From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V7 #142 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Monday, April 13 1998 Volume 07 : Number 142 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: San Francisco concert-goers [John Barrington Jones ] Antipodean babble, mainly for James' benefit, and Oscar Wilde [Danielle ] Re: If you have ghosts... [james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (James Digna] Godley & Creme [james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan)] Re: Elton Vs. Robyn [Bayard ] News of the Weird [Terrence M Marks ] Tori Amos Chat ["Hallucinogenic Woodpecker" ] Re: Elton Vs. Robyn [Capuchin ] Re: San Francisco concert-goers [Capuchin ] Re: News of the Weird [Capuchin ] Re: Elton Vs. Robyn [Dave Librik ] SO & RH [TROYD1@westat.com (TROYD1)] Alligators, Muses, Poppins [Natalie Jacobs ] SO.... [tanter ] Tori Amos chat on Yahoo [lj lindhurst ] Demme's Gold [Mike Runion ] If you go chasing rabbits. . . . [The Great Quail Subject: Re: San Francisco concert-goers >...are any Pacific NW Fegs besides Eddie going to the SH movie/gig? >Just curious and living vicariously. > >Carole Nope, Carole. I, too, must live vicariously. Things here are busy--we are getting settled in our new house, etc. But I hope those that ARE going to SF will still come and join us en masse when Storefront comes to Portland. We'll all sit in the front row, dressed in costumes, throw pickled onions at the crowd, and yell out all of Robyn's lines (from b.s.b--- between song banter) really loud. Let's Do The Higsons Again!!!! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 13:42:51 -0700 From: Danielle Subject: Antipodean babble, mainly for James' benefit, and Oscar Wilde James wrote: > no, Invercargill bores the hell out of me, too. IIRC, the US equivalent of > Invergiggle would be, hmmm... urbane, cosmopolitan Boise Idaho (apologies > to any Idahoovers out there). Eb calls Invercargill 'Infarction', which always makes me giggle. I don't think his opinion of the place was necessarily raised by receiving a postcard from me, either. ;) > As for being a JAFA. well, you can't help > being from the land of gridlock and blackout. Auckland serves its purpose > (it keeps Aucklanders away from the rest of the country ;)) I'm an Aucklander and proud! Don't you know that everything south of the Bombay Hills is an afterthought? (Just don't tell my Ngai Tahu relations!) ;) Again, for those of you wondering what the hell we're talking about, 'JAFA' stands for 'just another fucking Aucklander', and is a punnish insult, since the movie sweet of choice here is an orange-coated chocolate ball also called a Jaffa. They make great missiles, if you're into creating havoc in the dark. And speaking of movies, Marcy wrote: > I was listening to an NPR story today, talking about the resurgance of > Wilde's popularity and it struck me that he would have made a great Feg. Yes, but then we'd have had to put up with Bosie, and he seemed like a bit of a tosser. (Lillie Langtry, though... now *there's* an Edwardian babe...) My question is, what's the new movie like? I saw the trailer when I went to see The Ice Storm the other night (*good* film!), and it looked like it might annoy me and please me in equal measure. I'm also thinking that Jennifer Ehle had better watch out. Her cleavage is starting to get typecast. ;) Danielle, in a whimsically ecstatic mood - today I got offered an $11,000US assistantship! :) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 14:18:32 +1200 From: james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan) Subject: Re: If you have ghosts... >From: M R Godwin >Subject: Ghosts (RH=0.02) > >Does anyone have any recommendations? I find that most of the more modern >stories have too much 'Rosemary's Baby' and/or 'Psycho' influence to be >really unsettling, but then I'm an old fogey. :) an old fogey with Edwardian tastes might just enjoy some of Ambrose Beirce's stuff. It's a little too dated for my tastes (having been written mainly in the 1870s IIRC), but try it, you might like it... James ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 14:33:49 +1200 From: james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan) Subject: Godley & Creme >James Dignan wrote: > >> >n.p. Godley and Creme, _Freeze Frame_ >> >> ah, a man after my own heart... is the gold in Fort Knox happy gold? > >You guys are making me feel all weepy and nostalgic with these references. anyone know if this has ever appeared on CD? Or L, Ismism, or Consequences, for that matter? James ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 00:56:19 -0400 (EDT) From: Bayard Subject: Re: