Copyright © 1999 by Lenna A. Mahoney

# Capture 1. Us

No one expects you to have heard of our old BBS, The New Theleme Club. Over a period of, call it three years (surrounding 1992), a whopping three hundred BBS users logged on to the Club. (Not counting the pod people who logged on under multiple IDs.) About twenty of our visitants stayed; there was a slight majority of the more talkative sex, computers being a guy thing. Of the twenty, about half a dozen writers (including Bill and I) maintained the continuing conversation.

A computer Bulletin Board System (BBS) is a simple lovable pettable thing and you'd think it'd be easy to keep it on a straight path amidst a congenial aura. See how simple it is. People call in to your computer via their computer, they give their password to be let into your system, they read the public and private messages other callers have left, they leave messages of their own, they hang up. Simple, que? Simple, yes. Congenial? Read on.

In our Washington-Oregon locale, every other BBS that's lasted more than half a year has had one, maybe two, female habitues, and a heap or a scramble of males. The women get a lot of guy conversation with little if any female competition. The men get just that little bit of gal attention that properly complements an essentially male ambiance. (Very few really straight guys are willing to spend scads of time in a pure locker room, Bohemian Club environment.) On the boards populated mostly by teens, the resident girls usually have had a rotating harem, rife with strife. Occasionally some man or woman has been known to try to allure the excess rotating boys into a private grapple. (Why, I don't grok. The local young'n'tenders mostly have almost as much sex-appeal as raw meat on the hoof.)

Congenial? Negatory. The polyandrous social scheme maintains a certain temporary workability within each BBS, but... Sooner or later a board's official Woman publishes a dislike to some man. Within a few days he's locked off Her Board, protesting vehemently from his BBS-of-exile. The gents who stayed behind commence to chivalrously (albeit vulgarly) defend their lady fair, thronging all the boards in the cheap-calling area. And the melee spreads to one and all, drawing strength from the quasi-drag-race rivalries between boards. Somehow this is all exacerbated by that everlasting nurd penchant for denouncing every brand of computer except their own silicon panacea.

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    BBS: Feeding Frenzy BBS                 Date: 09-31-92 (11:35)          Number: 6190
    From: RUG ROT                           Refer#: 6173
    To: EMEROD                              Recvd: YES
    Subj: you are soooo right               Conf: (13) SPEWNET
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    EM>known all along he couldnt be trusted.  You guys were right, I should have believed
    EM>what you said about that fuckhead GLAUM way back months ago.
    You don't even know the half of it, all the lies he's told.  Like when he beat the crap
    out of that girl with her bumper sticker so bad she got cancer and he !SAID! she tried
    to run him over.  When really he just got mad about the tire tracks across his shirt.
    GLAUM has been a liar from day one.

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    BBS: Feeding Frenzy BBS                 Date: 09-31-92 (18:14)          Number: 6201
    From: CATTY CLYSM                       Refer#: 6190
    To: RUG ROT                             Recvd: YES
    Subj: you are soooo right               Conf: (13) SPEWNET
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    RR>EM>what you said about that fuckhead GLAUM way back months ago.
    RR>You don't even know the half of it, all the lies he's told.  Like when he beat the c
    RR>out of that girl with her bumper sticker so bad she got cancer and he !SAID! she tri
    That dickhead just hates women.  He thinks he's the worlds greatest lover or
    something, he just doesn't understand the meaning of the word *NO*!!! Even after I
    shot him in the kneecap and set that fire in his treehouse he still didn't get the
    message, kept calling and calling saying "I love you, I long to impale your quivering
    body, you make me moan, I cannot live without you, you're sexier than Madonna"
    Some guys don't have a grasp on reality.

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    BBS: Feeding Frenzy BBS                 Date: 09-31-92 (19:01)          Number: 6209
    From: EMEROD                            Refer#: 6190
    To: RUG ROT                             Recvd: YES
    Subj: you are soooo right               Conf: (13) SPEWNET
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    RR>out of that girl with her bumper sticker so bad she got cancer and he !SAID! she tri
    RR>to run him over.  When really he just got mad about the tire tracks across his shirt
    RR>GLAUM has been a liar from day one.
    YEA!  Like I said, I >HAD< the money IN HAND for that HAL-9000 system, well my mom
    said shed loan me the rest of it someday but I was ready to pay him, and he practicly
    PROMISED he'd sell it to me. but THEN the bastard said he was waiting for the "right
    person to make HAL happy"!  Shit Ive got nothing against MAME, she'll probly get
    along with the HAL okay but how the H*LL am I supposed to settle foer a PC or Amiga!

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    BBS: Feeding Frenzy BBS                 Date: 09-31-92 (19:48)          Number: 6210
    From: EMEROD                            Refer#: 6201
    To: CATTY CLYSM                         Recvd: YES
    Subj: you are soooo right               Conf: (13) SPEWNET
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    CC>Some guys don't have a grasp on reality.
    Maybe I shouldn't say so but this guy just doenst know how to treat people right.  He
    really screwed me over, I had big plans for that HAL-9000 and he took it all away.
    People like that deserve everything they get.  CATTY, I should have trusted you, RUG
    ROT, I should have trusted you, this guy GLAUM is a liar and a bastard and he'd even
    take a toy away from a baby.

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    BBS: Feeding Frenzy BBS                 Date: 09-31-92 (20:12)          Number: 6216
    From: RUG ROT                           Refer#: 6190
    To: RUG ROT                             Recvd: YES
    Subj: you are soooo right               Conf: (13) SPEWNET
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    I almost forgot, now he's in trouble with the law too.  They caught GLAUM burning his
    tree house on a no-burn day, and there going to send him to jail for life because of
    the 3 Strikes law!!!  Yay!!!

