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Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 05:10:45 GMT
Sender: SUNY/Stony Brook Literary Underground<SBRHYM-L@SBCCVM.BITNET>
From: Jerry Cosyn <al677@ >
Subject: La Dolce Vita

Billy Green stretched groggily and groaned when the electronic
alarm clock/radio shrilled. His coarse right hand batted the long wide
button that brought merciful silence. He cast a sleep-veiled eye at the
digital display and muttered a hoarse and obscene monosyllable. He
shouldn't have hit the snooze button so many times; now he'd have to
rush or he'd be late. The digital clock read 7:00 am.

[It had taken hundreds of engineers, technicians, scientists and
laborers more than two decades and tens of millions of man-hours to
develop the theory, engineering and manufacturing techniques that
produced the tiny electronic devices inside the clock/radio; the digital
logic circuitry, LEDs, and transistors alone were masterful tributes to
man's ability to conceptualize and manipulate fundamental forces of
nature at the quantum level. To Billy Green, the device was a necessary
pain-in-the-ass, for which he had paid eighteen dollars -- about one
hour's wage -- and which, for the past six years, had accurately told
him the time and awakened him for work five days a week.]

Billy rolled from the waterbed and sighed his way to the bathroom,
relieved himself of the previous night's beer, and stepped into the
shower. Clean hot water, easily adjusted to the temperature and
pressure he desired, poured over him, and he began to feel more awake
and alert. He was tempted to linger in the shower, but knew he had no
time, so he reluctantly lathered himself with soap and shampoo, rinsed,
and dried himself on a large, freshly washed towel. His electric razor
buzzed briefly, and he quickly brushed his teeth, of which he still had
all but one, despite being forty-two years old.

[Billy had only the vaguest notion of how modern plumbing worked, could
not have guessed to within five miles how far the water he showered in
had been pumped, had never had cholera nor dysentery, absolutely
despised the open pit toilets he occasionally used at the state park,
and had not the slightest idea how chlorine was manufactured. The water
heater in his basement had not failed him in the ten years he'd lived in
that house, though it had heated thousands of gallons of water using
thousands of cubic feet of natural gas, which travelled hundreds of
miles to his home. The chemical processes by which the components of
his toothbrush had been manufactured had taken decades to develop.
Billy had never seen or touched the primitive lye soap of his
grandparents' generation, and did not know that his grandfather had died
at the age of forty-eight as a result of a series of infections and
disease which had begun in his rotting gums.]

Minutes later, dressed in clothing of various fabrics which were
comfortable, colorful and durable, Billy sat in the kitchen drinking a
cup of coffee which the automatic coffee maker -- which had cost him a
little over two hours' wages -- had prepared about the time he was
getting into the shower. The morning newspaper, printed only hours ago
and delivered to his doorstep as he slept, was spread before him. He
scanned the headlines, frowning and grunting to himself at the news that
government was catering to big business by allowing an increase in
electrical rates, was somewhat mollified when he saw on the next page
that the public-gouging electric company had again been denied
permission to construct a new nuclear power plant, and then turned to
the section in which he was most fervently interested: the astrology
column.

[Billy was completely ignorant of modern methods of planting, growing,
harvesting and proc?Yssing cotton. He could not guess within several
orders of magnitude the number of chemical processes involved in the
manufacture of modern fabrics, even those labeled "all natural". He
knew that his coffee came from South America, though his knowledge of
geography was fuzzy at best. He had never given any thought to the
manner by which coffee came to be in his local grocery store, and cared
nothing about shipping, ship building, ship yards, ports, trade routes,
railroad switchyards, highway construction, or the trucking industry.
He purchased food as he purchased clothing, accepting its ready
availability with a complete lack of wonder, as a kitten would accept a
bowl of milk placed under its nose. Billy was unaware of how paper was
manufactured beyond his certainty that big corporations raped millions
of acres of trees with no thought for the future in the process.
Methods of printing and producing a modern newspaper were unknown to
him. Of electricity he knew only that it was outrageously expensive,
and a necessity of life, and that someone should make the greedy utility
companies lower their ridiculous rates. Of nuclear power (he pronounced
it "new-kyew-ler") he knew nothing other than that it was hideously
dangerous to all life on the planet, should never have been invented,
and would have been banned long ago had not the power companies used
their ill-gotten millions to bribe greedy and unscrupulous politicians.
He did not know that he had many times suffered mild radiation burns
from a nuclear reactor, and accepted sunburn as the perfectly natural
result of failing to spread easily obtained, inexpensive, chemically
produced sunscreen on his skin.]

