Copyright ã1992 by Scott Hess.  All Rights Reserved.

Why is it Called Stuart?

The first release of Stuart in March 1990 (see History) came just before school was emptied for spring break.  At a small school like Gustavus, this meant that the school closed down - the only people allowed to stay were foreign exchange students, and even they were encouraged to leave.

To this point, Stuart had been called `vt100'.  Due to the obvious trademark infringement, I needed another name.  As spring break came closer and closer, I began to panic.

One of my roommates at the time was into alternative and progressive music.  All of the people in my room were also not averse to imbibing small (actually, quite miniscule) amounts of alcohol during weekends.  The weekend before spring break was a natural time to get rid of what liquids we had left, in preparation for the spring break room searches ...

So, Saturday night, the atmosphere in our room was a bit thick, and we were listening to one of my roommate's tapes which was called Beelzebubba, by a group called The Dead Milkmen.  One of the songs is an extended paranoid delusion called Stuart.

And it just fit.  We should consider ourselves lucky - it could have been named Sri Lanka Sex Motel.  Or Punk Rock Girl.

The lyrics for the song Stuart are available at a few sites on the Internet.  I very much doubt this is quite legal, which I why I don't do anything rash such as include the lyrics for your perusal.  cs.uwp.edu:/pub/music/lyrics/files/dead.milkmen/stuart is where I got mine, though the archie server reports a number of other sites.  A quick reading of the lyrics also explains where soil (see Utilities/soil) got it's name, though there is still no good explanation for why it's named soil.