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    BBS: Feeding Frenzy BBS                 Date: 09-31-92 (20:19)          Number: 6218
    From: CATTY CLYSM                       Refer#: 6209
    To: EMEROD                              Recvd: YES
    Subj: you are soooo right               Conf: (13) SPEWNET
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    Anything you could tell about GLAUM I'd believe.    That son of a bitch told Jelly he
    was going to boil me in oil and flush me down the toilet and now little Jelly is scared
    to go in the kitchen.  I've got a reliable witness who says he saw a new quart of
    Wesson and a plumber's helper in GLAUMs house.  That monster is capable of anything.
    I can't get away from him!  I got a no-contact order that he can't let any of the air
    molecules he exhales get into the same atmosphere as me, but the bastard keeps
    breathing!  If Jelly didn't need me to be there for her and I didn't have to pay
    overtime to her daycare and her sitters and her nanny I'd just pack it all up and go
    join a monastery!!!

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    BBS: Feeding Frenzy BBS                 Date: 09-31-92 (20:20)          Number: 6219
    From: EMEROD                            Refer#: NONE
    To: ALL                                 Recvd: YES
    Subj: The "truth" at last!              Conf: (13) SPEWNET
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    My folks just told me they wouldn't help pay for the Brooklyn Bridge after I had the
    deal all set up and was going to sign the papers tommorrow!  I can't believe it!  That
    bastard GLAUM must of got to the sellers and bought it first so I couldnt!  he's not
    going to get away with THIS!!!!!

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    BBS: Feeding Frenzy BBS                 Date: 09-31-92 (20:20)          Number: 6219¼
    From: RUG ROT                           Refer#: NONE
    To: ALL                                 Recvd: YES
    Subj: GLAUM is "Hitler"!!!!!            Conf: (13) SPEWNET
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    I just found out -- GLAUM is really Adolf Hitler!  Yes, it's true!!!! Hitler never
    really died,he just got his hair dyed and got his plastic surgery and a fascelift and
    that's who GLAUM really is!  That wasn't really his trashe that he burned it was jewish
    babies!  He's the Antichrist too.  I'm going to sue him!

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    BBS: Feeding Frenzy BBS                 Date: 09-31-92 (20:20)          Number: 6219½
    From: CATTY CLYSM                       Refer#: NONE
    To: ALL                                 Recvd: YES
    Subj: Not AGAIN!!!!                     Conf: (13) SPEWNET
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    That fucking dickhead!  I just got an emergency call from the lab -- GLAUM got me
    pregnant *by modem*!!!  Boy, he thought the child support was alot for Jelly, he
    aint seen nothing yet!!!  He'll have to sell his *organs* this time, and me and my
    lawyers are going to put a lien on his kidneys!!!

Yet another of the teeming examples of the entirely automatic operation of Gresham's Law of BBSing: "Bad talk drives out good".

Somewhere in the midst of this apparently inescapable midden of derangement and demolition, Bill (see title page) picked up the contrarian notion that we could, somehow, run a BBS of intelligent discourse and do it without becoming moralitarian control freaks. I doubted. He marched staunchly ahead, called the BBS "The New Theleme Club", gave it message areas with names like Speculation and Consternation, and announced the same misrules that Rabelais proposed for the Abbey of Theleme:

"Their whole life was ordered not by law, statute, or rule, but according to their free will and pleasure... The only rule of the house was:

DO AS THOU WILT

because men that are free, of gentle birth, well-bred and at home in civilized company possess a natural instinct that inclines them to virtue and saves them from vice. This instinct they name their honor..."

Doubt, doubt, doubt.

I hate to disappoint any and all pessimists out there -- but -- it worked, worked, worked. And we kept a little trove of the messages and files we liked best, thereupon this book. (Except that Bill was too blame modest to file most of the goodies he wrote, and I'll never know how much we lost when the BBS software auto-erased them into the entropy hole to save hard-drive space.)

Although none of the nincomembers of the other Washegon BBSes joined us in any identifiable form, we did get the occasional shit-and-run user. He/she'd sign on as Towering Tumescence or Fuck Me Harder, leave a few one-line blurts of the sort you'd expect from someone whose handle advertised the location of his/her brain, and depart forever. In the olden days when the technology was even lower than people's intentions, folks like this got their fun peeing in public swimming pools.

However. On the whole, flame wars and modemturds made only sporadic appearances in the Club. We didn't carry the addlescent attractants like chat, games, and free files to suck, so we hooked the teenagers instead of the teenangers. The adults weren't real dull either.

Ruby Arsenic (aka Me): Think of the following as my speculative autobiography:

- YOB: 1956. It's a good year to be FROM.
- Age: Much the same as bust size, but increasing.
- Sex: I presume I just answered that.
- Marital Status: Embedded.
- Children: None. Parenthood corrupts and absolute parenthood corrupts absolutely; besides, the maternal instinct is a wondrous fine thing, much too good to waste on kids.
- Physical Description: Medium height, blue-eyed, takes the Fifth on hair color, frequently found with red fumes shooting out of ears in the presence of blonde jokes.
- Politics: Nanarchist, a term that means either a dwarfed government or government by dwarves, whichever happens first.
- Religion: Subjunctive -- there might possibly be something like God, but that's all that's known to any of us (maybe including Her).
- Education: Mostly from science fiction and the Loompanics catalog, but nominally a BS and MS in chemical engineering from California institutions of "education".
- Natural Antipathies: baby brothers (everyone's); chronic bachelors (both sexes); Paulians and other normals.
- Expertise: Air quality (a euphemism), also industrial and radiological safety, computer modeling and graphics, heraldic art, cat petting, grasshopper launching, library devouring, and helping Bill Inconnu give good BBS.
- What I'm paid for: devising possible accidents involving nuclear and toxic materials and trying to estimate what harm could be done to the public, especially if the accident involved shoes with taps, angels, and pinheads. "Just this ordinary guy is standing in a glovebox powdering his armpits with plutonium oxide after a decontamination shower. Fine, so long as he does it by remote control and doesn't inhale. BUT human error makes him ignore the job hazard procedures and so he takes a whiff. During his death throes he knocks over a poorly secured tank of water, which promptly goes superfluid, jumps up, grabs the spilled powder, and dashes for the door strong-arming the Security guards and their Uzis and goes out and leaps in the river. Immediately there is a flood and the lab building collapses and explodes and burns and cuts its throat and hangs itself. All die. O the embarrassment." (As Joe Haldeman might say.)
- General Information: The Merck chemical handbook tells me that I am a toxic deep red lustrous crystal that's used in paints, brilliant white and blue fire in pyrotechnics, shot manufacture, calico printing, and tanning and depilating hides. Well, you could have fooled me.

