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The Boundaries of Sanity ====================== (C) 1992 Aaron Turpen Issue #: 11 Edited by: Aaron Turpen (AKA Thanatos) Released: 08/07/92 ============================================================================= | The Boundaries of Sanity is a proud member of the Disktop Publishing | | Association (DPA), dedicated to the art of paperless, tree-saving | | publishing! You can contact the DPA's BBS in Birmingham, Alabama at | | (205)854-1660(9600/N81) for the latest developments and outcroppings of | | electronically published literature. Please support paperless publishing | | THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE! | ============================================================================= What's In Here: =============== 1. Special Thanks If you want, you can just skim this part, since I was rather mushy this time. 2. The Editor's Soapbox Hmmm...What to talk about... 3. Feature Poem #1: Butt Cracks Hilarious prodigy of contruction-like hinders! 4. Feature Poem #2: Ron 'N Allen Radio persons to a listener; as read on-air. 5. Feature Story #1: The Little Yella Girl Black meets white and things go a pleasant yellow. 6. Feature Poem #3: Hatred and Pain A synopsis of the passing of ideas through society. 7. Famous Quayle Quotes: Dan Eats Black-Eyed Peas Second-in-command reveals that he, in his brainal heirarchy, is the same! 8. Feature Poem #4: Hot Coals A waiting in the gallows of horror. 9. Feature Story #2: Animal Instincts Children: nearest to angels or nearest to animals? 10. Feature Poem #5: Thine Dearest Love; undaunted by life's meloncholy. 11. Feature Poem #6: Anguish A short synopsis of the steps of pain. 12. Essay/Critique: Art is... Interesting almost poem-like thought... 13. About the Literature ============================================================================= Special Thanks: =============== This month, I'm sending special thanks out to the following people for the following reasons: Pat Ormond: My CSIS 232 teacher for teaching the ins-and-outs-and- other-things-you-never-needed-to-know-about Word Perfect <GRIN>. Michael Matthews: A co-worker who's brightened several people's lives with his "interesting" card-making skills. Go down to Crandall Audio and check em out! Jeff Canny: An ex-co-worker who quit and therefore gave me a promotion into a better job <hehehe>. Jillynn Clegg: For being a babe and pretending she doesn't know it (and for putting up with my advances). Kevin Francis: For being Kevin and not knowing the REAL world (thereby putting up with my questionable version of the same). Brian Washburn: For teaching me all of life's essentials: 1)The 10 Standard Rock 'N Roll Concert Poses; 2)The secret handshake; 3)that though life gets pretty darn close to ending with marriage, it doesn't quite (now I'm not QUITE so afraid to get married)<G>; 4)and for listening to my petty rantings. ============================================================================= The Editor's Soapbox: ===================== Hmmm...What to talk about. I guess that this month, I'll just drop a note to all you would-be contributors out there! I am in special need of stories right now. I'm running REALLY short again <GRIN>. So, if you have a story which you have been afraid to publish, send it to me and I'll tell you what I think! No muss, no fuss, just a short critique and maybe some help (as much as I can give, anyway) to get it and you going. And if I like it (which I doubt I WON'T), I'll even publish it for you! Wow, isn't that neat?! SO SEND AWAY!!! On another note, I released a survey of users/readers of The Boundaries of Sanity. The survey was as follows: FROM: THE DESK OF DEATH at The Boundaries of Sanity TO: ALL READERS Just a memo to put forth a survey to all my loyal fans <grin>. The issue of using a hypertext reader for the Boundaries of Sanity's format has come up time and time again, so I've decided to put it to you, the readers. But before I ask questions, I'll give a few guidelines as to how using hyper- text would effect the magazine and how I would implement a reader. First, how I would implement the use of hypertext. I would most probably use IRIS as a reader (other magazines such as Ruby's Pearls use this reader), which is in the IBM format. This would entail merely adding a few "comments" to the format of The Boundaries of Sanity in order to make it "readable" by the Iris reader. Scaled down, the magazine wouldn't CHANGE much in essence, it would just look better and might be a little easier to read, for those who have an IBM, that is. This brings us to the next issue at hand, the effects of switching from straight text to a hypertext format. Using hypertext would, quite blatantly, make the magazine MUCH harder, if not impossible, for other types of computers to read. Although many come with IBM "emulation" programs, this