MiSTed: Apocalyptic Sugar
Amanda Lowry French
<Theme song. Reverse door sequence opens on the Satellite of
Love.>
Mike: Hi, everybody, and welcome to the Satellite of Love. We're
just sitting around today reading aloud from George Eliot's _The
Mill on the Floss_.
Tom: "Nevertheless it was a very happy fortnight to Maggie, this
visit to Tom. She was allowed to be in the study while he had his
lessons, and in her readings got very deep into the examples in
the Latin Grammar. The astronomer who hated women generally,
caused her so much puzzling speculation that she one day asked
Mr. Stelling if all astronomers hated women, or whether it was
only this particular astronomer. But, forestalling his answer,
she said,
'I suppose it's all astronomers: because, you know, they
live up in high towers, and if the women came there, they might
talk and hinder them from looking at the stars.'"
Mike: Can it youse guys, Irigaray and Cixous are calling.
<Deep 13.>
Dr. F: Well, Kristeva, we've got a little literary holocaust for
you today entitled "Apocalyptic Sugar." It's currently playing on
alt.prose and we think you'll find it--post-postmodern, shall we
say. But first, the invention exchange. You go first, Derridummy.
<SoL. Gypsy has her lips and lashes on.>
Mike: Gypsy wanted to build the invention exchange today. She did
it all by herself. What've you got for us, honey?
Gypsy: Well, um, okay. You know how when you put on mascara it's
just _impossible_ to keep from opening your mouth at the same
time. So I built a thing to help you stop such an ugly habit. I
call it the Mascara Muzzle. Mike, could you help me, here?
Mike: Sure, Gyps. <Mike pulls out a big steel contraption with at
least one big dangerous-looking prong sticking out from it. He
straps it onto Gypsy.>
Gypsy: Mmgf gglt grnk--
Mike: What? <takes off Mascara Muzzle>
Gypsy: I said, it has a holder on the side, too, so you have a
place to put your mascara brush down without having to screw it
back into the bottle or get the nice shiny counter all gooey.
Crow: That's girl stuff.
Mike: Hey, Crow, knock it off. Good job, Gypsy.
<D13.>
Dr. F: Interesting. Frank?
Frank: Thanks, Steve. You know, what with changing norms these
days it's tough to tell who the real men are just from looks or
speech or behavior or fashion sense. What's more masculine,
bench-pressing your own weight or tossing gratuitous Latin into
the conversation? We all have different ideas on how to establish
our manhood.
Dr. F: Get to the point, Frank.
Frank: Right, boss. That's why we've invented the "Man-O-Meter."
As you can see, it's just a little gauge with a dial that goes
from 10/Female to 0/Neuter to 10/Male. Care to be a guinea pig,
Nelson? <snickers evilly>
<SoL>
Mike: Sure, why not?
<D13. Frank points the Man-O-Meter at the screen.>
Frank: It's, uh, it's right on 10/Male.
Dr. F: Would you give me that-- <grabs Man-O-Meter, points it at
Frank.> What?!? Ten?!? I refuse to believe that you're the
epitome of manhood, Frank. I have some test photos over here,
let's see how they work. Here we go. Patrick Swayze--10/Male?
Bobby Fisher--10/Male? Oscar Wilde--10/Male? Ah now, wait a
minute. Hillary Rodham-Clinton! 10/Female? Kim Cattrall--
10/Female! FRANK!!
Frank: Uh, yes?
Dr. F: You made this chromosome-sensitive, didn't you?
Frank: Uh, yes.
Dr. F: Send them the story before I kill you. <mutters> This
thing is useless. Now how will I ever know . . . oh, what's the
use of anything.
<SoL>
Mike: Cheese it, everyone, we've got prose sign!
<Mike, Crow, and Tom scatter wildly as usual. Gypsy remains for a
moment, then glumly leaves. Door sequence.>
Path:
maxwell!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!concert!news-feed-2.peachnet.edu!
gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!agate!earthquake!sralston
From: sral...@earthquake.Berkeley.EDU (Scott Ralston)
Crow: Ever drive by a Purina factory? I have a bad feeling about
this . . .
Newsgroups: alt.prose
Tom: And cons! Heh, heh.
Subject: Apocalyptic Sugar
Mike: Has Francis Ford Coppola okayed this?
