From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V8 #449 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Thursday, December 2 1999 Volume 08 : Number 449 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Oh, go to hell. [Katherine Rossner ] Re: Garth Gaines [normal@grove.ufl.edu] Re: ABC; apologies,breasts,and circlejerks [Fpaux@aol.com] RE: the likelihood of Eddie not being incarcerated [Vivien Lyon ] Re: REM record worth forgetting ["James Hadfield" ] albatross! deux-deux [rebel without a clause ] Coffee, computers, and getting smacked upside the head ["JH3" ] RH in the Phoenix New Times (long) ["Marc Holden" ] Re: RH in the Phoenix New Times (long) [Eb ] Re: Qualis Apologeticus, etc. [Joel Mullins ] The Man Who Ranked Eye at #8 all over the world [Joel Mullins Subject: Re: Oh, go to hell. At 01:54 PM 12/1/99 -0800, Vivien Lyon wrote: >I think you're right about that, but now I'm curious about where the idea >of Hell *did* come from. From the Puritans? Jonathan Edwards' _Sinners in >the Hands of an Angry God?_ Medieval illuminations of text? Where? The idea of Hell *is* in the Bible. It's usually Sheol in the OT, sometimes Gehenna in the NT, both often translated as Hell; but the word "hell", in the form of a Greek word I can't think of at the moment, occurs more directly in the NT (e.g. Peter being told "the gates of hell shall not prevail", or the verses castigating the "Scribes and Pharisees" in whichever gospel). But the idea that God is going to send thither everyone but those who agree with the one promulgating this idea...that's an interpretation. Much earlier than Puritans, or even St. Augustine. Tertullian, maybe, or...um, a second-century apocalyptic type whose name is also escaping me...but it's not an interpretation all Christians believe. (My own favorite formulation--not that anybody asked--which I think comes from Hans Urs von Balthasar: We are forbidden to declare that all shall be saved, but we must pray that it will be so. I.e. we [Christians] have to believe that there's a hell, but we are ethically/morally obliged to hope that it's empty, or at least devoid of human inhabitants.) Katherine, erstwhile seminary student - -- Ye knowe ek, that in forme of speche is chaunge Withinne a thousand yere, and wordes tho That hadden pris, now wonder nyce and straunge Us thinketh hem, and yit they spake hem so. - Chaucer, "Troilus and Criseyde" ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1999 18:30:02 -0500 (EST) From: normal@grove.ufl.edu Subject: Re: Garth Gaines On Tue, 30 Nov 1999 ultraconformist@ets.cncdsl.com wrote: > >Don't the Davies brothers, Ray and Dave, predate him a bit on this? > > Eee....er.....yes and no. They weren't outrageous to the same extent. There > was that bit of two Kinks (was it Dave and Mick Avory?) dancing together on > TV, and of course, Ray always had a bit of a queen-ish thang going on. But > it was very very subtle. You could almost blink and miss it, as opposed to I dunno. What I've seen of Ray in concert, I'd describe as mincing, what with the exaggerted hand gestures and, well, general mincing-ness. He's not as out-there as Bowie was, but it wasn't _that_ subtle. Terrence Marks Unlike Minerva (a comic strip) http://www.unlikeminerva.com normal@grove.ufl.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1999 18:37:12 EST From: Fpaux@aol.com Subject: Re: ABC; apologies,breasts,and circlejerks In a message dated 12/1/99 4:32:19 PM Eastern Standard Time, Michael.Bachman@fanucrobotics.com writes: << I am not sure what the Bible says exactly about forgivness, but I do know that Robyn says "Their Are No Jokes in the Bible, Keith". Michael >> Thank you Michael, I pray the rest of the list can forgive me for misquoting Robyn. It was intended as the intended Robyn content for the post. This was not the portion I thought I'd end up defending or explaining, but I'm more than happy to, which was my point. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1999 14:05:23 -0800 (PST) From: Vivien Lyon Subject: RE: the likelihood of Eddie not being incarcerated Apparently I was using yesterday's news concerning the number of arrested protesters. The number is now 220 and climbing. Anyone who isn't paying attention to the 'flogging' in Seattle should start doing so, with all speed. Vivien __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. All in one place. Yahoo! Shopping: http://shopping.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1999 16:16:33 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: ABC; apologies,breasts,and circlejerks On Wed, 1 Dec 1999 Fpaux@aol.com wrote: > There's no such thing as a joke in the bible. And that's a crying shame. Cheer up, it's Sushi Wednesday! Maguro's on me.