With the reassurance from the newspaper that Libras would survive
another day, that Saturn would have a strong influence on him in the
next week, and that he might expect an unexpected financial gain in the
next couple of days, Billy left the house, got into his two-year-old
car, and began the drive to work, with a favorite tape in the stereo and
the air conditioner pumping cool air into his enclosed environment.

[The steel in the car had been produced from ore and coal mined in areas
selected by satellite survey of an entire world. Billy considered the
decades of the space program and rocketry research a waste of money
which should be spent on solving problems on earth. The manufacture of
automobiles was an enormously complex operation, involving tens of
thousands of people and machines working at highly specialized tasks,
producing thousands of materials and products by the use of extremely
sophisticated technology. Each of the material components had required
considerable intellectual effort to conceive and develop, and followed
from a long line of earlier invention and innovation. Tens of millions
of cars drove over hundreds of millions of miles of roads each day,
conveying people like Billy to jobs which they would otherwise be unable
to hold, to places they would otherwise be unable to visit and to
entertainment they would otherwise never have experienced.]

Billy cursed the traffic, the red lights which impeded his
progress, and the modern world which forced a man to live with such
hardships. When at last he arrived at work, twelve minutes and seven
miles later, he parked the car and joined the throng of his fellow
workers flowing into the factory.

Working conditions in the factory were unpleasant, it being a hot,
noisy, noxious smelling place, but Billy had to have a job and he was
unqualified for anything else. He took solace in the company of his
friends during their union-mandated mid-morning break, and commiserated
with them over the injustice of a world where people such as themselves,
who did all the work and kept the company running, should receive a
pittance of an hourly wage, (plus overtime, insurance and benefits)
while the greedy bigshots sat in their ivory towers and made millions
off the sweat of other people's labors.

At lunchtime, Billy enjoyed a conversation about the good old days,
when there were no factories and everybody farmed his own land and
people took care of each other, and a man could see the results of his
hard work. They bemoaned the bygone era when there was no pollution or
chemicals or stress or traffic, and people worked with nature in natural
ways, and nobody worried about cholesterol levels or radiation poisoning
or the whole planet frying because the ozone layer was gone. They
talked of "getting back to the land" and "good honest work" and barn-
raisings and "a sense of community".

[Billy had never worked on a farm. He'd never plowed behind a mule for
fourteen hours in the sun, nor chopped enough wood to heat a house, nor
cooked on a woodstove. He'd never depended on his own farming skills to
keep him alive, nor on the fickleness of the weather to grow him
sufficient food for the winter months. He gave no thought to life
without indoor plumbing. He'd never walked ten miles through snow to
summon a doctor for his croup-ridden child, only to find he'd returned
home to a tiny corpse and a grief-stricken wife. He'd never seen a town
wiped out by smallpox. Billy didn't know what ozone was, nor where it
came from, nor how many cubic miles of it cloaked the earth. He'd have
been hard pressed to define what a cubic mile is. He could not explain
what ozone did to ultraviolet light, nor why.]

At the end of his shift, Billy slogged routinely through the ritual
of clocking out and walking to his car without really thinking about it.
He was already thinking ahead to stopping for a few beers with some of
his co-workers. The conversation at the bar would be routinely bitter,
centering primarily on how the various bastards in charge were able to
screw up the world and make things harder for men like Billy Green. It
being an election year, there would then follow the usual argument about
candidates, and which of them would be least likely to make things
worse.

Then Billy would stop to eat on the way home. Usually it was drive-
through fast food, which he ate in the car. At home, he would watch
television for an hour or two, flipping channels at random until a laugh
track caught his attention, while he unwound with a few more beers.

At the end of the evening, a tired Billy Green would tumble into
his heated waterbed, set the electronic alarm clock/radio with the
gentle touch of a finger, and surrender himself to unconsciousness, his
standard workday done. It differed in no significant aspect from the
workday of his father, forty years before.