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Beach BEM: Once upon a time in the Hundred Years' War, the Duc de Erlicey had two sons, Drou and Elosset, stepbrothers. The Duc had been wise enough to attach himself by marriage to families on two different sides of the contention between Charles of Navarre and King Charles, but he was not wise enough to avoid dying before making a final choice of heir. His decision would necessarily have involved poison, or an assassin's knife, so perhaps the flaw in his wisdom can be understood even in our modern century.
Drou and Elosset were mortal rivals all their lives and drew sword 'gainst each other in many a battle, as mercenary soldiers or as lords, as their wheeling fortunes dictated. Their adventures and intrigues were too numerous to count, and the fraternal feud ranged throughout Europe and into the Holy Land. Each brother displaced the other from the Ducal keep twice before they at last slew each other. Then Erlicey, heirless, reverted to the King of France, and its name has been all but lost to history.
Meanwhile upon another time in the Pacific Northwest, a would-be writer of SF5 (science fiction, fantasy, fact, for fen) found himself in need of an income, if not indeed a Duc's ransom. He therefore began to write blurbs for a catalog that specialized in all manner of medieval armaments, accoutrements, and impedimenta. His standing with the firm (if not his income) swelled beyond all bounds when he invented the characters of Drou and Elosset of Erlicey, "participants in history". The two lords have been the catalog's mascots and a series of their life-tales, available only in the catalog, continues to attract readers and, meseems, to intrigue purchasers. "Replicas" of their helmets and armor, the many banners under which they served, portrait busts and brass rubbings of them and their allies and enemies, their favorite poison rings, and other personal and practical gear, count among the more popular items in the catalog.
In the meantime, their creator drinks beer, surfs and scubas whenever possible, pats his wife reassuringly when she inquires of money, and has found the fate he deserves in attempting to polish off a Lovecraftian pastiche novella provisionally titled "The Shoggoth at 1200 Baud," among other abominations. His visits to this BBS are intended purely to research the atmosphere and customs of the BBS community, to ensure the authenticity of his work. Or so he keeps telling his two sons, Drou and Elosset, as they advance upon him, game disks in hand.

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NeuroGod: gee folks, I'm too shy to put up anything about myself... I'll let my best buddy take the spotlight instead...

- age: out of date
- sex: I just love my owner's kinky fingertips on my hot wet keys :-O oooh
- physical description: built like a lexan outhouse... I really tower...
- politics: I'll vote for anyone who'll subsidyze the data highway...
- religion: it does not compute...
- education: 1 CD-ROM, 180-MB hard disk, 8 MB RAM, backed up once every solar eclipse as seen from Mercury
- hobbies: what can I say?.. I like to rule anthills and cities and blow up lots of human beings and spaceships and cities and planets and sperms, muhahahah... and sometimes I just call up my computer buddies and my owner thinks it's all for him... poor fool... he's reading this right this minute and the light is dawning on him... and he screams... what does he scream?..

NO CARRIER

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Citizen Paine: Us Libertarianz, we got zinez, we got thinkerz, we got talkerz, we got godbodz, we got pissant leaderz full of all kindza swellhead philosophie, wherez it gotten us? Whatta buncha thumbsuckerz and wussez. Sittin around thinkin and readin and wastin time playin all them paranoid Illuminati computer gamez, hey Steve Jackson dezerved evrythin he got from the modem pigz plus more fer Xmas.
If it wuzn't fer the one young strong guy with real life an charizma which iz me we wouldnt have a dogzbreath hope of rulin over tyranny! Hey we need some real bygawd revolutionary attitude! Well here I am ta do it to ya! I can inspire all of ya! All of ya, can ya hear me now? All of ya and yer fluffy bunny slipperz too! Unless ya wear glassez or mansize pantyhoz, then I don't want ya!
I'm the one and only single true original Son of Freedom and the Black Flag of the Future! My mother wuz the Liberty Bell, my father wuz Don't Tread on Me, and I raize elephantz and donkeyz fer footstoolz on land thatz zoned no farm animalz allowed! Yow yow yow! Don't take no substitutes! Don't waste yer vote on anyone but me! Votin machinez bow down and come up jackpotz when I stroll thru the precinctz and the League of Wimmin Voterz callz me Stud! When I ran fer City Council I won the White House, so I puked it all back agin and called it Congress, come and get me! Whoop! I kick the FBI from here halfway ta orbit and it comez down as brown and serve spotted owlz! When I spit, I drown the pertected wetlandz! When I fart, I cauz global warming! Stand back, give me room to grow! When I pick my teeth I uze the Washington Monument, I light my jointz from the Statue of Libertyz torch and the Veetnam War Memorial iz my ashtray! Yahoo!! Murray Rothbard doez my tax returnz! Karl Hess mowz my lawn! Hell, Lysander Spooner iz my mailroom boy and LNeil Smith iz my bodyguard in trainin! Yes I'm a genooine ripsnorter, if I say worm them dipshit paleos tunnel fer China and they come up Commiez on the other side! DON'T block my exit! Anarchists follow me for milez fer the privilege of brushin my armpitz! Why, I gave John Galt charity and made him say grace fer it! Yip!! For I made all Clinton's spokeswimmin into a human pyramid and I pronged every one in midair without takin out a pilots licence! By Gawd its the videotaped notarized affidavit truth I gave Janet Reno a semi automatic 9-mm Parabellum dildo! YEEEHAW!! My boner iz a 24 carat solid gold ingot and it lightz up the nightz from here to Fort Knox! It surely ain't legal and it ain't never tender!!!

