas you deem central to your argument, and, as always,
hope to hear from you again.
h760
Rejection Dept
=============================================================
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 16:46 GMT
From: H.UNIATZ
To: Donkey
Subject: Re: Bird #2
Dear Pamela Koch,
Thank you for your recent submission, "Bird #2", herewith
unenclosed. It was somewhat amusing.
We hope to hear from you again.
h760
Acceptance Dept
=============================================================
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 17:28:38 -0500 (EST)
From: AP <LIBALP>
Subject: my rejection by h760
To: Donkey
H760 is, as has been noted, a close personal overseas friend of Arthur
C.X. Parker, and her rejection of Parker should be interpreted in the
most humorous of all available humorous fashions. The recent humorous
happening, The Use of Elvis Costello Quotes to Publicly Humiliate Scott
Lesser, was made possible not by the typical enjoyable banter found in
these parts, but by our conspiracy to transform him, by means of our
occult powers, into a small (as if they came in another size, haw!)
grease-mouse. Travelers to the United Kingdom might see h760 dragging
him around by his tail as she putters about her cosy household, thinking
up "clever rejoinders" and "witticisms", which she wields against the
enemies of evil.
Slice him longwise for zwieback, crosswise for Ritz.
Arthur C.X. Parker
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 14:08:14 EST
From: DFOSS@CCVM.sunysb.edu
Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook
Subject: retirement for senile dementia or functional equivalent
To: Leri <leri@gossip.pyramid.com>
Cc: Donkey
There are two kinds of people in this audience tonight, those who have
the background information, and those who do not; neither of course could
care less, including myself, who is as usual stationed at the rear of the
hall to disrupt the wax dummy on the platform now being introduced byPresident
Iron John Marburger, of this University, as Daniel C. Foss, the "real one" I
have never met. I am present to view the new four-stage typology of theories
and theorists, other than himself, being unveiled for the first time; and to
explicate the relations among my departure, the current State of Theory, and
the Search Committee's discovery, in an N-train subway station outside this
building, of the new nominee for Director of the Theory Division, Doctress
Neutopia.
One word of clarification, please, please. The Rejection Department will,
as you known, will carry on, as is its character, in the sternly punitive
hands of Brid, like Doctress Neutopia a card-carrying woman. The Rejection
Department reamains empowered to reject any or all *drafts* of theory,*not*,
to be sure, any theory or theories or part or parts thereof, as to their
content.
The speaker, Daniel C. Foss, of Montclair State College, Montclair NJ,who
as you know is not merely a tenured senior faculty member but has over the
decades built a solid international reputation on well-received, critically
acclaimed publications, and was born in the Bronx in 1940 to a father named
Irving Foss, as I was also, but was never a spoiled brat like me, has just
drawn a four-quartered rectangle, emblematic of the fourfold typology, on
the blackboard, which our bikini-clad TA, Melissa, had wheeled out onstage
just a few moments ago. The cells of the diagram read:
POSSIBLE THEORIES THEORIZED
POSSIBLE THEORIES UNTHEORIZED
IMPOSSIBLE THEORIES UNTHEORIZED
IMPOSSIBLE THEORIES THEORIZED *
Clearly, in order to be a revolutionary vanguard movement, we should be
overjoyed at the official emplacement at our intellectual head andempowerment
to think on our behalf, so we need not bother anymore, of NEUTOPIA,according
to her new licence plate (by analogy to LIZZY on her old one). It will make
the woman immeasurably happier in whatever time is left to her in hercondition
*but* will make no difference whatever to the impending upheaval, hopefullythe
terminal crisis of capitalism. No more than will invocations of obsolete
vestiges of passe capitalist critiques, such as the working class,socialism,
Marxist-Leninist Party of the Proletariat, LSD, consciousness expansion,Black
Power, Yippee, Smash Monogamy, Sisterhood is Powerful, Gay Liberation, or
Cyberspace.
For six years, this writer has tried and failed to find the "socialmovement
agency." There is excellent reason for this, which NEUTOPIA is at liberty to
theorize as she wishes, or not. Let us return to first principles, which are
the first thing one forgets, as some of you did who took my courses inschool,
if you stayed awake long enough to hear Word One after an eternity of"ah-ah-
uh-ah-gnungk-guh-uh-ah." The first principles are:
1. You do not, *ever*, know what you are doing, that is, in substance;all
the more so, in terms of consequences, antecedents, and relations.
2. You don't want to know what you are doing; in terms, that is, ofhaving
any vested interest, let alone inclination or substantive motive, to know
what the hell you are doing, really, in terms of #1. Suffice it, therefore,
that doing it is more meaningful than not doing it, and anything which mucks
up this meaningfulness will get stomped even worse than what gets in the way
of you going out there and doing whateverthehellitis that you have to do. To
have a Thingie hovering over your head like the youknowwhat of Damoles andthe
Lion threatening at any moment to induce you to not go out there and doing
whateverthehellitis that you have to do onnacounta "HOOcaresYbotha," thedoing
of whateveritis having become pointless, meaningless. What means,meaningless?
Or the other way around? That, my friends, is the culture's job. Both togive
you the impression *this question has got an answer* and to keept thosetrucks
rolling, *delivering that meaning hot and fresh to your door*.
The next question is, *what is culture*. Well, since 1992, beforeDoctress
Neutopia's name, which signifies the person in this instance, was even born,
we have tuned in ANTHRO-L@UBVM *daily*. There are now 600 anthropologists,up
from 350, on this list. The answer to your unasked question is, *the anthro-
pologist observes the anthropophagous*, and not the other way around, by
definition, all right? Every December-January, and again every April-May,
without fail, the 600 anthropologists discuss, "What is culture, anyhow,"and
a couple of months later vaguely sort of give up. Sometimes it seems thatthese
are the same people saying the same words. But no, slightly different people
in slightly different words. And by six-monthly intervals, there is 15% more
Professional Knowledge in the discipline than the last time; food forthought.
You say you can't eat Knowledge, hah. THEREFORE:
Culture is whatever is lavishly paid to deliver that stuff in thosetrucks.
Which does not matter a fig.
3. If you did know what you were doing, in the sense of #1, you wouldnot,
could not do it. Anyhow. Or, total awareness is total paralysis. Meaning,and
I mean, who the hell cares what that is, prevents total awareness. Meaningis
what lets you wash windows 37 stories up off the sidewalk without lookingdown,
which is what all the employed, or potentially employable, among you aredaily
required, in the philosophical sense, to do. One slip, and you End Up a caseof
Chronic [or Chthonic] Fatigue Syndrome, as women who got too near and dearto
me strongly tended to do, or you End Up like me, and after tens of thousandsof
dollars the Medical-Industrial Complex *will not condescend* to tell me whatI
have Got, excepting that I am officially Crippled For Life from it. Only,I'm
no longer blind. That, they knew what it was, if you can't see, you'reblind,
so they make you like you can see, which is no trick.
****
Last night, the Politburo met to consider the following question, which
arose during the Question Period, to wit: Suppose Commandante Tippy and the
virtual guerrillas invade a list called, per exemplum, BEE-L. How, orwherein,
may it be determined that the *meaning* of people discussing the bees is any
*more spurious* than the analogous list as envisioned, say, discussing The
Birds? Alfred Hitchcock, I remind you, thought The Birds quite meaningful.Why
not, I say to you, the bees?
"Eear eear!"
"Not quite. What surfeits contradiction to complexity here is, I say unto
you, that it is quite possible for a list devoted to The Bees to exhibit an
infestation of insects less *highly evolved* than should logically followfrom
the purely theoretical *meaningfulness* of Bee-discussing, as theorized by
our Directress of the Theoretical Division, Doctress NEUTOPIA!"
GODDESS BLESS NEUTOPIA
WAND WHAT I WUV
STAND BESIDE HER
AND APPLIED HER
TO THE SOLUTION OF POLLUTION ABOVE...
"Quite enough, quiet please. In that case, I exercise self-criticism, and
hereby reverse the punishment by the revolutionary tribunal of ComradeRobert
D. Holder, viz, 30 days total abstinence, for subjectivist deviation inequa-
ting the birds and the bees, on grounds of "right to jest." Take speed,robert,
jesting is a most serious matter, and the jester bears a heavyresponsibility.
It does so happen that this Aaron you got stung by is prima facie a slimybug
unworthy of the name of BEE, and deserved to have meaning mucked with. Butnot
*always* or *without exception* in this protracted war <who got theprotractor
you guys we got a circle to square givitback> will this be true: Mark ye,and
Luke and Matthew and John ye while yer attit, but that them what's been
meaning-mucked gets freaked exactly the same, whether the meaning belegitima-
tely muckable-with or elsewise. Only theory as theorized by the Director ofthe
Theoretical Division, DOCTRESS NEUTOPIA, can tell the legitamately muckable-
with from that what whould be let be.
In Conclusion, <YAAAAAAY>: Commandante Tippy, Hero of the Revolution,alias
Spank the Monkey, or Sea Urchin, I salute you! But only one thing. What Isaid
yesterday was nothing but, shall I say, a LIZZIFICATION, perhaps better,now,
a NEUTOPIFICATION - take speed that it does not become the opiate of theBroad
Masses - of your own empirically observed exploits as *guerrillero eroico*in
the armed struggle against the Dr Quinn Medicine Woman List<DQMW-L@EMUVM1>;
and that, for the sole and exclusive purpose of demonstrating beyondquestion
my own inability to think, hence the necessity for today's passing on of the
torch, long may it burnbabyburn, give Doctress Neutopia a light and stickher
on an island somewhere, how about right here in Suffix County, and wrap her
in a few sheets, you know, illuminating this here HWY SGN:
HE SHE IT WHAT STANDS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD GETS HIT BY TRAFFIC GOING
IN EITHER DIRECTION
CAMARADAS! This is THE END! OF ME, AND OF CAPITALISM!
"THE PEOPLE! UNTESTED! CAN NEVER BE COMPUTED!"
