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Children, Churches and Daddies (founded 1993) is written and researched by political groups and writers from the United States, Canada, England and Italy. Monthly features provide coverage of environmental, political and social issues as well as fiction and poetry, and act as an information and education source. Children, Churches and Daddies is the leading magazine for this combination of information, education and entertainment. Children, Churches and Daddies (ISSN 1068-5154) is published monthly by Scars Publications and Design.
To contributors: No racist, sexist or blatantly homophobic material. No originals; include SASE & bio. Work sent on disks or through email given special attention. Previously published work accepted. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission of the publisher is forbidden. Copyright © 1993-present Scars Publications and Design, Children, Churches & Daddies, Janet Kuypers. All rights of pieces remain with their authors.

editorial

I was watching the news a few months ago, and I found another story that I couldn't help but question. If you watched the news in the beginning of April I'm sure you caught the story.
The story was about a little girl, a very smart little girl, a seven-year-old girl named Jessica. She was a darling little girl; she was taught by her mother and was very head-strong and intelligent. She went to a farm to learn how to ride horses and instead learned every aspect of taking care of the farm. A driven girl indeed.
Then she decided that at seven she wanted to learn how to fly. It was her own decision; she wasn't pressured by the parents (this is at least what we assume). The parents concented to giving her lessons.
She could become a pilot after taking lessons and getting 70 or so hours of in-air flight training. During her training there would be an instructor in the cockpit with her, and she/he would have an identical set of controls so they could take over if there was ever a problem.
Well, Jessica thought that if she was going to learn how to fly at such an early age, she may as well break a world record by doing so, so she decided that she would like to travel around the country on her plane during her training. She received approval from the city council, from her family, from her instructor. And off they went.
The first leg of their trip was a success. From the west coast they landed in Cheynne, Wyoming. It was raining, and conditions got worse. They decided to take off again, but within two minutes of taking off, Jessica and her instructor crashed and died.
Now, some of the details of this story cannot be verified. The parents say this was her decision, that they didn't pressure her. For our augument, let's say they didn't, and this was all her own desire. In fact, the mother on the news said she asked Jessica what would happen if she crashed in the plane and died, and Jessica responded that her spirit would be in the plane.
We can't be sure if the instructor took over the controls, or when he did so, and we don't know why they took off in hazardous conditions.
It's a very sad story, and it seems as if something should have been done so that this tragedy and loss of life was avoided.
But the next day I was watching the news, and one of the things they said was that there is now a plan to introduce into legislation a bill that would make it illegal for children to learn how to fly a plane. We got to hear activists that believed that the child must have been put under great emotional pressure to learn how to fly. We got to hear other children, some as young as eight, that know how to fly. Those children didn't believe that should be legislation passed, but most everyone else did.
So this is my question: do we need to enact a law everytime a tragedy happens in our country?
After the Oklahoma bombing, anti-terrorist bills were all the rage. We've heard about a law to notify a community about a sex-offender who served their sentence moving into their neighborhood. We see more laws to restrict airplane pilots.
Some people argue that the law to restrict child pilots os not for the safety of the pilot, but for the safety of the people the child pilot could possibly injure
Have we finally relinquished the responsibility to governing ourselves to the whims of a select group? This country needs less laws, not more. The government was set up to provide basic protection from other, not ourselves. Let's keep it that way.

lunchtime poll topic

response to this month's editorial

Camille Roberts
There are different laws regarding flying private planes depending on the conditions. When the weather is clear, you can fly under VFR (visual flight regulations), and anyone who is licensed can fly. When the weather is bad, you have to fly under IFR (instrument flight regulations), and only people who are instrument rated can fly. Getting an instrument rating takes lots of hours of flight time, and I doubt that Jessica had it.
You can fly under IFR if you have an instructor with you, even if you aren't instrument rated yourself, so they weren't breaking any existing laws. Do we need new laws? Probably not - just smarter adults. Kids don't like to wait, and they can't be expected to have the judgement that an adult would have. A smarter flight instructor would have figured the weather would get better later on, and gone back to the airport for a latte.

Jay Vary, Med Student
Amen sista'!
We CLEARLY don't need a law telling us how old we have to be to fly. That's the parent's job. If the parent screws up in letting their unprepared child fly, or if a freak accident occurs that has nothing to do with the age of the pilot - that's an awful shame and no more. It's not a good thing when a 7-year old bites it, no matter whether they nose-dived a plane or for whatever reason your imagination can conjure. People wanting to pass laws just can't deal with the fact that shit happens, and sometimes shit happens to 7-year olds. We all want to protect our children and have them live perfect lives, it just doesn't work out sometimes. If you saw her interviewed on the news it's OBVIOUS she wasn't being pressured to do something against her will - she loved to fly. At least she died doing what she loved - if only we all could be so lucky. What would be a greater tragedy is if other children are kept from following their dreams just because an unfortunate accident happened ONCE before and people overreacted.
P.S. The anti-terrorism laws following Oklahoma City are arguably different in that they provided a perfect EXCUSE for the government to circumvent many privacy barriers (like searching without a warrant) that had been "annoying" for a little too long.
Marie Heinemann
I am 26 a mother of a 13 month old daughter and I happen to concurr with this editorial. Little Jessica could of died in any number of ways, car accident..(statistics prove), drowning etc., like many other children her age do every year. We don't know about them unless it happens in our town and is in the local paper or if as in Jessica's case she died doing something unusual that established her free spirit. If my sweet baby girl wants to fly so be it. It she wants to race cars so be it. If she wants to get married and have babies so be it, or just have babies. We are all destined to die at sometime in our lives. How do we know that this wasn't her time. Know one knows these answers and some stupid legislation is not going to give them to us either.

From: Ripford@aol.com
As adults, we can all try to take a libertarian attitude about legislative attempts to regulate morality and private choice. We are after all deemed to be capable of making choices when we reach a certain age and are fully responsible for our actions under the law. Children are a different case. No matter how a child is killed is a tragedy that can be dismissed as a routine event that would have occurred to the child sometime anyway. Most of a child's life is dictated in some fashion by their parents - when they go to bed, what television to watch, should they do their homework, should they brush their teeth and eat their vegatables. We do not let seven year olds drive cars because, despite the possibility they may be able to master the motor skills required, they do not have the full experience and maturity to handle crisis situations. We teach our children not to talk to strangers because we believe they may be easily duped by a molester into getting into a car on the promise of candy or money. We forbid sexual contact between adults and seven year olds. They are not capable in the eyes of the law to make the judgments necessary to truly consent and are easily made victim. Why is flying an airplane any different from any of these activities. An entire neighborhood was put at risk by this crash. If people in the neighborhood were killed would we dismiss that too as simply part of the inevitable? Should a seven year old who may still believe in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy operate equipment which has the capability to kill if everything does not go perfect? When you add this with the stupidity of taking off in a small plane during a heavy storm just to stay on schedule, I must wonder if some adults also need to be legally restrained. Prior to this incident I was not aware that the FAA did not have a specific age requirement under these circumstances. If they had Jessica would not be dead and that is a fact. The possibility that something else could kill her does not change what did kill her and that it was unnecessary.

the first line of the unabomber's manifesto is as follows (portions of the entire manifesto appear in philosophy monthly in cc+d): The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
Do you in general agree or disagree with the comment? why? take this from any aspect you choose, from our time at work to the environment to the building of highrises.
and... was the advent of technology inevitable, whether or not it was good?

Carol F. Brown, writer (Carol2080@aol.com)
I disagree. Tech has been good for the human race but it is the human race that has misused the gift. Technology has often been used in the same manner as the "Uni Bomber" mail bombs; for distruction and selfish purposes and often without hind and foresight for consequences.

Ray Heinrich (ray@vais.net), writer
It's both a disaster and lots of fun. If our social processes can adapt fast enough to manage it, then we will end up thinking it was mostly fun. If not, it will end itself along with us. To us, this will be a great disaster, but to the next lifeform, it will be a great opportunity.
The dinosaurs were around much longer than we've been and seemed to do just fine without it. If it hadn't been for that meteorite, they'd be here instead of us. With the dinosaurs it probably wasn't inevitable, for us it probably was, and who knows about porpoises or the next creature in line. As my dad used to say: "The past is always inevitable." Of course, he also used to say: "If you have to look up an asshole, at least do it with your mouth closed."

Brian Tolle (btolle@nuvo.net), Film Director
it sure is easy to fall into this trap. "technology is destroying society" "computers are destroying our privacy" "industry is destroying the environment" wah wah wah.
we all say these things at one time or the other. but do you ever stop to think what it means?
are you willing to go without bar soap? or your car? or the atm, or gum, or vulcanized rubber tennis shoe soles?
technology is so engrained in everything we consider our lives, it is impossible to imagine a day without the fruits of the technology tree. would you have any idea how to function? okay, go camping. but don't bring the coleman, the nylon tent with the extruded metal poles, the canned food, the combed cotton shirt... and don't drive into the woods to the site. does this appeal to you? if you lived this way, wouldn't you want to find an easier way to get through your day? you'll be hunting and gathering, or preparing and storing from dawn to dusk just to have food and shelter. there is no living for the day, no relaxing holidays. winter is coming, always.
so of course technology is inevidable.
the industrial revolution began the gross misuse of technology. the polarization of power. and this is not a technology problem, but a societal problem.

Chad Maier (cmaier@prairienet.org), Representative, Sony Music
uh... oh god... i can't think right now... i in general halfway agree... the industrial revolution has fucked up our environment in such a bad way that i'm scared for the children i'll never have... but i like process and invention and technology and all the advances we have made... but then again i have a hard time dealing with huge corporations and the recent trend of mergers so that the corporations can control even more of what we see hear and buy... and the fact that these same corporations are continuing to destroy our environment while hiring slave labour overseas in near-human-rights-violations conditions is sad. the industrial revolution has brought about all this bad shit, but it's the price that dominant money-grubbing controlling factions have chosen to pay in exchange for money and technology. that i don't like. if it's an exchange of process and technology at the cost of the environment, then, yes, it's been a disaster. but i don't think it's as severe of a disaster as the unabomber thinks. with the new technology and heightened awareness hopefully the human race can correct or eliminate past mistakes.
and... was the advent of technology inevitable, whether or not it was good?
sure. eventually selective breeding will produce curious smart people who want to know answers. and who want to get patents for their ideas so they can make money.

Holly Day (yves@orbiter.com), writer
People build things, create things, invent machinery, just like bees build honeycombs and birds decorate their nests with flowers and berries and wolves form packs to hunt. The advent of man's technology has been a slow, gradual process involving over a hundred thousand years of small steps building on small steps. And just as members of other species are divided up into subcategories such as queen bee and drone, alpha male and lone wolf, the human race is divided up among those who build machines, those who workin the arts, and those who spend their entire lives as secretaries and working in the food service industry. As unnatural as nuclear energy and pollution and automated factories may seem, they are a biproduct of Man and are therefore completely natural and have their place in our world.
'Nuff said.

from: Ripford@aol.com
The disaster to me is that it created the technology for people like this man to make bombs for no better reason than pure paranoia. What could his beef really have been? He lived in a shack in the middle of nowhere where no one would bother him. If that was his true agenda then why did he use the fruits of the Industrial Revolution to fight against it? For irony perhaps? Or just lunacy?

London Soap Letters

This is a series of letters from England that were sent to me via the internet. Hope you find them as funny as I did.
Dear Maid,
Please do not leave any more of those little bars of soap in my bathroom since I have brought my own bath-sized Dial. Please remove the six unopened little bars from the shelf under the medicine chest and another three in the shower soap dish. They are in my way.
Thank you,
S. Berman

Dear Room 635,
I am not your regular maid. She will be back tomorrow, Thursday, from her day off. I took the 3 hotel soaps out of the shower soap dish as you requested. The 6 bars on your shelf I took out of your way and put on top of your Kleenex dispenser in case you should change your mind. This leaves only the 3 bars I left today which my instructions from the management is to leave 3 soaps daily.
I hope this is satisfactory.
Kathy, Relief Maid

Dear Maid - I hope you are my regular maid.
Apparently Kathy did not tell you about my note to her concerning the little bars of soap. When I got back to my room this evening I found you had added 3 little Camays to the shelf under my medicine cabinet. I am going to be here in the hotel for two weeks and have brought my own bath-size Dial so I won't need those 6 little Camays which are on the shelf. They are in my way when shaving, brushing teeth, etc. Please remove them.
S. Berman

Dear Mr. Berman,
My day off was last Wed. so the relief maid left 3 hotel soaps which we are instructed by the management. I took the 6 soaps which were in your way on the shelf and put them in the soap dish where your Dial was. I put the Dial in the medicine cabinet for your convenience. I didn't remove the 3 complimentary soaps which are always placed inside the medicine cabinet for all new check-ins and which you did not object to when you checked in last Monday. Please let me know if I can of further assistance.
Your regular maid, Dotty

Dear Mr. Berman,
The assistant manager, Mr. Kensedder, informed me this A.M. that you called him last evening and said you were unhappy with your maid service. I have assigned a new girl to your room. I hope you will accept my apologies for any past inconvenience. If you have any future complaints please contact me so I can give it my personal attention. Call extension 1108 between 8AM and 5PM. Thank you.
Elaine Carmen
Housekeeper
Dear Miss Carmen,
It is impossible to contact you by phone since I leave the hotel for business at 745 AM and don't get back before 530 or 6PM. That's the reason I called Mr. Kensedder last night. You were already off duty. I only asked Mr. Kensedder if he could do anything about those little bars of soap. The new maid you assigned me must have thought I was a new check-in today, since she left another 3 bars of hotel soap in my medicine cabinet along with her regular delivery of 3 bars on the bath-room shelf. In just 5 days here I have accumulated 24 little bars of soap. Why are you doing this to me?
S. Berman

Dear Mr. Berman,
Your maid, Kathy, has been instructed to stop delivering soap to your room and remove the extra soaps. If I can be of further assistance, please call extension 1108 between 8AM and 5PM. Thank you.
Elaine Carmen
Housekeeper

Dear Mr. Kensedder,
My bath-size Dial is missing. Every bar of soap was taken from my room including my own bath-size Dial. I came in late last night and had to call the bellhop to bring me 4 little Cashmere Bouquets.
S. Berman

Dear Mr. Berman,
I have informed our housekeeper, Elaine Carmen, of your soap problem. I cannot understand why there was no soap in your room since our maids are instructed to leave 3 bars of soap each time they service a room. The situation will be rectified immediately. Please accept my apologies for the inconvenience.
Martin L. Kensedder
Assistant Manager

Dear Mrs. Carmen,
Who the hell left 54 little bars of Camay in my room? I came in last night and found 54 little bars of soap. I don't want 54 little bars of Camay. I want my one damn bar of bath-size Dial. Do you realize I have 54 bars of soap in here. All I want is my bath size Dial. Please give me back my bath-size Dial.
S. Berman

Dear Mr. Berman,
You complained of too much soap in your room so I had them removed. Then you complained to Mr. Kensedder that all your soap was missing so I personally returned them. The 24 Camays which had been taken and the 3 Camays you are supposed to receive daily (sic). I don't know anything about the 4 Cashmere Bouquets. Obviously your maid, Kathy, did not know I had returned your soaps so she also brought 24 Camays plus the 3 daily Camays. I don't know where you got the idea this hotel issues bath-size Dial. I was able to locate some bath-size Ivory which I left in your room.
Elaine Carmen
Housekeeper

Dear Mrs. Carmen,
Just a short note to bring you up-to-date on my latest soap inventory. As of today I possess:
- On shelf under medicine cabinet - 18 Camay in 4 stacks of 4 and 1 stack of 2.
- On Kleenex dispenser - 11 Camay in 2 stacks of 4 and 1 stack of 3.
- On bedroom dresser - 1 stack of 3 Cashmere Bouquet, 1 stack of 4 hotel-size Ivory, and 8 Camay in 2 stacks of 4.
- Inside medicine cabinet - 14 Camay in 3 stacks of 4 and 1 stack of 2.
- In shower soap dish - 6 Camay, very moist.
- On northeast corner of tub - 1 Cashmere Bouquet, slightly used.
- On northwest corner of tub - 6 Camays in 2 stacks of 3.
Please ask Kathy when she services my room to make sure the stacks are neatly piled and dusted. Also, please advise her that stacks of more than 4 have a tendency to tip. May I suggest that my bedroom window sill is not in use and will make an excellent spot for future soap deliveries. One more item, I have purchased another bar of bath-sized Dial which I am keeping in the hotel vault in order to avoid further misunderstandings.
S. Berman

close cover before striking

you've been warned.

forthcoming book from
janet kuypers.
to be available through
scars publications.

assorted jokes

The Heavenly Marriage
There was a young couple, very much in love, who the night before they were to be married, were both tragically killed in an automobile accident. They found themselves at the pearly gates of heaven being escorted in by St. Peter. After a couple of weeks in heaven, the prospective groom took St. Peter aside and said, "St. Peter, my fiance and I are very happy to be in heaven but we miss very much the opportunity to have celebrated our wedding vows. Is it possible for people in heaven to get married?"
St. Peter looked at him and said, "I'm sorry, I've never heard of anyone in heaven wanting to get married. I'm afraid you'll have to talk to the Lord God Almighty about that. I can get you an appointment for two weeks from Wednesday."
Come the appointed day, the couple were escorted by the guardian angels into the presence of the Lord God Almighty, where they repeat the request. The Lord looked at them solemnly and said, "I tell you what, wait five years and if you still want to get married, come back and we will talk about it again."
Well five years went by, and the couple still very much wanting to get married, came back. Again the Lord God Almighty said, "Please you must wait another five years and then I will consider your request."
Finally, they come before the Lord God Almighty the third time, ten years after their first request, and ask the Lord again. This time the Lord answered, "Yes, you may marry. This Saturday at 2:00 p.m., we will have a beautiful ceremony in the main chapel. The reception will be on me!"
The wedding went beautifully, all the guests thought the bride was beautiful. Moses brought some flowers from the Nile River Delta and Ghandi came wearing his finest hand-woven sari. But, you guessed it, the couple was married but a few weeks when they realized they had made a horrible mistake, they just couldn't stay married to one another.
So they made another appointment to see the Lord God Almighty, this time to ask if they could get a divorce in heaven. When the Lord heard their request, he looked at them and said, "Look, it took us ten years to find a priest up here in heaven; do you have any idea how long it'll take to find a lawyer?"

A truck driver often amused himself by running over lawyers he would see walking down the side of the road. Every time he would see a lawyer walking along the road, he would swerve to hit him, and there would be a loud "THUMP" and then he would swerve back on the road. One day, as the truck driver was driving along he saw a priest hitch-hiking. He stopped and asked the priest, "Where are you going, Father?"
"I'm going to the church five miles down the road," replied the priest.
"No problem, Father! I'll give you a lift. Climb in."
The happy priest climbed into the passenger seat and the truck driver continued down the road. Suddenly the truck driver saw a lawyer walking down the road and instinctively he swerved to hit him. But then he remembered there was a priest in the truck with him, so at the last minute he swerved back to the road, narrowly missing the lawyer.
However, even though he was certain he missed the lawyer, he still heard a loud "THUMP". He glanced in his mirror and when he didn't see anything, he turned to the priest and said, "I'm sorry Father. I almost hit that lawyer".
"That's okay," replied the priest. "I got him with the door!"

For decades, two heroic statues, one male and one female, faced each other in a city park, until one day an angel came down from heaven.
"You've been such exemplary statues," he announced to them, "That I'm going to give you a special gift. I'm going to bring you both to life for thirty minutes, in which you can do anything you want." And with a clap of his hands, the angel brought the statues to life.
The two approached each other a bit shyly, but soon dashed for the bushes, from which shortly emerged a good deal of giggling, laughter, and shaking of branches. Fifteen minutes later, the two statues emerged from the bushes, wide grins on their faces.
"You still have fifteen more minutes," said the angel, winking at them.
Grinning even more widely the female statue turned to the male statue and said, "Great! Only this time you hold the pigeon down and I'll crap on it's head."

An English professor wrote the words: "woman without her man is a savage" on a blackboard and directed his students to punctuate it correctly.
The men wrote: "Woman, without her man, is a savage."
The women wrote: "Woman: Without her, man is a savage."

A depressed young woman from a Manhattan finishing school was so desperate that she decided to end her life by throwing herself into the ocean. When she went down to the docks, a handsome young sailor noticed her tears, took pity on her, and said, "Look, you've got a lot to live for. I'm off to Europe in the morning, and if you like, I can stow you away on my ship. I'll take good care of you and bring you food every day."
"Moving closer, he slipped his arm around her shoulder and added, "I'll keep you happy, and you'll keep me happy."
The girl nodded. What did she have to lose?
That night, the sailor brought her aboard and hid her in a lifeboat.
From then on, every night he brought her three sandwiches and a piece of fruit, and they made passionate love until dawn.
Three weeks later, during a routine search, she was discovered by the captain.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
"I had an arrangement with one of the sailors," she explained. "He's taking me to Europe, and every night he came and screwed me."
"He sure did, lady," said the captain. "This is the Staten Island Ferry."

A hippie gets onto a bus and proceeds to sit next to a Nun in the front seat. The Hippie looks over and asks the Nun if she would have sex with him. The Nun surprised by the question politely declines and gets off at the next stop. When the bus starts on it's way the bus driver says to the hippie,"if you want I can tell you how you can get that nun to have sex with you." the hippie of course says that he'd love to know so the bus driver tells him that the every Tuesday evening at midnight the nun goes to the cemetery to pray to the lord. "If you went dressed in robes and some glowing powder,"said the bus driver(male)"you could tell her you were God and command her to have sex with you." Well the Hippie decides to try this out so that Tuesday he goes to the cemetery and waits for the nun. And right on schedule the nun shows up. When she's in the middle of praying the hippie walks out from hiding, in robes and glowing with a mask of god. "I am God, I have heard your prayers and I will answer them but you must have sex with me first." The nun agrees but asks for anal sex so she might keep her virginity. The hippie agrees to this and quickly sets about to go to work on the nun. After the Hippie finishes, he rips off his mask and shouts out,"Ha ha, I'm the hippie!!" The nun replied by whipping off her mask and shouting,"Ha ha, I'm the bus driver!!"

The following is a sampling of REAL answers received on exams given by the California Department of Transportation's driving school (read Saturday Traffic School for moving violation offenders.)
Q: Do you yield when a blind pedestrian is crossing the road?
A: What for? He can't see my license plate.
Q: Who has the right of way when four cars approach a four-way stop at the same time?
A: The pick up truck with the gun rack and the bumper sticker saying "Guns don't kill people. I do."
Q: What are the important safety tips to remember when backing in your car?
A: Always wear a condom.
Q: When driving through fog, what should you use?
A: Your car.
Q: How can you reduce the possibility of having an accident?
A: Be too shit-faced to find your keys.
Q: What problems would you face if you were arrested for drunk driving?
A: I'd probably lose my buzz a lot faster.
Q: What changes would occur in your lifestyle if you could no longer drive lawfully?
A: I would be forced to drive unlawfully.
Q: What are some points to remember when passing or being passed?
A: Make eye contact and wave "hello" if he/she is cute.
Q: What is the difference between a flashing red traffic light and a flashing yellow traffic light?
A: The color.
Q: How do you deal with heavy traffic?
A: Heavy psychedelics.
Q: What can you do to help ease a heavy traffic problem?
A: Carry loaded weapons.

Two young guys were picked up by the cops for smoking dope and appeared in court before the judge. The judge said, "You seem like nice young men, and I'd like to give you a second chance rather than jail time. I want you to go out this weekend and try to show others the evils of drug use and get them to give up drugs forever. I'll see you back in court Monday."
Monday, the two guys were in court, and the judge said to the first one,"How did you do over the weekend?"
"Well, your honor, I persuaded 17 people to give up drugs forever."
"17 people? That's wonderful. What did you tell them?"
"I used a diagram, your honor. I drew two circles, one big and one small, and told them this (the big circle) is your brain before drugs and this (small circle) is your brain after drugs."
"That's admirable," said the judge. "And you, how did you do?" (to the 2nd boy)
"Well, your honor, I persuaded 156 people to give up drugs forever."
"156 people! That's amazing! How did you manage to do that!"
"Well, I used a similar approach. (draws two circles) I said (pointing to small circle) this is your asshole before prison...

Fithian Press, Santa Barbara, CA
Indeed, there's a healthy balance here between wit and dark vision, romance and reality, just as there's a good balance between words and graphics. The work shows brave self-exploration, and serves as a reminder of mortality and the fragile beauty of friendship.
Mark Blickley, writer
The precursor to the magazine title (Children, Churches and Daddies) is very moving. "Scars" is also an excellent prose poem. I never really thought about scars as being a form of nostalgia. But in the poem it also represents courage and warmth. I look forward to finishing her book.

You Have to be Published to be Appreciated.
Do you want to be heard? Contact Children, Churches and Daddies about book and chapbook publishing. These reviews can be yours. Scars Publications, attention J. Kuypers. You can write for yourself or you can write for an audience. Write to us.

Debra Purdy Kong, writer, British Columbia, Canada
I like the magazine a lot. I like the spacious lay-out and the different coloured pages and the variety of writer's styles. Too many literary magazines read as if everyone graduated from the same course. We need to collect more voices like these and send them everywhere.

Dusty Dog Reviews
The whole project is hip, anti-academic, the poetry of reluctant grown-ups, picking noses in church. An enjoyable romp! Though also serious.

news stories

Elderly Angry at Bogus Phone Sex Charges

Couple Remarries After Bride Forgets Wedding
DALLAS (Reuter) - A New Mexico couple remarried, hoping that this time the bride will remember tying the knot.
Kim and Krickitt Carpenter said their marital vows at a log chapel in the mountains of northern New Mexico, putting the seal on a sometimes troubled second courtship which was forced by a terrible car accident in November 1993.
Krickitt Carpenter, 26, suffered a serious head injury in the crash, which came just two months after she married Kim Carpenter, and was in a coma for a month. When she came to, she thought Richard Nixon was president and had no idea who her husband was, much less remember ever marrying him.
Her short-term memory loss wreaked havoc on their relationship until a therapist suggested they start again from the beginning by dating.
It worked. They fell in love all over again and walked back up the aisle Saturday.
"It was really exciting," the bride said in a telephone interview from the wedding reception in a hotel in the small New Mexico town of Las Vegas.
She said that after coming out of the coma she initially found her 30-year-old husband too pushy but decided to make an extra effort to recover what they had. "I figured I loved him before and I just needed to reacquaint myself with him," she said. "I chose to fall in love with him again."
The bride said Saturday's church ceremony was more a recommitment than a wedding, but that it was a full spectacle nonetheless. She wore her original wedding dress, he wore a tuxedo and they had five bridesmaids.
The couple have already sold the film rights for their story and have an author lined up to write a book.
MIAMI (Reuter) - State officials and BellSouth are investigating complaints from scores of elderly residents who have been mistakenly billed for making calls to steamy telephone sex lines, the Miami Herald reported.
The late-night calls to a 900 number for hot phone sex have some retirees fuming.
"One lady has had two strokes and the poor thing can barely dial a phone, much less call a 900 number," Susan Williams, a bookkeeper at Biscayne Lake Gardens condominium complex in a northern suburb of Miami, said. "We don't like being scammed around here."
Fred Kerstein, chief of economic crimes for the Dade County state attorney's office, said he received a complaint and is investigating. A spokesman for BellSouth said the local carrier is also trying to get to the bottom of the matter after receiving complaints from two other condo complexes.
American TelNet, the company that is billing the elderly for the 900 number calls, said it suspects telephone hackers may be to blame. "We are not making up phone calls," Gavin Kahn, an attorney for American TelNet, told the newspaper.
One 82-year-old woman said she was wrongly billed $99.75 for talking dirty on a hot sex phone line for some 30 minutes. "If I didn't get a heart attack then," said Jean Slomack, "I figure I'm safe for a while."
Another retiree was billed for a $30.90 call she insists she never made. "Sex?" said Harriet Jacobs. "I'm 71. My husband is 82. Believe me sex is the last thing on our minds."
The pay-per-call 900 number starts with a recording that greets customers and says, "Our untamed playmates are waiting to speak to you. Only $2.50 to $4.99 per minute, depending on how wild you want to get."

Dorrance Publishing Co.,
Pittsburgh, PA
"Hope Chest in the Attic" captures the complexity of human nature and reveals startling yet profound discernments about the travesties that surge through the course of life. This collection of poetry, prose and artwork reflects sensitivity toward feminist issues concerning abuse, sexism and equality. It also probes the emotional torrent that people may experience as a reaction to the delicate topics of death, love and family.
"Chain Smoking" depicts the emotional distress that afflicted a friend while he struggled to clarify his sexual ambiguity. Not only does this thought-provoking profile address the plight that homosexuals face in a homophobic society, it also characterizes the essence of friendship. "The room of the rape" is a passionate representation of the suffering rape victims experience. Vivid descriptions, rich symbolism, and candid expressions paint a shocking portrait of victory over the gripping fear that consumes the soul after a painful exploitation.

Man Kills Estranged Wife, Self in Bank Drama

Man Decapitates Neighbor, Tosses Head in Dumpster
DALLAS, May 25 (Reuter) - An Oklahoma man decapitated a neighbour and then walked naked down an alley to toss the victim's head into a dumpster, police said.
Cameron Smith, 33, was arrested late Friday and charged with murdering Roydon Dale Major, 44, who lived in the same rooming house in Norman, Oklahoma.
Police said two people saw Smith walking naked down an alley. One said he saw Smith throw a backpack into the dumpster and went to see what was in it after the suspect walked back to his nearby rooming home.
The witness found a severed head inside the backpack and called police, who found the rest of the victim's body in a room at the home. The body had numerous stab wounds.
Smith was still naked when police found him and took him into custody. Police said a motive for the murder was not clear.
CARMEL, Ind. (Reuter) - A man under court order to leave his estranged wife alone walked into the bank where she worked and killed her before turning the gun on himself, police said.
Carmel Police Chief Roger Conn said the bodies of Robert Montgomery, 59, a farmer from nearby Cicero, Indiana, and his wife, Donna, 44, a loan officer at the bank, were found in her office after a day-long standoff in which dozens of people were evacuated from the building.
About two dozen people who were in the National City Bank took cover after hearing the shots, fearing the gunman might attack others. They were able to escape from first and second floor windows with help from police tactical squads.
The incident paralyzed business and traffic in the downtown section of the affluent suburban town of Carmel, north of Indianapolis, as police cars and sharpshooters took up positions in the area round the bank.
Police said the couple was separated and the woman had filed for divorce. They said her husband had been served with a court order that day telling him to stay away from his wife.
In the divorce proceeding, the woman said her husband had been physically violent and threatened to set fire to all of her clothing. The couple had no children.
Witnesses said Montgomery walked into his wife's office, closed the blinds, shut the door and then fired the shots.

Dusty Dog Reviews
These poems document a very complicated internal response to the feminine side of social existence.
And as the book proceeds the poems become increasingly psychologically complex and, ultimately, fascinating and genuinely rewarding.

C Ra McGuirt, Editor, The Penny Dreadful Review
cc&d is obviously a labor of love ... I just have to smile when I go through it. (Janet Kuypers) uses her space and her poets to best effect, and the illos attest to her skill as a graphic artist.

Dusty Dog Reviews
She opens with a poem of her own devising, which has that wintry atmosphere demonstrated in the movie version of Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago. The atmosphere of wintry white and cold, gloriously murderous cold, stark raging cold, numbing and brutalizing cold, appears almost as a character who announces to his audience, "Wisdom occurs only after a laboriously magnificent disappointment." Alas, that our Dusty Dog for mat cannot do justice to Ms. Kuypers' very personal layering of her poem across the page.

More Evidence Of Falling Sperm Counts

By Maggie Fox

LONDON (Reuter) - Sperm counts have fallen by about 25 percent among British men over a generation, doctors reported, adding to evidence that men in many countries are becoming less fertile.
Dr. Stewart Irvine of the Medical Research Council's reproductive biology unit in Edinburgh and colleagues said they found men born in the 1970s had 25 percent fewer sperm than those born in the 1950s.
"These findings provide clear evidence of falling semen quality in the U.K.,'' Irvine said.
His group studied the semen of more than 500 Scottish men over 11 years and compared them by age. They looked at how many sperm there were in the semen, and how motile, or energetic, the sperm were.
For each year later of birth, total numbers of sperm fell by two percent. So did numbers of motile sperm, they reported in the British Medical Journal.
This matches a Paris study published a year ago in the New England Journal of Medicine, which found sperm concentration dropped by an average of 2.1 percent per year.
"It confirms, rather eerily, the figure for the rate of decline,'' Irvine said in a telephone interview.
Lower sperm counts were first authoritatively pointed out by Niels Skakkebaek of Copenhagen University, who found in 1992 that sperm counts were falling among Danish men. But different studies show varying results.
French researchers reported Friday in the British Medical Journal that their study of 300 healthy, fertile men aged 20 to 45 in Toulouse found no decline in sperm count.
Last year a Finnish researcher said men in his country had high sperm counts.
Irvine said such strong regional variations showed how little was still known about the problem.
"I don't think you can generalize and say this is a global problem,'' Irvine said. ``I don't think we need to throw up our hands in horror and say the end of the world is here.''
The lowest Paris sperm counts were 60 million per milliliter, which Irvine said still provided fertility. ``When you get below 20 million you start to see problems,'' he said.
Below five million you have serious problems. We still have got quite a buffer of safety before we get into that area.''
And, he noted, it only takes one sperm to fertilize an egg.
Irvine, Skakkebaek and colleagues are currently working on a two-year project to study sperm counts in Finland, Denmark, France and Britain.
Noting these were all industrialized countries, Irvine said he would like to have data from developing countries, to see what differences there were.
Doctors are not sure what is causing the declines in places like the United States, Denmark, France and now Britain, but say manufactured chemicals, such as pesticides, may be to blame.