Elton Vs. Robyn > alt/psychedelic aficionados in Australia in the 1980's. Certainly, if he > toured here he could get a respectable audience, but his profile has > lowered somewhat over the 90's , it would be small clubs, whereas in the > days of the Egyptians he probably could have played a venue of 500 seats > or more and in Balloon man days could have probably filled a 1000 > seater.. > Regarding whether Billy Bragg has poached all of Robyn's audience, I > fear that in Australia they have been stolen by none other than Reg > dwight.. If we refer back to Dolph's epic post about Robyn's inferiority i could be wrong but i thought at bumbershoot he filled a 3000 seater? the crrowd sounds pretty thunderous on the tapes anyway.... i for one don't believe all this about nirvana and whoever making people forget robyn... once a feg, always a feg, i say. =b ps. the big star records thing is fairly common mr lang, i'm sure someone someone has mailed yuo already offering you a copy so i will not do so b/c i'm sllloooowww about trading. but get in touch if no one else can help. =b ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 01:05:58 -0400 (EDT) From: Terrence M Marks Subject: News of the Weird I can't think of a decent comment on this. Intellectually pirated from someone else... * In July, James P. Morrow, a recent resident of an Ohio penitentiary, filed a lawsuit in Dayton against Gov. George Voinovich and 300 other officials because they allegedly tried to "beam" security people down to confront Morrow every time he entered a courthouse. According to Morrow's petition, the only way he could bypass such beaming is if the court granted him "Wallydraggle, Mummery Feg Winple Soupcon-type relief." Terrence Marks normal@grove.ufl.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 00:16:56 -0500 From: "Hallucinogenic Woodpecker" Subject: Tori Amos Chat Greetings Fegs! For those interested, there is an on-line chat with Tori Amos Monday night at 7 PM ET. You can either go through Addicted to Noise, or by going to www.sonicnet.com. - --dave ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 00:26:24 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: Elton Vs. Robyn Dlang-Dlang wrote: > > alt/psychedelic aficionados in Australia in the 1980's. Certainly, if he > > toured here he could get a respectable audience, but his profile has > > lowered somewhat over the 90's , it would be small clubs, whereas in the > > days of the Egyptians he probably could have played a venue of 500 seats > > or more and in Balloon man days could have probably filled a 1000 > > seater.. And Bayard said: > i could be wrong but i thought at bumbershoot he filled a 3000 seater? the > crrowd sounds pretty thunderous on the tapes anyway.... i for one don't > believe all this about nirvana and whoever making people forget robyn... > once a feg, always a feg, i say. See, I think this is due largely to the fact that the Bumbershoot program in The Rocket (or one of those Seattle wannabe rock mags) listed Robyn as "Australian Songwriter/Storyteller". If we could somehow get him billed the same on an Oceanic tour, I'll bet it'd triple his ticket sales. Tongue firmly in cheek (when it should probably just be still). J. ________________________________________________________ J A Brelin Capuchin ________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 00:22:49 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: San Francisco concert-goers On Sun, 12 Apr 1998, Carole Reichstein wrote: > ...are any Pacific NW Fegs besides Eddie going to the SH movie/gig? > Just curious and living vicariously. Well, I don't know if I've said so out loud or not, but I'm hitching down with eddie and we're staying with my big Bumbershoot pal Chris Franz (formerly of Talking Heads... no no no, sorry, Chris). Of course I'm locked into eddie's All Drive And No Play schedule, but it'll be an adventure. So here's my opportunity to more officially meet the SF fegs again! As you probably recall, I asked all of you individually if you knew of a place I could stay the night while we were at the Warfield in '96. I remember Tom and I think Nick and Mark G. (I feel like I'm in second grade writing "Mark G."