Today's Topics:
A collection of bounced messages
<<<<<=====-----=====>>>>>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message-Id: <9411290453.AA24642@eliza.media.mit.edu.media.mit.edu>
To: subgenius@mc.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: A collection of bounced messages
Date: Mon, 28 Nov 94 23:53:05 -0500
From: Michael Travers <mt@media.mit.edu>
[Once again our exotic mail system is flaking out, depriving you of
the digests you so desperately crave. Here are some of the posts
that got bounced.]
------- Forwarded Message
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 18:34:13 -0500
From: twisted soul <woj@remus.rutgers.edu>
Message-Id: <199411182334.SAA26462@remus.rutgers.edu>
Organization: <a href="http://remus.rutgers.edu/~woj/">wojpage</a>
To: subgenius@mc.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: Barbie Liberation Front
BARBIE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION REVEALED!
Last Christmas, a group calling itself The Barbie Liberation Organization
switched the voices of talking Barbie and GI Joe dolls across the country.
They placed the altered toys back on store shelves. When kids opened their
Christmas presents, they had an unusual surprise: Barbies yelled RVengeance
is Mine!S while GI Joe asked RWanna go shopping?S The event was covered by
hundreds of news media sources world wide.
THE TELL-ALL VIDEOTAPE!
The Barbie Liberation Organization is now offering copies of their
official videotape. The tape includes:
% A how-to section: perform the surgery yourself
% the original BLO press release, as seen on hundreds of TV broadcasts
% behind the scenes look at the BLO
% actual footage of RshopgivingS
% media coverage from the event, including kids' reactions & responses
% and of course much more-
This tape is not available in any stores. It is an educational aid, a
historical document, a guide to subversive culture jamming, an
entertainment, a work of art, a curiosity. Impress your friends, vex your
enemies.
30 minutes, VHS.
The BLO requests $20 per tape plus $5.00 shipping and handling.
If you want to save our time and your money, send a self addressed envelope
with $2.38 postage on it (it must be large enough for a Videotape in a
plastic case.) Since the BLO does not have a bank account, please make out
all checks to IGOR VAMOS. (I am the coordinator of the BLO.) We will pay
the sales tax. All proceeds pay production costs and support the BLO.
Send checks to: Igor Vamos, Dept. of Visual Arts, UCSD, La Jolla, CA
92093-0327
You will receive your tape within 2-3 weeks. Order now as for Christmas.
questions? igor@ucsd.edu
SPECIAL OFFER: BUY THREE TAPES OR MORE, WE PAY THE POSTAGE
-----------------------------
To: subgenius@mc.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: the subgenius web page
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 94 03:16:47 -0500
From: Michael Travers <mt@media.mit.edu>
Is now at this address:
http://mt.www.media.mit.edu/people/mt/subg/subg.html
there are a few new pointers to web-based weirdness.
-----------------------------
From: "The Rt. Rev. Wor. Dr. Y. Foo, FRC" <dryfoo@mit.edu>
To: subgenius@mc.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: Sick Boy Has A Second Wish
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 1994 12:00:08 EST
} Cancer survivor hopes to break chain of letters
}
} Flood of business cards overwhelms youth, agencies
}
}
} By Zachary R. Dowdy
} GLOBE STAFF
}
} It seemed harmless, the chain letter from a colleague asking Jeffrey
} Pina to send his business card to Craig Sherford, a terminally ill
} 7-year-old British child whose last wish was to have his name entered
} into the Guinness Book of World Records.
}
} "It wasn't a solicitation for money," Pina said. "It was a business
} card. So I said, `Why not?'"
}
} It was a dying child seeking immortality, or so Pina thought. So he
} followed the directions, sending the letter to 10 friends.
}
} Some complied, expanding the reach of a simple chain letter that has
} traversed continents. Others didn't, and it's probably a good thing.
}
} A cancer patient with a similar name, Craig Shergold, does exist, but he
} is 13 or 14 years old now and, thanks to a successful operation to
} remove most of a brain tumor, no longer terminally ill. He has already
} been inducted into the Guinness Book of World Records for garnering 17
} million greeting cards by May of 1990. Guinness has since eliminated the
} category.
}
} But the solicitation letters haven't stopped. And somewhere along the
} way, the greeting cards became business cards.
}
} Now authorities, and Craig himself, hope anyone who gets one of these
} letters simply throws it away so they can stop the flood of business
} cards and outdated chain letters being send around Massachusetts and the
} world on his behalf.
}
} "The point we'd like to get across is that Craig has had his wish, and
} it's his wish now -- and others' -- that people stop sending cards to
} him," said Linda Dozoretz, Fairy Godmother at the Atlanta-based
} Children's Wish Foundation.
}
} Craig Shergold lives in Carshalton, England, but his request was being
} handled by the wish foundation, which facilitates last wishes for
} terminally ill children.
}
} He began his quest in 1989 to become the person who had collected the
} most greeting cards.
}
} Untold numbers of people across the country, who have not heard news of
} Craig's recovery, have been moved by the short chain letter, consisting
} of three sentences and an address.
}
} "We get, on the average, about 30 packages a day and about 600 to 1,000
} letters a day," Dozoretz said, adding that the agency receives up to 60
} calls a day from concerned citizens interested in helping Shergold.
}
} Massachusetts businesspeople are no exception.
}
} "When you multiply 10 times 10 times 10, that's a phenomenal ratio,"
} said Pina, director of public relations at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of
} Massachusetts.
}
} Former US Rep. William E. Dannemeyer of California sent out a warning
} letter that brands the request for cards "a hoax," although there is no
} indication that the request was a hoax.
}
} Despite television segments and several newspaper accounts of the issue,
} the letters and cards just keep coming.
}
} On one hand, the chain letter sparks an outpouring of support.
}
} "I think there's an awful lot of good people in the world who think this
} was a way that they could help," Dozoretz said.
}
} On the other hand, a gesture of good will has blossomed into a nuisance
} for people who handle high volumes of mail.
}
} "It started out being funny," Dozoretz said. But, she pointed out,
} workers spend less time fulfilling children's wishes when they must
} handle letters for Shergold.
}
} Despite the good intentions, the correspondence goes to waste.
}
} What's worse is that in some cases, the chain letter has been duplicated
} inaccurately, providing the wrong agency's name or misspelling
} Shergold's name as Sherwood, Sherford, or Sheford.
}
} The popular Make-A-Wish Foundation's name has been added to the changing
} letter. Somehow along the chain, someone provided that agency's name
} instead of the Children's Wish Foundation, generating yet another
} headache for yet another agency.
}
} "When word was getting around about Craig's wish, people assumed it was
} Make-A-Wish who was handling it," said Frances Hall, marketing director
} for the agency.
}
} Hall said her agency receives about 1,00 calls each month about Craig.
} The firm has set up an 800 number explaining the controversy.
}
} "It's amazing," Hall said. "We've seen business cards, holiday cards,
} greeting cards, birthday cards. It gives new meaning to the gang whisper
} down the lane."
}
}
} [Boston Globe: 8 November 1994]
-----------------------------
------------------------------
End of Subgenius Digest
******************************