software doesn't always work with things such as graphics and they are much slower than just loading the text into a software package such as Word Perfect MicroSoft Word. I would, however, hopefully bypass this by including a text version (like it is now) with the Iris version (so there'd be two copies of the magazine in every ZIP or on every disk). This would double the size of the files, however, and I know SysOps don't like that much. Of course, I'll keep the text version of it availble with the ONDISK order form (included with every issue). But it costs money to send a disk and time to wait for it to come back... So I'm putting it up to you readers: Should I 1) Convert to Iris AND keep the text version; 2) Leave it text; 3) Convert to Iris ONLY; Thank you for your help. I will take a synopsis of the results and let you know what's going to happen with The Boundaries of Sanity! Sincerely, Aaron Turpen, Editor The Boundaries of Sanity 884 South 630 West Alpine, UT 84004 The response to this query was OVERWHELMING! In all, I got a response from about forty-eight (48) readers! Doesn't sound like much, but it's more than I expected <grin>. Anyway, the breakdown of the results are as follows: Which Votes ============================================= ===== 1) Convert to Iris AND keep the text version: 1 2) Leave it text: 37 3) Convert to Iris ONLY: 10 As you can see, about 77% of the readers would prefer I leave the magazine in it's text format. So, I give you issue #11 of The Boundaries of Sanity in text! ============================================================================= Butt Cracks =========== (C) 1992 Aaron Turpen Butt cracks swaying in the wind O, fortuitous times these are again As I watch the mandibles of flesh Spilling into the open air a wretch So stinking and construction-like, I see them baring all, in the pike Of dawn I tell them, "PLEASE NO!" But their butts they bare for show! I'm stuck here watching the buttfest As they lean and giggle in their best Immitation of whales and bovinal wants And tease me, wheeze me in their taunts. Behold their buttocks, fine and fair-- At least to them, but I see hair Covering them over, filtering the ooze I see before me, leaking on my shoes!! ==================================================================== Randon Lunacy BBS -- 221-0928. Carries FISHNet as well as several, smaller networks and several quality files ranging from Japanese anime .GIFs and scripts from Anime movies/shows. Healty, spastic environment. The editor frequents this board. ==================================================================== Ron N' Allen ============ (C) 1992 James Duckett They come on every morning At 5:30 in the AM, They drive everybody up a wall But the chicks really diggum! Playing the best rocker's first While Utah is getting outta bed, They talk all day of politics And with donuts they are fed! Ron is the wild and crazy one Is lazy, rash, and free, While Allen has to ask his wife If he can even pee. I listen to them every morning 'Till they get off the air, Four plus hours, and I'm fried It's the one for me--KBER! Monday through Friday Let's just give it up, Ron N' Allen, we all know it You guys really suck! ==================================================================== The Brass Cannon BBS -- 226-8310 (public node, 2400). Specializes in messages (carries the RIME network), and quality files. Also features an abundantly helpful SysOp and a friendly, occasional Co- SysOpess. The editor frequents this board. (Avail. via ->BRASS) in the RIME Writer's conference. ==================================================================== THE LITTLE YELLA GIRL ===================== (C) 1992 William J. Slattery Blocks away he heard the music. That's what drew him there. The kid looked odd and out of place in that particular bar. He stood out and plainly didn't be- long. He stood by himself in the doorway to the street with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He didn't know anybody in the place. He had never been there before and when he left, he never went back again. The boy was white and everybody else there was black. The boy was nineteen. Everybody else was much older except the waitress who was about his age or maybe younger. The boy was dressed nicely by the standards of middle-class white America. He wore dirty white bucks and chinos, an open-necked button down shirt and a dark tweed jacket. This was 1949. White kids didn't hang out in black jazz joints in Newburgh in 1949 unless, maybe, they were musicians, and this kid was no musician. You could tell by his haircut, which was recent and short. You could tell by his clothes. The kid looked like Joe College, but he wasn't. He was a soldier stationed at Stewart, an Air Force base at the edge of town. There was an Army-run prep school for West Point at the base. The kid was a student