... there were three Erics and so there was Eric S. and Eric G. and the one I don't remember... I guess Eric ?.) and I definitely remember Susan and Cynthia, but that's because they both said they weren't from SF themselves (Well, I remember Susan for the pre-show conversation, mid-show comments and glances and all kinds of things). So this'll be good. Maybe, like Cynthia did in Seattle a year later, you SF fegs will see me and go "Oh yeah... hey... I remember you." Probably you won't. I guess I really just wanted to say that it'll be great to see you all (again). I'm really looking forward to it. Big fun. J. ________________________________________________________ J A Brelin Capuchin ________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 00:42:40 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: News of the Weird On Mon, 13 Apr 1998, Terrence M Marks wrote: > * In July, James P. Morrow, a recent resident of an Ohio > penitentiary, filed a lawsuit in Dayton against Gov. George > Voinovich and 300 other officials because they allegedly tried to > "beam" security people down to confront Morrow every time he > entered a courthouse. According to Morrow's petition, the only > way he could bypass such beaming is if the court granted him > "Wallydraggle, Mummery Feg Winple Soupcon-type relief." I'm sure I've mentioned this on-list before, but that's the whole reason I got into Robyn in the first place. I felt it was necessary to become a Feg in order to convince the courts that I deserved full and perpetual Wallydraggle, Mummery Feg Winple Soupcon relief. If not for said court order, I would be completely unable to leave my home or use telephones because of the criminal government agencies oppressing me and my family. It's not my fault that they have singled me out for persecution. I can't be blamed if certain known, unnamed government officials are jealous of me and want to see my secrets exposed. Luckily my Wallydraggle, Mummery Feg Winple Soupcon relief order has been upheld in Federal courts as well as those of four western states. I feel perfectly safe on my trip to San Francisco, but I cannot promise that my good friends and Fegs will not be harrassed by the security agents beamed into the Castro theater or the Great American Music Hall. I can only wish you courage. They cannot keep me down. J. ________________________________________________________ J A Brelin Capuchin ________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 02:55:39 -0500 From: Dave Librik Subject: Re: Elton Vs. Robyn Capuchin wrote: >See, I think this is due largely to the fact that the Bumbershoot program >in The Rocket (or one of those Seattle wannabe rock mags) listed Robyn as >"Australian Songwriter/Storyteller". If we could somehow get him billed >the same on an Oceanic tour, I'll bet it'd triple his ticket sales. "Hello, we're Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians. We're from England, and not Australia, like you think." - mumbled to an uninterested crowd of 10,000 at the beginning of his opening set for REM in Austin, Texas. - - David Librik librik@jaka.ece.uiuc.edu Nerdy Groover ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 08:51:45 -0400 From: TROYD1@westat.com (TROYD1) Subject: SO & RH My wife likes Robyn, though she prefers the poppier Egyptian stuff to the moodier Trains/Eye stuff. She enjoys his shows quite a lot, and we never miss the opportunity to see him. Our musical tastes have about a 90% overlap, I'd say. She likes the Proclaimers more than I do, and I like Julian Cope more than she does. She doesn't really like any music that's particularly loud, anymore. Overall, the musical overlap is much higher than it was with any of the women of my past, so, there's no complaint, here. Dan, happily married for 2.5 years ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 09:23:47 -0500 From: Natalie Jacobs Subject: Alligators, Muses, Poppins I'm back from a trip to Louisiana, where I ate lots of crawfish, okra, and alligator, forced my friends to listen to Neutral Milk Hotel, and took incriminating photos of a movie theater called... Quail Creek. People called me "y'all" a lot. I also read Lovecraft for the first time and spent much of last night clutching my teddy bear. Some catching up... >I agree with Dave -- one of my earliest Robyn converts was a college friend >who was a huge Syd-era Floyd fan, and once she had my 60-min. comp in hand >(this was early '86 -- it's now a C-90 that only goes through EYE), there >was no ramp-up period at all. When she met me in class the next day, she >was already raving about Robyn's genius! I also have a friend who's a huge Syd/early Floyd fan, and he hates Robyn. Every time I suggest he try listening to a Robyn album, he sniffs, "Why bother? I'd rather just listen to Syd Barrett." I try to explain that Robyn is not a Syd clone - if he were, I wouldn't like him - but my friend won't listen. However, he does really like Robyn's spoken word stuff, so maybe there's hope for him yet. > So would I >like early Throwing Muses with Tanya Donelly? And how much of that is >Tanya and how