* J. * First fifty itemized receipts listing maguro will be reimbursed for the total amount of the maguro purchase. Offer not valid outside the United States of America nor in states ending in vowels or touching an ocean nor in states containing a city named ${StateName} City. - -- ______________________________________________ J A Brelin Capuchin ______________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 01 Dec 1999 18:07:13 -0800 From: Joel Mullins Subject: Re: headrests and urkel Eb wrote: > > >But didn't you put Eye at #18? That's 4 slots behind New Adventures in > >Hi-Fi, which is crazy. > > Yes, yes, Joel. And I'm crazy for not ranking Olivia Tremor Control, and > crazy for not ranking Pavement, and crazy for not ranking Of Montreal, and > crazy for.... I'm glad to see we're in agreement. Joel ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Dec 1999 01:27:49 GMT From: "James Hadfield" Subject: Re: REM record worth forgetting Green your least favorite REM record?? Come on... Perhaps you forgot Monster?? Ugh... Monstrously bad... ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1999 15:48:39 -0800 (PST) From: Andrew Wright Subject: ....and another one for Stipe Joel Mullins writes: <> Personally, I don't think REM released anything all that good before _Green_. They came up with two schticks--the "Radio Free Europe" jangle-pop and the "Talk About the Passion" soul-searching melancholy, and ran them over and over. With _Green_, they started experimenting with different sounds and forms, and while it did put them on a slippery slope that led to "Everybody Hurts" and "Shiny Happy People," it also allowed them to break past boundaries--and, in my opinion, _Hi-Fi_ is the best album in that respect. Songs like "So Fast, So Numb," "Wake-Up Bomb" and "Binky The Doormat" speak to me in ways that nothing before could...with the possible marginal exception of "Fall On Me." Then again, I have to admit a bias. I hate what everyone else is listening to. All my friends just squealed with delight at REM and the Indigo Girls in high school, and I still don't get the charm of "Closer to Fine." I like "Airplane," though. I will be your little clown, easily defeated in Ohio, 'drew __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. All in one place. Yahoo! Shopping: http://shopping.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 01 Dec 1999 22:42:44 -0500 From: rebel without a clause Subject: albatross! so, i was poking around the radio 104 ("connecticut's modern rawk") website (clue-carrying fegs will be able to figure out why) and discovered this... ...and thought natalie jane jacobs might appreciate it. woj, not comforted that dee snider ended up in my adopted home state ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 01 Dec 1999 23:07:51 -0500 From: rebel without a clause Subject: albatross! deux-deux more webbings...crawling around the recently-completed veda hille site (http://www.vedahille.com natch) and noted neutral milk hotel as one of her recent influences. also worth pointing out that her drummer, barry mirochnick, plays a mean saw. doug can verify. perhaps. hmmmm. woj ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1999 22:48:18 -0600 From: "JH3" Subject: Coffee, computers, and getting smacked upside the head I just saw a news report that Peoria, Illinois - the town I work in - has just been named the "third-best mannered city" in the United States! And the Quad Cities, which are the same distance as Peoria from my house but in the opposite direction, came in 7th! So now I'm really pissed off. It's like all those years of cutting people off on the highways, refusing to return phone calls, and speaking too loudly in restaurants have achieved absolutely NOTHING! What's wrong with this @#$%&!! country? Viv Lyon writes: >This feg breast thread is a trifle silly and juvenile, I agree. But it >certainly isn't what I'd call offensive. It's approximately as boring >to me as the occassional extreme computer-geekery that goes on >around here... Unlike many of us, Viv has at least caught a glimmer of the complex intertwined relationship between "extreme computer-geekery" and silly, juvenile obsessiveness over women's breasts. Bra-vo! John "fighting the frizzies at eleven" Hedges PS. Uninteresting side-note: There are no Starbuck's shops in Peoria whatsoever, unless you count the pathetic little setup they have in the corner of the Barnes & Noble. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Dec 1999 01:11:00 -0500 From: Ethyl Ketone Subject: Qualis Apologeticus, etc. At 1:20 PM -0500 12/1/99, The Great Quail wrote: If I crossed a line, I'm sorry, but >not sorry enough that I'm going to mope around. It was just a joke. You insensitive, slandering, feather bearing son of a quail... oops, sorry. So sorry. Lashing with apologies... At 3:20 PM -0800 12/1/99, Mark_Gloster@3com.com wrote: >2. I appreciated the warning and looked at the pic from >home. I looked in the saftey of my own home and laughed. Mark - I bet you woke up in a stupor, thinking you had seen bright lights and were taken to a place where you were "examined" and came home with that tattoo. Quail abductions.Common among the computer types. >4. It is hard for me to think that persons on this list >post with intent to piss off others. I'm sure that some >of the demeanor and manner of some of us could be a bit >shocking, but I don't think there is meanness behind it. It seems to me that the list generates these squabbles from time to time, sometimes it's new posters, sometimes it's sensitive fegs. But there has been nothing I've read recently (and I hate the c word along with a few other slang genitalia words) that has been truly offensive. Call me post ironic, but it always seems to me that we, as humans, are trying to label and catagorize and give a way of naming things, even if that name is offensive to some; it's what we do. (And remembering "wimmins" music, I'm not surprised at the reference to c*nt rock from women). And it also seems to me that a great many postings are coming from a "comfortable about our community/full of humor of the most dry and intellegent kind" sort of place. I have a friend who said to me once, "I should listen to this Robyn guy, all the people I know who are funny and smart like him"... >5. We need to increase the amount of >'slack' in the universe. Praise Bob! At 1:39 PM -0800 12/1/99, Vivien Lyon wrote: But it certainly isn't what I'd call offensive. It's >approximately as boring to me as the occassional extreme computer-geekery >that goes on around here Yeah, I worked for years with this geekery. The typical games industry guy is what I know...and folks wonder why I live alone... At 2:35 PM -0800 12/1/99, Capitalism "The Blowster" Blows wrote: >tear-gassed three or four times (NOT fun, by the way), shot in the ass with >a rubber bullet Ouch... It's been a few years since I faced the LA County Police Department but I can remember... Be Seeing You, - - carrie "Questions are a burden for others. Answers are a prison for oneself." **************************************************************************** M.E.Ketone/C.Galbraith meketone@ix.netcom.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1999 23:11:39 -0700 From: "Marc Holden" Subject: RH in the Phoenix New Times (long) Here's an article from the Phoenix New Times (Dec. 2-8, 1999) (or just click the link for the article with photo). Enjoy, Marc n.p.--Meat Puppets--Up On The Sun http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/issues/current/music5.html Cheese Addict After 20 years and as many albums on his own, Robyn Hitchcock is still lost in a world of fairies, elves and French fromage By Jonathan Bond Feridoun Sanjar Robyn Hitchcock: "I just like to try to find a slightly different way of saying things. Because otherwise, no one's saying anything." Robyn Hitchcock is an acquired taste like the decadent cheeses he exalts in "The Cheese Alarm," a song from his most recent release, Jewels for Sophia. This is as it should be. Mass ingestion of Hitchcock's surrealist salad, Syd Barrett-as-fifth-Beatle music could make for an uncomfortable ear-meal for most. Although he hasn't scaled the commercial heights of some his fellow rock 'n' roll eccentrics, Hitchcock and his rabid band of fans don't seem to mind. Most of Hitchcock's 20-plus-year career reflects an insular sensibility, seemingly unaffected by trends in popular culture. Beginning with the quasi-psychedelic Soft Boys in the late '70s, Hitchcock and crew were making music that forecasted the American alternative music of the mid- to late '80s, rather than reflecting the punk rock that was king in England at the time. It's a familiar story: The band, out of step with the music of its own era, went largely ignored. Only years later when bands like R.E.M. paid homage to the Soft Boys, in part by taking Hitchcock on the road for their Green tour, did the band and the man begin to get their due. After the Soft Boys dissolved in '81, Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians were born, with most of the players from the Soft Boys onboard -- sans guitarist Kimberley Rew, who went on to join Katrina and the Waves. He stayed with this lineup, more or less, for the next 15 years, with occasional solo forays. Over the years, the music has lost some of its fragmented mathematical quality, gradually stripping down to a subtle style centered around Hitchcock's voice and guitar. His last three releases for Warner Bros. have not carried the Egyptian moniker, and the official core band is no more, though old players and friends still pop up in credits. Jewels for Sophia features the return of Rew and guest spots by Peter Buck and Grant Lee Phillips (of Grant Lee Buffalo) among other sympathetic comrades. Hitchcock's complex musical world is populated by grotesque characters freed from an active subconscious. These "Flesh