One day, in fifteen or twenty years, Billy Green would retire. He
would collect his pension checks and his Social Security each month and
take it easy, with beer and ballgames and his buddies. The modern world
simply demanded too much of the workingman. Billy Green looked forward
to living the good life.
##

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Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 10:00:00 EDT
Sender: SUNY/Stony Brook Literary Underground<SBRHYM-L@SBCCVM.BITNET>
Comments: No poem for today. This is a substitute, chosen at random.
From: Bialik Poetry Server <BIALIK@BRANDEIS.BITNET>
Subject: Poem number 890507

Inert Perfection
Edna St. Vincent Millay

"Inert Perfection, let me chip your shell.
You cannot break it through with that soft beak.
What if you broke it never, and it befell
You should not issue thence, should never speak?"

Perfection in the egg, a fluid thing,
Grows solid in due course, and there exists;
Knowing no urge to struggle forth and sing;
Complete, though shell-bound. But the mind insists

It shall be hatched ... to this ulterior end:
That it be bound by Function, that it be
Less than Perfection, having to expend
Some force on a nostalgia to be free.

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Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 15:26:00 GMT
Sender: SUNY/Stony Brook Literary Underground<SBRHYM-L@SBCCVM.BITNET>
From: "Tell me, little jam-stained hero, do you know this jungle well?"<H.UNIATZ>
Subject: Hymns To Your Tolerantics

Dearest Cecil,

New: the H760 Guided Tours of HELL ("epiphenomenonalism" should have
been "epiphenomenalism"; that and "banananana" I always muck up: oh
dear) & the Great Loch Gridlocks: tunnel the Enemy mine mine mine in
attemptation at residelining lost-&-profoundly inside of a "best
interest" (NOW you've grasped the concept, YES!), and seek what is well
hidden in puzzle-box amissives (ask him why he is the [words fail writer
at this point] he is and Just Hear The Disapproving Silence), so much
obligatewayed to derelicits "derivative from the square 1 but
incandescent": painstake it as read that I am neither unthankful nor
untranceful. Cop well, "sweetie pie, lambykins": "redraw the assignment,
and I most certainly shall try to fulfil my partake": mostly unredrawn-&
-quartered and yet fulfilled to the brimstone ("why didn't you marry me
one thousand (1000) years ago?", was, as you probably properly discerned,
a trick question, since in (s)in(e)curably diseased clues it would appear
deeply evidented that, in fact (or fiction), you did.

Stay and I'll speak to you of the trials of breakfasting when everything
is, as it has always been, a knight in shining saucepan-lids and the
milk-"jug go boom-boom" on (queue) cue: possible experiment (cf. "fun"):
smash plate, bend spoon, rip carton, then login and fathom if oft in the
distillery night (long dazed journey into...) he livestibules the halls
of purple proses-are-red, violations are true, sugar is cheep cheep
cheep, so Where Are You? -- pardon, pardon, mea hada run-on phase (th)ere
I repent(rammel)ed. And, as you say, you're the plainsong groove-stuck in
my head. Never any doubt about that, in yr laudacious aspiracy to dj of
the month, playing late-night requests or tranquil shipping forecast-iron
alibis for the Holy Grailments of the Devotiose and yr little screaming
friend in Paris, whom I'd gladvene to out-shout (of kilter, even) in
brackettle-whistles of pure [mild affection, adoration, y'*do* know &
y'know y'do], eg. {H such that B} [anything at all] {i-e-o-u <The Case
of The Missing Vowel>}, or so, it is said, she said, and she's buying
a Stairway To Heaven @wherever it may be found.

To what tune should I sing that song?

