Yeah, its another Fir Acres Writing workshop story. Maybe I'm a little repetitive. So what? I'm rolling with it. Its like James Altucher said:

[All artists] have a deeply personal emotional anchor they can tie their work to.

That thing is one of mine.

We all had temporary @lclark'edu email addresses and access to a mail client called Mailstrom that ran on the Mac. Mailstrom is something entirely different now. It being 1993, this was the first time with email for most of us.

Of course it all went completely went off the rails. Bizarre email poetry and all hours of the day and night. One kid started emailing random people and got banned from the system entirely. I think one of his emails was about his purple cock riding the waves like a surfboard.

I’ve got a stack of 100 or so of these old emails printed out that I found in a box. Here are some highlights (verbatim).

Date: Thu, 24 Jun 93 00:00:57

From: lara@lclark'edu

To: mark@lclark'edu

do you know what it’s like when the night hits your skin

the air is cold and smells of stone. the fire grows as the cloaked arms reach toward you, through you. can you feel them press against you in that fierce embrace as you struggle and fall. feel the blades in your back the teeth the nails as the tongues run over your blood. feel the scream inside and wonder who exactly that tiger is. the beast who dances in that night. feel the wet ground above your back as you fall into the night. feel it rush over you as your cry and slowly give in.

Date: Wed, 23 Jun 93 23:42:33

From: strahm@lclark'edu

To: mark@lclark'edu

mark

one day a woman came to me and wanted to fuck. she told me she was satan. i told her i thought satan to be a man and she said i am as you wished. the moral of the story is if you’re gonna fuck satan, make sure he’s a woman

vince

Date: Fri, 25 Jun 93 12:26:13

From: libby@lclark'edu

To: mark@lclark'edu, laura@lclark'edu, mahalah@lclark'edu

mark, bitten by the emu man

laura

mahala

i’m gonna print you a copy of the poem i wrote last night.

it’s about all of us so i thought you should all get a copy, stupid or not.

VENTALATION

keys tinkle slowly and put me to sleep. sleep will only be a piece of time wasted while we are here. we must savor our time here, it is titlating. like the paino. the sounds flood around us. then it stops and we speak. only to relaise we don’t have much longer. only eight more days. eight more days to make love to our wrds. to ventliate our brains. to be with each other, where we belong. where the blood is processed and the cheese is carbonated. where there is lots of dirt. i have found the world i wanted. i also realise we must all let this go, we all must leave.

Date: Fri, 25 Jun 93 09:14:12

From: mahalah@lclark'edu

To: mark@lclark'edu

mark,

i can send i can send i feel great wonderful powerful strong proud and in control. i sent you 37,349,987,759,275,250,000'391 messagesin your head and you didn’t reply to any of them. so fuck you.

hey diddle diddle i ate a fiddle and died of e-coli.

from mahalah