Copyright © 1999 by Lenna A. Mahoney
No one expects you to have heard of our old BBS, The New Theleme Club. Over a period of, call it three years (surrounding 1992), a whopping three hundred BBS users logged on to the Club. (Not counting the pod people who logged on under multiple IDs.) About twenty of our visitants stayed; there was a slight majority of the more talkative sex, computers being a guy thing. Of the twenty, about half a dozen writers (including Bill and I) maintained the continuing conversation.
A computer Bulletin Board System (BBS) is a simple lovable pettable thing and you'd think it'd be easy to keep it on a straight path amidst a congenial aura. See how simple it is. People call in to your computer via their computer, they give their password to be let into your system, they read the public and private messages other callers have left, they leave messages of their own, they hang up. Simple, que? Simple, yes. Congenial? Read on.
In our Washington-Oregon locale, every other BBS that's lasted more than half a year has had one, maybe two, female habitues, and a heap or a scramble of males. The women get a lot of guy conversation with little if any female competition. The men get just that little bit of gal attention that properly complements an essentially male ambiance. (Very few really straight guys are willing to spend scads of time in a pure locker room, Bohemian Club environment.) On the boards populated mostly by teens, the resident girls usually have had a rotating harem, rife with strife. Occasionally some man or woman has been known to try to allure the excess rotating boys into a private grapple. (Why, I don't grok. The local young'n'tenders mostly have almost as much sex-appeal as raw meat on the hoof.)
Congenial? Negatory. The polyandrous social scheme maintains a certain temporary workability within each BBS, but... Sooner or later a board's official Woman publishes a dislike to some man. Within a few days he's locked off Her Board, protesting vehemently from his BBS-of-exile. The gents who stayed behind commence to chivalrously (albeit vulgarly) defend their lady fair, thronging all the boards in the cheap-calling area. And the melee spreads to one and all, drawing strength from the quasi-drag-race rivalries between boards. Somehow this is all exacerbated by that everlasting nurd penchant for denouncing every brand of computer except their own silicon panacea.
======================================================================================= BBS: Feeding Frenzy BBS Date: 09-31-92 (11:35) Number: 6190 From: RUG ROT Refer#: 6173 To: EMEROD Recvd: YES Subj: you are soooo right Conf: (13) SPEWNET --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- EM>known all along he couldnt be trusted. You guys were right, I should have believed EM>what you said about that fuckhead GLAUM way back months ago. You don't even know the half of it, all the lies he's told. Like when he beat the crap out of that girl with her bumper sticker so bad she got cancer and he !SAID! she tried to run him over. When really he just got mad about the tire tracks across his shirt. GLAUM has been a liar from day one. ======================================================================================= BBS: Feeding Frenzy BBS Date: 09-31-92 (18:14) Number: 6201 From: CATTY CLYSM Refer#: 6190 To: RUG ROT Recvd: YES Subj: you are soooo right Conf: (13) SPEWNET --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RR>EM>what you said about that fuckhead GLAUM way back months ago. RR>You don't even know the half of it, all the lies he's told. Like when he beat the c RR>out of that girl with her bumper sticker so bad she got cancer and he !SAID! she tri That dickhead just hates women. He thinks he's the worlds greatest lover or something, he just doesn't understand the meaning of the word *NO*!!! Even after I shot him in the kneecap and set that fire in his treehouse he still didn't get the message, kept calling and calling saying "I love you, I long to impale your quivering body, you make me moan, I cannot live without you, you're sexier than Madonna" Some guys don't have a grasp on reality. ======================================================================================= BBS: Feeding Frenzy BBS Date: 09-31-92 (19:01) Number: 6209 From: EMEROD Refer#: 6190 To: RUG ROT Recvd: YES Subj: you are soooo right Conf: (13) SPEWNET --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RR>out of that girl with her bumper sticker so bad she got cancer and he !SAID! she tri RR>to run him over. When really he just got mad about the tire tracks across his shirt RR>GLAUM has been a liar from day one. YEA! Like I said, I >HAD< the money IN HAND for that HAL-9000 system, well my mom said shed loan me the rest of it someday but I was ready to pay him, and he practicly PROMISED he'd sell it to me. but THEN the bastard said he was waiting for the "right person to make HAL happy"! Shit Ive got nothing against MAME, she'll probly get along with the HAL okay but how the H*LL am I supposed to settle foer a PC or Amiga! ======================================================================================= BBS: Feeding Frenzy BBS Date: 09-31-92 (19:48) Number: 6210 From: EMEROD Refer#: 6201 To: CATTY CLYSM Recvd: YES Subj: you are soooo right Conf: (13) SPEWNET --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CC>Some guys don't have a grasp on reality. Maybe I shouldn't say so but this guy just doenst know how to treat people right. He really screwed me over, I had big plans for that HAL-9000 and he took it all away. People like that deserve everything they get. CATTY, I should have trusted you, RUG ROT, I should have trusted you, this guy GLAUM is a liar and a bastard and he'd even take a toy away from a baby. ======================================================================================= BBS: Feeding Frenzy BBS Date: 09-31-92 (20:12) Number: 6216 From: RUG ROT Refer#: 6190 To: RUG ROT Recvd: YES Subj: you are soooo right Conf: (13) SPEWNET --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I almost forgot, now he's in trouble with the law too. They caught GLAUM burning his tree house on a no-burn day, and there going to send him to jail for life because of the 3 Strikes law!!! Yay!!! ======================================================================================= BBS: Feeding Frenzy BBS Date: 09-31-92 (20:19) Number: 6218 From: CATTY CLYSM Refer#: 6209 To: EMEROD Recvd: YES Subj: you are soooo right Conf: (13) SPEWNET --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anything