Hugs & kisses
from yr
Great Aunt Ethelfreda

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Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 09:47:12 CST
Sender: SUNY/Stony Brook Literary Underground<SBRHYM-L@SBCCVM.BITNET>
From: GR4302
Subject: faceless i dance wondering

faceless i dance wondering
if her presence would mean the world to me
or just the moon and stars
then i notice the hanging chickens
and the blood at my feet
whoops! i think in haste
maybe this is the wrong dance

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Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 14:26:00 -05
Sender: SUNY/Stony Brook Literary Underground<SBRHYM-L@SBCCVM.BITNET>
From: Merciful Lee Dickens <DICKENS>
Subject: Reply to pink gazette on toas

>Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 22:53:11 CST
>Sender: SUNY/Stony Brook Literary Underground<SBRHYM-L@CCVM.sunysb.edu>
>From: GR4302
>Subject: pink gazette on toast and no idea
>
well i once knew arlena smithhammer? and diedre, y'know.... ourrelationaship
was so, well, you know, semiotic and our lunar phasing was the weirdestever.
i couldn't handle it so i packed it all in for some lost farm where we grew
our own corn and made liquor out back. lots of chicken. once knewgabrielle
masterwipe, but famous people don't make me nearly as sick as people who
know them, so i purged myself completely one weekend, ok?

*** Comments from AFTER SOME DELIBERATION:
ok.
Now:
Run put your jommies on and scamper off to bed.

MLD

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Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 15:31:33 CST
Sender: SUNY/Stony Brook Literary Underground<SBRHYM-L@SBCCVM.BITNET>
From: GR4302
Subject: hey your face bothers me too

MLD: Your name's always bothered me. Those who scream mercy are
usually the worst of butchers. Dickens is of course enough to
make anyone out the eighth grade puke liver and strips of bacon
and gruel lots of gruel all over your leather boots. Now I've got
in all fingered out: your a flippin jerk! Yes, that's it.
Ok Now: Go put your sweatpants on and lose your face in a toilet!!
;## (no nose today)

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Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 16:01:00 -05
Sender: SUNY/Stony Brook Literary Underground<SBRHYM-L@SBCCVM.BITNET>
From: Merciful Lee Dickens <DICKENS>
Subject: Hey, Whistledick:

When I want your opinion
I will beat it out of you.

Merciful Lee Dickens

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Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 11:37:37 CST
Sender: SUNY/Stony Brook Literary Underground<SBRHYM-L@SBCCVM.BITNET>
From: GR4302
Subject: u no wissle mah t'ing tu' fly 'way

Yeah well whenever I want yr upinyun I'll subliminally program you
to beat it out of yerself. Yr cheap, that's it. And sweaty I bet.
To JOHN what wanna know what we do? Mainly this. Beat each other
over the e-heads with the entrails of animals. Gotten smacked upside
the head by any good spleens lately, or puked on by exotic beasts? We
wanna know about it. If not, this e-town, well, you'll find it cold,
very cold, nasty little shits doing nasty little things to each other.

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Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 11:43:48 CST
Sender: SUNY/Stony Brook Literary Underground<SBRHYM-L@SBCCVM.BITNET>
From: GR4302
Subject: To Rapine Dana Wee-ens (to make much of boogers)

WELL I ONCE KNEW MARLA WAINRIGHT AND THE WHOLE POODLY-CHEW GANG AND LIVED
WITH A COUPLE OF EM FOR NINE MONTHS! ASK PAT! I KNOW FLIPPIN EVERYBODY!
WHY DO YOU THINK I BUT UP WITH THE SNOT AND SHIT ON THIS LIST?? CAUSE I
HAVE TO DAMNIT!!!! I EVEN KNEW NIKEBO!!! NOW GO AWAY! GO HOME!
ps if you rilly gave a shit about johnny boy you'd be cranking yr own
splicer and transmitting virally mutating versions of everything under
the sun over these nets instead of rattling his cage now stopped heaving
giving way to the weight of all the years told on us. this century's in
bad shape y'know, and i fer one'd like to know what the flip you think yr
doing about it??? well apart from that????

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Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 12:54:00 -05
Sender: SUNY/Stony Brook Literary Underground<SBRHYM-L@SBCCVM.BITNET>
From: Merciful Lee Dickens <DICKENS>
Subject: Reply to To Rapine Dana Wee-e

>
WELL I ONCE KNEW MARLA WAINRIGHT AND THE WHOLE POODLY-CHEW GANG AND LIVED
WITH A COUPLE OF EM FOR NINE MONTHS! ASK PAT! I KNOW FLIPPIN EVERYBODY!
WHY DO YOU THINK I BUT UP WITH THE SNOT AND SHIT ON THIS LIST?? CAUSE I
HAVE TO DAMNIT!!!! I EVEN KNEW NIKEBO!!! NOW GO AWAY! GO HOME!
ps if you rilly gave a shit about johnny boy you'd be cranking yr own
splicer and transmitting virally mutating versions of everything under
the sun over these nets instead of rattling his cage now stopped heaving
giving way to the weight of all the years told on us. this century's in
bad shape y'know, and i fer one'd like to know what the flip you think yr
doing about it??? well apart from that????

