From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V8 #4 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Tuesday, January 5 1999 Volume 08 : Number 004 Today's Subjects: ----------------- PDX POP - Short film on Elliott Smith (fwd) [Capuchin ] Dave & John get erudite. Film at eleven. [james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.] this list does not suck! ["Capitalism Blows" ] [none] [Terrence M Marks ] It pays to enrich your wordpower- pt2. [dlang ] SH: GFT, Glasgow Scotland - Jan 23 [Stewart Russell 3295 Analyst_Programm] Re: Sally and CD Text [Stewart Russell 3295 Analyst_Programmer ] ever thus..., etc ["she.rex" ] Re: this list does not clap! [Jon Fetter ] Re: early Beatles, Top 1,000 + Chills [MARKEEFE@aol.com] Re: early Beatles, Top 1,000 + Chills ["Capitalism Blows" ] Demented Parisiennes ["JH3" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1999 14:39:48 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: PDX POP - Short film on Elliott Smith (fwd) I have snipped the original poster of this article from the main body of the text so's there's no lynching. He's a good friend and a nice guy. I'm on his local PDX-POP mailing list (PDX being the airport code for my home town... POP being the sort of music glorified on the list). The traffic is VERY light and occassionally I hear about an interesting show. But mostly their little indiepop nerdos that bore me to tears. Anyway, this message came through today and I posted a lengthy reply/rebuttal. Just to share. - ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1999 14:06:58 -0800 (PST) From: pdx-pop@geekhouse.org, To: pdx-pop@geekhouse.org Subject: PDX POP - Short film on Elliott Smith Hi All, There are documentaries on Elliott Smith called "Strange Parallel" and "Lucky Three" playing at the Northwest Film Study Center (503)221-1156 on Jan 9 9:15pm and repeats on Jan 10 7:30pm. The two shorts open for the full length documentary on British cult rocker Robyn Hitchcock..... Cheerios, ==================================================================== = PDX POP -- pdx-pop@geekhouse.org -- Music forum = ==================================================================== And there you have it. Yours. Je. ________________________________________________________ J A Brelin Capuchin ________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1999 15:12:32 -0800 From: Tom Clark Subject: Top Books of 1998 Not my list... http://www.theonion.com/onion3420/infograph_3420.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1999 14:30:30 +1300 From: james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan) Subject: Dave & John get erudite. Film at eleven. >Boffy Tweggs, supremo of the National Drain Board, has provided this edition's >list of useful and often misused words. Tick the word or phrase nearest in >meaning to the key word. don't be silly Dave. Boffy Tweggs is three miles from Clyst Honiton in southwest England. Good fun questions, mind you... > I believe the correct interpretation stems from using the >verb >"to prove" in the sense of "to test", so the saying would go something >like >"that's the exception that tests the rule". exactly the same misinterpretation is often applied to "the proof of the pudding is in the eating". I've heard people translate it as meaning 'you can't say for certain it exists until you try it', rather than 'trying it is the true test of it'. Waiting in improxicable gooreadiness, James James Dignan___________________________________ You talk to me Deptmt of Psychology, Otago University As if from a distance ya zhivu v' 50 Norfolk Street And I reply. . . . . . . . . . Dunedin, New Zealand with impressions chosen from another time steam megaphone (03) 455-7807 (Brian Eno - "By this River") ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 04 Jan 1999 20:07:22 PST From: "Capitalism Blows" Subject: this list does not suck! but it sure gets awfully slow when we don't have eb to kick around. say something "far out" eb! we need you. hey, is it just me, or are parisians rather demented? i have a nirvana boot from feb. of '94 in paris, and the fans sing every single word of every single song. it's quite cool, and at times even touching. in fact, cobain at the end tells them what a wonderful audience they'd been. but the kind of weird part was, they were doing a lot of rhythmic clapping, and as the band was starting up Polly, kurt asked them not to clap along to that one, but they went ahead and did anyway. and on the velvets live album recorded in paris, the two songs where they perform rhythmic clapping are: The Gift, and Heroin. again, pretty cool. but also kind of demented, if you ask me. then you throw in the whole jerry lewis thing, and it starts to become even a little creepy. interesting idea. but unsatisfying, i'm afraid. i've got to believe that there is one correct spelling for any given song. although, short of asking robyn himself, it's tough to know which he intended. yeah, but i think this is mostly due to space limitations, isn't it? on the official releases, i mean. on the bootlegs, the problem is, they just don't give a fuck. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1999 01:13:23 -0500 (EST) From: Terrence M Marks Subject: [none] I've recently noticed that I Often Dream of Trains and the early Beatles catalogue were notably better than I thought they were. I ought to get myself another copy of Revolver (and everything before it.) USA Today had some "top 1000 people of the millenium" or suchlike, and all they gave away was that Andy Warhol was on it. Now, I fully expect this list to be biased towards modern folk, whitefolk (particularly American/English ones) and towards folk that the average person may have heard of, but, well, is it just me, or is it likely that in the last 1000 years, there have been at least one thousand people more influential than Andy Warhol. (I'd guess as to who's going to be on and off of the list, but, well, history is big and "I think Lord Lugard will be ommitted, Edison and Darwin at 200, Bach at 350, and Phillip II and Oliver Cromwell will be ranked much lower than they should be." doesn't make for great conversation.) Or do I just fail to appreciate Warhol's influence on things? And I picked up The Chills' Submarine Bells today. "Heavenly Pop Hit" reminds me of Love You-era Brian Wilson, but without sucking. Though I rather like Dead Web and Submarine Bells, the album as a whole doesn't impress me as much as I thought it would; the drums are too prominent, I can't get into that guy's voice, and the music reminds me of something that I can't quite place. Terrence Marks normal@grove.ufl.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 05 Jan 1999 21:07:49 +0930 From: dlang Subject: It pays to enrich your wordpower- pt2. G'day Fegs, I bet all you fegs have been hard at work overnight madly looking through your dictionaries and encyclopedias endeavouring to find the correct answers. Well done!.But before we start, a few explanations regarding some of the references in the answers - Firstly ,some background history - Do not confuse the "Readers Doglist" with its well known rival "The Readers Digest" , the Doglist was devised as a rival publication to the Digest by those well known media tycoons, Mustali & Gavel and was distributed for a short time by the international publishing conglomerate, The House of Teeth . However, due to its overwhelming obsessive references to dog doo, left wing pinko subversives and the defects of Czech motorcycles, the Doglist rapidly collapsed due to total disinterest from its target audience , dragging the House of Teeth and its presslords to bankruptcy and oblivion in its wake. clarifications. . 1. Cz - a Czech motorcycle, well known for its unreliability and tendency to drop bits of its operating system onto road surfaces whilst travelling in heavy traffic. 2. Foglas and Damp- refers to Foglas Nunucq, ace detective , and his obtuse assistant - Damp , creations of that well known prince of detective novella writers -Jim Holes . 3.Because this treatise was written in 1980 , it is perhaps not so politically correct as would be the case now, apologies in advance to any Czech's ,dagos , gippos or perverts who are offended by the article. The solution is to substitute the offending words for the racial,sexual, religious or political group you most dislike and all will be well. 4. Lastly, I do not understand answer number 4 , or probably 5 either ,so please don't ask me to clarify what the bazoot it means ,as it s just all too extrorse for me to clarify . Now we've got that out of the way, here it is ,the big moment, pencils at the ready , off we go..... It pays to enrich your word power.- answers. (1) extrorse - A: extremely. B:additional equine creature. C: to overwhelm. D: leftwing mob, Answer was D: left-wing mob; as "when travelling abroad it is wise to guard against the proximity of the foreigner or extrorse." Latin - extrorsus (a gang of insurrectionist pinko wreckers) (2) c'adige - A: Barcelona. B: left-legged hurty dance. C: x-2n(p+42), D: thingy. answer was A: Barcelona; as "I am a greasy dago and I live in cadige." Latin - cadigum (:greasy dago town full of paella scoffing left-wing troublemakers who will be better off under the benign rule of that nice General Franco) - "Cadigum et scomber specto"(motto of the Ipswich Fishing Bloater - "I look at cadige and the mackerel".) (3) gooreadiness - A: prepared for-a state of stickiness. B: horse-blanket. C: abject dyspepsia. D: porbeagle, answer was B: horse-blanket; as "as the atheist communist hordes attacked the town, the noble patriots smashed the skulls of this godless scum with battering rams made of gooreadiness-bedecked foreigners, gippos and perverts". (4) glitch - A: dog-do. B: extrorse. C: the