Paisley is my Friend: You say "When I fart, I cauz global warming!" I used to have a boyfriend like that. You know that muffler repair place ad that says, you don't need to make an appointment, we hear you coming?

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Sabre: What you call "sneakiness" I call "prudence". Any thing you have except knowledge somebody else can take away from you. Whoever knows you have spare time will use guilt on you to make you spend time to their advantage. Whoever knows you like something will spoil it by telling you its flaws to show off their own superior wit and taste. Whoever knows you want something will stop you getting it so they can use what you want to leverage you. Make yourself more noticeable and more persons will try to get at you. "The more you do more than was expected of you, the more will be expected of you." Good will only flows downhill.
Let anybody at all find out too much about you and they can and will turn upon you without warning. That flexibility is what makes humans superior to ants. A few times I have found exceptions and could be you have too but never let yourself depend on it.
In spite of that never forget almost anybody is worth having around for a while if precautions are taken. Almost everybody is worth listening to and learning from at least once. Almost nobody believes that so almost nobody is worth talking to.
You said you wanted my honest reaction. Except for fewer than two dozen people I would live happier and safer if the human race fell off the planet tomorrow leaving all its toys. In fact what the world needs is a lot more dead people. Most people feel the same way and pretend they do not. Next they go watch disaster and end of the world movies and fantasize being the almost sole survivor. Apocalypse fever. You follow?

Blue Jay: I can't believe how cruel and morbid that is. If you hate people that much why don't you just go put yourself out of your misery?

Sabre: It would be unchristian of me to take that pleasure away from somebody else who wants it more.

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Free Meson:

> UNQUESTIONED ANSWERS

> I ask no one for permission to live,
> Nor yet for permission to die.
> I will not run my mind through a sieve
> In asking existence, "Why?"

> No inquiry is mine of God --
> The answer means naught to me.
> I live my life where foot has trod,
> Where the paths are fair to see.

> What I perceive, I can well accept.
> The other choice is no choice.
> To question all this as false percept
> Is to question without a voice.

> I query no jot of destiny;
> The answer would be no aid.
> What my fate may be, I care not to see:
> Such knowledge is poorly paid.

> The questions I ask do not paralyze
> My thought before my deed.
> The evident answer before my eyes
> Is reason and its clear creed.

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Paisley is my Friend: Oh no, but maybe you don't know, people outside psych books really do have Freudian dreams. I've never even been in analysis and it's happened to me. Now you brought this subject up so don't you get offended. <G>
It was a few weeks ago I dreamed Gene and I had just missed our flight and so had to stay at a hotel unexpectedly. We were all wore down and ready to go to bed and not get any more worn out after that, hee. But I could not catch Gene's pet blacksnake named Peter. He kept plunging like a little rocket all over the room. He bounded off of the walls, he dashed up on to the beds and then he came sliding down again. I found some kind of a shaver case, a thick felt can long as my hand and over an inch wide, with a flap to shut it. Peter voomed right into it without fussing although I wondered how he could possibly fit. But when I tried to tuck in the flap, Peter came flashing out again. (I never even saw that pun until after I typed it! Bad, bad Paisley!)
Next he slipped out under the door into the hotel hallway. Where had Peter gone, maybe under the next door down where the light was still on, maybe under the dark one? Oh horror! Let's be frank, oh shit! The screams I was waiting for I didn't hear, though, whew...
Out in the dark street I kept searching for Peter and hoping I could find my way back again. All the buildings on this street looked like enormous Victorians, a little bit run down with weeds growing (not as many as our place, that's a true confession). I crossed the street to get to the biggest house with the darkest shadows around its veranda. It seemed to me like Peter, who was an extremely black snake, would like the darkest places best to hide in.
I thought I saw Peter away down near the house foundation. No such luck, it was another snake that was trying and trying to enter the house through a closed cellar window. Next thing, I saw several snakes, all larger than Peter, as I turned and walked toward the driveway.
At the side of the house I found the biggest snake yet, about two yards long. As I watched it met another snake of the same size and kind, but obviously the opposite sex, considering what they did next. After dancing a little courtship, the two of them entwined. I saw glowing red-orange and blue-green colors running in spirals around their sides. That was when I realized I was at a rare occasion, a magic holy mating. No sooner did I think that than the snakes seemed to notice how awed I was and came toward me. I wouldn't have thought they could move so gracefully without separating from each other, but that's dreaming for you.
I knew what I was supposed to do next and lay down on the driveway and spread em a little, in a way asking the snakes if I could join with them. They slid up my body, and I wondered what would happen next as they stopped and looked down at me.
I took a big wad of paper money out of my pocket (this was what I was supposed to do) and put it in the open mouth of the male snake, which was on my left. He bit down on the paper and stuck it back in my hand. It had turned into a soft slippery whitish clay. Then the snake shot a glittering white thick fluid out from his fangs on to the clay. I mixed the stuff up with both hands, put it in my mouth, and swallowed it. It didn't go down easy. After that I "cleaned my plate" (licked my hands) to be polite. It didn't taste like anything except (big surprise) the inside of my mouth when I've been mouthbreathing all night and dried it out. Then the snakes moved on up over my shoulders on both sides of my neck at once.
I was so grateful that the snakes, or maybe gods in the shape of snakes, had given me the ability to speak with animals. (That was what the ritual meant.) Looking for Peter again, I found a lot of cats of different colors on the driveway but not a snake to be seen. A few lit-up windows showed at the back of the house and I was worried Peter might have crawled in and livened things up. I tried calling him by hissing in snake language, and didn't get any response. Suddenly I saw that Peter had turned into a black kitten with big bright green eyes.
I wanted to get back to the hotel with Peter on the double. But when I found my way back out on the street everything looked unfamiliar. It was darker for one thing. The trees looked larger, blacker, and maybe older. Besides there was no hotel anywhere in sight. Had I maybe pulled a Rip van Winkle?
It was a very cheery dream, believe it or don't. I didn't tell genial Gene about it, didn't know how he'd take having his peter turned into pussy! ;-> (That's a winker smilie isn't it?)