*** Comments from ABOVE:
What Johnny?
I was talking to YOU, Donkeybreath.
And do you rilly wanna know what I'm doing about this crazy world?
I'm living out in the country, where I can't hear the screams of my
fellow human beans. I'm out there listening to the birds and the bees
and the bullfrogs. Occasionally a jet flies overhead, but it's very
far up there - you can barely hear it. It's nice. It's quiet.
Now shut the fuck up or be made to feel the lash across your pitiable
shoulders.

I Have Spoken,
Merciful Lee Dickens

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Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 21:49:17 GMT
Sender: SUNY/Stony Brook Literary Underground<SBRHYM-L@SBCCVM.BITNET>
Comments: Warning -- original Sender: is coming to pieces, it seems
From: Cecil Dogbody <cheating@CCVM.SUNYSB.EDU>
Subject: that wacky Echo des Schweigens makes a mess of things again

Auntie Et! Auntie Et! I don't think we're in HELL any longer: tornado-
gooders forming reception lines to greet incumbents as well as
newcomers, all presenting their tokens (no redeemable value) for billets
and programs ("One, Please") indicating what the wax mound -- or is it
a lump? -- to their immediate left facing the Exit sign is a likeness of
("Damn Modern Art" mutters one misanthropic magnate who spells "nice"
with a cents sign) before moving to their private hansom cabs for radio-
controlled debris derby maneuvering. Pardon-for-course, aunt-by-
marriage ("Mother, I've dolt-married!" "O, Hoppie dear, how could
you?"), might I ins(in)ulate myself into your daily routine tune-
whistling so you may speak to me and to me alone of sleaze and graft in
the name of Action! Adventure! Romance! Go-Go Dancers! Tax Hiking!
Sem(et)aphores! and their synonyms (broadly defined) across a spectrum
of the really tough decisions that HAVE to be MADE so the paychecks are
cut and the bottom line gapes a tad longer unsated: Rooftop astronomers,
remember who piled the bricks in the first place. Yr social scientist
yearnings, m'dear, are admirable, if passe ("fun", you'll remember, was
in vogue even though "in vogue" was not in 1967 when Daniel burned
burlap-scented paper scrolls in the name of attendancing square 1 with
the unPerverted) and doomed to failure from a priori plot-twist-the-
night-away methadone methods: removal of all utensils means but that
you'll be socially ostriched while eating out of shrink-wrapped
containers and with yr own shindigits: Consider: a trap-poise dating a
decade whereby all you see, all you touch, all you think, would one day
be M-mediated, a cheating bunker that power-supplies for Castle H760 so
even the most spectacular spelunking splashes were stone-set and
transcribed for the viewing audience for the cost of a SASE -- then
login, full-fathoming lying fire-tendrills ringing, nay, pulsating as
per yr ([)heart(]) around yr ears ("'Ello? Are you there?")
vesperiodically, to submit yr mild (ho!) affect(at)ions to the dj mired
in all-night satellite-fed control room monitors while "providing you
the list(en)er with only the very bestest interests (no concept too
moribund to latch) in noise noise noise" -- culled from the KILR FM
matchbook, available in sets of 10, 50, and 99 at most convenience
stares-yr-direction (Despondent Response Executive On Bitter Pill
Thrives) -- who, rusting towards leavened dormancy, Smiles because
secretly the dj knows she's on the partake but could never turn her in
(not in one thousand (1000) years (no redeemable value?)) as inter alibi
it's not part-and-parcell-division of the planned recourses. So
adventilate to music my heart's content (though I'd recommendicant you
should keep yr kilter on -- you might catch cold -- as entrancing and
enthanking as the alternativity-scene would be) and venture (out into)
halls-or-(sweet)nothings whispered plexiglass-tinged into tes belles
oreilles, distilted (*GAME OVER*) in the event that cheating (yrs, yrs
... yrs) should have run out of songs to play and should be taking late-
night requests door-to-dormir.