Daniel A. Foss
=============================================================
Date: 24 MAR 1994 16:31 -06
From: Merciful Lee Dickens<DICKENS>
Subject: Reply to retirement for senil
To:Donkey
This was your finest moment.
Rather than gently place it on its own wee velvet poofda cushion in the
Fossage Files, this time it was SO DAMNED GOOD that I took the liberty
of sticking it with saliva to my forehead and abandoning my post at the
Terminal to run through the hallways of the Library, arms outstretched
pretend-airplane fashion, going eeeeyowwwwwwwwwwwww (airplane noise).
Others joined me on about the third or forth pass, but *they* didn't
have your latest manifesto stuck to *their* foreheads.
Incidentally: Why did the punk rocker cross the road? That's right,
because he had a chicken stapled to his face. What, I already told
you that one or sumpin?
You've Been A Wonderfully Senile Old Dufus!
Thank You And Good Night!
Merciful "Red Dirt" Dickens
==========================================================
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 09:44:24 -0400 (EDT)
From: scott lesser <LESSER>
Subject: KILL TWO RATHER LARGE BIRDS WITH MY rather small SLINGSHOT
To: Donkey
first bird. will all you muthafuckas, others, and Brid, please change my
address on your lists to:
lesser@
i am leaving faxon at the end of this week, and the security conscious
network fucks downstairs will lock me out of my account as soon as the door
hits me on the ass on the way out.
beauty.
now, robert holder, my friend, you are the next bird.
despite the situations we discussed last night, i have decided not to cancelmy
plans to come to denver. i will arrive, as planned, on saturday. i will be
cool, possibly drunk, when i get off the plane, and we will have a really
*swell* time over the next week.
i think i was able to straighten out in two days what the family had been
bungling for the last month. i got off the phone with my aunt last night at
12:45, and things are as they should be now.
so, you wanna here something, everyone?
scott just found out he has a half-sister living in sarasota, florida.
i have so many completely fucked up situations in my life right now, therest
of you may not see my face for awhile. i sleep four hours a night, try tokeep
my obligations and responsibilities together despite the fact that it's like
four full-time jobs and the intense stress i've been going through should just
grind this machine to a halt. (guess what the stress index in my life is?
seriously, it's about at the end of the scale, just judging by the situations
of job change, death, new relationship, revelations of 33 year old sister, et
al.) still, i've managed not to cave-in and have any psychotic splits, and
start following the instructions of the angels and devils that are always
following me. and, really, they are. if they were not there, i would have
become really crazy at 19, as was written in the first draft of the original
manuscript.
right now, i'd rather be in the woods, on lots of drugs, taking my shotgun
out for some target practice.
but, i am here.
so,
i bid you all goodnight,
and hope to see you in a few weeks,
with a new, improved, better, faster,
larger, happier, tighter, much more
endowed, leaner, meaner, more to the point,
with less calories, more nutrients,
larger pectorals, less talk, ten in a row!,
special prize inside, "crystal", more
enjoyable, yummier, wiser...
ME
"coming down fast"
==========================================================
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 04:13:55 EST
From: Creeping Beauty <<TIPPY>>
Subject: Let these asses be set to grinding corn.
To:Donkey
There was, once upon a time, a writer of metaphysical fictions who would
go out of his way to trust strangers. He thought this *proved* he was
not schizophrenic. As a result, he was often burned. I don't remember the
moral.
Sense. Nonsense. A pox on both their houses. Long shall they wave.
Possible philosophical differences aside, your gist has been duly logged
and noted. Ambiguity is the space from which meaning, spurious
and otherwise (if, in fact, such a distinction is not itself spurious,)
emerges to offer its cold comfort. As such, it could conceivably be per-
ceived as the enemy, were one so inclined.
In any event, a confusing time is guarenteed for all.
Respectfully,
Creeping Beauty nee Tippy
==========================================================
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 22:26:59 EST
From: "Daniel A. Foss" <DFOSS@CCVM.sunysb.edu>
Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook
Subject: for those who need to figure when it was just faking, fwd
To: Donkey
[Posted to <Leri@gossip.pyramid.com> about an hour anna half ago.]
------------------------------------------------------------------------ 115
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 21:09:38 EST
From: DFOSS@ccvm.sunysb.edu
Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook
Subject: official author's version for graduate students of future
To: Leri <leri@gossip.pyramid.com>
cc: Doctress Neutopia <neutopia@educ.umass.edu>
Resent-Message-Id: <940324.210938.EST.DFOSS@ccvm.sunysb.edu>
/* The utility of the afternoon's apocalyptic mood having passed, and let */
/* me state forthrightly to the drug-omnipotence-attribution-freaks among */
/* you right now, there would have been an apocalyptic mood Orange Pills */
/* or no Orange Pills, but no typing or ability to find the relevant flop-*/
/* pidisk to stick into B: drive, & such; not even any sense of the need*/
/* for legacy-depositing - ah, woddehell, who cares if this Apocalypse is */
/* or is not disseminated to a bunch of Broad Masses, or kids, or whatever*/
/* who have figured that I'm just another one of *her* and did it to my- */
/* self on Evil Drugs as opposed to Good Drugs (this of course predictable*/
/* so long as Drugs are *radix omnium malorum* since if money still had */
/* that place of honor I'd'a got this way behind *avarice*) - but Drugs I */
/* had so I wrote it up. Not even I understand it all, which is the nice */
/* part. --------------------------------------------------------------- */
----------------------------- Begin Deperverted Text -----------------------
Screwball posts, which if you had any sense you deleted them, have cropped
up or come a cropper via DELETE key, in your mailbox. Few will have any need
to know what certain of the screwier features were deliberately, or at the
least insouciantly (not withstanding full awareness of screwiness at thetime
of writing and time of posting) stuck in there for.
1. Let's start with the last one first. The late, which is to say, dead, Sr
Colosio, is made to die in places a thousand miles apart, with absolute
unconcern; Vaticanistic nonsense is adduced as part of Mexican political
tradition; and such. Which is, still, *mythically true*. This is heavy [ob-
scenity for solid excrement]; no question. The heaviest [deleted] in that
wretched country since the Revolution, possibly, wherein 2 million perished;
and General Black Jack Pershing got in some dry-run practice for the Big One
in France. Foreshadowed, it would now appear, by the Zapatista National
Liberation Front peasant revolt, which to be sure was conducted more in the
media than in the hills, but then, what else is new, you think *Mexicans are
different from armenians because they aren't white or some such stupid,racist
assumption*? But until *this*, the latest, historic Thingie happened, *Who
Knew*, as Mel Brooks would have put it had he lived - what's that, he's not
dead? a detail - from the Zapatista National Liberation Front, either. The
Mexicans were such colorful, quaint, happy people, remember? Great folks to
NAFTAfy with, just like the Canadians, why, selfevidently!
World-class type upheavals happen all over the place. You probably don't
know about the mess in France; neither do most people, since The New York
Times' foreign coverage, as I said, depends on the volume of lingerie
advertising. As for your TV news, forget it; Time, Newsweek, ditto. The
1968 upheaval, which in this country was only the first peak of adecade-long
social crisis, also happened in Canada, Mexico, France, England, Germany,
Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland, Japan, other places. Also 1848 and 1919
in Europe and the USA, same story; 1936 ditto. I started saying this country
was dangerously unstable in 1992, when the political party system camewithin
a hair of going <poof>; it's still true.
2. The post before that is *deeper*, and I don't want to commitlizzification
laying it out. Briefly, in the 1960s, there were all sorts of mockup crap to
provisionally believe in; there just *aint* at this time: No Tim Leary or
McLuhan or Chairman Mao or Che Guevara, nothing but stupid machines romanti-
cized with idiotwords beginning with Cyber-. As if every single time the
capitalists put a new doodad or tinkertoy on the market there aren'thobbyist
fads! Remember Stereo? Remember ham radio (no you are too young for that)?
Well, there were always bigtime fantasies about how the latest contraption
would Change The World or at least one's head. Remember...Drugs?
Whenever They (*Them*) declare a Liberation within the confines of
capitalism, there is always escapism. Only the fortunate few escape,however;
the wretched many are *expelled*. To make the break for it, that is,Freedom,
takes struggle. I didn't say that. "There is no freedom without struggle,"
Frederick Douglass, 1848. The Thing may be about to fall apart, and *you got
no idea in hell whatcha wanna struggle for*. Figure it out quickly. You may
not have much time. Or you may, after all, who knows. This Prophet of Doom
is almost always wrong, take what comfort there is from that.
Now, suppose something Big, you know, happened. Where would you go for
ideas? In the 1960s, a lot of people went to Sociology Departments.Upheavals
are one of the few and far-between occasions when sociologists prosper and
make a living; psychologists are for a change ignored. They have been shown
to have blown it, to have lied their heads off, about their fucking indivi-
dual Taking Responsibility and solving insoluble Problems *alone*, when it
each person turns out to have needed all along a few million angry friends
to have got things started.
Well, don't come around to us right now, because we do not know *shit*.
Let us look at the world's leading Macrotheorist, whose name is Jurgen
Habermas. His magnum opus, published in the late 1980s in Englishtranslation,
is called The Theory Of Communicative Action. 1200 pages, and you do notknow
anything more when you finish it than you did when you started about *what's
out there*. Some stuff about "the new social movements," but it makes nosense,
complete jumble. The phrase "new social movements," though, is extremely
popular, though nobody who says it knows what he she it is talking about.
Last night, round about midnight, we had a meeting of the SecondFoundation
on Trantor. Present were all the greatest dialectical and historicalmateria-
lists - "psychohistorians" as they were as usual disguised - including the
Disneyland android of Hari Sheldon himself. With a wave of a magic wand I
was turned into a muscular statue of a woman, was never so powerful in my
life but blindfolded as per usual fantasies; the point though was, I was
the Symbol of Justice, complete with stupid scales, you know, like for
weighing kilos of pot. On one pan, there was Gaia: [etc] by Doctress
Neutopia; on the other, The Theory Of Communicative Action by Jurgen
Habermas. The weights of the stuff were calibrated in units of gibberish
admixed with boredom in accordance with the metric system as standardized
officially in France where it all began. The learned "psychohistorians"
told me, just before the clock went off at 7:30am that the pans *balanced
exactly*.
