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CORE Volume 2 Issue 2
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Volume II
Issue II
ISSN: 1062-6697
~~~````''''~~~
CORE is an electronic journal of poetry, fiction, essays,
and criticsm. Back issues are available via anonymous
ftp from ftp.eff.org from the /pub/journals directory.
They are also available on CompuServe from Library 5 of
the EFFSIG forum.
Please feel free to reproduce CORE in its entirety only
throughout Cyberspace. To reproduce articles individually,
please contact the author.
Questions, submissions, and subscription requests should be
sent to core-journal@eff.org.
~~~````''''~~~
Little Teapots, Short and Stout:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Weirdest of the WELL .......... Bryan Higgins
.......... David R. Smith
.......... Flash Gordon, MD
Autumn and Spring .......... Alexander Blue
Woolworth Parakeets .......... William Dubie
Being with Beetoven .......... Aviott John
______________________________________________________________________
WEIRDEST OF THE WELL
!!~~~````''''~~~!!
The following three pieces recently won the weird conference writing
contest on The WELL. The weird conference is just like it sounds. The
WELL is a message-based BBS in Sausalito, California.
->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->
Bryan Higgins bryan@well.sf.ca.us
Shoplifting. My friends and I were into it in a big way back in junior
high school. We did it as a sport, as collectors, rather than stealing
stuff we really wanted. I focused solely on Score hair cream (7 ounce
tube) and I would never have put that stuff in my hair. Rather, I liked
the white box with the green lettering, and I liked the fact that unlike
the typical white hair cream Score was a transparent green gel. Actually,
I knew this from television, because I never opened a single tube that
I stole.
I got my tubes at several drugstores around town. Also, Safeway carried
it, but A & P didn't, for some reason. It was surprisingly easy to
steal Score by putting it in my coat pocket. I only took one or two
tubes from a store at a time, because I didn't want them to get suspicious
at finding the entire Score stock depleted, but I would sometimes hit five
or ten stores in an evening and return home with a backpack full of a
couple dozen tubes. I had to hide the backpack outside of each store so
as to not arouse suspicion in the store with the pack.
By the time I quit I had about 350 in my collection. It became a real
problem hiding such a large collection in my room. One time I was sure
my mother found it where it was hidden in my closet, stacked behind some
old shutters that we no longer used that were stored there, because it
seemed to me that the shutters had been move. But if she did she never
said anything.
I finally quit because one of my friends who shared my hobby (though
he collected assorted bars of soap rather than Score) told me that the
FBI had been notified because Score is an ingredient, along with Clorox
II dry bleach, in making an incendiary preparation used by arsonists and
terrorists. It seems you mix the two together, and after ten minutes or
so the stuff gets hot enough to spontaneously burst into flames, by which
time the perpetrator is long gone. I don't know if my friend was making
this up or not but I got scared because I didn't want to get caught.
Luckily I never was.
->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->
David R. Smith drsmith@well.sf.ca.us
The event that defined my relationship with John Jaster involved
a butter dish. We were working at General Electric in
Schenectady, former site of Thomas Edison's lab. In fact, it
was only just before I started working there that GE tore down
one of Edison's old buildings. My coworkers mocked a guy
who went down to the lot and scavenged demolished bricks from
the old Edison site, but they were singing a different tune once
GE started selling commemmorative bricks with brass plates
mounted on teak frames, for twenty-five *big* ones.
But Jaster. It was the Christmas luncheon, 1987 I think, and my
group sat at a table in the back, where coworker Ed unleashed
bad puns on any who would listen. Ed would put the small,
decorative dish of butter in front of you, and joke "Have some
butter pecan without the pecans." This dish eventually ended at
the vacant seat next to me.