> (ask him why he is the [words fail writer
>at this point] he is and Just Hear The Disapproving Silence)

Hmmm.... let's see: the tried and true blue flag raised in sublimation
tendencies over a gravesite mistakenly labelled "mine entrance"? the
Bobby Fischer International Good Will Embassador and Diplomat? the tasty
morsel to be devoured as an after-dinner mint afterthought? the umbrella
leaning against the closet door a mile as the blinded crow flies away
during the monsoon season? the plainsong groove-stuck in yr head? the
Lab where you spend just enough time to get to know all the janitors'
personal habits but not enough time to get any work done? the hackles
that rise and stand -- and what else is it that hackles do? -- on the
back of yr neck -- and where else are hackles? -- when you think,
"maybe, just maybe, this is the Spy my mother spoke of in hushed tones
that October night when I was just a girl and the threat of bogeys was
far more frightening and immediate than the location of the manufactor
of the bottle that I drank from being bowled over by threats of fear and
coercion of siblings but never losing that faith that the wolves would
come and that the wolves would try to take me" (... and you were right)?

REDACTOR REDUX! Coming soon: a boldfaced lie to make up for the fear
that I'm beginning to lapse too close -- but then you don't really want
to hear any of this, do you?

M

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Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 08:19:00 -05
Sender: SUNY/Stony Brook Literary Underground<SBRHYM-L@SBCCVM.BITNET>
From: Merciful Lee Dickens <DICKENS>
Subject: Reply to that wacky Echo des

REDACTOR REDUX! Coming soon: a boldfaced lie to make up for the fear
that I'm beginning to lapse too close -- but then you don't really want
to hear any of this, do you?

M

*** Comments from MIGHT AS WELL; CAN'T DANCE:
Oh no, please - do go on!
I think I'm beginning to see what you mean.
Correct me if I'm wrong (in a gentle way, of course. Hair-tousling,
for example, as opposed to goosing), but if I understand you correctly
you are pleading for help, yes (and certainly nothing like a full body
slam - on second thought, maybe you shouldn't correct me. I'll tell
you what: just accept it that I'm right. Okay?)?
I once had a similar oh, affliction when I ran the Swamp Gas For
President campaign back in that damnable year The Powers That (Still)
Be elected President that chattering magpie of a snook, Ronald Wilson
Reagan. I screamed until I was hoarse (My God!) look at his name, for
Christ's sake! There are six letters in each name! Doesn't that
jangle any brainbells? I mean, Jeez (getting a little more cozy here),
look into his EYES! Hello? Hello?
Operator we've been disconnected!
Ridiculous, she said, if that were so, then I wouldn't be hearing this
now then, would I?
Who are you calling "Woodeye", Harelip? I snarled, slamming the
receiver down and leaping into one of those tv detective roll-and-fire
kind of configurations.
Consult your Bible.

There's more, but you really don't want to hear this. I'm cutting you
loose. Setting you free. Fly away now, little titbird. And
remember

Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires

(I wonder how many delusions of grandeur THAT slogan begat? But I
digress from my appointed leave-taking. Sod off now, there's a good
filthy bugger.)

In Deepest Admiration Of Your Pompous Loquacity
Honk Honk,

Merciful Lee Dickens

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Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 04:47:47 GMT
Sender: SUNY/Stony Brook Literary Underground<SBRHYM-L@SBCCVM.BITNET>
From: "MR. COMMUNIST" <rdc@NETCOM.COM>
Subject: KNOCK KNOCK JOKES

DOES ANYONE KNOW ANY GOOD KNOWCK KNOCK JOKES?
I'D LIKE EVEN BAD ONES. THE MORE THE BETTER!

JUST HIT THE 'F'KEY!

KNOCK KNOCK?
WHO'S THERE?
NEWBIE.
NEWBIE WHO?
SATAN.

--

IVAN IQTOVITCH, "WORKERS UNITE OVER IMPERIALIST PIG"
COMMUNIST PARTY, --IVATOLI STEPHANIVIC,
MUSMAK DEVISION BRAVE MARTAR

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Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 12:02:25 EDT
Sender: SUNY/Stony Brook Literary Underground<SBRHYM-L@SBCCVM.BITNET>
From: Rich=Gautier
Subject: re: KNOCK KNOCK JOKES

I don't get it...NEWBIE WHO? SATAN??