you could tell about GLAUM I'd believe. That son of a bitch told Jelly he was going to boil me in oil and flush me down the toilet and now little Jelly is scared to go in the kitchen. I've got a reliable witness who says he saw a new quart of Wesson and a plumber's helper in GLAUMs house. That monster is capable of anything. I can't get away from him! I got a no-contact order that he can't let any of the air molecules he exhales get into the same atmosphere as me, but the bastard keeps breathing! If Jelly didn't need me to be there for her and I didn't have to pay overtime to her daycare and her sitters and her nanny I'd just pack it all up and go join a monastery!!! ======================================================================================= BBS: Feeding Frenzy BBS Date: 09-31-92 (20:20) Number: 6219 From: EMEROD Refer#: NONE To: ALL Recvd: YES Subj: The "truth" at last! Conf: (13) SPEWNET --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My folks just told me they wouldn't help pay for the Brooklyn Bridge after I had the deal all set up and was going to sign the papers tommorrow! I can't believe it! That bastard GLAUM must of got to the sellers and bought it first so I couldnt! he's not going to get away with THIS!!!!! ======================================================================================= BBS: Feeding Frenzy BBS Date: 09-31-92 (20:20) Number: 6219¼ From: RUG ROT Refer#: NONE To: ALL Recvd: YES Subj: GLAUM is "Hitler"!!!!! Conf: (13) SPEWNET --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I just found out -- GLAUM is really Adolf Hitler! Yes, it's true!!!! Hitler never really died,he just got his hair dyed and got his plastic surgery and a fascelift and that's who GLAUM really is! That wasn't really his trashe that he burned it was jewish babies! He's the Antichrist too. I'm going to sue him! ======================================================================================= BBS: Feeding Frenzy BBS Date: 09-31-92 (20:20) Number: 6219½ From: CATTY CLYSM Refer#: NONE To: ALL Recvd: YES Subj: Not AGAIN!!!! Conf: (13) SPEWNET --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That fucking dickhead! I just got an emergency call from the lab -- GLAUM got me pregnant *by modem*!!! Boy, he thought the child support was alot for Jelly, he aint seen nothing yet!!! He'll have to sell his *organs* this time, and me and my lawyers are going to put a lien on his kidneys!!!
Yet another of the teeming examples of the entirely automatic operation of Gresham's Law of BBSing: "Bad talk drives out good".
Somewhere in the midst of this apparently inescapable midden of derangement and demolition, Bill (see title page) picked up the contrarian notion that we could, somehow, run a BBS of intelligent discourse and do it without becoming moralitarian control freaks. I doubted. He marched staunchly ahead, called the BBS "The New Theleme Club", gave it message areas with names like Speculation and Consternation, and announced the same misrules that Rabelais proposed for the Abbey of Theleme:
"Their whole life was ordered not by law, statute, or rule, but according to their free will and pleasure... The only rule of the house was:
because men that are free, of gentle birth, well-bred and at home in civilized company possess a natural instinct that inclines them to virtue and saves them from vice. This instinct they name their honor..."
Doubt, doubt, doubt.
I hate to disappoint any and all pessimists out there -- but -- it worked, worked, worked. And we kept a little trove of the messages and files we liked best, thereupon this book. (Except that Bill was too blame modest to file most of the goodies he wrote, and I'll never know how much we lost when the BBS software auto-erased them into the entropy hole to save hard-drive space.)
Although none of the nincomembers of the other Washegon BBSes joined us in any identifiable form, we did get the occasional shit-and-run user. He/she'd sign on as Towering Tumescence or Fuck Me Harder, leave a few one-line blurts of the sort you'd expect from someone whose handle advertised the location of his/her brain, and depart forever. In the olden days when the technology was even lower than people's intentions, folks like this got their fun peeing in public swimming pools.
However. On the whole, flame wars and modemturds made only sporadic appearances in the Club. We didn't carry the addlescent attractants like chat, games, and free files to suck, so we hooked the teenagers instead of the teenangers. The adults weren't real dull either.
Ruby Arsenic (aka Me): Think of the following as my speculative autobiography:
Beach BEM: Once upon a time in the Hundred Years' War, the Duc de Erlicey had two
sons, Drou and Elosset, stepbrothers. The Duc had been wise enough to attach himself by
marriage to families on two different sides of the contention between Charles of Navarre and King
Charles, but he was not wise enough to avoid dying before making a final choice of heir. His
decision would necessarily have involved poison, or an assassin's knife, so perhaps the flaw in his
wisdom can be understood even in our modern century.
Drou and Elosset were mortal rivals all their
lives and drew sword 'gainst each other in many a battle, as mercenary soldiers or as lords, as
their wheeling fortunes dictated. Their adventures and intrigues were too numerous to count,
and the fraternal feud ranged throughout Europe and into the Holy Land. Each brother
displaced the other from the Ducal keep twice before they at last slew each other. Then
Erlicey, heirless, reverted to the King of France, and its name has been all but lost to history.
Meanwhile upon another time in the Pacific
Northwest, a would-be writer of SF5 (science fiction, fantasy, fact, for fen) found himself in need
of an income, if not indeed a Duc's ransom. He therefore began to write blurbs for a catalog
that specialized in all manner of medieval armaments, accoutrements, and impedimenta. His
standing with the firm (if not his income) swelled beyond all bounds when he invented the
characters of Drou and Elosset of Erlicey, "participants in history". The two lords have been
the catalog's mascots and a series of their life-tales, available only in the catalog, continues to
attract readers and, meseems, to intrigue purchasers. "Replicas" of their helmets and armor,
the many banners under which they served, portrait busts and brass rubbings of them and their
allies and enemies, their favorite poison rings, and other personal and practical gear, count among
the more popular items in the catalog.