Cartoons" include the Man with the Lightbulb Head, Ye Sleeping Knights of Jesus and Queen Elvis -- a drag king Elvis impersonator. The characters fit comfortably into songs like "Do Policemen Sing?", "Uncorrected Personality Traits," "I Want to Be an Anglepoise Lamp" and "My Wife and My Dead Wife" -- which contains the jaunty sing-along question: "My wife and my dead wife/Am I the only one that sees her?" A bona fide cult hero, Hitchcock has also ventured into other media. He's been the subject of a Jonathan Demme film documentary, Storefront Hitchcock (which ran in limited release last year and has yet to be issued on video). Hitchcock is also a fledgling author, cartoonist, painter and smalltime inventor. Recently, on the road as part of the Flaming Lips' "Music Against Brain Degeneration" tour (which skipped Phoenix), Hitchcock found himself in the company of such underground luminaries as the Lips, Sonic Youth, and Sebadoh. Stripping down his live show to a solo acoustic session, Hitchcock presented himself as he has on his most recent recordings -- a simple, straightforward songsmith with an upside-down Dr. Seuss wit. We caught up with the very English Hitchcock via telephone from Memphis. Our rambling, often strange conversation found the droll musician yielding much information, including his current waist size, his new record, the novel he's writing and points in between. Robyn Hitchcock on crowd control and the audience: NT: Tonight you're playing Memphis, at the New Daisy Theatre, which seats roughly 1,000 people. Do you prefer the larger crowds like tonight or the more intimate audiences? RH: Well, I think if you're playing a big venue, it's good to have people in it. Tonight is going to be pretty sparse. They haven't sold many tickets here in Memphis. I'm not big on addressing the rally kind of thing. My declamation to the mob . . . NT: Hello, Cleveland! RH: Well, yeah. You know, I'm no sort of Nuremberg rally. If everybody goes to one end of the field, I go to the other. I instinctively don't like crowds. I guess if there was a crowd, I'd probably rather be addressing it than be in it, but either way, that amount of condensed humanity makes me jittery. Too many heads. I like things like in-stores, where everyone's embarrassed because they're far too close together in the daytime, and you can see them. You never see an audience so clearly. That's the advantage of the in-store, because the audience is all there with horrible fluorescent lighting shining down on them, and you're looking shitty as well, but you know, too bad. I like that. It's like guerrilla art. Hitchcock on the art of writing -- love songs and novels: RH: My stuff is always direct, it just depends which direction it's going in. The best songs just appear. I don't have much to do with thinking about what they are. I don't think about them really. It's just like landing a big fish. It's like, "Oh, look at that!" You don't take it apart and stick it back together. NT: I think "I Feel Beautiful" (from Jewels for Sophia) may be the only love song featuring tomatoes and enormous beasts. RH: Well, why not? That's what it is. It's not old people walking through Central Park hand in hand with no emotion and ghastly mellow saxophone. In reality it's beasts and tomatoes. I just like to try to find a slightly different way of saying things. Because otherwise, no one's saying anything. It's just money changing hands and people's brains dying. NT: Tell me about "Mexican God" from Jewels for Sophia. I'm thinking of lyrics like "The horror of you floats so close by my window/At least when I die, your memory will too." RH: I don't like to add to the sum of human misery, but I felt that this was a good song. It was one of those that was written in the middle of the night. When you can't get away from anything, you just have to face up to how you feel. Can't sleep, no refuge from whatever it is that's bugging you, so I wrote it down, and I probably relaxed by looking at one of my books about who engineered what Beatles session. NT: What's the status of your book? RH: Well, I've done the first draft. And I think I have to do a second one, but it's bloody difficult writing a book. What tends to happen is, once I start trying to write the book, I just write a lot of songs instead. Probably the next crop of songs will come while I'm sitting there trying to finish this thing. NT: Well, that's not bad at all -- at least you're not cleaning incessantly to get away from it. RH: I clean a bit. I actually usually have to go somewhere where there isn't a guitar. Go away for a couple of weeks and leave the guitar at home. That forces me to write it. That's next year's project. It exists. It's just not good enough yet. Maybe I'll just wind up doing a lot of interviews about it, and it will never come out. I'm sure people will value the book much more if I never