Carthaginians. D: commie rabble. answer was C: the Carthaginians; as "knock, knock, bonk" "Who's there?" "Glitch" "Wilde" . (5) indaba - A: chronic taliacotian drinking haunt. B: exit from Tesco supermarket. C: zulu medical conference, D: no socks for Ivan. answer was D: no socks for Ivan; as "not, not, no, no. But Aeropus the Lycenestrian". Swahili - indaba (order prohibiting issue of footwear) (6) pligget - A: secondhand manhole cover from Rangoon. B: something useful to pull. C: blunt instrument for removing Winfield labels. D: Etruscan cheese biscuit. answer was B: something useful to pull; as "What are you going to do now, Foglas?" "Pull the pligget, Damp! Pull the pligget!" (from "Foglas and Damp leave a packet of wine gums outside the Louvre") Olde English - pligette (youth hostel card with handle) (7) improxicable - A: beyond belief! B:disconcerting. C: imponderable. D: unwashed commie student layabout. answer was D: unwashed commie student layabout; as "Western civilisation also promotes a caste system, particularly among the young -there are the nice Young Conservatives and the drug-crazed Improxicables" (Humphrey Snot - Daily Telegwarf) (8) glopple - A: gadget for opening Welsh doors. B: sweet-meat, C: hummock on the West Teeth bypass. D: palliasse, answer was B: sweetmeat; as "Welsh Scotsman-impersonator Caernarvon McEvans keeps his glopples in his sporran except when he's tossing the caber". Celtic - glopple (something in a bag). (9) taliacotian - A: unexpectedly round spherical object, B: small armadillo-like creature served in gravy. C: formule. D: eighty-three. answer was C: formule; as "swashbuckling writer for the Ascot Dinner Jacket, Aubrey von Hundmach describes the meeting of decent, hard working banking and insurance executives, property developers, senior civil servants and members of the House of Lords with a mob of hysterical Bolshevik Trade Unionists, Improxicables and other riffraff as a taliacotian for disaster." (10.) barf - A: contents of Ace barf holster, B: utterance of dog with speech defect. C: residue on soiled bus seat. D: stream of ghastly spew. answer was B: utterance of dog with speech defect; as "barf, barf, barf, hurrrssp, barf" -(sounds emitted by Frank Trough's dog while attacking a gag of left-wing extremists trying to extort money for something called 'bob-a-job week' (11) bazoot - A: dog-do. B: Eastern European plastic mac for CZ owners, C: Eastern European plastic mac for a CZ. D: Czech suppository, answer was ABCD - recent evidence suggests all are possible. According to Mr. Montgomery fforbes-Smythe, Under-Secretary for Dealings with those Foreign Socialist Chappies, the famous Czech poet, Stanislav DuklaBluhurg has been heard reciting the following: "As I push my CZ home from my work - both man and machine in bazoot I contemplate sending the makers a box of bazoot to use as a bazoot." (12) lobotomy - A: Frank Trough's dog. B: a large toe-nail clipping. C: a group of pinko trouble-makers. D: an extinct dance, answer was C: a group of pinko troublemakers; as in "these nambypamby social-worker persons are simply a lobotomy in the pay of Moscow" If you haven't already cheated by waiting for the answers, here is a guide to your vocabulary rating: Score:- 9 - 12 fair, 5 - 8 mediocre, 1 - 4 average, O - harmless. Readers Doglist TM 1980 I thought that most of these would come in handy when you are stuck for a suitable term, especially given the degree of political comment recently . They could be used to describe left wing troublemakers such as Eddie, Viv and myself, and which of us has not at some point wanted a different way to describe a Czech suppository or a dog with a speech defect? I know I have - frequently . So feel free to use these new words,enrich the list with them and Eddie , you can use bazoot instead of, or as well as , fuck ,if you so desire. dave ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1999 10:49:36 +0000 (GMT) From: Stewart Russell 3295 Analyst_Programmer Subject: SH: GFT, Glasgow Scotland - Jan 23 SH is showing at the Glasgow Film Theatre on (from memory) Saturday January 23 at 2pm. It gets a favourable review in GFT's brochure. You have no excuse to be in Scotland and not be there at that time. Glasgow Film Theatre 12 Rose Street Glasgow G3 6RB Tel: 0141 332 8128 0141 332 6535 [admin] email: info@gft.org.uk http://www.gft.org.uk/ (their website is one of those style-over-content affairs, and hasn't been updated since November, bad cess to them.) - -- Stewart C. Russell Analyst Programmer, Dictionary Division stewart@ref.collins.co.uk HarperCollins Publishers use Disclaimer; my $opinion; Glasgow, Scotland ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1999 11:12:56 +0000 (GMT) From: Stewart Russell 3295 Analyst_Programmer Subject: Re: Sally and CD Text >>>>> "Eric" == Eric Loehr writes: Eric> What the heck is CD Text encoded? (Obviously) I've never Eric> heard