In the meantime, their creator drinks beer,
surfs and scubas whenever possible, pats his wife reassuringly when she inquires of money, and has
found the fate he deserves in attempting to polish off a Lovecraftian pastiche novella
provisionally titled "The Shoggoth at 1200 Baud," among other abominations. His visits to
this BBS are intended purely to research the atmosphere and customs of the BBS community, to ensure
the authenticity of his work. Or so he keeps telling his two sons, Drou and Elosset, as they
advance upon him, game disks in hand.
NeuroGod: gee folks, I'm too shy to put up anything about myself... I'll let my best buddy take the spotlight instead...
NO CARRIER
Citizen Paine: Us Libertarianz, we got zinez, we got thinkerz, we got talkerz, we
got godbodz, we got pissant leaderz full of all kindza swellhead philosophie, wherez it gotten
us? Whatta buncha thumbsuckerz and wussez. Sittin around thinkin and readin and wastin
time playin all them paranoid Illuminati computer gamez, hey Steve Jackson dezerved evrythin he got
from the modem pigz plus more fer Xmas.
If it wuzn't fer the one young strong guy
with real life an charizma which iz me we wouldnt have a dogzbreath hope of rulin over
tyranny! Hey we need some real bygawd revolutionary attitude! Well here I am ta do it
to ya! I can inspire all of ya! All of ya, can ya hear me now? All of ya and yer
fluffy bunny slipperz too! Unless ya wear glassez or mansize pantyhoz, then I don't want ya!
I'm the one and only single true original Son
of Freedom and the Black Flag of the Future! My mother wuz the Liberty Bell, my father wuz
Don't Tread on Me, and I raize elephantz and donkeyz fer footstoolz on land thatz zoned no farm
animalz allowed! Yow yow yow! Don't take no substitutes! Don't waste yer vote on
anyone but me! Votin machinez bow down and come up jackpotz when I stroll thru the precinctz
and the League of Wimmin Voterz callz me Stud! When I ran fer City Council I won the White
House, so I puked it all back agin and called it Congress, come and get me! Whoop! I
kick the FBI from here halfway ta orbit and it comez down as brown and serve spotted owlz!
When I spit, I drown the pertected wetlandz! When I fart, I cauz global warming! Stand
back, give me room to grow! When I pick my teeth I uze the Washington Monument, I light my
jointz from the Statue of Libertyz torch and the Veetnam War Memorial iz my ashtray!
Yahoo!! Murray Rothbard doez my tax returnz! Karl Hess mowz my lawn! Hell,
Lysander Spooner iz my mailroom boy and LNeil Smith iz my bodyguard in trainin! Yes I'm a
genooine ripsnorter, if I say worm them dipshit paleos tunnel fer China and they come up Commiez on
the other side! DON'T block my exit! Anarchists follow me for milez fer the privilege
of brushin my armpitz! Why, I gave John Galt charity and made him say grace fer it!
Yip!! For I made all Clinton's spokeswimmin into a human pyramid and I pronged every one in
midair without takin out a pilots licence! By Gawd its the videotaped notarized affidavit
truth I gave Janet Reno a semi automatic 9-mm Parabellum dildo! YEEEHAW!! My boner iz a
24 carat solid gold ingot and it lightz up the nightz from here to Fort Knox! It surely ain't
legal and it ain't never tender!!!
Paisley is my Friend: You say "When I fart, I cauz global warming!" I used to have a boyfriend like that. You know that muffler repair place ad that says, you don't need to make an appointment, we hear you coming?
Sabre: What you call "sneakiness" I call "prudence". Any thing you have
except knowledge somebody else can take away from you. Whoever knows you have spare time will
use guilt on you to make you spend time to their advantage. Whoever knows you like something
will spoil it by telling you its flaws to show off their own superior wit and taste. Whoever
knows you want something will stop you getting it so they can use what you want to leverage
you. Make yourself more noticeable and more persons will try to get at you. "The more
you do more than was expected of you, the more will be expected of you." Good will only flows
downhill.
Let anybody at all find out too much about
you and they can and will turn upon you without warning. That flexibility is what makes
humans superior to ants. A few times I have found exceptions and could be you have too but
never let yourself depend on it.
In spite of that never forget almost anybody
is worth having around for a while if precautions are taken. Almost everybody is worth
listening to and learning from at least once. Almost nobody believes that so almost nobody is
worth talking to.
You said you wanted my honest reaction.
Except for fewer than two dozen people I would live happier and safer if the human race fell off
the planet tomorrow leaving all its toys. In fact what the world needs is a lot more dead
people. Most people feel the same way and pretend they do not. Next they go watch
disaster and end of the world movies and fantasize being the almost sole survivor. Apocalypse
fever. You follow?
Blue Jay: I can't believe how cruel and morbid that is. If you hate people that much why don't you just go put yourself out of your misery?
Sabre: It would be unchristian of me to take that pleasure away from somebody else who wants it more.
Free Meson:
UNQUESTIONED ANSWERS
I ask no one for permission to live,
Nor yet for permission to die.
I will not run my mind through a sieve
In asking existence, "Why?"No inquiry is mine of God --
The answer means naught to me.
I live my life where foot has trod,
Where the paths are fair to see.What I perceive, I can well accept.
The other choice is no choice.
To question all this as false percept
Is to question without a voice.I query no jot of destiny;
The answer would be no aid.
What my fate may be, I care not to see:
Such knowledge is poorly paid.The questions I ask do not paralyze
My thought before my deed.
The evident answer before my eyes
Is reason and its clear creed.