What's out there, and more important, *what could be out there but aint*,
is for you to find out! Get cracking. It might turn out to be great fun,more
than fucking <excuse me> school, anyhow.
Is that better?
Daniel A. Foss
==========================================================
From: WHIPLASH
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 10:14:06 MST
To: Donkey
Subject: THE video camera
well, i did it. i dropped just over $650 on the
counter at "Fred Schmid" appliance outlet and was
handed over in exchange a brand new VHC-C Compact
Video Camera, manufactured by JVC.
i was very excited, but we were so exhausted from our
lack of sleep that janice and i just plopped on the bed
when we got home. i haven't even opened the box
yet.
it's got a fader. it's got 10x zoom. it can see
in 1 lux light. it's got cool exposure control. it
performs oral sex on either gender.
now i'm gonna have to buy an SVHS deck with ports
to act as an editing bay, and an editor. anybody with
experience in this, please lay it on me. i figure i
should be able to find a reasonable SVHS deck for under
$400, and an editor for around that. but do i need an
editor? shit, i mean, i think all i really need is
audio dubbing. i can get a Hi-Fi VCR with audio dubbing
and good head stuff for like $250, right? and i heard
about an "editing cable" which i guess just syncs up the
de-pause on the two decks, for clean, one-touch editing
but i'm not sure...
maybe i'll just go buy a book about this. isn't barney
t. an expert in this area?
Feelin' Groovy,
robert
==========================================================
From WHIPLASH
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 21:17:55 MST
To: Donkey
i want baseball card equivalents of you muthas
this incarnation shit is frustrating, but you
know that already. Ok.
from now on, i'm reading all your messages
through a film of vaseline on the glass.
"Hoping" just doesn't cut it, and ultimately,
after all the laughs and distractions
it's FUCKED. but back to the laugh track,
already in progress...
indomitability is just a weekend pass.
is loserhood a weekend pass also?
charles bukowski: "not thinking";
imprecise, please clarify
the two things that frustrated me about
going to parties in high school were
#1 the dialogue wasn't worth listening to
anyways, and;
#2 you couldn't hear all the conversations
at once.
having, with you all, remedied #1, i still
am struggling with #2. we'll see how well
i do in responding simultaneously.
success in applied incarnation is just luck
and the parts that are not luck are just
distraction.
theoretical incarnation necessarily omits
critical detail which sabotages success in
application.
incarnation without theoretical preface is
only sensation, which can be had in
a deterministic universe, which this is NOT.
there is no compromise.
we, the humans, have left intuition (real
intuition, not superstition)(i declare that
i know, even though it is unprovable and
contrary to all this mind shit) at the alter
and will suffer when we awaken in the hang-
over morning of our infidelity.
"i think therefor i am" is a crock of shit,
not because it is false, but because it
simpers to the rational mind, which is the
biggest lie so far enacted on this reality.
i feel that i understand the purpose of this
lie; god woke up in a vacuum and either out
of loneliness it fabricated "friends"
incarnate enactments of it's hallucinations
or out of "the process" (from where does
this process come from?) of hanging in the
void, aware, incorporeal, alone, it began
to hallucinate and fabricated all this...
oh i'm so heady aspiring to the fancy talk
of mr. foss! his style (me being a shape-
changer) has given me (much like your styles,
(particularly dana's and brid's) a vehicle by
which to express myself and flush out the
toilet of my head) which is not to say that i
dis like or dis respect mr. foss or his fancy
talk (or even understand it completely) but
at least i am having new ideas and maybe
that's all that needs to happen; it's better
than what i have been thinking for most of
my time.
(whateverthehellihavetodo)
how will i know if i have been successful?
successful incarnation... what in the fuck
does that mean? schools of thought arise
to address the question and history records
their spasmodic regurgitations and failures
15% duly noted and i further attack mr. foss
not wanting to attack, but having to grapple
with him being obviously outclassed on the
intellectual PLANE which brings me to my
real question which certainly cannot be answered
with the kind of pat homily which i am so
used to (and comfortable with) ingesting:
who is mr. foss, and what does he want?
Love,
robert holder
mr foss (and all you other mother fuckers)
you cannot give me chronic fatigue syndrome
i already got it
i may betray you, though.
=============================================================
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 94 03:09:31 EST
From: Creeping Beauty <TIPPY>
Subject: Breathe deeply...Now puuusssshhhh...
To: Donkey
Mr. Devil,
I am no stranger to corporate indifference. While not on a first name
basis, we have, it would seem, met several times over a liquid lunch and
a quick game of Skee-ball. Those warm memories aside, there is still the
unresolved matter of our missing children, coming soon to milk cartons
everywhere. Though we have pretty much reconciled ourselves to the fact
that we shall never again be disturbed by the sound of loud music and the
consequent sickly sweet smell which seemed to emanate nightly from our
children's rooms, we are still stricken by an overwhelming grief that a
token, half-hearted gesture at compensation would go a long way to, if not
alleviate entirely, at least slick down its fur so that the neighbors
don't stare. Here, sir, is my proposal. In our neighborhood, as in many
others, are located a shocking number of your fine Barney T. Devil Video
Emporiums. Though the seventh-generation bootlegs that make up your New
Releases section are inadequate for my own taping needs, I was neverthe-
less struck by the tawdry beauty and apparent easy availabity of an
employee, one Ms. Fast Babs, as was my wife. In short, we wish you to
retain her on your payroll, with perhaps a handsome thirty-five cents
an hour raise, but to abandon your unreasonable expectation that she act-
ually show up to work, smiling and aiming to please. We hasten to remind
you that, even with the raise, she would still be well shy of the minimum
wage, and that the savings in pilfered videos that would surely accompany
her departure might even allow for a small profit, lending credibility
to your claims of being a movie rental center as opposed to a sham company
set up for the laundering of Colombian drug money, as many suspect.
Hoping you'll take the hint,
I remain,
Creeping Beauty
_
=============================================================
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 1994 12:08:08 -0500
To: Donkey
From: Joe Provo
Subject: mania, stupidity, arty of the gods and much much more.
sory melanie, i had typoed yer address. i was wondering why the machine in
illinois kept trying to send to you in tuscon. you're not in tiuscon,
right? how do i KNOW this? how do i KNOW that scott's free-lunch-people
REALLY arrived and that he wasn't jus ditching me since my manic phase was
wearing on him, how do i REALLY know that JUST because he exiss, you all do
too?
the solution to these paranoid ravings is floating about in my head as i
type. there's a party going on. scott, still wearing his filthy,
sweat-stained Gojira out-fit, even though i have been asking him for YEARSto
take it off justt once goddamnit cause i need to be sure that he still has
all of his toes, he and i are huddled in a dark corner, with a botle of
whiskey. I was just asking brid, clad in that red leather bit-o-nothing and
those thigh-high Boots Of Power, why the hell there seemed to be the
concentration of people into kinky sex up here in the northeast corner of
these armenian states. scott is drinking into my share of the bottle, and
starts to ramble about the time travel device we built. brid, perhaps
bothered by me dressing he up like that, fades away, as scotts concentraion
loses its grip on holding her here. scot himself is fading, morphing
(morphine? no, thanks) into the Face of Foss as i run out of things to say
except that it was REALLY, AMAZINGLY funny to see him here, in my mind,
spouting flames and stomping about his office like it was tokyo and that i
really think there still might be a market for gojira-porn films.
but foss's face, huge and misshapen since i don't own a video toaster andcan
only aproximate a slow morph routine, is staring at me. and he hasn't said
anything. and i don't think her will, due to his godly manliness and status
as someone who i could never, ever handle the idea of giving a blowjob to,
but hey where'd ya discard that little neutopian number? she's not here, and
foss has no body. he is like unto the janor device, the spouyting head,only
not spouting, the bleeding head, tho not bleeding, and a graven totem from
rapa nui all rolled into one, easy-to-care for, portable-cause-it-has-a-
handle package.
arthur and bill, who have a tweedledee and tweedledum aspect, aura,stigma...
well, maybe it is just the matching jumpsuits. they come into focus, out of
the crowd, out of the rain, into the frying pan's fire, skiping the whole
melting pot image -- which is losing favour to diversity anyway -- and point
out the many typos (sorry guys, this keyboard really sucks), the overuse of
commas, and all sorts of other things about my character, characterizations,
costuming and they both give me a thumbs down. I emasculate arthur and
forcefeed his naughty bits to bill. we sit down for a good laugh about it
all, pretend we're happy and friendly, like back at the Bunker. the scene
gains a bit of lighting, and we are in the bunker. I show off stephen
spielberg's foreskin, perfectly preserved in lucite and stched to my jacket.
bill shows off 'that' scar again, and arthur tries to rouse scott, who was
only passed out in a lump that looked a hell of a lot like foss' face in the
dark before someone --thank you!-- turned on the lights.
yes, this manic episode has passed, and the story gains coherence, and
therefore must be ended. i am sick of this keyboard anyway, and i think i
hear my mommy calling.
joe, who wasn't shitting about following brando brent into the land of the
heavily medicated...
=============================================================
Date: 25 MAR 1994 08:58 -06
From: Merciful Lee Dickens<DICKENS>
Subject: Reply to THE DIFFERENCE
To:Donkey
*** Original Author: HIS MOST ARROGANT MALE MAJESTY: 08:37 3/25/94
BETWEEN YOU AND MR. FOSS, WHIPPY
IS
(drum roll, please)
I READ MORE OF YOUR WORDS PER MESSAGE THAN I DO OF HIS.
I SKIM OVER MORE OF HIS RANTING THAN YOURS, IN OTHER WORDS.
