November,

o Cabbages in Time O

The faint hum of the weasel

collider powering the ship underlay
the beeps of instruments and controls
on the bridge. Jadens brow furrowed
as he looked at the viewscreen in front
of him. The cabbage space armada
was not yet visible, but it would be
only a matter of minutes.
A door opened with a swish, and
Madog Velkor stepped onto the bridge,
towelling his hair dry.
Where have you been? Jaden
asked him. Weve almost reached
their position.
I was in the sauna.
You put a sauna on a
spaceship?
Of course. Like Im going off
into deep space without a sauna!
Madog rolled his eyes. We were right.
There are fourteen of them, all heading
toward Earth.
How could they have rebuilt their
fleet so quickly? I thought wed
destroyed most of what they had during
that X-Day fiasco.
We mostly did mostly. Maybe
they have more production capabilities
left than we had estimated. Were
coming into range now.
The fourteen shimmering, finned
darts that were the cabbage cruisers
were now plainly visible on the screen.
Jaden opened a frequency and
addressed them. Attention cabbage
fleet. This is the Discordian starship
Lemuria. Turn back to Mars
immediately, or we will blow your
foliated asses to hell like we did last
year.
The viewscreen flickered, and
onto it sprang the image of two
moderately-sized cabbages flanking

a larger, seven-tentacled cabbage

perched on a raised platform. Two of
the larger cabbages tentacles
gesticulated as it communicated
telepathically with its cohorts. One of
the translators spoke for him in a

This is your last chance to turn back.

A pity, spoke the other cabbage
interpreter. Jaden rolled his eyes.
Behold the might of our legions. We
shall surely crush you.
The image shifted now to shots

booming, oddly-inflected masculine

voice with the aid of a device clutched
in one of its tentacles.
Pitiful humans! Your pitiful
spacecraft does not intimidate us, and
your pitiful boasting does not frighten
us. You cannot stop us from
conquering your pitiful civilization.
Jaden pressed the mute button
and spoke to Madog. I think that may
be the only adjective they know. He
released the button. You know our
vessel can easily destroy your fleet.

of the cabbage ships interiors, packed

with rank after rank wearing domed
encounter suits and clutching
immense firearms.
Those guns dont look like their
old ones. They might have some new
tricks up their sleeves, said Madog,
frowning. He fixed his gaze on the
cabbage commander. Cockmaster.
The two interpreters waved
tentacles at each other, discussing the
comment telepathically. The
commanders tentacles began to wave

1999

as well; finally, the booming

mechanical voice of an interpreter
spoke with a tone of surprise. Thank
you.
Madog blinked, twice.
The connection went dead, and
the viewscreen returned again to a
view of the armada, visibly increasing
its speed.
Im bringing us around to a
pursuit course. Lets find out if our
weapons are still effective, said
Madog. The sleek Discordian starship
swung to face the cabbage ships,
picking up speed. Madog thumbed the
fire control, and a pair of fiercely
glowing green torpedoes sped toward
one ship in the fleet. The torpedoes
were cased in ordinary, non-intelligent
terrestrial cabbages, a tactic intended
to piss of their sentient brethren. (It
did.)
The torpedoes struck their target,
punching through the outer hull. The
ship listed off course, and then
shuddered as violent explosions raged
within it. The burned-out hulk continued
to coast off into space on its
momentum. Wow. It seems like the
torpedoes work even better now than
last time, said Madog. He targeted
two more ships and fired.
Jaden scowled. Bring up the
conversation we just had with the
cabbages, I need to see the shots of
their troops again.
What?
Just do it. Madog did, and froze
the frame when Jaden jabbed a finger
at the screen. Aha! Look at that
double shadows!
What?
That wasnt filmed inside any

Editorial rambling
It is, perhaps, a curse. Never
quite satisfied; never quite perfect,
theres always something more,
something different that could have
been. Perhaps I equate imperfection
with impermanence. I dont think I
like that, impermanence. It seems to
me that most people manage to go
through life without contemplating
it. It never occurred to them, or, if it
did, only as a brief and unfocused
affliction, something from which they
were easily drawn away because
they glimpsed it only out of the
corners of their eyes.
Why build, why do anything if
in time not only its physical structure
but also the thought and the memory
of the thing will be scattered as if it
were never there at all? It could only
be worthwhile if it served some
purpose, had some point but I am
certain that it doesnt (as per the
articles which previously appeared
in this space), and that even if it did,
that point would also need a point,
and that another point, and so on,
robbing it of any meaning it might
have had.
Maybe it would help if I were
European. I see films whose
characters, Europeans, live in
beautiful country homes, and they
have wives, children, grandchildren,
wine, stories, and a nice view, and
it makes them happy they look at
the rolling green hills and are
content, they need nothing more. I
look at the hills and I think I do see
what they see, but a short step
behind those thoughts is a flood of
others. The rolling green hills,

? is a production of the
Ambrose Bierce Mexican Travel
Agency Cabal. We suspected
that there were more
Discordians out there than
there appeared to be, and it
looks like we were right: we now
have over 80 people on our
mailing list. This newsletter is
intended
to
provide
Discordians with the knowledge that yes, there really are
more of us, and that yes, we really Do Stuff. We hope you get
some enjoyment out of it. Write
and tell us what you think.

covered with grass, green from the

chlorophyll, which plays host to a
chain of chemical reactions to
harvest the energy of the sun, the
sun which sustains this planet,
each and every occupant of which
is slated for death. The sun will only
last another five billion years,
anyway. There will be no more rolling
hills, and the people who found
satisfaction in them will be long gone,
as will their domestic tranquillity.
Bottle caps will be gone, too. I
can remember playing in the street
and noticing little metal bottle caps
there, pressed into the asphalt by
the weight of passing cars. When I
look at the street now, though, there
are no bottle caps to be found.
Where did they all go? All the bottles
are plastic now, and the bottle caps
have been ground away by traffic,
paved over theyre gone. In ten
years, a hundred, five hundred, who
will remember that once there were
bottle caps pressed into the street?
No one. They wont even know that
they dont know. Its a petty example,
perhaps, but illustrative.
The death of things bothers
me, but what bothers me even more
is the death of even the
remembrance of those things
Theres just too much information to
pass along from one generation to
the next, and were not all that great
at passing it on anyway. Every new
generation has to learn everything
almost from scratch; we may know
some factoids from history, but the
true experience is lost forever. No
wonder people are so stupid.