Paisley is my Friend: Oh no, but maybe you don't know, people outside psych books
really do have Freudian dreams. I've never even been in analysis and it's happened to
me. Now you brought this subject up so don't you get offended. <G>
It was a few weeks ago I dreamed Gene and I
had just missed our flight and so had to stay at a hotel unexpectedly. We were all wore down
and ready to go to bed and not get any more worn out after that, hee. But I could not catch
Gene's pet blacksnake named Peter. He kept plunging like a little rocket all over the
room. He bounded off of the walls, he dashed up on to the beds and then he came sliding down
again. I found some kind of a shaver case, a thick felt can long as my hand and over an inch
wide, with a flap to shut it. Peter voomed right into it without fussing although I wondered
how he could possibly fit. But when I tried to tuck in the flap, Peter came flashing out
again. (I never even saw that pun until after I typed it! Bad, bad Paisley!)
Next he slipped out under the door into the
hotel hallway. Where had Peter gone, maybe under the next door down where the light was still
on, maybe under the dark one? Oh horror! Let's be frank, oh shit! The screams I
was waiting for I didn't hear, though, whew...
Out in the dark street I kept searching for
Peter and hoping I could find my way back again. All the buildings on this street looked like
enormous Victorians, a little bit run down with weeds growing (not as many as our place, that's a
true confession). I crossed the street to get to the biggest house with the darkest shadows
around its veranda. It seemed to me like Peter, who was an extremely black snake, would like
the darkest places best to hide in.
I thought I saw Peter away down near the
house foundation. No such luck, it was another snake that was trying and trying to enter the
house through a closed cellar window. Next thing, I saw several snakes, all larger than
Peter, as I turned and walked toward the driveway.
At the side of the house I found the biggest
snake yet, about two yards long. As I watched it met another snake of the same size and kind,
but obviously the opposite sex, considering what they did next. After dancing a little
courtship, the two of them entwined. I saw glowing red-orange and blue-green colors running
in spirals around their sides. That was when I realized I was at a rare occasion, a magic
holy mating. No sooner did I think that than the snakes seemed to notice how awed I was and
came toward me. I wouldn't have thought they could move so gracefully without separating from
each other, but that's dreaming for you.
I knew what I was supposed to do next and lay
down on the driveway and spread em a little, in a way asking the snakes if I could join with
them. They slid up my body, and I wondered what would happen next as they stopped and looked
down at me.
I took a big wad of paper money out of my
pocket (this was what I was supposed to do) and put it in the open mouth of the male snake, which
was on my left. He bit down on the paper and stuck it back in my hand. It had turned
into a soft slippery whitish clay. Then the snake shot a glittering white thick fluid out
from his fangs on to the clay. I mixed the stuff up with both hands, put it in my mouth, and
swallowed it. It didn't go down easy. After that I "cleaned my plate" (licked my hands)
to be polite. It didn't taste like anything except (big surprise) the inside of my mouth when
I've been mouthbreathing all night and dried it out. Then the snakes moved on up over my
shoulders on both sides of my neck at once.
I was so grateful that the snakes, or maybe
gods in the shape of snakes, had given me the ability to speak with animals. (That was what
the ritual meant.) Looking for Peter again, I found a lot of cats of different colors on the
driveway but not a snake to be seen. A few lit-up windows showed at the back of the house and
I was worried Peter might have crawled in and livened things up. I tried calling him by
hissing in snake language, and didn't get any response. Suddenly I saw that Peter had turned
into a black kitten with big bright green eyes.
I wanted to get back to the hotel with Peter
on the double. But when I found my way back out on the street everything looked
unfamiliar. It was darker for one thing. The trees looked larger, blacker, and maybe
older. Besides there was no hotel anywhere in sight. Had I maybe pulled a Rip van
Winkle?
It was a very cheery dream, believe it or
don't. I didn't tell genial Gene about it, didn't know how he'd take having his peter turned
into pussy! ;-> (That's a winker smilie isn't it?)
La Belle Dame Sans Souci: I surely don't mean to criticize, but if I'd had a dream
like that I'd have turned red as a stop-light if I ever told it. But it was fun to read, I'm
glad you posted it!
Now I should post one too to be fair to
everyone and make up for making a fuss, but I don't have many dreams, and most of the ones I
remember I wish I hadn't. Anyway I surely do hope none of you mind reading a nightmare.
The absolute worst one was once when I
dreamed I was out in a city. It was about twilight, and I knew I was waiting for something
truly bad to happen. It had to do with the people around me, but I didn't remember what they
were going to do till they finally did it.
At first, they didn't notice me at all except
to glance on and off me, like people do in cities. Then, just as one man looked away from me,
his eyes left a nasty lime-colored blur. You know, an afterglow, like you see in your eyes
after a flashbulb goes off. It made me cringe a little bit. I wanted to get off the
street, but I didn't know where to go before everyone started mobbing me. Everytime they
looked at me, they left those awful green blurs after their eyes moved.
Then, all these complete strangers started
telling me the worst things about myself that I knew were true, I mean, in the dream they were
true. How I'd stolen a purse, and lied about copying homework, and there was a body buried in
our back yard, and I had done the dirty deed. The worst thing was, knowing no one would help
me, that is, because anyone I met would start seeing green too someday. It was so sad it woke
me up crying.
Aquinas: If only the Clintonites would admit what even the booboisie can see, and
what Hans Christian Andersen adumbrated, that their polished neo-Kennedy Emperor has no clothes at
all, nothing in fact but a smile and a hairstyle. Again and again Bill Clinton lied during
his campaign, again and again his lies and dirty tricks were revealed. The chickens,
Pinocchios, and witches that so mysteriously haunted Bush's rallies were traced to a Democratic
"counter-events" unit that infiltrated the Republican volunteers. The Democrats thespically
denied their culpability, even when a chicken suit was found in the Chicago Democratic
headquarters: oh no, what responsible politician would do such a thing? Forsooth, and
now we behold the answer.
