for 9 September 1999. Updated every WEEKDAY.
|
|
Filler: Writers Who Think Polly, Your email address best summarizes — in Arnold action speech — today's column: polly suck. Maybe ... I don't know ... call me Al Gore ... but it seems to me that you're trying to be funny. Right? I'm sure it's difficult to produce one column every three or four days. (You have a life, too, right?) But, uh, maybe, I don't know, you could try a little harder? As always, The Samerri PublicPC <PublicPc@loc.gov> Are you working on a research project pertaining to writers who try to be funny but fall pathetically short of their goal? I'd love to know more about your project. Please be sure to share with me any new information you uncover on this horrible affliction and any drug trials or possible treatments that are currently under investigation. Trying to keep a positive attitude despite the circumstances, Polly  Since my new job involves sitting at a computer all day, I've started reading Suck again. I just wanted to express my appreciation for your work, especially the urban hipster/indie rock/indie film columns. I just moved to Washington, DC, after spending four years at a small liberal arts college nowhere near a city. And now I'm reading Filler and thinking, "Of course! Urban hipsters are really annoying! Thank god that's not me with my Cat Power records and friends making indie films and wearing big platform shoes and capri pants ... er ... shit ... but we're better than that." Yeah, right. Living in the city immediately gave me this hyper-awareness of class and status, which I suppose, does really ugly things to one's personality and fosters a great deal of resentment. It's been lots of fun reading; I hope not to become too much of a walking cliché. Thanks. Sarah Loff <sarahl@Chadwyck.com> Actually, there's a hyper-awareness you inherit after years of living among and observing urban hipster societies that is rife with careful distinctions meant to separate the wheat from the hops ... or something. For example: Are your friends making indie films or talking about making indie films? Or are your friends actually making short student films or just talking about making short student films? Are they working with a documentary filmmaker or talking to a documentary filmmaker about possibly working with him or her later? Or are they talking about talking about working with a documentary filmmaker while actually doing nothing more than sitting around watching Dawson's Creek and eating Mallo cups? God, I love Mallo cups. Can I be your friend? Polly Sorry you couldn't get published in nondigital media. Step 26: Find a Web site that will post your bitter, insecure whimperings. Regards, Trevor Coe <trevor.coe@multex.com> Trevor, I know how you feel. I used to be angry at the world just like you. But boy, did my life change when I finally found a Web site that would post my bitter, insecure whimperings! Now go out there and find one of your own! You can do it, boy! Polly You might try looking for work as a receptionist or maybe as a fast food technician. As a writer, you blow. redfish <redfish@redshift.com> I was a receptionist for a day, actually, at an accounting firm called Coopers and Lybrand. I kept mispronouncing the name of the company, which is really a pretty horrible mistake, if you think about it. Also, when people called and asked where someone was, instead of saying, "He's in a meeting," I'd often say, "He just left with his secretary. They said something about lunch, but I heard them whispering about a hotel down the street...." Just joking. I was way too nervous to speak in full sentences that day. I usually only managed to mumble, defensively and rather mysteriously, "I don't know where he is," a response which probably had about the same effect. I haven't served fast food, but I was a waitress once. My specialty was checking back with each table way too many times during the course of the meal to make sure everything was OK. By the end of the meal, the patrons were invariably shooting me angry looks, and my tips were way below the current standard. I also liked to forget things completely or spill stuff all over people, then apologize awkwardly and profusely until everyone was just so embarrassed and uncomfortable that the meal was completely ruined. Considering the alternatives, I think you'll agree I'm doing the least damage to the general welfare in my current position. Polly Are We Not Men? Moleman: That essay of yours was all too easy. It's a cinch to attack backwoods Kansas rednecks for everything but the very issue that's at stake. Your piece neither contributed one iota of valuable information to the increasingly legitimate debate between evolution and alternative theories, nor did it say anything unusually new or funny about Kansas rednecks. Instead, you joined the 95 percent of commentators who stuck their heads up their asses in order to present their near-complete ignorance of the subject as erudite indignation. By not referencing a single article, journal, book, expert, or resource that's gone into this century-old debate, you prove yourself to be one of the mindless millions willing to march to the propagandistic drum of mass media and public education. Worst of all would be if you fell for the newly minted illusion that it's really not about evolution versus creation but local versus federal control. Start with Phillip Johnson's Darwin on Trial. As a writer, you'll especially appreciate it since it deals with the way arguments are constructed. Then go from there: Johnson provides enough bibliography to get as deep into the issue as you care to. Then write something about Kansas' decision that's worth reading. Regards, The FedEx Truck Conspiracy Joe Sixpack <fedextruck@hotmail.com> If my essay didn't contribute one iota to the "increasingly legitimate" debate, that's A-OK with me. As for the increasingly