Would you like to discover

further editions of this newsletter lying in wait in your mailbox
on a semi-regular basis (for
free, of course)? Good! That
means the subliminal programming was a success fnord! Email
your postal address to:

Ask
Bobo!

,
an Saint
i
d
r
o
c
s
i
lD
, officia
p
m
i
h
C
the
u!
Let Bobo problems for yo
r
solve you

Dear Bobo,
Ive been seeing a lot of those WWJD stickers, but Im not sure what Jesus
would actually do. I know youve met a lot of famous people. Have you ever
met Jesus? If so, what sort of person is he?
-Lou Biggles, Toronto, Canada
Well Lou, I have indeed met Jesus. Back in the early part of the Pax
Romana, I was living in Londinium. While there, I hooked up with a band
called the Volutare Lapidis, and was a roadie for them on their first World
Tour. While doing a gig in Judea, I worked with a carpenter who built our
set, Iesu ben Iosef. He wasnt a very good carpenter, but he and some of his
friends had formed a band, Jesus and the Disciples. They were into that
hardcore punk revolutionary shit, kinda like Rage Against the Machine
today. I spent quite a lot of time with the band, even got Keithian to talk
Mickius into letting them open for us. The Disciples were a big bunch of
braggarts, while Jesus was prone to giving lengthy advice that no one
really wanted to hear. The only one with any sense was their drummer/
manager, Judas. A typical night with them would usually include some
outlandish tale, such as the one where Peter, the bassist, claims to walk on
water while fishing. After Judas points out that they were all drunk on that
trip and Peter more likely just fell in, Jesus would go on for an hour or two
about the best way to walk on water, and how his father showed him how to
do it. I lost touch with them after we left Judea, but I heard they developed
quite a cult following before the critics crucified Jesus after the release of
his first album.

Are you in a political or moral dilemma? Do you need

help with embarrassing personal issues? Let Bobo the
Chimp, everyones favorite memetic construct, help
you! Send your questions to saint_bobo@catholic.org.
about until its too la... er... until
we decide its time to tell you the
good news. You can visit our astoundingly cool new web site
at:

www.eriswerks.org

eriswerks@earthlink.net
The net is currently the only
reliable way to contact us, as we
are frequently out of the country doing various and sundry
things that you need not know

(Cool logo, huh?)

Would you like to submit

something for the newsletter?
Good! Less work for us! Send it
to the email address previously
mentioned.
We didnt get any reports
this time of newsletters disappearing in the mail, so it looks
like our new more-than-onestaple policy has proven effective. You people need to submit
stuff, by the way. Write and tell
us things your cabal has done..
even make-believe things. Go
make some news, people!

November

1999

On the coming technocalypse

by Madog Velkor
Space Lord

A thousand years ago,

peasants and noblemen all
across Europe packed the
churches waiting for the end of
the world. When morning came
and everything was just the same
as the day before, they started
thinking. Thinking about this life
instead o the next one. And out of
those ponderings, the Modern Age
was born. Soon, this event will
repeat itself. Af ter the next
millennium shows up without any
apocalypse, computer crash, or
X-day, people will begin to create
a new age, the Age of Technology.
But what sort of age will this be?
In a way, the Technocalypse
has already begun. A century ago,
one man could know all the skills
necessary to recreate his world.
Today that would be impossible.
Already, man is becoming more
reliant on machine. In the next
millennium, this trend will only
grow greater. Consider the latest

war, between NATO and

Yugoslavia. Not a single NATO
ground troop was used to bring
victory. It was controlled by a
committee from 19 countries
who relayed their decisions via
satellites to the front. These
satellites are basically robots,
being entirely controlled by
computers. Once at the front,
the orders were relayed to robotic
cruise missiles that only needed
to be told what the target was in
order to do the jobs. The human
piloted bombers used GPS to find
their targets, computer-targeting
systems to target them and
robotic smart bombs to destroy
them. The only thing the humans
really did was to give a yes or
no to the attack. War is not the
only field that is becoming
increasingly cyberized. Modern
computers could not be built
without the aid of other computers
in the design of their CPUs, or
without the robots to do the actual
printing. Expert systems are

replacing more and more jobs

previously held by professionals,
while at the same time computers
make inroads into the service
industry and robots into
manufacturing.
There are two roads that the
future could take. One leads to
the golden utopia of Slack, while
the other leads to a digitized hell.
The Technocalypse, like it or not,
is bringing about a symbiosis
between man and machine. While
the future is never even remotely
certain, if trends continue the way
they are, then some things are
likely in the immediate future.
The first will be the loss of all
manufacturing jobs in the near
future. As telecommunications
technology and robotics both
increase rapidly, the work of a
thousand workers will be done by
one from the comfort of his or
her own home. Working at a
home computer using virtual
reality software and special input
devices, a factorys worker will

have her exact movements

duplicated by a thousand robotic
arms at the factor hundreds of
miles away. Telecommuting
foremen will patrol the factory in
troubleshooting robot avatars,
ready to correct any problems
that may arise. Needless to say,
this could potentially cause
massive displacement of workers
around the world. In places like
the US, this is likely to cause a
catastrophe, as largely
uncontrolled businesses replace
workers with machines and the
inadequate welfare system is
unable to support the newly
unemployed
population.
Likewise, computer software is
already taking the place of
accountants, interoffice mail
systems, and even lawyers. As
softer becomes more complex
other professions could be hard
hit as expert systems take their
place at $80 a box. The service
industry will hold out the longest,
but as the rising interest in online

Canadian horde invades alt.discordia

by Lohengrin Nagato
Reporter

Total devastation was the

scene as, weeks earlier, a massive Canadian Horde poured into
alt.discordia. The usenet
newsgroup, long populated exclusively by Americans, Australians,
and Swedes, was quickly overrun
despite a strong defense by forces
from the Ambrose Bierce Mexican Travel Agency. Among the casualties was the beloved Timothy
Sutter, the primary defense of
alt.discordia. Mr. Sutter proved
unable to combat the wily tactics
of the Canadians lead, a Mr. Zog
the etc., which were reported to
include logic and a surprising lack
of blatant falsehoods.

