Date: 20 Feb 93 00:25:50 EST
From: george c smith <70743.1711@COMPUSERVE.COM>
Subject: File 3--TIME & Puzzlement

              TIME AND PUZZLEMENT - SUPERMARKET NEWS MAG
    MUGS "CYBERPUNK"; ALL HACKERS LOOK LIKE R. U. SIRIUS, DANCE TO
           HOUSE MUZIK, GOBBLE ECSTASY, QUOTE TIMOTHY LEARY

Buzzwords, like "cyberpunk," I've decided, are cruel pranks
sickeningly ambitious writers at glossy magazines use to make
themselves instant authorities. Media magnification always makes these
terms legitimate whether they are or not, so you know that while the
TIME article on "cyberpunk" two weeks ago was pure baffle-crap (see, I
can make my own buzzword, too), inside 4 months it will have spawned 6
like-minded articles in other supermarket magazines, taking on a
complete life of its own.

So, I'm gonna rehash some of this nonsense now, in hope that you
laugh, because if you don't, when you see it again as truth in the
coming weeks, you just might have to cry,

Didja know,
that the computer virus is "the cybernetic analogue of AIDS," a

disease which has affected millions worldwide and caused horrifying
death and human suffering? According to Phil Elmer-Dewitt of TIME,
it's so!

Didja know,
according to certified geezer Timothy Leary, "the PC is the LSD of the
'90s"?  Like you, I thought this was a fatuous, self-serving
statement. But then I thought about it some more and began to feel
warm inside.  Since I missed LSD when it came around the first time,
it felt good to know that I now had an unending supply of it sitting
on my desk, just in case I felt the need to be "groovy."

Didja know,
that now "cyberpunks" don't look like young men with coke-bottle thick
glasses and plastic pocket-protectors?  No, they look like young, less
warty, versions of Tiny Tim (which is what R. U.  Sirius looks like in
the photo in TIME magazine).  It's true!

Didja know,
cyberpunks listen to "house" music, that "post-industrial," droning,
artsy stuff that bands with names like Surgical Penis Klinik and
Throbbing Gristle couldn't sell in the '80s because it was "too"
alternative, but now it's big business because computer dudes and
dudettes don't like those dead, fat guys in Lynyrd Skynyrd. Yup, it's
true!  And boy am I bummed!  What am I going to do with my Angry
Samoans and Mentors records?

Didja know,
"without visual cues, people communicating on-line tend to flame: to
state their views more heatedly than they would face to face?"  Visual
cues-visual schmoos - here I thought they did it because there was
little chance they would get popped on the jaw for being a jerk.

Didja know,
the movie "Terminator 2"  was a cult film?

Didja know,
that TIME magazine used the same virtual illustration of "virtual
reality d00d sucking the face off a virtual reality d00dette" as the
movie "The Lawnmower Man," and the magazines OMNI, COMPUTE, PC
Computing, Byte, MacWorld, Discover, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, SPIN,
Science News, Playboy, Penthouse, Gent, USA Today, Details, MONDO
2000, Dog Fancy, Cat Fancy, Harpers, The Atlantic, etc., etc., etc.?

Didja know,
that the Electronic Frontier Foundation is a group that defends
"exploratory hacking"?  Well, they didn't know and they seemed pissed
in Computer underground Digest when they found out.

Didja know,
that TIME magazine is now sold with samples of cheap men's cologne,
along with ads for "Elvis not dead" books and chemicals which will
chase away your male pattern baldness?  It's true!

George/Urnst, The Crypt Newsletter

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