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8-1-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

When did life begin on earth?

--Biotic in Biomede

Dear Biotic:

According to the local paleoclairvoyant here at The Home, it began on August 14th, 3,875,892,337 BC at 3:30 in the afternoon, Central Daylight Time, when life spontaneously formed in a rain puddle on the fundamental schist that would later become Redbone, Arkansas. One can only wonder how this life form, which was utterly unlike what came later, would have survived and flourished if given a chance.

Unfortunately it never got a real shot at survival, because at a quarter after four that same afternoon a chunk of Mars the size of a railroad engine slammed into the puddle, vaporizing it and forming the circular impact crater that is so characteristic of present-day Redbone. Of course that chunk of Mars was just rotten with Martian DNA, which seeded the Earth and led to our present condition.

One school of thought claims that the original life form was a tough little devil that was not vaporized at all, simply driven deep into the earth where it plotted revenge. In the soon-to-be-written book, "A Universal History of Redbone," Dr. Kyle Oddblot argues that early settlers in the region reported a deep well at the exact center of the impact crater whose waters nourished them for many generations. He also points out the popular saying "there must be something in the water" that other Arkansians use when referring to Redbone and the curious way of life here.

8-2-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

Is Leon Redbone the singer from your home town?

-- Fan in Faneuil 

Dear Fan:

More than likely he is. One characteristic of people who emigrate from Redbone is the lengths they go to to conceal their origins. (People from Arkansas hide their origins, too, but that's simple embarrassment.) Since nothing whatever is known about Leon's past life (he's reported as having "suddenly appeared" in Toronto in 1972) I think we can safely say he's one of the descendants of the Founders, the near-mythical people who stumbled on the Great Redbone Crater while they were looking for the cheap inland seaside property they had acquired during the Great Real Estate Scam of 1610.

I do believe that he leaves certain hints for the discerning listener in some of his songs, though. His version of "Please Don't Talk About me When I'm Gone" has a curious substitution for the accepted lyrics:

"Please don't talk about me when I'm gone,
Oh, honey though our friendship ceases from now on;
And, listen, if you can't say anything fine,
You're just as empty as a tinsel mine...."

An unquestionable reference to the famed Wheatwhistle tinsel mines, now exhausted and empty but for the desiccated bodies of the Mushroom People.

Or this one, from the old classic "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight":


"Late one night
When we were all in bed
Old Mother Lambsprattle
Spied a glow high overhead.

And when the ship had landed,
She winked her eye and said,
"There’ll be a Hobjª time
In the old town tonight."


Who could ever doubt that that's a reference to the visit of the spacefaring Hobjª people to Redbone in the summer of 1873 when they needed their ultrium condenser resoldered and scared the living willykins out of Boo Frank the blacksmith?

We'll have to keep a close eye on Leon. There could be big trouble if he starts revealing town secrets, like that awful Einstein boy did in 1905....

8-3-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

How come movies are so rotten these days? Lately it seems like they're made by morons for morons.

-- Cinephile in Cingoli

Dear Cinephile:

It sure looks that way. I blame it on three things: first, the studios think that special effects can cover up a lousy script; second, that instead of hiring one talented scriptwriter they hire 5 or 6 cheap but untalented ones so the eventual script is a bad compromise, and third, they're aiming at a market that's horny, not very bright and likes to watch things get blown up.

You can imagine what would have happened if Shakespeare had had to operate under similar restrictions:


DIE HARD IN DENMARK

Scene: 2am, in the street outside Ellsinore Luxury Apartments

Hamlet: "Oh, man, I was so wasted on Ecstasy last night I can't remember if her apartment number is 2-B or not 2-B."

Felonious: "Whoa, dude, I mean, that's the question, all right."

Eructor: "You want I should sling explosive-tipped arrows through some apartment windows and like, maybe get their attention?"

Felonious: "Outrageous, dude! I always love taking arms against the seat of trouble. That way they'll sleep no more and we can end our good buddy Hamlet's heartache."

[cue SFX: one thousand natural shocks; the heir, Hamlet, illuminated by flashes too.]

Ophelia Member [from above]: "Hey, you bozos! We're trying to sleep up here, perchance to dream . Cut the crap!"

Hamlet: "Are you the chick from the disco last night who said she had a consummation devoutly to be wished, but her vibrator had burned out?"

Ophelia Member: "Aye, there's the rub, or rather the lack thereof. You got a cure for that, dream boy?"

Hamlet: "Hit the door buzzer and I'll show you what dreams may come, bitch!"

[cue SFX: door buzzer] [Exunt omnes]

8-4-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

How did your home state of Arkansas get its name? Is it Indian or what?

-- Onomastic in Onodaga

Dear Onomastic:

Well, therein lies a tale, as they say. Few people know it these days, but the naming of states and territories in early North America was handled by a government department, the Bureau of Appropriate Nomonology, which had the task of slicing and dicing geographical areas into neatly-shaped lumps and applying names to the results.

This was, of course, after the early colonial days, when people just drew a figure on a map and added a "New" to wherever they had come from, which is why you got boringly-named states like New York, New Hampshire and New Jersey. There were other boringly-named states on the East Coast, too. Sometimes settlers felt bound to name a big tract of real estate after a royal personage , so we have Virginia, after the allegedly virgin Queen Elizabeth; Maryland, after Mary, Queen of someplace else, and Carolina, named after King Charles, or actually after his alter ego, Caroline, since Charles had come out of the royal closet some time before. Truly uninspired settlers just tacked on a North or South, as in Carolina again.

After the USA became a nation it was decided to do the politically correct thing and name some states after the Native Americans which had been killed off or displaced, in pretty much the same way that developers today will tear down a landmark to throw up a shopping mall, then put up a brass plaque to mark where the landmark had been.

So the Bureau of Applied Nomonology sent its people out to try to find ways of applying this philosophy to the remaining unnamed territories. Communication not being very easy in those days, they sometimes made embarrassing mistakes, like naming two big chunks of the frontier "Kansas," which is a Sioux word meaning "Where the water gives you gas."