publish it. NT: Or you could do a sort of a books-on-tape thing and have your guitar and speak it while you're strumming, if that's easier for you. RH: I think people would get bored. NT: I love your stories when you're playing live. RH: Yeah, but they're improvised. Maybe if I got somebody else to read it out, like an actor. That would be better. NT: I think Brad Pitt would be good. RH: You do? Do you think he'd be good? NT: No. RH: Is he a friend of yours? NT: No. Robyn Hitchcock on cheese and waist size: NT: Traditionally, the poets have been remarkably quiet on the subject of cheese. RH: Well, they have. They have. Maybe they haven't had a problem with it. NT: Little bit addicted yourself? RH: Well, yeah, you know. Might as well face it if you're addicted to cheese. I've put on a lot of weight over the years, and it's not all alcohol. My girlfriend, she has this (cheese), it's so strong it affects her breathing, and she has to lie on her back with her arms and legs in the air like an upside-down table. NT: That's some potent cheese. RH: Yeah. It's this French stuff called Mimolette. It's disguised as a Dutch cheese. I didn't actually put it in the song, but it's the most extreme one. NT: Extreme cheese! RH: It's very extreme cheese. It's the cheese that you can't say no to. It's the crack cocaine of the cheese world. NT: I noticed on this record you say, "I can't even fit into size 38." I wanted to ask you about that. RH: Well, I haven't quite got that fat yet. I'm heading that way, though. I'm size 36. I used to be 28. NT: "Some day, I could have a 50-inch waist . . ." Do you remember that one (an old lyric from Hitchcock's "My Favorite Buildings," a track from 1984's I Often Dream of Trains)? RH: Yes, I do. I hope these songs don't come true. I need to write one about how I'm gonna be back to 34. I'm going to be. NT: Right, you've got to manifest. RH: Sure, it's a form of prayer. NT: Pray to the waist god. RH: Well, you've got to pray to the waist god. We pray to the weather god and it works. NT: Do the waist dance? RH: What's that? NT: I don't know. Rain dance, waist dance . . . RH: Waist dance. For a second, I thought there actually was, like, an Arizona waist dance. Like people with phantom Hula-Hoops trying to bring on their periods by waist dancing. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Dec 1999 01:28:03 -0500 From: Ethyl Ketone Subject: PS Congratulations Dolph and Rebecca!!!!!!!!! "Questions are a burden for others. Answers are a prison for oneself." **************************************************************************** C. J. Galbraith Ketone Press meketone@ix.netcom.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1999 23:13:35 -0800 From: Eb Subject: Re: RH in the Phoenix New Times (long) >Hitchcock is also a fledgling author, cartoonist, painter and smalltime >inventor. What has RH "invented" (or attempted to invent)? Eb np: Alanis Morissette/MTV Unplugged (nyaah) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Dec 1999 01:16:41 -0800 From: Joel Mullins Subject: Re: Qualis Apologeticus, etc. Ethyl Ketone wrote: > Call me post > ironic, but it always seems to me that we, as humans, are trying to label > and catagorize and give a way of naming things, even if that name is > offensive to some; it's what we do. Oh, we definitely do this. It's an inherent part of our language and the fact that some names are offensive to some people is the least interesting thing about this. "B asks, Is the discourse of objects specific Can one imagine laws . . . Can you decode the birth of the sign from the miniskirt, the unconscious, TV, the mirage of the referent, the equation of A with A A body disappears into itself its mirror self or sister self The marks have no dimension They stream from the creases of the hand Let's call this The Quiet City where screams are felt as waves [. . .]" -- Michael Palmer ::hope that does't offend anyone. Joel ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Dec 1999 01:19:10 -0800 From: Joel Mullins Subject: The Man Who Ranked Eye at #8 all over the world Eb wrote: > > >Hitchcock is also a fledgling author, cartoonist, painter and smalltime > >inventor. > > What has RH "invented" (or attempted to invent)? Himself. - --Joel ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Dec 1999 00:34:58 -0800 From: Eb Subject: AllStar news (somebody give Joel a handkerchief to dab his sniffles...) IT'S OFFICIAL: PAVEMENT DISBANDS (TEMPORARILY?) A spokesperson for Pavement's U.K. label, Domino, has officially confirmed that the band has indeed broken up, according to NME. While Pavement's Steve Malkmus told the crowd at London's Brixton Academy last Saturday that the show would be the band's last, their U.S. record label, Matador, had a firm "no comment" at the time. The Domino spokesperson told NME on Wednesday (Dec. 1) that the band is retiring "for the foreseeable future to: 1. Start families. 