While many greeted the Canadians as liberators from the vile

Mr. Sutter. others were less eager
for Canadian occupation.
L o r d
Jaden, of
A B M TA C
was reported as
saying,
F u c k
Canada.
Fuck them
right in the
ear. They may think theyre cooler
than us because they have more
personal freedom, but they should
keep in mind that were the ones

with all the big missiles. ABMTAC

has led the resistance against the
Canadians since day one. Their
field
commander,
Space
L o r d
Madog
Velkor,
h a s
vowed
never to
give up,
to never
surrender, and to fight in the hills until
the last vile remnant of
Canadianism was erased from the
minds of all Discordians.

The Canadians themselves

appear to show little concern for
the resistance by ABMTAC. Indeed, most Discordians have indicated that they feel that ABMTAC
has little chance against the Canadians unless they were able to
get divine intervention from Eris,
or at least a little help from St.
Bobo. The invasion has made
Canada the nation with the second highest per capita Discordian
population after Sweden. Holding
the number three position was the
US, followed by Australia, Germany, and a small country hidden in the back of his mothers
closet made up by this reporter
because he was very lonely as a
child.

A letter to the superintendent

Were not sure where this letter came from originally. We came across it on the web at
http://www.amherst.edu/~mcspinks/ibft, a site which is filled with many other interesting things as well.

Dear Superintendent Grimmel:

I have received your letter asking
why my daughter Greta is not attending
your school system. I want to try and
answer that.
I would like to avoid conflict
between us by saying that Greta will be
attending a private or alternative
school, but the truth is that she will not
be attending any school. I would also
like to be able to say that my wife Jane
and I are not aware that Greta must
attend school by law. But we are. We
are also aware that the State has
penalties in such cases. But we dont
care.
I assure you that what we are
doing we are not doing lightly. We dont
break laws lightly. Where the touch of
the State is soft on the shoulder of our
family, we do not shrink. We pay our
taxes, we get shots for our dog, we
register our car and drive it slowly. We
dont disturb anyones peace, and we
dont litter. We are good neighbors and
good people.
But at this touch - where
compulsory education touches the life
of our daughter - you must excuse us if
we tell you to lay off. This law we choose
to break.
In a word, no.
This is our beloved daughter,
whose body and soul were given by
God into our keeping, and you cannot
have her.
This is the heart of the matter. Let
me try to explain.
Greta is more ours than yours
certainly, but she is really Gods. Jane
and I are her mother and father
because God needed a woman and a
man to lie down together and prepare
a place for a human soul that was ready
to incarnate on earth. God wanted Jane
and me to take care of that soul - to
nurture and protect it - until the time it

is ready to go out on its own and do the

tasks God has appointed for it. Our
responsibility, as we see it, is to protect
that soul from all harm so that it may
grow according to its own laws.
Sometimes I think of myself as a temple
guard, standing before the sanctuary
of the Lord, making sure that the unholy
do not enter.
Does this seem silly and
overblown to you? It does to me too, a
little. I mean, all I want to do is answer
the question, Why arent we sending
Greta to kindergarten? The problem
is that every time I think I have answered
it, I say to myself, No, thats not it,
theres something under that. and then
I go to that deeper level, and theres a
level under that, and so on until at the
bottom of it all is God. I have a
responsibility to God to protect this being
that He has sent me. That is the heart of
the matter.
I dont know you as a man,
Superintendent Grimmel. All I know is
that you share the values that inform
the compulsory public education
system in the country. You, your
principals, and your teachers share
those values. Some more, some less,
but youve all got your fingers in that
pie.
Frankly, I dont trust a one of you
with my daughters spirit. This is my
beloved daughter, in whom I am so
well pleased that I sometimes cry just
thinking about her, and I will not hand
her over to you.
Let me introduce my daughter.
Greta is five, fair, blond, blue-eyed,
and quite beautiful.
From birth she has toed-in,
especially her left foot, so she has to
wear orthopedic shoes. We do special
exercises every night.
One evening when she was two,
lying in bed waiting for her story, Greta
started singing the words, My tushy

feel good, my vagina feel good. The

tune was quite pleasant, and she sang
it for about ten minutes, the same
words, the same tune, over and over.
Then, with one last My tushy feel good,
my vagina feel good, rising to a kind of
crescendo of pure well-being, she
looked up at me and said, Know that
song?
When she was 18 months old,
she fell while carrying a glass of juice
and slit her right wrist down to the
nerve. She lost feeling and control in
her hand and had to be operated on by
a team of surgeons with fancy
equipment. She was in the operating
and recovery rooms, on her back with
masked strangers doing strange and
hurtful things to her, for eight hours.
The operation was successful though.
The nerve has regenerated completely,
and except for her index finger
sometimes wiggling about aimlessly,
her hand is perfect. There is a scar that
looks like a wishbone on her wrist. There
are scars inside too. To this day, she
distrusts many strangers, especially
men, and she doesnt like to be
separated from us, and she is
frightened of people wearing masks.
She loves to swing on swings, and
play with other kids, and carry small
objects around all day, and tell time,
and open car doors, and eat, and talk.
She dearly loves to talk. I have never
met anyone who talks more than Greta.
When she was three, she fought
for and won the right to choose her
own clothes. Sometimes she comes
down the stairs looking like a pile of
laundry.
She has an incredible memory.
Sometimes shell say to me, Hey
Papa, remember the time when... and
then shell narrate an incident that
happened so long ago and with such
minute detail that I, who have forgotten
it entirely, just listen in amazement.

She is very smart. Im smart too,

and I know the expectations people lay
on you when youre smart, and I am
frightened by how smart Greta is.
She laughs hysterically when
tickled. Cries unmercifully when hurt
or mad. Sometimes, if she doesnt get
her way, or if shes lonely or just bored,
she whines and whines until I go crazy
and tell her I cant stand it anymore,
and then she either stops and gets it
together or bursts into tears.
She loves all beings littler than
herself. Babies, chipmunks, birds,
insects. Her favorite stories are the ones
I tell her about Thumbelina, who lives
in a hole under a tree near our cabin.
One morning, when I was in a rage at
our cat and hitting him because he
had peed on the floor, I looked over at
Greta and saw a look of such intense
personal hurt and disappointment in
me that I stopped and went over and
held her.
She has a basically bipolar view
of the universe. To her way of thinking,
a thing is either Yuk or Yum. One does
not have to probe very deeply to find
out her opinion of something. Hey,
Greta, wanna help me clear the table?
Yuk.
She writes songs, flowing
spontaneous songs that she sings all
day. Her latest one is called Flowers:
Flowers at breakfast time
Flowers at lunch time
Flowers at dinner time
Flowers flowers flowers
Boom boom boom
Flowers Flowers Flower
Boom boom boom
Flowers in the spring
Flowers in the summer
Flowers in the sun of the east.
When Greta feels insecure, she
likes to stick her thumb in her mouth
or her fingers in her vagina. Once shes
plugged in, she feels better.