of it... (apologies for time-lag, but can't help being informative) It's a basic extension to audio CDs that allows some players to display track titles. Less often used than it should be, partly because some mischievous technicians used to fill in the titles with helpful messages like "Another Boring Track", "Unlistenable", "Rubbish", etc. People didn't like their very expensive CD players criticizing their musical choice, so the format remains rare. The circa-1990 Commodore CDTV could display these, along with the now-forgotten (and not missed) CD+G format, that allowed low-resolution computer animations to accompany the music. Oh dear. - -- Stewart C. Russell Analyst Programmer, Dictionary Division stewart@ref.collins.co.uk HarperCollins Publishers use Disclaimer; my $opinion; Glasgow, Scotland ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1999 09:15:57 -0400 From: Natalie Jacobs Subject: A shadow on snow > Does anyone know drink would be created if you nix, Captain Morgan >Orig. Spiced Rum, pineapple juice, a few squirts of lemon juice? A Moss Elixir! Duh. :) >Anyone here who's >ever had to push a billion pounds of snow out of the way to get their >friggin front door open knows whereof I speak here. It's a trip! Yeah, a real trip. Argh. Yesterday I had to extract my car from the unplowed parking lot without the benefit of a shovel, only to get to work and find out that the closest parking lot there was also unplowed, and that the two main doors of my office building were blocked with 4-foot-high snowdrifts. I feel like an inhabitant of Ursula LeGuin's winter planet Gethen (except that I'm not ambisexual). >Just in case you haven't seen it yet, there's a new list for Rufus W. at >onelist (www.onelist.com); it's in the Pop category, and it's called >Foolishluv. I actually glanced through most of the lists in the Onelist Pop category once, when I was very bored at work. The approximate breakdown of lists is as follows: 40% - Backstreet Boys 40% - 'N Sync 15% - Hanson and other assorted teen acts 5% - Everything else Apparently none of the fans of the Backstreet Boys, etc. actually bother *joining* an existing list, they just start their own. I suppose it makes sense, if you think about it really hard and then bang your head against a wall a few times and drink about ten Moss Elixirs. There's even an XTC list at Onelist. But all they seem to do is make Top Ten lists - top ten albums, top ten singles, top ten least favorite albums, top ten least favorite singles, top ten uses of prepositions in Colin Moulding's lyrics, etc. I think the list is actually run by the characters from "High Fidelity" (the guys who govern their whole lives through the creation of Top 5 lists). First anticipated event of 1999: "Babylon 5" TV-movie, "A Call to Arms," aired Jan. 3, 1999 (pilot for forthcoming new series). Opinion: kinda sucked. Year off to bad start. News at 11. n., in the frozen wastelands ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 05 Jan 1999 11:56:02 From: "she.rex" Subject: ever thus..., etc Eddie: I have the same problem, as I have writen a program in access to track my media collection. Fortunately, the search doesn't care - it looks up by any word or combination - so at least one can find things. Amazing how often this discrepancy thing happens. Finally had to tell myself it wasn't that important so as not to lose any sleep. Now I enter them as they are on each particular source. Open searches are the way to go. But this must be a pain when going for a master list. You're not anal, really. All you fegs in/going to Portland: Turning a flourescent neon shade of green here - have a great time for me, too, will ya! So John - what about that brontosaurus theory? I'm waiting.... - ----------------------------------------------------------- she can really do the brontosaurus and she can scream the hebejeebee courus till you know what she's really got 'cause she can do it lou-houd do it do it do it... ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1999 01:44:55 +0800 From: Jon Fetter Subject: Re: this list does not clap! >hey, is it just me, or are parisians rather demented? i have a nirvana >boot from feb. of '94 in paris, and the fans sing every single word of >every single song. it's quite cool, and at times even touching. in >fact, cobain at the end tells them what a wonderful audience they'd >been. but the kind of weird part was, they were doing a lot of rhythmic >clapping, and as the band was starting up Polly, kurt asked them not to >clap along to that one, but they went ahead and did anyway. and on the >velvets live album recorded in paris, the two songs where they perform >rhythmic clapping are: The Gift, and Heroin. again, pretty cool. but >also kind of demented, if you ask me. then you throw in the whole jerry >lewis thing, and it starts to become even a little creepy. IMO, nothing destroys a live recording