Laboratory Mouse With
Man-Made Ear Holds Promise

Lori Valigra

BOSTON, Oct 25 (Reuter) - Scientists who successfully transplanted a man-made human ear onto a mouse said the work holds promise for future transplants for children with birth defects and accident victims.
The ear was grown in a laboratory dish by researchers at the University of Massachusetts Medical Centre in Worcester and successfully grafted onto a mouse's back.
"There is a shortage of organs now, so we have to harvest them,'' Dr. Yilin Cao, assistant professor of research at the university's medical centre, told Reuters.
"In the future we'll be able to get a very small piece of tissue from a patient, expand it in vitro in a culture to get lots of cells and put it on an absorbable polymer (a fabric-like structure) to make any shape, like an ear or nose,'' he said.
Dr. Charles Vacanti, who heads the ear project at the University of Massachusetts Medical Centre, said ear transplants in humans could be one to two years away if experiments progress well.
He said transplants using cells from the same human patient without genetic manipulation are not regulated under current Food and Drug Administration guidelines.
To make the ear, the scientists extracted cartilage from the shoulder joint of a calf and put it in a culture disk to grow more cells. "The key is getting enough cells to seed the polymer. It takes about 50 million cells to grow and produce cartilage,'' Cao said.
The cells, in an aqueous solution, were then put onto a special polymer already shaped like a human ear. The polymer was developed by Robert Langer, a chemical engineering professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Cao said the biodegradable polymer, much like a fabric, comes in different strengths. Much like a sponge, the polymer absorbs the cartilage cells to create what looks like a real human ear, a process that takes about a week.
To ensure the ear could be attached to a human, the scientists transplanted it into a hairless mouse by making a tiny incision on the mouse's back and sticking the ear in through the skin. The mouse was specially bred as immune deficient to prevent rejection of the ear.
After a few days the mouse's skin adhered to the ear, keeping it in place. The whole process took four to six weeks.
Cao said the process is still experimental but he expects similar transplants in the future to take place in humans with ears grown from human cartilage. In the case of humans, the man-made ear would be transplanted under a person's skin so the cartilage would have a natural covering.
Cao said researchers still do not know if an ear transplanted onto a child will grow as the child ages. They said the ear does stay in shape and in place for a long time, but they have been able to observe the ears for only about four months because the immune-deficient mice do not live long.
Cao sees many possibilities for growing cartilage and organs. So far, he said, research on making ears is further advanced than growing organs.

Mrs. Clinton Tells Tale of Pizza Woe

WASHINGTON (Reuter) - Living in the White House may open all kinds of doors, but don't expect to get pizza brought in, Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday.
President Clinton's wife, appearing on the CNN program "Larry King Live," said the first family once tried to order out for pizza, but "we weren't successful."
She did not make clear whether security measures or something else put the kabosh on the would-be presidential pizza party.
But in response to prodding from King, Mrs Clinton said the pizza place ``didn't believe it'' when the order was phoned in from the White House.
She cited the abortive pizza treat to illustrate the difficulty of leading a normal American family life in the executive mansion.
The first family still sups on pizza from time to time, "but we don't get to call in (the order) any more" and have it delivered, Mrs Clinton said.

South African Nurse Kills Baby With Scalpel
JOHANNESBURG, Oct 22 (Reuter) - South African police have arrested a nurse who walked into the intensive-care unit of a hospital near Johannesburg and fatally slashed open the chest of an eight-day-old baby she had helped to deliver.
Police spokesman Andy Pieke said Baby Nkosi died in the Delmore Private Hospital in Germiston, east of Johannesburg, about nine hours after the attack, the motive for which was not clear.
``The woman we have detained is a theatre nurse at the hospital. We have absolutely no idea why she did it.
``Apparently, at about 7 o'clock on Saturday morning a nurse was in the intensive care unit when this woman walked in and went up to the baby's cot and cut him open with a scalpel.
``The nurse screamed for help and pushed the woman out of the ward. The hospital did everything they could, but they could not save the baby's life,'' Pieke said.
A hospital official said the woman who was arrested had been a theatre nurse at the hospital for about six years and had helped to deliver the Baby Nkosi.
She said the baby, who had not yet been named, was delivered prematurely by caesarian section.
Pieke said the nurse, whom he declined to identify, would be charged with murder and probably would be sent to a mental hospital for psychiatric observation.

Newborn Baby Found Dead on Jet

WINDSOR LOCKS, Conn., (Reuter) - The body of a newborn baby with its umbilical cord still attached was discovered on a Delta jet that had flown from Atlanta to Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks.
``It does not appear at this time that the death occurred on this particular inbound flight,'' State Police Sgt. Dale Hourigan said in a statement.
Ground technicians servicing the plane found the body, he said. Hourigan would not say where on the aircraft the baby was found.
The chief state medical examiner's office said in a statement that results of the autopsy on the baby would be disclosed only after the State Police Major Crime Squad and the FBI conducted their investigation.
``An investigation by the state police, FBI and other agencies is in progress to determine the circumstances surrounding the death,'' said Dr. Thomas Gilchrist, associate state medical examiner. ``When these are complete, the office of the chief state medical examiner will make a ruling on the matter.''
Hourigan said there are ``several leads'' in the baby's death, but would not release details.

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Miami Teen Lovers Kill Themselves Rather Than Part
MIAMI, Nov 8 (Reuter) - Police called the suicides of two young teenagers a tale of a modern-day Romeo and Juliet.
Two eighth-grade sweethearts leaped to their deaths after the girl's parents forbade her to continue the relationship because both were so young, police said. The bodies of Maryling Flores, 13, and Christian Davila, 14, were found in a canal in suburban Miami.
"You'll never be able to understand the love between me and Christian. I feel that without him, I can't live,'' Flores wrote in a note she left in her mother's kitchen. "Please don't cry for me. This is what I want.''
The teens, who lived within a few blocks of each other, were honour students at Ruben Darios Middle School. They disappeared from home last weekend and each left a suicide note for family and friends.
Ramon Quintero, a detective with the Sweetwater police department, said Flores's parents had ordered her to stop seeing Davila on the grounds that they were too young for such a steady relationship. He said the evidence indicated that the couple had jumped into the canal together. Neither could swim.
"It's a Romeo and Juliet story,'' Quintero said. "This is as sad a case as you can find.''
Authorities said they were awaiting autopsy results to determine if Flores might have been pregnant.
Davila emigrated to the United States with his family from Mexico as a five-year-old and Flores moved from Nicaragua at the age of six.

Woman Sacrificed to Inca Gods Found Frozen in Peru
NEW YORK, Oct 25 (Reuter) - Archaeologists have found the well-preserved frozen remains of a young woman who apparently had been sacrificed to Inca gods in Peru 500 years ago, the New York Times reported.
The newspaper quoted American archaeologist and mountaineer Johan Reinhard as describing the findings in a telephone interview and at a news conference in Araquipa in southern Peru.
The woman's body was found on an icy 20,700-foot (6,300 metre) summit of the Peruvian Andes in recent weeks, the report said. It said two more bodies were discovered at a lower elevation of Mount Amapato in southern Peru, one female and one male.
According to the archaeologists, the body of the woman who may have been sacrificed was wrapped in finely woven wool and she was wearing an elaborate feather headdress. Rare ceramics and statues, artifacts of the religion, were found around her.
Scientists expect to learn much more about life among the Incas from the discovery, the New York Times said. The Inca empire spanned most of the Andes and the western coast of South America at the time of the Spanish conquest in the early 16th century.
Reinhard is a specialist in cultural anthropology affiliated with the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and the Mountain Institute in Franklin, West Virginia.
In 1991, a hiker from 5,000 years ago was discovered in the form of a frozen mummified corpse in the Alps on the Austrian-Italian border and dubbed the "Iceman.''

NY Man Indicted for Stabbing Child With Needle
NEW YORK (Reuter) - A deranged homeless man accused of stabbing a child with a hypodermic needle on a New York City subway train was indicted, charged with possession of a weapon, assault and endangering the welfare of a minor, officials said.
Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau told reporters that the suspect, Angel Coro, 51, was undergoing a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation. He said Coro had an arrest record stretching back 20 years and a history of escaping from psychiatric institutions.
Colette Lopez, the 6-year-old girl who was stabbed Dec. 2, had been Christmas shopping with her mother and was riding on a subway train when she was stabbed. Passengers on the train held Coro until police arrived on the scene.
The little girl's parents are outraged that Coro does not have to submit to an HIV or AIDS test. Only convicted sex offenders can be tested against their will, according to state law.
Initial blood tests by police showed that the needle authorities said Coro used in the attack appeared to be uninfected. Doctors told the family they would not know for months whether the girl was infected with any disease.
"AIDS tests should be mandatory and the results should be made available to the victim,'' Morgenthau said.

Two Britons Tried for Sex Charges in Thailand
BANGKOK, Thailand (Reuter) - Two Britons working as radio announcers in Thailand will be tried early next month on charges of ``producing and possessing'' pornographic material, a court official said.
The official said the two men, Cliff James Armstrong and Ian David Baker, had pleaded guilty to the charges.
According to the official, the maximum penalty on the charges is three-year imprisonment and/or a fine of $240.
Armstrong, 34, and Baker, 44, were arrested at their Bangkok homes Tuesday after police said they found various pornographic materials in their houses.
The two men were not available for comment.
The two, who worked at a popular music radio station in Bangkok, had been at the center of a scandal after a popular Thai-language newspaper reported they had broadcast a telephone number for anyone looking for boy friends.
But Sorachak Kasemsuwan, managing director of Media Plus Co. Ltd., which runs the program on the radio, denied the press reports.
He said his company had listened to tape recordings of the programs for the 15 days before the reports were published in the paper, and found the allegations were untrue.
He said his company suspected the reports were probably sent to the newspaper by disgruntled disc jockeys working at the station.

Esx Shop Sponsire Italian Soccer Team
MESTRE, Italy, Oct 10 (Reuter) - The proprietor of an Italian sex shop said he agreed to a deal to sponsor a local amateur soccer team near Venice who have now changed their name to ``Team Punto Rosso (Red Tip) Sexy Shop.''
``I've got lots of ideas for the future,'' owner Valerio Castellaro told Reuters, promising porno-stars and ``pom-pom girls'' wearing very little on the touchline.
The team, whose ages range from 20 to 25, were photographed in local newspapers posing with a porn actress before their first match under their new sponsors on Monday evening.
The game, in the UISP, a national amateur league, ended in a goalless draw.
``We already have the name and logo of the shop on the shirts and eventually we hope to have pom-pom girls on the touchline cheering the boys on,'' said Castellaro.
But he saw little scope for offering team discounts in his sex shop. ``They are serious players,'' he said.
Last season players from Hendon, a senior non-League team from north London, gained widespread publicity in Britain after posing for nearly-nude photographs for Penthouse magazine.

Number of Sex Workers in Thailand Rises
BANGKOK, Thailand (Reuter) - The official number of sex workers in Thailand is rising but more people are using condoms for safer sex, a senior Public Health Ministry official said.
Vichai Chokevivat, deputy director general of the Communicable Disease Control Department, told Reuters there were now about 81,000 ``commercial sex workers,'' plus an estimated 5,000 ``freelance sex workers,'' throughout Thailand.
This compared with 68,860 sex workers in 1985, he said.
``More than 30 million pieces of condom are being used now annually in Thailand compared with only about four million used 10 years ago,'' Vichai added.
The latest number of commercial sex workers was obtained during a census conducted in January this year by six government units, including the Communicable Disease Control Department.
``Restaurants topped the list on offering sex services, followed by massage parlors and traditional massage parlors,'' Vichai said.
The census, which took about one month to complete, was aimed at getting information to control sexually transmitted diseases.

poetry

POOR PLACES

Jeff Morris

There are places so poor, you can kill anybody you want.
Names of places to fill pages.
When I was a young boy. We lived in Ethiopia for a time.
Actually, we lived in a walled compound.
It was made to look and feel like the United States of America,
plopped down right there on the emaciated face of East Africa.
Outside the wall, the people ate air.
They let flies drink from their eyes.
I met Haile Selassie Emperor of Ethiopia, Lion of Judah.
As a boy, I shook his hand.
Rastafarians worship him now.
He's dead.
If the Rastafarians knew I shook his hand, they might want my hand.
Maybe before I'm through using it. Who knows?

My Mother was at a market one day and her car got robbed.
Somebody took a coat... worth about forty-five dollars.
The Ethiopian Police caught the guy, too.
They returned my mother's coat.
And asked if she wanted to attend the hanging.

My mother said this:

"He stole a coat."

The Ethiopian Policeman said this:

"We are a poor country, we cannot afford thieves."

"Do you wish to come to the hanging?"

My Mother said this:

"No."

Had she gone, might they have served delicate pastries?
Might everyone have dressed colorfully?
Would they have cheered? Who knows?

There are places so poor you can kill anybody you want.
Honest.

Excerpt from
Three Coconuts

Eileen Tabios

Translucent green grapes beaded
with water glistening continue to sweat,
peaches downy and blushing
like wide-skirted belles in Southern plantations
huddle, trying to avoid my attention,
bananas ripen under my gaze
and beckon me over
with the curve of their browning backs,
three coconuts fart disdain
through their hairy asses

- the universe at its most benign
is disturbing me, perplexed
at my concentration
on its most inconsequential of details
as I avoid showing the demeanor
of a man who has just landed a gaze
on you
innocently picking at lettuce cringing from your fingertips
. . . and so have years just disappeared.

Epoch II, Part One

By Peter Scott

Yesterday I met a girl
Who went to my father's school
Not even slightly intimidating
Her complexion of a younger set
With angelic hair
And a glide
That made me wonder
Maybe she was a celestial power?

Later there was glee
Typing the name into my database
Recording our first encounter
Hoping
Anticipating more
I sent her a letter
Prayed for expedient return

Indeed a reply came
From this girl
Kristie Morrison
Smacking of joviality
Friends old and new
Nevertheless something was awry
The letter was accented
With enigmatic aura
Plus it reminded me
Too often of myself

The hour eventually struck
When the will of the people called
Sent to gather information
I rang her house
Talking on the phone
Proving assumptions correct
We had way too much in common

Constant in my life
Our calls went daily
Elaborating on dust
Idiosyncrasies
High cliffs and hidden rocks
Early pain
Family life

Sometimes even
Calgon took us awayƒ
An unspoken crush was formed
Rather
Reinforced through these dialogs
A bond seemingly unbreakable
And this we knew
Telling all
In the span of an hour

There must be a meeting
We were close
Yet so far away!
Upon the glorious occasion
Dizziness overtook her
Product of fluke
Casting doubt to wander
In the realm of possibility
As fortune foretold
Later our rendezvous grew to classic proportions
This night a mythical derailment
Alone in the hand of time

There were movies
Proceeded by infamy
A period of salvation
From destructive elements
When the girl with yellow hair
Carried thy corpse along
Numbing the pain
In losing a heart
All suffering was temporary
Our relationship developed into more
Once crushed by Cupid's misfiring
The war was not over.

After Valerio Painted "Gail"
Eileen Tabios

Splendiferous damask, importance in its weight,
inherited china, old silver to satiate
sophisticated palates, Baccarat aglow
and basking in its burden of old Bordeaux.

Mahogany moldings, to heaven they rise,
wallpaper of silk, infinite in price,
gold and crystal are together chandeliered,
dripping red candles, the sconces do they beard.

A Persian slumbers on the beribonned floor,
Chinese vases admonish tyes to adore
ivory stories of fishermen, sorcerers, kings
and demons - all atrophied into carven things.

The room of beauty reeks with authority,
of wealth and preferences steeped in religiosity,
all quite natural to host white-haried men
and sons who aspire to Dad's own ken.

But, there is discordance, discordance in this environment.
The talk is impassioned, sincereity no figment
in expressed concerns by civilians present
- intangibles hold sway over munificent ornaments.

Over there a lady Somalian, overflowing with eyes of coal,
over there a refugee seeking tomake East Timor whole,
hosted by New Yorkers investing monies and influence
knowing wealth as a tool, not the actual point of confluence.

No wonder the glorious babble, hearty in their loudness,
no wonder laughter and critiques, unchecked in their madness,
no wonder the aggressiveness of opinions flung about,
the saying comes to mind, "perhaps in error, but ne'er in doubt."

Wathcing the din stolidly, "Gail" blocks a full wall.
Painted in reverie, lost in mystery, she sits in a trhall
From internal musings, fishes transmute from the air,
"What does it mean?" The viewer aches to step in her lair.

It's a tropical feast of colors, not only because of the banana tree
waving green fronds beyond the window, the sunshine full of glee.
Within the shaded room, paint radiates heat, making true the lies
evoked through skin, kimono, oriental rug and Gail's eyes.

Sincerity of tone, sincerity of heart - both do fail
to amush her attention from her own travail.
The women rage, the men age, the lone maid weeps.
Still Gail hoards her burden, no empathy from paint seeps.

Slight indentation of blue beneath left knee
from pressing on the rug when making her plea
almost becomes lost in the viewer's span.
How sad a bruise becomes but a bit of sand.

Was she just now begging for some answer to a question?
Was she just now arguing to dissolve another's tension?
The face is wreaked with tracks of earlier passions.
She pauses, "a topaz", but there will be more lamentations.

For now the image is of a dispassionate stance.
What happened, my love, that you turned away askance?
Surely you don't believe you are only canvas and paint
when Valerio's magic can make all vision faint?

the
man

cheryl townsend

Takes the woman like she
was store bought liver a jar
of vaseline some baby lotion
smears her around his power
lets it explode into her knowing
it will only drip back down her
legs and dry

cheryl townsend

My head aching
early beers and
conversation silence
soft Vega songs and
pen but the over light
hurts my eyes spilling
with closed knowing
the phone will ring
innuendoes and excuses
like Einstein how much
longer are we alike

or When the Hammer Came Down

Rita Costello

I spoke to the woman
next door last night
She told me her eye
sockets have always had
that tinge of purple
welling within them
But I've seen her eyes more cloudy
and more clear once or twice
She says her cheeks
have always had
that reddish hue
It's just so solid
so bright these days
like the broken vessels
of a drunkard's nose
Her slim bony fingers
are growing splayed like weeds
I don't think we'll hear her
playing piano
through the walls anymore
the hammer
coming down on slim
wiry strings pounding
smashing out a song
to sing
at the garden gate
as the sirens come
to take the body away.

Revealing
Penelope

Rita Costello

I just had a revelation
I hate it when he says that
it's always so mundane
like Hey you know those bones
you suckin' clean
they used to be a vital part
of a livin' snortin' pig?
Hey
man'd I ever tell you 'bout the time
my father fed me my pet pig
Penelope
for dinner without warning
and as I was clearing the table he gurgled
Guess WHO you just ate!
with a big-hearty-boozed up laugh
that he thought was funny?
I ate her
I cried
but I grew up man
and I learned not to name my farm animals
I learned I didn't even have to live on a farm
and in the city I could buy me meat at the grocery-store
pre-packaged and un-named
and I know better than to go around having revelations
about other people's food

poetry by c ra mcguirt

FEBRUARY 14, 1989

i lit her cigarette.
she said thank you.

my girlfriend,

the medicine council,

the pagans,

the druids,

or greenpeace,

& you're barely holding on
with the poets.

what are you so
fucking mad about?

i know, i know,
i know, i know,
i know, i know,

but do you?

FOR A GOOD TIME, CALL 352-3095

if you write a poem
(& you will, even if it fails
to make you friends or money),

& no one understands it,

then you can be sure
that it sucks,

unless it's a really
great poem.

that's like taking
pride in being
a virgin.

to protect your
reputation.

WRITTEN DURING THE 5th BEER#
for D.Phillip Caron#
important to make fun of lies.more urgent to make fun of Truth - the Truth may just be abetter lie. make fun again: more Truth!after the 4th beerit doesn't count,& it's always the 4th beerfor me & D.Phillip.

to the day before
the night i really
met you,

i went back

with my new
good woman.

we ate & talked
& laughed. i drank
to giddy victory,

& gave one hell
of a reading.

i believed it even after
the whiskey had worn off.

on the way home,
i wept for you.

i can afford to
now.

Morning Glory
Robert Michael O'Hearn

What can anyone possibly say
or be thinking that's intelligible
on a 5 a.m. city bus? Either
you're bleery-eyed, and half your
nose sniffs coffee fumes
from a styrofoam cup, heading
for a much-needed job
or like me, coming off work
a member of a nondescript
wending home-alone crowd

Sometimes you rouse yourself
with newspaper headlines, sports
or business junkets, then
test your morning IQ
with a crossword puzzle.
Then with your eyes tiring naturally,
hypnotic and staring vacantly
at amassing ice on a passenger's side window
your bus driver addresses you
with benign neglect, crossing out
each street in mind after passing
and verbally droning out its name

a glimmer of anticipation alerts you,
and magically wakens you the moment
before you approach your destination
- or whatever street corner droned -
at 5:30 a.m. that you still remember.

brushes with greatness

Like when I was leaving the depeche mode concert and I saw the lead singer of Nitzer Ebb. I tapped his shoulder, and after I shook his hand I said, "I just wanted to say that you're awesome." What a stupid thing to say. His response was, "Uh, well, thanks." But at least I shook his hand.

When we were driving down Lake Shore Drive, it was December 23rd, and I saw a limo with the licence plate, "Governor 1." I said to drive next to the limo, and there was Jim Edgar, talking on a phone in the back. It was only after we passed when I realized that I was wearing a red baseball cap with reindeer antlers and bells on it. I was so embarassed.

Or when I met this soap opera star from Days of our Lives, he was signing autographs, his name on the show was Shane. There was this fat 40-year-old woman from Tolono, Illinois, standing in line and screaming every time she thought she saw a glimpse of him. He signed a newspaper clipping of mine, then took a picture with me. My mother thinks that in the photo we look like we're on our honeymoon.

And in the first grade, when the weatherman Harry Volkman, from channel Two News, came to our school, and I met him because I made him a card that said, "Columbus discovered America in fourteen ninety-two, and I discovered a weatherman when I discovered you."

Or like when I was almost in a band that opened for the Smashing Pumpkins. I sang with this band, but couldn't work with them because I lived out of town. I guess that's not a good one, since I didn't meet the Pumpkins or anything. But at least I saw the show.

And I photographed the lead singer of REM. It was September, I was only wearing shorts and a t-shirt when everyone else was wearing denim jackets. Michael Stipe was walking through a forest preserve, with a flock of people around him. I couldn't get to him, but I wanted a photo, so I looked ahead and saw an empty picnic table. I ran, sprung up on top of it, and started shooting. He looked up at me, and waved. Later, when he was about to leave, I got real close, took more pictures. I was right next to him.

Or when I talked to the lead singer of King Missile after their show at the Metro. Told him it was a good show, he thanked me, and then I said they should have played "Gary and Melissa." "Yeah, we keep forgetting that one," he said. Then he looked over at the t-shirt stand, pointed kind of blankly, then said, "You know, we'd make a lot of money... if we had t-shirts." I laughed, but then I tried to walk away.

Like when Joe took me to the engineering open house and his wooden bridge won first place for holding the most weight. Or when Lorrie brought me to the darkroom and showed me how to dodge and burn a print. Or Brigit. Or Bobby. Or Pat.

And when I won the American Legion Award in the eighth grade. Or when I published my first book. Or when I sang at the coffeehouse and everyone actually applauded. Or at the end of counseling at the retreat weekend "Operation Snowball" and I got a note from a participant thanking me for caring so much. Or when I felt happy.

janet kuypers
ccandd96@aol.com

philosophy monthly

wrok by kathy

Lizzie lies about the price of meat at
The new grocery store and keeps the extra
Five dollars.
She has enough for a bus ticket now,
But she wants to go somewhere where the weather is nice.
She touches the faint bruise on her cheek
As she puts the money in her special place.
There is a sudden burst of sunshine
Through the window,
Lifting her face,
She tastes the ocean in her tears
And feels the warmth from far away.

From: ednclark@kraken.itc.gu.edu.au (Jeffrey Clark)

Firstly, not all my reasons are purely logical but some are merely subjective evaluations. For the purposes of this article Atheist is defined as "one who does not believe in the existence of God or Gods and operationally believes that there is no God". Note the use of the word operationally: meaning that I believe such a thing for the purposes of decision making within my life
.
1. I have received no IMO trustworthy accounts of any interaction of any God or Gods with any humans. All accounts of such encounters that I have encountered thus far have been clouded by alterior motive, need for self-convincing, drugs or hoax. Basically because these reports are of a supernatural, immeasurable or unbelievable kind, it is easier to doubt the source than credit the information.
2. There are thousands of differing religious belief structures which are mutually exclusive and equally believable. Some of these belief structures do not involve deities. The major point being which one? And if one, why one? Why any, isn't it just as likely that all of them got it wrong?
3. As history has progressed, the role of Gods has decreased as understanding has replaced supernatural explanations for natural events. If there were no God, then one would think it likely that in our stage of development, the hypothetical God would only be responsible for those things which we do not currently understand. In other words the remaining God or Gods in our modern society will only be necessary for the "possibly" supernatural parts of existence. However because 500 years ago God/s were necessary to explain the perfection of the heavans, where as now we know it's to do with the 4 forces of nature and the 3 families of matter, then I do not see why this trend will not continue, as it has for thousands of years now, until understanding will eventually replace all of the hypothetical God's reasons for existence.
4. If there is a God, how did such a being come into existence? The Big Bang Theory is, on the surface, a remarkably simple idea. However I have heard no such ideas contemplating the creation of God.
5. People who seem to have a broad knowledge about the workings of the universe as we know it so far do not think that a God is necessary to obtain a working hypotheses of the world around them. E.g Albert Einstein. Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, David Suzuki, Arthur C. Clarke etc. Here I am talking people who know a lot about a large number of fields of science and philosophy. I believe that belief in an all-powerful being is intellectual weakness as is the requirement for an afterlife to avoid the fear of death.
6. Much of the work of religion seems to be based on guesswork or pure creativity. The age of the Earth, the age of homo sapiens, history as it happened over the thousands of years seem to differ from religion to religion and, most importantly, differ from the objective findings of archeologists, geologists, biologists etc.
7. I could not enjoy Monty Python half as much, were I a theist. But on a more serious note. I have read that some high percentage of New York Catholic Priests were diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic by the MMPI (I think it was around 60%, well over 1000 times the national average maybe someone could supply me with a reference), and also the systems of temporal lobe syndrome (or epilepsy) correlate highly with religiosity. In other words sick people become devout religious types. I do not have any symptoms of schizophrenia or temporal lobe epilepsy.
8. I have never seen the distinction between Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, God, the Boogy Monster, or distinctly pink invisible unicorns. All of these things seemed to be stories told to you by your parents that you eventually grew out of.
From now on I'll deal distinctly with why I am not a Christian.
9. I have discussed religion with many theists (3 of which I have converted to atheism) and most of them cannot answer the most simple inconsistencies in their beleif systems. Most of them make great sacrifice for their belief systems and therefore undergo dissonance when confronted with ideological impasses. This leads therefore to not think about the inconsistency, it's better to bury the dissonance (avoidance behaviour) rather than confront the dissonance and move your belief system accordingly, which may cause much extra dissonance. This is why I believe we should set up Zealots Anonymous all over the world to help christians and other cultists come down from their mind bending cults.
10. Having done psychology I have come across the Gazzanigga split brain studies and numerous studies involving personality alteration via neurotransmitter infusion. These operations and drugs which affect the synaptic gap in neurones can and do radically alter people's personality profiles. Their basic awareness, their memories, their reactions, their processing capacity, their motor functions: every function of the brain which has been hypothesised as part of the mind or soul can be and is effected by these treatments. Why would the soul alter due to physical changes in the brain? Isn't it much simpler to believe that these personality functions are the direct result of the brain and not of some intermediary supernatural soul which accomplishes nothing?
11. History has shown that those viewpoints or ideologies with the most aggressive doctrine are more likely to survive the centuries. Throughout the history of Christianity and Islam is numerous examples of this aggressive viewpoint. This is why they are the dominant views today. So why, in particular, should the most aggressive ideologies necessarily be the right ones?
12. A lot of testimony about the existence of a supreme rightness or God comes from Xtians and Moslems who claim to have felt God due to this spiritual ecstacy they had felt during a "religious experience". However I also have felt similar feelings to what they described as I sit upon a country hill at night underneath a cloudless sky and can "feel" Earth as a giant spaceship speeding through the Galaxy. I become so overwhelmed by the immensity and beauty of it all that I stare for hours. However I still understand the basic principles behind how the whole of the universe exists, and none of it requires a God.
13. Believing anything with a conviction that it precludes questioning is merely beyond my capacity. I simply can't do it. I have an enquiring mind and I have found my beliefs to be wrong before so why not again in the future. To believe beyond question in a supreme, all-loving deity seems absurd to me for the mere reason that it asks you to suspend reason.
14. Too often in the past has religion been used as an excuse for the great evils of human beings. Kings have promised the subjects that they rule by divine right or that they themselves are descendant from Gods and are therefore Gods themselves. Torture, genocide, racism, slavery, invasions, mass rape, and war have all been justified under the auspices of divine authorisation. This represents to me that religion is a powerful tool used by those smitten with power for unscrupulous ends (was that poetic or what). I do not want to be associated with such vile acts any more than being human already implicates me.
15. Too often the church does backflips and makes errors. If the chuch heirarchy were truly led by a divinity (as most claim) they would not make such glaring errors. It is because of this desire to maintain a divine public image that the church is loathe to admit to mistakes until the mistake is shown to be ludicrously obvious (eg Galileo).
16. As I point out the problems with each individual denomination under the Christian umbrella, Christians will often defend by saying "Oh well, THEY'RE not real Christians, but my church or I AM". This is so common that for each claim of true Christianity there is probably over a hundred other denominations chastising them as not real Christians.
17. Church teachings are sexist, judgemental, arrogant, inconsistent, filled with authoritative explanation rather than rational explanation and are therefore not conducive to learning a good life philosophy.
18. The Bible has literally hundreds of ambiguities, inconsistencies, falsehoods, and ascriptions to God of horrific, peurile behaviour. Anyone who does not acknowledge that this is true really is not reading the Bible seriously or has a major mental block in the way of them seeing it. The Bible is bunk, there is NO denying that. Besides there is multiple versions of this book. It is constantly being updated (read "rewritten") to suit the leaders of the church responsible for the particular version that produce it. The is no such thing as "The Bible" it is like saying "The Apple is better than the The IBM". Which Apple? Which IBM? Which Bible? The excuses that Xtians offer for Bible inconsistencies are extremely weak and remind one of the sort of things that die-hard scientists, clinging to an old dogma, produce in order to protect an old dogma.
19. The anthropocentric view is a dangerous view for humans to have at this point of time. Humans, even non-theists, believe for some reason that the universe is here for them and that we will not be destroyed because there is some purpose. This abrogates responsibility. In order for our species to survive, and personally I think that this would be a good eventuality, we must realise that the universe is as ignorant of us as any other piece of space dust and cares nought whether we propagate and fill the universe or extinguish in a nuclear blase. We are responsible for our own survival. We cannot look to some all powerful Daddy to come in, when we have sufficiently stuffed it up for us to learn our lesson, and make it all right again. Once we stuff it up, it's stuffed up. Religions promote an anthropocentric view, to the detriment of our species. It is for this reason that I actively oppose Christianity and any other anthropocentric religion.
20. Religions have played their role in history. They were one of the major cultural influences in uniting peoples into close-nit communities. It enabled the survival of the species through some of it's toughest tests. But we have reached adolescence now and we must give up our childhood fantasies. We must quickly reach maturity before we become another teenage drink/driving or drug overdose or suicide statistic in the Universe's intelligent race survival book. I'd like to be part of the maturing process not the part that holds on to childhood days.
21. No-one has given me a good explanation of why humans are any more deserving of a soul and an after-life than other animals. When did we acquire a soul (at birth, at conception, at baptism, never)? Why don't dolphins get souls? There are many unanswered questions in Christianity: Should we use contraception, pop-up toasters, refrigerators? None of these things are mentioned in the so called God's word. If God had written the holy word, why did He write some of it allegorically and make it impossible to distinguish them from the literal sections. Basically, if the Bibles are meant to be manuals for life, they are extremely poorly written and are highly confusing and are unclear on the most basic points. I am sure a God could do a much better job. It makes much more sense that they are not the works of a God but are the works of people attempting to keep control of their flock.
22. Since the beginning, religions have attempted to make predictions about the future and have been invariably wrong. Despite this appalling track-record, religious leaders continually predict the date of some armageddon or future mundane event (such as resurrections of exorcised wives: we saw this in Australia recently). Some of the evangelical types have told their flock the "God has told me to raise 3 million by next week". This kind of blatant fleecing of the sheep-like video sotted tele-christian flock only clings to vestiges of morality via the fact that those who are ripped off by it are so bloody thick.
23. Any one of these reasons may be refuted, but in collaboration they shore up their strength in order to make only one option available to me in my choice between theism and atheism.
Anyone may use this in any way they see fit, except to get me in trouble.

"There is, in fact, nothing about religious opinions that entitles them to any more respect than other opinions get. On the contrary, they tend to be noticeably silly." -H.L. Mencken, U.S. Journalist (1880-1956)

"The man who follows is a slave. The man who thinks is free" -Robert Ingersoll

"Here we are, we're alone in the universe, there's no God, it just seems that it all began by something as simple as sunlight striking on a piece of rock. And here we are. We've only got ourselves. Somehow, we've just got to make a go of it. We've only ourselves." -John Osborne

"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." -Einstein, Albert

"I don't know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation if He didn't." -Jules Renard

"I don't believe in God for the same reason I don't believe in Mother Goose." -Clarence Darrow

"'And don't tell me God works in mysterious ways', Yossarian continued, 'There's nothing mysterious about it, He's not working at all. He's playing. Or else He's forgotten all about us. That's the kind of God you people talk about-a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of Creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatalogical mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did He ever create pain?" -Joseph Heller poetry

god eyes

janet kuypers

You told me of a dream you had: in it you and
Christian Slater played a game of pool. You
won. He looked at his hands and said, "I've got
a beer in one hand, and a cigarette in the other.
I guess this means it's time for me to seduce
someone." And he walked away. You're a funny
man. You make me laugh. Your brother even noticed
that. And you even spoke like Slater, rough, mysterious.

You were the optimist: yes, there is
meaning to life. I was doomed to nothingness,
meaninglessness. But to me you were the
pessimist: you believed you were not
capable of creating the power, the passion
you had within you. I had control in my life, even
if in the end it was all for nothing.
You think we are so different. We are not.

