SubGenius Digest, Number 475
Thursday, 23 August 1990
Today's Topics:
Classic Rant #17
walnuts
they blasted Noriega with rock, now this...
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Date: Wed, 22 Aug 90 14:41:17 EDT
From: Michael Travers <mt@media-lab.media.mit.edu>
Subject: Classic Rant #17
Civilization is here and culture there. As for your way of thinking
about them, man, it will always have to be grammatical, numerical,
symmetrical, arithmetical, acoustical, or not at all. Which means
that science, taken as the genital repository of all elements
permitting life and being, is in the hands of a certain number of
Jack-offs, a very select party which, in addition, shits all over any
other parties who may not measure up to their particular and sectarian
way of thinking; and who started off by locking arms and holding hands
and electing themselves as a very select party, and established this
somber group which (though nobody any longer knows, or can even yet
suspect, this) is at the bottom not only of all wars, all famines, all
restrictions of nourishment, all revolutions and all anarchies, but
also of all epidemics, of all physiological deficiencies, of the born
man, of all dietary scurvies, of all spontaneous generations of
deaf-mutes, and of those born blind, mongoloid idiots and incarnate
morons who often have nothing wrong with them other than a certain
excess of dermis and epidermis by which their wires get crossed and
their mental electricity cannot properly be grounded; and it is always
on the Kabbala, be it as it may, on the Zohar, the Sepher Yetzirah,
the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Puranas, and the Ramayana, that this
unknown and somber group bases the continuing presence of its
misdeeds.
-- Artaud, Letter Against the Kabbala
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Date: Wed, 22 Aug 90 17:11 EDT
From: Michael Travers <mt@media-lab.media.mit.edu>
Subject: walnuts
Message-Id: <19900822211142.1.MT@OUROBOROS.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>
Date: Wed, 22 Aug 90 16:47 EDT
From: haroldh@Think.COM
Subject: walnuts
God, I love The Independent!
A Spaniard has just won a nutcracking contest by cracking 30 walnuts between
his buttocks in less than a minute. Hundreds of spectators watched Jose Luis
Astoreka, 34, squat to victory in the first annual "nutcracking with the
bottom championships" at the annual festival in the Basque village of
Kortezubi, 199 miles from Madrid. Mr Astoreka cracked the walnuts laid out
on the ground in two rows in 57 seconds. His brother, Juan Ramon, was second
with a time of 1min 20 seconds. The brothers winning times have been
attributed to "a peculiar physical characteristic which runs in the Astoreka
family. {The Independent}
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Date: Wed, 22 Aug 90 17:55:34 -0400 (EDT)
From: Chris Koenigsberg <ckk+@andrew.cmu.edu>
To: computermusic@spice.cs.cmu.edu, nm-list@beach.cis.ufl.edu
Subject: they blasted Noriega with rock, now this...
Message-Id: <saojxKK00jWKI0QV5m@andrew.cmu.edu>
Tillicum Journal: THIS MUSIC IS INTENDED TO MAKE YOUTHS WALK
copyright The New York Times, Wed. Aug. 22, 1990
A cluster of noisy teen-agers clad in Bart Simpson T-shirts, the uniform
of the moment, gathered in the convenience store parking lot to show off
their modified Mohawk haircuts and just hang out on a hot August night.
Then came the audio assault from loudspeakers outside the store in this
town 45 miles south of Seattle: Mantovani and other easy-listening music.
On the hot August night, it had the same effect on the youths as a cross
held firmly in front of Dracula.
"There's no words or anything," complained 14-year-old Felix Mendiola.
"It's all violins and I don't know what."
His reaction was intended. The Southland Corporation, owner of 7-Eleven
stores and Hoagy's Corner Delis, is trying to shoo away undesirables
with a sound that would not be caught dead in a boombox.
In recent years, music has been used to encourage people to shop, ignore
pain, or fall asleep. Here, in a shopping strip of a town bordering a
freeway, it is being used to make people go away.