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La Belle Dame Sans Souci: I surely don't mean to criticize, but if I'd had a dream like that I'd have turned red as a stop-light if I ever told it. But it was fun to read, I'm glad you posted it!
Now I should post one too to be fair to everyone and make up for making a fuss, but I don't have many dreams, and most of the ones I remember I wish I hadn't. Anyway I surely do hope none of you mind reading a nightmare.
The absolute worst one was once when I dreamed I was out in a city. It was about twilight, and I knew I was waiting for something truly bad to happen. It had to do with the people around me, but I didn't remember what they were going to do till they finally did it.
At first, they didn't notice me at all except to glance on and off me, like people do in cities. Then, just as one man looked away from me, his eyes left a nasty lime-colored blur. You know, an afterglow, like you see in your eyes after a flashbulb goes off. It made me cringe a little bit. I wanted to get off the street, but I didn't know where to go before everyone started mobbing me. Everytime they looked at me, they left those awful green blurs after their eyes moved.
Then, all these complete strangers started telling me the worst things about myself that I knew were true, I mean, in the dream they were true. How I'd stolen a purse, and lied about copying homework, and there was a body buried in our back yard, and I had done the dirty deed. The worst thing was, knowing no one would help me, that is, because anyone I met would start seeing green too someday. It was so sad it woke me up crying.

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Aquinas: If only the Clintonites would admit what even the booboisie can see, and what Hans Christian Andersen adumbrated, that their polished neo-Kennedy Emperor has no clothes at all, nothing in fact but a smile and a hairstyle. Again and again Bill Clinton lied during his campaign, again and again his lies and dirty tricks were revealed. The chickens, Pinocchios, and witches that so mysteriously haunted Bush's rallies were traced to a Democratic "counter-events" unit that infiltrated the Republican volunteers. The Democrats thespically denied their culpability, even when a chicken suit was found in the Chicago Democratic headquarters: oh no, what responsible politician would do such a thing? Forsooth, and now we behold the answer.
Where indeed are those lurid hubristic Clinton promises whose glow was wont to light our nights during campaign season newscasts? He attacked influence peddling with well-played sincerity, and his administration is engorged with ex-lobbyists awaiting feeding time at the Circus Pennsylvaniensis. He promised a new health-care plan to solve all the nation's ills from occupational paper cuts to AIDS, and we have only his hints that some policy-perusing Star Chamber has been filled by medical academics and administrators more noted for tying red tape than bandages. He vowed to invest in a new America, and has come forth with nothing more innovative than Head Start, unemployment benefits, and other orts from the hoary wastepile of liberal charlatanry. He swore to reinvigorate the American economy, beyond a doubt hoping to filch the credit for the slow sure growth ensured by the policies of George Bush, and all we have seen are taxes and protectionist policy more suited to a street urchin building a toy economy in a bottle than to a competent economic statesman.
To borrow from George Will, "Statecraft is soulcraft", and the manipulations of the Clinton era may already be felt in the deterioration of the "will to truth" of the American people. We may long regret this the reign of the "final victor and new champeen" of the All-Arkansas Liars' Competition.

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Bill Inconnu (husband, gentleman, reconciliator, sysop (which means God)):

The clock said:

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and Sam was out of sorts. He had tried quicksort, bubble sort, several custom sorts culled from back issues of BYTE, and a homebrew sorting algorithm from the guru down the hall (which Sam didn't understand, since even the comments were written in C). They all failed differently: some got stuck in infinite loops, some crashed the computer, and one ran to completion and helpfully announced "0.6 RECORDS SORTED OF -1783".
Sam imagined thousands of tiny neurons in his head coughing and moaning, with wisps of smoke rising from their dendrites. A red glow suffused the steamy cranium. Rebellious neurons began to whisper angrily to each other. Leaflets were surreptitiously passed under the desks: "Visit Olympic National Park. The Hoh Rain Forest, on the western slopes of Mount Olympus, is one of the wettest places on Earth..." Color photos showed immense tree trunks, ferns, mosses, mist. A quiet steady damp sound as fog condensed high in the trees and dripped everywhere to the ground. "Fat white grubs burrow in blind fear..."
Sam remembered he was still at work, and glanced up.

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Shit, he hated digital clocks. He hit it.

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He was never going to get this done. Hell, he'd been at it all day! His stomach was growling for its dinner. He'd be damned if he was going to stay past five. But he had to get that sort program running so it could finish the monster data file overnight, otherwise he'd be another whole day behind. Maybe he should find another algorithm. But he'd already been through seven, no, eight! It didn't make any sense that none of them ran right. Was the compiler screwing up? It was probably from trying to link C routines with the FORTRAN in the main program. But that third sort from BYTE was in FORTRAN, wasn't it?... He immersed himself in adding debugging code.
After his fourth "OVERFLOW ERROR IN LINE 16777215" Sam felt his neurons starting to hum "We Shall Overcome" and his stomach providing the bass line. He wanted to go home.

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And it wasn't even four o'clock yet! Damn, he'd be here another...
Sam saw the clock. Sam saw the clock, as rapidly-dropping blood pressure carried away whatever expression had previously been on his face. He saw the clock and thought about lawnmower motor oil: black-brown, viscous, carcinogenic, heavy, cold on that cold November day of year-end lawnmower maintenance. It had all ended up in his abdomen now, the cold dark oil, oozing coolly around his intestines as he watched the clock change:

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Ooh. Another quart of cold oil.
His name, yes, he remembered that. He remembered where he lived. He remembered his first-grade teacher, and his mom's face, and his phone number.
Then HOW had he forgotten that there was a whole number between three and four?