Where indeed are those lurid hubristic
Clinton promises whose glow was wont to light our nights during campaign season newscasts? He
attacked influence peddling with well-played sincerity, and his administration is engorged with
ex-lobbyists awaiting feeding time at the Circus Pennsylvaniensis. He promised a new
health-care plan to solve all the nation's ills from occupational paper cuts to AIDS, and we have
only his hints that some policy-perusing Star Chamber has been filled by medical academics and
administrators more noted for tying red tape than bandages. He vowed to invest in a new
America, and has come forth with nothing more innovative than Head Start, unemployment benefits,
and other orts from the hoary wastepile of liberal charlatanry. He swore to reinvigorate the
American economy, beyond a doubt hoping to filch the credit for the slow sure growth ensured by the
policies of George Bush, and all we have seen are taxes and protectionist policy more suited to a
street urchin building a toy economy in a bottle than to a competent economic statesman.
To borrow from George Will, "Statecraft is
soulcraft", and the manipulations of the Clinton era may already be felt in the deterioration of
the "will to truth" of the American people. We may long regret this the reign of the "final
victor and new champeen" of the All-Arkansas Liars' Competition.
Bill Inconnu (husband, gentleman, reconciliator, sysop (which means God)):
The clock said:
__ __
__|.|__ |
PM __|. __| |
and Sam was out of sorts. He had tried quicksort, bubble sort, several custom sorts culled
from back issues of BYTE, and a homebrew sorting algorithm from the guru down the hall (which Sam
didn't understand, since even the comments were written in C). They all failed
differently: some got stuck in infinite loops, some crashed the computer, and one ran to
completion and helpfully announced "0.6 RECORDS SORTED OF -1783".
Sam imagined thousands of tiny neurons in his
head coughing and moaning, with wisps of smoke rising from their dendrites. A red glow
suffused the steamy cranium. Rebellious neurons began to whisper angrily to each other.
Leaflets were surreptitiously passed under the desks: "Visit Olympic National Park. The
Hoh Rain Forest, on the western slopes of Mount Olympus, is one of the wettest places on
Earth..." Color photos showed immense tree trunks, ferns, mosses, mist. A quiet steady
damp sound as fog condensed high in the trees and dripped everywhere to the ground. "Fat
white grubs burrow in blind fear..."
Sam remembered he was still at work, and
glanced up.
__ __
__|.|__ |__|
PM __|. __| |__
Shit, he hated digital clocks. He
hit it.
__ __
__|.|__ |__|
PM __|. __| |
He was never going to get this done.
Hell, he'd been at it all day! His stomach was growling for its dinner. He'd be damned
if he was going to stay past five. But he had to get that sort program running so it could
finish the monster data file overnight, otherwise he'd be another whole day behind. Maybe he
should find another algorithm. But he'd already been through seven, no, eight! It
didn't make any sense that none of them ran right. Was the compiler screwing up? It was
probably from trying to link C routines with the FORTRAN in the main program. But that third
sort from BYTE was in FORTRAN, wasn't it?... He immersed himself in adding debugging code.
After his fourth "OVERFLOW ERROR IN LINE
16777215" Sam felt his neurons starting to hum "We Shall Overcome" and his stomach providing the
bass line. He wanted to go home.
__ __
|__|. __| |__|
PM |__ . __| |
And it wasn't even four o'clock yet!
Damn, he'd be here another...
Sam saw the clock. Sam saw the clock,
as rapidly-dropping blood pressure carried away whatever expression had previously been on his
face. He saw the clock and thought about lawnmower motor oil: black-brown, viscous,
carcinogenic, heavy, cold on that cold November day of year-end lawnmower maintenance. It had
all ended up in his abdomen now, the cold dark oil, oozing coolly around his intestines as he
watched the clock change:
__
|__|.|__| | |
PM |__ .|__ |__|
Ooh. Another quart of cold oil.
His name, yes, he remembered that. He
remembered where he lived. He remembered his first-grade teacher, and his mom's face, and his
phone number.
Then HOW had he forgotten that there was a
whole number between three and four?
Most of our Neothelemists turned up at the Club in the natural course of their pursuit of good conversation, but to meet Thalp I had to go fox-hunting by phone. Back in July 1992, I perplexedly enjoyed Sabre's tagline: "You can't help a free man, the most you can do is kill him." Sabre, it so happened, remembered the tag's source and listed numerous others from the same board:
pi® = 3.141592©. Pat. pending, all rights reserved.
If it doesn't change you, it isn't knowledge.
"Holy smoke! I nearly lost Earth's rabbit to memory!" said Willis Willisbottom.
There is a little bit of good even in the best of us.
Humans speak so much because they cannot scratch their tongues.
I'm not getting older, I'm getting stranger.
Original Sin means the only GOOD Christian is a dead Christian.
Godhead must have loved fractals, because they made so many of It.
aynrand: (in mathematics) an irrational exponent of absolute value.
Brain: custard with an attitude.
Expect a self-opening parcel.
If I knew where I was, I wouldn't be there. You would.
We only use 10% of our brain; the other 90% uses us.
Revenge, the gift that keeps on giving.
Someone whose only tool is a fingernail treats everything like an itch.
Q: Where can I get UnHoly Water? A: Try a sans-seraph font.
Pascal's Wager: the bigger the lie, the more there is to gain by believing it.
Occam's Razor: simple theories convince simple minds.