Well, of course this set off a royal snit between the territories, each of them claiming the name. Partisans would gather at the point where the two regions almost touched corners, yelling insults and throwing rocks at each other across the border. A lucky circumstance prevented a full-blown intermural war. Both sides flew banners, displayed bumper stickers and wore t-shirts, etc. However, since spelling was not the strong suit of the pioneer, the propaganda of the southeastern chunk of disputed geography more often than not read "Ar Kansas," instead of the intended "Our Kansas." So the people from the Nomonology Bureau counted their blessings and duly named each nascent state according to the names on the banners, after which they took the train back to Washington to apply for a job transfer.

And thus we became Arkansas, and to this day we do not fully understand how we fell for the old switcheroo. Nor when the pronunciation changed. Nor why the water still gives you gas.

8-5-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

I work at a day care center. Lately we've been trying to get the kids interested in some of the old songs and games that were popular before TV and computer distractions. All of the other grown-ups here remember one called "Go Tell Aunt Rhody," but all we can remember is the first verse:

"Go tell Aunt Rhody, 
Go tell Aunt Rhody, 
Go tell Aunt Rhody 
The old gray goose is dead."

Everybody knows there was more to it than that, but we're stumped. Can you fill in the missing verses?

-- Caregiver in Careggi 

Dear Caregiver:

Oh, yes, I remember that one very well, at least the Redbone, Arkansas version. You see, Rhody-- it was short for Rhodopsin, her father having been one of the original ophthalmologists to settle the frontier-- she kept geese, and eked out her income by selling down and feathers to the big mattress plant in Gisquack. Now, I have no argument with geese.  As a rule they're smarter than humans and furthermore remain mated for life, which should be an object lesson for our own species. However, Rhody had one old goose who had a fondness for strawberries, and from the first day of the strawberry season till the last I was fighting a nonstop battle to keep her out of our strawberry bed, which I used to eke out my own income by putting up "Nettie's Nonpareil Jellies and Jams" for the tourist trade.

Rhody and I almost came to blows over that old gray goose on more than one occasion, and finally one summer morning when I went out to harvest a bucket or two of dead-ripe berries, there was Rhody's goose, so stuffed with strawberries that she could no longer fly over the fence. The stovewood hatchet was within reach, and before you could say "decapitation" I had ended the problem once and for all. 

This was not received well on Rhody's side of the fence, and led to a righteous foofaraw.

So the remaining verses go like this:

"Aunt Nettie killed her,
Aunt Nettie killed her,
Aunt Nettie killed her
By chopping off her head.

Aunt Rhody hollered,
Aunt Rhody hollered,
Aunt Rhody hollered
She started seeing red.

She went after Nettie,
She went after Nettie,
She went after Nettie
With the cleaver from the shed.

Aunt Nettie responded,
Aunt Nettie responded,
Aunt Nettie responded
With her trusty shotgun "Fred."

Go tell the sheriff,
Go tell the sheriff,
Go tell the sheriff
Aunt Rhody's full of lead.

Innocent was the verdict,
Innocent was the verdict,
Innocent was the verdict
"Self-defense" they said.

So ladies keep your gooses,
So ladies keep your gooses,
So ladies keep your gooses
Away from the strawberry bed.

Or Nettie will give up jellies,
Or Nettie will give up jellies,
Or Nettie will give up jellies
And do pâte de foie gras instead."

8-6-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

While you're suffering there in Living Dead "R" Us, I'm going to be flying first-class to Hawaii to spend 2 glorious weeks in the sun and the surf. Do you have any suggestions for things I should bring along to enhance the gorgeousness of the experience?

-- Sybarite in Sybota

Dear Sybarite:

Well, now, I can't tell you how happy I am for you. It's so nice to know that you'll be frolicking and disporting yourself amidst the palms and the surf without a care in the world while we slouch toward death here in Redbone. I'll be thinking of you every minute. You just bet I will.

To answer your question, I do have some recommended reading for your plane trip. Enjoy, and put all your cares behind you!

* Federal Aviation Administration: "Ditching at Sea: Improving your Chances of Survival" 

* Copy of "The Great White Shark: America's Most Misunderstood Killer"

* Government pamphlet #D-487220 "Tropical Sunshine and Fulminating Melanoma"

* Centers for Disease Control report: "Luau is Hawaiian for Food Poisoning"

* Tourist advisory: "Beach Boys and the Spread of AIDS in Oahu"

* Japanese phrasebook for communicating with other tourists

* Photocopy of "Language of the Hula," chapter 3, 'Pornography in Motion'

* Copy of "Slaves of the Volcano God" about fanatical cults on the mainland

* Survival manual: "How to Dodge Lava"

* CD "Favorite Ukulele Melodies of Tiny Tim"

* "Life Without Consonants" Basic Hawaiian for the non-Japanese tourist

* "Introduction to Surfboarding" (includes up-to-date list of plastic and reconstructive surgeons)

* "Dead Overhead: the OSHA Guide to Falling Cocoanuts"

* "Everything You Wanted to Know About Leprosy but Were Afraid To Ask"

* "Stepping on Stonefish" The wader's guide to agonizing death

8-7-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

I just saw a newspaper article that said some group of scientists wants a $250,000 government grant to look for owl pellets. Don't you think this is a terrible waste of taxpayer's money that would be better spent buying bombs or something useful like that?

-- Frugal in Frugivore 

Dear Frugal:

I think you have your wires crossed. Owl pellets, like Egyptian scarabs, were carved in a variety of precious stones by the Owl People of the Kalahari. Why, finding a treasure trove of the fabulously rare red or gold cabochon owl pellets would allow the US Navy to build another unnecessary battleship for Trent Lott, so that he would have a matching set to figure out what to do with. 

The most famous example of this long-forgotten art is the lost "Heart of Zenobia," ruby owl pellet, believed by many historians to be hidden in one of the subcellars of the Vatican. It's so valuable that it alone was used to ransom Prince Leonard the Intangible from the Saracens during the Fourth Crusade. 

8-8-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

Are there such things as sacrificial cults posing as legitimate businesses? I've been to job interviews in the same building here in Minneapolis on three different occasions, and each time I've run into really scary people. The first time the Human Resources person asked me if I was a virgin and what my "dressed weight" was. During the second interview (same building, different company) the manager I was interviewing with asked if I had accepted Satan as my personal savior. The third interview in the same place was too horrible to talk about. Am I going crazy or what?