2. Sail around the world. 3. Get into the computer industry. 4. Dance. 5. Get some attention." Guitarist Scott Kannenberg also told NME that they want to take a couple years off because "they've been doing this pretty full-on for the last eight or 10 years. We just want to rethink what it means being in a band." Kannenberg plans to work on solo material, while Steve West's second album with his side project Marble Valley is due next year. The album is titled Sunset Sprinkler. No word on Malkmus' plans yet. However, a spokesperson for Matador says, "The NME report was erroneous; they posted a message on their Web site which says the following: "Contrary to what has been said, Pavement are not breaking up. They are taking a much needed rest as they do at the end of every touring year. They would like to thank all of those who have supported them this year as in the past. They will be back sooner than you know. In the meantime, Pavement will be working on The Slow Century video and DVD compilation to be released sometime in the new century." - Carrie Borzillo ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Dec 1999 05:11:29 EST From: Fpaux@aol.com Subject: King Mark of Gloster Does anyone know if there really is a place called Cornwall? Just pondering whether Markg could be King Mark. Even though King Mark comes across as arrogant and what not in chpt 1, by the end...maybe I shouldn't spoil it. I'll just say it is a compliment. In a message dated 12/2/99 1:23:28 AM Eastern Standard Time, meketone@ix.netcom.com writes: << It seems to me that the list generates these squabbles from time to time, sometimes it's new posters, sometimes it's sensitive fegs. >> Yes, I am a sensitive feg. I tend to think this is a good thing. I have no desire to grow a thick skin. I like being able to feel things, even if I don't like the feeling at the time. And yes, I am newish to posting, after two years of lurking on the digest. But if I can't voice an alternate opinion, than what's the use of being here? I thought I was prepared for the mail my statement would generate, but I still got overwhelmed (me being sensitive again) and as a result, I may have gotten a little defensive. So if there's anyone who feels I didn't address their comment/complaint please email me. The last thing I want is to leave anyone feeling their thoughts were dismissed. Carissa, proud to be a touchy-feelie feg ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Dec 1999 05:48:34 EST From: DDerosa5@aol.com Subject: Vonnegut and Trout so terrence originally said: And then there was Kilgore Trout and "Venus on the Halfshell". Was that marketing??? and then DMW pointed out that it was philip jose farmer. and then I scrolled through fourn digests to make sure there was no nfurther comment, and can now say... PJF rocks. Meta-meta-science fiction! He wrote almost believeable books claiming to find the family trees of both Tarzan and Doc Savage, with hilarious results. As well as the Riverworld series, etc. The "Pope of Peoria" (as he's known locally) fucks with the known universe regularly, so for him to write a book by a character freed by its author was quite ingenious, and not at all bad, to the point that Vonnegut had to deny he wrote it for decades. That's a good parody. I have an old paper back ostensibly by Trout, but I hear it is to come out soon with a Farmer byline. By the way, I just traded in some old books today for a copy of Vonnegut's new 'un, Bagombo Snuff Box. It's collected old fiction from Colliers', Sat. Eve. Post, Esquire, Playboy, etc. It's funny, cause I actually thought of doing this ten years ago (I'd found six of the stories) as an Uncarved Pumpkins sort of thing, selling it for cost, etc.... But this looks nicer. Philosopher's Stone: wasn't that a truly terrible book by Colin Wilson, after the (relative) success of the Lovecraft parody, The Mind Parasites? I like Robyn's better, and definitely heard "The philosopher's stoned" in the lyrics meself... boy I wish I was in Seattle. Did the WTO protest here in Chill yesterday, made a 20 foot banner just for the occasion, and then had to march through the loop ON THE SIDEWALK. What a fuckin waste of time....I want rubber bullets in my ass! (Sorry if that's too much information...) by the way, in regards to: > I'm afraid Joel that I've used The Academics. Man, that sucks! I love that name. so, use it! they don't still exist, and won't sue you. or, if they've still got lawyers on hire, claim they're the Academics UK. I'm always amazed at the idea that good band names can only be used once. Sure, it's more problematic if they released "product", but chance it...it's only rock and rolllllllllllll..... OK I'll go to bed now, and when I awake, it'll be my birthday.... dave ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V8 #449 *******************************