Civilisation: living safely while thinking dangerously.
Survival is the original sin, the religion of all against all.
Neuman catastrophe: (in computer programming) 'What, me comment?'
Promote intellectual diversity in the workplace! Hire the schizoid!
"Take what you want," says God, "and die of it."
Peyote users -- puke now and avoid the rush...
Marxism: you can't fake omelets without breaking eggs.
Money, publicity, and holiness: you can have any two.
PMS: think of it as ovulation in action.
Question authority! Who, me?
Hmmmmngrhgh, as they say in the old country (when they've been chewing peanut butter). One of those tags was mine (how fast they diffuse!), but some of them seemed to have an even weirder author than "You can't help". Chasing him or her down could make a cute mini-article or LTE for a puter magazine; possibly I could give it some bitwit title like "stalking the wild tagline".
1st source: A local BBS known
for its CD-ROM changer full of program files and its shortage of messages. There was
"pi®", right after old Junkyard Dawg's fancyANSI signature. Talk to the Dawg...
2nd: Aha, barks he, he'd fetched the
file from a BBS mistress. The one called Catty Clysm (or Elle Kabong, when on her own board),
GLAUM's personal Fury, the Wicked Witch of the NW, the woman who put the ego in Oregon. Oh,
blort!
3rd: Terrible news. Elle Kabong
had "tongues", "Godhead", and "If I knew", and she had the tag file and knew the filename -- and
she'd gotten it from Macavity. Who'd taken it from the (sob) Internet. THE
Internet. I think I'll just go bury myself under 16 tons of bits right now, and save time.
4th: Luck-out. They keep a lot of
tagline files at the same site Macavity used. One file had all the tags I was after except
"Expect". Maybe the operator there can tell me who uploaded the file. Oink oink flap
flap, as the old tag says.
5th: Smart operator, he wouldn't tell
me the fellow's ID. I think he thought I was social engineering. Nevertheless he
*promised* to ask the guy about the file. Hope he's not another Bastard Operator From Hell.
6th: Eurekoid! The fine funny
father of all files recalled the board where he saw and nabbed the "tongues" file. But, but,
but, is there a phreakter in the house? The dAmN BBS is halfway across the country and 1200
baud!
7th: I Found Yt! Thalp, that is,
wasting yts text on an Arkansas Paulian BBS almost as small as New Theleme but more like
this...
Cre
ation Science proves the speed of light has been changing ever since creation and that's what has fooled evilutionists into thinking the earth has existed more than a few thousand years. Catholics, Mormons, 7DAs, Jehovah's Witnesses, and liberation theologists are all blasphemers or sell-outs, not real Christians at all. Samuel 12:1-6 shows us it's all right to keep some facts from political opponents if it might persuade them to Christian policies because that's what the prophet Samuel did to King David. There's no such thing as an overpopulation problem; the misery in places like India is part of God's Plan to make the best people flee to the US where their work can do the most to improve the world. Women should be full-time mothers because only women have the right kind of arm bones for cuddling babies. Only the Christian charities deserve any money; the non-religious ones are ineffective and hypocritical; unreligious people only do charity while it suits their vanity, and their groups are full of fraud and embezzlement. Our community won a victory for family values, the ladies' league had a secretary fired from a radio station because she was seen alone in a bar. I'm glad my divorce was so painful; it brought me closer to the Lord; my father-in-law had been Satan because my husband wasn't a Christian. We should all continue our wall-of-thorns prayers to implore God to send tribulations (if it be His will) upon moral relativists and secular humanists, who are on the path of witchcraft. The Lord our God is a man of war, and so am I. The Book of Revelations proves Bill Gates is the AntiChrist, so we must be ready for the Rapture. We ought to tell our boys for their own good that their penises will rot off if anyone but a lawful wedded wife plays with them.
See, the difference between Christianity and Paulianity is that Jesus the Nazarene wasn't a normal, but Paul of Tarsus was. As for Christians, there's a lot to be said for them but few to say it about. As for Paulians, I'll give you a free incantation to exorcise them from your personal lives.
| Incantation: | Translation: |
| Abeste fideles, | Begone all ye faithful, |
| Laevi tam infantes, | Such befuddled infants, |
| Redite, redite in Bethlehem. | Go back where you came from |
| in Bethlehem. | |
| Natum ridete, | Go ye and scorn him, |
| Regulum gerrarum, | Little king of fooleries. |
| Venite ignoremus, | Oh come let us ignore him, |
| Venite ignoremus, | Oh come let us ignore him, |
| Venite ignoremus, | Oh come let us ignore him, |
| Omissum. | Christ the Fnord. |
It works best when sung in chorus with Paulians caroling "Adeste Fideles", and does miracles in dispelling the Salivation Army and their Yuletide Pavlovian bell-ringing. Do feel free to use it.
Dear mild-mannered readers, if any, please don't chide me that I should respect these folks' beliefs. I'll gladly respect anyone's theories and speculations, and I'll loyally admire their helpful behavior. I'll try to appreciate their jokes. I'll even be such a softheaded ninny as to believe in their kindly intentions. But respect their *beliefs*? Never, not while I have half a wit left in my tiny pink skull.
See, if someone is certain of a belief, they can't won't can't change their mind about it. If they can't change, the idea is effectively an innate trait like a horse's running speed, a cat's nightglow eyes, or a mosquito's hypodermic. It makes sense to accept the existence of acquired mental traits that are as immutable as beliefs are, and to make the best of them (from a safe distance), but respect just isn't relevant.
