> Ping your it.
>
Leland,
Great. Encourage me.
Once upon a time there was a listserv for historic preservation called
Preservation-L. It had no rules, it was thought up by a computer geek in
his lab, and he had no interest in historic preservation. It was there
like a fish attractant at the bottom of a stagnant pool and in a short
period of time a whole bunch of people that identified themselves as in
the historic preservation business signed up for the list. But they did
not know quite what to do with it. So there were 600 people connected
but not communicating.
I got some bright idea and using my mother's e-mail address (for which I
had to apologize and make amends later) I sent to the list an e-mail
about Gabriel and Etidorpha Ogrease (for those in the know about novels
pertaining to cave utopias reference the novel *Etidorpha* by John Uri
Lloyd) -- their father Buck had brought back a fiberglas portable toilet
from a 1970s War Moratorium in DC that he suspected the hole in the side
was kicked there by Alan Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky... and they wanted
to get some professional advice on how properly, best to make repairs
without losing the heritage significance. That request for advice got
some folks excited, some agitated. So for a while there I took to
writing a new installment once a week. It was not long before I was
getting all sorts of really angry back channel threats from what I can
only assume in retrospect were the blue-blood wannabees, Bastards of the
Revolution, or whatever but it was an incredibly negative aura. Also a
good deal of support and people jumping in with their own characters --
and animals. Eventually the collection of outhouses grew to cover 40
acres and set off SOS... Save Our Shitters. So, thoroughly pummeled by
the unpleasantries and while resting up from a heart operation I
solicited a new place to start a new list. Those G & E weekly
installments I think went on for about two years before I gave up on it
-- where can you go after eating Etidorpha's squirrel brain tarts?
Eventually I took as my writer's pseudonym the Gabriel Orgrease brand
name. But along in there we got us a list sponsored by St. John's
University psychology department. I will never know for sure if we were
considered a specimen for close observation, or not. It has been
interesting. We have rules, as opposed to the list with no rules.
One rule is not to get on anyone's case if they can't spell or make a
coherent sentence.
Another rule, often not followed, is to include some histo presto
content in every message. Though I suspect that simply posting a message
on a listserv can be construed as archaic enuf to qualify.
For a time we used to raid the Preservation-L list just to see if they
could still be agitated. It is kind of funny to me that nobody ever says
anything on that list, least ways not that I know of.
There is a good deal of irrelevant horsing around, often poor
signal:noise ratio, but what I have learned is that the games, jokes,
stories, play provides a context by which when real questions are asked
the veracity of the information can be well gaged.
Beside all that people that survive to hang, linger, emote, or otherwise
not suffer from terminal attrition here tend to like each other, here
and in RL.
COD keeps us running. Sharpshooter keeps shooting at us. Py gets lost in
Argentina chased down by flying rocks and UFOs. Sometimes we hear from
Bullamanka. And Rudy has a time machine. Ruth is keeper of the screw
drivers. Ralph is the Humor Czar. Larry (1) is associated with the
Political Graveyard but sometimes we get confused and think he is from
Toledo. Twy is the VI. I've lost track of most all of the nuances... but
I am sure in a leaftime I will be brought up to the holy crapper.
][< (shaman)
--
To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to:
<http://listserv.icors.org/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html>
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