vr
a novel
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
October 1997
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
From: John
Date: 1 October 1997
Subject: RLMOO
I just downloaded a copy of the RLMOO db timestamped 16:something today,
October 1.
From: SAGReiss
Date: 1 October 1997
Subject: da capo al fine
Andrew,
While I thank you for kindly letting me slide one month, my financial state
does not look sufficiently bright that I can continue to support RL MOO. I
have had four jobs in three months, quit two and been fired twice. I've been
offered another shitty job and have an interview for a good one tomorrow.
Still, the MOO has never attracted any frequent flyers, and I can no longer
justify spending money on it that might otherwise go to my cigarette and whisky
budget. I thank you for the service you have provided and will certainly look
to you in the future if we begin any new internet projects. While I admit
I will feel very sad the day I can't log on anymore, it's time to move on.
Please feel free to @kill whenever it's convenient for you. Thanks again.
RECTVM VINVM
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
From: SAGReiss
Date: 1 October 1997
Subject: The Last Row
************************************************************************
************************************************************************
****
**** WARNING: The server will shut down in 4 days, 21 hours, and 27 minutes.
**** Andrew (#94): RLMOO is closing. You may visit ANTI at
**** anti.woo.net 8888 if you wish to continue using these fast
**** MOO servers we had been so graciously utilizing.
****
************************************************************************
************************************************************************
Varied are the allowable interpretations of the above post-modern or polysemantic
title. The restaurant where I've just been successfully interviewed is known
as The Last Row Cafe because the building used to be a movie theater and the
chef-owner, Neil, a sister, used to row in college. It must have been a proving
ground for his ambivalent masculinity. RL MOO has also seen its last row,
though I think it's been over a year. I don't usually fight with myself.
I'll try to find out when exactly it's going down. I'd like to be there,
job permitting. It'll be a sad moment for me. I've had a lot of those lately.
I'll take this silly diner waitress job at the University Plaza Hotel for
a few days until/unless I hear from Miss Neil. I'm stubborn. I refuse to
believe that all I can do is earn thirty dollars a day serving ill-bread old
people. I've got a thousand excuses why Maximilien didn't work, none of which
do I believe. I failed. It's that simple. Much as I regret quitting the shitty
Sorrento room-service job, I'll do it again for the chance of working dinner,
as the lead server no less, in Neil's place. I counted fifteen tables, maybe
seventy-five covers. The appetizers are dear, six to eight bucks, but the
dinners are cheap, most under fifteen. The wine list looks manageable, in
the low twenties for most bottles. Everything seems to be home-made from
scratch. They use hand-written dupes, arm service, nothing I shouldn't be
able to handle. I'm sorry I haven't been able to write more, nor even see
any of you online. I do miss those of you whom I sometimes hear from. I've
been so stressed and distraught. I haven't been online much. Since Nichelle
is obviously unbeatable at timed solitaire (Does anyone really think he can
do better than eighty-four seconds?) I've taken up the point game to distract
my mind and relieve the tension, now that Ricard and whisky are beyond my
reach. I've got 735 which Nichelle thinks is beginner's luck, but the truth
is I've got a system. I just can't say what it is. It's a secret. It sounds
like I'm going to become a night owl, though I've almost always been an early
bird, except during the fateful years at the Farfalla. I probably won't be
seeing much of Nichelle this quarter. I'll probably be stalking you online.
I'll probably write e-mail. There may be trouble.
RECTVM VINVM
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
From: Columbine
Date: 1 October 1997
Subject: Re: The Last Row
Just a quick note, Gabriel, to let you know that my silence doesn't imply
a lack of sympathy or anything like that. I've been a little distracted because
I am, as they say, on the market myself. My company decided I was the employee
who got to lose the game of Budget Cut Musical Chairs. I've been living off
a generous severance check for three weeks, and trying to find a job which
supports my lifestyle and yet requires as little actual work as possible.
The American dream .... -c
From: SAGReiss
Date: 2 October 1997
Subject: Deconstruction
I would like:
minestrone della casa
insalata
(do these each come with the home-made mini loaf? is two necessary, or would
one be enough)
spaghetti alla marinara
decaf expresso
Mother,
I should have known that the very first person who ordered off that hypothetical
menu would analyze it to death. Having waited on a lot of Amerikan women,
I had actually thought of the question. Bread is an issue, since we wish to
make and bake it ourselves. That's a lot of work to be giving the shit away
to people who know no moderation. We decided to serve it (one loaf, about
2"x3" and as high as it will rise with only one proofing, if this is possible
using a pizza dough, which I haven't had time to try yet) with soup, salad
and appetizers, but not with pasta. I do not understand why anyone would
want bread with pasta, but if they do, let them pay for it. I have found
that Amerikans are very keen when it comes to understanding that they will
have to pay for something, and thus don't want it after all. We avoid the
painful issue of refills by serving no Amerikan coffee and all soft drinks
in individual bottles. I plan to have twelve tables (four duces, six four-tops
and two six-tops) and work alone on the floor, with an extra when it gets
too crazy to handle. This is not possible if one wastes all his time getting
people "more". Notice that they don't ask for another, as do drinkers. Which
brings us back to the problem of a guest ordering soup and a salad or appetizer.
I thought of saying, for example, a cup of soup, a green salad and a loaf
of bread for six dollars, but I think that's just cheapening our food, our
guests and ourselves. Can you imagine the can of worms: "Can I have a bowl/Cesare/Carpaccio?"
etc.? My tentative decision has been: serve the soup with bread and don't
bring another loaf with the salad unless the guest has finished the first
or requests a second. I'd have thought my own mother could spring for a bottle
of San Pelegrino. I thought you liked that shit. Do you want me to run my
legs off serving fucking tap water?