Never noticing the superheated plasma that yt was getting by way of Paulian repartee, Thalp kept mildly posting messages of great gist:
I don't comprehend the abortion issue, or would the better phrase be the abortion of your "issue"; on Omega we say, plant the seeds and let the soil have its say. If I understand correctly, human rape is possible solely because human women, unlike men, are so designed that sex does not lead invariably to orgasm; perhaps women could learn controlled projectile vomiting as self-defense; your bulimia trend may be a step in evolving that defense. Biblical Creation and evolution could both be accurate theories: everyone has a different "subjective" world, and the Christians' subjective worlds began exactly as and when the Creation myth said. Why do you portray your deity as motionless on a throne, while your Devil goes to and fro and up and down?
Thalp stood out like Yog-Sothoth in a Santy Claus suit. At once I wrote a "private" message to invite yt into The New Theleme Club. Theofe tagged along after a few days; later she admitted she'd already been lurking the Club.
Thalp: Hello and good rooting to you all. I may introduce myself or
selves. My name is Thalp and I am an Omegan writing with sbat's help. I am a natural
herbal visitor to the planet. Upon this moment I modemm to you from a hovering spacecraft
through a device resonating to your telephonic system. I have uploaded a file THALP.TXT to
tell you more about our species and myselves.
On my planet I am considered definitely
young, having had only 353 1/2 buds. With my inexperience in your language, I would like to
converse with you while I remain near Earth. Please forgive me or us if your etiquette is
breached. As yet I do not deeply understand your idiomms and courtesies and would
"appreciate" your help. End result, I locate quotes around the wordings whose multiple
meanings most confuse me.
I remain perplexed about precisely how your
geologists and other tactonics scientists measure discourtesy. Please distinguish between the
terms "invective", "contumely", "calummny", and "vilification". Which technical term most
accurately equals the value of Blue Jay's initial message about "bigotery"? How much may I
avoid offense?
I begged Bill Inconnu to let me be the first to answer Thalp, and after he'd put in his earplugs and put in his earplugs and put in his earplugs, he *sigh*ed and conceded the privilege.
Ruby Arsenic: Welcome to our BBS and planet, if a planet like this one can ever be
well come to. The unified theory of tact, not that it's more than theory to me (sob), is that
it's necessary to avoid any hint that you believe the worst about the motives, sanity, or
intelligence of your dissenting partner in discourse. However, tact is an art rather than a
science and therefore must be compared to samples rather than gauged by rules.
To avoid offense, all my examples (which
follow) have been changed into my hypothetical responses to someone saying "I don't like them
Krotaists." ( I'm speaking as a longtime believer in Krota, god of mixed blessings, second
thoughts, crossed signals, tradeoffs, judgment calls, Pyrrhic victories, lucky failures, humor, and
sincere apologies).
Richter 1: True and total tact.
Absolutely no damage is done. My reaction as a tactful Krotaist might be, "Is it me?
Have I done something to trouble you?" Notice my willingness, effortless though it may not
be, to accept that this anti-Krotaist has some good reason for his attitude.
Richter 2: Tact plus discomfort.
Shock is perceived only by sensitive seismographs. I attempt to change the
subject. "Aha, but have you ever heard a Krotaist pun? I'm sure you'd get a honk out of
it." This might be a cautious diversionary hint that we Krotaists can't be all bad -- we have
a natural sense of humor, if not of rhythm. With luck, the topic will shift to a fault-free
zone.
Richter 3: A slightly perceptible jolt,
according to the terminology of tactonics. "Let's talk about something else." "I can't
understand why you'd feel that way." "I suppose it's very easy to feel that way..." The
adverse implications of what I said are almost subliminal, readily deniable, but present
nonetheless, which is what makes Richter 3 euphemism rather than tact.
Richter 4: The reasonable
expostulation. I say, "That's misleading. Obviously we all should judge Krotaists only
as individuals, not as a group." There is now a definite sensation of motion toward
confrontation. Domestic animals may exhibit some alarm.
Richter 5: Stiff outrage. Some
breakage and displacement of local premises will probably occur. "It's very offensive that
you'd say something like that in public, especially in front of a Krotaist like me. It's
completely out of line. How could you say such a thing?" Directly, I've attacked the
anti-Krotaist as rude, and indirectly I've implied he's done something literally unspeakable.
At Richter 5, I've definitely gone on the offensive, or become so.
Richter 6: Jarring criticism delivered
with nearly devastating rhetorical force. Borderline conversational destruction.
Federal aid will be required to rebuild. "I think you are vastly over-simplifying a very
complex set of traits by referring to Krotaists in that pejorative tone. Your pigeonholing
myriads of individuals in a unflattering way gives a strong impression of intellectual
affectation. Your opinions appear to depend entirely on stereotypes and a certain amount of
prejudice. After all, it's easy to dismiss people's beliefs if you misinterpret them
carefully enough. I think that half the fun of having an opinion is being able to argue
rationally in support of it. Consequently, my viscera tend to get into an uproar when I hear
a non-argument intended to deflect attention away from the true issue and evoke an emotional
response. As far as I'm concerned, non-arguing gets you nowhere. I hope you can remedy
the situation."
The salient point in distinguishing between
Richter 5 and Richter 6 is that I've euphemistically juggled a great many words to create an
obvious "BIGOT"-shaped hole in the discussion without ever outright saying the b-word.
(Editorial self-interruption: Free Meson was hot under the choler, he was angry enough to twist the head off a mad dog, oh yes, he sent me private e-mail in which he screeeamed like a baby fire hydrant. I'd condensed his anti-"racist" message to Blue Jay for the Richter 6 example.)
Richter 7: At Richter 8 (the insult
direct) and higher, contusion reigns and there will be no survivors. That makes Richter 7 the
most energetic tact slippage consistent with intelligent life in the area around the fault.