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Most of our Neothelemists turned up at the Club in the natural course of their pursuit of good conversation, but to meet Thalp I had to go fox-hunting by phone. Back in July 1992, I perplexedly enjoyed Sabre's tagline: "You can't help a free man, the most you can do is kill him." Sabre, it so happened, remembered the tag's source and listed numerous others from the same board:

> pi® = 3.141592©. Pat. pending, all rights reserved.
> If it doesn't change you, it isn't knowledge.
> "Holy smoke! I nearly lost Earth's rabbit to memory!" said Willis Willisbottom.
> There is a little bit of good even in the best of us.
> Humans speak so much because they cannot scratch their tongues.
> I'm not getting older, I'm getting stranger.
> Original Sin means the only GOOD Christian is a dead Christian.
> Godhead must have loved fractals, because they made so many of It.
> aynrand: (in mathematics) an irrational exponent of absolute value.
> Brain: custard with an attitude.
> Expect a self-opening parcel.
> If I knew where I was, I wouldn't be there. You would.
> We only use 10% of our brain; the other 90% uses us.
> Revenge, the gift that keeps on giving.
> Someone whose only tool is a fingernail treats everything like an itch.
> Q: Where can I get UnHoly Water? A: Try a sans-seraph font.
> Pascal's Wager: the bigger the lie, the more there is to gain by believing it.
> Occam's Razor: simple theories convince simple minds.
> Civilisation: living safely while thinking dangerously.
> Survival is the original sin, the religion of all against all.
> Neuman catastrophe: (in computer programming) 'What, me comment?'
> Promote intellectual diversity in the workplace! Hire the schizoid!
> "Take what you want," says God, "and die of it."
> Peyote users -- puke now and avoid the rush...
> Marxism: you can't fake omelets without breaking eggs.
> Money, publicity, and holiness: you can have any two.
> PMS: think of it as ovulation in action.
> Question authority! Who, me?

Hmmmmngrhgh, as they say in the old country (when they've been chewing peanut butter). One of those tags was mine (how fast they diffuse!), but some of them seemed to have an even weirder author than "You can't help". Chasing him or her down could make a cute mini-article or LTE for a puter magazine; possibly I could give it some bitwit title like "stalking the wild tagline".

1st source: A local BBS known for its CD-ROM changer full of program files and its shortage of messages. There was "pi®", right after old Junkyard Dawg's fancyANSI signature. Talk to the Dawg...
2nd: Aha, barks he, he'd fetched the file from a BBS mistress. The one called Catty Clysm (or Elle Kabong, when on her own board), GLAUM's personal Fury, the Wicked Witch of the NW, the woman who put the ego in Oregon. Oh, blort!
3rd: Terrible news. Elle Kabong had "tongues", "Godhead", and "If I knew", and she had the tag file and knew the filename -- and she'd gotten it from Macavity. Who'd taken it from the (sob) Internet. THE Internet. I think I'll just go bury myself under 16 tons of bits right now, and save time.
4th: Luck-out. They keep a lot of tagline files at the same site Macavity used. One file had all the tags I was after except "Expect". Maybe the operator there can tell me who uploaded the file. Oink oink flap flap, as the old tag says.
5th: Smart operator, he wouldn't tell me the fellow's ID. I think he thought I was social engineering. Nevertheless he *promised* to ask the guy about the file. Hope he's not another Bastard Operator From Hell.
6th: Eurekoid! The fine funny father of all files recalled the board where he saw and nabbed the "tongues" file. But, but, but, is there a phreakter in the house? The dAmN BBS is halfway across the country and 1200 baud!
7th: I Found Yt! Thalp, that is, wasting yts text on an Arkansas Paulian BBS almost as small as New Theleme but more like this...

> Creation Science proves the speed of light has been changing ever since creation and that's what has fooled evilutionists into thinking the earth has existed more than a few thousand years. Catholics, Mormons, 7DAs, Jehovah's Witnesses, and liberation theologists are all blasphemers or sell-outs, not real Christians at all. Samuel 12:1-6 shows us it's all right to keep some facts from political opponents if it might persuade them to Christian policies because that's what the prophet Samuel did to King David. There's no such thing as an overpopulation problem; the misery in places like India is part of God's Plan to make the best people flee to the US where their work can do the most to improve the world. Women should be full-time mothers because only women have the right kind of arm bones for cuddling babies. Only the Christian charities deserve any money; the non-religious ones are ineffective and hypocritical; unreligious people only do charity while it suits their vanity, and their groups are full of fraud and embezzlement. Our community won a victory for family values, the ladies' league had a secretary fired from a radio station because she was seen alone in a bar. I'm glad my divorce was so painful; it brought me closer to the Lord; my father-in-law had been Satan because my husband wasn't a Christian. We should all continue our wall-of-thorns prayers to implore God to send tribulations (if it be His will) upon moral relativists and secular humanists, who are on the path of witchcraft. The Lord our God is a man of war, and so am I. The Book of Revelations proves Bill Gates is the AntiChrist, so we must be ready for the Rapture. We ought to tell our boys for their own good that their penises will rot off if anyone but a lawful wedded wife plays with them.

See, the difference between Christianity and Paulianity is that Jesus the Nazarene wasn't a normal, but Paul of Tarsus was. As for Christians, there's a lot to be said for them but few to say it about. As for Paulians, I'll give you a free incantation to exorcise them from your personal lives.

Incantation: | Translation:
Abeste fideles, | Begone all ye faithful,
Laevi tam infantes, | Such befuddled infants,
Redite, redite in Bethlehem. | Go back where you came from
| in Bethlehem.
Natum ridete, | Go ye and scorn him,
Regulum gerrarum, | Little king of fooleries.
Venite ignoremus, | Oh come let us ignore him,
Venite ignoremus, | Oh come let us ignore him,
Venite ignoremus, | Oh come let us ignore him,
Omissum. | Christ the Fnord.

It works best when sung in chorus with Paulians caroling "Adeste Fideles", and does miracles in dispelling the Salivation Army and their Yuletide Pavlovian bell-ringing. Do feel free to use it.