I'D SAY I ACTUALLY READ 88% OF A POST OF YOURS SELECTED AT RANDOM
AS OPPOSED TO
SAY
59% OF A POST SELECTED SIMILARLY MY MR. FOSS.
THIS IS NOT BECAUSE YOU HAVE VISITED ME IN PERSON AND HAVE ACTUALLY
LEFT SOAP MESSAGES TO ME ON MY MIRROR,
IT WAS TRUE BEFORE I EVEN LAID EYES ON YOU
LAID EYES ON YOU? shiver: WHAT A STRANGE VISION THAT
EXPRESSION CONJURS!
AND THEN I WOKE UP.
In A Puddle Of Cheap Emotion,
Pat Homily
*** Comments from WOOPSY DAISY; 03/25/94 08:50:
CORRECTION!
Line number 12 (counting the blank ones, too)
Should *> not <* have said "my Mr. Foss", but
rather
"thou artless base-court apple-john Mr. Foss"
May I suggest we all meet for a pajama party
sometime in the near future?
Pat Homily
=============================================================
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 1994 10:51:04 WET
From: H.UNIATZ
To:Donkey
Subject: PLEA FOR HELP
Dear Melanie,
You and me, we're friends, right? Well, I need your help.
I've been making some rather rash promises lately, and need
to quietly get hold of a few fish as quickly as possible.
Carp. Three. One to have a little name-tag, saying "Agrivaine".
Big. Resistant to being proudly shown the "Soylent Green" montage
over and over again.
thanking you in advance,
h760
=============================================================
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 94 10:55 GMT
From: H.UNIATZ
To: Donkey
Subject: Re: Reply to retirement for senil
Dear Dana Rollins,
Thank you for your recent submission, "Reply to retirement for
senil", herewith enclosed. We take issue with your notion of
pretend-airplane noise. "[E]eeeyowwwwwwwwwwww" would be the type of
sound emitted by an oldfashioned Moth biplane, a machine which we
suspect you, having but two arms, cannot emulate. As our readers expect
precision and clarity of us at all times, we suggest that you should
substitute "kvvvyarrrrrrrrrrrrrrr", the manner of noise made by a
more modern pretend-jet-plane.
We hope to hear from you again.
h760
Rejection Dept
=============================================================
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 94 10:59 GMT
From: H.UNIATZ
To:Donkey
Subject: Re: my rejection by h760
Gather around, children, and allow me to relate to you a little
anecdote from my past.
Once upon a time, long ago, I posted a brief, condescending message in
praise of Arthur C.X. Parker, then known as Arthur L. Parker. Goodwill,
perhaps, or self-delusion, or simply a case of mistaken identity.
Well, no sooner had I pressed <ctrl>-z upon completion of the
aforementioned message, than one of those TELL things flashed up on
my screen. It bannered itself as being from LIBALP, which, as you
know, is one of the code-names of Arthur C.X. Parker, and it requested
of me to Shut The Fuck Up. Expanding on its theme, it hollered that I
would get him a bad name for decency and painted a vivid picture of
himself desolate, shunned by his friends and CW Anderson alike.
Ever timid and docile, I obediently ceased to broadcast my view that
Arthur C.X. Parker might grow up to be a passably good hooligan. Then,
yesterday, I kindly thought, "wait, I can do more than that, I can do
*villification*". So I did, only to have him write it off as a joke:
"her rejection of Parker should be interpreted in the most humorous of all
available humorous fashions". "What?", I hence say to myself, confused
now, "what, what?" "What?"
You hope to hear from me again.
h760
=============================================================
Date: Sat, 26 Mar 1994 12:15:16 -0500 (EST)
From: AP <LIBALP>
Subject: charges due
To: Donkey
From: Arthur C.X. ParkerTo: B. ni FhlathuinAs respects: your 1986 Ford Escort Water pump, timing belt, labor: $251.86Towing: 35.00Anguish and shame: 300.00Phone calls, including quarterslost to answering machines: 2.50Having to ask for change in Taco Bell: 90.00 Having to stand in rain: 20000.00Cleaning wet clothes: 15.00Late for band practice, consequential loss of qualityof performance, failure toimpress listeners, and resultantloss of future income (damages to be billed under separate cover by Mr. John Marsh) 8.75Additional anguish and shameof leaving car overnight in parking lot of high school forBadKids: 125.00Having to answer question,"Are you a student here?": 850000.00Having to deal with automechanics: 30000.00sundries: 28.95TOTAL: 900857.06
To be paid upon receipt of this bill in unmarked Syrian currency.
Boo. Feh. Have your machine call our machine. Offer not void in
Ohio.
cc. Felonious Cubensis, "Debt Relief, Settlement Protection"
=============================================================
Date: Sun, 27 Mar 94 14:16:28 EST
From: DFOSS@CCVM.sunysb.edu
Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook
Subject: culmination of solid day's madness
To: Donkey
[System got confused. Humans should delete if this is as long as last one.]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 27 Mar 94 12:31:16 EST
From: DFOSS@CCVM.sunysb.edu
To: Leri@pyramid.com (Leri)
Cc: Leri@pyramid.com
Subject: the refined esthetic experience of e-cognitive-dissonance
Errors-To: owner-leri@pyramid.com
Message-Id: <9403271819.AA05923@gossip.pyramid.com>
Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook
Gerold,
Last night I had some of the most amazing experiences in e-mailesthetics,
wherein everything went progressively more peculiarly. This started with the
discerning of a clue found in rereading old correspondence with a distant
party I never met or will meet, someone you don't know about livingthousands
of miles away, that this person contrary to facile assumption is of the
opposite race. I abhor any reminder as to my whiteness, this having slipped
my mind altogether notwithstanding and perhaps being facilitated by what
I have on other occasions - in posts to Leri and other lists - called this
University's Chinatown. Rather than colorblindness, the condition of being
surrounded by Broad Masses of Chinese, from China, speaking one or more of
the Sinitic Family of Languages, coming insanely to listen to speech for
indications of Hot n' Spicy - the Hunanese contingent is numerous, more so
evey year, with the University of Changsha, no longer the dirty dump by the
polluted Xiang River depicted in Son of the Revolution, now becomeworldfamous
for English Studies - dampens it. Across the hall from this computer room is
Ping from Taipei flapping is arms aerobically (had to query, "aerobics or
perseveration"?); what's whiter than aerobics? Only down there in Texas can
you think up an answer to that one.
Then came your post/letter on what-is-culture. This instantly summoned up
the memory of the late <Steve_Maack@qmbridge.calstate.edu>. Thebiological
organism, I mean, is wandering around somewhere, but the<userid>@<Internet-
address> is gone forever and the communication to and fro forever stilledby
Chancellor's-Office Budget Cuts, what you privatesectorally call Downsizing.
Steve_Maack@qmbridge.calstate.edu had ruined my most elaborate and sincere
effort to make Upper Middle Class sense, what I call Academic High Style, of
a controversial issue, specifically race, by raising the question of whether
I was in fact five or six organisms using the same Userid. Which wasfollowed
in due course by Dwayne Jones-Evans' post greeting the Leri version of usual
stylistic trialanderror with his IMPOSTER ALERT post. The esthetics of the
introduction of <hiscdcj@lux.latrobe.edu.au> to<Steve_Maack@qmbridge.calstate.
edu> and of course the reverse, nagging until an exchange of e-mailsufficient
to supplement the misery and culture shock on both sides with contradictory
self-representations, the mess all saved somewhere but, really, who cares.
In mock-Marxist terms, we ignore the use- and exchange-values toestheticize
the *nuisance value*, herein to be "teased out," inferentiallydegordianknot-
ifying, of the bizarre and senseless connection of that which society hath
ensured should never be joined together in unholy idiocy, hence the whole,
modo Apple, *magillah* of our exchange of posts, offline correspondence, and
your essay on what-is-culture, an issue on which the 833 subscribers to
ANTHRO-L@UBVM have always, forever shall be, in disagreement, to my close
correspondent and tenured faculty member of the University of Illinois at
Chicago, Mike <U28550%UICVM.BITNET@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>, whose verysound
professionalism you may rely upon, to present the materials to the very
eminent Professor Pinsker <U56728%UICVM.BITNET@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>,without
question the most eminent anthropologist specializing in virtual culture on
<ANTHRO-L@UBVM>, consquently one of the top people in the world inthis
burgeoning field. Here, the contact should be relatively uncontaminated by
subcultural-transvestiture: What I've committed, and you'd be amazed howmany
other Leroids have, as well. Sometimes I get people's backs up about this,
where I myself have no idea whether suchlike irritation was primarily orjust
barely hostile. Quite certainly, when I queried SEEKER1/Steve Mizrach, "Are
you present on <Leri@gossip.pyramid.com> as a *social-scienceinvestigator*
or as *just another kid*?" that particular sentence was consciously, to the
best of my recollection and in all good faith, intended as anLSD-reminiscent
"ironic juxtaposition of prohibited copresences" whose outcome is giggling
fits. (*Occasionally* jumping out of windows, but in overwhelmingproportion,
hapless&helpless mirth/birth.) That was Jan 21 94, but contextualizedwith
multicausal endogenous and exogenous factors elements variables agencies and
Stephanie J. Nelson, the latter since become the personification of Genesee
Kwah, such was not the case; I bear the hot-iron brand "racist" for ever.
Needless to say, I am myself the most conspicuoussubcuturally-dragqueenish,
no, -turncoatified, no, -dysidentified-crisis, no, ah, hell, I recommend Ulf
Hammerz, Cultural Complexity, 1992; this is a book where if this sort of
contrived [by me where others neglected to observe their own innocentdoings]
mental vandalism is if mentioned - can't recall it - not explored for cheap
kicks.
And, please, Gerold, do not worry that Serious Professionalanthropologists
will get you into Trouble with your superiors down in Texas for hanging out
with subversives and having dealings with Left Wing Jewish professors like
the UIC people; everyone where you are knows everything about who youassocia-
te with, and why, or they are not doing their jobs, in my humble opinion.