much is Kristen? Would I like Kristen solo? Would I like >post-Tanya Muses? No, you guys can't answer those questions, but you >could give me pointers. Well, that second questions is probably the most >important one and most answerable. If someone could give me some real >live description of the stuff, that'd be great. Like telling me if the >guitars are the same as Belly uses or if the lyrics are as good as they >are on Star or if there are mostly love songs. Stuff like that. As far as I'm concerned, Belly is Muses-lite. I'm not a big Tanya Donelly fan - she writes decent, off-beat pop songs but lacks Kristin Hersh's powerful imagery and sense of urgency - she's a bit bland. As a Muse, Donelly would write two or three songs per album, usually a little lighter and poppier than Hersh's stuff, and it helped to break the dark mood a bit; I think her Muses stuff was better than her work with Belly. As for the Muses' sound: swirling, intricate guitars creating an almost suffocating feeling, complex rhythms contrasting with martial beats, lyrics that hint darkly at extreme emotional states and surreal vistas; the earlier albums contain some unearthly gibbering and howling on Hersh's part. They weren't much into straightforward love songs as far as I can recall, but there may be ones that I don't remember. The only love-type sentiments that I recall border on the obsessive, e.g. from Donelly's "Green," on the first album: "I wear your clothes like armor/I love your face like God." I think it's Hersh's stuff that really contain the essence of the band for me. Her solo albums are much simpler and stripped down than the Muses - they're bare-bones acoustic, with a little cello and piano - but are still intense, passionate, and strange like the Muses' best stuff. I haven't heard much post-Donelly Muses so I can't say whether that's as good as Hersh solo or Donelly-era Muses. >Do any of you remember reading the "Mary Poppins" books as a kid? > >I didn't. I only knew the movie. Believe me, the books are *very* >different! Another reason to hate Disney! The "Mary Poppins" books are terrific. Mary Poppins isn't sweetness and light, the way she is in the movie - she's a prim, conceited bitch who "never smiles except at her own reflection," and she takes the kids on all these bizarre, cosmic adventures - like a trip into space to see a circus put on by the constellations, or a trip to the zoo at night where all the animals wander around free and laugh at humans in cages. Great stuff. n. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 10:50:04 -0400 From: tanter Subject: SO.... Right. We used to get up in the morning half an hour before we went to bed, clean the lake...oops. Wrong group. I had never heard of Robyn Hitchcock until 1989, when he came to UMass and I was working security for the show with my new friend (and later on fiance!) Alex. Here came this lanky British guy with a gee-tar and a slightly untuned piano. I had never heard anything like this guy--he was a riot with Python-esque banter between songs. Very British, thought we. Alex, as it happens, is British and having attended a "public" boys school, was struck by "Ted, Woody and Junior" and RH's mention that this song is for anyone who went to an English public school. At the after-show party, we got talking to RH and discovered that he and Alex went to the same school and that Alex's house master had been Robyn's history teacher (or vice versa. I forget exactly now.) Of course we then went out and bought GLTHO the next day and it's been kismet since. We've seen RH about 8 times, including shows in London (he's a bit different on his home turf, I think) and we love him. So I suppose Alex and I are both SOs since we discovered him together! Marcy ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 11:20:37 -0400 From: lj lindhurst Subject: Tori Amos chat on Yahoo Sorry if someone already mentioned this... YAHOO! CHAT Monday, April 13: Tori Amos, chatting about her new release "From The Choirgirl Hotel", at 4pm PT/7pm ET. lj ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 13:00:18 -0700 From: Mike Runion Subject: Demme's Gold Hey all, My wife and I rented "Ulee's Gold", which I liked, over the weekend. It was notable to me for making Orlando look like a dark sleazy city and presenting Florida as a quite backwoods sleepy-eyed state. Sorta nostalgic for me in a way... Anyway, the other item of interest was in the titles..."Presented by Jonathan Demme". Not sure what "presented by" really means, apart from the cryptic definition at IMDB. Can anyone shed light on this? Mike (gearing up for my trek next month to the backwoods, sleepy-eyed, dark