November

1999

She is not conscious of being

naked. I have seen other little children
titter at her when she was naked, and
she just looks back, mystified. How
long she can stay in her prelapsarian
innocence I dont know; I know that
she will eventually fall and join the rest
of us, but it hasnt happened yet.
Once in a while, she pees in her
pants. Sometimes its because shes
laughing very hard, sometimes
shes just playing so hard that she
forgets it, and sometimes shes mad at
someone and its a revenge. Once
when she was mad at me, her revenge
was to go upstairs and break all my
toothpicks.
She doesnt close the bathroom
door when on the toilet. She isnt yet
ashamed to be seen doing what human
beings do. As a matter of fact, not only
is she not private about defecating, shes
quite social, and often invites passersby in for a chat.
She has seen me and Jane and
other grown-ups display some pretty
intense emotions. She has seen us cry
and scream. She has seen us angry
and frightened. She looks on, curious,
a bit awed, but she seems to accept it
all as part of being human.
Shes always picking fights with
me these days. I tell her to go wash her
face, and she tells me she doesnt have
to. Youre not my boss! I tell her its
time for bed, and she says it isnt. I tell
her its cold outside and she should
wear a sweater, and she tells me its
not cold and she can wear whatever
she wants to. I think shes separating
her ego from ours and feeling her
power, which is great, but it drives me
nuts and I often feel like strangling her.
She gets so mad at me
sometimes! She screams and hits me.
She calls me a dummy. Her electric
little rage. One part of me hates it.
Another part is just so damn proud of
her that all I can do while Im getting
punched is watch in admiration.
So, what will you teach this
creature in your schools,
Superintendent?
Will you teach her that every

single part of her body, from her eye to

her anus, is holy? Will you teach her
that she - she herself, inside out - is
from God and therefore perfect? Will
you teach her to love herself? Will you
teach her that whatever feeling she is
feeling at any given moment is valid
and okay? Will you teach her that she is
better than no one and no one is better
than her? Will you teach her not to judge
anyone or argue with anyone? Will you
teach her that television is empty, that
newspapers and movies and stores and
cars and cosmetics and clothes are
narcotics, that money is guilt, that the
American middle-class is desperate,
that disease of the body is disease of
the spirit, that 90 percent of the food in
supermarkets is poison, that capitalism
sucks? Will you teach her about
suffering beautiful humanity? Will you
teach her to every moment choose life?
And what I mostly want to know,
Superintendent, will you teach my
daughter that she is God?
I know you wont. I didnt go
through twenty years of schooling
fornothing. I know what goes on in those
classrooms. Christ, Im a teacher! I get
them at the end of the line in college. I
see whats been done to those kids. I
see their hot, angry pimples. I see them
slump and cower in their chairs. I see
their boredom and their laziness, which
I know is really rage. I see the horrible
thing in their eyes, the overwhelming
question they keep asking with their
eyes and which I can never answer. I
see!
Listen. I will tell you two stories.
One day I told my students
(freshmen at a prominent east-coast
university) to pull out a piece of paper.
They all did. I told them to print their
names in the upper right-hand corner.
They all did. I told them to title
the paper A Syllabus of
Syllables, and then underline the title.
They all did. I told them to write the
following syllables next to the numbers:
ge, sha, la, urb, orb, go, vin, sko, sti,
cer. They all did. I told them
to form a word from each of the
syllables. They asked me a few

questions - they wanted to be sure

exactly what it was I wanted from them
- and then they all hunched over their
papers and did it. I told them to fold the
paper in half. Deborah asked which
way. I said lengthwise. Then I told them
to hand in their papers. They all did. I
stood there with a handful of 15 papers
folded lengthwise. Everybody was
looking at me.
Not one of them asked me why
we were doing this. Not one of them
told me to go screw myself. Not one of
them - not one - even looked at me
strange.
Why should they? Nothing strange
had happened. This was school. School
is where you give up your power, you
do what youre told, and you dont ask
questions. In school, we all learn not to
care anymore, not even to care that
were being humiliated, because
everybody keeps telling us that were
being educated.
Another time, later in the
semester, I walked into class purposely
late. They were all seated, talking. I sat
down and looked around. They stopped
talking and looked at me. I looked back
and said nothing. They kept looking at
me. I kept saying nothing. It went on for
about five minutes clock time, but it
seemed like an eternity. Finally, Russell
asked the class, Why isnt anybody
saying anything? Nobody answered.
Then Marilyn asked me, Why arent
you saying anything?
What do you want me to say? I
asked.
I dont know. Run the class, I
guess.
Its your class. You run it.
She looked at me as if I had just
asked her to stand on her head and
bounce out of the room. They all began
to realize that something was
happening here and everybody began
talking. Different people were putting it
in different words, but the message was
for me to take power. I either said no or
just said nothing and watched. One or
two students tried to get things started
by running the class as I would have
run it.

No, said Miriam, dont you see

thats what hes trying to tell us? We
cant do things his way!
They didnt know what to do. They
were stuck. Then they started getting
mad, first at each other, then at me.
Teach us something. Its your
job, complained Terry.
Ill be glad to. What do you want
to know?
I dont know.
You dont know what you want to
know?
Yes.
No.
Then I got mad and said sarcastic
things. Then they got mad and started
defending themselves and accused me
of being unfair.
Things went on like that all class.
By the end of the hour, two had broken
down in tears, five or six had just up
and left, one had stormed out and
slammed the door muttering nasty
things, one just kept repeating, Im so
confused, Im just so confused, I dont
know what Im doing here.
Oh yes, I know what the schools
teach, Superintendent Grimmel. They
dont teach anything. What schools do
is socialize. The main function of our
schools is to produce good Americans,
small humble helpless people who look
and think and dress and talk and hope
alike, mechanical people programmed
to tumble from school into ticky-tacky
houses and fit into the machine. Some
fit high, some low, but the purpose of
the schools is to produce parts for the
machine.
America is the machine, we are
the parts. Factories need workers,
corporations need executives, offices
need secretaries, and schools need
superintendents. Everybody must fit.
But the slots arent very big, and the
human spirit is huge, so you have to
whittle people down pretty small to fit
them in, and that takes a long time, so
school takes many years. And nobody
really wants to get whittled down like
that, nobody really wants to be made
small and afraid, nobody really wants
to have the God pumped out of them,

