From: Alfredo Illescas ([email protected])
Date: 6/8/2001
Subj: great job

Thanks for so wonderful page. Fantastic. Sugestion: include something about von Neumann and new computer technology. Please give me alert to any added

Thank you for the kind words but I shall make no promises. I shall probably add some material on software configuration management – I plan to do a book on the subject at some point – and a computer llanguage project. Then again, I put up pages on whatever interests me at the moment; it varies.

From: “Joe Parnell” ([email protected])
Date: 6/4/2001
Subj: Grackle’s dirty habits

In recent years a colony of grackles has moved into my neighborhood. Besides eating the eggs of robins and other songbirds they have taken up the habit of dumping their nestlings shit bags around and in my inground swimming pool. I can’t imagine why. If anyone has a clue, please enlighten me.

Grackles are generally obnoxious birds. I don’t have an answer. If anyone does I’d be glad to hear of it.

From: Morris Keesan ([email protected])
Date: 6/5/2001
Subj: Darwin Fish

I notice you referred someone to Ring of Fire for a Darwin fish. They’re also available at (easier to remember, for me) http://www.darwinfish.com/ , in many forms and variations.

My impression is that the Ring of Fire site preceded the darwinfish site by several years. However I will list both the next time someone asks. For some obscure reason people think (or hope) that I am a reliable source of information on obscure matters. Little do they know …

From: “stephen cooper” ([email protected])
Date: 6/5/2001
Subj: your site

Nice one mate! Appeals to my sense of humour. Personally I find the amount of Gor-sites on web quite disturbing but then I had to go to a lot of trouble to find them all which says it all really…. VITOR (a use name)

I have heard that the Gor books appeal more to women than to men. I am neither prepared to believe that nor disbelieve it. The world is a strange place filled with strange people.

From the very few people I know who read them it is about 50-50. Note also one of the fantasies in Nancy Friday’s WOMEN ON TOP (a lass called Wendy – or should that be wendy? I think.) Having rumaged about in the various sites they do seem to be chock full of females indulging in wanton submission on line (and apparently off) but for all I know many of these wanton, hot, vital, nubile she-dancing sleen may be flabby middle-aged males off line.

I was quite gob-smacked by some of the sites. You get things like the Silkandsteel paga tavern where a lot of the material is actually humourous, witty interesting etc then they start earnestly warning you how seriously they take it and its their whole life philosophy and not to whip a slave on line because they may feel compelled to do it to themselves for real off lineand I’m like ‘Whoooah…’ And when they tell you they’re ‘real Goreans’- well no comment.

I’m in Dark age reenactment and hairy morons who claim to be real Vikings are bad enough, at least Vikings were real once… What did Professor John Lange publish on sociology under his own name anyway? The mind boggles? And is he dead or alive? And wasn’t the film BAD!

My interest at present is that I’m a freelance sculptor of wargames miniatures and I want to design a range suitable for Gor. I’m trying to aquire and comb books 1-10 for military ‘facts’. The early books are naive ripping yarns (OUTLAW is pure Gulliver) the middle preposterous fun (and HUNTERS is a clever psychological study of a messed up sad arse banging his head on the wrong tree) and the late stuff sort of grey monotonous and sick. (eg MERCENARIES has 1/4 of a plot is tediously repetitive and plain nasty.) Often witty, gripping and – well, I do like young ladies in chains, in their place NB not real life. The overall concept is clever. But great philosophical literature, no.

Found the rules for Kaissa last night- Great!

All the best, STEVE (since you’re sensible enough to use your real name- or is R.H. a actually a pseudonym for a real nubile she-sleen?)

I’m sorry to disappoint you but I am just what I purport to be (insofar as any one can be what they purport to be); you shall have to search elsewhere for a nubile she-sleen.

I don’t think that I’ve ever actually read a Gor book; one doesn’t have to to appreciate their place in the underground folklore of our time. I’m told that John Norman (something Lange) is real life is a perfectly normal looking academic type. OTOH his non-fiction work is supposedly even further out than Gor.

DAW (Donald A. Wollheim books) books used to be his publisher. The way I heard it is that Don kept the Gor line because they were by far the most profitable books that he published. When he died and Betsy inherited the business axing John Norman was early on the agenda.

Someone of these days I suppose I shall have to surf around the role-playing sites and see what tricks these clever bipeds are up to now. Your account is not entirely reassuring.

I’m intrigued- you’ve never read a book but you took the trouble to put the site together and you’re obviously knowledgable about the ethos and the author- what’s your angle?

For many years I was an active SF fan. The Gor books are SF – marginal SF perhaps, but definitely part of the territory. In the nature of things I would know about them. I have an, ah, active mind; lots of things interest me.