RECTVM VINVM
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
From: SAGReiss
Date: 3 October 1997
Subject: Hysteria
My mother wrote me back complaining that because she didn't want two loaves
of free bread, she was being charged for something she neither ordered nor
consumed. I think she wants to talk to the manager. One wonders why I don't
drink a lot more. (Because I can't afford it.) Nichelle may have been a little
surprised. Not I. I'm used to these bitches asking for money back on a Bed
& Breakfast coupon: "It says $6.95 value, and all I had was coffee and
a bagel." I'm still not quite sure what to do about this problem, and the
nefarious Blue Cheez dressing controversy. I guess it's well to confront these
impossible situations before anyone gets serious about investing real money
in such an enterprise. I keep refining the menu, adjusting prices, eliminating
vestiges of my French brain. I've added Lambrusco by the bottle. It's nasty
shit, saccarine-sweet and bubbly, but it sold well at the Farfalla, and I've
seen on some web site that Amerikans love it. As we say in the restaurant
business: "For twenty-four dollars, whatever floats your boat, honey." What
amazes me is the pure cheapness. With my sweet sparkling water upsell, my
mother would have spent eighteen-fifty, which is pretty good with pasta and
pizza selling as low as $7.50, yet she argues about a free loaf of bread that
she didn't eat. I think Amerikan women go to a restaurant consumed by some
Pleistocene instinct of the hunter-gatherer on the African savanna: "If I
can only hide a few extra nuts for the winter..." My mother was born in 1942,
not a depression baby. I s'pose one could claim that her mother, who had
spent much of her childhood hungry and homeless, passed on some fierce survival
genes. I think the bitches are just cheap.
From: Nichelle
Date: 3 October 1997
Subject: web search
This came up in a web search:
59% Yahoo! - Mother Teresa Dies
URL:
http://headlines.yahoo.com/Current_Events/Mother_Teresa_Dies/Related_Web_Sit
es.html
Nichelle
From: SAGReiss
Date: 4 October 1997
Subject: Darkness at the bottom of the food chain
The raison d'etre of Excalibur Restaurant & Lounge is so that the hotel
can keep its coveted AAA*** rating. The name seems to come from some confusion
about the hotel's former name, The Sherwood Inn. No one expects to make any
money there. I worked a rainy Friday night with a full house, 135 rooms. There
were ten tables and five room service orders. Every table had either a 25%
+ $8.00 discount coupon or an Entertainment card. I know how the latter works.
It's one card per table, least-expensive entree free. The hotel has a number
and one hole-punches the number on the card, so as never to see the cheap
motherfuckers again. No one knew anything about the hotel number. No one
knew they couldn't ask for seperate checks and use two cards. Shit, the waitress
who trained me, a highly educated graduate student in comparative religion
who understands that "like" is the most frequent word in the English language
and belongs to every part of speech, didn't know the difference between a
salad and a dinner fork: "Some of the tables seem to be set with two salad
forks, others with two dinner forks." "We don't have salad forks." I stared
at the silverware flat in front of us with salad forks on the left, dinner
forks on the right. I picked up one of the former: "I think this is a salad
fork." She contemplated this heresy: "So what is a dinner fork?" Of the three
of us who worked, no one broke twenty dollars. I think the reason we're not
allowed to smoke is that if we counted up bus fare, dry cleaning and a couple
of cigarette breaks we'd realize we're losing money by going to work. I won't
say I've never had such a rotten job. I've never even thought of the possibility
of such a bad job existing. The first thing I was asked was: "Did Frank tell
you how dead it was?" I laughed. If Miss Neil doesn't call, I won't be laughing
for long.
From: SAGReiss
Date: 7 October 1997
Subject: May I take your order?
Nichelle has been working on something very nice. I can't tell you about
it because it's a secret. She doesn't usually like secrets, but that's because
I usually have far more than she. I'm so sorry I haven't been writing. All
of my time and energy have been spent on my job woes. As soon as I do get
a human job, I'll write more. I have no idea why I quit that stupid job at
the Sorrento. We would have been in a lot better shape financially if I had
kept it. Unfortunately I still have some illusions about my place in society,
and society is not about to forgive and forget my failures. Someone is keeping
score, and I am losing. I thought we might try this little experiment to jump-start
the list: please order from the menu (revised seven thousand times) below.
I'll go first. I'd like a Ricard, sinon rien, a carafe of Chianti, marinated
mushrooms, a pizza with prosciutto and jalapeno pepper, and a J&B no
ice wenn's belebt. (The menu looks better in little columns, but my regular
e-mail is fucking up and I don't trust MSN attachments. Someday I'll get a
real ISP...)