-- Chosen in Chorley 

Dear Chosen:

Sad to say, there's a lot of that going around these days. Here's a similar story from The Dissociated Press:

--------------------------------- 
Seattle Man Sacrificed by Neo-Aztec Cult 

Seattle, WA (DP)-- Seattle police today reported the gruesome slaying and ritual sacrifice of Seattle resident Lamont Cransford, 35, who had apparently been lured to a cleverly disguised downtown pyramid altar on the promise of gainful employment. Police Captain Henry Rutkowski, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that they received a report at 3:08 am of a feather-robed, gold-masked Aztec priest standing atop the building at 808 Howell Street holding a still-beating human heart in one hand and an obsidian knife in the other. 

"At first we thought it was just an early holiday celebration-- you know how Seattle gays really get into the holidays. But then there were other reports of the body being dismembered and parts thrown to the chanting crowds below, so we thought we would investigate."

The building at 808 Howell, variously known as "The Yawning Mouth of Erebus," "The Pit of Yog-Sotthoth," and "Moloch's Belly of Cleansing Flame," has been the site of other bizarre disturbances in the past. 

"It's the one call we really hate to get," said Rutkowski, a 12-year veteran of the force. "You go down there on a 609 -- that's suspicious activity-- and the next thing you know you're facing a half a dozen zombies, or aliens from a parallel dimension, the spawn of Satan or these neo-Aztec cultists. Just last year we had to put down a pair of ghouls they found living in the sub-basement, and over Christmas there were repeated instances of Black Masses being celebrated, although we were never able to find anything more than the usual disemboweled infant corpses and your basic Yuletide necrophilia."

King County Coroner Alexi Droshki said that a preliminary autopsy showed typical signs of Aztec sacrifice. "They apparently offered [the victim Cransford] a Starbucks double-tall mocha that was heavily laced with ayahuasca and either tree-frog poison or curare. Once he was effectively paralyzed, he was stripped, his head was shaved, he was coated with gold dust, then carried up to the sacrificial altar on the roof where the ritual cardiectomy was performed. It fits the pattern we've been seeing lately in that neighborhood." 

"Death was probably instantaneous," he added, "which is fortunate. Occasionally we find victims with mirror-symmetry of the organs-- especially those who have been abducted by UFOs-- which requires the priest to hunt around for the heart within the thoracic cavity. Mr. Cransford was extremely lucky that his heart was in the right place."
------------------------------ 
©2001, The Dissociated Press 

8-9-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

You say you've never been married. How and why did you pass up this blissful state?

-- Uxorious in Uxbridge

Dear Uxorious:

Let's put it this way: after long and careful consideration I said to myself "Why buy a bull when semen is free?

8-10-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

There's a story in the Sunday paper about an archaeologist working at an airport construction site in Arizona. I never heard of anything so stupid in my life! Everybody knows there were no airports until a few years ago, especially in Arizona. Who are these people trying to kid?

-- Level-headed in Levittown 

Dear Level-headed:

Well, you learn something new every day, don't you? The fact of the matter is that ancient civilizations were a lot more technically advanced than we used to believe. Take, for example, the NASCAR lines in southern Peru. Not only was there an airport there from 200 BC to about 600 AD, but there were also huge advertising signs visible from the main approaches, as well as an automotive raceway. Archeologists have turned up luggage that was lost as long ago as 175 BC, plus the mummified remains of passengers who chose to fly standby. 

One amazing discovery in the reconstructed terminal was the presence of vending machines, some of which had potato chips and peanuts that were every bit as edible as what you'd find in an airport vending machine today. Another surprise was finding combination astrology booths and money-changing centers that also functioned as coffee shops, indicating that the star-bucks-coffee franchise has been around a lot longer than most people think.

8-11-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

First we had that one-legged guy who climbed Mount Everest, then we had the blind dude. In today's paper is a story about a guy with no legs who's going to try it. I guess we're all supposed to be impressed, and I'm sure he'll wind up on the cover of TIME like the other two did. My question is: just how far can you go with this sort of shameless publicity-hogging before people get bored? 

-- Had It in Hattiesburg 

Dear Had:

As I've reported in these pages before, people will go to amazing lengths to get their 15 minutes of fame. When I was a youth we had flagpole sitters and marathon dancers and folks who would dive off tall platforms into increasingly shallow containers-- at least until the unfortunate "Jughead" Smith episode in 1921.

I'm sure you'll see headlines like the following before the craze runs its course:

Armless, Legless Blind Climber to Attempt Everest 

Quadriplegic Profoundly Retarded Girl to Join Everest Team 

Elderly Dead Couple to be First to Attain Everest Summit 

...and remember-- you heard it here first.

8-12-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

According to Scripture, Shadrach, Meshack and Abednego were thrown into a fiery furnace and survived intact. Do you know what happened to them afterwards?

-- Paleohagiographer in Palo Alto

Dear Pal:

They took their act on the road, working the circuses and nightclubs up and down what used to be called the "bronze chicken" circuit, from Ur in the south up to Nineveh in the north, then swinging over to the Mediterranean seaside resorts during the holiday season. Abednego, who was the brains of the outfit, worked up a lot of spinoffs on the basic act, and they had a great sideline in branded baked goods and meat pies, "cooked while you watch!" 

In an ironic conclusion to their long career, they were trapped in a blizzard when they were crossing the mountains into Syria at the start of the spring season and all three froze to death.

8-13-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

Why do they call them "hobos"? The dictionary hasn't a clue.

-- Vagabond in Vaganova 

Dear Vagabond:

Well, therein lies a tale, as they say. I suppose everyone but us centenarians have forgotten what a plague hobos were at one stage in our history. Or how the problem began in the first place.

It was certainly well-intentioned. Prison reformers had decided that rehabilitation, rather than punishment, should be the order of the day. Informal surveys in the prisons of the time revealed that a surprising number of inmates had some musical ability and training, so it was decided to give those who wanted it free training in an instrument. Another informal survey of orchestras showed that there was a great need for certain woodwind players, since the size and awkwardness of one particular instrument made it unpopular with musicians.