more than rhythmic clapping by the audience. Next worst is an interminable drum solo. I don't mind either of these when I'm at a show, but on tape, yech. Thankfully neither of the above are likely to be on a tape of Robyn. On an unrelated note of interest to some listmembers (you know who you are), I was at a wedding reception last weekend and one of the appetizers was deep-fried moth larvae. They tasted like Captain Crunch cereal (plain), but CC doesn't go with beer like these did. It was quite the Renfield experience. Jon ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1999 13:01:01 EST From: MARKEEFE@aol.com Subject: Re: early Beatles, Top 1,000 + Chills In a message dated 1/5/99 12:57:22 AM, you wrote: <> Well . . . YEAH!!! :-) "Hard Days Night" and "Rubber Soul" are a couple of the better pop albums ever made. Probably "Revolver," too, but I just don't like it as much as, oh, say, 7 or 8 other Beatles albums . . . clearly, however, I'm in the vast minority on that one -- according to Virgin (and the British populace whom they polled), it's the best album ever made; top in its class of 1,000, in fact. << USA Today had some "top 1000 people of the millenium" or suchlike, and all they gave away was that Andy Warhol was on it [snip] is it just me, or is it likely that in the last 1000 years, there have been at least one thousand people more influential than Andy Warhol. Or do I just fail to appreciate Warhol's influence on things? >> Well, Warhol is almost certainly the most influential artist in the pop art world, but I don't see how that puts hom anywhere near the top of the list of the "top 1,000 people of the millennium." Obviously, there are more important areas of interest than pop art, the major proponents of which should be given a higher billing than Andy Warhol . . . even the leaders of most other art movements, I think. My guess is that #1 will go to a political leader, of some sort or other. Personally, I hope Bach breaks the top 100. He was cool. << And I picked up The Chills' Submarine Bells today. "Heavenly Pop Hit" reminds me of Love You-era Brian Wilson, but without sucking. Though I rather like Dead Web and Submarine Bells, the album as a whole doesn't impress me as much as I thought it would; the drums are too prominent, I can't get into that guy's voice, and the music reminds me of something that I can't quite place. >> Was this last part intended as a criticism?! Shoot, that's one of the best things about it! In fact, that's one of the best things about NZ-POP, in general! But, if you don't like Martin's voice, then you don't like his voice. There's pretty much nowhere to go from there. Although I'll still argue that songs like "Don't Be -- Memory" and "Effloresce and Deliquesce" are still very much worth further investigation. Maybe his voice will grow on you? I'll have to listen to the album again today -- I don't remember the drums being too far up in the mix. - -----Michael K. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 05 Jan 1999 10:46:03 PST From: "Capitalism Blows" Subject: Re: early Beatles, Top 1,000 + Chills well, "wrecker" (in this context) has always been one of my favorite words. but, "a gang of insurrectionist pinko wreckers" may just be the greatest sentence in the english language! (even if it is doubly redundant.) very funny bit, commander lang! moreover, if you hadn't used such silly names as "doglist" et al, i almost might've believed it was real. <"Hard Days Night" and "Rubber Soul" are a couple of the better pop albums ever made.> apparently Hard Days Night (the movie,) is getting a rerelease this year. it's robyn's favorite album of all time. i think terry just said that he was *on* the list. not necessarily near the top of it. yeah, i think you're right: durruti's got it in the bag. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1999 14:55:28 -0500 (EST) From: Eric Loehr Subject: and then there were....fegs! Man, I'm glad to see you all are starting to come back. After not getting any fegmail for almost a whole day I thought Eddie and I were going to have to start talking about tape exchanges or baseball or sumthin' onlist just to flush you out. Has anyone heard from Eb? (Eb, are you out there?) Has he been enveloped by the brown mucus? It's not like him to be silent about RW (or even anything else). Hope he's ok.... Eddie, in answer to your question: yes, Parisians are probably demented, they just don't give a fuck, and they all ride CZ's in Barcelona in a state of gooreadiness indaba (and I'm not just yanking your pligget!) That's about all of Commander Lang's message that I've been able to decode so far, even with answers supplied. You'll be pleased to know that according to his vocabulary rating key, I'm harmless. Bazoot! (And Dave, what I'd like to know is -- did this barfing dog leave pawprints in the Book of Love?) On Tue, 5 Jan 1999, Stewart Russell 3295 