Date: 23 Feb 1994 08:14:03 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 116
Message-ID: <2kf38b$b...@agate.berkeley.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: earthquake.berkeley.edu
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2]
Huddled in the over-efficient supermarket sat a small horde
of pommegranites.
Mike: Well, it's not "It was a dark and stormy night," but I
guess it'll do.
One seemed more brilliant that the others in the florescent
intensity that bathed them. That pommegranite found a home with
the two lovers in exchange for ninety nine cents.
Crow <thick, goofy voice>: And I will take him home and feed him
and pet him and name him George.
Tom: Don't forget to bathe him, too.
The apocalyptic fruit was bundled in a plastic bag, accompanied
by banana chips and rice cakes.
Tom: The banana chips of Armageddon.
Crow: And the rice cakes of genocidal catastrophe.
Mike: C'mon, you guys, posting from a machine called "earthquake"
probably affects your thinking.
The idealists left, and the bag came with them.
Mike: Willingly or unwillingly?
Eve saw the emerald tree in the center of the garden.
Tom: Did you know that indentation is the jump cut of the
writer's trade? It's true.
Crow: I didn't know emeralds grew on trees.
Its fruits seemed full and precious. She'd been warned to stay
away from this tree; these precious fruits were not for her, nor
her mate. But Eve wanted to feel those precious objects in her
hands.
Tom: Awww, isn't that precious.
Crow: Yep, pretty precious, all right.
Mike: I have precious little patience left with you two.
She wanted to ingest its flesh and explore its power, for
she had none. Only the faceless step-father above claimed power,
and Eve was expected to find that perfectly alright.
Mike: Hey, Terry Quinn's all right with me!
One fruit seemed more brilliant than the others; it seemed to
call to her.
All: EE--EEEEEVVVVEE!!!! Hey, EVE! Over here! Yo!
Sections of earthquaked sidewalk fell away under the two,
hand in hand with shopping bag.
Tom: Another jump cut, folks.
Mike: You know, that sentence is just grammatically evil. No
other word for it. Evil.
Tomorrow she'd leave him. It seemed somehow that their time of
paradise was ending, but the two couldn't help but be joyful.
Crow <singing blithely>: Our time of paradise is ending, ending,
ending. Wheee!
How can they feel sorrow when intertwined with one whom adores
them in such totality?
Mike: You know, that sentence is just REALLY grammatically evil.
It's sometimes better to laugh even on the edge of the storm.
Tom: Hey, when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.
Mike: What?
Eve skipped through the garden cuddling the red fruit to her
breast. She pushed away hanging vines and branches on a grinning
search for her Adam.
Tom: <crackle> One Adam-twelve, one Adam-twelve.
Mike: You're reaching, buddy.
When she found him she displayed her treasure, and Adam's eyes
grew wide. He hesitated, not quite sure how to react to seeing
apocalypse cradled in the arms of his mate.
Crow: Uh, honey, isn't that apocalypse cradled in your arms?
The two found a small hill and spread out a towel under the
waiting trees. The air was chilly around them, but they found
heat in each other, and their minds felt so warm and at peace
that they were also heated from within.
Mike: Wait, they had towels in Eden? I am so lost, guys.
Tom: Jump cut, Mike.
Crow: You know, peace of mind usually cools me off. But maybe
that's just me.
She had a pocket knife and he borrowed it to part the skin of the
precious fruit.
Crow: Enough with the precious already!
Inside clusters of seeds flickered like rubies in an elaborate
womb.
Tom: Ick.
Eve strained at the fruit, and it opened. She exhaled in
wonder at the beads within. The blood red seeds seemed placed
with a whirlwind precision, clustered together in a series of
curling tendrils.
Mike: I never thought of whirlwinds as being all that precise
before.
Each compartment was tediously arranged into deep coordination.
Tom: Ho, hum.
She dug at a cluster of rubies and placed one in her mouth.
Crow: Then placed one in her navel.
The taste was sweet at the onset but then faded to something
dull, slightly bitter. She offered some jewels to
Adam, and he couldn't resist the lure to ingest them.
Mike: These two have obviously completely misinterpreted the
Truman Capote classic "Breakfast at Tiffany's."
They found joy with eachother on the hill. Simple things
fueled their amorous thoughts. Each one delighted to see the
other project the pommegranite seeds from their mouth into the
ice plant below.
Crow: Ptooey-ching!
They were in love to the point of silliness. The silliness was
pleasant and disarming, save a little mushy.
Tom <falsetto> Save a little mushy for me, hon!