So for about a dozen years prisons routinely turned out oboe players, until every position in every orchestra was filled, right down to the humblest town band. Yet prisoners kept on being trained and released, traveling from town to town seeking work, their oboes slung across the top of their bedrolls. On a quiet night you could hear a gang of them in the local Oboe Jungle down by the railway, sitting around a kettle of mulligan stew and parched corn coffee, playing quartets or quintets, sometimes joined by the low voice of an itinerant bassoonist.

Once the superior acoustic qualities of the empty boxcar were discovered, these vagrants took to the rails, hoping to find a sympathetic conductor to lead them through the more difficult patches of Richard Strauss's "Oboe Concerto" or Langland's heroic "Fantasie à Douze Oboes et Harmonium." 

At first the wandering oboe minstrels were a relatively innocuous lot, but as the Depression continued they turned furtive and thievish, breaking into music stores late at night for double reeds and making off with tins of silver polish. Finally "oboe!" was used as an alarm cry to alert townspeople of the approach of these musical ne'er-do-wells, and after a while the name attached itself to the players themselves.
------------ 
Ref: 
"Brother, Can Euphonia Spare a Crime?" Jean Valjive, ed. (London & Bombay, 1939)
"Sing, Sing-Sing! Looters Tutored to Tooters" Article, New York Hard Times, November 16, 1928.

8-14-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

I'm fascinated by an earlier technology than the Internet, mainly passenger trains! I know there were many experiments with narrow-gauge, cog rails and tramways in the Ozarks when the railroad was introduced. Did Redbone or its environs have any of these unusual kinds of trackage? 

-- Rail Fan in Railfangia 

Dear Rail:

It was long before my time, believe it or not, but, yes, there were several hundred miles of oddball trackage laid down in the early days before these innovators and pioneers were ground out of existence by the railroad interests.

For instance, people today take it for granted that railroad tracks have two rails, to be straddled by the flanged wheels of a railroad car. This wasn't always so. As a matter of fact the original railways, at least in our neck of the woods, had two rails, but one was for coming and the other was for going. Logical, no? I mean, if you have railroad cars that take up *both* rails, and there are *only* two rails, it stands to reason that you can only have one train going back and forth, unless you want to get into the hassle and expense of shunts and sidelines and things.

So the original Squander, Carnage and Redbone Line used one rail for each direction and was twice as efficient as its nearest competitor, the Atkinsdiet, Nopeeka and Santa Foo Line, and three times as efficient as the troika-inspired three-tracked Russian Tchatanooguskga Tchoo-Tchoo.

Of course, as with all early experiments, there were drawbacks. The Squander, Carnage and Redbone Line's engine and cars had to be balanced to a fare-thee-well to prevent them from simply flopping over. Some stability was attained by the use of a heavy flywheel spun up by the engine, and by the use of large kickstands for when the train was in the station. Passengers were warned to remain motionless with their heads in the fully upright and locked positions for the duration of the journey, which on longer trips became known as the "battle of the bladder." Small children were sedated and shipped as freight, courtesy of the railroad.

The railway had two daily trips in each direction, running from Redbone to Squander, then on to Carnage, and finally to Point Gap across the border in Missouri. It operated with perfect safety for many years, but, as is the case with so many things, human error was its downfall. One day as the northbound freight was passing the southbound passenger express the two engineers decided to "high five" each other smack in the middle of the bridge over Rising Gorge. As they leaned out of the cabs the resulting imbalance was just enough to topple both trains into the Peestanding River far below, effectively ending the line's operation.

In the Dark Cloud/Silver Lining Proverb Department, the novelty patter song "Wreck of the '98" based on the tragedy remained at the top of the charts for many months and made Whistlin' Slim Willie's reputation. 

Many years later the trackage was acquired by AMTREK, a railway startup-and-push transporter that put the travail back in travel. They used both rails, of course... when they used any at all....

8-15-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

I've been searching on IMDB for a movie I swear I saw a couple of years ago when I was totally stoned in San Francisco. I vaguely remember that it was a war story, but I'm not sure which war. Also there was a rabbi, I think. Maybe it was two movies... or three. Anyway, I bet some guys at the plant that it really existed and I stand to lose $150 if I can't produce. Do you have any idea what it was?

-- Hazy in Hazlitt

Dear Hazy:

That was "Torah! Tora! Tara!" the story of the Orthodox Confederate sneak attack on Pearl Harbor that almost turned the tide of the Civil War. Janis Joplin played Pearl, a transgendered mohel forced to do circumcisions with the most primitive equipment as the bombs fall around her and her favorite Palestinian sendak is killed in her arms as they sing "I'm a Cock-Eyed Organist." Scarlett Womax has the part of the saucy social climber looking for eligible doctors to marry amid the carnage at the hospital. Rex Butler plays her faithful dog, Clark. 

Butterfly McQueen plays N'h'kee'una'kee, the island volcano spirit and recently converted Aztec goddess who falls for the Confederate rabbi J.E.B. ("call me Jeb, ma'am") Stienmetz, played by a very young Rossano Brazzi. Their duet, "Some Ancient Aztec Evening," brought tears to the eyes of every audience, just as McQueen's rollicking "Gonna Rip That Heart Right Outta My Man," had them dancing in the aisles at each performance.

The movie ends with the arrival of the 7th Calvary, an armed battalion of mounted double-discalced Friars of the Transfiguration (their horses are unshod, too), who quickly sort things out and make the South pacific again. The movie ends with the entire cast joining in the production number "Bally High" as the combination secondary school and casino is dedicated.

8-16-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

I'm looking for information on the writer Estelle Revlon, who I understand was from your part of the country. Any help you can provide would be appreciated. 

-- Biographer in Bioko

Dear Biographer:

"Estelle Revlon" was actually a pseudonym, which is why you may have had problems finding any information about her. And "she" was a "he" in any case, which would have compounded the difficulty.

"Estelle's" real name was Junius Swakmullion. He was forced to hide his literary endeavors under a bushel because in real life he was the President of the Redbone Savings and Loan, and back in those days you needed a top hat, a gold watch and a beard to be taken seriously in that line of work. His career would have been ruined if it had gotten out that he wrote romantic novels about courageous women pioneers and the problems they faced. To avoid detection Junius was forced to lock himself in the bank vault overnight, where he worked at his manuscripts by the light of a single candle. Sometimes by the light of burning banknotes if the candle tipped over.