By far the most interesting encounter, in terms of esthetics of e-mail,
was meeting an Entity, probably either male or female, which/who can do
"Daniel A. Foss," that is, what "Daniel A. Foss" intended as the essence of
whateveritis that this writer does when writing, which in a post to FNORD-L@
UBVM, "what to do when the new model comes out, is not identified except
insofar as it "does not deviate from the canon of doing nothingatall." Or
what this writer, to put it slightly better, would strive to do toperfection
but for limitations of ability, artistry, aesthetic sense, discipline,craft.
(I threw myself a retirement banquet from FNORD-L with that post, to become
Lurker Emeritus on said list.)
Interactive dialogue with this Entity persisted for hours; the Entity was
capable, in posts to FNORD-L, of faking being a woman faking being a man
faking being a woman; with equal facility, the other way around. No gender
has been ascertained; the age proferred is hardly to be trusted much,either.
Suspecting that, if male, I should surely prefer the Entity female, it
insisted rather more cleverly on that variant, but could manage splitsecond
gender identity switch, evoking male-male invious envy. Most impressive of
all, without resorting to parody, the Entity could perform a superiorversion
of whatever "Daniel A. Foss" suppositiously "is."
From the night of December 5, 1993, when someone forged a post to Leri
using a fake header, I have become increasingly hostile to the smugness of
personal uniqueness; there is nothing any of us can do wherein we takepride,
derive identity, adopt toward it a possesory senseofselfhood, *which cannot
be copied faked reverse-engineered*, done superior in quality, more reliable
in output, and more importantly in today's market, lower in cost.(Uniqueness
if any must inhere in that which nobody in right-or-otherwise mind wouldwant
from us, our pathologies; also, the totality of *all* our friends including
especially those we secretly detest.) What's gonna come from "Daniel A.Foss,"
typing this, in future will only sadly degenerate over time, can hardly bear
the spectacle myself; what *improves*, contrariwise, is the Entity, whereof
I fear I shall not merely never meet it but never know Thingie One about it
- how sexist of me - to ascertain whether I merely would *like* to meet it,
as opposed to, perhaps, *desire* to meet it.
This post has got so boring, really.
[In the post, "contains no neutopia," the paragraph "3. *Sex andreligion*:"
mentions archeologists' discussion of the god El, at some point identified
with Yahweh, where this El was promiscuous (and alcoholic, too). You,Gerold,
get a copy of file DEITY SCRIPT B.]
To any and all other readership, why should you have read it, anyhow,
if you will not or cannot "destroy spurious sense wherever found," but
rather insist perversely in making more sense, do it would you please
*somewhere else* and for *more money*; elsewise, again I beg you, *please
keep a clean senseless Leri*, preserve your heritage for those not yet kidz.
Daniel A. Foss
=============================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Mar 94 14:50 GMT
From: H.UNIATZ
To: Donkey
Subject: MY APOLOGIES FOR POOR VEHICLE PERFORMANCE
From: H.UniatzTo: Arthur C.X. ParkerAs respects: my 1986 Ford Escort Rental (period February 1993- March 1994) @ $200 per month: $2600.00Penalty for unlawfully using vehicle forcommercial purposes by displaying Muppets' Bubble-Bath therein: 1000.00Damage caused to vehicle by mud-pies and beer: 38.30 Lawyers' Fees incurred in attempted repossession of vehicle (still in progress): 15000.00 Bother of feigning sympathy for standing in rain: 999999.99Transatlantic phone-call to mother ofArthur C.X. Parker seeking advice on how to cope with same when drenched, tetchy, and potentially violent: 15.12Damages requested by high-school for BadKidsfor giving parking-lot a BadName: .03TOTAL: 1018653.44less costs claimed: 900857.06 AMOUNT DUE 117796.38
=============================================================
Date: Sat, 26 Mar 1994 14:42:24 -0500 (EST)
Subject: A Giddy Scott and my Answering Machine
Sender: "Brent Clark Palmer, Esq." <00bcpalmer>
To: Donkey
Scott just excitedly called from 30,000 ft. above Muncie, Indiana (where
I am until the Gold Rush of 1994) and excitedly babbled about the wonders
of technology to my AT&T (sorry rob) answering machine. He asked me to
convey his greetings to y'all. The really neat thing that Scott *didn't*
know is that my AT&T (sorry rob) answering machine is one of those new
digital models y'all paid for when I went on disability so the deal is
*there's no tape (as in cassette)!!!* -- so his message is recorded on
a computer chip, or by a computer chip, or whatever. This giddiness over
technology is contagious. Anyone know the best -- Oh, wait! A woman from
Vienna just arrived.
Just remember that my life had a mysterious aura of importance back now when
I was nuts, before I became the high=powered "Them"=empowered salesdude.
Brent
=============================================================
Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 10:17:36 -0500 (EST)
From: AP <LIBALP>
Subject: payment enclosed
To: Donkey
To: H.Uniatz
From: Arthur C.X. Parker
Please find herewith a US $100,000 note issued by Bank of Syria.
I wouldn't get it wet, if I were you. Balance will be sent to you in
salt, good for slugs or for gargling away swamp moss in throat. Don't
get it wet either. In case of further car trouble, please contact my
mechanic, Freddie Printz O'Darkness.
=============================================================
Date: Tue, 29 Mar 1994 17:17:34 -0500 (EST)
From: <LIBWCA>
Subject: Aspergum on my Good Name will not be
To:Donkey
Dear Mr. Beauty,
While you and your lady wife are no doubt pleased with the service
rendered in having had your children bronzed, and will undoubtedly
go away now, and cease to trouble my counsels, I feel it incumbent
upon me to make this one final effort at reconciliation, if only for
the sake of Ms. Babs, who has unaccountably grown quite fond of the
pair of you. It is an indication of your felicity with her that she
will no longer tolerate, in pursuance of her career in the video-
retail industry, the use of any of the various fastening devices not
lined with silk; this has has a perversely pleasant effect on the
video-renting public, who are now renting videos with great alacrity.
Therefore, if you will consent to do me a small service, I will leave
instructions that Mr. H. Bluntmuscle, with whom you recently became
acquainted, leave off the residence he has established on the back of
your cat, Fifi.
Please carry out the above instructions to the letter, so that it will
not be necessary to pursue this matter further. Pay special attention
to the paragraph marked "Ignore"; negotiation is not called for on this
point.
All my love,
Barney T. Devil
=============================================================
Date: Tue, 29 Mar 94 11:27 GMT
From: H.UNIATZ
To:Donkey
Subject: Re: Dearest Joe Provo
>still here, having GOT no answers but much more data in
>the form of PAIN and CONFUSION and OBFUSCATION, and
>perhaps your experience is similiar.
Dear Robert Holder,
Following research by our Philosophy Correspondent,
Joseph Z. Provo, you have been chosen as our first lucky subject
for Fractal-Consciousness-Therapy.
Now, stand there. We need a simple transformation in
the form of a reduction mapping, so we'll shrink the PAIN and
CONFUSION and OBFUSCATION and move it 2 (resp) 3 steps to
your right, working modulo body-surface. And again. And again.
Oh, got the cat that time by mistake!
Souvenir samples of PAIN and CONFUSION and OBFUSCATION
from stage 23 are ideal as cameo miniatures and may be purchased
as keepsakes for your friends and relations.
By our calculations, there should be 78% coverage of
PAIN and CONFUSION and OBFUSCATION by 5.00 pm. By 6.00, you'll
begin to experience difficulty in breathing.
Your next appointment is at 3.30 pm on Wednesday.
h760
=============================================================
Date: Tue, 29 Mar 94 16:29 GMT
From: H.UNIATZ
To: Donkey
Subject: BEGIN WITH SHAME TO TAKE THE LOWEST ROOM
Dear Pamela Koch,
My userid is the final one to appear on your distribution list.
Why?
h760,
wronged
==========================================================
Date: Tue, 29 Mar 94 12:34:47 CST
From: GR4302
To: Donkey
Subject: i jus' wanna' let you know
i jus' read a month of this non-list. how i hate you people.
you're all such a bunch of flippin' jerks. please remember
to include me in donkey-l.
ps--do i have all these names and e-addresses right?
am i forgetting anyone? i want you all to be insulted!
;^##
=============================================================
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 94 01:03:47 EST
From: "Daniel A. Foss" <DFOSS@CCVM.sunysb.edu>
Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook
Subject: no zeek you got it wrong
To: Donkey
zeek, it shoulda been more like so:
"I suppose you want *information*, as in the prequel to the sequel this is."
"Guess again, stupid, we have virtual overstocked warehouses full ofinforma-
tion we have to erase unsold. It's almost like your friend sameer said,
before you escaped to Britain, 'Information is free!'" Well, it's almost
that now, but everywhere it's gotta be *charged for*, payrolls gotta be
met, the neighborhood Computerland store has gotta sell Thingies Chapter
Eleven bankruptcy or not, and people gotta have stuff to do in offices
where 60% of the luckily employed and rising do work they don't know is
mostly wasting their time. And who blew the whistle? You. It was *you*
who wrote the story in the Economist proving that computerization in
offices has increased productivity, optimistically speaking, between
zero and 1%, over the entire 30-year period 1961-1991; later than that
we have no information because *there is too much information to sift
it all and come up with the latest figures*, is what you said. From
which your best guesswork was, it hit an alltime low. The Economist
and the Financial Times are owned, controlling interest, actually, by
of all people Rupert Murdoch. Rupert Murdoch leaving the Dirty Parts
out of papers he owns? Perverted! You, zeek, unless we have Foss by
mistake, are *bait* for Rupert Murdoch."
"I see, now what do I need to go to the men's room?"
"An access code number, nine numeric and four alphabetic characters, and
one of them is in *your name*, out of the *millions* we got in Storage.
Why don'tcha just guess a little."