there. Nobody paid the slightest attention to this white boy. You'd think they would but they didn't. Everybody, even the bartender and the young waitress, focussed their full attention on the musicians up on the raised stage behind the bar. The entire popula- tion of the bar, thirty people or so, was transfixed by the music. A cigarette burned down to one guy's fingers and he didn't even notice. A woman held her scotch two inches from her mouth for a full five minutes and forgot to drink it or put the glass down in all that time. There were four musicians on the tiny platform, piano, tenor sax, drums, and trumpet. Every now and then the sax guy put down the sax and picked up a nickel-plated clarinet. He was a genius on both, an absolute genius. All the guys up there on the stage were geniuses, no question about it. No question at all. The white kid knew jazz. He also knew out-of- this-world fantastic musicianship when he heard it and he was hearing it now. The kid was a true and dedicated jazz buff. His record collection was worth thousands, some of the old disks were collectors' items, hard-to-find, much sought-after recordings, many on obscure and long- forgotten labels. He had all the old Nat King Cole piano work, of course, and the well-known Benny Good- mans and the Roy Eldridges and the Cooties and the first version of Well Git It. That stuff was hard to find but he had them. But he also had some Kid Orys and early Beiderbeckes and Cozy Coles and the Muggsys (he actually knew Spanier slightly) and Jelly Rolls and Blind Lemon Jeffersons and the Jones boys, Jo and Elvin and Wallace and Philly Joe. Nobody had that stuff. But the kid did. The boy could tell you what Benny Goodman and Harry James stole from Jimmie Lunceford and Will Hudson. He could show you what Benny Carter did for Coleman Hawkins and Django Reinhardt in Honeysuckle Rose. He knew Basie's genius for combos, bringing together Walter Page and Wellman Braud, for example, and he knew the Count's debt to Waller and Hines. He actually owned a rare shellac of Prince of Wails. The guys in the combo had played for nine min- utes non-stop now and they had given, if you knew how to listen, a definitive history of musical influences on One O'Clock Jump. In nine minutes they played with the tricky relationships between The Jump and Digga Digga Do, I Got Rhythm and Shoe Shine Boy. Heady stuff. Years ahead of Artie Shaw who was years ahead of everybody except these unknown guys here in this little joint in nowheresville. When the musicians stopped playing it was like in a movie cartoon when a character finds himself standing in mid-air and doesn't yet realize that gravity should be making him fall. When they stopped playing everybody just hung there, motionless, unaware that the music had stopped, that it was over, that the sounds that held them had gone away. And then sudden- ly the joint went wild, everybody started screaming and shouting and stamping their feet and then they were standing up, and the musicians were laughing and hugging each other and bowing and wiping away the sweat and the bartender turned his back to his custom- ers, and was yelling and clapping his hands at the musicians above him on the stage. Little by little the cheering died away and the bar resumed its murmur and clink and the musicians came down off the stage and stood for a while with the patrons standing there crowding around and had free drinks with them and smoked a little grass and basked in the praise washing over them like waves in a warm dark honey ocean. The boy drank up when the music stopped and prepared to leave. He didn't want to cause any trou- ble. He thought they probably didn't want white boys in this bar. Why would they? The young waitress raised her eyebrows at him from across the brightly-lit, smoky little room. Did he want another drink? He smiled and nodded and in a minute she brought him a drink and as the Saturday night wore on, she brought him many, many drinks and by three the boy was quite drunk from the liquor and the music. He and the girl had spoken to each other shyly at first but as she grew tired from the work and he loosened up from the booze, they talked normally and became friendly. The girl was quiet and cheerful and seemed not to resent him and perhaps even to like him. It was near closing time. The waitress told him he had had enough to drink and that he should come with her to the kitchen and have some coffee. The place was emptying out. The musicians were paid. The bartender closed and locked the door and dropped the Venetian blinds and turned out the lights. The room was lit now only by the light coming from the kitchen. The bartender brought some bottles over to a table and sat with the three or four patrons sitting there. The white boy sat at a white metal table in the kitchen on a hard fan-backed oaken chair. The wait- ress sat