Today's Topics:
utci'waiwa wetco'we! utci'waiwa wetco'we!
Virtual Beans.
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Message-Id: <9302150014.AA16670@versant.com>
Subject: utci'waiwa wetco'we! utci'waiwa wetco'we!
To: Subgenius@mc.lcs.mit.edu
Date: Sun, 14 Feb 93 16:14:17 PST
From: henry strickland <strick@osc.versant.com>
When the men have retired to the "sulk house" to sulk, the youngsters
run exuberantly to the river. In they wade, and with playful boasts,
attempt to snare recyclable refuse -- everything from broken chunks of
polyvinyl chloride buoys to foil packets of ketchup -- from the swift
current. The women, who have been watching from either the menstrual
gazebos or the song stalls where they flatten manioc cakes between
their hands to rhythmic doggerel, shout praise at the boys and heap
derision on the ensconced brooding men, impugning their scavaging
prowess and disparaging their virility. The men sulk for usually an
hour, when a preset timer resounds in the sulk house and, depending on
whether the man have planned a hunting raid or just want to watch
television and drink, prepare themselves accordingly. If TV and
drinking comprise the agenda, the men change from their dark, cowled
sulking robes into gym shorts and flip-flops and undo their topknots,
letting their long orange hair fall casually down their backs. They
then make exaggerated exhibitions of pride about their hair, tossing
their heads and narcissistically flipping their tresses about with the
backs of their hands. Although these displays of extravagant, almost
effeminate vanity usually culminate in gales of laughter, this is a
crucial, highly ritualized transition activity that psychologically
enables the men to shift from sulking to watching television and
drinking -- a transition that is physically accomplished by walking
through an underground passageway from the sulk house to the spirit
house. Once in the spirit house, the remote control for the television
-- a device made out of black beeswax, parana palm thatch, jaguar bone,
and toucan feather tassels and featuring power, mute, volume, and
channel buttons -- can only be operated by the "kakarum" (powerful
one). To be acknowledged as a kakarum, a man must have killed at least
several persons. It is considered a feat of overwhelming courage and
strength to kill a kakarum and wrest from him jurisdiction over the
remote control -- but this rarely happens, and in fact none of the
elder informants can remember a remote control ever being taken from a
kakarum. Kakarums are believed to possess supernatural power derived
from the souls of the men they have killed. The prospect of acquiring
this power by killing a kakarum and usurping his remote control rights
is often too enticing for ambitious young men to resist. But conflicts
over the remote control almost invariably end with the violent death of
the young challenger, whose body is then dumped down a metal chute that
delivers it into a pit located between the menstrual gazebos and the
song stalls where the victim is prepared for burial by his matrilineal
grandmother or mother-in-law. The kakarum then chooses a TV program
and signals the commencement of drinking by announcing, "Let us drink
until we vomit" and "Drink quickly so that you may be drunk soon." The
beverage that's consumed -- and consumed in staggering quantities -- is
a beer made from masticated pupunah mash and sugar cane extract. It's
produced in two versions: regular and lite, which is less filling. The
first man to vomit is known as "wetco'we" (vomiting one) and it is he
who goes outside the spirit house and makes a loud, dramatic display of
vomiting in order to signal to the women to come join the men and
"utci'waiwa" (party). The women, having been signaled by the wetco'we,
change from the drab clothes they'd been wearing in the menstrual
gazebos or the song stalls into short, back-strapped sequined dresses,
and they dance single file toward the spirit house chanting,
"utci'waiwa wetco'we! utci'waiwa wetco'we!"
(C) 1992 Mark Leyner [_Et_Tu_Babe_]
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Date: Sun, 14 Feb 93 22:12:26 EST
From: "Joshua D. Glasser" <glasserj@sun.mcs.clarkson.edu>
Message-Id: <9302150312.AA06246@sun.mcs.clarkson.edu>
To: G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk
Cc: Subgenius@mc.lcs.mit.edu
In-Reply-To: <9302131113.aa10576@mc.lcs.mit.edu>
Subject: Virtual Beans.
Reply-To: glasserj@sun.mcs.clarkson.edu
And angain the great black salty virtual fermented withered Bean spake
unto them- nay, not spake But, sang rather. In a voice deep in richness:
And if we once a Gala Bean had
a Gala Bean now in sad-
"Bob"- in the cockpit: flight from sureness
NuNu and Chilkat, the great dual dou, in the spa: plunged in pureness
Bean: was nobleness a shallow fad?
Listen unto the Bean.
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End of Subgenius Digest
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