Pulcinella
Aperitivi
Amaro: $4.50
beer, lemon syrup, Picon orange liqueur
Ricard anisette: $4.50
Kir: $4.50
white wine, crème de cassis
Bìbite
Evian, San Pelegrino: $2.50
Orange, apple, tomato juice: $2.00
Snapple iced tea: $2.00
Coke, Sprite, ginger ale, soda: $2.00
Italian soda: $2.50
lemon, lime, grenadine, vanilla, almond, raspberry
With cream: $3.00
Birra
(bottle): $3.50
Pint: $3.50
Pitcher: $12.00
Vino
Champagne
(split): $9.00
(bottle): $27.00
Pinot grigio
Glass: $3.50
Carafe: $12.00
(bottle): $24.00
Bardolino chiaretto
Glass: $3.50
Carafe: $12.00
(bottle): $24.00
Chianti
Glass: $3.50
Carafe: $12.00
(bottle): $24.00
Lambrusco
(bottle): $24.00
Panini
Bruschetta: $2.50
home-made bread baked with garlic, fresh basil, extra-virgin olive oil
Crostini: $3.50
home-made bread baked with goat cheese, fresh basil, extra-virgin olive
oil
Minestrone della casa
Cup: $3.50
Bowl: $4.50
Insalate
Insalata verda: $3.50
romaine, black olives, onion, croutons, Dijon vinaigrette
Insalata Cesare: $4.50
romaine, black olives, anchovies, lemon, Parmigiano, croutons, Dijon vinaigrette
with raw egg
Insalata di pomodori: $3.50
fresh tomato slices, onion, balsamic vinegar, fresh basil, extra-virgin
olive oil
Con mozzarella: $4.50
Insalata di spinaci: $4.50
spinach, black olives, mushrooms, Gorgonzola, walnuts, croutons, Dijon vinaigrette
Antipasti
Funghi della casa: $4.50
mushrooms marinated in garlic, white wine, fresh basil, extra-virgin olive
oil
Formàggio e frutto del noce: $4.50
goat cheese, mozzarella, Parmigiano, Gorgonzola, walnuts
Con frutto: $5.50
Prosciutto di Parma con frutto: $5.50
Carpaccio: $5.50
thin-sliced raw tenderloin of beef marinated in lemon juice, fresh basil,
extra-virgin olive oil
Pizza
Twelve-inch thin-crust pie topped with tomato sauce, mozzarella, fresh basil,
extra-virgin olive oil: $7.50
Calzone
Pie crust stuffed with tomato sauce, ricotta, mozzarella, fresh basil, extra-virgin
olive oil: $9.00
Choice of one topping or filling: $1.00
black olives, onion, garlic, mushrooms, spinach, green pepper, jalapeño
pepper
Choice of one topping or filling: $1.50
extra cheese, pepperoni, pancetta, anchovies, sun-dried tomatoes
Choice of one topping or filling: $2.00
Italian sausage, prosciutto di Parma, goat cheese, Gorgonzola
Instead of tomato sauce:
Fresh tomato slices: $1.00
Garlic, basil and walnut pesto: $1.50
Home-made meat sauce: $2.00
Pasta
Spaghetti alla marinara: $7.50
tomato sauce, Parmigiano
Spaghetti aglio e olio: $8.50
garlic, extra-virgin olive oil, Parmigiano
Spaghetti Bolognese: $9.50
home-made meat sauce, Parmigiano
Spaghetti alla carbonara: $10.50
cream, egg, pancetta, Parmigiano
Tortellini alla marinara: $9.50
baked cheese-filled pasta, tomato sauce, Parmigiano
Tortellini Alfredo: $10.50
baked cheese-filled pasta, cream, Parmigiano
Lasagna con spinaci: $11.50
tomato sauce, spinach, ricotta, mozzarella, Parmigiano
Lasagna con carne: $12.50
home-made meat sauce, ricotta, mozzarella, Parmigiano
Dolci
Gelato: $3.50
three scoops of vanilla-bean ice cream
With melted bittersweet chocolate, whipped cream, walnuts: $4.50
Spumoni: $4.50
rum-raisin custard between layers of vanilla and chocolate ice cream
Tiramisù: $4.50
ladyfingers soaked in Marsala and esprèsso topped with mascarpone
and chocolate
Tòrta del giorno: $4.50
cheesecake, carrot cake, chocolate cake, pecan pie or fresh fruit pie
Banana flambata: $4.50
Con gelato: $5.50
Caffè
Esprèsso: $1.50
Dóppio: $2.00
Americano: $2.00
Pot of tea: $2.00
Ceylon, Darjeeling, chamomile, mint
Hot cocoa: $2.50
Cappuccino: $2.50
Caffè latte: $2.50
Flavored latte: $3.00
vanilla, almond, raspberry
Caffè mocha: $3.00
Flavored mocha: $3.50
Digestivi
Amaretto di Saronno: $4.50
Grappa: $4.50
Irish coffee: $5.00
From: Nichelle
Date: 7 October 1997
Subject: Re: May I take your order?
OK, I'm game.
I'll have a San Pelegrino, a green salad, a twelve-incher with garlic, sausage
and fresh tomato slices, spumoni and an amerikano.
Nichelle
crockena@maple.lemoyne.edu
From: Columbine
Date: 8 October 1997
Subject: Re: May I take your order?
Why on earth are all your before-dinner mixed drinks so sweet? Save that
stuff for after dinner. Similarly, I love orzata and other Italian sodas,
but would I really want one with food? I think not.
If I were really ordering from this menu, I'd want more details about the
wine or the beer. Just "beer" isn't good enough for me. But, sight unseen,
I'll drink a bad Chianti before I drink a bad beer. So give me a carafe. And
a glass of tap water. I recognize that no one drinks tap water in Italy, but
bottled water annoys me.
The bruschetta and the crostini are both very nice-sounding, but garlic
is trump. Bring the bruschetta. I'm not into this multi-course thing, but
if I'm dining with someone else, we'd probably order the cheese-and-nuts
antipasto at the same time, and we'd share both as appetizers.
Then the spaghetti carbonara. No contest.
No dessert, please, I'm full. I'll have a cappucino, and a real one - don't
make a weak one just because I'm not an Italian, the way they do for the tourists
here in Boston's North End.
From: SAGReiss
Date: 8 October 1997
Subject: Can I answer any questions about our menu?
All of your points, Phoenix, are well-taken, and I thank you for bringing
them up. I am not entirely happy with the list of aperitivi, which was meant
to be suggestive, but hardly exhaustive. We intend to have full bar. The goal
is to sell, which means get the women to drink because, if they do, the men
have to. I realize this may not sit too well with the transgender crowd,
but the restaurant business is very conservative. All waiters lament the
days when the ladies' menu didn't have prices. The three drinks offered are
the classic French aperitifs. The Amaro, which just means "bitter" translated
into Italian, is not at all sweet, especially if one has it without the lemon,
as it is often ordered in France: "Un amer sans citron." The Kir is made with
dry wine and just a splash of cassis, so it is not really sweet either. What
I like about the list is that it offers a beer cocktail, a wine cocktail and
a highball served with a water back. What I don't like is its Gallicism. I
would be happy to hear of any pseudo-Italian replacements. The words "orzata"
and "orgeat" are interesting, for they mean barley etymologically, but it
is almond syrup. The draft beer would be whatever likeable microbrew I could
find. The bottles would have to be some industrial shit for those who don't
like the taste of food and a light beer for the girls. In any menu, as in
a classroom, one may hope for the best, be happy with the middle, but expect
the worst. I don't want to dumb it down too much, but still... I'm sure negatron
is choking on the idea of paying twelve dollars Amerikan for a pitcher of
beer. I haven't ordered a pitcher of beer in fifteen years, so I'm no expert.