with him, and a stout old woman with snowy hair sat at the little table, too, the three of them drinking coffee and talking. They started off talking and laughing about how drunk the boy was but as he grew soberer their talk turned to other topics. The old woman was the girl's grandmother. She was the mother of the bartender who was the girl's father. She and her son owned the place and had for a long time. In the fall the girl was going to start col- lege, the first one of her family to go to college. It would be expensive and the clothing required would run the costs up even more, but they would manage. Everybody in the family was fearful about how the girl would be treated at the school by her white class- mates. She was a quadroon, her grandmother explained, a high yella, she called her, with green eyes and soft wavy hair, which was probably an advantage, the grand- mother said, but she was still a colored girl, you could tell that right away, and that would count heavily against her everybody was sure. The Klan was active in these parts, the grandmother said. Remember what they did to Robeson over in Peekskill. If she blamed the boy for being white, she gave no sign. The girl was tired and spoke little. She liked to read, she said. She told him she spoke some French and was reading Flaubert. She thought she might major in French literature. She might live in France, she said. Things were better there. "The sun coming up, boy," the old lady finally said. The boy stood up. The girl stood up, too. She was small, almost a head shorter than the boy. She looked up at him, friendly. "You got twenty dollars on you, sonny?" the old lady asked. "For twenty dollars you can take that chile on upstairs to bed and stay there until you wake up. You'd like that, wouldn't you boy." She said this as a statement. "The money for her college." The girl looked up at him, unembarrassed and expectant. She looked at him in the eyes. "I would like that," the girl said quietly and she touched his hand. The old woman stood, too. She gently shook the boy's arm. "Make up your mind, boy. It getting late. It bed time now." She picked up the cups and saucers and the boy's ashtray and put them in a steel sink across the room. She came back and stood near the boy, waiting. The kid fumbled in his pockets and produced some bills. He gave the old lady three fives and five ones and he and the high yella girl left the kitchen and went upstairs and slept and made love in a big double bed until late Sunday afternoon. At around six they came downstairs and the old lady fixed them both something to eat. The girl's father joined them. The place was closed Sundays. "This little yella gal likes you," her father said, and patted his daughter's cheek, smiling into her eyes. "You come here any time," he said to the boy, and shook his hand when he left. ================================================================= The Silver River Sequential is another electromag available for download as SILVER??.ZIP (replace the "??"s with an issue number) from several prominent BBSs. HIGHLY recommended by the editor of this magazine, it is another free electronic publication. CHECK IT OUT! ================================================================= Hatred & Pain ============= (C) 1992 Ken Marrott Hatred was born, upon the world, to the hands of the unclean. by joy it was faltered, it lost it's every need. There was a feeling in the people, and hatred was it's name. To the world, from havens high, came the children, and to the people gave a sign. "Stick it out, and see it through," into the wind Hatred blew. Fantasy filled their minds, and the people came unglued. -- So they lead the progens' down to darkness's lair, to give them hatreds crown.-- On to them it opened wide, working through to bring them down. "Come with me and catch the hate, of each other, of oneself, be a full conformist and hate the world at last." The artist and the poet, the thespian by trade, see the world in different eyes, --By hatred they'll be changed-- By the hatred and the pain they will become just the same. Bid them gone, and strike them down, to pull yourself up, everstruggling for the unreachable top. Building up and tearing down, the consturction never stops. locking this world in an unbreakable shell, that of hatred, that of pain. --We teach it to the children, all of them quite the same-- ============================================================================= Hot Coals ========= (C) 1992 Chris Lynn Ridiculous wants to hide from the gallows, and continue to blaze the path through the sand of the hourglass of our father. I don't worry for this vulgar wish will be rubbed away by the friction of words and glances or the lack thereof. I shed my feelings to be calloused by hate. In the end of my bin sits the numbed figure of lacking. He sits with a carved scowl on his