so lets make school compulsory! Lets

kidnap the little gods and put them in
yellow buses and transport them to
schools. They have to come and get
made puny by law.
I was once talking to a high-school
kid and asked him what year he was
in. He said, I only got two more years
to serve. He wasnt trying to be funny.
It was a slip of the tongue.
I am sure you are not a bad
person, Superintendent Grimmel. I bet
many of your teachers are good, gentle,
loving people. But because they are
working for a system, they are the
system, and they will teach my daughter
the teachings of the system.
I know what you will teach her.
You will teach her first that she
needs a teacher to teach her. That
knowledge and power come from the
outside. The message is that she
doesnt know anything inside herself,
shes an empty ignorant helpless vessel
that must be filled. I cant begin to tell
you how wrong that is.
You will teach her that she is not a
person but a role: a little girl, bright
child, advanced reader, first-grader,
sophomore, Phi Beta Kappan,
graduate, Ph.D. She will look up to
those in superior roles, and down at
those in inferior roles, but she will not
look straight at people, behind the roles,
at the persona and the God in the
person. In time, she will begin to identify
with her role. She will forget who she
really is. In every sense of the word,
she will then be lost.
You will teach her that she is weak
and that authority is strong. In the name
of practicality, youll suck the fight out
of her. I really hate it when Greta fights
with me, but I hope she never stops.
Above all , you will teach her fear.
First, she will fear teachers and then all
grown-ups. She will fear failure, which
means that she will fear endeavor. She
will grow to fear the feelings natural to
a human being and a little girls - feelings
of terror, rage, vulnerability, power, and
love. She will grow numb to the best
stuff inside her. She will be ripped and
uprooted out of her own dark human

soil, and like the rest of us shell be left

to rot in the dryness of her intellect.
You will teach her that life is
compromise and choices are limited.
Some nice teacher will give her the
choice to write a paper about her
summer vacation or about her
neighborhood, but I dont think that the
teacher will give my daughter the
choice to write whatever she wants,
including nothing at all - and thats the
choice that takes the bullshit out of the
other choices.
You will teach her that there are
places and activities of her own little
glorious body that are ugly and dirty.
That will be a subtle teaching, although
the first time that Greta gets insecure in
school and sticks her fingers in her
vagina, the scene will probably not be
subtle.
I wonder what youll teach her
the first time she calls you a piss-ass.
She calls me a piss-ass all the time.
I call her a piss-ass back, which
makes her laugh. Will you,
Superintendent Grimmel, laugh with
Greta when she comes to your office
and calls you a piss-ass?
You will teach her competition. It
wont take long for her to realize that
her A means nothing unless her friend
Julie gets a B, better an F, so in some
deep corner inside her Greta will be
hoping failure for Julie. Hoping failure
for your best friend (Rusty Swartz!
Forgive me, I loved you!) is an evil thing,
and schools are evil for doing that to
people. Schools corrupt friendship.
Where there is supposed to be equality,
trust, and cooperation, you put
hierarchy, fear, and competition.
People secretly competing with each
other never look each other square in
the eye because their real loving selves
are hiding under their scared
competitive selves, and who wants
anyone to see that in your eyes? Do you
really think I will allow you to tamper
with my daughters clear gaze?
You will teach her that the
purpose of learning is a good grade
and a teachers approval. You will move
the source of her own sense of

achievement - her very pride, joy, and

independence - outside herself into an
authority. When little Johnny gets that
A, he feels great, but if he gets a D, he
is wretched with shame and guilt. You
will make my daughter dependent on
the outside world for her own opinion
of herself. In the end, shell be like you
and me, like all of us who went through
it, looking out of scared squirrel eyes
always asking everybody, Am I okay?
Am I okay? Not by accident but on
purpose, at the very center of their
purpose, schools make people feel not
okay. Who else but people who felt not
okay, people emptied out of all their
hard proud stuff, would willingly fit into
this social system? Schools rip the You
out of you, and by the time youre done,
you sit there burnt-out, gutted, soft as
mush, ready to do what youre told.
Then they call your name and you go
up and get your diploma.
You will teach her that at age five
she should know her alphabet and at
six she should know how to read, at
nine she should know this, and at ten
that. There is one clock in all your
schools, and it tells time for everybody.
I dont know who first suggested that
the human spirit grows at the same
rate in every human being, but whoever
did should take a walk in the woods
during spring and see if a maple buds
the same week as an oak.
Superintendent Grimmel, youre going
to tell Greta that she should read at six,
when maybe she wont want to read
until shes ten. Maybe she has better
things to do. When she wants to learn
how to read, she will come to me and
say, Papa, help me learn how to read,
and I will. It will take a month. Well
have a ball. And for the rest of her life,
she will learn what she needs to know
when she needs to know it. Her learning
will always be a voluntary inner
response to an inner need. If she needs
a book or a teacher or even a school,
shell find all of those. But it will always
be her need, not your curriculum.
Youll teach her all about time.
The school day runs from 8 to 2:30.
For 50 minutes you sit in a room and

then a bell rings and for 5 minutes you

walk through the halls and then a bell
rings. Dont be late. Pink slip. Times
up. Tick-tock. But kids time is timeless,
they live in one vast moment, and it is a
great sin to put them in time, and time
in them. Oh, I know, it will happen to
Greta eventually, and to some extent it
already has. She too will forget that she
floats in a sea of eternity, but please,
not when shes five for heavens sake.
Somehow shell learn that sex is
bad and genitals giggly. Somewhere
along the line shell learn that you dont
cry or shout in public, and you dont get
mad at grown-ups, and you hold in burps
and cover yawns and apologize for
sneezes. Shell end up saying Please
and Thank you when she doesnt
mean it. Shell probably grow up being
rational instead of intuitive, cool and
judicious instead of hot and
spontaneous. Shell talk softly, think
small, and write like a corpse.
Somehow the message will get to her
that the purpose of life is work and the
purpose of work is money. She will be
somewhat of a sexist and somewhat of
a racist and somewhat of a patriot.
Probably shell end up being a
consumer, and shell think that
consuming will bring her happiness.
And shell get the message that you
really cant do much to change things,
that ya better like what ya get kid
because you are powerless.
Probably no one will ever actually
tell her this crap, but theres an osmosis
that goes on in your schools, and the
medium is the message, so shell get
it. Oh boy, will she get it.
God help her, she gets a lot of this
stuff from me and Jane and her
grandparents and playmates. I know
that everything I have said schools will
teach her she will learn anyway. Its
called growing up in America. Its also
called falling from grace, and it seems
to happen to all of us. I know that Greta
will not be spared, whether or not she
goes to school. But with all the forces
threatening the integrity of her soul,
and with such a long hard battle ahead
of her, she doesnt have to face the