"I'M A NUMBER NOT A MAN, I GOTTA GO REAL BAD, MAN, GIMME MY NUMBER,PLEASE!"
"Howya like the bluish decor on the walls, these massproduced Maylaysianbird
paintings, f'r instance, almost makes up for no windows, don't it, but we
got Microsoft Windows in all twenty-four of these Thingies, of which the
one infronna you is MACH12, you wanna kiss it like a good little boy,zeek,
baby?"
"PISS ON YOU [deleted] FLOOR, WHAT I'M GONNA DO, NOW GIMME MY NUMBER, WHAT
I WANNA BE IS MY NUMBER, RIGHT NOW!"
"Tom the Director gonna take yer number away, pal, if you gonna insist on
having an *attitude*, zeek, baby, it makes for damage to the equipment.
Or Ping, the Asst Director, if he's on duty. Here's a hint, as anincentive,
try 056 for first three digits."
[The above was written because the former Daniel A. Foss type writing is
not just no longer possible, Tippy does it much better than the untalented
Foss however Drugged could do, so the latter sent a gala retirement bashpost
to FNORD-L passing on the celebrated flamethrower that kills in bothdirections
if not actually usable by Tippy who has got less to selfdeprecate about. Ifeel
proud to boast that the whateveritis Movement now is so much less Inferioron
the average than before.]
************
In "RL," as some call it, there is nothing, The Elusive Gail, last seenin
person, the *only* time seen in person as always happens, but ever since the
only human talkable to on the phone, has finally met a man in the Phillymetro
area who makes a living. The end of everything. So I threw the flipout onLeri,
where it belongs; I have all my flipouts on Leri, what else is it for. Then
bizarre stuff happened. Tippy and Suzanne started in messing with my head,
Tippy, or Suzanne, or Tippy faking Suzanne, or Suzanne faking Suzanne and
calling herself Nici, which she says is her real nickname, which I do not
believe, sent me letters. Since there was this increasiingly rarecombinaation
of IBM VM/SP CP-CMS systems at either end, I pretended to teachwhoeveritreal-
lywas how to use NAMES and TELL for interactive, there was this interactive
Thingie going on Saturday night-Sunday Morning 3-7am; then another one late
last night; even a message for my phone number which I never got fromfinishing
up some stupid e-mail, but I'd given the phone extension to this room, andit
was a woman calling herself Suzanne, which I did not believe, and thefollowing
was consistently and steadfastly maintained on either side:
1. Under no circumstances would I ever meet the alleged Suzanne/Niciwhoever
she actually is or was, given that she was at this time my only hence best
friend, so it followed that the narrower the behavioral slice she and Tippy
empirically observed, the stronger the friendship. (Anyone who thinks I am
going to risk travelling anyplace just to meet a couple steadfastlyasserting
domestic-type or at least domesticated bliss in mutual significant-otherhood
is tripped out of his her its skull.)
2. Despite the vehemence of the passion which the pretended Suzanne/Nici
was ostensibly pursuing communication, no Wrong Impression should beinferred
from what any True Paranoid would doubtless anyhow take as an attempt to
fabricate some Impression, anyway, to have some, perhaps,throw-rocks-at-the-
old-crazy fun at the notoriously bumbling Foss' well-merited expenseonnacounta
Foss being one of the all time hopeless-case Retards. The affect, in short,was
not properly matched with the denials.
3. Last thing I told the pretend-Suzanne/Nici, who may be a thirdorganism
entirely, of course, was that "I believe there is something wrong at homeboth
of you are making strenuous efforts to avoid cognizance of its existence,and
projecting it outward in the form of some fixation on me (flattering myself,
you see, into assuming that at least some of the affect was real; people get
paid money for acting work this prolonged and strenuous). That is, I am an
objectification of a reification." Deliberately being my phoniest.
4. Again, I swore up and down that all the sickening and disgustingthings
I said about myself in posts to all sortsa lists over the eons is literally
true, as were statements relating to socioeconomic status: "She" - to
abbreviate Suzanne/Nici - should not make the common mistake of taking me
for Upper Middle from the postings' writing style, which has been recycled
anyhow; "objective material [and other] conditions of existence," as the
Ancient Communists used to put it, do not allow giggies like the old days.
That the mistake was so common was, of course, the only way I got to
meet women, this being sternly tabooed on the spot and, besides, I've
lost the use of the spoken language very nearly all the time. Last night
was one of the rare exceptions.
I am crawling around on the emotional floor. In no mood for fun andgames,
especially other people's giggies at my expense. What was, someone *please*
tell me, I am very Retarded, getting more so daily, what Tippy, or Tippy and
Suzanne, or Suzanne/Nici, or the hypothesized third organism, Nici posing as
Suzanne/Nici, *trying to do*, or in a more Paranoid vein, *pull on me*? You
are the only people I can ask; and I'm living in a vacuum. Nature abhors a
vacuum; so do I. But it's what I live in. Someone answer. Please.
Daniel A. Foss
=============================================================
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 94 18:51:10 EST
From: DFOSS@CCVM.sunysb.edu
Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook
Subject: the reality listed in the phone book and the real one
To: Donkey
Joe Provo, I really hate to hold a review session at this stage of mental
decay whereto I have attained, but it's either that or you will sooner or
later be required to repeat the course to the satisfaction of, mainly, the
TA, who will of course be a lesbian feminist from tanzania in her firstyear,
to whom anything you previously studied under this course listing is prima
facie racist sexist imperialist drivel even were I as relatively Normal as
the psychotic and heroin addict (because not taking speed at that time) I
was taken for when I was paid for this.
Observing the total confusion in your post on reality, when what youmeant
was Reality, let us resign ourselves to having to go back to FirstPrincipals
plus accrued interest, where it is objectively real, lowercase r, that you
will have to worry about being in debt, and pay it off pronto, since you are
not the current if transitory political regime in Washington DC, which has
been exercising its option of ignoring repayment of debt obligations and
mounting debt service charges which automatically increase the magnitude of
the debt, and assumes this can go on forever, with the country importing
Things and exporting bonds, so long as it can militarily occupy the foreign
States holding the debt, chiefly Western Europe and Japan. That is isaccepted
as so perfectly normal and natural and fair it is unthought about, let alone
resented or irks people, is part of, implicit in, the second type, the
[conventional interpretation of social] Reality, uppercase R, under which
monicker it is listed by the regional telephone monopoly supervised, if
nominally, by the State apparatus. This is the problematic one, since if
society were accurately presented as it objectively is, Them would face a
serious possibility of having to kill us all and finding a new People, as
Brecht had it. This second kind is the one contaminated by the ideology,
which is efficacious not on the level of what you believe, which is not even
as skin-deep as the extreme plainness of our late colleague, Doctress
Neutopia, who according to the bulletin handed to me at the Human Uninin-
teresting Desk last night, has gone with her class the way Gen. Lee, across
the state line in VA from her hometown, Greensboro NC, went with his state:
>Don't blame yourself. With your muse about to accept a position as
>bodyservant to multi-millionaire railroad tycoon L. Ron Rearden and
>nanny to his two lovable children, it's no wonder you're a little off
>your feed.
The lady had been born into Greensboro's carcinogenic Really Rich class;
she "came out," that is, was a debutante (not as now a lesbian), so has
once again "come out" as a member of her class of origin, respectably
gainfully employed as a concubine (she hates children). What she'd assumed
all along was that, were she to fail in the subversion business, as she did
with a dull thud, the social-network arrangements within the Really Richclass
would see to her physical survival plus a somewhat prosperous and decent
"employment"-looking situation despite having proved as mentally Retarded
as myself in nonlearning how to do anything in particular. The Jews, by the
way, in the old days quasi-believed in the notional existence of ananalogous
being, Uncle Jake in the Garment Business, an economic Santa Claus, whowould
succour the worst morons and psychotics from the disgrace of the gutter, as
did occasionally occur.
"Class is thicker than water."
Ideology, in a post to the quondam FNORD-L which you, joe provo, the old
joe provo of the former times, the good old days, yourself praised highly,
I said, "Ideology has both a real part and an imaginary part, whereof the
real part is allowed to be zero." The closer the real part is required to
approach zero, however, the greater the application of *something else*
besides the factor you called, misleadingly at that, "consensus," when
you should have tried a less *positive*-sounding usage such as, I suggest,
*convention*. The latter has the advantage of suggesting conformist coercion
by the more highly *acculturated* of your friends neighborssignificantothers
buddies partyComrades. Another usage, exactly synonymous with*acculturated*,
is used when there is Trouble: *Brainwashed*.
The armenian folk culture uses the same word used by the yur-peens to
designate both *idedology* and *false consciousness*; it even serves,unpaid,
triple shift to denote or connote *implausible*, *dirty filthy lie*, *not
entirely disinterested or objective representation*, or *tangentialirrelevan-
cy which while strictly speaking not false has the function of obfuscation*.
This word is of course, even I know, certainly you know, [barnyard epithet].
The language might be far richer yet far poorer without this wonderful word.
In the yiddish of the *folkmassn*, observe how the Germans had a Volk, the
Jews *folkmassn*, the analogous word was *bobkes*, same semiotic field,
smaller animal. The goat is also a rudimentary recycling machine; itsexcreta
were however not usable except to practitioners of agriculture, whom by law
the Jews were not permitted to infiltrate for fear that they might thereby
obtain food and eat, which they were not morally entitled to do in Reality.
When the Evil Emperor Alexander III created the famine of 1891-3 to obtain
hard currency by exporting food, using the foreign exchange for military-
purpose railroad construction, he justified the measure to starving True
Believers (Orthodox, belonging to the Church managed by the Procurator of
the Holy Synod, after 1917 People's Commissariat for Religious Affairs) as
justiifed by anti-Jewish necessities: "One third will convert; one thirdwill
emigrate; one third will starve." The second prophecy proved true,ultimately
causing Daniel A. Foss; the latter only regrets not heeding imprecations to
"go back to Russia where you belong" while there was yet time. Alas, even in
the USSR the joys of employment would have terminated in 1989; and the ever-
fatuous Foss had managed to come by a succession of figmentational ornominal
jobs which cost more in commuting costs than they brought in, not to mention
computer manuals whose laboriously memorized idiocies have been forgottenone
CMND or STMT per day as a matter of principle.