The idea is to encourage and reward the second glass of beer or wine for each
of a party of two. If a sixty-four-ounce pitcher or a twelve-dollar price
is deemed too cumbersome, I'd simply serve twelve-ounce drafts for $2.50
and forty-eight-ounce pitchers for eight dollars. I again sollicit your opinion
on these, and other, matters. The open wine is DOC table wine. I'm not sure
if that clarifies things. The twenty-four-dollar bottles show the wine's
vinyard and year. I thought of putting garlic on the crostini, but it would
overwhelm the delicate goat cheese. We would of course do so on request.
Let no one doubt it. Money is made on drinks, appetizers and deserts. Pizza
is a money-maker, but it's labor-intensive. With forty-four covers and one
double pizza oven we would die before we could do one hundred and fifty pizzas
on a Saturday night. I was pleased that you chose the carbonara. I've never
seen it on an Amerikan menu, but it's quite popular in Europe. Nichelle won't
eat it because of her egg fetish. I'm not sure what you mean about the cappucino.
The secret of capuccino, cafe au lait and caffe latte is that these drinks
don't exist in Europe. They are Amerikan concoctions. If you order a cappucino
in France, you'll get a double express topped with whipped cream. Every waiter
in Amerika makes it with skimmed milk because it foams up nicely. In ten
years spending all of my time in French bars and bibliotheques, I never heard
a Frenchman pronounce the words "cafe au lait". Only tourists order that.
Latte is the same thing, popular in Seattle and Boston, unknown in Roma.
From: Columbine
Date: 8 October 1997
Subject: Re: Can I answer any questions about our menu?
Dunno how I got yclept "Phoenix," but maybe it's a good omen. I have several
second interviews over the next few days and I'm hoping to rise from the ashes
any minute now.
One wonders how the conservative restaurant crowd reacts to the idea of
two women dining together a deux. We love doing this, or dining as a threesome
or oddly mixed foursome, and watching who the waiter hands the check to. At
many places, they diplomatically lay l'addition right in the exact center
of the table, but at Biba, an exceedingly eccentric five-star restaurant with
spotless service where we eat on special occasions, they definitely give
the check TO someone, and yet they never seem to get it wrong, even when
the non-obvious party is paying. Telepathy perhaps.
>The three drinks offered are the classic
>French aperitifs. The Amaro, which just means "bitter" translated into
>Italian, is not at all sweet, especially if one has it without the lemon,
as
>it is often ordered in France: "Un amer sans citron." The Kir is made
with
>dry wine and just a splash of cassis, so it is not really sweet either.
What
>I like about the list is that it offers a beer cocktail, a wine cocktail
and a
>highball served with a water back. What I don't like is its Gallicism.
Yes, it struck me that this was an oddly French selection on an otherwise
Italian menu. I think I may have been reacting to the very idea of a beer
cocktail, something I've never been exposed to before, and which sounds rather
vile to me. Pastis is definitely sweet to my tastes as well. I have had Kir
Royale, champagne with cassis in it, before dinner on one occasion and it
was too sweet for me, but now that I reflect upon it, a dry white would change
everything. If I am having something before dinner which is not the same wine
or beer I'll be having WITH dinner (Philistine that I am), and I'm trying
to think Italian, then I'd like a Campari and soda. But I understand that's
a hard sell.
>I'm sure negatron
>is choking on the idea of paying twelve dollars Amerikan for a pitcher
of
>beer. I haven't ordered a pitcher of beer in fifteen years, so I'm no
>expert.
I'm on Boston prices. Anything over four dollars for a pint, even at a place
which brews its own on the premises, causes me to raise an eyebrow. I don't
order pitchers myself, so I have no idea how that translates.
>I thought of putting garlic on the crostini, but it would
>overwhelm the delicate goat cheese.
As indeed it would. Besides, I've heard a vicious rumor that there are actually
restaurant diners who don't love garlic.
>I was pleased that you chose the carbonara. I've never
>seen it on an Amerikan menu, but it's quite popular in Europe.
It's very uncommon even here. The not-especially-Italian restaurants won't
serve it because of the fat-content phobia, and because they're worried that
the diners haven't heard of it and will be too conservative to order it; and
the true-blue-Italian restaurants won't serve it because, apparently, they
think it's too humble a dish. So I usually end up making it at home.
>I'm not sure what you mean about the cappucino.
>The secret of capuccino, cafe au lait and caffe latte is that these
drinks don't
>exist in Europe. They are Amerikan concoctions.
In the North End, where you have the kind of Italian restaurants that are
the size of a closet and are likely to have an elderly man as the entire front
staff and his wife as the entire kitchen staff, capuccino means a big cup
of frothed milk with an entire espresso added. But the milk hides the actual
amount of espresso, making it possible to cheat. Tourists apparently get
less espresso and more milk. Capuccino runs about three bucks in Boston; if
I'm paying three bucks for coffee, I want full value. Besides, just because
I like lots of milk doesn't mean I don't like the coffee strong. My idea of
the perfect ratio is New Orleans coffee, made fifty percent black coffee which
could be used as paint thinner, and fifty percent hot milk, preferably poured
into the cup simultaneously.
From: Nichelle
Date: 10 October 1997
Subject: back in the dark ages
My god, it's been years since I used pine. I think I've forgotten how it
works, now that I have been spoiled with this Eudora program... Dr Whatsisfuck
is showing slides to some monkeys today, I guess. If there's one thing I learned
at Le Groyne Collidge, it's that sitting near the door is probably a pretty
good idea, especially when the TAs get a little crazy and think they can
actually run the lecture.
I've picked up the Durrell- Justine. I guess it's the first. I'll go with
it. Whatever. The second floor of the undergraduate library has more than
two hundred computers and the wait is still fifteen minutes or so. I am proud
to be a member of the e-mail generation. Our typing skills. Incredible! I
bet the average is about fifty words per minute in here. I wonder how many
of these jerks are having cybersex right now...