It's now after three and we listen to music:
Al Jarreau, Whitney Houston, Billy Ocean, Mariah
Carey. Natalie Cole, with her father. "That's why darling,
it's incredible -" you mouth as you walk toward the
washrooms - "that someone so unforgettable -"
take a spin, watch me mouth the words
with you as you walk away -
"think that I am unforgettable too."

I tell you about the first time I got drunk - I was
maybe ten, and asked my sister to make a mixed
drink mom had that I liked. She made me a few.
So there I was, walking to the neighbor's house in
the summertime, wearing my sister's seventies
zip-up boots, oversized and unzipped, carrying my
seventh drink and sticking my tongue out to see the
grenadine. You liked my story. You laughed.

Passion is a hard thing to describe. Passion
for life. You must know and understand a
spirituality behind it. You do your work, the things
in life solely because you must - it is you,
and you could not exist any other way. It is
who you are. It is a feeling beyond mere
enjoyment. You said that the spirituality was a God.
I said it was my mind. Once again, we lock horns.

All of my life I have seen people espouse beliefs
but not follow them. Tell me you're not like them.
Our values are different, but tell me we both have
values and will fight to the death for them. I need to know
that there are people like that, like me. We are different,
but at the core we are the same.We understand all this.
I'm grasping straws here as the clock says 3:45 a.m.
and the betting odds for football games roll by

on the television screen. You don't gamble. Neither
do I. Why must you be so far away? You reminded
me that I have a passion in life, that I have to
keep fighting. But I get weak and tire
of fighting these battles alone. I, the
atheist, have no God and have to rely on
my will. When I am low, I struggle. You have
your God to fall back on, I only have me.

And you looked into my eyes as it approached
the morning. You stared. We locked horns once
again. I ask you again what you were
thinking. And you said, "I see God in
your eyes." Later you said it to me again. I asked
you what you meant. You said, "I see
a God in your eyes. I see a soul." Whether
what you saw was your God or just me, my

passion, well, thank you for finding it. "Good-bye,
Ms. Kuypers," you said when you left for good
that day. I said nothing. Good-bye, Mr. Williams,
I thought, then I closed the door, walked to the
window, started singing unforgettable. I was alone
in my hotel room, and the lights from the Stardust,
the Frontier, the Riviera were still flashing.
I'm not alone. Good-bye, Mr. Williams.

Greg Kosmicki

Tonight as Briana and I sit to read
I smell dead animal odor
through the window on the breeze
so we go outside
to find
a dead pigeon,
gray and white
by the front window.

I pick it up with a spade
we carry it to the backyard
in amongst weeds
I haven't mown for weeks
dig a shallow hole
put the bird
down among the roots
dirt and broken bricks
shovel dirt back over it.

No ceremony, just fact.

On the way to the backyard with the bird
we meet our neighbor Jim
who shrinks away in terror
explaining it's just a phobia
a germ phobia of mine

suggests I wrap the bird
in one or two plastic bags

tells me of the link between
Legionnaire's disease and pigeons
as I stand there holding this stinking bird
on the spade

says he found a rat
a few days ago his dogs chewed up
after following
his nose to the smell

says he threw it away far
over the fence behind the house
which is where
I was going with the bird.

He leaves for work, it's evening
he has his deliveries to make.

We pause by the trash a while
while I think of putting the bird in there
but that seems likely to spread contagion
if the bird is sick
and Briana doesn't think the idea
is right

she wants to throw it
out in back
for the ants
like I'd done with that sparrow
we found a month ago or so

I think we'll bury it
and Briana will see the way
of all life, again, and the bird
will rot safely in the ground
where earth can do its sweet work

so we walk across the unmown back lawn
my mower broke weeks ago mowing grass in front of Jim's
through grass and weeds almost as tall as her
and I dig a little round hole

two feet deep while she waits.

She says "There's sticks in there Dad!"
so I tell her "They're roots
of this hackberry tree here"

dig them out
drop the bird down into the hole

the bird catches in the roots
so I have to push it to the bottom
with the spade.

Nothing pretty.

The bird stinks so bad
it's head
eaten off
where maggots crawl
I don't feel ceremonious.

I scrape dirt back in
say "Now next Summer some flowers
will grow here,"
knowing that
to be a lie
for her benefit,
since only weeds
grow in this corner

a little type of creeper
that's taken over half this yard

she says "Yeah! Flowers
will grow there tomorrow!"

"No, not tomorrow,
but next Summer, maybe."

She corrects herself to say
"Flowers will grow here next Saturday."

We leave it at that.

Back inside she goes back to the TV room
where we'd been reading

pulls two blankets over herself
laughs
"Daddy, Daddy!
I'm buried! I'm buried!"

"No, you're covered up in blankets."

giggles
"No, I'm not! I'm buried!
I'm buried! Daddy! I'm buried!"

For only a moment
I don't know for sure
which one of us is right

then we get back in the chair
and finish our story.

dreams turned into nightmares

Analyze this. Get yourself on track. All men are scum anyway, Christ, this was just your reaffirmation of it. None of these people really matter. Just get back to your work, get yourself focused again. That's how to demonstrate your worth.
You don't care about your work. Who are you trying to impress? Let it pile up. It doesn't matter. God, why does it always feel like this?Why is it that you have to depend on others for your worth, and when there is one little crumb of affection thrown at you, you savor it and pray that it's a sign for more and you hope and your pray and then when nothing comes it's all the same again except this time all of your hopes are shot.
Why are there times like this when you feel so alone? There are other times when you relish in your solitude. Look at the dishes pile up. You should be doing laundry. Slob. Bitch. Can't even clean up after yourself.
Why does everything have to hurt you so much? Why are you crying so much more now? Why do you look for ways to feel bad, reasons to cry? What do you feel guilty for? Why do you go through this?
Oh, don't even try to daydream and get yourself out of this. It will always be the same, you have to remember that. You can try to dream that you deserve something better, but don't bother. You will always keep trying, with the hope that it will get better, and you will keep failing, every single god-damn time, and that's the way it will go, forever and ever, on and on. It won't stop, not until you do. Can you resign yourself to this? Can you resign yourself to not trying, or are you going to keep building your hopes up for nothing?
What is the good of anything that you've done? Are you any happier for it?
God, how do you go through these cycles? How the Hell can you deal with it? There's got to be a way to get out of it. Try not to think of it.
You're so lonely. All you've got left to you is your mind, and it's destroying you, slowly. When will it destroy you altogether? When? It's only a matter of time.
Why do you dream? Are you trying to escape reality? Are you trying to create a new reality? I think you dream and dream until you think that it's all actually real, and then when someone in your life proves your dream wrong you whole world falls to pieces. Piece. Little pieces. Look, there goes a few now. Try to pick them up, you're going to lose them if you don't pick them up and try to piece them back together again, and then you'll be destroyed. Can you create a new dream with what you have left?
You want to slip into it again. It's what keeps you alive, keeps you going. It's the only thing that gives you hope. What the Hell do you need that hope for? You'll be let down, you know it, if you can step down from that dream of yours. Get out of it! Stop. All these good dreams keep reminding you of what it could be like, if only you were someone else, if only you were someone liked and successful and important. And those bad dreams, those are your way of punishing yourself for dreaming. Your mind slips them in there, when no one else is looking, and then, because you live in your dreams so much, you have to play it out, and then you'll cry and cry and there's nothing you can do.
You can't face up to it, can you? You'll be no better than this. Your life will be no better than this. Nothing will be better than this, better than dreams turned into nightmares.

janet kuypers
ccandd96@aol.com

Figuring Your Options

You can live bored which is a total drag
but then you will find yourself one day
running your car off a bridge in desperation
or thinking of which bridge you could make
the best swan dive off of or you'll find
yourself calculating the time you'll need
to sit in the car in the garage
when nobody's around or you'll get
a gun out and make a big bloody mess
for your friends and family to remember you by
or you'll start counting and collecting
all your pills and your friend's pills
or try to picture how sad you butt
will look with your head stuck in the oven

Or, you can take the choice to not be bored
and take up handball racquetball volleyball
baseball basketball or any of a dozen or so
other balls and when you finish that go jump
out of an airplane and wait a long time
to pop your silk or climb to the top
of a large bluff and dive off into the air
supported only by a broad colorful
piece of silk and some tubes of aluminum
or climb to another bluff and fling
yourself down the side to water
hundreds of feet below
or go directly to the water to live
underneath it in rubber dependent
upon bottled air and friends
or die on top of it on self
propelled water vehicles of a bewildering
variety, or backpack to the few
places there are still trees
and live among them for a few days
then climb up the outcrops
of the mantle of the earth to the top
where you once again must breath
air out of a bottle, or once again
fly in a single engined contraption
as far as you can go with no sleep,
swing heavy balls down lanes of wood
hit balls with clubs of wood and iron
or aluminum, chase your
neighbors, spouse, son, daughter
the receptionist, the gardener
the man in the elevator, the woman
at the poetry reading jump
from a tall tower tied
to a rubber band swim
vast distances of water then climb
up like some demented god
onto the shore and run
shoot, lift throw fornicate
fight with sticks and swords
and guns, fight with mud and saberjets
and choppers, fight the bartender
and the customers, drink
the drinks dry, gamble
the money all gone, watch
the roulette ball the craps
the cards roll in and roll out
drink and fight, fight and fuck
all day and all night
drop acid, do speed, snort coke
smoke dope, shoot smack
poppers, sniffers, shooters
craps, guns, life and love

And still you'll be so bored
the minute you quit
you'll go back to your first option
you'll say death, mother
you'll say cleave to me
my dark lover

An Unfinished Requiem for Male Chorus and
Orchestra That Ends With the Wrath of God,
a Black and White Still Life 1985

alan catlin

A Woman With a Telephone Explains the True Nature
Of Flight, BxW Still Life East Rockaway/
Albany, NY 1973

alan catlin

christopher tm

i try to remember
words of wisdom
you whispered once to me
fragments
of moments
truths

but they aren't there anymore
or never were

christopher tm

Postulate #1: "Essence" is that which allows us to recognize a subject, vis. 'Roundness', 'color', 'smoothness', at al.
Postulate #2: "Existence" is simply the fact that something is.
Postulate #3: Both Essence and Existence are impermanent.
Postulate #4: Essence is quantitative. Existence is qualitative.
Postulate #5: Existencially, I'm fucked. Essentially, I'm really fucked.
Postulate #6: The state of being fucked is impermanent, ergo there is always hope.
Postulate #7: Hope being both qualitative and quantitative, is therefore also impermanent.

Too Late

mary winters

Out the train window
I saw a plane about to crash.

I didn't look back.
It was a sight I wasn't meant to see.

If I am, I am led to it.
Left standing there,

thumped between the shoulders.
Still, it got me thinking.

That plane a parable in the sky?
Off-course, then found

- too late,
its nose an inch from the ground.

I would like to avoid
the human parallel.

SHEDDING CLOTHES

paul weinman

That chemise is what she wore.
The same one she'd thrown down
before clamoring all over my skin
before ascending to take my cards
deep within my descent into her vagina.
But in her second strut
she wore it to wear
wore it with my face pressed at wallet
nose sniffing, tongue licking
for what eyes couldn't see
ears couldn't hear. I looked
in the mirror to shave.
My lips, nose, ears...lastly
eyes were sliced away
with that razor ... what chemise
will I wear?

madonna who hates to let go

lyn lifshin

of her firm 101
lb body old
books holds on
to the image of
her mother dancing
on the metal stool
keeps men in case
holds on to the
fantasy of the
blue eyed lover
being all the sky
she needs holds
so tight to what's
going clings to
legs of a lover
already gone til
her knees are blood
keeps stains frames
them lacquers them
as a plate she eats
off every night

my car

lyn lifshin

it sounded lovely,
elegant, sneaky,
wild and fast. Sleek,
independent, cool. I

spent weeks looking
for the T-Bird insignia
on the wheel where the one
I had took off in a hidden

direction like a cat
that stays out not only
one night but won't
come back. It's the color

of my first cat, Othello,
reflects the moon,
is invisible at midnight,
daring as crows, bright as

ebony, onyx as the
heart of a lover who'll
take me with him into red
lights we won't make

it through

guilt
I was walking down the street one evening, it was about 10:30, I was walking from my office to my car. I had to cross over the river to get to it, and I noticed a homeless man leaning against the railing, not looking over, but looking toward the sidewalk, holding a plastic cup in his hand. A 32-ounce cup, one of the ones you get at Taco Bell across the river. Plastic. Refillable.
Normally I don't donate anything to homeless people, because usually they just spend the money on alcohol or cigarettes or cocaine or something, and I don't want to help them with their habit. Besides, even if they do use my money for good food, my giving them money will only help them for a few hours, and I'd have to keep giving them money all of their life in order for them to survive. Once you've given money, donated something to them, then you're bound to them, in a way, and you want to see that they'll turn out okay. Besides, he should be working for a living, like me, leaving my office in the middle of the night, and not out asking for handouts.
I'm getting off the subject here... Oh, yes, I was walking along the sidewalk on the side of the bridge, and the homeless man was there, you see, they know to stand on the sidewalks on the bridge because once you start walking on the bridge you have to walk up to them, and the entire time you're made to feel guilty for having money and not giving them any. They even have some sort of set-up where certain people work certain bridges.
Well, wait, I'm doing it again... Well, I was walking there, but it wasn't like I was going to lunch, which is the time I normally see this homeless man, because during lunch there is lots of light and lots of people around and lots of cars driving by and I'm not alone and I have somewhere to go and I don't have the time to stop my conversation and think about him.
Well, anyway, I was walking toward him, step by step getting closer, and it was so dark and there were these spotlights that seemed to just beat down on me while I was walking. I felt like the whole world was watching me, but there was no one else around, no one except for that homeless man. And I got this really strange feeling, kind of in the pit of my stomach, and my knees were feeling a little weak, like every time I was bending my leg to take a step my knee would just give out and I might fall right there, on the sidewalk. I even started to feel a little dizzy while I was on the bridge, so I figured the best thing I could do was just get across the bridge as soon as possible.
I figured it had to be being on the bridge that made me feel that way, for I get a bit queasy when I'm near water. I don't usually have that problem during lunch when I walk over the bridge and back again, but I figured that since I was alone I was able to think about all that water. With my knees feeling the way they were I was afraid I was going to fall into the water, so I had to get myself together and just march right across the bridge, head locked forward, looking at nothing around the sidewalk, nothing on the sidewalk, until I got to the other side.
And when I crossed, the light-headed feeling just kind of went away, and I still felt funny, but I felt better. I thought that was the funniest thing.
janet kuypers
ccandd96@aol.com

prose

Screams in America

David Caylor

I wasn't sure when it happened, but an old Cambodian lady had moved in across the hall. I had seen The Killing Fields six times, so I knew she was Cambodian. At first, I felt bad for her. She had come thousands of miles and landed in a one-room efficiency. There she was, packed in with cockroaches. There had to be 100,000 roaches in the building.
My address was 809 1/2 Second Avenue, Apartment 127. She was in apartment 128. The longer the address the worse the place. Nice places have addresses like 29 North Street.
I first saw her one afternoon as I cam back from work. It was warm, ninety-three degrees. The walk home had beaten me. I only wanted to get inside, turn on the air conditioner and read the afternoon newspaper. I went through the buildings' front door, down a short flight of steps and saw her. She was standing in the hallway leaning up against the door. She looked like an old yellow whore working the building. I assumed I'd be able to walk right past her. As I got closer, she took notice and straightened up. I got out my key and thought I was home.
"Excuse me, sir," she said. she pulled out a map of the downtown area. It was actually a photocopy of a map. "Do you know where is Land-gon?" I pointed Langdon Street out on the map. It was as hot in the hallway as it was outside. I wasn't in the mood.
"If I go there will I be a Doctor?" she asked smiling up at me. Half of her teeth were rotten.
"I don't know if there is a doctor on that street or not." I turned toward my door and she followed me. She pointed down to Gorham Street.
"What street is this?" Her breath was terrible.
"Gorham."
"If I go here and to here," she said moving her finger down Gorham to McKinley Boulevard, "will I be a Master?" I had no idea what she was talking about. She continued, "If I go here and here and here, I'll be a Doctor?" She seemed to be referencing academic degrees.
"I really don't know, lady." I finally got inside and turned on the air conditioning.
The next day wasn't as bad. She was standing out in the hallway again, but our conversation was brief.
"Where do you work?" she asked.
"At a law firm," I said.
"You're already out of law school?" I was surprised she even knew there was such a thing as law school.
"No, I work for the lawyers." I got past her and went inside. I had a horrible apartment. It was one room and a small shower. The walls were uncovered brick and the carpet was a worn out brown. I was constantly tearing pictures out of magazines to cover the brick. There wasn't anything else I could do. The place was so small that I had started buying the smallest versions of things. I had a coffee machine that would only make two cups at a time and an ironing board with three inch legs. I used a little toothbrush and those miniature bottles of shampoo. The smallness of everything made me feel like King Kong as I walked around the place.
A few hours after talking to her there was a knock. I walked to the door and looked out the peephole. Her wrinkled face stared back at me. The radio was on, so she knew I was there. I looked through the hole for a minute. She stood and stood and stood. Finally, I went back and sat on my mattress. She knocked a few more times and I ignored her.
The next day I grabbed a bag of trash to toss out and snuck out past her. I got to work, flipped through some spreadsheets and forgot about her.
It hadn't cooled off. It was ninety-one at 5:00 p.m. My walk home was five blocks, a little up hill. I was about halfway home when she came to mind. I turned a corner, went into the building and checked my mail. There was nothing but advertisements addressed to STUDENT/OCCUPANT. I keyed the main door and went down the hallway. My room was at the end.
I could already see her, a dark little figure with no shape. I became convinced that she was waiting specifically for me. There was no way around her.
"Sir, what does this mean?" She had the newspaper and was pointing at the legal notices. There were tiny paragraphs about people requesting zoning changes and the county was taking bids on truck equipment. "What does this mean?" she smiled as she asked again.
"They're to let people know what is going on," I said. She pointed down to a specific section.
"Tom Crawford, owner of property located at 2218 Seminole Hwy., requests a rear yard variance to construct an addition onto his home."
I tried to explain that someone wanted to add onto his house and needed permission.
"What does this mean?" she asked again, pointing to 'construct and addition'.
"Make his house bigger." I could see she didn't understand.
"What does this mean? Where is it?" I had no choice but to turn away from her. I went inside and turned on the television and air conditioning, as usual.
This was crazy. I was her best friend in America. There were hundreds of rooms in the building and each room had one or two people in it. Still, she was the only person I ever saw. Once in a while I'd hear people shouting at each other or a dog barking, but that was it.
It was Friday and after it got dark I wanted to go get some supplies. I checked the hallway before leaving. It was clear. I did most of my shopping at Bucky's Corner Market. It was a little place that had one of everything in stock and was a popular even thought the prices were high. I picked up two six packs, a magazine and a $2.39 bag of pistachios. It was a few blocks from the store to home. The streets were filled with cars. Everyone was going out to the bars and clubs. I got to my building. If she tried to stop me, I would ignore her completely. I walked as quickly as possible. My paper bag was rustling. I imagined her sitting in her apartment and hearing me coming down the hall. She'd jump up, run out and start with more ridiculous questions. Maybe she would have a picture of some stranger and demand I tell her who it was.
"Who is this? Who is this? Where are they?"
None of this happened. I got into my room and started my weekend.
Monday morning I bagged some more trash, showered and got dressed for work. The law firm required us to be well dressed. I picked out a black and red tie and a white shirt. I opened the door to leave and she was already standing there. She was holding a bag of something as if she was moving in with me. She looked ugly and insane. It was about seven in the morning and I wasn't fully awake yet. I thought I might be dreaming. I decided to scream.
"AHHH-AHHHH!" She just stood there. I let another scream fly, "AHHH-AHHHH!" It wasn't a dream. I slammed and locked the door. I looked out the peephole. she just stood there. I thought she would understand screaming. People in Cambodia must scream. She stood there and I was trapped. I couldn't go out there and pretend like nothing had happened. Those had been loud screams. Then minutes went by. Every thirty seconds she reached up to gently knock. There wasn't anything to do. I was going to be late for work. Another ten minutes passed. I stepped back to sit on my mattress. I called work and told them I had an emergency errand to do and I would be an hour or so late.
There was a loud knock.
"This is the Madison Police, open the door." Someone had heard the screaming. It would be hard to explain why a twenty-four year old blonde man was afraid of a ninety pound, unarmed woman. I got up and answered the door. The cop was in full uniform, cap included.
"What happened here?" he asked. I gave him the truth but stretched it.
"This lady's been harassing me," I said pointing at her.
"And?"
"This morning she just burst into my room and started making these sexual comments. I've told her to stop. This had been going on for a week, and like I said, this morning she just burst in."
"What was the screaming for?" he asked.
"I was telling her to get out." The cop went over and spoke to her. He'd ask a question and she would say "yes" or "no". We stood out in the hallway for quite some time. I hoped that my story would hold up.
The cop started lecturing her, in English. I'm not sure how much she understood. He was telling her to stay away form me.
"She's not going to bother you anymore and you aren't going to scream at her," the cop said. "I could take you both in next time." I nodded and agreed to the deal. We went back to our rooms and the cop left the building. I waited a few more minutes and went to work.
I don't know what she did next, if she cried or if she was angry. I saw her around the building once in a while for a few weeks, and then she was gone. She either died or moved out.

The language of sex that is forbidden used to be a language like this: “Bitch,” he snapped, pulling away from her, yanking his dick out of her mouth. “You’re trying to make me come before I’m ready...” She ate up that kind of talk. John Stoltenberg, “Pornography and Male Sumeracy - the Forbidden Language of Sex,” “Refusing ... Essays on Sex and Justice.”

Think of some woman in a porn magazine or movie. You probably be able to think of one in particular, so just think of the general notion of a woman in porn.

Here’s a woman, which you probably wouldn’t even think to call a woman, doing whatever the said man in the movie wants her to do, on film, for others to derive pleasure from. Now in general, when men or even women look at her, they don’t wonder about her intellect, her personality, even the sound of her voice. You don’t even wonder if she’s a good cook. When it comes to the viewers of this woman, all they’re thinking about is sex - her body parts and what she does with them.

That’s all you’re supposed to be thinking about when you watch it - that’s the whole point of porn.

Okay, so now you’re looking at this woman and you’re thinking of her as, well, not even as a human being as much as some sort of object with legs and tits and other things. You’re not thinking of her on any other terms, you don’t want to think of her on any other terms. Her express purpose is your sexual satisfaction. You begin to objectify this woman - you don’t even know her name, and you are shown to think of her as and object derived to fulfill your needs.

Now, you watch a porn more than once, you see different porn movies, you see these naked women more than once, you see them in magazines as well as in movies. For your purposes, they could even be all the same person - they’re just legs and tits anyway, right? For all you know, you could have been looking at the same woman on numerous occasions without even knowing it. They have no personality to you in this form, in pornography. And you may even become accustomed to seeing them this way - seeing the women in these videos and pictures as objects of pleasure for the male viewer.

Now tell me, who is to say that on some levels there aren’t men who don’t begin to look at women in general in terms of the images they’re seeing of women - as objects, as sexual creatures? Do men begin to think of all porn stars as women whose personality doesn’t matter to the male, then think of all naked women as objects without feelings, then think of all women in general as tools for men’s satisfaction?

Skin flicks and porn reading matter market women as commodities, denying physical uniqueness, women are presented as “tits and ass” with bulging breasts and painted-on smiles. This caricature of the female body and its reduction to a few sexual essentials is presented undisguised in the “hard core” material and covered up with sophisticated packaging in Playboy, Penthouse, and “soft core” porn films. Whether explicit or implied, the underlying message is the same: women are to be treated by the consumer (the male reader) as pieces of ass. Michael Betzold, How Pornography Shackles Men and Oppresses Women, Male Bag, March, 1976

This woman in the porn movie, on the pages of the magazine, she’s probably not even the type of girl the average guy would want to take home to introduce to mom and dad. For some reason she is acceptable for sexual purposes, but not for relationships. She’s acceptable for what men, in general, prefer for interactions with the opposite sex, but she is the opposite of what women in general want for interactions with the opposite sex.

Pornography promotes our insecurities by picturing sex as a field of combat and conquest. The sex of pornography is unreal, featuring ridiculously oversized sexual organs, a complete absence of emotional involvement, little kissing and no hugging... Besides reinforcing destructive fantasies toward women, porn promotes self-destructive attitudes in men. By providing substitute gratification, it provides an excuse for men to avoid relating to women as people. It encourages unrealistic expectations: that all women will look and act like Playboy bunnies, that “good sex” can be obtained anywhere, quickly, easily, and without the hassle of expending energy on a relationship. Michael Betzold, How Pornography Shackles Men and Oppresses Women, Male Bag, March, 1976

The male viewer is turned on by her, but these men wouldn’t want to actually have to spend time with her. Now why? Because what she does is unacceptable? Why is it acceptable for her to make these movies, take these photos for the pleasure of men, but because of that she is not respectable enough to date?

But how to chart the pressure sensed by women from their boyfriends or husbands to perform sexually in ever more objectified and objectifying fashion as urged by porn movies and magazines? Robin Morgan, Pornography: Who Benefits

Now tell, me, what is to say that men don’t begin to look at women in general in terms of the images they’re seeing of women - as objects, as sexual creatures, as legs and tits, but as something they don’t respect?

I want the world to know that I have a brain. I want the whole damned world to know that I have ideas, and talent, and intellect, that I’m hard-working, that I’m interesting. But how am I supposed to fight these notions that men have of how women are? Of how I am, or am supposed to be, according to their standards? Do you have any idea how sick it makes me feel when I see some guy leering at me in the street? But you have no idea why. No, the typical male response of “She just doesn’t want to be flattered” doesn’t make sense, because you’re not flattering me by reducing me to something you can abuse. To tits and legs. To something like an object in a porn magazine or movie, someone who wants to solely be a vehicle for the man’s pleasure. No, I don’t think finding someone attractive is a bad thing, in fact, it’s a very good thing. But that isn’t all there is to a human being, and that surely isn’t all there is to me. If someone is going to stereotype me into one category, I would rather be thought of as smart, or hard working, than a potential fuck. Every time I see a pornography magazine, I wonder if the owner, or the men looking through it, expect me to look like that, or expect me to perform like that for them. Or if they think I like the submission and degradation. I don’t. Most women don’t. Janet Kuypers, How Pornography Affects Me, 1994.

“But the women who are porn models and actresses like it, I mean, they’re not being degraded, they’re being paid for it.”

Would you enjoy having a photographer take pictures of you so everyone could fixate on your penis? (maybe you would.) Let me put it this way: would you like it if every interaction you had in the world related and depended only - and I mean only - with your penis? That the only way you could achieve anything in life was only if you exploited your sexual organs? If your brain didn’t count? If your abilities didn’t count? If you as a person didn’t count?

Would you enjoy it if you were trying to apply for a job and all through the interview your potential employer was more interested in how you looked naked than your skills applicable to the job? It would be so frustrating, because that wouldn’t matter to the job, and you wouldn’t be able to prove to these people that you are qualified for the job. It would be so frustrating, because there would be nothing you could do to make these people see you as a person.

You probably think it sounds funny, but in all honesty, these things all relate. Pornography objectifies women, and these views of objectification translate to other parts of society, from looking for a job to walking down the street. And in my opinion, it’s just not fair that women should be treated that way, simply because that’s the way it is, simply because that’s the way men and women have been taught in this society think.

Many men, knowing intimately the correspondence between the values in their sexuality and in their pornography - share the anxiety that the feminist antipornography movement is really anattack on male sexuality. These nervousand angry men are quite correct: the movement really does hold men accountable for the consequences to real women of their sexual proclivities. It is really a refusal to believe that a man’s divine right is to force sex, to use another person’s body as if it were a hollow cantaloupe, a slap of liver, and to injure and debilitate for the sake of his gratification. When one looks at pornography, one sees what helps some men feel aroused, feel filled with maleness and devoid of all that is non-male. When one looks at pornography, one sees what is necessary to sustain the social structure of male contempt for female flesh whereby men achieve a sense of themselves as male... John Stoltenberg, “Pornography and Male Supremacy - the Forbidden Language of Sex,” “Refusing ... Essays on Sex and Justice.”

“But women like porn movies, too, and there’s naked men in the pictures. It’s eroticism, it turns everyone on, not just men. What’s wrong with that?”

First of all, the way pornography depicts sex is different from eroticism - the one difference is that pornography is by nature degrading towards women. How? By her submissiveness, her subservience. Is she tied up? Is her aim to please the man? Is rape a common fantasy in pornography, or physical pain, or very young women (even more weak that full adults), or more than one woman serving a man? Eroticism does not rely on one sex submissive and subservient to the other. Pornography relies exactly on just that degradation of one sex.

Think about this, which is one of the most common fantasy scenes when the tables are turned: would you, as a man, like to be naked with another man, the both of you working to satisfy one woman? Would you really feel comfortable being with another man in that situation? No, I’m sure you wouldn’t want to compete. And I’m sure you’d want to know that you are capable of bedding a woman and don’t need to share the responsibility of satisfaction with another man. Would you want the woman deriving pleasure from another man while she was with you? No, I’m sure you’d want to know that she was dependent on you, and not someone else, for her satisfaction. Imagine that situation, really think about it, and tell me honestly that the fantasy of two women having sex with one man is fair, or accurate, or considerate, or even enjoyable for women.

Both law and pornography express male contempt for woman: that have in the past and they do now. Both express enduring social and sexual values; each attempts to fix male behavior so that the supremacy of the male over the female will be maintained. Andrea Dworkin, Pornography and the First Amendment.

Pornography supports, encourages these situation if submissiveness, like multiple women, or bondage, or rape. And in my opinion, any medium that eroticizes rape is completely inaccurate.

Women don’t like it. No women do. A woman may fantasize about rough sex, which could be played out in the bedroom like a rape scene with a trusting partner, but that is definitely not rape, and it doesn’t feel like rape. Why would men want to fantasize that women actually enjoyed an actual rape? To feel secure that women enjoy their oppressed place in the society? Because the men want to rape someone? That’s hard to believe, but if that’s really a possible answer, then where do they get the fantasy of raping a woman? Pornography.

And if women like pornography, it might be because they have grown to like it. It is one thing to be sexual, and it is entirely another to support this kind of degradation toward women. In our culture, pornography exists, but eroticism barely does. Women don’t have the choices for pleasure in this society that men do. Playgirl and other similar magazines are designed mostly by men - and revolve around the same fantasies that men have. It is assumed that women enjoy the same fantasies. No one questions whether or not they do. And in fact, the vast majority of readers of Playgirl are gay men.

Pornography contains hidden messages. For example, the recent surfacing of sadomasochistic material in more respectable publications such as Penthouse illustrates how reactionary sexism gets mingled in with the turn-on photos. The material suggests that women should not only be fucked, but beaten, tortured and enslavedÐtriumphed over in any way. Penthouse gets away with this murderous message by casting two women in the S/M roles, but it’s no problem for a man to identify with the torturerÐthe victim is provided. Michael Betzold, How Pornography Shackles Men and Oppresses Women, Male Bag, March, 1976

Does pornography produce these subservient, submissive, sexual, non-human notions about women in men, in all different levels in society? It may be one of many forces that produce these notions - and all these different factors feed upon one another. Sexism pervades every pore of our culture, and pornography reinforces these barriers, as do other forces in our day-to-day lives.

There is little understanding that pornography is not about sex but rather is a fundamentally misogynist expression of patriarchal rights... Gary Mitchell Wandachild, Complacency in the Face of Patriarchy, Win, January 22, 1976

Women are portrayed as sexual objects in almost every form of media today. There are so many more strip joints for men than women, and there are so many restaurants and bars with female employees wearing next to nothing. Women make 63¢ for the man’s dollar in the work place.

Women are abused in marriages and relationships, physically and sexually. A single 30-year-old man is considered sexy while a 30-year-old women is considered a hag. One in three women in their lifetimes will be raped, one in four before they even leave college. Over 80% of the rapes that do occur are committed by a man the survivor knew, a friend, a relative, a boyfriend - someone they trusted. Playboy and Penthouse outsell Time and Newsweek twenty times over.

And the word misogyny exists - it means “to hate all women” - and a similar term does not exist for hating men.

No, I don’t believe that pornography should be banned - I also believe in the First Amendment, and I believe in freedom of expression. I just wish that people didn’t support it so much. I wish that these notions weren’t forced on to me by men I interact with, by society in general. No, I suppose I can’t change the world, but I’ll do what I can to make people understand me. Because every day I have to live with these notions in society, these stereotypes about me. And I don’t like them, and I don’t want to live by them. Most women don’t want to live by them, but they figure it’s easier to go along with it than fight the system. I can’t go along with it. That is who I am - a person who cannot be submissive, who has her own thoughts, her own brain. And if these notions are in my way, than I’ll do what I have to to get rid to these things. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t. Janet Kuypers, How Pornography Affects Me, 1994. The rallying cry of porn dealers is freedom of speech and the press ... Yet we would be appalled if movies showed blacks being lynched or castrated, Chicanos being systematically beaten and tortured, and we would quickly protest. But we say nothing when the same activity goes on with women as the victims. Michael Betzold, How Pornography Shackles Men and Oppresses Women, Male Bag, March, 1976

“Women don’t like pornography because they’re afraid to say they really like it. Women are just jealous of better looking women being sexually active, doing what they think they cant.”

Women don’t like pornography because as human beings they don’t like being reduced to an object for men’s pleasure, a receptacle for a man’s penis. They don’t like being reduced, and in such a graphic way, to a non-thinking, non-feeling pile of rubble. And they don’t like the fact that men can go into many newsstands or video stores and get something commonly sold, or even popular, that supports this. That harbors this. That encourages this.