November

1999

going in after them.

spaceships, thats shoddy soundstage
The ship vibrated harder and
work!
harder as it plunged into the tunnel
What?
after the cabbages. Instrument panels
Stop saying what. Im saying flashed wildly and then went dead.
that there are no troops on those ships. Madog swore as the contents of the
This is some kind of trick.
bridges minibar smashed to the deck.
Madog fiddled with some
Abruptly, the ship emerged from
controls. Youre right.
Those are hollow
aluminum shells with The weasel collider was invented three
engines! Butwait. One of years ago by Professor Fuzzy-Ball
their ships has broken off Leftweasel of the ABMTAC. It works by
from the fleet, at double colliding weasels with boron atoms at
their speed. That ones ultra-high velocities, thus producing vast
real.
quantities of energy. It has been sugThats the one we gested by others that the reaction may
need to get.
be possible using substances other than
Our maximum
live weasels, but Professor Leftweasel
speed is only slightly higher
refuses to research this possibility.
than its. Its going to reach
Earth before we can get back within the tunnel. The cabbage ship was
weapons range, said Madog. Its visible in the distance, well on its way
beginning its landing approach. In to landing on Earth. The broken bottles
about three minutes it will touch down and liquid on the deck began to float
andwhat the hell is that? A tunnel- upward, as did Jaden and Madog.
like stretch of space before the There went the gravity, Jaden said.
cabbage ship flickered with Wed better strap in.
shimmering light, and then solidified
The engines are losing power.
into a swirling tunnel of energy.
Ill try to set us down near the
The particles coming out of that cabbages landing site, said Madog.
thing are weird, said Madog. Were
Lets hope that tunnel thing

fried their instruments as badly as it

did ours. This could be extremely
unpleasant if they know were
coming, Jaden said.
The ship made a rough landing,
mowing down half a mile of dense
jungle as it skidded to a halt. Madog
brought up an external view, from a
camera positioned directly in front of
the bridge. The prow of the ship was
half-buried in the ground, the
Mercedes hood ornament poking up
through the dirt. Well, that certainly
did suck, said Madog.
Where exactly did we land?
Jaden asked.
Um we should be somewhere
in Mississippi, I think.
I dont think theres much jungle
in Mississippi.
Were definitely not further south
than Mississippi. Im going to collect
a soil sample here, and see if I can
analyze it and find out whats going
on, Madog said as the two exited the
ship.
Jaden tapped Madog on the
shoulder and directed his attention to
the buffalo-sized dinosaur munching
on a nearby bush. Oh. I guess we
know what that tunnel was all about,
then, said Madog.

Half an hour later, Madog had

finished analyzing the soil. Were
about sixty-five million years in the past,
in the late something-or-other era.
Thats about when the cabbages
evacuated Earth to escape the giant
meteor that wiped out most life. They
must be planning to prevent it
somehow, Jaden said.
You start the robots on repairing
the ship, said Jaden, and Ill go feed
and walk the fuel weasels.
No way, Madog replied.
Remember the time I found you
standing over my hamsters cage with
an eyedropper and a bottle of rum?
So? He pulled through.
No thanks to you. Of course,
then there was that time when I
decided to test our underground
facilitys ability to withstand a nuclear
blast. That really bothered the
neighbors.
Yes, briefly, Jaden said.
Madog finished assigning the
robots to their tasks. The lumbering,
boxy automatons beeped merrily as
they went about repairing the ship.
Jaden swung the weapon lockers
door shut and handed one of the
particle rifles to Madog.
So you plan to just walk right in

Greta might be learning how to survive

in a world that is falling apart around
our ears. Given the state of the world
today -the shortages, the pollution, the
horror of the cities, the horror of our
weapons - can you, Superintendent
Grimmel, say with confidence what a
person will have to know in order to
make it in this world in twenty years? I
am scared about whats happening in
the world, and scared for my daughter.
Things are much too serious for her to
be wasting time in school.
Not to mention all the time I want
her to be playing, purely playing,
instead of sitting in a seat in a classroom
learning.
And while all those other little
children are learning where Guatemala
is and who is the President of Ethiopia,
Greta, alone out in the woods, might be

learning where she is and who is the

Lord of the Universe. Maybe shell never
talk to a guidance counselor, but maybe
shell talk to an angel. Ill tell you what.
If you start offering courses like
Introduction to Wisdom, and Advanced
Happiness, and Fundamentals of
Ecstasy, Ill consider sending Greta to
your schools.
An old friend of mine met Greta
for the first time this morning, and said,
You know, your daughter... theres
something special about her... a light
in her face. I dont know what it is.. just
a light. I know what it is. It is the light of
God which we are all born with. The
light dims and flickers as we grow up,
and in some of us it is all but out. Some
of us, like me, lose it for a long long
time, and then in some mirror we get a
flash of it, and then lose it again, but

weve seen it, there it was, our real self,

our peace, God - and then we know
that for the rest of our lives our job is to
find that light again.
Ye are the Light of the world.
We are. We really are.
My daughters face radiates light.
Light spills from her as she strides.She
dances and spins in light.
She hasnt lost it yet. Not much of
it anyway. I bathe in it. I am fierce in my
protection of it, like any animal fighting
for the life of its young. If I have said
extreme things, that is why. I am sorry
to be extreme. I think schools are
extreme.
Please excuse my daughter from
school today.

Continued from Page 1...

F Fun Fact

Goliath of your schools too.

So, if she doesnt go to school,
how will Greta learn, you may be asking
yourself. But I am more concerned
with, What will Greta learn? You see, I
dont really care if Greta knows where
Guatemala is, or who the President of
Ethiopia is, or how to write a compound
sentence, or what seven times seven
is. While all the other little children are
learning that stuff, Greta might be out
in the garden with Jane learning how
to grow pole beans. Or she might be in
the woods with me learning how to cut
down a tree for wood. If Greta never
learns to distinguish a noun from a verb,
she still might learn how to distinguish
a black maple from a sugar maple
and know which one to tap. While all
those other little children are learning
how to add and conjugate and type.