Worse yet, his wife Mollycoddle was one of the town's biggest fans of "Estelle Revlon" and was always writing to the publisher to see if the author would speak before the Redbone Ladies' Moral Improvement Through Literature Society, of which she was co-founder. She and Junius must have had an interesting home life.

Although utterly forgotten now, "Estelle Revlon's" works were immensely popular in their day because they dealt with problems unique to women. For instance, "Sometimes a Great Lotion" tells the heartbreaking tale of Penelope Transom's futile search for a way of softening her hands after the rigor of farm work, and the crisis that follows when the newly-arrived French ambassador kisses her hand and parts of his mustache and upper lip are ripped away. In "A Ladder Runs Through It" we watch helplessly as Eliza Bustagutz learns that fine silk hosiery is incompatible with life in a sod hut on the prairie, especially when harvesting blackberries from the briar patch.

"Gray Badge of Courage" is set in the turbulent era of America's Civil War. To her horror, Lady Gladys Postlewaithe, leading actress of the King's Players on a tour of America, is stranded in Prehensile, Kansas when the railway tracks are blown up, cutting her off from her source of Italian hair coloring.

"Estelle's" final work was in many ways a masterpiece, the crowning of a long and ambitious literary career.  "The Decline and Fall" records the life of Agatha Allworthy, frontier milliner, whose 34D profile soon succumbs to Colorado gravity, a high-fat diet and the utter absence of proper corsets west of the Pecos.

A sequel, "The House of Girth," about the tragic Girdle Wars of Dakota Territory, was never completed.

8-17-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

I read what you wrote about Pavlov's dog. But what of Pavlov's cat? Surely there's a story there?

--Ms Kitty from Kingston 

Dear Ms Kitty:

It's well known that Pavlov had an unreasoning fear of cats. 

This unfortunate phobia was believed to have begun early in Pavlov's childhood. His doting mother made him a darling outfit for his 4th birthday, composed entirely of moleskins and mouse fur, which was all the rage in upper-class Russian children's attire that year. Alas, young Ivan Petrovich decided to show off his new togs to his childish companions in Mikhaylovsky Gardens, which in those days was not far from the famed Moyki Sardine Works, a veritable Mecca to the cats of St. Petersburg. 

He managed to get halfway to the Gardens before he was faced with an oncoming wave of stray cats, who, having never before been faced with a mouse the size of a four-year-old, decided that they had died and gone to heaven. In a flash his new clothing was slashed and stripped away and he was streaking down Nevsky Prospect stark naked, with the feline phalanx in hot pursuit. Luckily enough the Iskussty fountains were nearby and he was able to dodge the ravening horde by pretending to be one of the decorative cherubs that surrounded the pool, refilling it in a most shameless manner, which was considered cute at the time but today would gotten the sculptor twenty to life for taking indecent liberties with a minor. It was almost miraculous that his bladder held out long enough for the cats to disperse.

For the rest of his life the very sight of a cat was enough to send him into paroxysms of fear, during which he would empty his bladder as an imprinted defense mechanism. His lifelong celibacy is attributed to his equally strong overreaction to the word "pussy."

8-18-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

Why do they call them "deadlines"?

--Late in Latvia 

Dear Late:

The etymology of that word goes back to the golden age of newspaper reporting. You see, the invention of the telegraph opened up a whole new world of idleness to the otherwise harried reporter. Instead of scrambling to get the facts of a story he could spend the day at the racetrack or at the local saloon, drifting back to his desk just in time to rip a few sheets out of the telegrapher's box and pass them along to the typesetters. 

Of course the technology was new and subject to frequent breakdowns, so from time to time the reporter would drift back to his desk only to discover that the telegrapher's box was empty because a line was down in Omaha or someplace. 

At that point he would shriek something akin to the euphemistically translated "Great Caesar's Ghost! Hasten to get out of my way, everybody, for I've got a dead line and only 20 minutes before the story is due in production! Oh, curse the luck!" 

After a while "having a dead line" came to mean a forced flurry of activity undertaken to complete an assignment by a particular time.

8-19-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: Are diamonds really a girl's best friend? 

--Rhinestone Rita in Reno

Dear Rita:

No. They're cold, hard, small and have sharp edges. Stick with men. Rich men.

8-20-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

What are system resources and why do I keep running out of them?

--Multitasking in Muleshoe 

Dear Multitasking:

System resources were invented as a way of explaining why computers, which should have gotten lots more reliable as they improved in performance and got faster, instead deteriorated and became prone to crashes and malfunctions. Part of this is due to the Windows operating system, which was developed after it was discovered that the Apple Macintosh operating system was so reliable that it would have a negative effect on the world economy. A company with 5,000 workstations running Macintosh hardware and software needs only one computer maintenance person, and he or she can work one day a week or be a member of a sheltered workshop employing the mentally handicapped. Even this may be too much. There's a company in Ames, Iowa which installed Mac computers in 1987 and has yet to mail in its warranty card.

By comparison a company with 5,000 workstations running PC hardware and Microsoft software needs 5,000 computer maintenance people, all with Microsoft certification and a penchant for using phrases like "system resources" "memory leaks" and "they say the new version will finally take care of that."

To answer your question, the mythic "system resource" is like a big pie that has to be shared equally by all the programs on a given computer, each of which requires the entire pie to keep operating. Sometimes two pies. So most of the time a Wintel (rhymes with "pinball") computer is at war with itself, sending suicide bombers back and forth, taking hostages, conducting sabotage and psychological warfare to the point where I am sometimes genuinely surprised to discover that I can still do simple addition or compose an e-mail to the Help desk. 

So all I can suggest is patience and prayer, perhaps accompanied by fasting, self-mortification and the occasional flogging by a certified computer support person. Above all, do not give up hope, for I have it on good authority that the new version will finally take care of that....

8-21-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

How can I tell the turkeys I work with to stuff it?