The Ballad of Mr. Pud
An Urban Fable

mark blickley

It was starting again. His father slammed the bedroom door so hard that Nicholas could feel the vibrations traveling down the hallway, searching for him. He jumped off the kitchen chair.
Nicholas knew those vibrations. Like lightning, they were attracted to metal, and it didnÕt take a genius to know that the new kitchen set his mother recently bought had chairs with aluminum legs.
After the vibrations weakly shook the chair, the yelling began. His mother Lucille, and his father Charlie, were now locked in their bedroom.
Nicholas liked living in the city but when the yelling started he always wished he was living in the country. It wasn't the trees or grass or fresh air Nicholas longed for, it was a house. A big house far enough away from his neighbors so that his parents' yelling couldn't be heard. Everyone in the building could hear their screaming and the next day at school Nicholas would be teased about it.
No one liked to call Nicholas by his given name, not even his parents. His father was always asking, 'Hey, Nick, how's it going?' Nicholas would answer, 'Things are going swell and my name's Nicholas, not Nick.' That's when his mother would laugh and say, 'Lighten up, Nicky.'
The first time Nicholas realized he hated the name Nick was one morning at the breakfast table. Nicholas was busy scooping out raisins with his spoon when his father burst into the kitchen. He had his hand on his throat and blood was seeping through his fingers.
Lucille jumped up from the table. 'My God, Charlie, what did you do to yourself?'
'I didn't do anything! It's these cheap razors you buy. Even when I use a fresh blade I nick myself.' Charlie pulled his hand away so his wife and son could admire his wound. The sight was so ugly that Nicholas' cereal stopped tasting sweet, but he finished his bowl of raisin bran anyway.
'If you'd stop buying such expensive liquor I might be able to spend more on razor blades!' shouted Lucille.
'Since when have you complained about the quality of booze I bring into this house?' Charlie shouted back.
'Since it's given you the shakes so bad in the morning you cut your own throat!' answered Lucille.
'Ha! You're the cut throat in this house!'
'How dare you say that to me, especially in front of Nicky!' cried Lucille. But she need not have worried. Nicholas was already running down the apartment stairs, heading for school.
As much as Nicholas disliked the name Nick, he hated Nicky even more. It rhymed with sticky, tricky, sicky and much worse. More than once he was the subject of some other hot-shot sixth grader's rap song. No, you could keep Nick and Nicky, but Nicholas he liked. It had dignity. It was a long enough name that people had to make an effort to say it.
Nicholas tip-toed down the hallway as he made his way to his room. He didn't want his parents to hear him. Despite all the loud arguing coming from their bedroom he still had to be careful if he didn't want to be detected. That's because a strange thing happened whenever they started their shouting matches. Whoever was doing the screaming had the other's complete attention. The two voices never overlapped, never collided. When one parent stopped yelling, there'd always be a slight pause before the other parent started in again.
It was these pauses that were dangerous. As soon as they were aware of their son's presence they'd stop yelling long enough to ask Nicholas to judge which one of them was in the right. No matter what Nicholas said, it always seemed to make things worse.
One night at the dinner table, he asked his parents about their fighting style.
'Mom, Dad, how come when you fight you never scream at the same time?'
His father straightened up in his chair. 'It's because we're civilized people, Nick.'
His mother placed her spoon by her dish. 'And we respect each other, Nicky. Your father and I respect what the other has to say, so we listen.'
'Oh,' said Nicholas as he dipped his spoon into a cup of chocolate pudding.
*****
There had been more silent pauses than usual today because neither his mother or father had launched into any long speeches. Instead, they were hurling insults back and forth like a game of catch. This made it harder to pass their room unnoticed. By the time Nicholas reached his room, he was exhausted.
The boy closed his door slowly and winced as the lock clicked into place. He was about to let out a sigh of relief when he saw his brown suitcase, packed and ready to go, propped on his bed.
'No, no, not again. Please, not again!'
Nicholas wanted to cry but he knew how much that upset his mother so he took a notebook and box of colored pencils out of the closet and lay on the floor.
He removed a pencil and carefully began to draw in the notebook. The shouting was getting louder. That meant their bedroom door was open and they were fighting in the hall. Nicholas wanted the noise to stop, the yelling to fade. There was only one way to do that - he had to escape.
Biting down in his lip so hard he tasted blood, Nicholas began to outline a spaceship. A large white spaceship. He colored in a flag at the tip of the rocket. With quick strokes he added windows. He was racing now, racing against the two angry voices outside his door demanding he let them in.
'I will, Dad. I'll let you in, Mom. I just need a little more time. Just a little more time.'
His father's fist sounded like a heartbeat as it pounded Nicholas' door. Whey won't they let me finish my spaceship?
'You open this door now, Nicky! Your hear me?!' cried Lucille.
His father had gone form punching the door to kicking it. The lock was going to give soon. Nicholas needed more time.
'Open this door, young man, before I break it down!' yelled Charlie.
Nicholas was almost done. All he had left to draw was the sky, the quiet black sky. 'Wait, Dad. Please wait. I'll be done in a minute.'
'What's going on in there, Nicky?' demanded Lucille. 'How dare you lock us out!'
It was too late; the door crashed open.
Nicholas grabbed a red and a yellow pencil in each fist, holding them like knives. As his parents advanced towards him, he slashed at his spaceship drawing with the red, then the yellow pencil. Red slash - yellow slash - red slash - yellow slash - until his picture was streaked with violent lines of orange.
Lucille snatched the drawing form the notebook and shoved it in her husband's face. 'You see this? You see what he's making? You tell me it's healthy for a kid to be drawing pictures of the Challenger explosion! It's your fault, Charlie. You make him so nervous!'
Nicholas threw himself over the suitcase. 'Don't send me away. I won't draw anymore. I promise. I'll be good, I swear. Just don't send me away.'
Lucille knelt next to Nicholas. 'C'mon, Nicky, don't be so dramatic. You sound like we're sending you to an orphanage or something. Your father and I just need a few days alone to straighten things out.'
Nicholas wiped his nose with his arm and looked up at his mother. 'That's what you always say, it'll just be for a few days. Last month you left me at Cousin Bailey's for eight days. It took me two weeks to catch up on my school work.'
Charlie took a handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to Nicholas. 'Your mother and I spoke to Aunt Millie this morning. She said she'd love to have you visit, that she could use the company.'
Nicholas tried to recall Aunt Millie. He couldn't remember her face too clearly. What did stir his memory was sitting in a dark room watching television with an old lady. Aunt Millie kept giving him apple slices she peeled, even though he kept telling her that all the vitamins were in the skin. And there was a cat, a black cat. Nicholas disliked cats. He always thought of them as poor excuses for dogs. If you tried to wrestle with a cat, it'd scratch you.
On the drive over to Aunt Millie's, Nicholas lay on the back seat, pretending to float on a raft in a large lake. When the angry voices in the front seat filtered back to him and threatened his peaceful journey, he simply imagined his parents as enormous snapping turtles. He waved to them as he drifted past.
After nearly two hours they arrived at Aunt Millie's. There was a narrow walkway leading form the parking lot to the building's entrance. It was blocked by an old man wearing wrinkled pants and an orange sweatshirt several sizes too large. The man had his back to the approaching visitors and was slightly bent over. Nicholas thought he was looking for a dropped coin.
As they drew closer they heard the man muttering to himself. Charlie and Lucille looked at each other and raised their eyebrows. Nicholas imitated them.
'Excuse me,' said Charlie, annoyed. 'May we please pass?'
The man straightened up and turned around. 'Oh, certainly, certainly,' he replied. 'I was just feeding this little fella.'
The man stepped to the side and they saw a brown and white spotted pigeon. Nicholas squatted next to the bird and was about to pet it when the man raised his voice.
'I wouldn't touch that one,' he warned. 'He looks awful sick. No telling what kind of germs he's carrying. Best thing to do is feed him a lot to give him strength.' The old man pressed a piece of stale rye bread into Nicholas' hand. The boy crushed the bread and sprinkled it in front of the bird.
'Come on, Nicky,' interrupted Lucille. 'Aunt Millie's expecting us.'
Nicholas thanked the man for letting him feed the bird, but the man didn't hear him. He was too busy whispering to the pigeon.
Charlie pressed a downstairs button and his aunt buzzed them in. Nicholas forgot that she had an elevator in the building and the ride up to the eleventh floor excited him.
The elevator was small, much to small to accommodate his parents' fighting. Nicholas was relieved when the elevator stopped at the seventh floor to pick up a fat man in suspenders. His mother and father were instantly silent.
As the doors slid shut, Nicholas looked up at the floor numbers lighted above the door. 'Excuse me, Mister,' said Nicholas. 'How come there's a twelfth and fourteenth floor, but no thirteen?'
The fat man scratched his stomach. 'Well, kid, it has to do with guts. Or rather the lack of guts. People who built this dump musta figured thirteen was an unlucky number.'
Charlie stepped forward, put his hands on his son's shoulders, and gently pushed him away from the man. 'You see, Nick, you're visiting a lucky building.'
The fat man laughed as a bell announced the eleventh floor. 'Your old man's speaking the truth, kid. You gotta be lucky if you're only visiting and not living here.'
Nicholas took a deep breath.
Aunt Millie's apartment was at the end of a long, narrow hallway. No sooner had the elevator door snapped shut behind Nicholas when he heard a series of grating noises and clicks echoing down the hall. Aunt Millie was opening up her home to them.
'Will you listen to all those locks and safety devices!' whispered Lucille as they scuffed across the worn green carpet that ended in front of Aunt Millie's welcome mat.
Before they arrived at her doorway, Aunt Millie was in the hall, smiling, with outstretched arms. 'Welcome, children. Welcome!'
Lucille quickened her pace. Just as the two women were about to embrace there was a scream - a horribly painful scream. Nicholas and Charlie froze. Lucille stumbled and fell to the carpet, almost dragging Aunt Millie down with her. Neighbors began unbolting their doors.
That's when Nicholas noticed a furry black ball streaking through the air and land with a thud.
'Oh my goodness, it's Mr. Pud,' cried Aunt Millie as she rushed over to the dazed cat. It seems Mr. Pud darted out of the apartment and over to Aunt Millie at the same moment that Lucille increased her speed. It was a meeting of Lucille's foot and Mr. Pud in motion. The result was a perfect place kick.
'Three points,' giggled Nicholas until he felt his father's fingers tug at his collar.
A neighbor poked her head into the hallway. 'C'mon, Millie, can't you keep that dumb cat quiet? It nearly gave me a heart attack.'
Aunt Millie, kneeling by her cat, turned to her neighbor. 'Mr. Pud is not a dumb cat, Sarah. He's just had a great shock, that's all. but his shock is nothing compared to the shock I feel at your insensitivity to a hurt animal.'
Sarah lifted her eyebrows. 'I don't need any lectures from you, Millie Brandenburger. And I don't need your stupid cat scaring me half to death.'
'Next time,' Aunt Millie responded, 'might I suggest that you look in the mirror to supply the other half?'
The woman slammed her door shut. Nicholas smiled at his aunt as she scooped Mr. Pud up in her arms. He had forgotten how much he liked her.
Once inside her apartment, Aunt Millie gently lowered Mr. Pud into a cardboard box that had Thom McCann Boots printed on its sides. the cat immediately rolled onto his back.
'I'm so sorry, Aunt Millie,' said Lucille. 'I didn't see him. I had no idea . . .'
Aunt Millie waved her arm in dismissal. 'He'll be find, dear. Poor old Mr. Pud has taken more than his share of knocks in his time. This was nothing.'
After drinking tea and eating raspberry danish, Lucille and Charlie left, leaving Nicholas alone with Aunt Millie and Mr. Pud.
'I'm glad they're gone,' he said, sliding down into a large stuffed armchair.
Aunt Millie glanced over at Nicholas. 'I think Mr. Pud's relieved. He gets too excited when there's company and that's not good for an old cat.'
As soon as the cat heard his name, he jumped out of the boot box and ran to the couch to rub up against Aunt Millie's legs. Nicholas watched Mr. Pud swaying back and forth across her ankles.
'Aunt Millie, I thought your cat was all black but I see some white hairs under his chin.'
She leaned over and scratched the top of Mr. Pud's head. 'You know, everybody who meets Mr. Pud always brings that up. Even when he was a young cat, strong and shiny, it didn't matter. Those few white hairs on his throat always seemed to disqualify him from something. What . . . I don't know.'
'I didn't mean anything by it, Aunt Millie, honest.'
She looked down at the cat. 'Did you hear him, Mr. Pud? He said he wasn't being mean by pointing that out. You were just behaving like a journalist, right Nicholas?'
'Yeah, sure.'
Mr. Pud stopped his rubbing motion and looked into the boy's eyes. The cat's stare made Nicholas nervous and he began to fidget in the chair. Mr. Pud let out a soft cry that reminded Nicholas of a piano note.
'What's he doing?' asked Nicholas.
'Thanking you, I suppose,' replied Aunt Millie.
'Thanking me for what?'
'For visiting us.'
'Aw, go on.'
'I'm not kidding you, son. Mr. Pud likes you.'
As if to prove Aunt Millie's words, Mr. Pud lowered his head and walked over to Nicholas. Once again he blurted out a high pitched cry and began bumping his head against the side of the boy's shoe.
'Geez, you'd think he'd have had enough contact with people's shoes today,' laughed Nicholas.
Aunt Millie rose from the couch. 'Perhaps he enjoys flying, eh Nicholas? He certainly spends enough time watching the birds form the window.'
She disappeared into the kitchen, with Mr. Pud following her. When they returned, his aunt was carrying napkins, a knife and two apples.
'How long have you had Mr. Pud?' he asked while watching the cat struggle to pull himself up on the couch.
Aunt Millie began carving up an apple. 'Let's see, it was three, four years ago after Tess Bowles from 12E died. No one else would take the poor dear.' The cat was pressing his paws into her lap, kneading her belly.
'What's he doing now, Aunt Millie?'
'I think Mr. Pud imagines he's making bread,' she giggled.
Aunt Millie placed six slices of skinless apples into a napkin and handed them to Nicholas. He bit into a piece and said, 'You know, I read that all the vitamins in an apple are in the skin.'
She paused while cutting into the second apple. 'I've heard that somewhere before. But I think apples are much more appealing naked, don't you?'
He giggled and shrugged. 'Yeah, I guess so.'
'And besides,' she continued, 'Mr. Pud loves to chew on the peelings, see?'
Nicholas watched the cat nibble on the apple skins. 'He sure is a strange animal.'
'He's a historical cat, Nicholas.'
'What do you mean?'
'Mr. Pud was born in the basement weeks after this building was inaugurated fifteen years ago.'
'Inaugurated?'
'Sure. This was the county's first senior citizen housing project.'
'Wow!' Nicholas leapt out of the chair. His sudden movement startled Mr. Pud. The cat buried his face deep inside Aunt Millie's lap. 'I didn't know this was a building for . . . for . . .'
Aunt Millie smiled. 'Go on, finish your sentence. A building for old people.'
A clinking sound interrupted their conversation. Nicholas thought someone was tapping glass with a coin. Mr. Pud raised his head from Aunt Millie's lap and let out a growl that came from deep inside his stomach. He jumped down from the couch and stiffly trotted into the bedroom. The tapping sound stopped.
'What was that?' asked Nicholas.
'Birds,' replied Aunt Millie, 'birds. Just about every day at this time they seem to congregate on my fire escape. Mr. Pud spends hours watching them.'
Nicholas, curious about Mr. Pud and his growl, silently crept into his aunt's bedroom. What he saw outside the window on the fire escape wasn't birds, but a bird. A brown and white spotted pigeon.
Mr. Pud had his face pressed against the glass, wiggling his ears like crazy. The pigeon seemed to be darting its head in response to the cat's twitching ears. There was such a harmony between the pigeon's head movements and the cat's ear movements it looked to Nicholas as if only one animal was making faces at itself in some bizarre amusement park mirror.
Nicholas chuckled. It wasn't a big chuckle, but it was loud enough to attract Mr. Pud and the pigeon's attention.
Both animals panicked. The pigeon coughed out a long nervous coo and quickly flew away. Mr. Pud turned his back to the window, and, tensing up his leg muscles, did an incredible leap that landed him under Aunt Millie's bed.
'What's that noise?' called Aunt Millie from the living room.
Nicholas, a bit shook up, looked out the window in time to see the pigeon land on the far corner of the fire escape. 'It's just Mr. Pud diving from the window sill,' he called back.
'Really? God bless the old boy. I haven't seen him do that in ages. I hope the birds didn't frighten him.'
Nicholas got down on his knees and stuck his face under the bed. The cat butted its head against Nicholas' nose so hard the boy felt sure it was going to bleed.
'I'm sorry, Mr. Pud,' he whispered. 'I didn't mean to scare you or your friend.'
The two were stretched out on the floor, inches away, staring at each other. 'I didn't come here to interfere with your life. I didn't want to come here at all.' Nicholas felt his voice tremble and was embarrassed. He hated for anyone to see him like that, even a cat.
Mr. Pud began to purr. It started as a choppy purr that sounded like a growl. Nicholas instinctively jerked his head back, banging it against the bed springs. But the purr grew strong and steady like an idling engine. This made Nicholas smile because he knew his apology had been accepted. When he stood up he noticed the pigeon watching him form the fire escape. The boy wiggled his index finger at the bird and then joined his aunt in the living room.
Nicholas told his aunt about his elevator fide earlier that afternoon. 'On the way up here this big guy in suspenders said I was lucky to be visiting and not living here. I didn't know what he was talking about. This looks like a real neat building.'
Aunt Millie pursed her lips. 'That must've been Mr. Manheim form 14K. You see an old grouch like him and probably think elderly people inherit that kind of disposition. It's not true. I'd bet my life's savings that Mr. Manheim was a sour puss even when he was your age.'
Nicholas nodded in agreement as Aunt Millie handed him another napkin full of apple slices.
'As a matter of fact,' she continued, 'the Manheims once owned Mr. Pud. But after Mrs. Manheim passed away he just stuck the cat out in the hallway and closed the door. Can you believe it? Tess Bowles told me.'
'Maybe he doesn't like cats.'
Nicholas could see his ant's face turning red. She tightened her grip on the paring knife. 'What's that got to do with anything? Who likes cat?'
'You do, don't you, Aunt Millie?'
She shook her head. 'I'm not what you call a cat lover. I'm eighty-one years old and Mr. Pud is my first cat.'
As soon as she uttered the cat's name Mr. Pud let out a cry from the bedroom. 'It's okay, Mr. Pud, relax.' Turning to Nicholas she whispered, 'He's a very sensitive animal with so many fears.'
'Gee, Aunt Millie, you sure act like you love your cat.'
'Do I, Nicholas?' Aunt Millie grabbed his arm to draw him closer and in a soft voice said, 'it's not love. If the truth be known, I can't stand the piles of cat hair he sheds each day. And the litterbox. I have enough trouble attending to my own needs.'
Nicholas pulled his arm away from her and moved further down the couch. 'If you don't like the cat why did you - '
'Who said I didn't like Mr. Pud?'
This time when the cat heard his name he jumped down from the bedroom window sill and scampered over to Aunt Millie. She patted the top of his head. 'There, there, Mr. Pud. Everything's fine.'
'You're confusing me, Aunt Millie.'
'About what?'
'Him.' The boy pointed to the cat who was pulling himself up on the couch.
'What's the problem?' asked his aunt.
'How can you be so . . so . . kind to him and then tell me you don't love him?'
'I have enormous respect for Mr. Pud.'
Her answer irritated Nicholas. Respect was the reason his mother gave for all the fighting in his house. The world flashed in his brain like a warning light. 'Why do you respect him? Is it because he's a historical cat?'
Aunt Millie looked into her nephew's eyes and suddenly felt uncomfortable. 'I suppose so.'
Nicholas sprang to his feet. 'So your feelings for him has nothing to do with who he is or what he wants. He was born here. Just because he was born here you feel like you have to take care of him, right?'
Aunt Millie shook her head. 'I don't have to do anything.'
Nicholas started pacing up and down the living room carpet, biting his thumbnail.
'It's okay,' said Aunt Millie. 'Relax, everything's fine.'
'No, everything's fine. And stop talking to me like I'm your cat,' he snapped. 'I don't get it. Why are you so mad at Mr. Manheim for kicking Mr. Pud out of his house?'
Aunt Millie squinted at Nicholas. 'Because it was a cruel thing to do.'
'But you just said that you didn't feel like you had to do anything to help Mr. Pud. Neither did Mr. Manheim. He was just being honest by locking out the cat, that's all. If you don't want somebody around you shouldn't have to have him around.'
Aunt Millie followed her nephew's nervous pacing until his movements made her dizzy. 'Please be still, Nicholas. You're giving me an incredible headache.'
The boy returned to the couch. As he sat down he made eye contact with Mr. Pud. The cat looked different. His color seemed to change from black to a warm brown. This puzzled Nicholas, then frightened him. Mr. Pud was allowing himself to be seen in a different light, and that light was coming from Nicholas' eyes.
A most extraordinary thing then followed. The cat jumped down from the couch, determined to end the tension between the boy and his aunt.
Nicholas watched as the cat briskly circled Aunt Millie's legs. After a few orbits he trotted over to where Nicholas was sitting and began circling his legs. Mr. Pud kept repeating these circling motions until Nicholas understood what was happening. The cat was wrapping an invisible rope around him and Aunt Millie. He was lassoing each of their legs, trying to pull them tighter, closer together.
It worked.
Nicholas leaned over and lifted Mr. Pud to his lap. 'I'm sorry, Aunt Millie. I didn't mean to get you upset.'
A smile stretched across his aunt's face. 'That's okay. I just don't want us not to be friends.'
An uncomfortable silence followed. Aunt Millie ended it when she whispered, 'Come here, Mr. Pud.' The cat let out a tiny cry as he crawled on to her lap.
'There's something very important I want you to understand about my relationship with Mr. Pud,' she said calmly.
'It's okay, we don't have to talk about your cat anymore.'
'No, I want to explain this friendship to you.' Her voice was firm now, like a school teacher's. 'I was being honest with you when I said I respected Mr. Pud but didn't love him.'
Nicholas opened his mouth to speak but was hushed when his aunt put her finger to her lips.
'Please let me continue, Nicholas.'
'Sorry, Aunt Millie.'
She gently tapped her fingers on top of Mr. Pud's head. To Nicholas it looked as if she was playing a piano.
'I gave Mr. Pud a home not because I felt I had to, or that he deserved it as a historical cat. My reason for taking him in was strictly personal.'
The boy squirmed on the couch. Oh, no, he thought. Here it comes. Now she's going to tell me how lonely she was, how she needed to share things with somebody else. Nicholas had seen enough television shows like this featuring lonely old ladies and they always angered him. What about himself? Didn't anybody know about him? Couldn't anyone believe a guy like him could wake up in the morning and go to bed at night, feeling empty all the hours in between?
Nicholas was so deep in thought he didn't realize his aunt had asked him a question. He was hearing her voice, not her words. 'I'm sorry, Aunt Millie. What did you say?'
'I asked you if you knew how they compare a year in the life of a cat to a year in the life of a human?'
'Sure, everybody knows that. One dog or cat year equals seven human years.'
Aunt Millie nodded. 'That's right.'
'So?'
'So, don't you see, Nicholas? When Mr. Pud was a kitten most of the tenants adored him. It was so refreshing to have something young around here. By the time he was a couple of months old he must've had dozens of godparents scattered among the different floors.
'But within eight months he stopped looking like a kitten. That's when folks started noticing the little white hairs under his chin. Except for his owners, we neglected him. The only time Mr. Pud's name was mentioned was when one of his owners died and he was shuffled along to another tenant. And let me tell you, in a senior's building like this that added up to a lot of owners.'
Nicholas began to shiver as he looked over at the cat curled up in his aunt's lap. For a second, a split second, Mr. Pud looked like his brown suitcase.
'With each passing year,' she continued, 'he got older and older. Remember in just three seasons he'd age over twenty years. Soon he caught up with us senior citizens. And then he passed us. In a blink of they eye, Mr. Pud became the building's oldest resident.'
'Wow!' blurted Nicholas.
'And that's why I took Mr. Pud in. Out of respect for my own old age. Nobody wanted him. I refuse to be a phony like Mr. Manheim, who always cries about how bad he's being treated, how nobody cares what happens to him because he's gotten old. Yet what does he do? He kicks Mr. Pud out after his wife's death! Says the old cat's too much trouble!'
Nicholas' shivering became so violent Aunt Millie noticed it.
'Are you cold, honey?'
The boy nodded.
'Would you like me to fix you some cinnamon tea?'
'That'd be great, Aunt Millie.'
When Aunt Millie withdrew to the kitchen with Mr. Pud following her, Nicholas wanted to grab him and hug him even thought he didn't like cats.
Later that evening with Aunt Millie fast asleep in front of the television set, Nicholas, who had been dozing, was awakened by a loud thump coming from the bedroom. He hurried over to the bedroom entrance in time to see Mr. Pud straining to pull himself up to the window ledge. The boy stroked the cat and lifted him up to the ledge. He was about to return to the TV when he noticed a brown and white spotted pigeon hopping on the fire escape.
It wasn't until later when he was fixing up the couch for his bed that he thought about what he saw in the bedroom.
Nicholas, who had spent his entire life in the city, was always around pigeons. Yet never - never - had he seen a pigeon after nightfall until today. As he pulled the blankets to his chin, he glanced over at the cat snuggling inside the Thom McCann box.
'You've got some secrets, don't you, Mr. Pud?'
'Meow.'
'Good night.' The boy collapsed into sleep.
And then it came - a dream. A horrible dream set right in his aunt's bedroom. She was snoring under the covers when suddenly a screeching roar invaded her sleep. Tow gigantic claws smashed through the window, grabbing her by the throat and legs. Aunt Millie screamed for help, then for mercy, but the huge claws only tightened their razor-like grip as they dragged her from the bed towards the window. She was being lifted out into the night when she grabbed the window for support, but the jagged glass sliced her hands and she had to let go. She let out one final scream as she disappeared into the darkness.
Nicholas woke up in a sweat. He sat up on the couch and looked over at Mr. Pud. Mr. Pud stretched his neck above the edge of the box. The moonlight slanting through the blinds seemed to turn the white hairs beneath his chin to silver. Their eyes locked together in a long, terror-filled stare. The Mr. Pud slowly, ever so slowly, lowered his head to his paws.
Nicholas sat there shivering. He knew that he and the cat had shared the same dream.
In a few hours, Aunt Millie would discover that Mr. Pud was dead.
*******
'But I did, Aunt Millie. I swear I did. Mr. Pud and I both had that same dream. It was a terrible dream. You see, these monster claws crashed through - '
'Yes, yes, dear,' she interrupted. 'That's nice.'
Aunt Millie was distracted. Mr. Pud's passing seemed to energize her. She was hurrying around the apartment, tidying it up before the men from the A.S.P.C.A. came to collect the cat.
Nicholas kept trying to explain to his aunt what had happened during the night. A boy and a cat shared the same dream. He knew it sounded crazy but he wasn't trying to impress or shock her. He just wanted her to tell him how that happen and why? Nicholas believed there was a reason for everything, even if it was a stupid reason. That's why he liked studying science in school.
But not only wouldn't his aunt answer him, she wouldn't listen to him. And as she darted from room to room ignoring him, he suddenly felt as if he were back home. In fact he almost expected to see his mother and father walk out of the kitchen.
And so he lapsed into a silence, a sulking silence sitting on top of his aunt's freshly made bed.
It disturbed him to feel as if her household had shrugged off Mr. Pud's death. Nicholas couldn't help feeling that even the furniture and carpets were overjoyed that there'd be no more cat hair or scratching claws.
Sitting on the edge of the bed with his had lowered, his thoughts were interrupted by a grinding noise. He looked up to see a brown and white spotted pigeon pressing its beak against the window. The bird kept twisting its head from side to side. To Nicholas it looked like the pigeon was sizing him up, passing judgement on him.
It began tapping its beak against the window. That's when Aunt Millie, investigating the noise, entered the bedroom. The pigeon flew away upon hearing the old lady's footsteps.
'Is that those pesky birds again?' she asked.
Nicholas nodded.
'Maybe they'll leave us alone now that they don't have Mr. Pud to torment anymore.'
Nicholas nodded again but he wasn't listening to what she said. He was thinking about the cat's dream.
'Nicholas, please wash up and put on a fresh shirt. I've arranged for a small memorial service for Mr. Pud in the laundry room in thirty minutes.'
***
The laundry room was hot; it was right next to the boiler in the basement. Nicholas was assigned the job of setting up the folding chairs his aunt had borrowed from the super. He counted seventeen people in all, but that included four women doing their wash.
Some of the mourners came in wheelchairs, others were supported by canes. Nicholas felt a little depressed as he watched the old people scuff into the tiny room. Yet there wasn't anything like depression in the air. Nicholas thought everyone seemed refreshed, almost happy. The word mourners seemed strangely out of place.
Aunt Millie had positioned herself at the laundry's entrance. She greeted everyone who entered. Nicholas decided to sit in the back row next to a man and woman who were holding hands. He overhead the woman ask, 'Did you ever think it'd happen?'
The man shook his head while adjusting his hearing aid. 'Never. I thought that cat'd see us all buried.'
The woman folded her hands in her lap. 'Millie Brandenberger must be feeling relieved.'
'Wouldn't you?' asked the man. 'She broke the curse.'
What curse? wondered Nicholas. He was about to ask the woman when she leaned forward to tap the shoulder of a bald man sitting in front of her. As the man turned to face her she said, 'Isn't is wonderful, Harry?' The bald man grunted as he stroked at his slice of hair.
This made Nicholas very upset. Aunt Millie called this gathering a memorial service, not a celebration. He thought, are they going to pass around party hats and cake next?
'Ex-excuse me,' stuttered Nicholas, 'could you please tell me what the curse . . .'
The woman cut into his sentence. 'You're the boy staying with Millie, aren't you?'
'Yes.'
'You must be quite proud of your aunt.' She patted his arm. Nicholas felt the coldness of her fingers through his shirt.
'Yeah, I'm proud of her.'
'We're all proud of her,' said Harry, who was now sitting side saddle, facing Nicholas. The boy felt the stares of two rows of tenants.
'You couldn't give me enough money to take that cat in,' said the woman.
'Why?' asked Nicholas.
'Are you kidding, son? That animal was evil. It was a killer. Anyone who befriended it died.' A line of heads nodded in agreement.
'But he didn't hurt my Aunt!'
'That's because Millie's an extraordinary woman. She broke its power.'
Nicholas launched into an excited reply but was so angry he garbled his words. He was hushed by a chorus of 'Ssssssh!' Aunt Millie was in front of the group, beginning her speech.
Nicholas wanted to hear what his aunt had to say. He wanted to hear her tell these people that they were all crazy, that Mr. Pud's passing was sad, not joyous. He wanted her to shout out that the only curse was the hatred and fear directed at the cat.
But he heard none of this. What he did hear was the whirring of washing machines kicking into the spin cycle and the tumbling of clothes dryers. Zippers and buttons clicked against the dryer walls drowning out his aunt's voice.
He also heard the door open behind him. Nicholas turned, and to his surprise saw Mr. Manheim standing there, one hand tugging on a suspender, the other balancing a large wicker basket.
Aunt Millie ended her speech to applause just as the dryer ended its cycle with a thump. Mr. Manheim went over to it and withdrew his wash.
How could they be applauding his aunt? he wondered. How could they have heard what she said? He knew his ears must've been the sharpest in the room, yet he couldn't hear her clearly.
While tenants were congratulating Aunt Millie on outliving the cat, Nicholas held the door open for Mr. Manheim. His basket was overflowing with laundry.
He winked a thank you at the boy, then suddenly turned to watch the crowd around Millie. He leaned over and whispered in Nicholas' ear, 'What a strange cat.'
'He sure was,' agreed Nicholas.
Standing in the doorway felt much better than being locked inside the stuffy room. Nicholas knew he should go up and congratulate his aunt, even though he didn't know what she had said. Also, the folding chairs needed to be dismantled and he knew he was expected to do it. But he figured if it felt so much better just standing by the open door, it'd feel great to be out in the open air. And so he ran out the door.
There was a bus shelter in front of the senior's building. Behind it was a small, neatly trimmed park. The air felt cool and breezy. Nicholas decided to sit on one of the park's three benches. He was glad the park was empty.
The air was crisp, but it couldn't keep Nicholas form feeling drowsy. It had been more than half a day since Mr. Pud's dream jolted him from his sleep. He was tired. The heat at the memorial service zapped his energy. His eyes burned from lack of sleep.
Nicholas stretched out on a bench. Each time he was about to doze off, a bus would pull up, belching out exhaust fumes and passengers.
Lying on his back, staring up at the heavens, Nicholas found peace. He preferred the black, star-sprinkled sky to the cloudless blue he was looking at. But this was okay. He was able to rest.
It took Nicholas quite a few minutes to relax, but only seconds to fill him with terror. A squirming darkness devoured the calm blue sky. This darkness was alive and loud as it headed straight for Nicholas. He wanted to jump off the bench and run, but his fear was like glue. He couldn't move. All he could do was watch helplessly as the fierce darkness surrounded, then pressed down on him.
Nicholas let out a scream and closed his eyes. A foul smelling breeze fanned his body. When he opened his eyes, he saw hundreds of small slaws sweeping past just inches above him.
They were pigeons! An invasion of the largest flock of pigeons Nicholas had ever seen. The birds landed noisily inside the tiny park.
Their target wasn't Nicholas. They were headed for the far bench. The man who let him feed a pigeon the day before was sitting there, tossing out bread crumbs from a greasy paper bag.
Nicholas sat up and took a deep breath to calm his excited heart. He hoped the man hadn't heard him scream.
'You've got quite a healthy pair of lungs,' called out the pigeon man. 'Don't ruin them by smoking.'
An embarrassed laugh slipped out of Nicholas and he quickly left the park.
***
When the boy returned to the apartment, he thought his aunt would be angry at him for running out of the memorial service. She wasn't. What did upset her was not knowing where he was.
'I am responsible for you,' she said.
Nicholas figured Aunt Millie would want to spend some time talking about Mr. Pud. She didn't. Only one reference was made about the cat. That was when she asked him to throw out the Thom McCann boot box.
'Sure,' he said.
Nicholas rode the elevator down to the incinerator. He tossed the box on top of a row of dirty aluminum trash cans. It slid off. Again he flipped it up on the cans and again it fell. Nicholas picked it up and wedged it between two trash can lids. With his back to the garbage, he pressed the elevator button.
The Thom McCann box tumbled to the floor for the third time. That's when Nicholas knew it didn't belong there. So he broke up the cardboard box and folded it into a small square. He sneaked it back into the apartment and hid it inside his brown suitcase.
***
Nicholas had a difficult time falling asleep that night. He lay in the dark with his legs dangling over the side of the couch, listening to his thoughts.
The boy felt that Mr. Pud's dream was like a gift that was still in a package tied up with ribbon. And the only way to unwrap that package was to think.
Ever since Mr. Pud was a kitten, thought Nicholas, nobody wanted him. He kept being passed from one tenant to another. No wonder the cat couldn't stand being away from Aunt Millie. He had to be worried she'd leave him, too. That's why he followed her everywhere and cried out to her when they were in different rooms.
Nicholas saw that a cat and a bird could be friends as long as they had a piece of glass separating them, but Aunt Millie disliked pigeons. It made sense that in Mr. Pud's dream, she'd have to be carried away by force. But why had Nicholas been allowed to share Mr. Pud's nightmare of Aunt Millie and his best friend taking off together and leaving him behind?
The boy jumped up from the couch. He was thirsty from all his thinking and wanted a glass of milk. As he stumbled through the dark kitchen, he stubbed his toe against the table. Then he found the refrigerator door. When he pulled it open the light inside irritated him.
Nicholas stood in the refrigerator light rubbing his eyes, trying to focus. He squinted and lifted out a quart of milk. Since Aunt Millie was asleep, he drank right form the carton. After kicking the refrigerator door shut he slowly made his way over to the table.
Nicholas tipped back the carton. He was careful not to dribble milk so he wouldn't have to snap on the lights to clean it up. If the lights came on, all the colorful spots and squiggles floating around the kitchen would disappear.
He loved to watch the dancing colors. When he was younger, the colored shaped frightened him because they only came out in the dark. When he would cry, his father would rush into his bedroom and tell him he was imagining things. But Nicholas knew they were real. What he liked best about them was that they were his own. Nobody else could see them.
Sitting in the dark, wiping milk off his chin with the neck of his T-shirt, Nicholas studied the patterns of light washing over him.
'If Aunt Millie were to walk into the kitchen right now, they'd be invisible to her,' he whispered. 'Not everyone can see everything that's happening. Just like not everyone could see what Mr. Pud was doing.'
Nicholas laughed. He knew it was weird talking to himself in the middle of the night at the kitchen table. But sometimes he had to talk out loud to slow down his thoughts.
'I got it!' said Nicholas loudly, forgetting about Aunt Millie sleeping in the next room. 'Mr. Pud let me see his dream because he wanted me to know that somebody else felt the same things that I did.'
Nicholas thought it was funny that out of everybody he ever met, the one guy who knew exactly how he felt was a cat. Mr. Pud couldn't even speak, but he understood Nicholas better than his Mom or Dad or Aunt Millie or any of the kids at school. Mr. Pud had felt lonely and unwanted, too. But that hadn't stopped him from trying to make things better. He never gave up even though he couldn't change the way people acted.
Mr. Pud didn't die alone, thought Nicholas, because it takes two people to share something. And Mr. Pud had shared his dream.
'And that's the real gift, right Mr. Pud?' asked Nicholas. 'Sharing. I never tell anyone how I fell. I'm too embarrassed. I always expect them to know.'
Nicholas smile; he felt wonderful. He saluted Mr. Pud by raising up the milk carton and taking a gulp.
A few hours later Nicholas woke up with an appetite. Aunt Millie cooked a large breakfast. While she was flipping the french toast Nicholas teased her about her tossing ability. She promptly slapped a slice of mid-air french toast across the kitchen with her spatula.
'It's good hand-eye coordination,' she grinned.
After breakfast, Nicholas received a phone call. It was from Lucille and Charlie. They were going to pick him up later in the afternoon.
When Nicholas heard his parent's voices, his body tightened. He was about to say something nasty, something that would make them feel bad for leaving him. But he didn't and that surprised him.
after hanging up the phone, Nicholas wondered why he had kept his mouth shut. It didn't take him long to figure out the answer. He was glad his parents dropped him off at Aunt Millie's. If they hadn't, he would've missed the last change to get to know Mr. Pud.
Lucille and Charlie had done him an enormous favor and the boy wanted to thank them. He asked Aunt Millie if she had any colored pencils or drawing materials in the house. His aunt shook her head but suggested he borrow some from the Arts and Crafts room on the second floor.
It was a great suggestion. The woman in charge of the art supplies let Nicholas have whatever he wanted, but Aunt Millie had to come down and sign for them.
Back in the apartment he opened his suitcase and withdrew the Thom McCann boot box. He unfolded the cardboard and carefully cut out a large rectangle. Nicholas tossed the leftover pieces back inside the suitcase and stretched out on his aunt's bedroom floor. Aunt Millie had vacuumed her room yet cat hairs still clung to his shirt. They made him smile.
With a concentration he usually saved for the classroom, Nicholas began to draw. His pencils scratched against the cardboard as he put down layers of colors. He was extra careful with this sketching. One mistake could destroy the cardboard rectangle and no other piece of paper could replace it.
A tapping noise at the window disrupted his work. Nicholas looked up and saw a brown and white spotted pigeon peering down at him. The boy got up and threw open the window. The pigeon retreated a few steps on the fire escape.
'It's okay,' said Nicholas in his most soothing voice. 'There's nothing here to harm you.' He held out his arm. The pigeon, after a slight hesitation, landed on it.
'I want to thank you for helping me understand Mr. Pud's gift.' The pigeon cocked its head sideways and looked at Nicholas through one eye. The bird plucked a cat hair off Nicholas' shirt and flew out the window. Nicholas closed the window and returned to his drawing.
He added the final strokes just minutes before the downstairs buzzer echoed through the apartment. The drawing, a magnificent picture of a spaceship gliding through a star sprinkled sky, was a gift to his parents. Nicholas waited anxiously in the hallway for the elevator to reach the eleventh floor. He couldn't wait to share the drawing with them.
If Lucille and Charlie studied the picture carefully, they'd be able to look inside the rocket's cockpit and see the pilot strapped to an aluminum chair. And if they looked even closer they'd see a black cat with a few white hairs under his chin curled up in the pilot's lap.