countenance hugging his knees. Meanwhile I claim my bench of melancholy and wait for my hopes to evacuate my brain. ==================================================================== The Chrome Citadel -- 224-6545. HOURS: 10pm to 7am! Soon 24-hour. Comfortably irregular environment with message bases to suit all, as well as a SysOp who is hopelessly addicted to user vs. SysOp doors; especially Street Warrior. Off-the-wall users and messages ad to the melee of questionability. The editor frequents this board! ==================================================================== Famous Quayle Quotes: Dan Eats Black-Eyes Peas! ================================================ "What a terrible thing to have lost one's mind. Or not to have a mind at all. How true that is." -Dan Quayle speaking to the United Negro College Fund ============================================================================= Animal Instincts ================ (C) 1992 Aaron Turpen Tommy awoke, sweating profusely in his bedcovers. His eyes slowly adjusted from the dilation of sleep and he glanced at his clock radio. "6:59 A.M," it read. He slammed his hand on it's top, hitting the alarm on/off button so as to avoid it going off and causing him further jitters. Slowly, he climbed out of bed and peeled off his soaking pajamas. What a nightmare! Visions of it still flashed through his mind as he stumbled into the bathroom across the hall from his bedroom. A big knife, blood, his mom screaming... He heated the water and took a long, careful shower. He had been warned several times that if he wasn't careful, he might slip and hurt himself on the floor. He scrubbed his hair, closing his eyes tightly to keep the shampoo out. Because shampoo in your eyes hurt. Rinsed off, he dried and returned to his room, pulling clothes off of the floor and dressing himself. He combed his hair, tied his shoes, brushed his teeth and gathered his books, getting ready to leave. He never ate breakfast since mom had gotten a job and had to leave early, early. Dad, for as long as he could remember, had never been home until dinnertime after school anyway, so Tommy was used to that. Soon, they promised, his mommy would be home to take care of him before he left for school like she used to. He wished his mother was here this morning to console him. Flashes of the knife blade, red with blood, blurring through the air still bothered his thoughts. He heard the bus honk and ran out the back door, around the house, and into the bus's door, sitting in the front seat like he always had. Watching out the window, he saw his house recede in the distance and looked ahead, seeing Susie, Greg, and Margo waiting up the street for the bus to pick them up. Greg was older than Tommy and always made fun of him, saying he was a mamma's boy. Tommy didn't like Greg one bit, but Greg was bigger. That day when the teacher called recess, Tommy went up to Ms. Claymore's desk and asked her if he could please go home. His stomach hurt and he didn't feel good. Since his parents weren't home, Ms. Claymore arranged for him to go home on the Kindergarten bus at noon. "My, you are white as a ghost! Just wait a few more minutes, Tommy. It'll be OK," she cooed. He waited. It seemed like forever before she led him out the front door of the school and into a bus that looked just like his. The driver smiled, and told him to sit down in the front seat behind him. Tommy did so, feeling comfortable in his usual spot. His stomach churned and he repressed another urge to open his mouth and hiccup. When he got home, he ran from the bus, hot liquid filling his throat, and around the house, falling to his knees in the back yard and opening his mouth wide, his stomach pressing. He hiccoughed and stuff came out of his mouth. He caughed and threw up again. His eyes watered and he couldn't see as his stomach contracted and his body convulsed with the releasing of his innards. He felt big chunks of things coming out his throat and mouth and caughed again, suddenly releasing more fluid from his stomach. He gulped air, trying not to faint from not breathing. Finally he hunched on all fours, breathing heavily and caughing irregularly, regaining his senses. He opened his eyes and blinked them, clearing the tears away enough that he could see the vile, red and yellow liquid on the ground in front of him. He convulsed again and dry heaved, his stomach having nothing more to offer. He stood up, careful not to open his eyes and look, and shook his head. Looking down at the stuff on the ground again, he repressed another urge to throw up and saw the red stuff all over the ground. It looked like blood from those stupid cops and robbers movies. He could see a fingernail and briefly wondered if they grew in your stomach. He entered the house and went to the kitchen sink, turning on the tap and flushing his mouth out. It tasted aweful. Then