And now, for your reading pleasure:
Bow Down to Washington
Bow down to Washington! Bow down to Washington!
Mighty are the Men who wear the Purple & the Gold,
Joyously we welcome them into the victors' fold;
We will carry their names in the Hall of Fame,
To preserve the memory of our devotion;
So, Heaven help the foes of Washington,
They're trembling at the feet of the mighty Washington!
Our boys are there with bells,
Their fighting blood excels;
It's harder to push them over the line than
pass the Dardanelles!
Victory, the cry of Washington;
Leather lungs together with a RAH, RAH, RAH!
And o'er the land, the loyal band will sing
the glory of Washington forever!
Oh yeah.
Ooh, oh yeah. That's good, yeah.
Mmm.. oh, yeah, oh.
So good.
Sing it again.
Yeah.
From: SAGReiss
Date: 10 October 1997
Subject: Boogie Nights
Taking your advise to heart, Phoenix, I've reinstated Campari instead of
Ricard (on the condition that Nichelle likes it) and replaced the kir with
Marsala. I'm sticking with the amaro which sounds Italian and was invented
by a pied-noir, unless someone comes up with a better idea. I'm sure you'll
like it without the lemon. As Nichelle says: "Sometimes the illusion of truth
is as good as truth." Indeed. Sometimes better. I've also tinkered with the
rest of it seventeen hundred times, because it soothes my mind and just in
case someone should ever be irresponsible enough to lend me fifty thousand
dollars. Last night was heart-breaking. I served this table of cheap, religious
assholes three hefeweizen, a wine spritzer and a strawberry margarita with
three dinners. One lady asked for her rancid chicken in a doggie bag. The
other lady couldn't finish her slimy fries. (One mustn't call them potatoes
or the Idaho farmers would bomb the place.) When I brought the two to-go boxes,
they asked me to add the remaining bread and butter in equal proportions:
"Of course, ladies. Would you like plastic cups for the ice water? If you're
paying with food stamps, I'll have to ask the manager how to process your
check." They left me three dollars on a forty-dollar check. There's a reservation
for twelve on Monday night. The other waitress said: "You can make ten bucks
off of it." Ten dollars? On a party of twelve? There is quite simply no way
to make any money in this hole. Oh well. I've got another interview on Tuesday.
Banquets in a private club. No checks, no tip. Steak or seafood. Cash bar
in the lobby. Fifteen dollars an hour. Thank you. Have a nice night.
From: SAGReiss
Date: 14 October 1997
Subject: (no subject)
Le Chant des Commandos
Les commandos partent pour l'aventure.
Soleil couchant les salue.
Chez l'ennemi la nuit sera bien dure
Pour ceux qui pillent et qui tuent.
France, o ma France tres belle,
Pour toi je ferai bataille.
Je quitterai pere et mere
Sans espoir de les revoir jamais.
Everyone agrees that rape is non-consensual, right? Everyone agrees that
rape is bad, right? OK. So when is sex with a kid automatically construed
as rape? In other words, at what age is the kid capable of giving consent?
This is the kind of text that makes Nichelle sneer: "Consensual? They make
me fucking sick." My answer is less emotional. I guess if everyone agrees,
it must be wrong. I have a deep-seated mistrust of common sense and conventional
wisdom. People in Boston sure get excited about your average, everyday child-sodomy-murder.
What's the big deal? Boyz will be boyz, you know. The only thing that bothers
me is that I was refused access to NAMBLA's web site. After all, I am a scientist.
Speaking of which, negatron, we need a wav of "God Save the Queen". I can't
seem to find one on the web. Any ideas? And why attack the ACLU? I don't think
I can recall them ever coming down on the wrong side of any case. Fuck you.
First and fourth amendments. All others must work the day shift at the University
Plaza Hotel. Nichelle and I fought bitterly last night. It all began with
a little bluff I made over the phone to some Chinese crook with a restaurant
for rent: "I've got fifty thousand dollars to invest. Five-year lease. I'm
looking for a place which seats about fifty people." The place I visited,
over Nichelle's strong objections, was too big. As I left, she yelled through
her tears: "If you buy that place, I'll cut your balls off." She said I'm
useless scum that can't even hold a job, which may be true and a very good
reason to open my own business. I countered that she's undergraduate scum
that can't even play the clarinet. She regretted ever leaving EWU, and I
regretted quitting the Sorrento. All of which is true but besides the point.
Here we are. Let's get a job and play your horn. The rest will take care of
itself. Or not. So be it. She got off the best line: "We both made a mistake.
You didn't know what you were getting, and I didn't know what I was leaving."
Oh well. I regret nothing. Fuck you. I'll think of something.
From: Columbine
Date: 14 October 1997
Subject: Re: (no subject)
>Everyone agrees that rape is non-consensual, right? Everyone agrees
that
>rape is bad, right? OK. So when is sex with a kid automatically construed
as
>rape? In other words, at what age is the kid capable of giving consent?
>This is the kind of text that makes Nichelle sneer: "Consensual? They
make
>me fucking sick."
I'd like to hear from Nichelle directly on this one. I don't understand
the answer. Is she saying that all consent is a myth? Is she saying it's
wrong to even drag consent into the discussion?
Seems to me that with Nichelle's background, consent would become even more
important to her than it is to most people.
Sex conducted when both/all parties don't A) know what they're getting into
and B) agree to it is a crime and a lie.
I don't care if you want to pretend to rape the other party - although I'll
be glad I'm not in the room.
I don't care if A's job is to lie there and act terrified and sob uncontrollably
- although I don't know too many people who'd be turned on by that.
If that's B's favorite game, and A agrees to play along, so be it. It is
the agreement-in-advance - and that has to be an uncoerced agreement - that
makes all the difference.
>People in Boston sure get excited about your average, everyday
>child-sodomy-murder. What's the big deal? Boyz will be boyz, you know.
These people are biting down on something they can't chew. The police know.