Sincerely,
Robert Alter

there? We could get killed, Madog

said.
Yes, and I could be struck by
lightning and purple ferrets could
come out of my ass and Paraguay
could appoint them as ambassadors
to the UN Its a risk Im willing to take.
Unable to argue with this logic,
Madog nodded.
Now, said Jaden, do you want
the fez, or the sombrero?
The sombrero. But why are we
wearing these, aside from impressing
the cabbages with our fashion sense?
The hats contain translation
devices that will allow us to understand
their electromagnetic language. Dont
ask me why the lab guys put them in
silly hats, Jaden replied.
Half an hour later, their off-road
buggy drew near the cabbage landing
site. The two made their way carefully
on foot to the perimeter.
Its pretty lightly guarded. They
must not have detected us following
them, said Jaden, pointing to the lone
cabbage sentry. He aimed his rifle at
the guard. Should present no
significant difficulties He
depressed the trigger, and a purplish
column of lethal energy silently
skewered the soldier.
Jaden and Madog hurried over
to the spacecraft, ignoring the scent
of charred cabbage as they used the
guards passkey to open the airlock.
They made their way down the
cramped corridors, getting closer and
closer to the faint sound of cabbage
voices. They followed the corridor
around the room in which the
cabbages spoke until they found a
small service doorway, and peered
inside.
Martian cabbages in encounter
suits rested amongst other, suitless
cabbages, the natives of this time. The
commander of the ship stood in the
center, addressing the others.
and so it was that our glorious
starship eluded the pitiful humans,
bringing to you the means to save our
Earthly civilization. Jaden flipped a
toggle switch on the side of his fez.

The same temporal bore device

which brought us here will save us,
the commander continued. When the
asteroid draws near the Earth in five
years, the temporal bore will be in
orbit. We shall open a tunnel to the
distant future, long after the solar
system has moved out of this region
of space, and our civilization will reign
upon the Earth for all of time.
This brought a great rustling of
leaves from the listeners. One cabbage
from the present time rose to speak.
What of the X-ists? We have already
struck a deal with them to be
transported to Mars. They are famed
throughout the galaxy for their ruthless
business practices, and should we
cross them, I fear we could not
withstand their reprisal.
The commander waved a
tentacle in frustration. We were
unsure of the exact time at which the
agreement was reached; we had
hoped to arrive before then. But no
matter; the X-ists of this time are no
match for the technologies we
possess. We shall allow them to
continue believing that the deal is
intact, but in secret we shall better our
factories to produce an arsenal so
fearsome that the X-ists dare not
challenge us. When five years have
passed, we shall be the most feared
civilization in the galaxy! The hats
translated what followed as applause
and maniacal laughter.
Behold the advanced
technologies we bring, said the
commander, gesturing at several
devices laid out on a table. Powerful
computers, battle armor, a prototype
Confusatron ray The commander
continued, and the cabbages of the
present time examined the devices,
seemed most impressed. Eventually,
the group filed into another room for
refreshments.
Again, only a single guard
remained. Madog looked over at
Jaden, who nodded. Madog aimed his
rifle and fired.
The cabbage reeled, the
tentacle in which it had held its weapon

severed by the blast. Madog poised to

fire again, but the cabbage lunged
behind the table, one tentacle coiling
around the Confusatron ray. It fired,
and although there was no visible
effect, Madog slumped to the ground,
blinking rapidly. Jaden fired, and the
purple beam sliced the cabbage neatly
in half.
Jaden grabbed the temporal
bore, which was only slightly bigger
than a breadbox, and then knelt beside
Madog. We need to get back to the
ship. Are you OK?
Im not a horse, or a pony either,
and you cant ride me. I dont care if
that slide rule is blue or velvet, Madog
replied solemnly.
Jaden rolled his eyes and helped
Madog up, guiding him out of the ship
and back to their vehicle. The effects
of the Confusatron ray became more
apparent on the return trip, as Jaden
managed only with great difficulty to
dissuade Madog from stopping to
administer vitamin B-12 to the smaller
dinosaurs so that they might grow,
throw off the yoke of oppression, and
establish small, autonomous farming
collectives.
Jaden also had time on the trip
back to do some thinking. The raid
had surely put the cabbages on alert,
and even if Madog were in a relatively
sound state of mind, they couldnt hope
to defeat the cabbage army on their
own. Even if the cabbages couldnt
prevent the evacuation to Mars, they
could still give their prehistoric
brethren advanced technology, which
could only lead to bad things. How
could they be stopped? A grin spread
across Jadens face as the answer
surfaced in his mind.
Back on the ship, Jaden set about
transferring the cabbage conversation
his fez had recorded into the
computers. Madog entered,
curtseying deeply in a fashion to match
the elaborate 18th-century ball gown
he wore.
Where did you find that?
Find what, milord? Madog
replied in falsetto.

Never mind. Just keep quiet for

a minute while I make this broadcast.
With the flip of a switch, the recorded
plotting of the cabbages was
transmitted to the X-ist homeworld. A
few minutes later, the X-ists opened a
channel. Jaden explained to them the
cabbage situation, which greatly
displeased the X-ist representative.
Closing the channel, Jaden knew the
cabbages wouldnt be a problem for
long.
Soon enough, the sensors
detected a flight of X-ist saucers
passing overhead. A few minutes later
they detected a large energy discharge
from the direction of the cabbage
vessel, and then the X-ists returning to
space.
Concluding that disposing of the
cabbage threat had been pretty
fucking easy, Jaden worked on
finishing repairs to the ship. Madog
swaggered around in a pirate
costume saying Arrr! and accusing
inanimate objects of conspiring with
William of Orange to defenestrate the
city of Philadelphia.
Just as he completed the last of
the repairs to the weasel collider,
Jaden heard a motorized rumble and
the sounds of crashing underbrush
from the open hatch of the ship. Madog
began shouting outside. Arr! Avast
ye landlubbers! What manner o
foliage be ye?
Oh, shit, thought Jaden, grabbing
a rifle and heading to the hatch. A
robot waved its stubby arms and
yelled, Danger! Danger, Madog
Velkor! Jaden arrived at the hatch
just in time to witness a shell from a
cabbage tank hit Madog square in the
chest and turn him into a thin coating
of chunky salsa on the hull of the ship.
You killed Madog! You
bastards! yelled Jaden. Judging by
their equipment, these must have
been the cabbages native to this era.
As the tanks turret swung in his
direction, Jaden leaped back inside
and slammed the button to close the
hatch. The tanks shell glanced off the
ships hull with a loud metallic clang.