he went upstairs and into his room. Changing into his pajamas, he noticed more red stuff all over his bed. What happened? Did he throw up while he was asleep? He didn't know if that would wake him up or not. Since his bed was dirty, he decided he'd go into his parent's bed to sleep. He went into the bathroom first to eat some toothpaste. That would take away the taste in his mouth. Opening the door to his mom's bedroom, he walked in, seeing the red all over the floor. Had he come in here while he was asleep throwing up? He stopped, seeing the bed. His parents lay on it. There was red all over them. Were they sick too? He climbed into bed next to them. Everything was cold and sticky. He shook his mom, trying to wake her up. "Mom, mom. Mom, it's all sticky in here! Mom?!" He pulled back the cover to try and wake her up like they had done to him. Making him cold with no covers. The knife was on her stomach and there were bite marks all over her chest... ================================================================== Cloud 8 -- 756-5100 (14.4K USR HST) or 756-1630 (16.8K high speed) Specializes in Sound Blaster and high res. .GIF support! Carries the NaNet (North AmeriNet). EXCELLENT files and a helpful SysOp. The editor frequents this board. ================================================================== Thine Dearest ============= (C) 1992 Ken Marrott Of which I speak, I'm coming to you, Inside I shriek, When I see your face, Overlayed with the burdens of life, Dealing with the world's very strife. I walk away in an uncanny pace, I go down on one knee, and plead with thee, could you ever Love me? ============================================================================= Anguish ======= (C) 1992 Aaron Turpen Anguish Tormented in a private hell Pain A twisting, silent apperature Lament As I see nothing for relief Hatred Seeing nothing but my pain. ==================================================================== Needful Things -- 785-1321. HOURS: 10pm to 7am! Interesting user environment with message bases and files to suit all. Has a filebase and a message area just for this magazine, as well as one for other electronic pubs. Has all issues to-date and will be kept updated. ==================================================================== Art is... ========= (C) 1992 Woody Thrower and Justin Hakanson What is art? Art is the rising and setting of the sun, the morning dew on a budding rose, the sheltered cry of a newborn dove, the smell of fresh air on a warm spring day. Art is to be, to believe, to feel, to know. Art is the passionate feelings of love, friendship, hate, and fear. Art is the glistening trail a teardrop leaves as it rolls down a beautiful maiden's pale face, at the moment of her lifelong union with the one she loves. Art is the passionate creation of the artist, driven by the desire to invoke intense feelings in the onlooker. Art is the traceless path of a mermaid on her routine pursuit of unaware sailors. Art is what gives one a sense of life, of death, of joy and sorrow. Art is all-encompassing happiness and regret. Art is the feeling you get after a really ful- filling bowel move- ment . ============================================================================= About The Literature: ===================== "Butt Cracks" is from the editor, Aaron Turpen, and was written on-the-fly one late night while BBSing on The Chrome Citadel. The author witholds all rights, including copyright. "Ron 'N Allen" was written by James Duckett, who wrote it and read it to the radio personalities, Ron and Allen who, consequently, read it over the airwaves to thousands of local "fans." Mr. Duckett witholds copyright to his work. "The Little Yella Girl" is another story from everyone's beloved Mr. Slatterly. He appears in Ruby's Pearls and on the DPA's BBS often, as well as the RIME Writer's conference. He holds all copyright and printing rights to his work. "Hatred and Pain" is a poem from Ken Marrot, who will be appearing in future issues with more of his poetry. He witholds all copyrights to his work. "Hot Coals" is from Chris Lynn (AKA Lazarus), who has appeared in many past issues of The Boundaries of Sanity with stories and poetry in kind. He witholds all rights to his work. "Animal Instincts" is another original from the editor, Aaron Turpen, who witholds all copyrights to his work. "Thine Dearest" is another poem by Ken Marrot, who witholds all copyrights to his work. "Anguish" is yet one more work from our esteemed editor, Aaron Turpen, who witholds all copyrights to his work. "Art is..." was posted to the editor, Aaron Turpen, by Justin Hackanson and Woody Thrower. They withold all rights, including copyright, to their work. ============================================================================= Want to contribute to The Boundaries of Sanity? See AUTHORS.DOC for more information!