The police know that your average child rapist knew the kid well, was probably
family or a friend of the family, that sex crimes are likely to be comitted
by a close friend or relative. They know it but they won't say it. The families
of the victims know it too, instinctively, but they won't accept that, so
they go looking for outside scapegoats, and they find this bunch of basically
harmless quacks who just happen to like looking at little kids.
This is the language we couldn't use in the article - it's too strong and
we don't have supporting facts. If we could have used the paragraph above,
it would have been one of the shortest columns on record.
If you couldn't get to NAMBLA's web site as well, then we may have to rethink
the censorship complaint we're considering sending to our provider. We're
still getting 403's on all pages.
From: Nichelle
Date: 15 October 1997
Subject: consent
What I love most about Gabriel is that even when we're arguing, he is thinking
about style...
> Is she saying that all consent is a myth? Is she saying it's
>wrong to even drag consent into the discussion?
*She* didn't actually say anything, and already we're analyzing what she
said, how emotional it was, etc. We should leave her opinions alone, at least
until she states them.
A few things first. Gabriel needs to learn to mark his quotes as quotes
in his e-mail. Until I read the mouthorgan page, I was pretty confused about
things. And saying "we think this and we decided that" on mouthorgan puts
me off to the point that I really don't read it regularly. Why must you say
"We think it is this way." when it would be less annoying, confusing, and
a stronger argument just to say "This is the way it is."?
On to my comments. We think it is silly to talk about consent between an
adult and a child.
> So when is sex with a kid automatically construed as rape?
>In other words, at what age is the kid capable of giving consent?
Are you saying that it might be okay for a mature thirteen year old (only
three years younger than the age of consent in some states, I believe) who
wants to have anal sex with a 38 year old partner to go for it... What the
fuck is a 38 yr. old doing with a 13 year old boy!? A child is capable of
giving consent once s/he reaches the legal age.
I don't believe that all fantasies are healthy, that everything is okay
as long as it's in your mind. I think that those fantasies might not necessarily
harm little boys, but that doesn't mean they're healthy.
I don't believe in censorship, it bothers me that I also cannot access the
site, but I'm not willing to say that if it doesn't hurt anybody it's healthy.
This is a group of child molesters who get together, share their wicked fantasies,
sometimes their child porn photos, and through their association maybe even
think that this is a socially acceptable behavior. They were outraged that
they weren't allowed to participate in the seattle gay/lesbian/bisexual pride
parade this year.
As for consent, I probably wouldn't have stated my opinion as elegantly
as Gabriel did. I don't put much faith in the idea of consent, but I suppose
it might exist somewhere. Consent isn't just an issue of yes or no, do I want
to do this or not... I don't know, I don't really feel inspired about discussing
it tonight... Don't worry, there are new issues of consent around the corner.
Watch your asses, boyz and grrlz.
Nichelle
From: Columbine
Date: 15 October 1997
Subject: Re: consent
>What I love most about Gabriel is that even when we're arguing, he is
>thinking about style...
Oddly enough this is probably the thing I dislike the most about Gabriel
:)
>> Is she saying that all consent is a myth? Is she saying it's
>>wrong to even drag consent into the discussion?
>
>*She* didn't actually say anything, and already we're analyzing what
she
>said, how emotional it was, etc. We should leave her opinions alone,
at
>least until she states them.
Fair point. Since I got it second-hand I had no idea what you did or didn't
actually say. Which is why I was asking you directly, and not Gabriel.
>A few things first. Gabriel needs to learn to mark his quotes as quotes
in
>his e-mail. Until I read the mouthorgan page, I was pretty confused
about
>things. And saying "we think this and we decided that" on mouthorgan
puts me
>off to the point that I really don't read it regularly. Why must you
say "We
>think it is this way." when it would be less annoying, confusing, and
a
>stronger argument just to say "This is the way it is."?
Because we're not authorities. This is an opinion column and we don't want
anyone to ever forget that. If we say "that's the way it is," then someone
sends us email and proves to us, with relevant citations, that it's not always
that way, or that we're dead wrong. We are stating what goes on inside our
heads and we don't claim to represent anyone else's points of view. If we
said, "that's the way it is," we would be making such a claim.
The rest of the issues: well, I was typing the response when I realized
that I've typed nearly the exact same response three times today. So, since
we're not happy with any of the column ideas for tonight anyway, we'll probably
just type up the goods once and for all and make them tonight's column. Give
it a look tomorrow if you like.
From: Nichelle
Date: 15 October 1997
Subject: Re: consent
I was going to ask you for some reassurance, actually... I don't know if
any of us are living enviable lives, except maybe Murder who has a five spurt
minimum built into his contract. I've had the 'who cares' attitude often,
and lately. I've been sick for the last few days, and Gabriel made me feel
like a criminal for staying home today. He really didn't believe that I'm
sick. Whatever. I'm just trying to convince myself to go to sleep. Never mind
the dreams... just sleep.
Nichelle
From: Columbine
Date: 16 October 1997
Subject: Re: consent
Well, we wrote the follow-up column but we're coming to believe that there
are just too many irreconcilable ideas - we're being pulled in a bunch of
different directions, saying "we believe this, BUT what about this, and what
if this? Then what do we believe?"
And one of us is so depressed about being unemployed that she's incapable
of writing lucid prose to save her life. Ahem. My attitude right now is not
a healthy one, it's along the lines of "Who cares? Why bother to write the
damned thing anyway?"
Not that I'm looking to you for reassurance, mind you. I know better than
that.
From: Nichelle
Date: 16 October 1997
Subject: my stats...
http://weber.u.washington.edu/~nichelle/stats.html
Nichelle
From: Columbine
Date: 16 October 1997
Subject: Re: consent
Another fine morning in the Northeast. Of the two jobs which seem genuinely
enthusiastic to have me, one of them is having a personnel change - the boss
who interviewed me is leaving, and the incoming boss has inherited his recommendations
for the new position, but doesn't trust them, so I may have to start over
from square one. I was there less than half an hour this morning. The other
is so frantic busy busy that they don't have time to stop and actually finish
the hiring process. They want me badly but can't get their act together long
enough to actually do it. Meanwhile the cash supply is well into critical.