and sleazy city of Harrisburg, PA) - -- Mike Runion Cocoa, FL, USA "Wait a minute. Time for a Planetary Feg-In!" - Julian Cope, sorta ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Apr 98 13:17:44 -0500 From: The Great Quail Subject: If you go chasing rabbits. . . . It is with a heavy heart and a reeling mind that I sit down to the computer and compose this letter to you, my dear Fegs. First you must know this: Everything is different now. Some will call me mad; indeed, particularly the nurses on this floor who hand me the little plastic cups that rattle with thorazine capsules. But I assure you I am not mad -- rather, after Renfield, I am a sane man fighting for my soul. Some of you have been asking after me, wondering where I have been for the last week. Others have gone so far as to wish me a happy birthday, spurred on by LJ's precipitous announcement on April 7th. But how many of you have made the dread connection? Yes, LJ Lindhurst did indeed find out about my birthday. More to the point, she invited me out to New York to see some of her artwork, which is currently "showing" in a local cafe. Ah, I look back over to that conversation now and I cannot believe how innocent it all sounded. And yet, did I ignore all the signs? Was I, in point of fact, some kind of fucking idiot? I mean, this *was* LJ Lindhurst, right? This was the one person on the List who seemed to delight in disarming all my special Quail-powers, the one unflappable person on the List who seems to *live* for deflating my egomaniacal ravings about Titanic, the X-Files, and Bono. And yet . . . and yet I found myself curious. But perhaps it is not my fault, no. For I had in my possession one of LJ's postcards, the announcement of the very exhibition I was being invited to. And upon that card was one of LJ's surreal paintings, a fluffy white sheep on a featureless field blue: yes, a sheep -- but a dread sheep, wooly with menace and grazing across a neutral and grassless expanse of nightmare. And the red spiral painted across his fur, the way it captured my eye, made me *stare* into it for hours; the painted words "don't sleep" hovering above the spiraled sheep. . . . . and on the back of the postcard, the information, which I print here not to lure you to LJ's show, but to provide a record of my breakdown: "LJ Lindhurst: The Undertow. March 29 through May 8, The Fall Cafe, 307 Street in Brooklyn, 718-403-0230" But that sheep: How can I explain that mesmerizing pull, the way that creature -- that dissident member of a disheveled commune of insomnia -- that *sheep* seemed to whisper in my dream-haunted sleep: "Go to New York . . . . go to New York for Spring Break. . . . " And so I did, departing the evening of my Birthday. But if I only knew the horror that awaited me, I would have driven spikes into my tires and chained myself to my Web TV. But I was foolish, indeed -- sated on birthday cake, those new pita tacos, and two gallons of Mountain Dew, I set off in my car for Brooklyn. . . . It was at seven in the evening that I found myself standing outside of LJ's flat, staring at her buzzer, at the label above: "White Rabbit Graphic Design Studios." *White Rabbit,* I pondered. . . . yes, I recalled from her Web site the name of her studio. "Alice in Wonderland," I thought, and: how cute. Ah, friends, can you feel it? The first tendril curling around my ankle, the first caress of delirium? "How cute," I thought, in connection with . . . LJ? I should have run, I should never have pressed that buzzer, and today I would be a sane man, as sane as a Feg chemistry teacher can be, and I would have been spared a glimpse of . . . of those terrible . . . and then the present, in the locked room . . . the fluffy cellophane grass. . . . ahhh. . . . But I get ahead of myself. There are madness and revelation yet to come, all in good time. LJ met me at the door and let me inside her studio. *** At first, her studio was a lot like I imagined it might be. Large open spaces, a lovely view of the Empire State Building, a few Robyn and Elvis posters framed on the walls, and a life-sized cardboard cutout of Liam Gallagher, covered with lipstick smudges and tiny hearts drawn in a childlike script with black magic marker. Her computer was a central feature, guarded by a small white rabbit statue. Of course. I drifted over to her computer and put a finger on the rabbit totem . . . . warm, I mused. Odd. Then I noticed another object amidst the piles of AOL disks, software manuals, and old photographs of Eb: *Another* white rabbit, this one a child's bank, the rough and scratchy artificial white fur of its back ravaged by a crudely punched slit. Its