THE FULLNESS THEREOF

by CHARLES CHAIM WAX

I loved the snow, but it had not snowed all winter in Brooklyn. I became inspired to experience snow on the high peaks of New Mexico during Easter Vacation. All the other teachers thought I was crazy to spend so much money on a whim.
I dialed information to get the number for Holiday Inn in Santa Fe. I wanted to make sure I had a room when I arrived. I didn't feel like wandering around searching for a place to stay. I called the number and one ring later a woman picked up and said, "Holiday Inn. How may we help you?"
"Santa Fe, Holiday Inn?"
"Yes."
"I'd like a room for tonight." And then I quickly added, "I wanna use my Platinum Card to reserve the room."
"Did you say Ôroom' or Ôsuite'?"
"Uh, well, suite."
"Balcony?"
"Yeah."
"In room whirlpool?"
"Yeah."
"Apple or IBM PC?"
"With modem and fax?"
"Of course."
"Both." Then I started to laugh to myself. I quickly covered the mouthpiece.
She asked, "Your name and Platinum number." I told her my name and read off my Platinum number. "The room is yours, Mr. Bernstein, for as long as you wish."
"Thanks. I should be arriving at the airport about 10:30 tomorrow tonight."
"Do you wish a limo to be waiting for you?" I again began laughing and again quickly covered the mouthpiece. The image of some chauffeur holding up a big card with my name on it seemed unbelievable.
"No. I'm gonna need a car. I wanna see a bit of the territory."
"And beautiful country it is, especially in the mountains, if you love the snow and the cold..."
"I do," I gulped. "You got snow there, right?"
"Fourteen peaks over 10,000 feet. I should think so."
"I was in Santa Fe in 1971, or 1976. I can't remember."
And this time it was her turn to laugh. I was somewhat offended because I thought she was laughing at the fact I couldn't remember which year I had been there. But a moment later she said, "I'm sorry. But I wasn't even born then."
" Ô71, or Ô76?"
"Both."
I moaned, "I lived mosta my life before you was born. But...but...so that means you're, lemme see..."
"Nineteen years old..."
"And you already manage a Holiday Inn."
"I pick up the phone at night, Mr. Bernstein."
"Yeah. I don't know what I was thinkin'."
"Oh, I've got a call. See ya."
"Yeah."

The next night I heaved the duffel bag over my shoulder and walked into the lobby. I went to the desk and said, "Mr. Bernstein."
"Isabella Dunbar, the nineteen year old," she laughed.
"I spoke to you on the phone."
"I spoke to you on the phone," she laughed. I noticed she laughed a lot, and her eyes sparkled whether she laughed or not. Well, she was nineteen. Why shouldn't they sparkle?
Then, for some reason, I blurted out, "How much is the room?"
"Suite, I believe..."
"Yeah."
"If you have to ask..." And again the laughter.
"No, of course not. That was a joke."
"Don't be silly. Four hundred and twenty dollars...before tax..." And then the laughter.
When she said the price a sharp pain pounded the top left part of my cranium. I was completely loony. What in the hell was I doing spending so much for a room. I'd be whirlpooling my way to the poor house. I tried to smile but merely babbled, "Very reasonable, for this time of the year, I mean, with the ski season and all."
"I think you should bring your skis inside, don't leave them on top of your car. Sad, so sad to say, we've had...thefts..."
"I don't ski." My answer sent her into hysterics. The energy of her laughter was so effervescent I couldn't become angry but I was curious so I mumbled, "Was that funny?"
"We don't usually get many non-skiers." What did that mean? I could be on business. I could be an international trader in Indian Artifacts for all she knew. "So?" she asked.
"What?"
"Why?"
"Why am I here?"
"Yeah."
"I just arrived from Hollywood. One of my stars got in a tiff with the director on this big budget picture. She flew off. You know how these temperamental prima donnas are. They don't get their wayÑoff they fly."
"Who?" she asked eagerly.
"Not at liberty to say, but she does have blonde hair..."
"Michelle Pheiffer?"
"She got blonde hair?"
"I think so." I stared at Isabella. I began to laugh and laugh. She must have thought I was laughing at her because she said Michelle Pheiffer had blonde hair. She moaned, "I'm a small town girl..."
"With super-duper flair."
"Really?"
"I'm in the business. I should know. What do you do?"
She stared at me a little funny and then said, "Answer phones."
"Full time?" I blurted out, and then realized I shouldn't have said that. "I mean, is that your career goal?" I expected her to say she was a painter, a potter, wrote poetry, or dropped from a hot air balloon to pirouette down steep slopes inaccessible to the ordinary skier, or, perhaps, even a therapist devising new cures for anomie.
"That's a good question," she said, and then the laughter returned. I was glad to hear it again. "I'm nineteen..."
"Nineteen," I sighed.
"...and don't know what I want to do. Should I know what I want to do?"
"No, not really..."
An old couple came to the desk. The guy looked ninety and the woman in her early fifties. He held a cane in his right hand. The woman held his left arm firmly. Isabella smiled at me and pushed the key in my direction. Then she turned her complete attention to the old couple.
I went to the elevator, took it to the third floor, and walked to my room, C-17. I put the key in the lock and opened the door. I turned to the right and saw the light switch. I turned it on. I suddenly got dizzy. I dropped my bag on the floor and wobbled to the bed. I flopped down and closed my eyes.
After a few minutes I opened my eyes. I saw the remote control on the small table to my right. I picked it up and turned on the TV. Some guy with a well coiffured synthetically colored blonde pompadour was preaching. He said, "Jesus Christ has the power to get everyone out of debt. Say, ÔMy God is a debt canceling God.' Most of you have known him as a Savior, but now you can know him as a Debt Canceling God. Remember debt cancellation is everyday business for the man of God. God wants to cancel your debt. Everyone of you can have the miracle of debt cancellation. I hold in my hand a letter from Frank Peene. He received the miracle of a $500,000 debt cancellation. His farm was saved. And Pearl Nulle. She received a debt cancellation of $300,248. Her Hair Emporium business was saved. John Duff, $630,117 debt cancellation. If the Lord can open a blind eye, He can cancel your debt. Sixth chapter of Kings, 2nd verse. ÔThe iron did swim and the man of God did say, Take that iron and be free of your debt.' Say it, ÔMY GOD IS A DEBT CANCELING GOD.' Remember what God wants is for you to be a prosperous person. Say it again, ÔMY GOD IS A DEBT CANCELING GOD.' Now I want to give you this book More And More absolutely free which is the blueprint for the miracle of debt cancellation. Ninety lessons are in here. You do one a day. They show you how to take those things out of your subconscious mind that are blocking the plans God has for you because a double minded man is unstable in all of his ways. You got to have your subconscious mind in line with your conscious mind. Now there's a number on the screen, but we're being inundated with hundreds and hundreds of calls every moment so all you Victory Viewers call now for your absolutely free book More And More..."
I immediately reached into my duffel bag and got my Waterman rollerball pen and copied the number in a frenzy. I only hoped I could get through. According to this guy I could somehow write off this whole crazy search for snow trip if I only believed ÔMY GOD IS A DEBT CANCELING GOD' and got my hands on this book More And More to guide me to that miracle.
I dialed the desk. Isabella picked up. I said, "This is Mr. Bernstein. I really can't chit-chat now. Please get me 1-900-345 6789."
"Yes, sir," she said meekly. I think she was shocked by my tone of voice, but I had to get through before the hundreds and hundreds of other Victory Viewers dialed the toll free number.
I heard a guy say, "Victory Viewer hotline, Brother Paul Bruns."
"Yeah. I want or order the absolutely free book More And More I just seen on TV."
"Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord. Now, Brother..."
"You want my name?"
"Yes, Brother."
"Bernstein."
"Bernstein?"
"Steve Bernstein."
"Steve Bernstein?"
"Yeah."
"Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord for your safe return. Is the Bible in your hand, Brother Bernstein?"
"Hold it a minute." I turned and opened the draw of the small table to the right and took out a Gideon's Bible. "I got it in my hands now."
"Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord. Let us read together, Kings 6th chapter, 2nd verse..."
"You want me to read to you, or you goin' to read to me?"
"Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, but I'll carry the ball this time, Brother Bernstein." He began to read. He must have read for fifteen minutes straight. He had a robust voice, but I was tired from all the adventures of the day.
I blurted out, "I think I wanna order the absolutely free book, More And More..."
"What's that, Brother Bernstein?"
He was so busy reading he didn't hear what I said. I repeated myself, "I wanna order the absolutely free book, More And More."
"Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord. Say after me, ÔMY GOD IS A DEBT CANCELING GOD.'"
"I hope so," I mumbled.
"What was that, Brother Bernstein?"
"I said I hope so cause I musta spent three, four grand on this trip, and I really wanna get that Platinum Card yoke off my neck with the miracle which the book is gonna tell me how to do like it done for Pearl Noodle and Johnny Fluff and the rest of them people who wrote letters..."
"Only through the man of God and faith in Him. Let us read together, Nehemiah..."
"Hold it..."
He was off again. Well, I was laying down. I closed my eyes and let him read, but I mean, this could take hours, days, if he got carried away and read the entire Bible. "Brother Buns..." No response. "BROTHER BUNS," I screamed into the mouthpiece.
"Did you say something, Brother Bernstein?"
"I did, Brother Buns..."
"Bruns with an Ôr.' Now I know that Ôr' is a little wiggle of an Ôr' so we must take hold of it like the Lord..."
"Brother Bruns, I wanna order the absolutely free book..."
"Praise the Lord. Say after me, ÔMY GOD IS A DEBT CANCELING GOD.'"
"Yeah. Take my name and address, please."
"Yes, sir, Brother Bernstein. Credit card number?"
"What?"
"Credit card number..."
"Brother Slocum said on the TV the book was absolutely free..."
"And so it is. We're talking ÔShipping and Handling.'"
"How much?"
"Nineteen dollars and ninety-five cents."
"It looked like a pamphlet..."
"Say, ÔMY GOD IS A DEBT CANCELING GOD.'"
"Can I pick it up in person? I really wanna read it, but then I wouldn't have to pay the S&H."
"Praise the Lord. All Pilgrims welcome. 2411 South Front Street, Mobile, Alabama."
"I'm in Santa Fe."
"The reach of the Lord is long indeed. Do you want me to continue reading from the Bible, Brother Bernstein, as you come to a decision?"
"This guy is fulla shit," I mumbled to myself, and closed my eyes. I began to breath deeply. I reached and put the receiver on the phone. "What was that all about?" I chuckled loudly.
In the morning I stood and put the Waterman pen into my duffel bag. Since I hadn't taken off my clothes I didn't have to get dressed. I walked into the huge bathroom and looked at the whirlpool. I smiled.
I went to the lobby to sign my Platinum bill. Isabella wasn't there. A middle aged guy with a grayish mustache and a pot belly stood behind the counter. He was smiling. "I trust you had a pleasant stay, Mr. Bernstein."
"I did." He pushed the bill to me. I glanced at it. I immediately said, "There must be some mistake. I'm readin' $532. How much tax they got here in New Mexico cause Isabella said the room was $420."
"Correct. Plus a phone bill of $126."
"I didn't call nobody."
"You were on the phone for sixty-three minutes." He pushed a sheet of paper to me.
"That was a toll free call for an absolutely free book, More And More..."
"A $1.99 a minute..."
"What?"
He sighed deeply, "The price was on the screen."
"I didn't see it."
"Need a microscope," he said, and then he began to laugh. It was the same kind of laugh as Isabella.
"What's goin' on here?"
"Call American Express and dispute the payment. Explain everything to them."
"What scam is this I am bein' hoodwinked by, my good fellow?" I roared.
"You have to pay the entire bill, but call American Express and dispute the portion from the phone call. He read the Bible to you, didn't he?"
"Yeah."
"After the first five minutes he knew you didn't know it was a 900 number. That means a toll call, not a toll free call."
"In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, they should do such a thing...I am truly shocked."
He groaned deeply.
I signed the bill and asked, "Was that your daughter last night cause you laugh like her?"
"Yes. She said you were a big shot Hollywood producer. Get your fancy lawyers on those bastards. Put Ôem out of business."
"I intend to do that, first thing when I get back. But now I'm lookin' for..."
"Julia Roberts?" he whispered.
I sighed, "Sorry, I can't." He nodded, and smiled a knowing smile.

Drew's son Bryan uses a fishing hook on a string to pull a first-aid kit across the kitchen table. A ballpeen hammer on the table's edge clatters to the floor between the table and the sink. Drew, filling a bucket with hot water, says "Whoa!" as the hammer skips near his feet, but Bryan is already reading instructions from the little plastic kit in an earnest, careful monotone: "Use only in treating minor burns, cuts, scrapes and insect bites. For poison, broken bones, bad sprains and per-sistent bleeding, phone doctor and police."
Drew says, "Bryan, you're a hell of a reader." He turns off the faucet, removes the bucket of soapy water from the sink and places it on the floor, then stretches painfully to pick up and replace the hammer, which is about the same weight as the bicycle lock he smacked the big skinhead with.
Bryan holds up a ball of cloth. "Look what I found. Special doctor's tape."
"That's gauze," Drew says, crouching beside the cabinet under the sink. "I used it last summer when you cut your arm climbing that fence."
"And you put triple antibiotic on it," the boy says excitedly. "The same stuff you used on your leg today. I've got four other kinds, and some itch creams."
Drew emerges from the cabinet with a scrub brush and rag. "Starting a hospital, dude?"
"No," the boy says in the matter-of-fact tone he uses to discourage people from poking fun. "I'm making a doctor's bag."
Four first-aid kits are gathered on the table in front of Bryan, along with the black metal bait-and-tackle box his grandfather gave him. The boy has removed hooks and tackle weights from the box and is slowly replacing them with the plastic kits and with individual tubes, packages and imitation surgical instruments.
"Still looks like a tackle box," Drew says, grimacing as he stands with the scrub brush and rag.
"It's a doctor's bag," Bryan insists. "See the little ledges?"
He opens and closes the lid of the tackle box. The shelf in the box where the weights used to be rises and retracts with each opening and closing.
"OK, it's a doctor's bag," Drew says. He's accustomed to his nine-year-old's brief but intense passions, his compulsive hoarding and rash disposal of objects that catch his eye. Last month it was baseball cards.
"Don't forget to leave some of that stuff in the medicine cabinet," Drew says, wincing as he rubs the bump on his skull. "In case your mother has an accident, or I get another boo-boo."
The words sound grimmer than Drew had intended, and he can't quite smile. What a surprise, all that blood this afternoon.
Bryan dismisses his father's suggestion with a vigorous shake of the head. "If you get cut, call me," he says brightly.
"Thanks, Doc," Drew says, picking up the bucket with his free hand and heading for the door.
"If you get stung by a bee, call me," Bryan adds, holding up a handful of what looked like packaged condoms. "Insect Sting Relief. I have four of them."
Drew spills water onto his sneakers as he limps out the back door and into the driveway in the twilight. The outdoor porches of his South Philadelphia neighbors are deserted. He guesses that the heat will keep them inside with their air conditioners humming.
The brown smear on the inside driver's-side door handle is first. He opens the door, dips the brush in the bucket, shakes off excess water, and scrubs around the handle and armrest. Next is the driver's seat, floor mat and steering wheel, all stained with dried blood.
He presses the brush against the wheel. The horn beeps loudly. He stops his zealous scrubbing, curses his stupidity, looks around. No one appears on the porches, but it's impossible to tell whether anyone's watching from a window.
He dips the rag into the bucket and hastily wipes the scrubbed areas. A screen door two houses down slams as he locks the car door and tries to retreat to his home. A fat man holding a bucket appears with a St. Bernard. The man fiddles with a wall spigot, picks up a green garden hose and squirts water on the dog.
"You're hobbling," the fat man says before Drew can reach the kitchen door.
"Fell off my bike, Franco," Drew says. "Leg's a little sore."
The fat man looks him over thoroughly. "Better slow down, marathon man. That exercise'll kill you."
Drew slips inside, angry with himself for mentioning the bike, for not having the presence of mind to muster his usual parting shot about Franco's weight.
The water in the bucket is reddish-brown, prettier than the stains in the car or those on the biking shorts, T-shirt, helmet, socks, shoes and gloves he crammed into the plastic trash bag upstairs. It's either wait until trash day or walk somewhere and dump the bag. Driving's out of the question, at least until he gets rid of the bloody gloves and the rest of the evidence.
He grips the bucket handle with both hands, waddles to the sink, pours the dirty water and turns the tap on full blast. The water fades to pink and swirls down the drain.
Bryan has sneaked up behind him. "Here are the drops."
Drew's heart skips a beat. "What you say?"
"The drops," Bryan repeats, shaking a small squeeze bottle at him. "For earaches."
Drew exhales. The heat is getting to him, or he's losing his hearing. It sounded like "the cops." Today Drew thought the skinhead blocking his way on Kelly Drive said, "It's not even for a bicycle," as if to scold him for riding on the shady sidewalk instead of on the sun-scorched, heavily trafficked highway.
Skinhead looked like a fighter. Like someone who works for Joey Bag o' Nickels, a South Philly bookmaker well known to cops and compulsive gamblers. Once Drew starts betting on sports, he can't stop until the binge runs its course and he's blown big money. This time, it's a lot more than he can afford to repay.
Drew hit the brakes, Skinhead stood there smiling. A lone rower on the Schuylkill grimaced in the distance. Drew said "Fuck you" and, bang, they were into it one-on-one in 90-degree heat, 10 yards from the river. Drew, like any sensible street fighter, used everything at his disposal to bash the guy. Skinhead landed a few blows, but not the first, the one that counts, which Drew delivered by whacking him across the head with his titanium bike lock.
A two-minute fight but very messy, and probably unnecessary. Drew was peddling to his parked car - he passed a earphoned jogger and a mumbling hobo - when he realized Skinhead actually said, "It's too hot even for a bicycle," the same way a neighbor would ask "Hot enough for you?" because he has nothing to communicate except, perhaps, that the two of them are united in suffering.
It was too late to ride back and apologize, even if Skinhead was still breathing. So Drew threw his bike in the hatchback and drove three miles to his home, blood running down his leg and staining the white plastic wheel every time he gripped it after touching the cut on his head.
Now he's clean, and so's the car. He places the empty bucket under the sink, and tells himself no one could connect him to the incident. Skinhead doesn't know him, and probably never heard of Joey Bag o' Nickels. Who outside of Drew's circle would believe such a name? Most likely, Skinhead can't remember his own name.
Drew hurts like hell, but doesn't look like he just won a life or death fight. Most of his wounds are invisible - strained tendons and joints, sore ribs. He touches the scrape on his shin, already a large, thin scab. Bryan has crept up behind him again to examine the wound.
"Next, try No More Germies," the boy says, dangling a plastic packet in Drew's face. "I have five packs."
Looking in Bryan's eyes is like looking in the mirror, or through bright little windows at a gathering storm.
"I'm better now," Drew says. "Save your medicine for your next patient."
"No More Germies are hard to open, unless you have these," Bryan explains, reaching into his bag, looking deadly serious as he holds up a metal object smaller than his index finger.
"Little scissors," he shouts with an abrupt, self-satisfied grin.
Drew smiles. "Don't take the big scissors, or your mom'll have a fit."
"If she needs 'em, she can borrow 'em," Bryan says, flashing pinking sheers and then barber's scissors.
"She can borrow these too," he adds, holding up three spools of thread. "Unless I have to operate on somebody."
"Let's hope you don't," Drew says, stroking the boy's long brown curls and picturing him 10 years from now, handsome and steely and wild. "You don't have any anesthetics."
"He'll sleep, no problem," Bryan says, lifting the hammer off the table. "I'll smack him on the head a few times with this."
"That'll do it," Drew says, fingering the bump on his head and blinking at the light in Bryan's eyes.

special supplement

An ocean poem, a mother poem, and another poem

a.

An enormous anemone covers
the globe,
its blue-green brain breathing
deeply into space
its zillion tendrils languishing the land.
We walk through its fringe upside-down as it seeps through the air
and to us, its name is love,
on the land, lay by lay,
we come unexpectedly to the shore.

b.

Elastic Fleischman
could have been my name.
Expanding Scorpio Fleischman the Younger.
E. Hunter S. Wylde S. Chance Dayenu Blythe Odaway Rosenhart Fleischman
If you stretch it, it will fray.
It won't fray, or
it may.

c.

This object
that is now
being read

symbolizes
the words you
hear me speak.

My throat analogs
your ears;

my visions,
your eyes.

Idea is action.
We are people

Michelle
July, 1993

I would do well
to heed the trilling warnings
of my dreams. Horns going up and off,

red flags of bliss and terror,
a cacophonous conniption -
stop

Let me wake up in the morning
with a naked version of you yet in my head:
we've got so much to work through

we can't even touch
the air around each other for all our
loves lost, living costs,

and the general grief -
it's all silent in the end!
You face is perfect and

friendly terrain,
and i long for you,
is what i'm saying.

Salamander Camp

THE FULLNESS THEREOF

by CHARLES CHAIM WAX

I loved the snow, but it had not snowed all winter in Brooklyn. I became inspired to experience snow on the high peaks of New Mexico during Easter Vacation. All the other teachers thought I was crazy to spend so much money on a whim.
I dialed information to get the number for Holiday Inn in Santa Fe. I wanted to make sure I had a room when I arrived. I didn't feel like wandering around searching for a place to stay. I called the number and one ring later a woman picked up and said, "Holiday Inn. How may we help you?"
"Santa Fe, Holiday Inn?"
"Yes."
"I'd like a room for tonight." And then I quickly added, "I wanna use my Platinum Card to reserve the room."
"Did you say Ôroom' or Ôsuite'?"
"Uh, well, suite."
"Balcony?"
"Yeah."
"In room whirlpool?"
"Yeah."
"Apple or IBM PC?"
"With modem and fax?"
"Of course."
"Both." Then I started to laugh to myself. I quickly covered the mouthpiece.
She asked, "Your name and Platinum number." I told her my name and read off my Platinum number. "The room is yours, Mr. Bernstein, for as long as you wish."
"Thanks. I should be arriving at the airport about 10:30 tomorrow tonight."
"Do you wish a limo to be waiting for you?" I again began laughing and again quickly covered the mouthpiece. The image of some chauffeur holding up a big card with my name on it seemed unbelievable.
"No. I'm gonna need a car. I wanna see a bit of the territory."
"And beautiful country it is, especially in the mountains, if you love the snow and the cold..."
"I do," I gulped. "You got snow there, right?"
"Fourteen peaks over 10,000 feet. I should think so."
"I was in Santa Fe in 1971, or 1976. I can't remember."
And this time it was her turn to laugh. I was somewhat offended because I thought she was laughing at the fact I couldn't remember which year I had been there. But a moment later she said, "I'm sorry. But I wasn't even born then."
" Ô71, or Ô76?"
"Both."
I moaned, "I lived mosta my life before you was born. But...but...so that means you're, lemme see..."
"Nineteen years old..."
"And you already manage a Holiday Inn."
"I pick up the phone at night, Mr. Bernstein."
"Yeah. I don't know what I was thinkin'."
"Oh, I've got a call. See ya."
"Yeah."

The next night I heaved the duffel bag over my shoulder and walked into the lobby. I went to the desk and said, "Mr. Bernstein."
"Isabella Dunbar, the nineteen year old," she laughed.
"I spoke to you on the phone."
"I spoke to you on the phone," she laughed. I noticed she laughed a lot, and her eyes sparkled whether she laughed or not. Well, she was nineteen. Why shouldn't they sparkle?
Then, for some reason, I blurted out, "How much is the room?"
"Suite, I believe..."
"Yeah."
"If you have to ask..." And again the laughter.
"No, of course not. That was a joke."
"Don't be silly. Four hundred and twenty dollars...before tax..." And then the laughter.
When she said the price a sharp pain pounded the top left part of my cranium. I was completely loony. What in the hell was I doing spending so much for a room. I'd be whirlpooling my way to the poor house. I tried to smile but merely babbled, "Very reasonable, for this time of the year, I mean, with the ski season and all."
"I think you should bring your skis inside, don't leave them on top of your car. Sad, so sad to say, we've had...thefts..."
"I don't ski." My answer sent her into hysterics. The energy of her laughter was so effervescent I couldn't become angry but I was curious so I mumbled, "Was that funny?"
"We don't usually get many non-skiers." What did that mean? I could be on business. I could be an international trader in Indian Artifacts for all she knew. "So?" she asked.
"What?"
"Why?"
"Why am I here?"
"Yeah."
"I just arrived from Hollywood. One of my stars got in a tiff with the director on this big budget picture. She flew off. You know how these temperamental prima donnas are. They don't get their wayÑoff they fly."
"Who?" she asked eagerly.
"Not at liberty to say, but she does have blonde hair..."
"Michelle Pheiffer?"
"She got blonde hair?"
"I think so." I stared at Isabella. I began to laugh and laugh. She must have thought I was laughing at her because she said Michelle Pheiffer had blonde hair. She moaned, "I'm a small town girl..."
"With super-duper flair."
"Really?"
"I'm in the business. I should know. What do you do?"
She stared at me a little funny and then said, "Answer phones."
"Full time?" I blurted out, and then realized I shouldn't have said that. "I mean, is that your career goal?" I expected her to say she was a painter, a potter, wrote poetry, or dropped from a hot air balloon to pirouette down steep slopes inaccessible to the ordinary skier, or, perhaps, even a therapist devising new cures for anomie.
"That's a good question," she said, and then the laughter returned. I was glad to hear it again. "I'm nineteen..."
"Nineteen," I sighed.
"...and don't know what I want to do. Should I know what I want to do?"
"No, not really..."
An old couple came to the desk. The guy looked ninety and the woman in her early fifties. He held a cane in his right hand. The woman held his left arm firmly. Isabella smiled at me and pushed the key in my direction. Then she turned her complete attention to the old couple.
I went to the elevator, took it to the third floor, and walked to my room, C-17. I put the key in the lock and opened the door. I turned to the right and saw the light switch. I turned it on. I suddenly got dizzy. I dropped my bag on the floor and wobbled to the bed. I flopped down and closed my eyes.
After a few minutes I opened my eyes. I saw the remote control on the small table to my right. I picked it up and turned on the TV. Some guy with a well coiffured synthetically colored blonde pompadour was preaching. He said, "Jesus Christ has the power to get everyone out of debt. Say, ÔMy God is a debt canceling God.' Most of you have known him as a Savior, but now you can know him as a Debt Canceling God. Remember debt cancellation is everyday business for the man of God. God wants to cancel your debt. Everyone of you can have the miracle of debt cancellation. I hold in my hand a letter from Frank Peene. He received the miracle of a $500,000 debt cancellation. His farm was saved. And Pearl Nulle. She received a debt cancellation of $300,248. Her Hair Emporium business was saved. John Duff, $630,117 debt cancellation. If the Lord can open a blind eye, He can cancel your debt. Sixth chapter of Kings, 2nd verse. ÔThe iron did swim and the man of God did say, Take that iron and be free of your debt.' Say it, ÔMY GOD IS A DEBT CANCELING GOD.' Remember what God wants is for you to be a prosperous person. Say it again, ÔMY GOD IS A DEBT CANCELING GOD.' Now I want to give you this book More And More absolutely free which is the blueprint for the miracle of debt cancellation. Ninety lessons are in here. You do one a day. They show you how to take those things out of your subconscious mind that are blocking the plans God has for you because a double minded man is unstable in all of his ways. You got to have your subconscious mind in line with your conscious mind. Now there's a number on the screen, but we're being inundated with hundreds and hundreds of calls every moment so all you Victory Viewers call now for your absolutely free book More And More..."
I immediately reached into my duffel bag and got my Waterman rollerball pen and copied the number in a frenzy. I only hoped I could get through. According to this guy I could somehow write off this whole crazy search for snow trip if I only believed ÔMY GOD IS A DEBT CANCELING GOD' and got my hands on this book More And More to guide me to that miracle.
I dialed the desk. Isabella picked up. I said, "This is Mr. Bernstein. I really can't chit-chat now. Please get me 1-900-345 6789."
"Yes, sir," she said meekly. I think she was shocked by my tone of voice, but I had to get through before the hundreds and hundreds of other Victory Viewers dialed the toll free number.
I heard a guy say, "Victory Viewer hotline, Brother Paul Bruns."
"Yeah. I want or order the absolutely free book More And More I just seen on TV."
"Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord. Now, Brother..."
"You want my name?"
"Yes, Brother."
"Bernstein."
"Bernstein?"
"Steve Bernstein."
"Steve Bernstein?"
"Yeah."
"Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord for your safe return. Is the Bible in your hand, Brother Bernstein?"
"Hold it a minute." I turned and opened the draw of the small table to the right and took out a Gideon's Bible. "I got it in my hands now."
"Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord. Let us read together, Kings 6th chapter, 2nd verse..."
"You want me to read to you, or you goin' to read to me?"
"Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, but I'll carry the ball this time, Brother Bernstein." He began to read. He must have read for fifteen minutes straight. He had a robust voice, but I was tired from all the adventures of the day.
I blurted out, "I think I wanna order the absolutely free book, More And More..."
"What's that, Brother Bernstein?"
He was so busy reading he didn't hear what I said. I repeated myself, "I wanna order the absolutely free book, More And More."
"Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord. Say after me, ÔMY GOD IS A DEBT CANCELING GOD.'"
"I hope so," I mumbled.
"What was that, Brother Bernstein?"
"I said I hope so cause I musta spent three, four grand on this trip, and I really wanna get that Platinum Card yoke off my neck with the miracle which the book is gonna tell me how to do like it done for Pearl Noodle and Johnny Fluff and the rest of them people who wrote letters..."
"Only through the man of God and faith in Him. Let us read together, Nehemiah..."
"Hold it..."
He was off again. Well, I was laying down. I closed my eyes and let him read, but I mean, this could take hours, days, if he got carried away and read the entire Bible. "Brother Buns..." No response. "BROTHER BUNS," I screamed into the mouthpiece.
"Did you say something, Brother Bernstein?"
"I did, Brother Buns..."
"Bruns with an Ôr.' Now I know that Ôr' is a little wiggle of an Ôr' so we must take hold of it like the Lord..."
"Brother Bruns, I wanna order the absolutely free book..."
"Praise the Lord. Say after me, ÔMY GOD IS A DEBT CANCELING GOD.'"
"Yeah. Take my name and address, please."
"Yes, sir, Brother Bernstein. Credit card number?"
"What?"
"Credit card number..."
"Brother Slocum said on the TV the book was absolutely free..."
"And so it is. We're talking ÔShipping and Handling.'"
"How much?"
"Nineteen dollars and ninety-five cents."
"It looked like a pamphlet..."
"Say, ÔMY GOD IS A DEBT CANCELING GOD.'"
"Can I pick it up in person? I really wanna read it, but then I wouldn't have to pay the S&H."
"Praise the Lord. All Pilgrims welcome. 2411 South Front Street, Mobile, Alabama."
"I'm in Santa Fe."
"The reach of the Lord is long indeed. Do you want me to continue reading from the Bible, Brother Bernstein, as you come to a decision?"
"This guy is fulla shit," I mumbled to myself, and closed my eyes. I began to breath deeply. I reached and put the receiver on the phone. "What was that all about?" I chuckled loudly.
In the morning I stood and put the Waterman pen into my duffel bag. Since I hadn't taken off my clothes I didn't have to get dressed. I walked into the huge bathroom and looked at the whirlpool. I smiled.
I went to the lobby to sign my Platinum bill. Isabella wasn't there. A middle aged guy with a grayish mustache and a pot belly stood behind the counter. He was smiling. "I trust you had a pleasant stay, Mr. Bernstein."
"I did." He pushed the bill to me. I glanced at it. I immediately said, "There must be some mistake. I'm readin' $532. How much tax they got here in New Mexico cause Isabella said the room was $420."
"Correct. Plus a phone bill of $126."
"I didn't call nobody."
"You were on the phone for sixty-three minutes." He pushed a sheet of paper to me.
"That was a toll free call for an absolutely free book, More And More..."
"A $1.99 a minute..."
"What?"
He sighed deeply, "The price was on the screen."
"I didn't see it."
"Need a microscope," he said, and then he began to laugh. It was the same kind of laugh as Isabella.
"What's goin' on here?"
"Call American Express and dispute the payment. Explain everything to them."
"What scam is this I am bein' hoodwinked by, my good fellow?" I roared.
"You have to pay the entire bill, but call American Express and dispute the portion from the phone call. He read the Bible to you, didn't he?"
"Yeah."
"After the first five minutes he knew you didn't know it was a 900 number. That means a toll call, not a toll free call."
"In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, they should do such a thing...I am truly shocked."
He groaned deeply.
I signed the bill and asked, "Was that your daughter last night cause you laugh like her?"
"Yes. She said you were a big shot Hollywood producer. Get your fancy lawyers on those bastards. Put Ôem out of business."
"I intend to do that, first thing when I get back. But now I'm lookin' for..."
"Julia Roberts?" he whispered.
I sighed, "Sorry, I can't." He nodded, and smiled a knowing smile.