"There ought to be a law against this kind of comment. It's people like you who start
wars. You make the world a lousy place to live in. What do you want to do, put us
Krotaists in concentration camps? Don't claim you didn't mean that, you just don't want to
give yourself away by saying it. You nonKrotaists are all alike."
The number of words generally increases from
Richter 1 up to Richter 6 and peaks at that level. By Richter 9, above even Blue Jay's
record, the average word size has ebbed to one syllable and (on the average) 4 letters.
Bill Inconnu: To answer your original question: in this Club, Richter 6 messages will be considered flamebait and are strongly discouraged. Messages at higher Richter levels will be deleted. Their authors may well follow. (One member has set a new Club record at Richter 8.34. She may not be returning.)
Thalp: Here I determine I've made a mistake. Shimatta. I misread your word "tectonics" as "tactonics", a natural mistake, I consider. We Omegans provide our "mass" media and other forms of population control by a method of hydroponics. It seemed elemental to "figure" that courtesy and geology would have some commmon ground on Earth also.
Sabre: We Earthers also think the mass media are full of fertilizer.
Paisley is My Friend: Well, well, this is a nice surprise! How special to have an Omegan with us! I hope some of our fellow Club members will take note of your Omegan courtesies.
Thalp: "Special"? Is this as in your "Special" "Olympics"? May I regard "special" as the amicable greeting or the invitation to a "flame-war" ritual? If two, I/sbat say "thanks" for an offer, but I must decline, being seasonally flammable.
La Belle Dame Sans Souci: So, how are you? And sbat? Are you really Omegan? I've never heard of an Omegan before. You remind me of a living, typing dictionary, only smarter. You are very cool.
Thalp: I "appreciate" the kind remark for my vocabulary, still "credit" belongs to my six recorded Earthuman imprints. It is part of my play. All words are mine to study verbal toxicology.
Theofe: As often before, Thalp has saved me trouble by breaking the ET ice. I
also live off-Earth, in spite of my birth on Earth. I belong to a set of three dopples from
the same Earthuman original. We've had a strong doppLink through much of our dopplExile in
Gregaria, in other words on other planets. So I'll give the Club all of our abstracts of
introduction in one monolongue :-8 (person of infinite mouth).
Theofe: Doppled to the planet Oncorya
11/17/74 together with many classmates (including her future husband Icsoner IV). In
experimental servitude to the Hand 12/74 to 7/75. The Hand disappeared 7/75. IVE
initiation 7/75 to 11/75. Married Icsoner IV 11/75. First return to Earth 12/75 to
11/76. Only child Eldon Carl (Elcar) born 5/8/76. Toured Gregaria, joined Prankster and
CivSab coteries 11/76 to 1/79. Pursued the Roadrunner, in the form of her dopple, to the
Hairball Nebula 6/80 to 12/87. Searched for, contacted her true dopples 3/88 to 5/91.
Obtained a pledge of civsab interest from a small Gregarian consortium 2/90. Sabotaged the
Apid expansion 5/91 to 11/91. Began research on dopplemachers 2/92. Currently observing
DMs, BBSes in Earth nearspace.
Lainley: Doppled alone to the planet
Roma Nova 7/17/73. Debriefed by congestores ignotorum 9/73 to 4/75. Started work in
central library of the city Perusia Secunda 4/75. Met her future husband, co-translator,
Tiberius Livius Machaeus, 2/78. First translation of Romanovan fiction to English completed
6/79. Her first of several fictions (an SF epic poem) published in Latin 4/80. Later
fiction and translations 1981, 1982, 1984. Adopted into the Junius gens 6/83. Married
Tiberius 8/83. First child (a son, Marcus Tiberius) 10/86. Moved to a colony
latifundium on the continent Urania 5/88. First contacted by Theofe 5/91. A few months
pregnant when last seen (2/93). Not interested in leaving Roma Nova.
Elaine: Doppled alone to the Offset
Planet 5/17/77. Training as ritual gladiatorial clown-slave 5/77 to 1/78. Became
yard-wife of her senior, Paul Stafford, 11/77. Began practice in the temple-yard as
"Red-Arse" 2/78. Initiated into the first circle of the yard 4/79. First miscarriage
4/80. Initiated into the second circle with ritual scarification 6/81. Innovated the
use of fireworks in the temple-yard shows 9/82. Second miscarriage 4/83. Demoted from
performer to trainer 10/85. Paul assigned elsewhere 1/86. Underwent dream purgation
1/87 to 3/87. Severely burned 7/87. Farmed out to scribe, accountant work among the
nobles 8/87. Rescued by Theofe 11/88. Sojourned on Ailuros for cosmetic gramarye,
magical study 12/88 to 4/89. Returned to Earth 8/22/89. Met Dram (IRA nom de guerre
David Roland Alfred Morgan) 3/90. Married Dram 1/17/91. Daughter (Diane Demetria
Morgan) born 6/27/91. Moved to the backwoods 9/92, began to assist Dram's "constructive
blackmail" viewalling program. Son (Edward Lawrence Morgan) born 8/18/92.
I set up my own BBS, The Inner Empire, partly
to help relink originals with dopples, after years of separation. Meeting one of our dopples,
originals in person feels disturbing. It gripes one to see what someone else, other
circumstances, did with the raw material one regards as self. No matter how they've turned
out. An original has it worse, never having known the doppling happened. The doppLink
adds confusion, whimsies, notions, taunts of imagination, to the reactions of dopples, originals
alike. So The Inner Empire, sometimes with help from Ixy, Thalp, some other Arbitrator,
allows doppled people to meet originals in text before in person.
Fight cerebral rhinorrhea -- stamp out certainty now! Make sense, not war!