-- Choi of Kuo'qing 

Dear Choi:

Understanding, compassion, and fostering a strong desire on the part of the turkeys to want to be stuffed. 

I can tell you, though, that it's a tough row to hoe. Turkeys are among the stupidest creatures in God's creation, and proud of it. Turkey cages have to be circular, because if they're square all the birds will decide that they absolutely, positively have to be in one corner at the same time and most of them will smother to death, usually with dopey grins on their faces like fraternity pledges who have just drunk 2 quarts of whiskey and are wondering why their hearts and lungs no longer function. 

The turkey is one of the few animals in the world that will drop dead if you speak to it harshly. It also has no concept of danger. If you go into a turkey cage and chop the head off one of them, the rest will just gaggle around, looking at the dead bird as if to say, "Hey! His head is gone. Gobble, gobble. Hey! He's not moving. Gobble, gobble. Hey! Is that some corn I can gobble? Gobble, gobble." Do the same to a second bird and exactly the same thing happens. If there are one hundred birds in the cage and you kill 99 of them in plain view of all the others, number 100 will still stand there with its single brain cell firing away madly, saying, "Hey! Their heads is gone. Gobble, gobble. Hey! They're not moving. Gobble, gobble. Hey! Is that some corn I can gobble? Gobble, gobble." 

Even if you hold the axe right under #100's nose, waving it back and forth in a threatening manner, it will just look at you with this vacant grin, as though you vaguely reminded it of something that probably wasn't very important anyway, whatever it was. 

My grandfather on my mother's side one time tried to raise self-stuffers. He dried out a whole lot of bread, added dried onion, then sprinkled it lavishly with rum and fed it to his flock. The birds got dead drunk (literally in this case) and he sold them after removing the feathers and other inedible parts as "Duffin's Dindon Delights," his name being Duffin and dindon being the French word for turkey, which he thought gave it a bit of class. 

All went well until Sunday, when the housewives popped their pre-stuffers into the oven and set off for church with their kinfolk. About halfway through the service the fire gong began to sound, normally at first, then more and more frantically. Apparently what happened is that the bread and the rum and the onions had sort of fermented together in the intervening few days, and once the interior temperature of the turkeys reached ignition temperature, they took off like military-grade anti-ballistic Pop-Tarts, knocking open the oven doors and racing around from room to room setting everything ablaze until they came to a window, where they broke through and sailed high over the town until they ran out of fuel, at which point they rained down from a great height, stampeding horses, terrifying babies and in several cases doing great bodily harm and psychological damage to innocent passersby. Much later Elmo Sliddybips was exempted from Army service in France because whenever he heard a shell come over he would jump out of his trench and throw off all his clothes, yelling "TURKEY" at the top of his lungs, which made him a poor security risk.

Grandfather Duffin managed to avoid the vigilante committee for three days by hiding in the well, but they eventually found him, liberally applied tar and turkey feathers, forced him to eat rum-soaked bread until he passed out, then sold him to a passing carnival which needed a Wild Man of Borneo. The last we ever heard from him was a postcard from Boca Raton in Florida, which stated that he was having a wonderful time and wished we were there. It was signed Gorgo the Terrible.

8-22-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

I saw part of a science program on TV where they were demonstrating that robotic dog AIBO that Sony is selling. It was pretty amazing. Do you think that pets will be replaced by robots someday? I don't think any robot could ever be as darling as my cat, Hieronymus Merkin.

-- Assembly Required in Assam Restibo 

Dear Assembly:

I can hardly wait for the next generation of truly realistic robot dogs, like Barky3PO that has no OFF switch and a minimum bark cycle of 45 minutes, or Piddles2D2 which can immediately detect the most expensive rug in the house. The Humper32 will be for mature households only, of course. And I think your beloved Hieronymus Merkin might be ready for the recycle bin: CuddlesSJ-7 has a tunable purr which will precisely match your brain waves to put you into a perfectly relaxed state, and also doubles as a vibrator with the optional marital aid battery pack.

Robotic animals aren't exactly new. Back in Redbone the blacksmith brothers, Trent and Tostitos Uglibuggers, had a line of life-sized steam-driven iron cats that they sold at state fairs and places like that. Once it was properly fired up it would meow, purr, chase mice and keep your feet warm in the wintertime. The only nuisance was dumping the ashes every morning and making sure the water tank was topped off. They were on the verge of signing a contract for national distribution with a major toy manufacturer when that unfortunate Midwestern incident occurred. 

It seems a malevolent teenager got hold of one of the cats, stoked it full of coal, tied down the governor, fired up the boiler past the red line and set it loose at a cat show in Nom de Plume, Iowa. They say it was like someone had crossed a saber-tooth tiger with a cruise missile, and the carnage was dreadful. Luckily someone had the presence of mind to drop-kick it out a window into the street, where it was hit by a garbage truck and blew up, leaving a gaping crater in the street and a rain of rubbish for a mile around. Trent and Tostitos quietly retired their plans for an atomic-powered model and went back to their anvils, sorely chastened.

You might keep that parable in mind if you ever think of tinkering with the voltage on your CuddlesSJ-7's optional marital aid battery pack....

8-23-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

I've read a little bit about dominant and recessive genes. What's the difference between them? Are there any other kinds of genes? 

--Chastened in Chaska

Dear Chastened:

Dominant genes are large and pushy, always sending things back in restaurants and talking loudly in public places. They are natural candidates for road rage and small-town political office. 

Recessive genes tend to be ethereal and passive, sitting in the back of the room writing obscure poetry and wearing neutral colors. Many of them go on to become perfectly average bookkeepers and librarians, occasionally dying at their desks, where they remain undiscovered for several days.

Submissive genes are a step down from this. They are docile and unassuming, perfectly willing to wear hand-me-downs and never taking the last slice of pizza. A submissive gene caught in a stuck elevator would never think of pushing the Help button, preferring to wait until someone comes along, all the while believing that the malfunction was somehow their fault. Many become lifelong cashiers at small supermarkets in obscure sections of nondescript towns.

Worse yet is the abysmal gene, often found lying in the darkness weeping and gnashing its teeth or hammering its head against the wall. Abysmal genes sincerely believe that the world has dealt them a bad hand, and that everyone would be better off without them. They are often chain-smokers, fans of daytime TV and have thought seriously about writing to Miss Cleo.