Drew's son Bryan uses a fishing hook on a string to pull a first-aid kit across the kitchen table. A ballpeen hammer on the table's edge clatters to the floor between the table and the sink. Drew, filling a bucket with hot water, says "Whoa!" as the hammer skips near his feet, but Bryan is already reading instructions from the little plastic kit in an earnest, careful monotone: "Use only in treating minor burns, cuts, scrapes and insect bites. For poison, broken bones, bad sprains and per-sistent bleeding, phone doctor and police."
Drew says, "Bryan, you're a hell of a reader." He turns off the faucet, removes the bucket of soapy water from the sink and places it on the floor, then stretches painfully to pick up and replace the hammer, which is about the same weight as the bicycle lock he smacked the big skinhead with.
Bryan holds up a ball of cloth. "Look what I found. Special doctor's tape."
"That's gauze," Drew says, crouching beside the cabinet under the sink. "I used it last summer when you cut your arm climbing that fence."
"And you put triple antibiotic on it," the boy says excitedly. "The same stuff you used on your leg today. I've got four other kinds, and some itch creams."
Drew emerges from the cabinet with a scrub brush and rag. "Starting a hospital, dude?"
"No," the boy says in the matter-of-fact tone he uses to discourage people from poking fun. "I'm making a doctor's bag."
Four first-aid kits are gathered on the table in front of Bryan, along with the black metal bait-and-tackle box his grandfather gave him. The boy has removed hooks and tackle weights from the box and is slowly replacing them with the plastic kits and with individual tubes, packages and imitation surgical instruments.
"Still looks like a tackle box," Drew says, grimacing as he stands with the scrub brush and rag.
"It's a doctor's bag," Bryan insists. "See the little ledges?"
He opens and closes the lid of the tackle box. The shelf in the box where the weights used to be rises and retracts with each opening and closing.
"OK, it's a doctor's bag," Drew says. He's accustomed to his nine-year-old's brief but intense passions, his compulsive hoarding and rash disposal of objects that catch his eye. Last month it was baseball cards.
"Don't forget to leave some of that stuff in the medicine cabinet," Drew says, wincing as he rubs the bump on his skull. "In case your mother has an accident, or I get another boo-boo."
The words sound grimmer than Drew had intended, and he can't quite smile. What a surprise, all that blood this afternoon.
Bryan dismisses his father's suggestion with a vigorous shake of the head. "If you get cut, call me," he says brightly.
"Thanks, Doc," Drew says, picking up the bucket with his free hand and heading for the door.
"If you get stung by a bee, call me," Bryan adds, holding up a handful of what looked like packaged condoms. "Insect Sting Relief. I have four of them."
Drew spills water onto his sneakers as he limps out the back door and into the driveway in the twilight. The outdoor porches of his South Philadelphia neighbors are deserted. He guesses that the heat will keep them inside with their air conditioners humming.
The brown smear on the inside driver's-side door handle is first. He opens the door, dips the brush in the bucket, shakes off excess water, and scrubs around the handle and armrest. Next is the driver's seat, floor mat and steering wheel, all stained with dried blood.
He presses the brush against the wheel. The horn beeps loudly. He stops his zealous scrubbing, curses his stupidity, looks around. No one appears on the porches, but it's impossible to tell whether anyone's watching from a window.
He dips the rag into the bucket and hastily wipes the scrubbed areas. A screen door two houses down slams as he locks the car door and tries to retreat to his home. A fat man holding a bucket appears with a St. Bernard. The man fiddles with a wall spigot, picks up a green garden hose and squirts water on the dog.
"You're hobbling," the fat man says before Drew can reach the kitchen door.
"Fell off my bike, Franco," Drew says. "Leg's a little sore."
The fat man looks him over thoroughly. "Better slow down, marathon man. That exercise'll kill you."
Drew slips inside, angry with himself for mentioning the bike, for not having the presence of mind to muster his usual parting shot about Franco's weight.
The water in the bucket is reddish-brown, prettier than the stains in the car or those on the biking shorts, T-shirt, helmet, socks, shoes and gloves he crammed into the plastic trash bag upstairs. It's either wait until trash day or walk somewhere and dump the bag. Driving's out of the question, at least until he gets rid of the bloody gloves and the rest of the evidence.
He grips the bucket handle with both hands, waddles to the sink, pours the dirty water and turns the tap on full blast. The water fades to pink and swirls down the drain.
Bryan has sneaked up behind him. "Here are the drops."
Drew's heart skips a beat. "What you say?"
"The drops," Bryan repeats, shaking a small squeeze bottle at him. "For earaches."
Drew exhales. The heat is getting to him, or he's losing his hearing. It sounded like "the cops." Today Drew thought the skinhead blocking his way on Kelly Drive said, "It's not even for a bicycle," as if to scold him for riding on the shady sidewalk instead of on the sun-scorched, heavily trafficked highway.
Skinhead looked like a fighter. Like someone who works for Joey Bag o' Nickels, a South Philly bookmaker well known to cops and compulsive gamblers. Once Drew starts betting on sports, he can't stop until the binge runs its course and he's blown big money. This time, it's a lot more than he can afford to repay.
Drew hit the brakes, Skinhead stood there smiling. A lone rower on the Schuylkill grimaced in the distance. Drew said "Fuck you" and, bang, they were into it one-on-one in 90-degree heat, 10 yards from the river. Drew, like any sensible street fighter, used everything at his disposal to bash the guy. Skinhead landed a few blows, but not the first, the one that counts, which Drew delivered by whacking him across the head with his titanium bike lock.
A two-minute fight but very messy, and probably unnecessary. Drew was peddling to his parked car - he passed a earphoned jogger and a mumbling hobo - when he realized Skinhead actually said, "It's too hot even for a bicycle," the same way a neighbor would ask "Hot enough for you?" because he has nothing to communicate except, perhaps, that the two of them are united in suffering.
It was too late to ride back and apologize, even if Skinhead was still breathing. So Drew threw his bike in the hatchback and drove three miles to his home, blood running down his leg and staining the white plastic wheel every time he gripped it after touching the cut on his head.
Now he's clean, and so's the car. He places the empty bucket under the sink, and tells himself no one could connect him to the incident. Skinhead doesn't know him, and probably never heard of Joey Bag o' Nickels. Who outside of Drew's circle would believe such a name? Most likely, Skinhead can't remember his own name.
Drew hurts like hell, but doesn't look like he just won a life or death fight. Most of his wounds are invisible - strained tendons and joints, sore ribs. He touches the scrape on his shin, already a large, thin scab. Bryan has crept up behind him again to examine the wound.
"Next, try No More Germies," the boy says, dangling a plastic packet in Drew's face. "I have five packs."
Looking in Bryan's eyes is like looking in the mirror, or through bright little windows at a gathering storm.
"I'm better now," Drew says. "Save your medicine for your next patient."
"No More Germies are hard to open, unless you have these," Bryan explains, reaching into his bag, looking deadly serious as he holds up a metal object smaller than his index finger.
"Little scissors," he shouts with an abrupt, self-satisfied grin.
Drew smiles. "Don't take the big scissors, or your mom'll have a fit."
"If she needs 'em, she can borrow 'em," Bryan says, flashing pinking sheers and then barber's scissors.
"She can borrow these too," he adds, holding up three spools of thread. "Unless I have to operate on somebody."
"Let's hope you don't," Drew says, stroking the boy's long brown curls and picturing him 10 years from now, handsome and steely and wild. "You don't have any anesthetics."
"He'll sleep, no problem," Bryan says, lifting the hammer off the table. "I'll smack him on the head a few times with this."
"That'll do it," Drew says, fingering the bump on his head and blinking at the light in Bryan's eyes.

A poet in the
company of dancers

The stillness of these dancers is tiny motion
embracing the potential for stillness and
their tumble which must occur.

Their skill comes not from the duration of hovering,
but from the soundlessness of their plunge into the momentum
of their weight unbalancing, and the indescribability of their transition
into new positions of the same beautiful bodies.

These dancers are skillful:
in a moment, the flyer rolls overhead into a deep-weighted squat
and the platforming person balances upon those shoulders.

Many more bodies come and go,
dancing bodies
glowing with kinetic energy
beyond homage to Michelangelo.

This is all for example:
to write a poem of dancers is like
after dancing hard how the butt leaves a sweat-print
on the mat in the shape of a valentine heart.

Shared poem about sex (ii)
This poem was generated at Artist's Cafe, San
Francisco in May, 1995. The poet read a score
of cues to the audience, and each member of the
group contributed words to the poem which were
arranged afterward.

Fluid Hand Mona June
Wendy Rabbit Mike Pussy Finger Karen Steven Whitney Cock Eureka!
Liz Lamprey Kubla Kahn
Jay Brian Brain
Chad Armpit Anonymous
Hair Gene Faster Nipple
Yes Floor Jennifer Uhhh!
Oh! Feet Hand On Claws at your neck. Sorry. Shit. Oh!
Tongue Luscious Stacy Rachel Adam's Apple Earlobe Merv Yes Yes Clavicle
Hand Toe God Lauren Wow Jen Yes You - Fuck!
Succulent Thigh Babe Ouch!
Nape Connection Shawn Andrea Alan Heart
Yes Trout Brandy Betsy UH!
Thanks Good-bye

Let's think of sex.
And remember the first time you chose to have sex.
And recall the event; setting, mood, emotion.
And think about your lover at that time.
Fix upon your tongue the name of that lover, and let's say those names.**
Let's think about orgasm.
And recall your most recent orgasm:
where you were; who was there;
physical sensations, physical and spiritual actions
And remember the last word you said during sex or
imagine a word you are likely say during sex.
And let's say, one by one, these words.**
Let's think of our sexualities:
our uniqueness, diversities
size, temperature, tone
Fix upon your tongue the name of a body part, an animal, or other words of
your choosing, and let's say, one by one, these words.**

end score.)

When my white family was together,
we drove our car into the night of America,

which gives a need to explain, at least, where we are going;
even if there was no other reason but the going.

And in each night of this country, my father held me
with my eyes in his shoulder, asleep to his thoughts.

Now look: my grown man's body is held up off the ground by strong arms:
to you, i sleep: see my eyes close, my feet in air.

To be held like this supplies the explanation that we are men.
Nothing more.

Whatever reasons you and i had for coming to where we are,
we are two men who have been lifted by the arms of men and women

into the kind sleep of equal hands.
I am lucky to be able to remember warmth in my father's embrace.

Poem of contact
from West Coast Contact Festival, June, 1995

You are a person i want to allow to lift my body from earth
when the road ends when the path begins when the sky
clears when the dusty day calls morning evening
mountain abandon road gate open weed tree cactus out

Use all techniques and settings available to you,
but keep in mind that you should not fall for everyone.
Decide on one person in every room
on whom to concentrate your magnetism.
Take care in focusing: let one person choose
himself or herself to you. Free yourself from distractions.
When you flirt, remember that they attracted you.

"Learn that Poy-m"
the reader is invited to free-write in interaction with this poem

A "Little Rascals" film features
a boy who refuses to learn
a poem for class and "acts fresh."
His father scolds,
"Fresh! Don't you
want to be president?"
The boy ditches school, but
down by the creek, his ears ring:
"Learn that poem!
Learn that poem!"
At last he goes back to class
with the poem in hand.
In embarrassment, he weeps as he recites
"I clumb up to get the daffy-dill..."
while the class jeers. Then
another kid releases a skunk into the room
and everybody runs out.

You've seen it.

Now, it's been several days
since i opened my notebook
and patched together my words
in this quality of voice.
I want to write my poem.
I want to be jeered at
and to become president
long after the odor fades.

Let's think of paper. And write about paper:
[This. Trees. Some rays pass right through. Paper built this city.
Signs, identities, money, scratches in fabric. Travelers. Medium.]
Let's think of power. And write about power.
[Aiding and assisting. Returning power to the earth. Grounding
stronger. Learning and creating. To see with the eyes of God.]
Let's think of poetry. And write about poetry.
[Defending the faith. Quiet art of vocal sound. Loud art of voice.
Craft of paper. Opposing big signs. Describe life in audible terms.]

My flatmate drove back to Arizona
to gather belongings
and to sample the taste of good-bye;
old times recalled with friends,
the eyes' strange shadows.

I've loved the familiar distillation
of a tree-lined lane, the drunken feeling
it leaves in my eyes,
the frozen feeling of what is recognized.
(I write this on the train.)

ii.

A woman i met dancing sings an overt song of fate.
I was born with my heart's weight
on my eyelids. She too was playing with the idea
of love in a spacious garden. There is a stream
which smells faintly of smoke or
the soured honey she sips sometimes.

We defy, like dams, the torrent.
We are built, i believe, to be overcome,
to have the waters of the holy flood
drown us in unquenchable flow.

iii.

There's a children's book about a mouse,
beginning with an A.
As the mouse community
gathers food for winter,
one mouse
gathers lights and colors

so in winter the mice can dream together
of summertime. New-in-town poem

February, 1994

Glancing down
steadies the ground;
eyes find littered pavement,
and notice hardwood at parties.

People new here
ask the floor, topography, town
to hold conversation.
They want a firmer feel
of situations.

The eyes blink sideways,
sideways, down;
a stranger who is beautiful,
a stranger who is stone,
might only appear to be alone.

People diffuse into the city.
regaling their lost children
in the spots they find.
The people are almost
always kind.

Eyes come up
into a person's eyes.
Secrets are no secrets;
dawn's delight arrives
with and without surprise.

When someone tells you they are non-monogamous, you may generally infer the following:
A. That they would enjoy having sex with you.
B. That they would enjoy having sex with the person next to you and you.
C. That everyone interested could participate.
D. That if want a lover, or if you want to find a sex party, you could talk to that person.

When someone tells you they are a poet, you may generally infer the following:
A. That they would enjoy having sex with you.
B. That if you have sex with them, they will write about you and read it to the person next to you.
C. That if you don't have sex with them, they will write about you and have sex with the person next to you.
D. That in bed, you'll know you're with a poet. Shared poem about ownership
Among these cues, spaces opens in this poem for
thoughts, words, sounds, and/or poems from
the community of readers or listeners.

What do you own
What's something you would say you own
How do you own it
What do you give to own it
What was it before it was in your ownership
What could end your ownership of it
What thing do you not own
Who owns it
How did they come to own it
What is one thing nobody can own
How do people approach this thing
If people try to own it, how and what happens
What does ownership mean

There is a press called Scars that solicits manuscripts.
This Macintosh, though out-dated, is still functional.
This manuscript is undergoing final compilation and revision.
I am drinking organic coffee.
Having read Z Magazine recently, i am in an activist mood.
Last night, i was in a trance, induced by tantric movement and breath.
The fact that this is scarcely a poem will not prevent its inclusion.

We must be true to our own voices.
Too much is already compromised. Gertrude

okay, now what
does the blank page say to the poet
who has had a bad day?
At sunset
everything symbolizes loss.
The page is a dry clown
saying, "lay off you."

Put down the pen
and slump into the kitchen,
turn on the kettle.
Your pronouns have become steam;
the heat of the stove is the only vowel.

ii. has this situation

I decide i'm living in a dream,
but what do you say to a six-foot squirrel?
The walls, the air, animals, and buildings speak
with as much authority as anybody.

The ground moans constantly.
Objects will speak to one another, and to people
because they are adjacent.
An object on my table is first a guitar, then a Scrabble tile, then a shattered
flower, then a candy corn...

iii. remembers to breathe

Where last was air so friendly?
In Hawaii, it rained on warm days;
we were playing in the street,
we were laughing statues.

Lungs recognize the size of air.
The back in sleep is as flat as ocean bottom,
as permeable as Precambrian haze.
These are my sixteen idiosyncrasies.
writing jam with Phil Fleischmann and
David Fleischmann

Mystic routines done in private
attempt to create many eyes,
and to summon one set of ears,
one body who will answer the question
at the base of his night-struck gyrations.
He drinks hot tea and surfs infinitives.

He locates the magic in his beard, but
he keeps returning to the ocean,
and in his brain,
the steam turns into the words,
"the steam turns into the words,
'the steam turns into the words...'"

a song

You see this photo:
it was my home.
We took a long road
to somewhere else,
but i don't remember (no, no);
i don't recall.
We went away (yeah, yeah);
i have them all
in a line i can show you, the piece of my life,
where i was, arrayed there like a book.

We have a dialogue
about these places.
I'm here right now,
a world away.
and i don't remember (no, no);
i don't recall.
We went away (yeah, yeah);
i was a child.
I don't remember;
i was small:
the rolling places,
the falling miles. Photo of that future house

A photographer seems to have gone into the future
and taken a snapshot of that house.
The city's definition is crowd; the streets are full
and precariously maintained. That house is a crown.
My lover and i enjoy the afternoons.
In April, we cheat on our taxes. Our child
is the offspring of Bruce and Sonya, and they, we, Sam and Alice,
watch the child take its first miraculous steps!
My love and I had a child that was taken.
San Francisco, California, U.S.A. is a hell of a town.
It gives; it takes. Together we prepare for the long haul.
There is music everywhere: people in commerce, crowds, machines;
and from here we can hear the sound of the world beyond.

philosophy monthly - additional

Unabomber's
Manifesto

part four of four

147. To start with, there are the techniques of surveillance. Hidden video cameras are now used in most stores and in many other places, computers are used to collect and process vast amounts of information about individuals. Information so obtained greatly increases the effectiveness of physical coercion (i.e., law enforcement).[26] Then there are the methods of propaganda, for which the mass communication media provide effective vehicles. Efficient techniques have been developed for winning elections, selling products, influencing public opinion. The entertainment industry serves as an important psychological tool of the system, possibly even when it is dishing out large amounts of sex and violence. Entertainment provides modern man with an essential means of escape. While absorbed in television, videos, etc., he can forget stress, anxiety, frustration, dissatisfaction. Many primitive peoples, when they don't have work to do, are quite content to sit for hours at a time doing nothing at all, because they are at peace with themselves and their world. But most modern people must be contantly occupied or entertained, otherwise the get "bored," i.e., they get fidgety, uneasy, irritable.
148. Other techniques strike deeper that the foregoing. Education is no longer a simple affair of paddling a kid's behind when he doesn't know his lessons and patting him on the head when he does know them. It is becoming a scientific technique for controlling the child's development. Sylvan Learning Centers, for example, have had great success in motivating children to study, and psychological techniques are also used with more or less success in many conventional schools. "Parenting" techniques that are taught to parents are designed to make children accept fundamental values of the system and behave in ways that the system finds desirable. "Mental health" programs, "intervention" techniques, psychotherapy and so forth are ostensibly designed to benefit individuals, but in practice they usually serve as methods for inducing individuals to think and behave as the system requires. (There is no contradiction here; an individual whose attitudes or behavior bring him into conflict with the system is up against a force that is too powerful for him to conquer or escape from, hence he is likely to suffer from stress, frustration, defeat. His path will be much easier if he thinks and behaves as the system requires. In that sense the system is acting for the benefit of the individual when it brainwashes him into conformity.) Child abuse in its gross and obvious forms is disapproved in most if not all cultures. Tormenting a child for a trivial reason or no reason at all is something that appalls almost everyone. But many psychologists interpret the concept of abuse much more broadly. Is spanking, when used as part of a rational and consistent system of discipline, a form of abuse? The question will ultimately be decided by whether or not spanking tends to produce behavior that makes a person fit in well with the existing system of society. In practice, the word "abuse" tends to be interpreted to include any method of child-rearing that produces behavior inconvenient for the system. Thus, when they go beyond the prevention of obvious, senseless cruelty, programs for preventing "child abuse" are directed toward the control of human behavior of the system.
149. Presumably, research will continue to increas the effectiveness of psychological techniques for controlling human behavior. But we think it is unlikely that psychological techniques alone will be sufficient to adjust human beings to the kind of society that technology is creating. Biological methods probably will have to be used. We have already mentiond the use of drugs in this connection. Neurology may provide other avenues of modifying the human mind. Genetic engineering of human beings is already beginning to occur in the form of "gene therapy," and there is no reason to assume the such methods will not eventually be used to modify those aspects of the body that affect mental funtioning.
150. As we mentioned in paragraph 134, industrial society seems likely to be entering a period of severe stress, due in part to problems of human behavior and in part to economic and environmental problems. And a considerable proportion of the system's economic and environmental problems result from the way human beings behave. Alienation, low self-esteem, depression, hostility, rebellion; children who won't study, youth gangs, illegal drug use, rape, child abuse , other crimes, unsafe sex, teen pregnancy, population growth, political corruption, race hatred, ethnic rivalry, bitter ideological conflict (i.e., pro-choice vs. pro-life), political extremism, terrorism, sabotage, anti-government groups, hate groups. All these threaten the very survival of the system. The system will be FORCED to use every practical means of controlling human behavior.
151. The social disruption that we see today is certainly not the result of mere chance. It can only be a result fo the conditions of life that the system imposes on people. (We have argued that the most important of these conditions is disruption of the power process.) If the systems succeeds in imposing sufficient control over human behavior to assure itw own survival, a new watershed in human history will have passed. Whereas formerly the limits of human endurance have imposed limits on the development of societies (as we explained in paragraphs 143, 144), industrial-technological society will be able to pass those limits by modifying human beings, whether by psychological methods or biological methods or both. In the future, social systems will not be adjusted to suit the needs of human beings. Instead, human being will be adjusted to suit the needs of the system.
[27] 152. Generally speaking, technological control over human behavior will probably not be introduced with a totalitarian intention or even through a conscious desire to restrict human freedom. [28] Each new step in the assertion of control over the human mind will be taken as a rational response to a problem that faces society, such as curing alcoholism, reducing the crime rate or inducing young people to study science and engineering. In many cases, there will be humanitarian justification. For example, when a psychiatrist prescribes an anti-depressant for a depressed patient, he is clearly doing that individual a favor. It would be inhumane to withhold the drug from someone who needs it. When parents send their children to Sylvan Learning Centers to have them manipulated into becoming enthusiastic about their studies, they do so from concern for their children's welfare. It may be that some of these parents wish that one didn't have to have specialized training to get a job and that their kid didn't have to be brainwashed into becoming a computer nerd. But what can they do? They can't change society, and their child may be unemployable if he doesn't have certain skills. So they send him to Sylvan.
153. Thus control over human behavior will be introduced not by a calculated decision of the authorities but through a process of social evolution (RAPID evolution, however). The process will be impossible to resist, because each advance, considered by itself, will appear to be beneficial, or at least the evil involved in making the advance will appear to be beneficial, or at least the evil involved in making the advance will seem to be less than that which would result from not making it (see paragraph 127). Propaganda for example is used for many good purposes, such as discouraging child abuse or race hatred. [14] Sex education is obviously useful, yet the effect of sex education (to the extent that it is successful) is to take the shaping of sexual attitudes away from the family and put it into the hands of the state as represented by the public school system.
154. Suppose a biological trait is discovered that increases the likelihood that a child will grow up to be a criminal and suppose some sort of gene therapy can remove this trait. [29] Of course most parents whose children possess the trait will have them undergo the therapy. It would be inhumane to do otherwise, since the child would probably have a miserable life if he grew up to be a criminal. But many or most primitive societies have a low crime rate in comparison with that of our society, even though they have neither high-tech methods of child-rearing nor harsh systems of punishment. Since there is no reason to suppose that more modern men than primitive men have innate predatory tendencies, the high crime rate of our society must be due to the pressures that modern conditions put on people, to which many cannot or will not adjust. Thus a treatment designed to remove potential criminal tendencies is at least in part a way of re-engineering people so that they suit the requirements of the system.
155. Our society tends to regard as a "sickness" any mode of thought or behavior that is inconvenient for the system, and this is plausible because when an individual doesn't fit into the system it causes pain to the individual as well as problems for the system. Thus the manipulation of an individual to adjust him to the system is seen as a "cure" for a "sickness" and therefore as good.
156. In paragraph 127 we pointed out that if the use of a new item of technology is INITIALLY optional, it does not necessarily REMAIN optional, because the new technology tends to change society in such a way that it becomes difficult or impossible for an individual to function without using that technology. This applies also to the technology of human behavior. In a world in which most children are put through a program to make them enthusiastic about studying, a parent will almost be forced to put his kid through such a program, because if he does not, then the kid will grow up to be, comparatively speaking, an ignoramus and therefore unemployable. Or suppose a biological treatment is discovered that, without undesirable side-effects, will greatly reduce the psychological stress from which so many people suffer in our society. If large numbers of people choose to undergo the treatment, then the general level of stress in society will be reduced, so that it will be possible for the system to increase the stress-producing pressures. In fact, something like this seems to have happened already with one of our society's most important psychological tools for enabling people to reduce (or at least temporarily escape from) stress, namely, mass entertainment (see paragraph 147). Our use of mass entertainment is "optional": No law requires us to watch television, listen to the radio, read magazines. Yet mass entertainment is a means of escape and stress-reduction on which most of us have become dependent. Everyone complains about the trashiness of television, but almost everyone watches it. A few have kicked the TV habit, but it would be a rare person who could get along today without using ANY form of mass entertainment. (Yet until quite recently in human history most people got along very nicely with no other entertainment than that which each local community created for itself.) Without the entertainment industry the system probably would not have been able to get away with putting as much stress-producing pressure on us as it does.
157. Assuming that industrial society survives, it is likely that technology will eventually acquire something approaching complete control over human behavior. It has been established beyond any rational doubt that human thought and behavior have a largely biological basis. As experimenters have demonstrated, feelings such as hunger, pleasure, anger and fear can be turned on and off by electrical stimulation of appropriate parts of the brain. Memories can be destroyed by damaging parts of the brain or they can be brought to the surface by electrical stimulation. Hallucinations can be induced or moods changed by drugs. There may or may not be an immaterial human soul, but if there is one it clearly is less powerful that the biological mechanisms of human behavior. For if that were not the case then researchers would not be able so easily to manipulate human feelings and behavior with drugs and electrical currents.
158. It presumably would be impractical for all people to have electrodes inserted in their heads so that they could be controlled by the authorities. But the fact that human thoughts and feelings are so open to biological intervention shows that the problem of controlling human behavior is mainly a technical problem; a problem of neurons, hormones and complex molecules; the kind of problem that is accessible to scientific attack. Given the outstanding record of our society in solving technical problems, it is overwhelmingly probable that great advances will be made in the control of human behavior.
159. Will public resistance prevent the introduction of technological control of human behavior? It certainly would if an attempt were made to introduce such control all at once. But since technological control will be introduced through a long sequence of small advances, there will be no rational and effective public resistance. (See paragraphs 127,132, 153.)
160. To those who think that all this sounds like science fiction, we point out that yesterday's science fiction is today's fact. The Industrial Revolution has radically altered man's environment and way of life, and it is only to be expected that as technology is increasingly applied to the human body and mind, man himself will be altered as radically as his environment and way of life have been.

HUMAN RACE AT A CROSSROADS
161. But we have gotten ahead of our story. It is one thing to develop in the laboratory a series of psychological or biological techniques for manipulating human behavior and quite another to integrate these techniques into a functioning social system. The latter problem is the more difficult of the two. For example, while the techniques of educational psychology doubtless work quite well in the "lab schools" where they are developed, it is not necessarily easy to apply them effectively throughout our educational system. We all know what many of our schools are like. The teachers are too busy taking knives and guns away from the kids to subject them to the latest techniques for making them into computer nerds. Thus, in spite of all its technical advances relating to human behavior the system to date has not been impressively successful in controlling human beings. The people whose behavior is fairly well under the control of the system are those of the type that might be called "bourgeois." But there are growing numbers of people who in one way or another are rebels against the system: welfare leaches, youth gangs cultists, satanists, nazis, radical environmentalists, militiamen, etc..
162. The system is currently engaged in a desperate struggle to overcome certain problems that threaten its survival, among which the problems of human behavior are the most important. If the system succeeds in acquiring sufficient control over human behavior quickly enough, it will probably survive. Otherwise it will break down. We think the issue will most likely be resolved within the next several decades, say 40 to 100 years.
163. Suppose the system survives the crisis of the next several decades. By that time it will have to have solved, or at least brought under control, the principal problems that confront it, in particular that of "socializing" human beings; that is, making people sufficiently docile so that their behavior no longer threatens the system. That being accomplished, it does not appear that there would be any further obstacle to the development of technology, and it would presumably advance toward its logical conclusion, which is complete control over everything on Earth, including human beings and all other important organisms. The system may become a unitary, monolithic organization, or it may be more or less fragmented and consist of a number of organizations coexisting in a relationship that includes elements of both cooperation and competition, just as today the government, the corporations and other large organizations both cooperate and compete with one another. Human freedom mostly will have vanished, because individuals and small groups will be impotent vis-a-vis large organizations armed with supertechnology and an arsenal of advanced psychological and biological tools for manipulating human beings, besides instruments of surveillance and physical coercion. Only a small number of people will have any real power, and even these probably will have only very limited freedom, because their behavior too will be regulated; just as today our politicians and corporation executives can retain their positions of power only as long as their behavior remains within certain fairly narrow limits.
164. Don't imagine that the systems will stop developing further techniques for controlling human beings and nature once the crisis of the next few decades is over and increasing control is no longer necessary for the system's survival. On the contrary, once the hard times are over the system will increase its control over people and nature more rapidly, because it will no longer be hampered by difficulties of the kind that it is currently experiencing. Survival is not the principal motive for extending control. As we explained in paragraphs 87-90, technicians and scientists carry on their work largely as a surrogate activity; that is, they satisfy their need for power by solving technical problems. They will continue to do this with unabated enthusiasm, and among the most interesting and challenging problems for them to solve will be those of understanding the human body and mind and intervening in their development. For the "good of humanity," of course.
165. But suppose on the other hand that the stresses of the coming decades prove to be too much for the system. If the system breaks down there may be a period of chaos, a "time of troubles" such as those that history has recorded: at various epochs in the past. It is impossible to predict what would emerge from such a time of troubles, but at any rate the human race would be given a new chance. The greatest danger is that industrial society may begin to reconstitute itself within the first few years after the breakdown. Certainly there will be many people (power-hungry types especially) who will be anxious to get the factories running again.
166. Therefore two tasks confront those who hate the servitude to which the industrial system is reducing the human race. First, we must work to heighten the social stresses within the system so as to increase the likelihood that it will break down or be weakened sufficiently so that a revolution against it becomes possible. Second, it is necessary to develop and propagate an ideology that opposes technology and the industrial society if and when the system becomes sufficiently weakened. And such an ideology will help to assure that, if and when industrial society breaks down, its remnants will be smashed beyond repair, so that the system cannot be reconstituted. The factories should be destroyed, technical books burned, etc.