November

1999

Continued from Page 3...

commerce shows, even

traditional stores may be
obsolete. If governments fail to
anticipate the trends and take the
proper steps to prepare for them,
disaster is sure to strike.
More
is
becoming
mechanized
than
just
manufacturing or professional
jobs. Space is largely the domain
of machines. The few humans
who briefly leave our planet every
year are mere tokens, PR and
little more. In a few years, driving
will be obsolete. Trains, busses,
airplanes, and ships will be
controlled by computer as well.
School will be taught via
computer, a trend that is already
happening in many universities.
The latest Star Wars movie has
shown that actors are quickly
going the way of the Dodo. Some
of the most memorable
characters and scenes were
entirely created by computer. In
the near future, computer
generated humans will be
flawless. With this technology,

fact and fiction will be

indistinguishable. The face of war
will be changed as well. During
the next century, man will slowly
be replaced by machine. Robotic
bombers will carry out their
missions with the only human
input being the target. Automated
fighters with inhumanly fact
reaction times will battle in the
skies. Naval vessels will have only
a small crew, the entire ship will
be automated. Just click on your
target and fire. Cybertanks will
swarm the battlefield, ranging in
size from main battle tanks to
small anti-personnel rovers.
Mines will walk to place
themselves in minefields while
robotic anti-aircraf t weapons
search the countryside for good
hiding places. Where humans
remain on the battlefield, the will
be wrapped in armored
exoskeletons, given superhuman
strength by their robotic shells.
Is this necessarily a bad thing?
No, in fact it is the culmination of
a millennium of dreams. To
someone rooted in the modern

age, this seems like a terrible

dystopia. However, one must
understand that work is not
ennobling. Working long hours in
a pointless job does not somehow
make you better than someone
who sits at home all day smoking
weed. How is it right that over 5
billion people should be forced
to toil long hours in a job that
could more easily and efficiently
be done by a machine? Is war
something that must be fought
and paid for by human lives? Is it
bad that people will have to think
about the veracity of what they
see on the news rather than
blindly accept it as truth? But still,
where does the individual fit into
a mechanized world? That is the
question that must be answered.
In the next millennium we can
either be rendered obsolete by
our machines, reject them and
maintain the status quo, or form
a symbiosis with them and create
a new and more perfect world.
We must each accept that
the world as we have known it
will one day come to an end.

Either we becoming nothing

more than consumers for our
mechanized economy, we reject
progress and accept the world as
it is now, or we take control of
ourselves on an individual level.
We know that we cannot sit
complacently by and hope that
future will leave us untouched.
We cannot expect to work the
same job for years on end then
retire and wait to die. We must
unleash our creativity and
initiative and build something
new. That is our place in the
symbiosis. As each of our
meaningless jobs is rendered
obsolete we must create a new
niche for ourselves. Perhaps
well have generous support from
our government, or perhaps well
have to find a way to support
ourselves. But either way, work
and a job do not make us who
we are. As Technocalypse tears
through out lives, it is not an end,
but rather a beginning. It is a path
to freedom, a chance to seize our
destiny and be forever unbound
by the chains of necessity.

It was certainly time to leave.

Strapping himself in, Jaden
brought the ships engines online, and
their rumbling filled the bridge. He
slammed the throttle, taking
satisfaction in the knowledge that as
the ship lifted off, the thrust of its
engines reduced the nearby cabbage
forces to a smoldering heap of twisted
metal.
The ship reached orbit, and now
the tricky part had come. The
temporal bore would release massive
amounts of unpleasant radiation when
activated. The ships internal
bulkheads, not having been specially
designed for the purpose like those of
the late cabbage vessel, wouldnt be
protection enough. The outer hull,
however, would. Jaden sent one of the
robots lurching down the corridor to
release the bore into space, where it
would trail behind the ship on a tether.

Jaden fervently hoped this would

work. It had all the haphazard beauty
of the last-minute plan that it was, but
too many things could go awry. Still,
there was no other way. Jaden
activated the autopilot, and ship
moved into position, ready to bore
through time at the same point, the
same angle, and same speed it had
during its arrival.
At what he hoped was exactly
the right moment, the temporal bore
came to life, and space ahead began
to twist, writhing under the influence
of the device. The tunnel opened, and
the Lemuria entered it. Jadens eyes
darted back and forth between
instruments and viewscreen, anxious
to see if reality would have anything to
do with his hasty suppositions - and
then he smiled as he saw that he had,
indeed, been right.
Ahead lay the other end of the

tunnel, the 1999 end, and entering

the swirling miasma at the other end
were earlier incarnations of the
cabbage ship and the Lemuria, just at
the start of this chain of events.
The laws of causality were
obviously insubstantial here, for there
was another Lemuria, on board which
was another Jaden, and a still-living
Madog. There was only one way to
clean up this mess, and indeed to
prevent it from ever having happened.
Jadens finger squeeze the trigger, and
a full volley of torpedoes sped to their
targets. First the cabbage ship and
then the Lemuria of days ago were
hit, their hulls rupturing, frames
shattering. The shockwave from the
blast rocked Jadens ship, the tether
snapped, and the bore was carried
back by the force of the wave. The
tunnel began to shudder, contracting,
and finally collapsed in on itself - a

mere half second after the Lemuria

emerged into the year 1999.
***
Jaden walked into the lounge in
the Hidden Valley Ranch bunker in
which Jaden and Madog were sitting.
Hey guys, he said.
Hey, said Madog.
He--What the hell? said Jaden.
Oh, shit, there are two of you!
Madog said.
Interesting story, that.
Fortunately, I fixed things so that none
of it ever actually happened. Except
that there are two of me now.
And so, after much explaining
and drinking, it was decided that for
the sake of clarity, the Jaden who had
been through this ordeal would be
placed in charge of special esoteric
operations for the cabal and would
henceforth be known as
Mephistopheles.

""fuck" is aperfectly lovely anglosaxonism.

you ethnocentric asshole."
- Timothy Sutter

"I moved with the ease of a psychiatrist who becomes fond of his patients...
After a while he begins to write pages on delirium, then pages of delirium,
unaware that his sick people have seduced him. He thinks he has become an
artist." - Umberto Eco, Foucaults Pendulum