Jaster came to the luncheon late, and sat next to me. Ed had a
chance for one more milking. "John, it's butter pecan, without
the pecans," said Ed. "Oh," said John, who -- oblivious to the
pun, and in spite of the fact that no one else had dishes of butter
in front of them -- immediately picked up a spoon and dove
right into that dish of butter. Before I could think what to say as
a warning, a generous helping of pure butter was on John
Jaster's spoon and in his mouth. At that point, he suddenly
stopped moving so quickly. I suspect he was taking a mental
tally of the situation, calculating how many boss brownie points
he would lose by spewing out a mouthful of saliva-melted butter
in the middle of a corporate Christmas luncheon. New meaning
to the dilemma "Spit or swallow?" He ended up swallowing.
I never did hear the end of that butter incident; because I
happened to be the one sitting next to him, JJ seemed to blame
the incident on me. Well, *I* wasn't the one who made the
butter pecan pun, nor was I the one who failed to get it. At
every social gathering thereafter, the butter story came up again.
John Jaster worked for Jerry Jaiven. Once they attended a
work-related conference at the Jakob Javits convention center in NYC.
->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->
Flash Gordon, MD flash@well.sf.ca.us
Dear Ms. Manners:
I have never written any advice columnist, but recently found
myself in a situation where I was somewhat uncertain of the
etiquette. I hope you can help.
I'm a physician and writer and maintain an office in my home.
Recently a woman came by on a business visit (hers, not mine).
She noticed Edison, one of my two cats (his twin, Electra, was
upstairs) and proceeded to stroke him and compliment him.
Edison appreciated the attention, and, noble beast that he is,
decided to give her something in return. Something wonderful.
Something tasty. Something both chewy and proteinaceous.
Something he found in the wastebasket in my bedroom. Something
that I had worn, briefly, the night before, on a part of my
anatomy that is probably not suitable for mention in your column.
He retrieved this prize and deposited it at her feet, looking up
at her adoringly, saying "Here! This is for YOU!"
I was embarrassed. Try as I may, I could not remember which, if
any, rule of ettiquette was applicable to this situation. So I
said
"Gee, he must really like you! He's never given one of those to
anyone else before."
She laughed, and I then put the used condom into the waste
basket.
I don't anticipate this exact dilemna occuring again - for one
thing, the cats are no longer allowed in the bedroom. However, I
hope you can recommend what to do in a similar situation.
Thanx in advance. I greatly enjoy your column and all your
books.
Yours very truly
________________________________________________________________________
William Dubie dubie@tnpubs.enet.dec.com
WOOLWORTH PARAKEETS
They nod, gridded against windowglass
and no wide eyes. But you behave
passively, beginning to pass
knowing you cannot save
them, as though they'd sing in your parlor
and learn the swears you'd teach.
They live anonymously here, not unlike your
countenance; still, you reach
to see what you can afford--another existence
that you could well do without,
and it without you--so you two trade silence
for subsistence, and you scout
the aisles for fragrance, razors, any other thing
to carry yourself well past remembering.
________________________________________________________________________
Alexander Blue ajblue@COLBY.EDU
AUTUMN AND SPRING
i
No baptisms in this rain. The dead
squirrels wash along the gutters.
Sewer gratings are blocked with colored
leaves, and there the corpses will rest,
frozen in manic death-poses, forelegs
outstretched, backs arched, and screaming.
ii
As the sun is rising, men in orange
pick with gloves the bloated bodies
from gratings, and collect also the confetti
of autumn. They leave them
in the back of their truck to be chewed
and swallowed. Water flushes underground.