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Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 13:24:00 EDT
Sender: SUNY/Stony Brook Literary Underground<SBRHYM-L@SBCCVM.BITNET>
From: Parker Parker Parker <LIBALP>
Subject: much-needed perspective

To recap:
We have now endured 34 uninterrupted days of Stony Brook typicalness.
It is, as Bill has learned, What We're Used To. And then, all of a sudden,
a knock-knock joke, and then, suddenly,

>From: Rich=Gautier
>
>I don't get it...NEWBIE WHO? SATAN??

Who indeed? Why today?

IMHO THOUARTHO

Ho
E N D O F N O T E

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Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 15:18:04 EDT
Sender: SUNY/Stony Brook Literary Underground<SBRHYM-L@SBCCVM.BITNET>
From: LIBWCA
Subject: KNOCK KNOCK

Knock Knock.

Who's there?

Satan.

Satan who?

Satan Satan. Knock Knock.

Who's there?

Satan.

Satan who?

Satan Satan. Knock Knock.

Who's there?

Satan.

Satan who?

Satan Satan. Knock Knock.

Who's there?

Orange.

Orange who?

Orange you glad I didn't say Satan?

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Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 16:40:00 EDT
Sender: SUNY/Stony Brook Literary Underground<SBRHYM-L@SBCCVM.BITNET>
From: Parker Parker <LIBALP>
Subject: LIBWCA

>Orange you glad I didn't say Satan?

Your dumb joke has been deleted with extreme prejudice.

You said Satan.
You said Satan when I was still saying crazy.
You said Satan when Foss was dead.
You said Satan when CYNOVY sprang eternal.
You said Satan to anyone, indiscriminately, even H.
You said Satan, "buddy", you were heard saying Satan.

"Didn't say Satan" my jellyfish ass.

goo
oog

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Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 16:50:23 EDT
Sender: SUNY/Stony Brook Literary Underground<SBRHYM-L@SBCCVM.BITNET>
From: LIBWCA
Subject: Re: LIBWCA
In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 4 Sep 1992 16:40:00 EDT from <LIBALP>

On Fri, 4 Sep 1992 16:40:00 EDT Parker Parker said:
>>Orange you glad I didn't say Satan?
>
>Your dumb joke has been deleted with extreme prejudice.
>
>You said Satan.
>You said Satan when I was still saying crazy.
>You said Satan when Foss was dead.
>You said Satan when CYNOVY sprang eternal.
>You said Satan to anyone, indiscriminately, even H.
>You said Satan, "buddy", you were heard saying Satan.
>
>"Didn't say Satan" my jellyfish ass.
>
>goo
>oog

No, no- you don't understand. The operative question here would be
"When did I not say 'Satan'?" I would not answer, "I always didn't
say Satan", an obvious falsehood, but rather would inform you that,
on one accasion at least, I did not say "Satan', but rather said
"Orange". There are very, very complex mathematical formulas here,
which would undoubtedly help you understand the situation, and I
would transcribe them- I would, that is, if you weren't such a weasel-
headed, gerbil-fucking dwarf.
Oh, I didn't mean that. Never in a million years. Got any drugs, pal?

========================================================================
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 16:58:00 EDT
Sender: SUNY/Stony Brook Literary Underground<SBRHYM-L@SBCCVM.BITNET>
From: Parker <LIBALP>
Subject: Your pansywaist rationality

>No, no- you don't understand. The operative question here would be
>"When did I not say 'Satan'?" I would not answer, "I always didn't
>say Satan", an obvious falsehood, but rather would inform you that,
>on one accasion at least, I did not say "Satan', but rather said
>"Orange". There are very, very complex mathematical formulas here,
>which would undoubtedly help you understand the situation, and I
>would transcribe them- I would, that is, if you weren't such a weasel-
>headed, gerbil-fucking dwarf.
>Oh, I didn't mean that. Never in a million years. Got any drugs, pal?