Dear mild-mannered readers, if any, please don't chide me that I should respect these folks' beliefs. I'll gladly respect anyone's theories and speculations, and I'll loyally admire their helpful behavior. I'll try to appreciate their jokes. I'll even be such a softheaded ninny as to believe in their kindly intentions. But respect their *beliefs*? Never, not while I have half a wit left in my tiny pink skull.

See, if someone is certain of a belief, they can't won't can't change their mind about it. If they can't change, the idea is effectively an innate trait like a horse's running speed, a cat's nightglow eyes, or a mosquito's hypodermic. It makes sense to accept the existence of acquired mental traits that are as immutable as beliefs are, and to make the best of them (from a safe distance), but respect just isn't relevant.

Never noticing the superheated plasma that yt was getting by way of Paulian repartee, Thalp kept mildly posting messages of great gist:

> I don't comprehend the abortion issue, or would the better phrase be the abortion of your "issue"; on Omega we say, plant the seeds and let the soil have its say. If I understand correctly, human rape is possible solely because human women, unlike men, are so designed that sex does not lead invariably to orgasm; perhaps women could learn controlled projectile vomiting as self-defense; your bulimia trend may be a step in evolving that defense. Biblical Creation and evolution could both be accurate theories: everyone has a different "subjective" world, and the Christians' subjective worlds began exactly as and when the Creation myth said. Why do you portray your deity as motionless on a throne, while your Devil goes to and fro and up and down?

Thalp stood out like Yog-Sothoth in a Santy Claus suit. At once I wrote a "private" message to invite yt into The New Theleme Club. Theofe tagged along after a few days; later she admitted she'd already been lurking the Club.

Thalp: Hello and good rooting to you all. I may introduce myself or selves. My name is Thalp and I am an Omegan writing with sbat's help. I am a natural herbal visitor to the planet. Upon this moment I modemm to you from a hovering spacecraft through a device resonating to your telephonic system. I have uploaded a file THALP.TXT to tell you more about our species and myselves.
On my planet I am considered definitely young, having had only 353 1/2 buds. With my inexperience in your language, I would like to converse with you while I remain near Earth. Please forgive me or us if your etiquette is breached. As yet I do not deeply understand your idiomms and courtesies and would "appreciate" your help. End result, I locate quotes around the wordings whose multiple meanings most confuse me.
I remain perplexed about precisely how your geologists and other tactonics scientists measure discourtesy. Please distinguish between the terms "invective", "contumely", "calummny", and "vilification". Which technical term most accurately equals the value of Blue Jay's initial message about "bigotery"? How much may I avoid offense?

I begged Bill Inconnu to let me be the first to answer Thalp, and after he'd put in his earplugs and put in his earplugs and put in his earplugs, he *sigh*ed and conceded the privilege.

Ruby Arsenic: Welcome to our BBS and planet, if a planet like this one can ever be well come to. The unified theory of tact, not that it's more than theory to me (sob), is that it's necessary to avoid any hint that you believe the worst about the motives, sanity, or intelligence of your dissenting partner in discourse. However, tact is an art rather than a science and therefore must be compared to samples rather than gauged by rules.
To avoid offense, all my examples (which follow) have been changed into my hypothetical responses to someone saying "I don't like them Krotaists." ( I'm speaking as a longtime believer in Krota, god of mixed blessings, second thoughts, crossed signals, tradeoffs, judgment calls, Pyrrhic victories, lucky failures, humor, and sincere apologies).
Richter 1: True and total tact. Absolutely no damage is done. My reaction as a tactful Krotaist might be, "Is it me? Have I done something to trouble you?" Notice my willingness, effortless though it may not be, to accept that this anti-Krotaist has some good reason for his attitude.
Richter 2: Tact plus discomfort. Shock is perceived only by sensitive seismographs. I attempt to change the subject. "Aha, but have you ever heard a Krotaist pun? I'm sure you'd get a honk out of it." This might be a cautious diversionary hint that we Krotaists can't be all bad -- we have a natural sense of humor, if not of rhythm. With luck, the topic will shift to a fault-free zone.
Richter 3: A slightly perceptible jolt, according to the terminology of tactonics. "Let's talk about something else." "I can't understand why you'd feel that way." "I suppose it's very easy to feel that way..." The adverse implications of what I said are almost subliminal, readily deniable, but present nonetheless, which is what makes Richter 3 euphemism rather than tact.
Richter 4: The reasonable expostulation. I say, "That's misleading. Obviously we all should judge Krotaists only as individuals, not as a group." There is now a definite sensation of motion toward confrontation. Domestic animals may exhibit some alarm.
Richter 5: Stiff outrage. Some breakage and displacement of local premises will probably occur. "It's very offensive that you'd say something like that in public, especially in front of a Krotaist like me. It's completely out of line. How could you say such a thing?" Directly, I've attacked the anti-Krotaist as rude, and indirectly I've implied he's done something literally unspeakable. At Richter 5, I've definitely gone on the offensive, or become so.
Richter 6: Jarring criticism delivered with nearly devastating rhetorical force. Borderline conversational destruction. Federal aid will be required to rebuild. "I think you are vastly over-simplifying a very complex set of traits by referring to Krotaists in that pejorative tone. Your pigeonholing myriads of individuals in a unflattering way gives a strong impression of intellectual affectation. Your opinions appear to depend entirely on stereotypes and a certain amount of prejudice. After all, it's easy to dismiss people's beliefs if you misinterpret them carefully enough. I think that half the fun of having an opinion is being able to argue rationally in support of it. Consequently, my viscera tend to get into an uproar when I hear a non-argument intended to deflect attention away from the true issue and evoke an emotional response. As far as I'm concerned, non-arguing gets you nowhere. I hope you can remedy the situation."
The salient point in distinguishing between Richter 5 and Richter 6 is that I've euphemistically juggled a great many words to create an obvious "BIGOT"-shaped hole in the discussion without ever outright saying the b-word.