Crow: Hee, hee, you're so silly! I'm silly, too! We're
sillyricious!
Tom: Super-duper sillyrama.
Crow: Silly Vanilli.
It's good to feel intense and to give way to intense feelings, to
feel them spring to life inside you, and to delight in the
gratification received from giving them a voice.
Mike: My feeling is that that voice would sound an awful lot like
William Shatner's.
Chains of rubies were consumed and the pits streaked through the
air.
Mike <ducking>: Duck!
Crow: Incoming!
Tom: Mike, just what IS an ice plant, anyway?
The step-father felt a slight disturbance. Something wasn't
right in Eden. Gathering himself from his previous meditation he
lept from the clouds and into the forest below.
Crow <deep, gravelly voice> Never fails. Just when a guy wants a
little REAL privacy.
The grass felt like conditioned baby's hair in his toes as he
sought out the garden's two inhabitants.
Tom: What?!?
Mike: I know that anxiety of influence is a problem, but surely
not ALL the sane similes have been taken.
Crow: No more tears.
He found them still eating jewels from the pommegranite and was
consumed with thorough shock.
Crow <gravelly God voice>: Hey, I never put rubies into
pomegranates! Who's been messing with my Universe? What's the
point of having compact forms to transport wealth if the rarity
value is completely DESTROYED by making them organically
reproducible?
Eve and Adam looked up at their step-father, caught literally
red-handed.
Tom: 'Cause they've been eating red stuff, you see, uh, heh,
well, um, heh . . .
"Why did you forbid us this fruit?" Eve inquired of the now
rampant man, "its seeds are delicious. They make me feel
alive..."
Crow: Oh, please, don't let her sing.
Adam then realized the magnitude of the situation, and
moved to cower behind Eve.
Tom: Adam is completely free from any modern constructions of
masculinity.
Mike: And dignity.
Soon the seeds were spat at longer intervals as the two grew
satisfied of the bittersweet fruit, and finally it was finished.
Their hearts full and alive they now focused wholly on mingled
words intertwined into conversation.
All: Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb.
Lying on the towel their minds felt to them as close as their
bodies.
Mike: Maybe they sucked on the wrong corner.
As the night wore on their words carved elaborate patterns in the
air, and it was happiness to behold, a joy to understand.
Tom <sings>: "We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun."
Crow: Mike, this is weird. I don't like synesthesia.
The step-father expelled Adam and Eve from the garden for
they'd worked against his will. It was one thing to give them
paradise, but it was another thing entirely to give them freedom
in paradise.
Mike: Yeah, stepfathers are like that. They feel like they have
to be really strict and set early curfews and stuff.
Tom: What Bible is this guy working with?
They left the garden. The two felt muddled over the whole fruit
incident, but had pride enough not to grovel to the egomaniac who
kicked them out.
Mike: Boy, that just sums up the whole Judaeo-Christian paradigm,
right there.
Outside was a new, cold world to explore. They'd do it together.
Someday soon the sun would return.
The morning dawned gray.
Crow: Well, guess the sun returned. That was quick.
Tom: Thanks to the magic of--jump cut!
She was leaving today, and it was all too apparent. She packed
her belongings into a canvas rucksack and they made their way to
the front of the dwelling to wait for her ride.
Tom: She doesn't own much, does she.
Crow: Well, at least her belongings can make their own way!
Tom: She probably hasn't washed her sweatsocks in a while.
Mike: I wish I lived in a dwelling.
He thought to himself that in approximately fifteen minutes he'd
no longer be holding her, that she'd be gone from his grasp.
Mike: She thought to herself that in approximately five minutes
she'd no longer be conscious.
It didn't really seem possible that this could be. They waited
in eachothers' arms for the carpool, still feeding off of the
precious energy.
Tom: <sings> "So kiss a little longer, longer with Big Red!"
Mike: Never sing that again.
"Don't be sad" she said to him, "have faith." They thought to
the future. They thought of the present, and the wonder of being
in love. One managed a smile through the Sunday grayness.
Crow: Which one?
Mike: Can't tell. Too gray out.
The carpool arrived and they packed her bags in the back.
These were the last few seconds of touch until she had to go.
Tom <hushed sports announcer voice>: It's touch and go here at
"Apocalyptic Sugar," ladies and gentlemen . . .
Their bodies became separated, but their minds strained to
sustain the intensity even when parted.
Mike: Ungh!