HUMAN SUFFERING
167. The industrial system will not break down purely as a result of revolutionary action. It will not be vulnerable to revolutionary attack unless its own internal problems of development lead it into very serious difficulties. So if the system breaks down it will do so either spontaneously, or through a process that is in part spontaneous but helped along by revolutionaries. If the breakdown is sudden, many people will die, since the world's population has become so overblown that it cannot even feed itself any longer without advanced technology. Even if the breakdown is gradual enough so that reduction of the population can occur more through lowering of the birth rate than through elevation of the death rate, the process of de-industrialization probably will be very chaotic and involve much suffering. It is naive to think it likely that technology can be phased out in a smoothly managed orderly way, especially since the technophiles will fight stubbornly at every step. Is it therefore cruel to work for the breakdown of the system? Maybe, but maybe not. In the first place, revolutionaries will not be able to break the system down unless it is already in deep trouble so that there would be a good chance of its eventually breaking down by itself anyway; and the bigger the system grows, the more disastrous the consequences of its breakdown will be; so it may be that revolutionaries, by hastening the onset of the breakdown will be reducing the extent of the disaster.
168. In the second place, one has to balance the struggle and death against the loss of freedom and dignity. To many of us, freedom and dignity are more important than a long life or avoidance of physical pain. Besides, we all have to die some time, and it may be better to die fighting for survival, or for a cause, than to live a long but empty and purposeless life.
169. In the third place, it is not all certain that the survival of the system will lead to less suffering than the breakdown of the system would. The system has already caused, and is continuing to cause , immense suffering all over the world. Ancient cultures, that for hundreds of years gave people a satisfactory relationship with each other and their environment, have been shattered by contact with industrial society, and the result has been a whole catalogue of economic, environmental, social and psychological problems. One of the effects of the intrusion of industrial society has been that over much of the world traditional controls on population have been thrown out of balance. Hence the population explosion, with all that it implies. Then there is the psychological suffering that is widespread throughout the supposedly fortunate countries of the West (see paragraphs 44, 45). No one knows what will happen as a result of ozone depletion, the greenhouse effect and other environmental problems that cannot yet be foreseen. And, as nuclear proliferation has shown, new technology cannot be kept out of the hands of dictators and irresponsible Third World nations. Would you like to speculate abut what Iraq or North Korea will do with genetic engineering?
170. "Oh!" say the technophiles, "Science is going to fix all that! We will conquer famine, eliminate psychological suffering, make everybody healthy and happy!" Yeah, sure. That's what they said 200 years ago. The Industrial Revolution was supposed to eliminate poverty, make everybody happy, etc. The actual result has been quite different. The technophiles are hopelessly naive (or self-deceiving) in their understanding of social problems. They are unaware of (or choose to ignore) the fact that when large changes, even seemingly beneficial ones, are introduced into a society, they lead to a long sequence of other changes, most of which are impossible to predict (paragraph 103). The result is disruption of the society. So it is very probable that in their attempt to end poverty and disease, engineer docile, happy personalities and so forth, the technophiles will create social systems that are terribly troubled, even more so that the present one. For example, the scientists boast that they will end famine by creating new, genetically engineered food plants. But this will allow the human population to keep expanding indefinitely, and it is well known that crowding leads to increased stress and aggression. This is merely one example of the PREDICTABLE problems that will arise. We emphasize that, as past experience has shown, technical progress will lead to other new problems for society far more rapidly that it has been solving old ones. Thus it will take a long difficult period of trial and error for the technophiles to work the bugs out of their Brave New World (if they ever do). In the meantime there will be great suffering. So it is not all clear that the survival of industrial society would involve less suffering than the breakdown of that society would. Technology has gotten the human race into a fix from which there is not likely to be any easy escape.

THE FUTURE
171. But suppose now that industrial society does survive the next several decade and that the bugs do eventually get worked out of the system, so that it functions smoothly. What kind of system will it be? We will consider several possibilities.
172. First let us postulate that the computer scientists succeed in developing intelligent machines that can do all things better that human beings can do them. In that case presumably all work will be done by vast, highly organized systems of machines and no human effort will be necessary. Either of two cases might occur. The machines might be permitted to make all of their own decisions without human oversight, or else human control over the machines might be retained.
173. If the machines are permitted to make all their own decisions, we can't make any conjectures as to the results, because it is impossible to guess how such machines might behave. We only point out that the fate of the human race would be at the mercy of the machines. It might be argued that the human race would never be foolish enough to hand over all the power to the machines. But we are suggesting neither that the human race would voluntarily turn power over to the machines nor that the machines would willfully seize power. What we do suggest is that the human race might easily permit itself to drift into a position of such dependence on the machines that it would have no practical choice but to accept all of the machines decisions. As society and the problems that face it become more and more complex and machines become more and more intelligent, people will let machines make more of their decision for them, simply because machine-made decisions will bring better result than man-made ones. Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage the machines will be in effective control. People won't be able to just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would amount to suicide.
174. On the other hand it is possible that human control over the machines may be retained. In that case the average man may have control over certain private machines of his own, such as his car of his personal computer, but control over large systems of machines will be in the hands of a tiny elite - just as it is today, but with two difference. Due to improved techniques the elite will have greater control over the masses; and because human work will no longer be necessary the masses will be superfluous, a useless burden on the system. If the elite is ruthless the may simply decide to exterminate the mass of humanity. If they are humane they may use propaganda or other psychological or biological techniques to reduce the birth rate until the mass of humanity becomes extinct, leaving the world to the elite. Or, if the elite consist of soft-hearted liberals, they may decide to play the role of good shepherds to the rest of the human race. They will see to it that everyone's physical needs are satisfied, that all children are raised under psychologically hygienic conditions, that everyone has a wholesome hobby to keep him busy, and that anyone who may become dissatisfied undergoes "treatment" to cure his "problem." Of course, life will be so purposeless that people will have to be biologically or psychologically engineered either to remove their need for the power process or to make them "sublimate" their drive for power into some harmless hobby. These engineered human beings may be happy in such a society, but they most certainly will not be free. They will have been reduced to the status of domestic animals.
175. But suppose now that the computer scientists do not succeed in developing artificial intelligence, so that human work remains necessary. Even so, machines will take care of more and more of the simpler tasks so that there will be an increasing surplus of human workers at the lower levels of ability. (We see this happening already. There are many people who find it difficult or impossible to get work, because for intellectual or psychological reasons they cannot acquire the level of training necessary to make themselves useful in the present system.) On those who are employed, ever-increasing demands will be placed; They will need more and m ore training, more and more ability, and will have to be ever more reliable, conforming and docile, because they will be more and more like cells of a giant organism. Their tasks will be increasingly specialized so that their work will be, in a sense, out of touch with the real world, being concentrated on one tiny slice of reality. The system will have to use any means that I can, whether psychological or biological, to engineer people to be docile, to have the abilities that the system requires and to "sublimate" their drive for power into some specialized task. But the statement that the people of such a society will have to be docile may require qualification. The society may find competitiveness useful, provided that ways are found of directing competitiveness into channels that serve that needs of the system. We can imagine into channels that serve the needs of the system. We can imagine a future society in which there is endless competition for positions of prestige an power. But no more than a very few people will ever reach the top, where the only real power is (see end of paragraph 163). Very repellent is a society in which a person can satisfy his needs for power only by pushing large numbers of other people out of the way and depriving them of THEIR opportunity for power.
176. Once can envision scenarios that incorporate aspects of more than one of the possibilities that we have just discussed. For instance, it may be that machines will take over most of the work that is of real, practical importance, but that human beings will be kept busy by being given relatively unimportant work. It has been suggested, for example, that a great development of the service of industries might provide work for human beings. Thus people will would spend their time shinning each others shoes, driving each other around inn taxicab, making handicrafts for one another, waiting on each other's tables, etc. This seems to us a thoroughly contemptible way for the human race to end up, and we doubt that many people would find fulfilling lives in such pointless busy-work. They would seek other, dangerous outlets (drugs, , crime, "cults," hate groups) unless they were biological or psychologically engineered to adapt them to such a way of life.
177. Needless to day, the scenarios outlined above do not exhaust all the possibilities. They only indicate the kinds of outcomes that seem to us mots likely. But wee can envision no plausible scenarios that are any more palatable that the ones we've just described. It is overwhelmingly probable that if the industrial-technological system survives the next 40 to 100 years, it will by that time have developed certain general characteristics: Individuals (at least those of the "bourgeois" type, who are integrated into the system and make it run, and who therefore have all the power) will be more dependent than ever on large organizations; they will be more "socialized" that ever and their physical and mental qualities to a significant extent (possibly to a very great extent ) will be those that are engineered into them rather than being the results of chance (or of God's will, or whatever); and whatever may be left of wild nature will be reduced to remnants preserved for scientific study and kept under the supervision and management of scientists (hence it will no longer be truly wild). In the long run (say a few centuries from now) it is it is likely that neither the human race nor any other important organisms will exist as we know them today, because once you start modifying organisms through genetic engineering there is no reason to stop at any particular point, so that the modifications will probably continue until man and other organisms have been utterly transformed.
178. Whatever else may be the case, it is certain that technology is creating for human begins a new physical and social environment radically different from the spectrum of environments to which natural selection has adapted the human race physically and psychological. If man is not adjust to this new environment by being artificially re-engineered, then he will be adapted to it through a long an painful process of natural selection. The former is far more likely that the latter.
179. It would be better to dump the whole stinking system and take the consequences.

STRATEGY
180. The technophiles are taking us all on an utterly reckless ride into the unknown. Many people understand something of what technological progress is doing to us yet take a passive attitude toward it because they think it is inevitable. But we (FC) don't think it is inevitable. We think it can be stopped, and we will give here some indications of how to go about stopping it.
181. As we stated in paragraph 166, the two main tasks for the present are to promote social stress and instability in industrial society and to develop and propagate an ideology that opposes technology and the industrial system. When the system becomes sufficiently stressed and unstable, a revolution against technology may be possible. The pattern would be similar to that of the French and Russian Revolutions. French society and Russian society, for several decades prior to their respective revolutions, showed increasing signs of stress and weakness. Meanwhile, ideologies were being developed that offered a new world view that was quite different from the old one. In the Russian case, revolutionaries were actively working to undermine the old order. Then, when the old system was put under sufficient additional stress (by financial crisis in France, by military defeat in Russia) it was swept away by revolution. What we propose in something along the same lines.
182. It will be objected that the French and Russian Revolutions were failures. But most revolutions have two goals. One is to destroy an old form of society and the other is to set up the new form of society envisioned by the revolutionaries. The French and Russian revolutionaries failed (fortunately!) to create the new kind of society of which they dreamed, but they were quite successful in destroying the existing form of society.
183. But an ideology, in order to gain enthusiastic support, must have a positive ideals well as a negative one; it must be FOR something as well as AGAINST something. The positive ideal that we propose is Nature. That is , WILD nature; those aspects of the functioning of the Earth and its living things that are independent of human management and free of human interference and control. And with wild nature we include human nature, by which we mean those aspects of the functioning of the human individual that are not subject to regulation by organized society but are products of chance, or free will, or God (depending on your religious or philosophical opinions).
184. Nature makes a perfect counter-ideal to technology for several reasons. Nature (that which is outside the power of the system) is the opposite of technology (which seeks to expand indefinitely the power of the system). Most people will agree that nature is beautiful; certainly it has tremendous popular appeal. The radical environmentalists ALREADY hold an ideology that exalts nature and opposes technology. [30] It is not necessary for the sake of nature to set up some chimerical utopia or any new kind of social order. Nature takes care of itself: It was a spontaneous creation that existed long before any human society, and for countless centuries many different kinds of human societies coexisted with nature without doing it an excessive amount of damage. Only with the Industrial Revolution did the effect of human society on nature become really devastating. To relieve the pressure on nature it is not necessary to create a special kind of social system, it is only necessary to get rid of industrial society. Granted, this will not solve all problems. Industrial society has already done tremendous damage to nature and it will take a very long time for the scars to heal. Besides, even pre-industrial societies can do significant damage to nature. Nevertheless, getting rid of industrial society will accomplish a great deal. It will relieve the worst of the pressure on nature so that the scars can begin to heal. It will remove the capacity of organized society to keep increasing its control over nature (including human nature). Whatever kind of society may exist after the demise of the industrial system, it is certain that most people will live close to nature, because in the absence of advanced technology there is not other way that people CAN live. To feed themselves they must be peasants or herdsmen or fishermen or hunter, etc., And, generally speaking, local autonomy should tend to increase, because lack of advanced technology and rapid communications will limit the capacity of governments or other large organizations to control local communities.
185. As for the negative consequences of eliminating industrial society - well, you can't eat your cake and have it too. To gain one thing you have to sacrifice another.
186. Most people hate psychological conflict. For this reason they avoid doing any serious thinking about difficult social issues, and they like to have such issues presented to them in simple, black-and-white terms: THIS is all good and THAT is all bad. The revolutionary ideology should therefore be developed on two levels.
187. On the more sophisticated level the ideology should address itself to people who are intelligent, thoughtful and rational. The object should be to create a core of people who will be opposed to the industrial system on a rational, thought-out basis, with full appreciation of the problems and ambiguities involved, and of the price that has to be paid for getting rid of the system. It is particularly important to attract people of this type, as they are capable people and will be instrumental in influencing others. These people should be addressed on as rational a level as possible. Facts should never intentionally be distorted and intemperate language should be avoided. This does not mean that no appeal can be made to the emotions, but in making such appeal care should be taken to avoid misrepresenting the truth or doing anything else that would destroy the intellectual respectability of the ideology.
188. On a second level, the ideology should be propagated in a simplified form that will enable the unthinking majority to see the conflict of technology vs. nature in unambiguous terms. But even on this second level the ideology should not be expressed in language that is so cheap, intemperate or irrational that it alienates people of the thoughtful and rational type. Cheap, intemperate propaganda sometimes achieves impressive short-term gains, but it will be more advantageous in the long run to keep the loyalty of a small number of intelligently committed people than to arouse the passions of an unthinking, fickle mob who will change their attitude as soon as someone comes along with a better propaganda gimmick. However, propaganda of the rabble-rousing type may be necessary when the system is nearing the point of collapse and there is a final struggle between rival ideologies to determine which will become dominant when the old world-view goes under.
189. Prior to that final struggle, the revolutionaries should not expect to have a majority of people on their side. History is made by active, determined minorities, not by the majority, which seldom has a clear and consistent idea of what it really wants. Until the time comes for the final push toward revolution [31], the task of revolutionaries will be less to win the shallow support of the majority than to build a small core of deeply committed people. As for the majority, it will be enough to make them aware of the existence of the new ideology and remind them of it frequently; though of course it will be desirable to get majority support to the extent that this can be done without weakening the core of seriously committed people.
190. Any kind of social conflict helps to destabilize the system, but one should be careful about what kind of conflict one encourages. The line of conflict should be drawn between the mass of the people and the power-holding elite of industrial society (politicians, scientists, upper-level business executives, government officials, etc..). It should NOT be drawn between the revolutionaries and the mass of the people. For example, it would be bad strategy for the revolutionaries to condemn Americans for their habits of consumption. Instead, the average American should be portrayed as a victim of the advertising and marketing industry, which has suckered him into buying a lot of junk that he doesn't need and that is very poor compensation for his lost freedom. Either approach is consistent with the facts. It is merely a matter of attitude whether you blame the advertising industry for manipulating the public or blame the public for allowing itself to be manipulated. As a matter of strategy one should generally avoid blaming the public.
191. One should think twice before encouraging any other social conflict than that between the power-holding elite (which wields technology) and the general public (over which technology exerts its power). For one thing, other conflicts tend to distract attention from the important conflicts (between power-elite and ordinary people, between technology and nature); for another thing, other conflicts may actually tend to encourage technologization, because each side in such a conflict wants to use technological power to gain advantages over its adversary. This is clearly seen in rivalries between nations. It also appears in ethnic conflicts within nations. For example, in America many black leaders are anxious to gain power for African Americans by placing back individuals in the technological power-elite. They want there to be many black government officials, scientists, corporation executives and so forth. In this way they are helping to absorb the African American subculture into the technological system. Generally speaking, one should encourage only those social conflicts that can be fitted into the framework of the conflicts of power - elite vs. ordinary people, technology vs nature.
192. But the way to discourage ethnic conflict is NOT through militant advocacy of minority rights (see paragraphs 21, 29). Instead, the revolutionaries should emphasize that although minorities do suffer more or less disadvantage, this disadvantage is of peripheral significance. Our real enemy is the industrial-technological system, and in the struggle against the system, ethnic distinctions are of no importance.
193. The kind of revolution we have in mind will not necessarily involve an armed uprising against any government. It may or may not involve physical violence, but it will not be a POLITICAL revolution. Its focus will be on technology and economics, not politics. [32]
194. Probably the revolutionaries should even AVOID assuming political power, whether by legal or illegal means, until the industrial system is stressed to the danger point and has proved itself to be a failure in the eyes of most people. Suppose for example that some "green" party should win control of the United States Congress in an election. In order to avoid betraying or watering down their own ideology they would have to take vigorous measures to turn economic growth into economic shrinkage. To the average man the results would appear disastrous: There would be massive unemployment, shortages of commodities, etc. Even if the grosser ill effects could be avoided through superhumanly skillful management, still people would have to begin giving up the luxuries to which they have become addicted. Dissatisfaction would grow, the "green" party would be voted out of of fice and the revolutionaries would have suffered a severe setback. For this reason the revolutionaries should not try to acquire political power until the system has gotten itself into such a mess that any hardships will be seen as resulting from the failures of the industrial system itself and not from the policies of the revolutionaries. The revolution against technology will probably have to be a revolution by outsiders, a revolution from below and not from above.
195. The revolution must be international and worldwide. It cannot be carried out on a nation-by-nation basis. Whenever it is suggested that the United States, for example, should cut back on technological progress or economic growth, people get hysterical and start screaming that if we fall behind in technology the Japanese will get ahead of us. Holy robots The world will fly off its orbit if the Japanese ever sell more cars than we do! (Nationalism is a great promoter of technology.) More reasonably, it is argued that if the relatively democratic nations of the world fall behind in technology while nasty, dictatorial nations like China, Vietnam and North Korea continue to progress, eventually the dictators may come to dominate the world. That is why the industrial system should be attacked in all nations simultaneously, to the extent that this may be possible. True, there is no assurance that the industrial system can be destroyed at approximately the same time all over the world, and it is even conceivable that the attempt to overthrow the system could lead instead to the domination of the system by dictators. That is a risk that has to be taken. And it is worth taking, since the difference between a "democratic" industrial system and one controlled by dictators is small compared with the difference between an industrial system and a non-industrial one. [33] It might even be argued that an industrial system controlled by dictators would be preferable, because dictator-controlled systems usually have proved inefficient, hence they are presumably more likely to break down. Look at Cuba.
196. Revolutionaries might consider favoring measures that tend to bind the world economy into a unified whole. Free trade agreements like NAFTA and GATT are probably harmful to the environment in the short run, but in the long run they may perhaps be advantageous because they foster economic interdependence between nations. I will be eaier to destroy the industrial system on a worldwide basis if he world economy is so unified that its breakdown in any on major nation will lead to its breakdwon in al industrialized nations.
the long run they may perhaps be advantageous because they foster economic interdependence between nations. It will be easier to destroy the industrial system on a worldwide basis if the world economy is so unified that its breakdown in any one major nation will lead to its breakdown in all industrialized nations.
197. Some people take the line that modern man has too much power, too much control over nature; they argue for a more passive attitude on the part of the human race. At best these people are expressing themselves unclearly, because they fail to distinguish between power for LARGE ORGANIZATIONS and power for INDIVIDUALS and SMALL GROUPS. It is a mistake to argue for powerlessness and passivity, because people NEED power. Modern man as a collective entity - that is, the industrial system - has immense power over nature, and we (FC) regard this as evil. But modern INDIVIDUALS and SMALL GROUPS OF INDIVIDUALS have far less power than primitive man ever did. Generally speaking, the vast power of "modern man" over nature is exercised not by individuals or small groups but by large organizations. To the extent that the average modern INDIVIDUAL can wield the power of technology, he is permitted to do so only within narrow limits and only under the supervision and control of the system. (You need a license for everything and with the license come rules and regulations). The individual has only those technological powers with which the system chooses to provide him. His PERSONAL power over nature is slight.
198. Primitive INDIVIDUALS and SMALL GROUPS actually had considerable power over nature; or maybe it would be better to say power WITHIN nature. When primitive man needed food he knew how to find and prepare edible roots, how to track game and take it with homemade weapons. He knew how to protect himself from heat, cold, rain, dangerous animals, etc. But primitive man did relatively little damage to nature because the COLLECTIVE power of primitive society was negligible compared to the COLLECTIVE power of industrial society.
199. Instead of arguing for powerlessness and passivity, one should argue that the power of the INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM should be broken, and that this will greatly INCREASE the power and freedom of INDIVIDUALS and SMALL GROUPS.
200. Until the industrial system has been thoroughly wrecked, the destruction of that system must be the revolutionaries' ONLY goal. Other goals would distract attention and energy from the main goal. More importantly, if the revolutionaries permit themselves to have any other goal than the destruction of technology, they will be tempted to use technology as a tool for reaching that other goal. If they give in to that temptation, they will fall right back into the technological trap, because modern technology is a unified, tightly organized system, so that, in order to retain SOME technology, one finds oneself obliged to retain MOST technology, hence one ends up sacrificing only token amounts of technology.
201. Suppose for example that the revolutionaries took "social justice" as a goal. Human nature being what it is, social justice would not come about spontaneously; it would have to be enforced. In order to enforce it the revolutionaries would have to retain central organization and control. For that they would need rapid long-distance transportation and communication, and therefore all the technology needed to support the transportation and communication systems. To feed and clothe poor people they would have to use agricultural and manufacturing technology. And so forth. So that the attempt to insure social justice would force them to retain most parts of the technological system. Not that we have anything against social justice, but it must not be allowed to interfere with the effort to get rid of the technological system.
202. It would be hopeless for revolutionaries to try to attack the system without using SOME modern technology. If nothing else they must use the communications media to spread their message. But they should use modern technology for only ONE purpose: to attack the technological system.
203. Imagine an alcoholic sitting with a barrel of wine in front of him. Suppose he starts saying to himself, "Wine isn't bad for you if used in moderation. Why, they say small amounts of wine are even good for you! It won't do me any harm if I take just one little drink..." Well you know what is going to happen. Never forget that the human race with technology is just like an alcoholic with a barrel of wine.
204. Revolutionaries should have as many children as they can. There is strong scientific evidence that social attitudes are to a significant extent inherited. No one suggests that a social attitude is a direct outcome of a person's genetic constitution, but it appears that personality traits tend, within the context of our society, to make a person more likely to hold this or that social attitude. Objections to these findings have been raised, but objections are feeble and seem to be ideologically motivated. In any event, no one denies that children tend on the average to hold social attitudes similar to those of their parents. From our point of view it doesn't matter all that much whether the attitudes are passed on genetically or through childhood training. In either case the ARE passed on.
205. The trouble is that many of the people who are inclined to rebel against the industrial system are also concerned about the population problems, hence they are apt to have few or no children. In this way they may be handing the world over to the sort of people who support or at least accept the industrial system. To insure the strength of the next generation of revolutionaries the present generation must reproduce itself abundantly. In doing so they will be worsening the population problem only slightly. And the most important problem is to get rid of the industrial system, because once the industrial system is gone the world's population necessarily will decrease (see paragraph 167); whereas, if the industrial system survives, it will continue developing new techniques of food production that may enable the world's population to keep increasing almost indefinitely.
206. With regard to revolutionary strategy, the only points on which we absolutely insist are that the single overriding goal must be the elimination of modern technology, and that no other goal can be allowed to compete with this one. For the rest, revolutionaries should take an empirical approach. If experience indicates that some of the recommendations made in the foregoing paragraphs are not going to give good results, then those recommendations should be discarded.

TWO KINDS OF TECHNOLOGY
207. An argument likely to be raised against our proposed revolution is that it is bound to fail, because (it is claimed) throughout history technology has always progressed, never regressed, hence technological regression is impossible. But this claim is false.
208. We distinguish between two kinds of technology, which we will call small-scale technology and organization-dependent technology. Small-scale technology is technology that can be used by small-scale communities without outside assistance. Organization-dependent technology is technology that depends on large-scale social organization. We are aware of no significant cases of regression in small-scale technology. But organization-dependent technology DOES regress when the social organization on which it depends breaks down. Example: When the Roman Empire fell apart the Romans' small-scale technology survived because any clever village craftsman could build, for instance, a water wheel, any skilled smith could make steel by Roman methods, and so forth. But the Romans' organization-dependent technology DID regress. Their aqueducts fell into disrepair and were never rebuilt. Their techniques of road construction were lost. The Roman system of urban sanitation was forgotten, so that until rather recent times did the sanitation of European cities that of Ancient Rome.
209. The reason why technology has seemed always to progress is that, until perhaps a century or two before the Industrial Revolution, most technology was small-scale technology. But most of the technology developed since the Industrial Revolution is organization-dependent technology. Take the refrigerator for example. Without factory-made parts or the facilities of a post-industrial machine shop it would be virtually impossible for a handful of local craftsmen to build a refrigerator. If by some miracle they did succeed in building one it would be useless to them without a reliable source of electric power. So they would have to dam a stream and build a generator. Generators require large amounts of copper wire. Imagine trying to make that wire without modern machinery. And where would they get a gas suitable for refrigeration? It would be much easier to build an icehouse or preserve food by drying or picking, as was done before the invention of the refrigerator.
210. So it is clear that if the industrial system were once thoroughly broken down, refrigeration technology would quickly be lost. The same is true of other organization-dependent technology. And once this technology had been lost for a generation or so it would take centuries to rebuild it, just as it took centuries to build it the first time around. Surviving technical books would be few and scattered. An industrial society, if built from scratch without outside help, can only be built in a series of stages: You need tools to make tools to make tools to make tools ... . A long process of economic development and progress in social organization is required. And, even in the absence of an ideology opposed to technology, there is no reason to believe that anyone would be interested in rebuilding industrial society. The enthusiasm for "progress" is a phenomenon particular to the modern form of society, and it seems not to have existed prior to the 17th century or thereabouts.
211. In the late Middle Ages there were four main civilizations that were about equally "advanced": Europe, the Islamic world, India, and the Far East (China, Japan, Korea). Three of those civilizations remained more or less stable, and only Europe became dynamic. No one knows why Europe became dynamic at that time; historians have their theories but these are only speculation. At any rate, it is clear that rapid development toward a technological form of society occurs only under special conditions. So there is no reason to assume that long-lasting technological regression cannot be brought about.
212. Would society EVENTUALLY develop again toward an industrial-technological form? Maybe, but there is no use in worrying about it, since we can't predict or control events 500 or 1,000 years in the future. Those problems must be dealt with by the people who will live at that time.

THE DANGER OF LEFTISM
213. Because of their need for rebellion and for membership in a movement, leftists or persons of similar psychological type are often unattracted to a rebellious or activist movement whose goals and membership are not initially leftist. The resulting influx of leftish types can easily turn a non-leftist movement into a leftist one, so that leftist goals replace or distort the original goals of the movement.
214. To avoid this, a movement that exalts nature and opposes technology must take a resolutely anti-leftist stance and must avoid all collaboration with leftists. Leftism is in the long run inconsistent with wild nature, with human freedom and with the elimination of modern technology. Leftism is collectivist; it seeks to bind together the entire world (both nature and the human race) into a unified whole. But this implies management of nature and of human life by organized society, and it requires advanced technology. You can't have a united world without rapid transportation and communication, you can't make all people love one another without sophisticated psychological techniques, you can't have a "planned society" without the necessary technological base. Above all, leftism is driven by the need for power, and the leftist seeks power on a collective basis, through identification with a mass movement or an organization. Leftism is unlikely ever to give up technology, because technology is too valuable a source of collective power.
215. The anarchist [34] too seeks power, but he seeks it on an individual or small-group basis; he wants individuals and small groups to be able to control the circumstances of their own lives. He opposes technology because it makes small groups dependent on large organizations.
216. Some leftists may seem to oppose technology, but they will oppose it only so long as they are outsiders and the technological system is controlled by non-leftists. If leftism ever becomes dominant in society, so that the technological system becomes a tool in the hands of leftists, they will enthusiastically use it and promote its growth. In doing this they will be repeating a pattern that leftism has shown again and again in the past. When the Bolsheviks in Russia were outsiders, they vigorously opposed censorship and the secret police, they advocated self-determination for ethnic minorities, and so forth; but as soon as they came into power themselves, they imposed a tighter censorship and created a more ruthless secret police than any that had existed under the tsars, and they oppressed ethnic minorities at least as much as the tsars had done. In the United States, a couple of decades ago when leftists were a minority in our universities, leftist professors were vigorous proponents of academic freedom, but today, in those universities where leftists have become dominant, they have shown themselves ready to take away from everyone else's academic freedom. (This is "political correctness.") The same will happen with leftists and technology: They will use it to oppress everyone else if they ever get it under their own control.
217. In earlier revolutions, leftists of the most power-hungry type, repeatedly, have first cooperated with non-leftist revolutionaries, as well as with leftists of a more libertarian inclination, and later have double-crossed them to seize power for themselves. Robespierre did this in the French Revolution, the Bolsheviks did it in the Russian Revolution, the communists did it in Spain in 1938 and Castro and his followers did it in Cuba. Given the past history of leftism, it would be utterly foolish for non-leftist revolutionaries today to collaborate with leftists.
218. Various thinkers have pointed out that leftism is a kind of religion. Leftism is not a religion in the strict sense because leftist doctrine does not postulate the existence of any supernatural being. But for the leftist, leftism plays a psychological role much like that which religion plays for some people. The leftist NEEDS to believe in leftism; it plays a vital role in his psychological economy. His beliefs are not easily modified by logic or facts. He has a deep conviction that leftism is morally Right with a capital R, and that he has not only a right but a duty to impose leftist morality on everyone. (However, many of the people we are referring to as "leftists" do not think of themselves as leftists and would not describe their system of beliefs as leftism. We use the term "leftism" because we don't know of any better words to designate the spectrum of related creeds that includes the feminist, gay rights, political correctness, etc., movements, and because these movements have a strong affinity with the old left. See paragraphs 227-230.)
219. Leftism is totalitarian force. Wherever leftism is in a position of power it tends to invade every private corner and force every thought into a leftist mold. In part this is because of the quasi-religious character of leftism; everything contrary to leftists beliefs represents Sin. More importantly, leftism is a totalitarian force because of the leftists' drive for power. The leftist seeks to satisfy his need for power through identification with a social movement and he tries to go through the power process by helping to pursue and attain the goals of the movement (see paragraph 83). But no matter how far the movement has gone in attaining its goals the leftist is never satisfied, because his activism is a surrogate activity (see paragraph 41). That is, the leftist's real motive is not to attain the ostensible goals of leftism; in reality he is motivated by the sense of power he gets from struggling for and then reaching a social goal.[35]
Consequently the leftist is never satisfied with the goals he has already attained; his need for the power process leads him always to pursue some new goal. The leftist wants equal opportunities for minorities. When that is attained he insists on statistical equality of achievement by minorities. And as long as anyone harbors in some corner of his mind a negative attitude toward some minority, the leftist has to re-educated him. And ethnic minorities are not enough; no one can be allowed to have a negative attitude toward homosexuals, disabled people, fat people, old people, ugly people, and on and on and on. It's not enough that the public should be informed about the hazards of smoking; a warning has to be stamped on every package of cigarettes. Then cigarette advertising has to be restricted if not banned. The activists will never be satisfied until tobacco is outlawed, and after that it will be alco hot then junk food, etc. Activists have fought gross child abuse, which is reasonable. But now they want to stop all spanking. When they have done that they will want to ban something else they consider unwholesome, then another thing and then another. They will never be satisfied until they have complete control over all child rearing practices. And then they will move on to another cause.
220. Suppose you asked leftists to make a list of ALL the things that were wrong with society, and then suppose you instituted EVERY social change that they demanded. It is safe to say that within a couple of years the majority of leftists would find something new to complain about, some new social "evil" to correct because, once again, the leftist is motivated less by distress at society's ills than by the need to satisfy his drive for power by imposing his solutions on society.
221. Because of the restrictions placed on their thoughts and behavior by their high level of socialization, many leftists of the over-socialized type cannot pursue power in the ways that other people do. For them the drive for power has only one morally acceptable outlet, and that is in the struggle to impose their morality on everyone.
222. Leftists, especially those of the oversocialized type, are True Believers in the sense of Eric Hoffer's book, "The True Believer." But not all True Believers are of the same psychological type as leftists. Presumably a truebelieving nazi, for instance is very different psychologically from a truebelieving leftist. Because of their capacity for single-minded devotion to a cause, True Believers are a useful, perhaps a necessary, ingredient of any revolutionary movement. This presents a problem with which we must admit we don't know how to deal. We aren't sure how to harness the energies of the True Believer to a revolution against technology. At present all we can say is that no True Believer will make a safe recruit to the revolution unless his commitment is exclusively to the destruction of technology. If he is committed also to another ideal, he may want to use technology as a tool for pursuing that other ideal (see paragraphs 220, 221).
223. Some readers may say, "This stuff about leftism is a lot of crap. I know John and Jane who are leftish types and they don't have all these totalitarian tendencies." It's quite true that many leftists, possibly even a numerical majority, are decent people who sincerely believe in tolerating others' values (up to a point) and wouldn't want to use high-handed methods to reach their social goals. Our remarks about leftism are not meant to apply to every individual leftist but to describe the general character of leftism as a movement. And the general character of a movement is not necessarily determined by the numerical proportions of the various kinds of people involved in the movement.
224. The people who rise to positions of power in leftist movements tend to be leftists of the most power-hungry type because power-hungry people are those who strive hardest to get into positions of power. Once the power-hungry types have captured control of the movement, there are many leftists of a gentler breed who inwardly disapprove of many of the actions of the leaders, but cannot bring themselves to oppose them. They NEED their faith in the movement, and because they cannot give up this faith they go along with the leaders. True, SOME leftists do have the guts to oppose the totalitarian tendencies that emerge, but they generally lose, because the power-hungry types are better organized, are more ruthless and Machiavellian and have taken care to build themselves a strong power base.
225. These phenomena appeared clearly in Russia and other countries that were taken over by leftists. Similarly, before the breakdown of communism in the USSR, leftish types in the West would seldom criticize that country. If prodded they would admit that the USSR did many wrong things, but then they would try to find excuses for the communists and begin talking about the faults of the West. They always opposed Western military resistance to communist aggression. Leftish types all over the world vigorously protested the U.S. military action in Vietnam, but when the USSR invaded Afghanistan they did nothing. Not that they approved of the Soviet actions; but because of their leftist faith, they just couldn't bear to put themselves in opposition to communism. Today, in those of our universities where "political correctness" has become dominant, there are probably many leftish types who privately disapprove of the suppression of academic freedom, but they go along with it anyway.
226. Thus the fact that many individual leftists are personally mild and fairly tolerant people by no means prevents leftism as a whole form having a totalitarian tendency.
227. Our discussion of leftism has a serious weakness. It is still far from clear what we mean by the word "leftist." There doesn't seem to be much we can do about this. Today leftism is fragmented into a whole spectrum of activist movements. Yet not all activist movements are leftist, and some activist movements (e.g.., radical environmentalism) seem to include both personalities of the leftist type and personalities of thoroughly un-leftist types who ought to know better than to collaborate with leftists. Varieties of leftists fade out gradually into varieties of non-leftists and we ourselves would often be hard-pressed to decide whether a given individual is or is not a leftist. To the extent that it is defined at all, our conception of leftism is defined by the discussion of it that we have given in this article, and we can only advise the reader to use his own judgment in deciding who is a leftist.
228. But it will be helpful to list some criteria for diagnosing leftism. These criteria cannot be applied in a cut and dried manner. Some individuals may meet some of the criteria without being leftists, some leftists may not meet any of the criteria. Again, you just have to use your judgment.
229. The leftist is oriented toward largescale collectivism. He emphasizes the duty of the individual to serve society and the duty of society to take care of the individual. He has a negative attitude toward individualism. He often takes a moralistic tone. He tends to be for gun control, for sex education and other psychologically "enlightened" educational methods, for planning, for affirmative action, for multiculturalism. He tends to identify with victims. He tends to be against competition and against violence, but he often finds excuses for those leftists who do commit violence. He is fond of using the common catch-phrases of the left like "racism, " "sexism, " "homophobia, " "capitalism," "imperialism," "neocolonialism " "genocide," "social change," "social justice," "social responsibility." Maybe the best diagnostic trait of the leftist is his tendency to sympathize with the following movements: feminism, gay rights, ethnic rights, disability rights, animal rights political correctness. Anyone who strongly sympathizes with ALL of these movements is almost certainly a leftist. [36]
230. The more dangerous leftists, that is, those who are most power-hungry, are often characterized by arrogance or by a dogmatic approach to ideology. However, the most dangerous leftists of all may be certain oversocialized types who avoid irritating displays of aggressiveness and refrain from advertising their leftism, but work quietly and unobtrusively to promote collectivist values, "enlightened" psychological techniques for socializing children, dependence of the individual on the system, and so forth. These crypto-leftists (as we may call them) approximate certain bourgeois types as far as practical action is concerned, but differ from them in psychology, ideology and motivation. The ordinary bourgeois tries to bring people under control of the system in order to protect his way of life, or he does so simply because his attitudes are conventional. The crypto-leftist tries to bring people under control of the system because he is a True Believer in a collectivistic ideology. The crypto-leftist is differentiated from the average leftist of the oversocialized type by the fact that his rebellious impulse is weaker and he is more securely socialized. He is differentiated from the ordinary well-socialized bourgeois by the fact that there is some deep lack within him that makes it necessary for him to devote himself to a cause and immerse himself in a collectivity. And maybe his (well-sublimated) drive for power is stronger than that of the average bourgeois.