"We call it a nonaggressive deterrent," said Ron Conlin, who is in
charge of the program for Southland in the Pacific Northwest. "The idea
is that none of these kids want to hang out in a place that plays
elevator music. I mean, I wouldn't hang out in a place where all I heard
was mood music."
Chasing teen-agers from convenience stores with the kind of music used
to massage office workers was pioneered by Southland in British Columbia.
"A bunch of us got together and tried to figure out what we could do to
curb loitering," said Liz Mallender, a Southland spokeswoman in
Vancouver, "and we came up with such things as using high-intensity
halogen lighting - you know, the kind that makes people look awful - and
using garbage cans with pointed lids."
"Then somebody suggested we start playing classical music outside."
They found that it was impossible to buy canned Bach and Beethoven, so
they settled on easy listening music, the ubuquitious fixture featuring
such aural assaults as the Rolling Stones set to strings, and punk rock
made hummable.
Now, 10 of the 7-Eleven stores in British Columbia use the system.
"It has really worked well," Ms. Mallender said. "The kids found that
it's uncool to be anywhere with that kind of music."
Mr. Conlin also wanted to use classical music, on the hunch that Mozart
is a better deterrent than Mantovani. But he could not find a system
that delivered true classical music.
On this evening, the first night of the program, he was experimenting
with country music and - hits from the 1960's. It seemed to be working.
"That old 60's stuff just drives me crazy," said Felix, who is partial
to rap and an occasional head-banging riff of heavy metal.
"I hate country-western 'cause all the songs are about somebody whining
that they're heartbroken," said 15-year-old George Vance, who was
hanging out with Felix.
Loitering is a serious concern in Tillicum, a community of mobile homes
and apartments set between three military bases. On weekend nights, as
many as 100 young people, in cars and on bikes, gather in the parking
lot of Hoagy's Corner. They say there is no other place to go.
Last summer there was a shooting. But whether bad music will deter
loitering and violence remains to be seen.
No matter what is emanating from the speakers here, 17-year-old Walter
Dumas plans to keep coming to Hoagy's. "I just ignore it," he said.
But Felix and his friends are already eyeing the Kentucky Fried Chicken
outlet a few blocks away as a future hangout.
"I'm out of here, dude," he said. "They want to listen to that stuff,
they can have it."
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Aug 90 22:01:51 PDT
From: Gun Control is Hitting Your Target <bandy@catnip.berkeley.ca.us>
To: esperanto@rand.org.uucp
Message-Id: <9008230501.AA16364@catnip.berkeley.ca.us>
La Subgenius Kunesto resanigxas ruinajn membrojn de poluigxanta socio!
Jen estas kio de malmultaj geuloj diras...
"Mi ne estas terurita ek de 1961. Vi pravas, lauxdu la Dio! Vere ni
nura espero estas PENTECO."
"Mi scias ke estas ia miso pri la Suno kaj Venuso - nun mi havas pruvon.
Mi benas vian laboron."
"Subite estas VIRINOJ VIRINOJ VIRINOJ! Ho, via libro ``Ajxoj vidi kaj
fari'' estas BONEGA!"
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Date: Thu, 23 Aug 90 02:16:26 PDT
From: Douglas Trainor <trainor%bill-n-ted.esd@sgi.com>
Message-Id: <9008230916.AA01626@bill-n-ted.esd.sgi.com>
ben f. was really into the turkey. can you say "tush" for the last five
days. stanford bbq beans, math fuckup, pay at the bar. spring vegetable
psilocybin soup taco. i worship george washington carver. L7 evening,
carrier wave, dwarves too, always wondered about that, unfortunately I was
right. the river runs deep, white water... the last time I had crab was
with Steve and his crab-eating wife who always cracked me up, but it was
expensive as hell, compared to the eastern shore. some say september four
comes a special day in LA, but I say "no", they have not paid homage to
thee. For thy heareth and obeyeth. Mark my word, the peanut shall be
venerated. Hail ``Bob'' for he represents the Matrix of Certainty. Blind
eye sees all.
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End of SubGenius Digest
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