On a similar note, scientists have almost completely mapped the Gene Gnome, so you'll see them popping up in gardens before long.

8-24-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

Why do we have eyebrows? And why do some people only have one?

--Plucky in Plumstead 

Dear Plucky:

Eyebrows were invented during the cavepeople days as a substitute for baseball caps. Once the glaciers began retreating and the sun came out again after thousands of years, the cavepeople discovered that the overhead glare gave them headaches. Wearing hats was out of the question since they hadn't been invented yet, and hunters felt silly carrying parasols as they chased mammoths or were chased by saber-toothed tigers. Nothing affected a Cro-Magnon's self-esteem more than trying to fend off a saber-tooth with one hand while waving a moss-fringed pink parasol in the other.

One day a caveman whom tradition identifies as Rho'gayn discovered that a blend of 11 secret herbs and spices pounded together in a mortar with rancid boar's testicles allowed him to grow a stylish ruff across his brow ridge, protecting him from the noonday sun and obviating the need for a parasol. 

As tribalism increased, cavepeople began to use the compound on one eyebrow or another as a form of identification. The clans who would eventually become the Turks pioneered the singlebrow style as a fashion statement in the Middle Paleolithic, known as the "Roaring 20,000 BCs."

8-25-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: Why can't a woman be more like a man?

-- H. Higgins in Hyde Park 

Dear H:

Because humanity as we know it would have died out long ago. All that was explained in your Health for Teens class. You must have been absent that day.

8-26-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

Whoa! Today I came across an article that says researchers are working hard to develop a practical quantum computer. What's a quantum computer and when will I be able to get one?

--GottaHaveIt in Gothenburg

Dear GottaHaveIt:

I think the operative word here is "practical." Apparently it's quite easy to make IMpractical quantum computers, but their output is meaningless and consequently not an easy sell in a crowded marketplace during an economic downturn.

Essentially, a quantum computer uses the principle of uncertainty instead of simple on-off, yes-no switches. Everything becomes one big Maybe. At high enough processing speeds these Maybes tend to flop over to the Maybe So or Maybe Not position, although there's an Undecided category for really close calls. Because of this quantum computers have distinctly human responses to certain kinds of calculations, a situation which greatly excites the kind of scientists who are greatly excited by those sorts of situations.

Whereas the standard binary computer is perfectly good for simple problems like 2 + 3 = 5, the quantum computer is better suited for more complex philosophical questions, like what the sum of 2 and 3 would be for extremely large values of 2. Or what if 3 was the fundamentally more important number in the problem? A quantum computer might decide that it was all well and good that 2 and 3 equaled 5 under laboratory conditions, but what about in the real world? And should 2 plus 3 equal 5 simply because it was the expectation of the observer? If the observer is removed is the answer instead a value between 3.8 and 7.4? Could the answer possibly smear out to cover the entire numbering system? And is 5 somehow "better" than 2 +3? If you substituted 6 in the answer, would the problem experience greater self-esteem or less? 

The quantum computer also has decidedly odd approaches to processing speeds, in some cases providing the answer before the problem has been entered, in other cases popping up a window blithely announcing that there are 10 to the 19th power seconds remaining to completion. 

These are the sort of kinks that have to be worked out before the quantum computer is ready for prime time, as it were. Don't place your order just yet: 10 to the 19th power seconds is quite a bit longer than the universe has been around so far. 

8-27-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

Why is the keypad arrangement different for a telephone and a calculator? 

--All Thumbs in Altadena

Dear All:

To prevent the two from being confused. In the early days of touch-tone telephones the keypads were identical with calculators, and it was quite common for a secretary doing a hasty calculation to inadvertently dial the Speaking Clock in Aberswyth, Wales or the Las Vegas Bar & Grill in Monvovia, Liberia with the attendant long-distance charges. It was heartbreaking for a Certified Public Accountant to realize that he had done the tax calculations for his firm on the telephone keypad and had nothing to show for a day's work but flattened fingertips.

However, there was once an incident in which this confusion saved the world. In October of 1959 the night watchman at the DEW line in Point Less, Alaska noted what appeared to be a flock of ICBMs headed from the Soviet Union into American airspace. He frantically tried to contact the Strategic Air Command to launch a counterstrike, not noticing that he had mistakenly selected his calculator instead of the hot line telephone. Frantically he tried again, and again, all the while watching helplessly as the images on the radar got closed and closer. By the time he realized his mistake the radar images had been identified as a misplaced herd of Siberian snow geese and there was no crisis after all. 

Had he chosen the right implement the first time, you might be reading this in glowing charcoal characters on a slab of mutant birchbark.

8-28-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

Like yourself, I am on the sundown road of life's journey. At this stage I take particular comfort in recalling treasured memories from the past: holding my first grandchild, my beloved husband's final words to me, and all the little kindnesses I have been the recipient of. What treasured memories have you stored up from your long life?

-- Reminiscent in Remoulins 

Dear Reminiscent:

I must confess that there are certain memories I am fond of recalling, like when we got the high school principal drunk and tied him backwards and naked to the police horse just in time for the Temperance Day parade, or the time Mister Justice Shotwad was found in flagrante delicto with one of the hired hands from the Rocking Bar None ranch. 

But most of all, I remember Mama....

No, no-- hold the phone. "I Remember Mama" was one of those early TV shows that wouldn't last a microsecond on present-day television. They used to dedicate a whole half-hour to earth-shaking questions like which sweater Nels was going to wear, or if Aunt Jenny had felt a draft. The show made it through 8 seasons without a single drive-by shooting, heroin overdose, hostage situation, school bombing, lesbian love affair, terrorist attack, nude scene, four-letter word or teenage suicide. Not a single actor was voted off the show, nobody became a millionaire, and the actors were paid $84 a week. Life sure was dull back then.