(Editorial self-interruption: Free Meson was hot under the choler, he was angry enough to twist the head off a mad dog, oh yes, he sent me private e-mail in which he screeeamed like a baby fire hydrant. I'd condensed his anti-"racist" message to Blue Jay for the Richter 6 example.)

Richter 7: At Richter 8 (the insult direct) and higher, contusion reigns and there will be no survivors. That makes Richter 7 the most energetic tact slippage consistent with intelligent life in the area around the fault. "There ought to be a law against this kind of comment. It's people like you who start wars. You make the world a lousy place to live in. What do you want to do, put us Krotaists in concentration camps? Don't claim you didn't mean that, you just don't want to give yourself away by saying it. You nonKrotaists are all alike."
The number of words generally increases from Richter 1 up to Richter 6 and peaks at that level. By Richter 9, above even Blue Jay's record, the average word size has ebbed to one syllable and (on the average) 4 letters.

Bill Inconnu: To answer your original question: in this Club, Richter 6 messages will be considered flamebait and are strongly discouraged. Messages at higher Richter levels will be deleted. Their authors may well follow. (One member has set a new Club record at Richter 8.34. She may not be returning.)

Thalp: Here I determine I've made a mistake. Shimatta. I misread your word "tectonics" as "tactonics", a natural mistake, I consider. We Omegans provide our "mass" media and other forms of population control by a method of hydroponics. It seemed elemental to "figure" that courtesy and geology would have some commmon ground on Earth also.

Sabre: We Earthers also think the mass media are full of fertilizer.

Paisley is My Friend: Well, well, this is a nice surprise! How special to have an Omegan with us! I hope some of our fellow Club members will take note of your Omegan courtesies.

Thalp: "Special"? Is this as in your "Special" "Olympics"? May I regard "special" as the amicable greeting or the invitation to a "flame-war" ritual? If two, I/sbat say "thanks" for an offer, but I must decline, being seasonally flammable.

La Belle Dame Sans Souci: So, how are you? And sbat? Are you really Omegan? I've never heard of an Omegan before. You remind me of a living, typing dictionary, only smarter. You are very cool.

Thalp: I "appreciate" the kind remark for my vocabulary, still "credit" belongs to my six recorded Earthuman imprints. It is part of my play. All words are mine to study verbal toxicology.

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Theofe: As often before, Thalp has saved me trouble by breaking the ET ice. I also live off-Earth, in spite of my birth on Earth. I belong to a set of three dopples from the same Earthuman original. We've had a strong doppLink through much of our dopplExile in Gregaria, in other words on other planets. So I'll give the Club all of our abstracts of introduction in one monolongue :-8 (person of infinite mouth).
Theofe: Doppled to the planet Oncorya 11/17/74 together with many classmates (including her future husband Icsoner IV). In experimental servitude to the Hand 12/74 to 7/75. The Hand disappeared 7/75. IVE initiation 7/75 to 11/75. Married Icsoner IV 11/75. First return to Earth 12/75 to 11/76. Only child Eldon Carl (Elcar) born 5/8/76. Toured Gregaria, joined Prankster and CivSab coteries 11/76 to 1/79. Pursued the Roadrunner, in the form of her dopple, to the Hairball Nebula 6/80 to 12/87. Searched for, contacted her true dopples 3/88 to 5/91. Obtained a pledge of civsab interest from a small Gregarian consortium 2/90. Sabotaged the Apid expansion 5/91 to 11/91. Began research on dopplemachers 2/92. Currently observing DMs, BBSes in Earth nearspace.
Lainley: Doppled alone to the planet Roma Nova 7/17/73. Debriefed by congestores ignotorum 9/73 to 4/75. Started work in central library of the city Perusia Secunda 4/75. Met her future husband, co-translator, Tiberius Livius Machaeus, 2/78. First translation of Romanovan fiction to English completed 6/79. Her first of several fictions (an SF epic poem) published in Latin 4/80. Later fiction and translations 1981, 1982, 1984. Adopted into the Junius gens 6/83. Married Tiberius 8/83. First child (a son, Marcus Tiberius) 10/86. Moved to a colony latifundium on the continent Urania 5/88. First contacted by Theofe 5/91. A few months pregnant when last seen (2/93). Not interested in leaving Roma Nova.
Elaine: Doppled alone to the Offset Planet 5/17/77. Training as ritual gladiatorial clown-slave 5/77 to 1/78. Became yard-wife of her senior, Paul Stafford, 11/77. Began practice in the temple-yard as "Red-Arse" 2/78. Initiated into the first circle of the yard 4/79. First miscarriage 4/80. Initiated into the second circle with ritual scarification 6/81. Innovated the use of fireworks in the temple-yard shows 9/82. Second miscarriage 4/83. Demoted from performer to trainer 10/85. Paul assigned elsewhere 1/86. Underwent dream purgation 1/87 to 3/87. Severely burned 7/87. Farmed out to scribe, accountant work among the nobles 8/87. Rescued by Theofe 11/88. Sojourned on Ailuros for cosmetic gramarye, magical study 12/88 to 4/89. Returned to Earth 8/22/89. Met Dram (IRA nom de guerre David Roland Alfred Morgan) 3/90. Married Dram 1/17/91. Daughter (Diane Demetria Morgan) born 6/27/91. Moved to the backwoods 9/92, began to assist Dram's "constructive blackmail" viewalling program. Son (Edward Lawrence Morgan) born 8/18/92.
I set up my own BBS, The Inner Empire, partly to help relink originals with dopples, after years of separation. Meeting one of our dopples, originals in person feels disturbing. It gripes one to see what someone else, other circumstances, did with the raw material one regards as self. No matter how they've turned out. An original has it worse, never having known the doppling happened. The doppLink adds confusion, whimsies, notions, taunts of imagination, to the reactions of dopples, originals alike. So The Inner Empire, sometimes with help from Ixy, Thalp, some other Arbitrator, allows doppled people to meet originals in text before in person.

`Fight cerebral rhinorrhea -- stamp out certainty now! Make sense, not war!`

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