thrills me endlessly. Spreadsheet, weak handshake, fake smile, bow yourhead
at Thanksgiving even though you're an atheist, shave next time somebody
important comes around, show bunt. Quick, hide the drugs.

ap

========================================================================
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 17:09:07 EDT
Sender: SUNY/Stony Brook Literary Underground<SBRHYM-L@SBCCVM.BITNET>
From: LIBWCA
Subject: Re: Your pansywaist rationality
In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 4 Sep 1992 16:58:00 EDT from <LIBALP>

On Fri, 4 Sep 1992 16:58:00 EDT Parker said:
>
>thrills me endlessly. Spreadsheet, weak handshake, fake smile, bow yourhead
>at Thanksgiving even though you're an atheist, shave next time somebody
>important comes around, show bunt. Quick, hide the drugs.
>
>ap
>
As you well know, I haven't shaved since 1973; which proves nothing,
since nobody important ever comes around. We don't know how I'd respond.
We simply don't have the empirical data. Perhaps you have faith that
I would shave; perhaps it has been revealed to you, BUT THAT AIN'T
SCIENCE, DAMMIT! Are we scientists here, or weenie-ball, ouija-pushing
new-age geeks? Huh?
And when I show bunt, pal, you better damn well expect me to bunt,
elsewise find some magic ointment to remove nine-inch bloody spike
gashes from yer sphincter.

========================================================================
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 15:47:00 GMT
Sender: SUNY/Stony Brook Literary Underground<SBRHYM-L@SBCCVM.BITNET>
From: "Gad, how Our Gracie has changed" <H.UNIATZ>
Subject: to hear any of this

"Fun": yes, the Transylvanian years given way to a shelf-stacking phase
of solidly paranoid hysterricolous reign-dancing, out of voguerre,
lace-edged handkerchief clutched in shaky grasp as I ask you if you think
they, you know, THEM, are all on yr side, as opposed to mine, or would be
if they cared, which, bien entendupes, they don't. Not that it matters,
doesn't matter at all, just as well to muse utensil-less on the states
of humanity as illustrated by Daniel in usage or non-usage of forks, and
wonder whether case (iii), having mistaken belief in ability to use
cutlery but not currently in possession of fork (how long do you think
Bill has in that job?), bars the person thus afflicted from
martyrdomesticity in academise. And yet, only consider: even without yr
own undoubted fork-wielding expertise, you might gain required (social
ost)riches by offering _M Seemingly Coming To Pieces, September, 1992_
as sacrifice to Damn Modern Art. That'd be... nice.

>Hmmm.... let's see: the tried and true blue flag raised in sublimation
>come and that the wolves would try to take me" (... and you were right)?

All of the above, none of the above; though words remain elusive,
"[seraphantastic treasuretyship]" might somewhat showily approximate it
in vague prison-terms-of-endear(ma)ment [Sing: "old doc einstein has //
abolished time but they // haven t got the news at // sing sing yet"].
( -----------------------------------sic)
What makes you believe that all I see, all I touch, all I think, is
not already M-medi(t)ated, extrapolated from yr existence in
trapolepositioned well-pleated kilterpsichorean (careful, m'dear, or
I'll remind you of yr black mini) rock&rolls of the rilly imperative
wish that this userid should be castled in yr mind, if nowhere else,
when killed in action, adventure, romance, go-go dancers: chorus,
please, Arthur: "crazy..."

>REDACTOR REDUX! Coming soon: a boldfaced lie to make up for the fear
>that I'm beginning to lapse too close -- but then you don't really want
>to hear any of this, do you?

Don't fret yourself, those tiresome redactors have been comprehensively
reduxed, moved to Alaska, no less, so they won't be bothering you again.
Do I want to hear any of this? Well, yes: having always looked (&failed)
to flit point-device at arm(oury)'s length for fear of the partie's
foundering, I still pace gentle geometries round the Enemy (see, capital),
even to the lapserrated Edge: in Postcards From: I love him. Further, it
is forbidden to forebode ill enough or just (sub)dued in djadedness of
the months and des ans to cease to play steadfast&loose (with) the song
that sussurrates constantalising in my head. Given time, stewheart, I'll
fake amends & build you a sophisticated in-house Smiling system with
fitted carpets so you don't say such dumb things: to lapse too closely
here is impossible.

H.

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