I'm going back to bed.
I suppose I can give you reassurance to the extent that misery loves company.
From: Nichelle
Date: 17 October 1997
Subject: url....
I found this in a list of sex links. I don't know how much of their member
page is represented:
http://abacus.oxy.edu/QRD/orgs/NAMBLA/
Nichelle
From: Nichelle
Date: 17 October 1997
Subject: consent...
I have brutally anal-raped you in your sleep. While you were calling me
Honey, I was putting up a web page full of your texts. Please forgive me.
This page has not yet been made available to the public. Please have a look
at it.
I'd like to give you a chance to comment on your texts. Please reply quickly
with any suggestions, corrections, or offers for cybersex.
I want U so bad baby. Let's do alot of suck face.
Nichelle
From: Nichelle
Date: 19 October 1997
Subject: dnatsingunder Faulkner
In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep. And before you are
emptied for sleep, what are you. And when you are emptied for sleep, you
are not. And when you are filled with sleep, you never were. I dont know
what I am. I dont know if I am or not. Jewel knows he is, because he does
not know that he does not know whether he is or not. Beyond the unlamped
wall I can hear the rain shaping the wagon that is ours, the load that is
no longer theirs that felled and sawed it nor yet theirs that bought it and
which is not ours either, lie on our wagon though it does, since only the
wind and the rain shape it only to Jewel and me, that are not asleep. And
since sleep is is-not and rain and wind are was, it is not. Yet the wagon
is, because when the wagon is was, Addie Bundren will not be. And Jewel is,
so Addie Bundren must be. And then I must be, or I could not empty myself
for sleep in a strange room. And so if I am not emptied yet, I am is.
Nichelle
From: Nichelle
Date: 20 October 1997
Subject: coming of age
Jimmie made the gunpowder and put it in a plastic margarine container. Yellow
with black powder inside. Carl and I standing out back by the tree and Jimmie
lighting the plastic with the powder inside of it. Fireworks sounds as drops
of plastic fall to the ground. He is magic- big and good.
Carl by the tire swing and me on the rock and Jimmie pours the alcohol on
the side walk and lights it up- a streak of fire down the cement until it
is burned up and gone.
I hide and Carl and Jimmie seek. I crawl under the porch with the stale
dust and the haunted house boards and bricks. I am very good at hiding- they
still have not found me. Underneath the porch is clever. I am clever. I wait.
Jimmie and Carl are inside playing Dungeons and Dragons.
Jill and I are in my bed, overnight. She tells me it feels good when you
touch it. I touch it but I don't feel anything. "Does it feel good?" "Yes."
Jill has the secret book. In it, she writes down all of the dirty words
she has learned so far: ass, boob, crap, bastard, shit, bitch, penis, masturbate,
dick, hooker, fuck. We go to the back of the playground to try out our new
vocabulary.
"You're a shit fuck."
"You're a bastard."
"Hooker."
"Crap dick."
"Shitty ass fuck."
When my window is open, I can smell the apple tree, just outside. Under
neath me is the place where the sunflowers are. I think about the sunflowers
a lot. Mom says they will be big, huge, taller than me. I want them to grow.
I want them to be big enough to sit on. I will sit on top of them and look
at the sky and the sun. I cannot wait for the sunflowers to grow big. I sneak
around the corner of the house and poop in the sunflower garden, then cover
it up. I go back upstairs to my window to watch them grow.
The cat is dead. Muffy is dead- orange and white and I loved him, Muffy
P. Precious is dead. Carl and I are in our large t-shaped room crying. Mom
and Dad call us downstairs, and we march down the periwinkle staircase, out
to the back porch where Muffy is in a black garbage bag. Carl and I walk
behind Mom and Dad into the woods where they have dug a grave. In goes the
plastic garbage bag with the dirt on top and a big rock.
Mom comes up the stairs and screams at me. Nichelle Ann what on
God's earth are you doing? I have ripped open a stuffed animal and white
foam is scattered every where, on the floor, and I pluck it out by the handfull
and toss it around the room. I'm feeding the ducks. In the back yard is a
zigzag sidewalk, a stone well, two long rose beds, and the blackberries.
The sidewalk goes through the grapes, the grapes to the apple tree, and the
apple tree to the blackberries, everywhere. I am picking the blackberries,
eating them, putting them in plastic buckets, metal buckets, into bags. There
are pies and jams and everything is blackberry, everything is summer. My
fingertips are purple, my face is purple, it is summer and I am six years
old, I am good, and I am full of blackberries and summer.
Nichelle
From: SAGReiss
Date: 21 October 1997
Subject: Ronald McDonald in the Emerald City
'Santa' arrested on molesting charges
SEATTLE - A 72-year-old man who volunteered as Santa Claus at a shopping
mall and often baby-sat for neighbors' children was charged with raping a
6-year-old girl at his home. Police say he confessed to molesting seven other
children.
King County prosecutors say the list of victims could be substantially higher,
and that Ronald C. McDonald may have been molesting young children as far
back as the early 1970s.
According to court documents, McDonald told the officer he had been molesting
the 6-year-old girl since she was 2 months old. One time, McDonald told police,
he directed a 7-year-old boy to have sex with her.
He admitted to fondling or having oral intercourse with seven children.
McDonald, who with his white hair and round features looks like Santa without
a beard, told police he would take the children to a "special room" in his
house filled with toys and children's videos. As they sat on his lap, he would
fondle them.
"He claimed that he does this for the pleasure of the children," court papers
state.
McDonald was charged Monday with two counts of child rape and held in the
King County Jail.
Our friend Dr Cleo has just published a new book, Virtual Spaces: Sex and
the Cybercitizen. At the following address you can download, as we did, audio-visual
clips of her typing and dancing in front of her 'puter.
Lest you laugh, this obviously empowered lady not only has more diplomas
than Nichelle, Murtilda, negatron and I will ever be able to afford, but she
has published three professional-looking books and received a twenty-five-thousand-dollar
advance for this latest work. All told it was not a good day to be online.