eyes, however, had a touch of the sinister: red eyes, an albino's eyes, and ringed by a sickly crimson halo where the manufacturer's paint had seeped into the fur. It looked quite evil indeed, and I wondered at the child who would put coins in such a bank. . . . a child who would be unafraid this tubercular rabbit could not deliver a rabid bite to prevent quarters from being retrieved too soon. . . . "Do you like my rabbit?" LJ asked from behind me, abruptly pulling me out of a daze. I felt a chill ripple up and down my spine. There was something almost of a desperate pleading quality in her voice, a single off-note of broken need in an otherwise well-tuned and innocent question. I sensed that to answer in the negative would be unwise, so I grunted noncommittaly. "Good," she said, and handed me a photograph: That *same* rabbit, posed on a piece of black velvet and bathed in a vile red light. My heart skipped a beat. The rabbit's diseased eyes stared out from the photo with the promise of secret malevolence. With a cheerfulness that belied the terrible import of the photo, she chirped, "It's going to be my next painting!" "Yes . . . " I whispered lamely. "Great." She furrowed her brows. "You don't like rabbits?" "Sure, um, who doesn't? Why don't you paint a quail though? They seem like such . . . *nice* birds." Her harsh laugh cut through the air of her studio: a handful of metal shards flung into my face. "Quails? You have such a weird fixation. I assure you, I have no such obsessions." Nervously I placed the photo on her desk and we sat down for a glass of wine. *** The rest of the evening went rather well, and we talked about music, art, and Bayard's fixation with the Ginger Spice edition of Playboy. I actual found myself beginning to relax, despite the fact that I noticed another white rabbit in the kitchen . . . a large ceramic bunny that seemed more in place along side a garden gnome than in a kitchen. . . . The next day we saw her show, and I was most impressed -- impressed, but again, also quite disturbed. Not only was the sheep there, in full size and color, but so was another remarkable piece -- one that utterly dominated the far wall. It was a huge painting of a chocolate bunny -- but done in bright, perfect colors, and so large as to be disturbing. It looked over all the tables like an enigmatic Aztec god, its white smile beaming a stiffly paranoid beneficence over the patrons nervously sipping coffee in its shadow. A small child sat with his mother, his eyes fixed on that candied stare. I could see his fingers twitching nervously over the fur of his Elmo doll: childhood security neutralized by this big brown bunny. A small trail of drool leaked from his stunned lips. I looked at the painting in horror. My *God*, I though. What is *wrong* with LJ . . . ? When the mother finally got up top leave, she tugged a few times on her son's sleeve and finally had to tap his forehead worriedly to bring him out of his daze. They left in a nervous flutter, and LJ's lips curled into a most unsettling smile. . . . The giant chocolate bunny turned its eyes on me, and I had to leave immediately. *** After a day of wandering through Manhattan, we returned to her Brooklyn studio for more drinks. I confess that my mind was filled with trepidation after seeing that painting, but LJ's cheerful manner again put me at ease -- along with another few glasses of wine, perhaps. We chatted about the upcoming Feg Party, and LJ seemed most enthusiastic about helping throw the party. . . . most enthusiastic indeed. With a sudden insight, I noticed a rather large collection of bottles sitting on the counter. "Um . . . LJ, what are you going to do with all those empty bottles?" I asked, observing that the recycling bin was oddly bereft of glass items. She smiled mysteriously, and I again shuddered. To hide my sudden apprehension, I walked over to the fridge to get some tapioca pudding, which brought me closer to the ceramic bunny I saw earlier. With a sudden shock I noticed that it did indeed have dirt caked to the bottom and lower sides -- as if she has stolen it from someone's garden! What kind of . . . ? "Have some more . . . wine." LJ spoke from the table. "I need the . . . empty bottles." Ah, what can I say about the rest of that night? That I drank too much wine? Certainly. That I let my guard down? Oh, most foolishly. But when all is said and done, I only have myself to blame. For as we talked and talked, I began to notice more and more things around the studio: Several rabbit knick-knacks on the spice rack. A white rabbit celery flenser. A white rabbit cookie jar. A sequence of lepus-related photos