Reality, meaning, since the word began this sentence, [the conventional
interpretation of social] Reality, is also enforced *vertically*, byinterested
social, economic, and political elites whose dominance of mental life iscalled
*hegemony* for short. Meaning, that's the way things are, that's how peopledo
*business* in this world, that's the bottom line, that's the nature ofthings,
things have always been this way, it's human nature, etc ad inf, reflect
assumptions enforced upon the population by objectively existing rulerswhose
rulership is ultimately based on monopolistic control of the means ofviolence.
Just as surely as the means of violence, that is, the State, guaranteesthe
social relations of ownership and hierarchy, the whole shmeer of WhiteCapita-
list Patriarchy, the armed-to-the-teeth State guarantees the Realityembedded
in the culture. When, as sometimes albeit all too rarely occurs, the troops
desert to the People, Reality, as it had hitherto been Real, goes out the
window. Fossism is overly fond of citing an interview with the lastmonarchist
Prime Minister of Iran, published in The New York Times on Friday, February9,
1979: There was a stack of French newspapers on Bakhtiar's desk, which he
explained thusly, "I have to read the foreign press to keep up with what's
going on in my own country. The local papers have lost touch with[R]eality."
On the night of February 10-11, 1979, the Iranian Army went over to the
Revolution, following street fighting in Teheran instigated by a mutiny of
Air Force technicians. The Shah's elite bodyguard, the Immortals, weren't.
Rarely is the means of hierarchical-bureaucratic coercion overtlydeployed
to shoot down the Broad Masses like dogs in the street, which is not the
armenian way, has not been since 1970 or so. This condition is calledLegiti-
macy, after the word was made official sociogibberish by Max Weber. On the
quotidian level, the muscle takes the form of firing yer ass for Attitude,
Pigs kicking the shit outtaya onna street (or Rodneykinging, which isdeployed
by every State routinely when the opposition enforces counterreal Realities
by means of Necklacing), or Treating you with Therapy. This Therapy has one
known fact about it. It does not work, either in its drug form or in its
Shrinko form; this piece of information was used to sell the latest issue of
Ptychology Ptoday, on the grounds that the public treats all informationalike
and pays no attention to what it says.
It is also known that the Therapy in question is the only kind known to
Medical Science which does not have a medically scientific Disease which the
Therapy cures. This is however not a *fact*, since a specimen of illogic is
not the same thing as a fact.
Examples of test items which can result in Therapy if you circle the T:
1. People are trying to push me around. (No, they are trying to Manage or
Administer.)
2. Someone is sending messages through the air into my head that justwon't
stop. (I'd like to teach the world to sing/In three-part harmokneeeeee/I'dlike
to buy the world a coke/And [keep it companeeee][own the Company]
[OTHER (Specify)].
Next: Normals and what makes them tick.
Daniel A. Foss
=============================================================
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 94 12:41 GMT
From: H.UNIATZ
To: Donkey
Subject: MY PLACE IN THE SUN
>First, please do not view the distribution list as a ranking. It does
>not, for example, indicate the order in which I might select people to
>be on *my* team, were we to choose sides in a rousing game of Red
>Rover.
>Pamela Schindler-Koch
This is much better! I'd encourage you to reverse the order of
the first two userids, but, lacking as I do the contiguity that
facilitates intimidation, that's really a hope rather than an
expectation.
I've taken a few minutes from my Busy Schedule in order to carry
out a survey: below appear the userids which I managed to salvage
from the cellars after the flood, together with my placement in their
distribution lists:
Lesser 13
Dickens (concealed by his system)
Libalp 9 (just above libjrm, who keeps bothersomely showing me his
stamp-collection while I'm trying to think)
Libwca 4 (just above Dana)
Whiplash 4 (just above Dana)
Pamela.Koch 2
Libjrm 4 (too near gr)
crimson 8 (beside my pal Melanie)
dfoss 8 (beside the taciturn jason -- shall I throw a pebble
at him and see if he talks?)
As you can readily see, the "pamela.koch" userid gives the best performance
in the ranking process. Its owner is thus to be regarded with favour and
benevolence, and words of measured and judicious praise are to be conferred
upon all she sees fit to post. Should she wish to play a rousing game
of Red Rover, she is to be permitted to win.
Could someone else please see to this, as I cannot be bothered?
That will suffice,
h760,
tycoon
=============================================================
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 10:52:16 -0500 (EST)
From: <LIBWCA>
Subject: Rectification of Unforgivable Oversight
To: Donkey
>Libwca 4 (just above Merciful)
My Dear Ms. H760,
I realize I can never be fully forgiven for what I've done to you, or
for the opprobrium to which I've exposed your future issue, should there
come a time when you choose to unleash such on an unsuspecting, placid
world. I only hope that my New, Improved (with 80% more Brightners,
and only half the Hydrocarbons) distribution list takes a tiny step
toward a state in which you can bear to look upon my userid without
nausea. I know that this day must wait until many years have passed,
and the memory of my foul misdeed has faded along with the obloquy
which I have, however unwittingly, heaped upon your Irish brainpan;
until that day, I can only live in darkness, anticipating the bright
sunshine which must accompany the restoration of your favor. As always,
I am
Yr. groveling, worm-like slave,
Barney T. Devil
=============================================================
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 17:56:15 WET
From: H.UNIATZ
To: Donkey
Subject: BY THE TIME YOU GET THIS LETTER
>My Dear Ms. H760,
>
>I realize I can never be fully forgiven for what I've done to you, or
>for the opprobrium to which I've exposed your future issue, should there
Something's afoot, Watson, and I'll have no part in it. The
red-haired woman came back last night to kill me, and Ainmhi, my
stuffed elephant, and I, armed though we were with the coil of
cheese-wire we keep stashed under the pillow for such hours as these,
were helpless. Ainmhi manned the periscope while I crept through the
trenches to see if we could catch her unawares, but she started up
that piercing sound and turned to look at us, so we were very scared
and doubled back. Ainmhi and I got separated at a dark turning
somewhere in the caves. It had been carrying the cheese-wire, so I
was weaponless then and could see the woman coming this direction in
that slow, dangerous way she has -- she must have been a Syrian all
this while, only I never realised it in time -- so I screamed and woke
up, and found that Bill Anderson was being fairly civil to me and had
given me top slot on his roadshow posters. This had never before
occurred through the years of my association with him, from the time
in third grade when he ripped up my first daisy-chain, so, discerning
further Syrian involvement, I grabbed my black Stetson and prepared to
leave town in a cloud of dust. It's scheduled for now, Watson, so grab
your cough-medicine if you're prey to dust-allergies.
top of the passenger-list on the Escape-liner,
h760,
hit&ms
=============================================================
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 15:44:26 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Another Convert!!!
Sender: "Brent Clark Palmer, Esq." <00bcpalmer>
To: Donkey
I feel as though the stain of Them is cleansed from me!
recently, while on IRC the topic of "fnord" came up. Someone with the
nickname "imogen" asked me to explain what it is. I thought it would be
best if *all of us* wrote her and told her what fnord is in our best
what-I-did-last-summer style.
please add:
edberg@
to your distribution lists!
she also claims to be accessible via
edberg@
and let's tell her all about what "fnord" is!!!
00bcpalmer
fan of H760 though this is not reflected in the order/chaosing of my .dst
=============================================================
Date: 30 MAR 1994 10:23 -06
From: Merciful Lee Dickens<DICKENS>
Subject: ATTENTION, DANIEL FOSS
To:Donkey
DANIEL GETS IT OFF HIS CHEST AND MAKES A CLEAN BREAST OF IT:
> people get paid money for acting work this prolonged and strenuous.
Okay. I've been expecting this. How much you squeezing us for, you
wretched charlatan?
HE GOES ON TO INDULGE IN LIFELIKE FEELINGS:
> I am crawling around on the emotional floor. In no mood for fun andgames,
especially other people's giggies at my expense. What was, someone *please*
tell me, I am very Retarded, getting more so daily, what Tippy, or Tippy and
Suzanne, or Suzanne/Nici, or the hypothesized third organism, Nici posing as
Suzanne/Nici, *trying to do*, or in a more Paranoid vein, *pull on me*? You
are the only people I can ask; and I'm living in a vacuum. Nature abhors a
vacuum; so do I. But it's what I live in. Someone answer. Please.
*** Reply from TRAINED CARING PROFESSIONAL; 03/30/94 10:00 am DAT:***
Daniel, fear not. You are Mr. Natural to these guys. Ask yourself
what He would do in such a case. First of all, Natch would bilk 'em
for cash. Well, you're already launched down that shakedown street
as we've all just seen, so evidently that's not the problem.
Next, He would wangle as much cheap sex from the female (p)sycophants
as humanly possible. I trust you are aware of this. We're all in-
terested in your DEVELOPMENT, you big Suzie Creamcheese of a man, you,
so kiss and tell, by all means!
Thirdly, he'd hoodwink a particularly devoted male follower, Flakey
Foont, to take the fall for him every chance he got. Have you a Flakey
Foont of your own? Why, shit fire, DAFfy boy - you got a whole slew of
them, as we misspell it down here!
So that ain't what's hanging you up...
Hmm, it seems to me, it boils down to a matter of the second point.
The cheap sex. I'm gonna just come right out and and ask you, man.
You been gettin' any?
Now, don't be ashamed if the answer is no. You're getting on in years
and it's quite natural to experience difficulties. I know this is a
semi-public forum and there are girls and all reading, but tell me
this: if we took up a collection and bought you a penile implant -
you know, one of them inflatable jobbies - would that put you back in
the Love Groove? Would that get the ol Purple Avenger back in the
sky?