I spoke with English literature teacher Shannon McRae of cyber-rape fame.
She explained to some interloping guest that: "Donne didnt' [sic] do sonnets
much." In my delicate way I questioned her expertise, suggesting that Donne
published an extremely famous and beautiful volume of Holy Sonnets, including
such well-known poems as: "Death, be not proud", "I am a little world made
cunningly" and "Batter my heart, three-personed God". She answered by quoting
some second-hand bullshit from Eliot's "Metaphysical Poets" and questioning
my expertise, asking if I could identify the Harlem renaissance (I thought
of Langston Hughs.), a female beat poet (I couldn't name one, but mentioned
the fine book Off the Road by Carolyn Cassady.) and a poem by someone I've
vaguely heard of, Sharon Alexie or something like that. I have to wonder whether
the fight against the so-called canon, which she mentioned with disdain, is
not simply a fight against wasted brain cells and a shattered attention span.
This ignorant cunt teaches literature? Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity! (There
he goes again quoting those obscure dead-white-male texts that nobody ever
reads anymore.) On the culinary front things went a little better. The stuffed
chicken was a triumph, perhaps slightly overcooked, but Nichelle thinks that
everything I make is rare to underdone. The stuffing inside was moist and
tender, outside crisp and crunchy. The skin crackled and was brown, red and
black from the paprika and pepper. The pumpkin pie didn't turn out that well,
but it may be better chilled. I don't know. Maybe someday Nichelle will blow
her horn at Carnegie Hall. Maybe we'll all get publishing contracts. Shiiit,
I'd be happy with a dumb-ass pizza parlor.
From: Columbine
Date: 21 October 1997
Subject: Re: Ronald McDonald in the Emerald City
The online work last night didn't go well, nor is the fiction I've been
trying to write for several days. Today I lay on the couch all day and waited
for the phone to ring. It did, but always the wrong people.
BARTLEBY is one of the most tedious things I've ever read. That's Melville,
isn't it? Figures. All Melville is boring. Even though I understand better
now what he was trying to do in MOBY DICK, and respect that, the book is still
fifty percent boring, and his other works are worse. In high school I got
into trouble because the paper I was supposed to write about BARTLEBY consisted
of one sentence: "I would prefer not to." Given the story, I thought it was
funny. To her credit, so did the teacher, but she gave me an F anyway. No
room for conscientous objectors in high school lit.
People who rail against the dead white male canon have my support on some
grounds but not on others. I am all in favor of not reading the same twenty
people that every single freshman college class has been exposed to since
the dawn of recorded time. In fact, I'm getting kinda tired of the second-tier
canon, which was radical at one time (people like Kurt Vonnegut, whom college
professors added in the 70's to seem hip to their students) but is now just
as overused. I want to see a college class where the syllabus contains as
much variety as possible, and spans as wide a period of publication dates
as possible. Given my weirdnesses, I probably still won't want to read half
of it - but I'll consider it a step in the right direction.
What I refuse to do is fight the battle on race or gender grounds, which
is tilting at windmills. I find it just as hard to enjoy reading Maya Angelou
or Baraka or a collection of pointless haiku as I do reading Milton or Wordsworth.
Don't drag irrelevant factors into the discussion.
Langston Hughes is usually a joy to read. Kerouac and most of the Beats
couldn't write worth a damn; Kerouac got read because he told a generation
it was okay to not have goals, in the same way that Ginsberg made it okay
to be disaffected with everything, and Burroughs made it okay to be a junkie.
(I may be old-fashioned, but to my mind all three of those conclusions are
bullshit. If you're going to be purposeless, at least have the grace to feel
guilt about it.) Walt Whitman is dull to me; Rainer Maria Rilke is not. Both
are interested in sensory language rather than passage of events, but Whitman
seems bloodless, colorless, and chaste. I'd rather read Blake than Wordsworth;
I'd rather read Dorothy Parker than her admired trio of "Byron and Shelley
and Keats"; and so on.
It's always individual taste. I could bore you with what characteristics
I do and don't like in a poem, but who cares? Anyway, the broader the spectrum
the class covers, the more likely a cranky student like me will discover something
they didn't know they liked - which to me is the primary goal, maybe the
sole goal, behind exposing people to literature in the first place.
Scuse me - I'm sorta crabby today; it's job-related. I'll go back in my
cave now.
From: Nichelle
Date: 22 October 1997
Subject: fucking
new to the vr site:
http://weber.u.washington.edu/~nichelle/fuck.htm
I don't know if it worked. Tell me if it works.
Columbine, I have put links to the two sites on my last page called 'exit'.
Have a look at them.
Yes, negatron, it's kind of an ugly yellow, but I like it... I don't know
why, but I do.
OK, that's it. I'm tired. No more. Sleep.
Nichelle
From: Nichelle
Date: 28 October 1997
Subject: APT
I expected to come home to a letter. I wasn't sure what kind of letter,
but I figured it would be printed out and sitting on top of my keyboard as
I walked in. There are not enough letters.
I'm ahead by two- I scored the best line of the night(/fight) yet again.
"I feel chased." "Yes, you're very chaste." Apparently my interest in hypertext
nonsense has come a year and a half too late, or a pizzaria too late. I've
managed to get myself onto a hypertext fiction mailing list that seems to
be as slow as this list. We've all got our own projects, I suppose.
I've stooped pretty low this week. I bought a diet book and read it. I won't
tell you which one. It's a very bad one. There were some interesting facts
about how the digestive system works and how the body functions during exercise.
Other than that, it was a joke. Horrible. One of the major dieting techniques
counters the excuse that many of us make about not having enough time to diet.
Well, we all have to poop. Why not use that toilet time to vizualize the
good things we will accomplish today? By associating these positive feelings
with our toilet-going, we may also rid ourselves of some sort of Freudian-potty-anxiety
we carry on from our childhoods. This is the Anal Power Technique!
OK, enough horseshit.
-nichelle
Nichelle
September 1997
November 1997
vr: 1997