adorning the bathroom door. Three or four stuffed bunny toys peering down from the shelves. A rabbit clock with swiveling eyes and moving ears, a carrot for a pendulum. . . Even her Overbury stick had a white rabbit painted on the handle. Finally I glanced down at the wine bottle on the table: a 1995 Cabernet Sauvignon from "White Rabbit Ridge!" . . . ? . . . . ! All at once, everything fell into an unworldly silence, and my hairs prickled up on the nape of my neck. I was acutely aware that hundreds of rabbit eyes were staring at me. I felt naked, alone, trapped. But . . . but this was LJ Lindhurst! *Surely* she can't be obsessed about something as cute and fuzzy as a white bunny? This was the LJ that tormented me about quails on a daily basis! But . . . but . . . My mind staggered like Tom Waits on a bender in a Karaoke bar. Too besotted with wine to drive, I knew that I was unable to fumble to my car and make an exit. I was . . . I was going to have to sleep here another night, sleep here, down with all the rabbits! I gasped something unintelligible and made my way to the couch. LJ followed me in mock concern, but I recognized the taunting edge to her voice. . . . "What's wrong, Great *Quail?* Too much wine? Missing your nest? Wondering where all your *eggs* are?" Dazed by her sinister but odd remarks, I fell upon the sofa and pulled the (rabbit patterned!) blanket over myself. I fear that the wine and my terror had combined to put me in an hallucinatory state -- I could not think straight, and I imagined I heard the sound of a hundred tiny mouths nibbling, nibbling, nibbling on lettuce. . . . LJ hovered over my for a moment, and I thought I heard the sound of far away laughter. My mind was spinning in circles, and I could sense the predatory wolves of madness circling the dying campfire of my sanity. The TV was on, and through one fogged eye I recognized "Night of the Lepus." Oh, irony, I thought: exquisite irony. And then . . . and then, Fegs, then I saw . . . then I saw the thing which made me crack, which put me in this sad state I am today. Lying there on the couch, helpless as LJ triumphantly tucked me in, paralyzed by the susurrus of nibbling, my gaze fell down at her feet: Ah, dare I even recall it now? For sometime during the night LJ must have changed into something more comfortable. . . . and there, on her feet, on the feet of none other than no-nonsense LJ Lindhurst, were A PAIR OF FUZZY BUNNY SLIPPERS!! After that there was only madness. *** I awoke in this place, friends, a few days later. The calendar now says April 13th . . . Ah, yes, old TS Eliot, April is indeed the cruelest month. The nurses of the ward have been very helpful, but I know that none of them believe me. But . . . But I know one day they shall, they *must*. For I have been saving one final revelation of terror until this end. Yesterday the nurses brought me a present, see. A small present that was left in the nurse's room -- somehow left in a LOCKED room inside a GUARDED ward. A present with a tag on, addressed to me. . . . An Easter basket. An Easter basket, just like the ones I used to get as a child, filled with . . . A chocolate bunny. Oh, God, no -- ! It can't be! It was the same bunny that LJ had painted, the very model I saw sitting by her easel! I recognized the paint platters on the box -- And I lifted the eggs out, the gaily PAINTED eggs, and -- Friends, Friends, surely you have noticed that the eggs you got from your parents and the eggs you got from the Easter Bunny were always different? Yes? The Easter bunny left *smaller* eggs, painted in bright primary colors? Surely you have noticed -- ? I held an egg in my hand, and I thought about all the millions of children across the world who got Easter Baskets from the Easter Bunny. I wondered what had happened to me that night of April 8th? And where had LJ Lindhurst gone? How did I get to this Asylum, and how did the Easter Bunny know I was here? And then horror gripped me in a frigid talon, for it finally -- it finally became clear to me why, why, oh why those eggs are smaller. . . . and I thought about all those children biting into them, all over the world, for all these decades -- The Truth exploded my mind open and fear and loathing flooded me to my very core. I dropped the basket to the floor and watched the eggs roll across the linoleum. . . . the Easter eggs . . . the brightly painted smaller eggs . . . the *quail* eggs. . . . . My laughter must have brought all the nurses running; but I could not hear what they were saying. All I hear now is the nibbling. ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V7 #142 *******************************