CYBERPUNK HANDBOOK

From: jimvan@gate.net (Jim Vandewalker)
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 1995

This is a report on a strange sighting at Barnes & Noble of a new book out, entitled CYBERPUNK HANDBOOK [The Real Cypberpunk Fakebook], by St. Jude, R.U Sirius and Bart Nagel, with a foreword by Bruce Sterling. A fairly slim paperback which purports to teach callow youth how to pass for cyberknowledgeable. Just some cyberhippies selling out and cashing in on a new fad, you may say, nothing any of us wouldn't do given half the chance, right?

Well, okay, but there are some strange and menacing things in the book.
FFrom the foreword:

"Then there's this Saint person. Never draw to an inside straight. Never eat at a place called Mom's. And never eat a bag of ephedrine and a pumpkin pie ("the *whip* of vegetables!") from a California blonde who doesn't even have a real name. This female personage is so appallingly cagey that even her main squeeze delights in cryptographically baffling the NSA. If Pat Buchanan ever gets his not-so-secret wish and sets up a domestic American gulag for counter-culture thought-criminals, the Judester's gonna be way, *way* up on the list -- maybe even number two, right after Bob Dobbs. Her trial's likely to prove interesting, however, as she only commits "crimes" in areas of social activity that haven't even been defined yet, much less successfully criminalized. A serious study of this woman's spectrum of activities would be like a CAT-scan of the american unconscious."

See that? Odd reference to Dobbs just thrown into the forward; subtly wrong, too. No initials, no quote marks. Look a little further:

"Chapter 19, The Parental-Discretion Special: Sects and Politics...and Recipes

"Part 1. The Joy of Sects

" Cyberpunks are just like everyone else, only more so. It follow that cyberpunks are not blind to any aspects of mind, including those called spiritual. Do you assume that cynical, technology-worshipping, leather-wearing persons don't bother about theses things? Well, you're wrong.

And the first listing is:

"Church of the SubGenius

"This started out as an outrageous parody of organized religion, but as organized religion has become equally outrageous, SubGenius has had to retrench as a branch of the Irony movement. SubGenius people tend to worship Irony in its more accessible aspects. Some highlights of the cult are:

"1. The grinning, pipe-smoking deity Bob Dobbs.

"2. The hero's quest -- the search for Slack, which is the most valuable element in the universe.

"3. Ivan Stang, who doesn't exist.

"We may be up for the SubGenius hit-squad for divulging this, but Ivan Stang is just a title that gets passed around among SubGenius Inner Illuminati. Be warned. If any of the authors of this book end up hanged under a bridge so that the tide washes them, those of us who are left will infallibly pin it on this year's Ivan Stang.

Chapter 20. It's an Intelligence Test! Cyperpunk Skull-Tweakers and Fun Fare

The 3-Letter Acronyms From H.E.C.K. CrypticCrossword

The clue for 4 down: "A band that will probably be forgotten in the few lousy weeks it takes for this book to make it to the shop. It does pseudocyber shtick and horrible splatter routines that spray the audience with fake gore. (4)" And the answer is GWAR.

Now some of this you might be able to write off as just the maunderings of hacks trying to make a buck off some stuff they down-loaded off the net and only semi-understood. But one of these paragraphs made the hair on the back of my neck stand up when I realized its full implications.

Stang's hand is in this. He may even be one of the authors. But Prophet, you say, why would Stang make these clumsy mistakes: Dobbs without the initials and without the quotes, the garbled explanation of Slack?

The key, children, is the seemingly throw-away line about the non-existence of Stang. He knows the thought police will be, almost certainly ALREADY ARE, after him. It hardly takes a revelation from Dobbs, and anyway the persecution of the Church is prophesied right there in the Book of the SubGenius. STANG DOESN'T INTEND TO GO QUIETLY. In fact, it looks as if he doesn't intend to be martyred at all. When they come for him, he's going to have a sacrificial lamb all ready to go. "Stang, Stang, you want Stang? Oh, yes, there's the Stang all right. Take HIM." The apparent "mistakes" are simply thrown in to lend artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative. And the vicious cut, "SubGenius people tend to worship Irony in its more *accessible aspects* [emphasis added]," is, when you think about it, pure Stang. He's ready to throw one, OR MORE, of us to the wolves. This sets things up to do this little trick over and over again.

Well, I understand this is the kind of thing you have to do when you're the chief scribe of the only church guaranteeing true salvation in the end times, and even worse, mouthpiece for the Guy Who Swindled Loki, and Tricked the Trickster God. I even have a grudging respect for Stang being tough-minded enough to be able to do it. But if I were you, I'd think twice about any "special" or "honorary" positions Stang wanted to offer ME in the Church hierarchy.

--
Jim the Prophet
Spreading Eco-Mulch for the Gods

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From: dynasor@news.infi.net (Dennis McClain-Furmanski)

On Thu. Sep 21, 1995, jimvan@gate.net told All:

jn> Well, I understand this is the kind of thing you have to do when
you're the chief scribe of the only church guaranteeing true salvation in the end times, and even worse, mouthpiece for the Guy Who Swindled Loki, and Tricked the Trickster God. I even have a grudging respect for Stang being tough-minded enough to be able to do it. But if I were you, I'd think twice about any "special" or "honorary" positions Stang wanted to offer ME in the Church hierarchy.

You fuckin' A, bubba. You want it clean, you buy it like everyone else. Never look a gift Stang in the mouth. There's demons in there. I heard em.

* 2qwk! 1.26b3 * I always have fun because I'm out of my mind!

--
dynasor@infi.net The Doctor is on.

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From: Katrina Taggart <demonkat@iglou.com>

dynasor@news.infi.net (Dennis McClain-Furmanski) wrote:

>You fuckin' A, bubba. You want it clean, you buy it like everyone else. Never look a gift Stang in the mouth. There's demons in there. I heard em.

And what's so bad about "demons" I wanna know??

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From: dynasor@news.infi.net (Dennis McClain-Furmanski)

dc> And what's so bad about "demons" I wanna know??

Nothing, if you buy 'em straight up, that's the point. If you don't buy 'em and get 'em programmed properly, they turn on you.

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