You have to remember that “The Dancing Slave Girls of Gor” is just one of the approximately 500 pages on my web site (that doesn’t count the approximately 500 pages in the Reincarnation Game.)

They never are, you know.

Now that is an interesting thought. One of the Indian Godesses has six arms and Burrough’s Martians had four. I can’t think of any mythological women with multiple legs unless you count lady centaurs. Centaurs I suppose would have had sex in the manner of horses; face to face sex would have been quite impractical.

Imagine though if you will a creature like a giant beetle with a vulva in mid-thorax, a multitude of grasping legs, and a human face. She grasps her legs around you from head to toe enveloping you. Sex with this lady is no ordinary thing nor is it safe. Like a predatory beetle she sucks all of your precious vital bodily fluids out of you, leaving you as a desicated hulk.

Pleasant dreams.

From: Norberto Chavez ([email protected])
Date: 6/1/2001
Subj: My answers to the 5 questions

I had the unfortunate experience to answer all five of your questions on a night out with my wife. I found the being consistant with my answers avoided any bad experience. I do note DO NOT use these answers with women with no sense of humor.

Question: “What are you thinking?”
Answer: Your panties

Question: “Do you love me?”
Answer: I love your panties

Question: “Do I look fat?”
Answer: the term is Phat (Pretty Hot And Tempting) especially in your panties

Question: “Do you think she is prettier than me?”
Answer: I like you panties more

Question: “What would you do if I died?”
Answer: I’ld keep your panties

You, Sir, are a man with a quick wit and an acute understanding of women, at least of the woman you have to understand.

The really nice thing about the internet is that people like you aren’t stuck using crayons to write with. You are slightly behind the times ducky. The mutantwatch web site was a promotional gimmick for the X-men movie which has come and gone quite some time ago. The link you followed to send me email is not part of the mutantwatch.com web site. A lot of people made the same booboo. See let00mut.html for some of your fellow illiterates.

From: Alex ([email protected])
Date: 6/1/2001
Subj: low self esteem

thank you so much for that moment of unadulterated hilarity re low self esteem. just what i needed to kick off the pursuit of raising mine. will keep in mind the importance of a laughing.

I always say that it is important to be able laugh at yourself; it makes you one of the crowd.

From: “Ron Swink” ([email protected])
Date: 5/26/2001
Subj: humor

Thanx for the humor………..

You’re welcome.

From: “krystal tucker” ([email protected])
Date: 5/25/2001
Subj: young punk

that is the fourth time ive heard that joke on the internet

Now that’s sad. BTW which joke are you talking about? I have hundreds of them on my web site.

… continued on next rock …

a young punk gets no a bus and the old man is staring at him and he asks why and the old man says that when he was younger and in the navy he got drunk and had sex with a parrot and was wandering if he was his son. actually that is the fifth time i heard that

Thank you. It’s important to me to know what the customers are dissatisfied with and why. Your refund check is in the mail.

re zen & waiting for godot –

what is sound of two clowns waiting for godot?

godot arrives when he does not arrive

because godot has disappeared he is always here – therefore he will never come

when is godot not godot? – when he’s coming

Thanks for the idea. I don’t think you’ve quite caught the spirit of the Zen koan but then I’m not sure that my example did either. An object of a koan is to bring the student following the path of “thinking about” to a precipice where all reason, rationalization, and editorializing end. It is not simply an absurdity or contradiction.

In any event the notion of a zen formulation of Godot is an intriguing one. I have posted your suggestions to a newsgroup (rec.arts.books) with the hope that readers might expand upon them.

From: Lora Feld ([email protected])
Date: 5/28/2001
Subj: darwin fish for back of car

I won’t blame you if you find my letter shallow. However I NEED one of those fish with legs and Darwin inside for the back of my car. If you have any leads I’d appreciate the information. Regards, Lora Feld ([email protected])

We do shallow here. Oh, boy do we do shallow here. What you want is Ring of Fire Enterprises at http://www.rof.com/.

From: “Brian Boenigk” ([email protected])
Date: 5/28/2001
Subj: The Fortress

I like your web site. I was reading your story about birdfeeders, and was wondering what your reference to the “fortress” was all about. Is there such a product?

The “fortress” was a square bird feeder with a grill surrounding it. The space between wires is about an inch. The finches could reach in between to get at the feeder holes but the grackles couldn’t.

Currently I’m using very cheap feeders without baseplates. The grackles can feed from them but only at the price of standing on one of the feeder rods and wrapping their bodies around the feeder to get at a different feeder hole. They look quite ridiculous doing it and the amusement value is well worth the little bit of seed that they get.

At this moment the feeders are being depleted by goldfinches and housefinches.

Yes, there was such a product. Whether there is now is another matter. My observation is that they keep changing products. As soon as one discovers a truly satisfactory product the manufacturers discontinue it and bring out a “new and improved” product that is no such thing.