Analyst_Programmer wrote: > (apologies for time-lag, but can't help being informative) > > It's a basic extension to audio CDs that allows some players to > display track titles. Less often used than it should be, partly > because some mischievous technicians used to fill in the titles with > helpful messages like "Another Boring Track", "Unlistenable", > "Rubbish", etc. Hey, I've got that CD! Thanks for the explanation -- I thought that was it but figured I'd better play it safe and act (*sure*) dumb to make sure I wasn't missing something (aside from being low the quart of oil). ;-} Gnatalied: > I actually glanced through most of the lists in the Onelist Pop category > once, when I was very bored at work. The approximate breakdown of lists is > as follows: > > 40% - Backstreet Boys > 40% - 'N Sync > 15% - Hanson and other assorted teen acts > 5% - Everything else > > Apparently none of the fans of the Backstreet Boys, etc. actually bother > *joining* an existing list, they just start their own. I suppose it makes > sense, if you think about it really hard and then bang your head against a > wall a few times and drink about ten Moss Elixirs. Yeah, I noticed that too. Do all onelist lists have like one person on them or something? Or does it just degenerate to that? -- every time I've joined one of the lists there it seems dwindle down to one or two people. Is it just that there aren't enough people on them to keep up interest? Is it my breath? Micheal K. said: <"Hard Days Night" and "Rubber Soul" are a couple of the better pop albums ever made.Probably "Revolver," too, but I just don't like it as much as, oh, say, 7 or 8 other Beatles albums . . . clearly, however, I'm in the vast minority on that one -- according to Virgin (and the British populace whom they polled), it's the best album ever made; top in its class of 1,000, in fact.> and then Eddie said (regarding Revolver): Wow, I didn't know that -- where/when did he say this? Speaking as "someone from the 60's who will be returning there right after this e-mail message" Revolver and Rubber Soul are my favorite Beatles albums; and although I never do top 10's (or at least couldn't put them in order because I find it hard to rank things -- some days I like some things better than others and some days it's exactly the opposite) -- if I had to make a snap decision on my favorite album of all time, I'd probably also have to go with Revolver (although it'd be a fistfight down to the deadline with Rubber Soul.) Thankfully, that's all I have to say for now (finally.) Eric ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1999 15:10:56 -0600 From: "JH3" Subject: Demented Parisiennes Capitalism Blew: >the kind of weird part was, they were doing a lot of rhythmic >clapping, and as the band was starting up Polly, kurt asked them >not to clap along to that one, but they went ahead and did anyway. >...kind of demented, if you ask me. then you throw in the >whole jerry lewis thing, and it starts to become even a little creepy. When I went to Paris in 1991 I only spent a couple of days there, but even so, having observed Parisians in their native habitat I think can say with some assuredness that very few of them (only about 5% or so) were clinically demented. My guess would be that the people doing the hand-clapping were naive rustic types from the outlying villages, just in town for the gig; Nirvana (and the Velvets too, for that matter) probably had bigger followings in rural France anyway, since the city folk would have considered themselves too "cool" for performers who wasted their time on such mundane, every-day drugs as heroin. I mean, why shoot up when you can just watch a few Jerry Lewis movies and get the same mind-numbing effect? You may scoff at this, but it makes good economic sense: A serious smack habit can cost thousands of francs a week, whereas for less than 60 francs (how many euros is that?) you can buy a copy of "The Nutty Professor" on video, and it doesn't even leave any track marks! On your arm, anyway. How many Parisian fegs are there, anyway? (Hello, if you're out there...) Also: When they say "Top 1000 People of the Millenium", do they mean the 1000 most influential, the 1000 sweetest, nicest people, the 1000 sexiest, or what? Frankly, I think there are too many top-however-many lists. These things are all totally subjective anyway... Of course, I'm probably just saying that because it looks like I'm not going to make the list myself, unless I manage to do something really spectacular in the next 12 months. I've thought about inventing a whole new economic system, but to be honest, a system in which all aggregated wealth is diverted directly to me personally *probably* won't catch on. [sigh] Yours truly, - -John H. Hedges Now on page 452 of "Management Secrets of the Dread Cthulhu" ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V8 #4 *****************************