legitimate debate between pretentious, pseudo-urbane rednecks armed with spurious references to phony scholarship (on the one hand) and the real world (on the other), I'm happy to do whatever I can. Yrs, Hans Moleman You have a way with words; it's fun to read. I feel what really matters is that truth be taught in our schools, not opinions or conjecture or a loosely defined hypothesis such as evolution. Science known to be fact should be taught - not opinions. Clearly biologists and the like have gone hook, line, and sinker for evolution: But then where would biology be without it? Nowhere but where it belongs: describing phyla, body parts, etc. I haven't met a biologist yet that I consider a scientist. I'm sick of turning on TLC programs and hearing them weave this yarn about evolution around everything. It's all storytelling and it's hindering scientists from really getting to the facts. Thanks for your article, Garry <newman_apti@earthlink.net> You're right about the biologists' conspiracy to make themselves important by positing a phony theory that explains the greatest mystery in nature and is supported by every branch of science. Theologians are the only real scientists, for my money, along with law professors and televangelists. Now if only we could get a bumper sticker to show those biology clowns how we feel! Yrs, Hans Moleman Praise for the Great Kornholio Subject: Damn It, Mommy, this Couscous Is Bullshit! I just wanted to let you know that you can all take a permanent vacation, because there's only one thing that makes me read Suck every weekday, and that's Alan S. Kornheiser. Who is this Alan S. Kornheiser? What is he, that all his swains do command thee? I heard he was a doctor; his mother must be proud. What does the "S." stand for (if you know)? I would email him myself, but I'm afraid he might not respect me in the morning. If he were Catholic and had a confirmation name he didn't let us know about, such as Sam or Scheherazade, then he could be referred to as A. S. S. Kornheiser! Fantastic. Please ask Terry to draw more rabbits. Ken Harris <kharris@cwtel.com> Well, in that case, we will publish his latest letter. Never let them say we refused to give them that for which they whined incessantly. the Sucksters Subject: Devo-lution The problem of Kansas is but a symptom of a wider problem, one that can be seen in urban slums, in nonfunctional states (such as Somalia), and among tenured professors of English. Partially, it is a function of natural law; it appears that like matter and energy, stupidity is a conserved quantity. And when one reduces it in one place, it pops up in another; this week, it emerged in Kansas and in Ames, Iowa (where, you recall, many Republicans recently gathered to eat pork and praise Jesus and ethanol). The more serious issue is that there are now restrictions on society's ability to allow nature to take its course. At one time, disorganized societies incapable of supporting themselves (again, one thinks of Somalia and tenured professors) would have been conquered by better organized neighbors. Historically, this has been a bloody and nasty business, but it provided effective real-world feedback. We don't do this any more. Instead, through the miracles of modern technology, we allow dysfunctional societies to leech the resources and development of their better-organized neighbors and ask little in return. This is a lousy deal all around. Dysfunctional societies stay on life support and get no better. Functional societies become angry, embittered, and frustrated. The constant friction between the two — since functional societies are invariably nicer places to live — creates all manner of problems. The "good old days," when lesser breeds without the law were civilized with a Krag (an early ancestor of the M-1 carbine), were free from these difficulties. What does this have to do with Kansas and why all this reactionary blather? Essentially, it has become possible for a state like Kansas (or ones like Saudi Arabia or Kuwait) to opt out of the 20th century without paying the price, because its neighbors will continue to produce what it needs. Such states need only export a few basics, easily produced without an educated or motivated work force, and import the fruits of their better organized neighbors. Once, states this wealthy and this stupid would have lasted only as long as it took their neighbors to raise armies. Now they go on forever. I have absolutely no idea what to do about any of this. Fortunately, there is no evidence that people in Kansas (or anywhere else) have ever been greatly affected by what they were taught in high school biology, so perhaps we needn't worry too much. Alan S. Kornheiser The doctor is IN <askornheiser@prodigy.net> An excellent bit of prose, as usual. Have you considered publishing a collection of your letters to Suck, perhaps titled, "Wisdom from the Keyboard of the Great Kornholio" or simply, "The Doctor Is In"? Wait. We would own the rights to such a collection since we published the letters here. So, uh, forget we mentioned it — that is, until we call you to schedule the (unpaid) book tour. Hell, we haven't paid you yet, why start now? The adoration and respect paid by your readers should be reward enough for your labors. Disrespectfully yours, and only yours, baby, the Sucksters |
|
|||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||||
   |
|||||||||||||||||||
 |  |
||||||||||||||||||
 |   | ||||||||||||||||||
![[Tim Cavanaugh]](/fish/staff/images/tim.gif)
![[the fixin'
pixie... ]](/fish/staff/images/emily.gif)
![[Ian
Connelly]](/fish/staff/images/ian.gif){kind=small}
![[Copy Edit]](/fish/staff/images/copyeditors.gif){kind=small}
![[yes, it's
a plunger. i'll l
eave the rest up to your imagination ... ]](/fish/staff/images/erin.gif){kind=small}
![[Brian
Forsyth, " we're just spanning time "]](/fish/staff/images/brian.gif)