FINAL NOTE
231. Throughout this article we've made imprecise statements and statements that ought to have had all sorts of qualifications and reservations attached to them; and some of our statements may be flatly false. Lack of sufficient information and the need for brevity made it impossible for us to fomulate our assertions more precisely or add all the necessary qualifications. And of course in a discussion of this
kind one must rely heavily on intuitive judgment, and that can sometimes be wrong. So we don't claim that this article expresses more than a crude approximation to the truth.
232. All the same we are reasonably confident that the general outlines of the picture we have painted here are roughly correct. We have portrayed leftism in its modern form as a phenomenon peculiar to our time and as a symptom of the disruption of the power process. But we might possibly be wrong about this. Oversocialized types who try to satisfy their drive for power by imposing their morality on everyone have certainly been around for a long time. But we THINK that the decisive role played by feelings of inferiority, low self-esteem, powerlessness, identification with victims by people who are not themselves victims, is a peculiarity of modern leftism. Identification with victims by people not themselves victims can be seen to some extent in 19th century leftism and early Christianity but as far as we can make out, symptoms of low self-esteem, etc., were not nearly so evident in these movements, or in any other movements, as they are in modern leftism. But we are not in a position to assert confidently that no such movements have existed prior to modern leftism. This is a significant question to which historians ought to give their attention.

they never ask me

"why are you getting dressed"
they ask, and i tell them
that i have to get going

they never ask me to stay

so that it wasn't very crowded. And
the ride was the same as the el train
always is:

some people reading a paper, a woman
putting on her make-up, most
just staring

out the window at the aging, rattling
tracks, the smattering of gang
graffiti on the

nearby buildings. Ordinary day in
Chicago, slightly overcast. I wear
my sunglasses

just to avoid eye contact with other
train members. We all know this
code: we know

we have to somehow keep our
sense of personal space, our
sense of selves.

I hear a bit of a scuffle behind me,
more the moving of people than
an argument;

nothing to ponder over. Then
a gunshot rings out. I turn around
and catch

a glimpse of two men struggling.
Instantly I duck down, as most
others do.

I crawl down to the floor in front
of my seat, trying to protect
myself, having

no idea who has the gun or which
direction the gun is pointing. I
don't even know

if this seat in front of me could
protect me from a bullet. There are
screams everywhere;

the gun occasionally going off.
I try to look to see if anyone
was shot, but

am afraid of being in the line
of fire. Another few men jump
in the fight,

in an effort to stop the gunman.
Why is this happening? Was it
an argument,

or just someone on a shooting
spree? The el comes to a screeching
halt at a stop,

and now comes the question: do we
make a run for it, and risk death,
or will the

gunman try to escape out the doors?
The train ride to here seemed an
eternity,

and now none of us even knows
if we should try to get off the train.
The doors

don't open. I hear a few gun-
shots; two men scream. The doors
finally open.

A barrage of policemen cover the
doorways. I could glance up and
see them.

Many more screams. They don't
seem to end. The policemen
rush the

gunman, shoot him before he could
shoot anybody else. It was over.
The next two

hours were spent on the train and
platform answering questions. I
had nothing

to offer them; I barely saw what
happened. They informed me that
it was not an

argument but a man trying to stop
a man about to go on a shooting
spree. Then

the man that survived the struggle
walked up to me, and when no one
was listening

told me that the gunman walked
down the aisle, stopped four chairs
short of mine,

and aimed for my head. That was
when he jumped up to stop him.
That man

was out to kill me. But I've never
met him before, I said, and the man
said he didn't

need to know my reply, just wanted
to let me know why all this
happened.

This man's intentions were to kill
me. But why? Did he think I was
someone else?

And now I think of this every day,
the answers still not coming to me.
And I still

have this burden to carry with me,
that all these people died, all of these
people witnessed

this event, and in a way I couldn't
explain or justify, it was all because
of me.

And this is my burden. All this pain.
All this guilt. All these unanswered
questions.

A depressed young woman from a Manhattan finishing school was so desperate that she decided to end her life by throwing herself into the ocean. When she went down to the docks, a handsome young sailor noticed her tears, took pity on her, and said, "Look, you've got a lot to live for. I'm off to Europe in the morning, and if you like, I can stow you away on my ship. I'll take good care of you and bring you food every day."
"Moving closer, he slipped his arm around her shoulder and added, "I'll keep you happy, and you'll keep me happy."
The girl nodded. What did she have to lose?
That night, the sailor brought her aboard and hid her in a lifeboat.
From then on, every night he brought her three sandwiches and a piece of fruit, and they made passionate love until dawn.
Three weeks later, during a routine search, she was discovered by the captain.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
"I had an arrangement with one of the sailors," she explained. "He's taking me to Europe, and every night he came and screwed me."
"He sure did, lady," said the captain. "This is the Staten Island Ferry."

A hippie gets onto a bus and proceeds to sit next to a Nun in the front seat. The Hippie looks over and asks the Nun if she would have sex with him. The Nun surprised by the question politely declines and gets off at the next stop. When the bus starts on it's way the bus driver says to the hippie,"if you want I can tell you how you can get that nun to have sex with you." the hippie of course says that he'd love to know so the bus driver tells him that the every Tuesday evening at midnight the nun goes to the cemetery to pray to the lord. "If you went dressed in robes and some glowing powder,"said the bus driver(male)"you could tell her you were God and command her to have sex with you." Well the Hippie decides to try this out so that Tuesday he goes to the cemetery and waits for the nun. And right on schedule the nun shows up. When she's in the middle of praying the hippie walks out from hiding, in robes and glowing with a mask of god. "I am God, I have heard your prayers and I will answer them but you must have sex with me first." The nun agrees but asks for anal sex so she might keep her virginity. The hippie agrees to this and quickly sets about to go to work on the nun. After the Hippie finishes, he rips off his mask and shouts out,"Ha ha, I'm the hippie!!" The nun replied by whipping off her mask and shouting,"Ha ha, I'm the bus driver!!"

The following is a sampling of REAL answers received on exams given by the California Department of Transportation's driving school (read Saturday Traffic School for moving violation offenders.)
Q: Do you yield when a blind pedestrian is crossing the road?
A: What for? He can't see my license plate.
Q: Who has the right of way when four cars approach a four-way stop at the same time?
A: The pick up truck with the gun rack and the bumper sticker saying "Guns don't kill people. I do."
Q: What are the important safety tips to remember when backing in your car?
A: Always wear a condom.
Q: When driving through fog, what should you use?
A: Your car.
Q: How can you reduce the possibility of having an accident?
A: Be too shit-faced to find your keys.
Q: What problems would you face if you were arrested for drunk driving?
A: I'd probably lose my buzz a lot faster.
Q: What changes would occur in your lifestyle if you could no longer drive lawfully?
A: I would be forced to drive unlawfully.
Q: What are some points to remember when passing or being passed?
A: Make eye contact and wave "hello" if he/she is cute.
Q: What is the difference between a flashing red traffic light and a flashing yellow traffic light?
A: The color.
Q: How do you deal with heavy traffic?
A: Heavy psychedelics.
Q: What can you do to help ease a heavy traffic problem?
A: Carry loaded weapons.

Two young guys were picked up by the cops for smoking dope and appeared in court before the judge. The judge said, "You seem like nice young men, and I'd like to give you a second chance rather than jail time. I want you to go out this weekend and try to show others the evils of drug use and get them to give up drugs forever. I'll see you back in court Monday."
Monday, the two guys were in court, and the judge said to the first one,"How did you do over the weekend?"
"Well, your honor, I persuaded 17 people to give up drugs forever."
"17 people? That's wonderful. What did you tell them?"
"I used a diagram, your honor. I drew two circles, one big and one small, and told them this (the big circle) is your brain before drugs and this (small circle) is your brain after drugs."
"That's admirable," said the judge. "And you, how did you do?" (to the 2nd boy)
"Well, your honor, I persuaded 156 people to give up drugs forever."
"156 people! That's amazing! How did you manage to do that!"
"Well, I used a similar approach. (draws two circles) I said (pointing to small circle) this is your asshole before prison...

poetry and prose

mayfly
David B. McCoy
DMccoy5705@aol.com

As a boy, I spent summers at a camp located on a small lake in Indiana.
Every year near the end of July, the camp was covered with mayflies. I
admired how they clung to the sides of cabins with their fragile see-though
wings and long, stringy tails.

On one nature hike, we learned how the adult mayfly has a non-working mouth
and dies soon after mating. The oldest kid from my cabin, who was routinely
caught masturbating after "lights out," leaned over and said, "Far Out! Sex
and death. The only two things in life that really count."

feet and figs
Ray Heinrich
ray@vais.net

caught
between the feet and the figs
listening to idleness
refusing to answer

oh my silence
oh my feet
each wiggley toe
blessing like prayer wheels
greeting me
escaped from socks
uncaught
but i'm caught
between the feet and the figs

Now it's called a chronograph.
No longer
will grandpa pull a golden circle from his pocket,
flip the lid open
and magically tell me it's an hour before bed.
More precise today.
Moments are measured in flashes,
each flash a second, and always the present second.
Now the hours are faceless.
Gone, like grandpa,
are the hands that open and close by degrees.
Only the present pulses before my eyes.
Progress, of course,
and progress is linear, and good, but deceptive.
Good,
why else would new so quickly replace old?
Deceptive,
for time really does move in circles
and winds down.

I used to dream of freedom; escat

his is what it means

my son was shot
now he lives in his wheelchair
I hear him creek as he rolls down the hall

he's a brave boy
it takes him such great strength to live
he always smiles

he can't feel from the waist down
but he works so hard
he is so proud

once I came home
and he was so excited
you see, he took a rope

and a laundry basket
filled them up with snacks;
now he could

drag his snacks to his room
this was an accomplishment
he was so proud of himself

I held back my tears
he shouldn't have to go through this
this is not how he should live

people don't understand
when he has a bowel movement
he has to

reach inside of him
and pull it out
he can't feel

this is what it means
for him to be in a wheelchair
to not feel

thought about
getting a rib or two
removed
like Cher
but I figured
they've got to
be there for
something
and hey, that's
just going
too far

once I wore a black teddy
thong back
beaded front

walked up to him while
he was watching
a basketball game
on the couch

sat on his lap
straddled him

and he looked at me
and reached his arm around
and tried to
grab his drink

under his jeans

pete was trying to figure out
how to trick matt;
they were always trying
to trick each other

and so pete had the perfect plan.
he said he was telling everyone
this, the plan was to give matt
an undy grundy by the end

of the night, to yank his
underwear up out of his
pants, but the intricacy to
his plan was that he was telling

matt that they were going to do it
to vince. well, everyone knew
that we were supposed to
act like we were going to get

vince, vine knew to act like
he didn't know, and so the
end of the night came and
we were all in the back office

and matt and pete started to
walk cautiously toward vince,
and then vince and pete and
john and the rest of them

turned around all at once
and went after matt. matt made
it out of the back office and
into the blue room, but that's

where they tackled him and
got a hold of his jockeys. the
next thing you know the elastic
band on top of matt's under

wear is half ripped off, and
he's tucking it back under
his jeans. we were all laughing
so hard. then i said to molly,

well, i'm wearing a miniskirt,
and it doesn't feel too safe
around here. i'm gonna go.
and i got my stuff and left.

i used to sit there, in the mornings
drinking coffee, writing, reading

and he would come up and sit there with me
and draw

i knew him
and i knew he had the potential

potential for being a monster
i had heard the stories before

stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars
in merchandise

been in a gang
drove someone's mercedes over a cliff

but I thought I was immune
to his violence

I thought I could change him
I thought he cleaned up his act

I thought I could be safe
alone with him

a thief
an addict
a molester

I knew him, but I thought I was immune
and now

and they make me cry

#watching people play

Humans, even non-theists, believe for some reason that the universe is here for them and that we will not be destroyed because there is some purpose. This abrogates responsibility. In order for our species to survive, and personally I think that this would be a good eventuality, we must realise that the universe is as ignorant of us as any other piece of space dust and cares nought whether we propagate and fill the universe or extinguish in a nuclear blase. We are responsible for our own survival. We cannot look to some all powerful Daddy to come in, when we have sufficiently stuffed it up for us to learn our lesson, and make it all right again. Once we stuff it up, it's stuffed up. Religions promote an anthropocentric view, to the detriment of our species. It is for this reason that I actively oppose Christianity and any other anthropocentric religion.
20. Religions have played their role in history. They were one of the major cultural influences in uniting peoples into close-nit communities. It enabled the survival of the species through some of it's toughest tests. But we have reached adolescence now and we must give up our childhood fantasies. We must quickly reach maturity before we become another teenage drink/driving or drug overdose or suicide statistic in the Universe's intelligent race survival book. I'd like to be part of the maturing process not the part that holds on to childhood days.
21. No-one has given me a good explanation of why humans are any more deserving of a soul and an after-life than other animals. When did we acquire a soul (at birth, at conception, at baptism, never)? Why don't dolphins get souls? There are many unanswered questions in Christianity: Should we use contraception, pop-up toasters, refrigerators? None of these things are mentioned in the so called God's word. If God had written the holy word, why did He write some of it allegorically and make it impossible to distinguish them from the literal sections. Basically, if the Bibles are meant to be manuals for life, they are extremely poorly written and are highly confusing and are unclear on the most basic points. I am sure a God could do a much better job. It makes much more sense that they are not the works of a God but are the works of people attempting to keep control of their flock.
22. Since the beginning, religions have attempted to make predictions about the future and have been invariably wrong. Despite this appalling track-record, religious leaders continually predict the date of some armageddon or future mundane event (such as resurrections of exorcised wives: we saw this in Australia recently). Some of the evangelical types have told their flock the "God has told me to raise 3 million by next week". This kind of blatant fleecing of the sheep-like video sotted tele-christian flock only clings to vestiges of morality via the fact that those who are ripped off by it are so bloody thick.
23. Any one of these reasons may be refuted, but in collaboration they shore up their strength in order to make only one option available to me in my choice between theism and atheism.
Anyone may use this in any way they see fit, except to get me in trouble.

"quotes"
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy." -David Brooks, The Necessity of Atheism

"There is, in fact, nothing about religious opinions that entitles them to any more respect than other opinions get. On the contrary, they tend to be noticeably silly." -H.L. Mencken, U.S. Journalist (1880-1956)

"The man who follows is a slave. The man who thinks is free" -Robert Ingersoll

"Here we are, we're alone in the universe, there's no God, it just seems that it all began by something as simple as sunlight striking on a piece of rock. And here we are. We've only got ourselves. Somehow, we've just got to make a go of it. We've only ourselves." -John Osborne

what we need in life

but you go your way
I go mine
maybe one day
we will find

what we need in life

what we need in life

so you go your way
I go mine
maybe one day
we will find

what we need in life

what we need in life


I can't stay bitter and lonely and restless anymore and
I can't be here with you
I see the red in your eyes and it scares me half to death and
I'll take this road alone


nothing ventured
nothing gained
nothing changes
nothing stays the same

you go your way
and I go mine
maybe one day
we will find

what we need in life

what we need in life

when you're gone

i always wonder
how much more i have to give
how much more i possess

sometimes i wonder
if i am spent
if i can take any more

but i always do
and you're always there

when you're gone
there will be

someone else

i know it

where to go

The waves gently lapped along
the sandy shore, turning golden
in color as the sun's rays
darkened into a deeper and
deeper red, into purple, into
blue. A light breeze moved
her hair like fingers running
to the back of her head. An
occasional sea gull flew along
the shore. There was no one in
sight. She sat there, momentarily in peace.

The breeze started to feel stronger
and stronger, and she had to
close her eyes from the burn
of the wind and the sand.
The sand ripped into her arms
like tiny needles, piercing her
skin. The waves grew higher
and higher until they sounded
like they were about to land on
top of her. She finally opened
her eyes. Her burning eyes saw
that the waves were still only
lapping on the shore. The sand
had not moved. There was no breeze.

She stood up. She couldn't
take it anymore. She took off
her shoes and sprinted away

wouldn't have to

"do they taste just like peanuts?" i asked.
they were soft and mushy. nothing like
peanuts. nothing at all.

Nick DiSpoldo, Small Press Review (on "Children, Churches and Daddies," April 1997) Kuypers is the widely-published poet of particular perspectives and not a little existential rage, but she does not impose her personal or artistic agenda on her magazine. CC+D is a provocative potpourri of news stories, poetry, humor, art and the "dirty underwear" of politics. One piece in this issue is "Crazy," an interview Kuypers conducted with "Madeline," a murderess who was found insane, and is confined to West Virginia's Arronsville Correctional Center. Madeline, whose elevator definitely doesn't go to the top, killed her boyfriend during sex with an ice pick and a chef's knife, far surpassing the butchery of Elena Bobbitt. Madeline, herself covered with blood, sat beside her lover's remains for three days, talking to herself, and that is how the police found her. For effect, Kuypers publishes Madeline's monologue in different-sized type, and the result is something between a sense of Dali's surrealism and Kafka-like craziness.

Debra Purdy Kong, writer, British Columbia, Canada
I like the magazine a lot. I like the spacious lay-out and the different coloured pages and the variety of writer's styles. Too many literary magazines read as if everyone graduated from the same course. We need to collect more voices like these and send them everywhere.

Ed Hamilton, writer #85 (of children, churches and daddies) turned out well. I really enjoyed the humor section, especially the test score answers. And, the cup-holder story is hilarious. I'm not a big fan of poetry - since much of it is so hard to decipher - but I was impressed by the work here, which tends toward the straightforward and unpretentious. As for the fiction, the piece by Anderson is quite perceptive: I liked the way the self-deluding situation of the character is gradually, subtly revealed. (Kuypers') story is good too: the way it switches narrative perspective via the letter device is a nice touch.

Children, Churches and Daddies.
It speaks for itself.
Write to Scars Publications to submit poetry, prose and artwork to Children, Churches and Daddies literary magazine, or to inquire about having your own chapbook, and maybe a few reviews like these.

Jim Maddocks, GLASGOW, via the Internet I'll be totally honest, of the material in Issue (either 83 or 86 of Children, Churches and Daddies) the only ones I really took to were Kuypers'. TRYING was so simple but most truths are, aren't they?

---

what is veganism?
A vegan (VEE-gun) is someone who does not consume any animal products. While vegetarians avoid flesh foods, vegans don't consume dairy or egg products, as well as animal products in clothing and other sources.

why veganism?
This cruelty-free lifestyle provides many benefits, to animals, the environment and to ourselves. The meat and dairy industry abuses billions of animals. Animal agriculture takes an enormous toll on the land. Consumtion of animal products has been linked to heart disease, colon and breast cancer, osteoporosis, diabetes and a host of other conditions.

so what is vegan action?
We can succeed in shifting agriculture away from factory farming, saving millions, or even billions of chickens, cows, pigs, sheep turkeys and other animals from cruelty.
We can free up land to restore to wilderness, pollute less water and air, reduce topsoil reosion, and prevent desertification.
We can improve the health and happiness of millions by preventing numerous occurrences od breast and prostate cancer, osteoporosis, and heart attacks, among other major health problems.

A vegan, cruelty-free lifestyle may be the most important step a person can take towards creatin a more just and compassionate society. Contact us for membership information, t-shirt sales or donations.

vegan action
po box 4353, berkeley, ca 94707-0353
510/704-4444

---

C Ra McGuirt, Editor, The Penny Dreadful Review (on Children, Churches and Daddies) cc&d is obviously a labor of love ... I just have to smile when I go through it. (Janet Kuypers) uses her space and her poets to best effect, and the illos attest to her skill as a graphic artist. "I really like ("Writing Your Name"). It's one of those kind of things where your eye isn't exactly pulled along, but falls effortlessly down the poem. I liked "knowledge" for its mix of disgust and acceptance. Janet Kuypers does good little movies, by which I mean her stuff provokes moving imagery for me. Color, no dialogue; the voice of the poem is the narrator over the film.

Children, Churches and Daddies no longer distributes free contributor's copies of issues. In order to receive issues of Children, Churches and Daddies, contact Janet Kuypers at the cc&d e-mail addres. Free electronic subscriptions are available via email. All you need to do is email ccandd@aol.com... and ask to be added to the free cc+d electronic subscription mailing list. And you can still see issues every month at the Children, Churches and Daddies website, located at http://scars.tv

Also, visit our new web sites: the Art Gallery and the Poetry Page.

Mark Blickley, writer The precursor to the magazine title (Children, Churches and Daddies) is very moving. "Scars" is also an excellent prose poem. I never really thought about scars as being a form of nostalgia. But in the poem it also represents courage and warmth. I look forward to finishing her book.

---

MIT Vegetarian Support Group (VSG)

functions:
* To show the MIT Food Service that there is a large community of vegetarians at MIT (and other health-conscious people) whom they are alienating with current menus, and to give positive suggestions for change.
* To exchange recipes and names of Boston area veg restaurants
* To provide a resource to people seeking communal vegetarian cooking
* To provide an option for vegetarian freshmen

We also have a discussion group for all issues related to vegetarianism, which currently has about 150 members, many of whom are outside the Boston area. The group is focusing more toward outreach and evolving from what it has been in years past. We welcome new members, as well as the opportunity to inform people about the benefits of vegetarianism, to our health, the environment, animal welfare, and a variety of other issues.

---

Gary, Editor, The Road Out of Town (on the Children, Churches and Daddies Web Site) I just checked out the site. It looks great.

Dusty Dog Reviews: These poems document a very complicated internal response to the feminine side of social existence. And as the book proceeds the poems become increasingly psychologically complex and, ultimately, fascinating and genuinely rewarding.

John Sweet, writer (on chapbook designs) Visuals were awesome. They've got a nice enigmatic quality to them. Front cover reminds me of the Roman sculptures of angels from way back when. Loved the staggered tire lettering, too. Way cool. (on "Hope Chest in the Attic") Some excellent writing in "Hope Chest in the Attic." I thought "Children, Churches and Daddies" and "The Room of the Rape" were particularly powerful pieces.

C Ra McGuirt, Editor, The Penny Dreadful Review: cc&d is obviously a labor of love ... I just have to smile when I go through it. (Janet Kuypers) uses her space and her poets to best effect, and the illos attest to her skill as a graphic artist.

Cheryl Townsend, Editor, Impetus (on Children, Churches and Daddies) The new cc&d looks absolutely amazing. It's a wonderful lay-out, looks really professional - all you need is the glossy pages. Truly impressive AND the calendar, too. Can't wait to actually start reading all the stuff inside.. Wanted to just say, it looks good so far!!!

Dusty Dog Reviews: She opens with a poem of her own devising, which has that wintry atmosphere demonstrated in the movie version of Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago. The atmosphere of wintry white and cold, gloriously murderous cold, stark raging cold, numbing and brutalizing cold, appears almost as a character who announces to his audience, "Wisdom occurs only after a laboriously magnificent disappointment." Alas, that our Dusty Dog for mat cannot do justice to Ms. Kuypers' very personal layering of her poem across the page.

---

Fithian Press, Santa Barbara, CA
Indeed, there's a healthy balance here between wit and dark vision, romance and reality, just as there's a good balance between words and graphics. The work shows brave self-exploration, and serves as a reminder of mortality and the fragile beauty of friendship.

Mark Blickley, writer
The precursor to the magazine title (Children, Churches and Daddies) is very moving. "Scars" is also an excellent prose poem. I never really thought about scars as being a form of nostalgia. But in the poem it also represents courage and warmth. I look forward to finishing her book.

You Have to be Published to be Appreciated.

Do you want to be heard? Contact Children, Churches and Daddies about book or chapbook publishing. These reviews can be yours. Scars Publications, attention J. Kuypers. We're only an e-mail away. Write to us.

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Brian B. Braddock, Writer (on 1996 Children, Churches and Daddies) I passed on a copy to my brother who is the director of the St. Camillus AIDS programs. We found (Children, Churches and Daddies') obvious dedication along this line admirable.

The Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology
The Solar Energy Research & Education Foundation (SEREF), a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., established on Earth Day 1993 the Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology (CREST) as its central project. CREST's three principal projects are to provide:
* on-site training and education workshops on the sustainable development interconnections of energy, economics and environment;
* on-line distance learning/training resources on CREST's SOLSTICE computer, available from 144 countries through email and the Internet;
* on-disc training and educational resources through the use of interactive multimedia applications on CD-ROM computer discs - showcasing current achievements and future opportunities in sustainable energy development.
The CREST staff also does "on the road" presentations, demonstrations, and workshops showcasing its activities and available resources.
For More Information Please Contact: Deborah Anderson
dja@crest.org or (202) 289-0061

Brian B. Braddock, Writer (on 1996 Children, Churches and Daddies) I passed on a copy to my brother who is the director of the St. Camillus AIDS programs. We found (Children, Churches and Daddies') obvious dedication along this line admirable.

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Dorrance Publishing Co., Pittsburgh, PA
"Hope Chest in the Attic" captures the complexity of human nature and reveals startling yet profound discernments about the travesties that surge through the course of life. This collection of poetry, prose and artwork reflects sensitivity toward feminist issues concerning abuse, sexism and equality. It also probes the emotional torrent that people may experience as a reaction to the delicate topics of death, love and family.
"Chain Smoking" depicts the emotional distress that afflicted a friend while he struggled to clarify his sexual ambiguity. Not only does this thought-provoking profile address the plight that homosexuals face in a homophobic society, it also characterizes the essence of friendship. "The room of the rape" is a passionate representation of the suffering rape victims experience. Vivid descriptions, rich symbolism, and candid expressions paint a shocking portrait of victory over the gripping fear that consumes the soul after a painful exploitation.

want a review like this? contact scars about getting your own book published.

---

Paul Weinman, Writer (on 1996 Children, Churches and Daddies) Wonderful new direction (Children, Churches and Daddies has) taken - great articles, etc. (especially those on AIDS). Great stories - all sorts of hot info!

The magazine Children Churches and Daddies is Copyright © through Scars Publications and Design. The rights of the individual pieces remain with the authors. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Okay, nilla wafer. Listen up and listen good. How to save your life. Submit, or I'll have to kill you.
Okay, it's this simple: send me published or unpublished poetry, prose or art work (do not send originals), along with a bio, to us - then sit around and wait... Pretty soon you'll hear from the happy people at cc&d that says (a) Your work sucks, or (b) This is fancy crap, and we're gonna print it. It's that simple!

Okay, butt-munch. Tough guy. This is how to win the editors over.
Hope Chest in the Attic is a 200 page, perfect-bound book of 13 years of poetry, prose and art by Janet Kuypers. It's a really classy thing, if you know what I mean. We also have a few extra sopies of the book "Rinse and Repeat", which has all the 1999 issues of cc&d crammed into one book. And you can have either one of these things at just five bucks a pop if you just contact us. It's an offer you can't refuse...

Carlton Press, New York, NY: HOPE CHEST IN THE ATTIC is a collection of well-fashioned, often elegant poems and short prose that deals in many instances, with the most mysterious and awesome of human experiences: love... Janet Kuypers draws from a vast range of experiences and transforms thoughts into lyrical and succinct verse... Recommended as poetic fare that will titillate the palate in its imagery and imaginative creations.
Mark Blickley, writer: The precursor to the magazine title (Children, Churches and Daddies) is very moving. "Scars" is also an excellent prose poem. I never really thought about scars as being a form of nostalgia. But in the poem it also represents courage and warmth. I look forward to finishing the book.

You Have to be Published to be Appreciated.
Do you want to be heard? Contact Children, Churches and Daddies about book and chapbook publishing. These reviews can be yours. Scars Publications, attention J. Kuypers - you can write for yourself or you can write for an audience. It's your call...

Dorrance Publishing Co., Pittsburgh, PA: "Hope Chest in the Attic" captures the complexity of human nature and reveals startling yet profound discernments about the travesties that surge through the course of life. This collection of poetry, prose and artwork reflects sensitivity toward feminist issues concerning abuse, sexism and equality. It also probes the emotional torrent that people may experience as a reaction to the delicate topics of death, love and family. "Chain Smoking" depicts the emotional distress that afflicted a friend while he struggled to clarify his sexual ambiguity. Not only does this thought-provoking profile address the plight that homosexuals face in a homophobic society, it also characterizes the essence of friendship. "The room of the rape" is a passionate representation of the suffering rape victims experience. Vivid descriptions, rich symbolism, and candid expressions paint a shocking portrait of victory over the gripping fear that consumes the soul after a painful exploitation.

Dusty Dog Reviews, CA (on knife): These poems document a very complicated internal response to the feminine side of social existence. And as the book proceeds the poems become increasingly psychologically complex and, ultimately, fascinating and genuinely rewarding. Children, Churches and Daddies. It speaks for itself.

Dusty Dog Reviews (on Without You): She open with a poem of her own devising, which has that wintry atmosphere demonstrated in the movie version of Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago. The atmosphere of wintry white and cold, gloriously murderous cold, stark raging cold, numbing and brutalizing cold, appears almost as a character who announces to his audience, "Wisdom occurs only after a laboriously magnificent disappointment." Alas, that our Dusty Dog for mat cannot do justice to Ms. Kuypers' very personal layering of her poem across the page.
Children, Churches and Daddies. It speaks for itself.

Debra Purdy Kong, writer, British Columbia, Canada (on Children, Churches and Daddies): I like the magazine a lot. I like the spacious lay-out and the different coloured pages and the variety of writer's styles. Too many literary magazines read as if everyone graduated from the same course. We need to collect more voices like these and send them everywhere.
Fithian Press, Santa Barbara, CA: Indeed, there's a healthy balance here between wit and dark vision, romance and reality, just as there's a good balance between words and graphics. The work shows brave self-exploration, and serves as a reminder of mortality and the fragile beauty of friendship.

Published since 1993 No racist, sexist or homophobic material is appreciated; we do accept work of almost any genre of poetry, prose or artwork, though we shy away from concrete poetry and rhyme for rhyme's sake. Do not send originals. Any work sent to Scars Publications on Macintosh disks, text format, will be given special attention over smail-mail submissions. There is no limit to how much you may submit at a time; previously published work accepted.