No, from my own life what I remember most of all is the beach party the Baümerjoint sisters threw when their parents thoughtlessly went out of town for the weekend and left them alone in the summerhouse on Lake Wagwattle. Edyie and Deedee were somewhat devilish for their age, and before their parents' Packard had cleared the county line they were burning up the telephone lines arranging the kind of beach party most Redbone kids only read about in Screen Stories magazine. Potsy Arbuthnot and his brother rowed clear across the lake and brought back three cases of O Be Joyful from the reform school shop teacher's still (this was Prohibition, remember). Ernestine Buckholster "borrowed" the entire jazz inventory from the record store where she worked, as well as her father's beloved Bauplunkt Combination Console and Turntable. Walt Umrath, who was a trainee in the pharmacy, earned the nickname "Schliemann" because of the 3 gross of Trojans he discovered in the shop basement and made away with. It sort of snowballed after that. 

By Saturday sundown the entire teenage population of Redbone, minus the minister's kids and a couple of goody-two-shoe types were hard engaged in what was later to be called in hushed voices That Baümerjoint Weekend Wingding.

I believe the skinny-dipping started around 10pm, by the light of a huge full moon. By 11pm the newfangled "reefers" had made the rounds, and any remaining inhibitions had been flung to the winds. At midnight we determined that Harlan Eversnoots' father's Moon runabout was definitely faster than "Piggy" Smif's father's Hupmobile, at least until it went off the bridge. At 2am or thereabouts I won the nude motorcycle rally on "Yatz" Pulmontari's big Indian. At 4am Archie Furfly won the wet jockstrap competition, which meant that he and I had to star in the impromptu version of What The Butler Saw. Around dawn the town constable showed up. He would not be seen again until Monday afternoon, when he arrived back at the town hall wearing only a feathered hat, with the mayor's daughters wearing even less sound asleep in the rumble seat....

Hmmm... I see what you mean about treasured memories. They certainly are a comfort in one's old age, aren't they? 

8-29-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

Do you make up your own questions, or do people really send them in?

-- Interrogative in Interurban 

Dear Interrogative:

What a question! I believe I have been insulted, or at least had my character called into question. 

As you may or may not know, sir or madam, all public scribes, poets-for-hire, casters of runes, tabloid reporters and advice columnists are required to be licensed members in good standing of the Mythopoesis Association of America. We are sworn to create only that which can be independently verified as the unvarnished truth. We then apply varnish as necessary, rubbing it in well and buffing it to a fine luster before displaying it for sale in the marketplace. Special orders on request.

If Aunt Nettie made up her constituents' questions, the very fabric of truth would be called into question, and the curtain of veracity dragged in the mud of bad analogy. Who would know whom to trust? Who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, the law's delay? Who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life...

I'm sorry, I seem to be channeling that Willy Wagstaff fellow again. I believe it's my hearing aid, which sometimes picks up PBS if I sit too near the rabbit ears on the upstairs TV. My apologies to your fardels or whatever.

8-30-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

What is your general philosophy of life? Is the glass half full, or is it half empty?

-- Equivocal in Ecuador

Dear Equivocal:

I think better people than I have commented on that subject, to wit:

Zeno the Stoic
"It can never be either, since half the distance remains the closer you come to the midpoint from either direction."

Salvador Dali
"A better question is how much of the glass is taken up by the burning giraffe."

Bill Gates
"It's a situation that will be completely resolved with the release of Windows XP."

George Dubya Bush
"Since half the water was given away in the early days of my administration, it is vitaminly important to conserve the remaindering by going thirsty."

William Faulkner
"It was not the glass; the glass had been there ever since Yankee wagons rolled by the dooryard that spring and a Yankee rider, perhaps thinking the cabin empty since the glass in the windows was gone, packed away for fear of marauders, packed safe in boxes and buried in the wood, fired at the yawing door, and the story was that the bullet chipped the edge of the glass, this glass, the sum total of man's folly reduced to lines of halfness drawn ceteris paribus on some cosmic drinking glass, terms coined by those without courage to describe the actions of those who did indeed possess fullness, whose lives were vastly full, but our lives are just so many tiny clumsy determinations of content, of lack of content, fingering the glass chipped by the Yankee bullet measuring the godless water's meaningless levels."

The Taliban
"Glasses are contrary to Islam. Cut off the drinker's arms."

Eminem
"%$^#$%@ the glass and the *^%@?! homo it rode in on."

Britney Spears
"For the last time, I did not have my glasses artificially filled!"

Ernest Hemingway
"Just fill the glass. Full. To the top. Later we will go and run before the bulls and perhaps die in the filth of the streets."

Bill Clinton
"It depends on your definition of 'half.' "

Al Sharpton
"How much longer will our people be satisfied with the empty half of the glass? I propose a million-man march on someplace-- wherever they make these glasses!"

Werner Heisenberg
"You're asking *me*?!"

Ludwig Wittgenstein
"Even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, this glass will remain completely untouched. Of course, by that time there may be no water left, and this itself is the answer."

Connie Chung
"Do we have the right to judge? Can we really hope to put ourselves in a position of answering truthfully?

O. J. Simpson
"I believe that was the glass I cut myself on while I was out chucking golf balls in the back yard in the dark. With Kato."

8-31-2001

Dear Aunt Nettie: 

My personal advisor, who channels one of the Nine Wise Women of Atlantis, has advised me to invest my life savings in a company she recommends. I cannot get confirmation of this from my crystals. What should I do?

-- New Ager in Newark 

Dear New:

Oh, my stars and garters, Atlantis again! When are people going to realize that Atlantis is one line in Plato that points in the wrong direction, amplified by a book by a deranged 19th-century US Congressman?

In 1882 Ignatius T. T. Donnolly invented Atlantis in his tome, "Atlantis, the Antediluvian World," a 490-page book unhampered by a single fact, which set off a chain of speculation that has yet to come to an end. It's like someone publishing a complete history and tour guide to Stotham, Massachusetts, or a street map of Yoknapatawpha County in Mississippi.

Donnolly went on the predict the end of the world, as those people so often do, and like 100% of his predecessors was dead wrong. He also worked out a secret cypher which he claimed proved that Francis Bacon wrote all the works of Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe and Ernest Hemingway, as well as everything ever published by Harlequin Romances.

As for crystals, don't get me started. Anyone who takes advice from rock formations deserves exactly what they get.

MUSEUM OF
DEPRESSIONIST ART

GALLERY OF
THE UNIDENTIFIABLE