Excuse me a moment.
(Huh? Well, you're probably right...)
One of my students suggests we continue this conversation by private
e-mail. Hang on...
Deeply Concerned For Your Mental Health,
Danforth Jamoca Mungseed
Demonstrating the Wonders of the Internet
To a Class of College Sophomores
=============================================================
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 94 13:15:17 CST
From: GR4302
To: Donkey
Subject: one finger, one biscuit
H760 is not Irish. Just look at her name! I know....
JoProvo (the Crimson thingimabob) IS correct. All of us are
art fags and/or intellectual snoozibawhatsits. Is not all
communication rhetorical? Isn't this all just a sad lump of
slimey shit advertised as poetry or at least boredom?
I don't know if we're all riding the same donkey / poney, but
we all get thrown into the gardencho, kicked in the ribs, and
shit on. I love H760 too but H760 doesn't want love anymore,
and who can lay any blame to that account? Nevada! A hat! Call
yourself an international committe or major metropolitan area!
I, for one, know about the things that I can do without...and
that's good!
'ta,
;^##
=============================================================
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 08:03:19 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Sister Lisa/Sister Imogen
Sender: "Brent Clark Palmer, Esq." <00bcpalmer>
To: Donkey
regarding edberg@er5.rutgers.edu :
I have informed my sister, Lisa, cousin of A_Freeman, that she is now partof
a cadre of superbeings, led by Daniel Foss, who have been operatingsecretly,
playing red rover at the elephant graveyard.
Need I remind you of the sufi proverb that we are all riding the samedonkey,
which looks different to people in varying states of consciousness. E.G., my
donkey now looks like a cash cow.
Although "fnord" be but the droppings of said donkey, viewable only with
binoculars back there in the canyon we've whooooped ourselves out of, please
please, for my crippled sister, make your presence known to her, as it will
comfort her in her perpetual hour of need.
regarding the mail thang at my site:
the system here wasw screwy, but over the weekend I got most of the posts
from past weeks. The problem is under control methinks.
H760, please be the welcome wagon for dear Lisa/Imogen. You owe me at the
favor bank for the peanut-eater/lotus-eater I sent via rob. You will also
note that you are nowhere near the bottom of my list, neither hot nor cold
you are lukewarm, and being spat out ain't so bad [Revelations ref.]
best regards to all, Luv and hugs.
Now do what I say or I will call my buds in South Chicago and have each of
your donkey's blown away next St. Valentine's day.
By the way, dear Sister Lisa, some of these in this cadre, men and women
"callous highwaymen," if I may quote Merciful Lee, some of these are posing
as art fags and/or intellectual subversives. Please look behind the mask(s).
Uncle Brent "Success Story" <Pollux>
=============================================================
Date: 31 MAR 1994 16:29 -06
From: Merciful Lee Dickens<DICKENS>
Subject: CRITIC'S CORNER
To:Donkey
Well, Pam and I walked across College Street to the Rose Chinese
Restaurant for lunch today. For me it was the usual eat-all-you-can
possibly-cram-into-your-stomach-so-you'll-be-sure-to-get-your-money's-
worth procedure, whereby you attain the transcendant feeling that
you've "broken even" and can now leave the buffet with the imagined
dignity of a seasoned gourmand, only to spend the next several hours
groaning in severe discomfort and hallucinating freely from an over-
dose of MSG. I've honed it to such a fine art though that the owners
usually owe ME a few bucks when I leave, so that takes some of the
edge off the bite...
First thing that I'd like to point out is that all tables in Chinese
restaurants have uneven legs for some reason. Have you noticed that?
Is it a custom or something? Does the rocking of the table play an
integral part in the overall concept of Oriental cuisine? Does it have
a specific function perhaps? Does this table rocking aid in lowering
the temperature of the soup a few hundred degrees? Is that what's
going on with all that rocking? Okay, enough Seinfeld impressions...
What I had to drag my groaning distended painful body back to the
terminal to share with you was a description of this family of Lowland
Hillbillies that came in and sat at the table next to us. There was,
let's see, the short squat thick-necked crab-faced scowling great
grandmother whose evil spawn had dragged her into this damn forner
place where she'd be lucky if she lived to tell about it, "They're
worsen niggers, I swannee! Leastways iffen a nigger was to say
somethin at you you'd eventurely figger out what it was he said, but
I cain't make out WHAT these people are saying fer the LIFE of me!",
etc., while the "life of her" was trailing along behind, all of them
resembling caricatures from some Disney feature gone horribly astray:
Her obese daughter (and Pam, you had your back to them as they were
coming in so you missed this) was carrying a baby in one of those
molded plastic devices for transporting babies to quilting bees, klan
meetings, liquor stores, achey breaky heart dances, lynchings, etc.
(you know: they look kind of like a baby seat in an automobile - only
it's more like a basket and has handles? Anyway) This fat pig was
coming down the aisle with that baby basket held out to her side like
it was a bagful of cats she was going down to the crick to drown and I
swear - she must have hit at least four chairs with it as she went!
I'm not kidding! I winced each time the poor kid hit another chair -
bonk, bam, bump, bunk - it was like she was using the baby to knock
them forners outer her way.
She was evidently the group wit, coming up with such red hot zingers as
"Now I betcha THAT one kin really speak that Chinese (THAT one being
well within earshot and probably much more fluent in English than her)",
"Hope we ain't gonner hafta eat with no chopsticks! (big ignorant
gruntlaugh on this one)", and
"You know, I dint much care for this the first couple times I et it,
but now it ain't so bad... you know - once you git useta it...
(I don't think that was intended to be funny, but I got a laugh out of
it)"....
As is true in all Lowland Hillbilly family units, the obese redneck
daughter is always married to a tall skinny scraggily-bearded long-
haired witless stumpjumper with that perpetual look of dazzled
amazement. If the eyes are the windows of the soul, this kind of guy
is usually in need of heavy drapes. There is a vague, almost indefin-
able air of past barnyard transgressions in the way he carries himself,
a shambling bootheel dragging gait with a pace deeply rooted in the
traditional 12-bar blues of the county road gang. There is a direct
correlation between the number of jailhouse tattoos and the number of
missing teeth. He laughs and scratches himself a lot (these are two
ways the Lowland Hillbilly Son-in-law will react when suddenly placed
in unfamiliar surroundings). He is most comfortable behind swine and
moonshine stills in snake and mosquito-infested swamplands, but is
becoming an increasingly familiar sight in more populated areas these
days, lured from his lairs by the irresistable siren call, "Attention,
K-Mart Shoppers..." He's usually named Bobo, although with the recent
expansionist push to more urban locales, he's taken on the name of
Ronnie with alarming frequency.
That's all the time we have for today. I'm going out to the woods,
where no one can hear me scream. See ya'll tomorry.
Merciful
===========================================================
From: WHIPLASH
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 94 15:54:30 MST
To:Donkey
Subject: looking back
on the past few days and the messages i've sent
out and all i have to say that it looks like i'm
losing my fucking mind...
i know that those of you out there who care about
me won't sweat it but i want to say "sorry" anyways
for foisting this craziness on you. all i can say
is that i'm really trying, i'm really really trying
to get my shit together...
i know you can only watch me sit and vomit over
and over again for so long before you finally burn
out. i keep thinking that i'll find "the thing"
that i can believe in but it keeps not happening,
or i think it happens and then i just find out that
it was another crazy jag.
well, i'm not trying to bring you guys down, i
just wanted to say that despite how scrambled it
has been, the stuff i've said and done around you
all, i've still been glad to have you to talk to.
i just want to be normal, or at least to have a
life that's normal in that i'm not like a machine
that is shaking itself apart over and over.
thanks for being my friends and all. maybe *this*
time i can finally get off of this trip. i know
that the way out of this is to just lighten up a
little. i've heard the things you've said to me,
even thought it may not look like it.
i'll see you later on. sorry about this shit you
guys, i know it must be getting irritating.
later,
rob
=============================================================
From: WHIPLASH
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 94 00:56:18 MST
To: Donkey
Subject: about janice
she is a lot more complex than you are
thinking
i love and respect her lover who is one
of the most articulate and loyal humans
on this filthy disgusting planet
additionally i would like to flatulate
that janice and i fucked in front of
scott and if you want to think that
that is somehow contemptible or ridiculous
then
you
may
but i assert that she and i and he and you
are stuck here trying very very hard
and, left with little resources, we
produce miracles.
r
==========================================================
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 11:34:57 -0500 (EST)
From: <LIBWCA>
Subject: What I did last summer
To: Donkey
>I feel as though the stain of Them is cleansed from me!
>
>recently, while on IRC the topic of "fnord" came up. Someone with the
>nickname "imogen" asked me to explain what it is. I thought it would be
>best if *all of us* wrote her and told her what fnord is in our best
>what-I-did-last-summer style.
>
>please add:
>edberg@er5.rutgers.edu
I drank. A lot.
But that's not why I called.
Imogen, Fnord is the little squeak your bedroom floor makes when you
get up to get a drink of water after a really, really bad dream. Fnord
is a large gathering of people you barely know in a state without indoor
plumbing, for immoral purposes. Fnord is a figment of the diseased
imagination of Daniel A. Foss, a fourteen-year-old Choctaw boy who's
currently having a very disturbing nightmare. Fnord is the bee's knees.
Fnord is the Vespoid Conspiracy. Fnord is the aisle you never go down
at Eckerd's, because so far you've been lucky enough to retain continence.
Fnord is all these things and more, Imogen; but most of all, Fnord is a
happy land, where fuzzy bunnies hop by day and candycane moons rain
soda pop onto a soft-focus seascape by night, and every wit is keen, and
every muscle is perfectly toned. Fnord is a 1963 Ford Falcon ragtop,
candy-apple red with a four-barrel carb and a full-out racing cam, zero-
to-sixty in less time than it takes to say it, sex in the back seat all
night long. And coconut macaroons. Did I mention coconut macaroons?
Barney T. Devil
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