________________________________________________________________________
Aviott John avjohn@iiasa.ac.at
BEING WITH BEETHOVEN
Before he actually came to Austria and visited the city, he had not
believed in its existence. To him it was not a real place but a
literary device, invented by writers of spy thrillers and musical
fantasies as a background for their plots. He came to Vienna in
search of Ludwig van, as though hoping that some of the composer's
immortality would rub off on him. He found he was a century and a
half too late; but still clung on, trembling a little in every
passing breeze, like an autumn leaf caught in an abandoned spider's
web. He looked frail and infirm, but in reality was a sprightly old
man; an iconoclast in his old age, wandering around the town looking
for adventure, finding it sometimes unexpectedly; in the Volksgarten
for instance, where a knotted gardener advanced on him like a house-
proud hostess with a threatening shout: 'Hey you, don't walk on the
grass!' His helpless shrug and hands splayed in expiation did not
appease that zealous keeper of the green. 'I never could levitate,'
he said by way of added apology. 'Ich hab's nie gelernt, frei zu
schweben.'
Or it might be the ubiquitous little old lady (like him, a dying
species, he dispassionately observed), who objected to his nocturnal
ramblings, his insomniac prowling around deserted city streets when
all self-respecting citizens were in bed. And his reply: 'Ah, but
who with?' was met by a stare of unamused indignance and a slammed
window.
There were many compensations. He enjoyed quiet moments in his
favourite cafe, where the smell of roasting beans clung to the faded
velvet curtains with the tenacity of tradition; the welcoming smile
as the waiter brought unbidden a cup of hot chocolate and his
newspaper. He was known here, and therefore he had a station in
society; retired as he was, a distinction he did not take lightly.
He still clearly remembered the first time the waiter had addressed
him as Herr Doktor, a smile of flattering complicity, not the least
subservient, on his lips. The complimentary epithet bound him to the
coffee house for ever. He knew from now on he would never patronize
another. To his tired old heart, it was as though he had found a
second home.
In his first years here, finding his feet in this strange city soon
after retirement, he had wandered around like a homeless waif,
clutching a fistful of Reisefuehrers, Polyglotts, Baedekers,
Fodor'ses, Harvard Guides, Berlitz Books, city maps. He sought
traces of his favorite genius in the dozens, scores, of buildings
where he had once lived, for however short a time. He sniffed the
air around these buildings as eagerly as a young puppy, hoping to
find some lingering traces of Beethoven's presence in the air. He
wandered through the Stadtpark in the summer where the strains that
waltzed through the crowds were of Strauss rather than Beethoven, and
could hardly hide his bitterness and anger, the wounded sense of
sacrilege, when the magnificent opening bars of the Ninth Symphony
were used to advertise the efficacy of a brand of detergent.
Still he lingered in the city, buying a ticket to a concert here,
listening to a new rendering of the piano sonatas there, spreading
his arms out wide to clasp the elusive bars of sound to him. In the
old Gasthaus with its sooty, wood-panelled walls, chequered
tablecloths and white-tiled ceiling, he imagined the hairy, barrel-
chested owner's ancestor serving the great man a schnitzel, together
with a limp, pickled salad and a carafe of the strong, dry red wine
that the penurious composer always downed with great enjoyment.
But time did not stop and exchange rates continued to fluctuate.
The value of the schilling rose. When it rose it seemed to him as
threatening as an advancing tide, cutting off his retreat to safety;
and when it fell, he walked with pleasure and impunity by the edge of
the sea, collecting the treasures revealed by the retreating tide.
His pension was adequate, but he had to to be careful. In the summer
now there were hordes of tourists, many groups of young people. They
swarmed and chattered in clusters, following the paths he had traced
years ago; all hoping, like him, to encounter a wisp of genius,
however brief the encounter; to inhale a trace of an ancient
ambience, however musty the air. 'Sit still,' he wanted to tell them
with his hard earned wisdom. 'Sit very quietly and listen hard, or
you won't hear it.' But still they thronged and chattered, and still
they came, walking by the old man with hardly a glance at him. 'He's
a bit ga-ga,' they said to each other, for he sat and stared at the
empty sky with a smile on his lips. They thought he was mad and
avoided him, because they couldn't hear the strains of the music.
** First published in Imaginary Friends, an Anthology of American
Fiction, Apple Blossom, 1985) **
___________________________________________________________________
CORE is published by Rita Rouvalis. December 1992