Cold wind whistled around his body as he watched her drift away.
Crow: Mary Poppins runs the carpool, you see.
He trudged away and back to the hill where they shared the
pommegranite together.
Crow <drill sergeant voice>: Sound off!
Tom and Mike: One-two!
Crow: Sound off!
Tom and Mike: Three-four!
Crow: Bring it on down!
Tom and Mike: One, two, three, four, one, two--THREE-FOUR!
The pommegranite husk was shattered shrapnel on the slope.
Crow: See, I knew a military tune was appropriate.
He was still engulfed in shock from seeing her leave. His eyes
became trained on the many seeds; they conjured phantom images of
the night before.
Tom: The images of those he's wronged rise before his eyes.
Mike: That would be us, I reckon.
When the visions stopped he nudged soil over a small colony of
seeds with his toe and invested all of his faith in their ability
to grow a new garden to which someday they could return.
Mike: Um, I don't think the visions have quite stopped yet.
And perhaps then, he thought, they might have freedom and the
garden together. He walked away.
Crow: Straight into the slavering jaws of an enormous Bantha!
"Oh, no," said Leia, her soulful eyes gleaming with tears, her
aristocratic hands wringing in distraction, her creamy bos--
Tom: We gotta go, guys.
<Door sequence.>
<Satellite of Love.>
Crow: Where was the sugar, Mike?
Tom: Where was the Apocalypse, Mike?
Crow: Did Adam and Eve really have a stepfather, Mike?
Tom: Did Adam and Eve really establish a long-distance
relationship in the end after picnicking lightheartedly on
pomegranates, banana chips, and rice cakes, Mike?
Mike: Look, guys, I don't know, all right? Let's just put this
behind us.
Tom: Say, Mike, does jewelry really grow on trees on Earth?
Mike: No, but let's remember; neither does a talent for grammar.
Nor the instinctive knowledge of how to spell "pomegranate."
Crow: True, so true.
Mike: What do you think, sirs?
<D13.>
Dr. F: Adam and Eve were obviously vegetarians. Kill them!
Frank: Yeah!
Dr. F: Push the button, Frank.
<pwhoosh.>
Oh gosh, I guess I better put like a disclaimer here, right?
Okay, um, Mystery Science Theater 3000 and all characters
appertaining thereto are owned and copyrighted by Best Brains
and/or Joel Hodgson, God of Sleep. Excerpt from _The Mill on the
Floss_ is from page 133 of the Riverside edition, Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1961. This whole thing is not meant to infringe
on their copyrights in any way and is public domain, free to flow
all over cyberspace or anywhere else, as long as this disclaimer
remains intact. I do not mean to hurt Scott Ralston's feelings or
steal his stuff, so please don't tell him I did this. Questions
or comments should be directed to Amanda Lowry French at
al...@Virginia.Edu as long as they accentuate the positive.
Amanda "Trumpy, no!" French
Sections of earthquaked sidewalk fell away under the two, hand in
hand with shopping bag.
Marcelo Gomes
>
[snip]
><SoL. Gypsy has her lips and lashes on.>
>
>Mike: Gypsy wanted to build the invention exchange today. She did
>it all by herself. What've you got for us, honey?
>
>Gypsy: Well, um, okay. You know how when you put on mascara it's
>just _impossible_ to keep from opening your mouth at the same
>time. So I built a thing to help you stop such an ugly habit. I
>call it the Mascara Muzzle. Mike, could you help me, here?
What IS up with that? None of my friends can tell me why women
open their mouth when they put on mascara. Someone please enlighten me?
Funny stuff, Amanda. Had me laughing all the way through it, and it is
the first post to make me think about mascara.
I don't mean I'm thinking ABOUT mascara...I mean it raised the...it had
mascara in it, so...er...aaaaah, forget it.
over and out,
Pat Gomes (Male/9.5)
>
Dave Van Domelen
Marcelo Gomes <ce...@oberon.umd.edu> wrote:
> What IS up with that? None of my friends can tell me why women
>open their mouth when they put on mascara. Someone please enlighten me?
Pretty simple, really. Opening the mouth draws the facial skin tauter
over the skull, making it easier to put on any kind of makeup. As far as
mascara goes, the eyelids are probably stabilized by the tautness thing. But
then, my lashes are good enough as is, and I've never had to resort to mascara.
}->
Dave Van Domelen, still working on a really annoying dye laser....