Kay posits:

>As leader of our cult, The Great Quail will grade us (since he already

>has Mr Red-Pencil firmly in hand.) Creativity, as always, counts.

No! Good, Lord, Kay . . . I'm already grading 100 sophomore papers on Science/Technology/Society issues. Being immersed in the nascent political views of 100 fifteen year olds, I don't think my life can stand to get any more surreal than it alreday is!

The Quail

Fegs:

This is part one of a two part - and very long - posting. If you are not interested in the fate of Debbie Flosshilde, please just cheerfully delete me and don't be cross at me for cluttering your mailbox with this sort of drivel.

Thanks.

Well . . . .

Hearing more of the debate over the fate of our missing chairwoman of the Fegmaniax! Welcoming Committee, good old Debbie "Mao" Flosshilde, I decided to do a bit of a search on my own. (Which is why I haven't posted for awhile, by the way. Ahem.) Luckily for us, the gods were in our favour. A few tugs on the Quailweb of contacts brought me an almost immediate response, via an anonymous email from the alt.conspiracy.black.helicopters group. It consisted of this simple message:"Philadelphia - Geno's Cheesesteaks. Ask for a Pizza Provolone With, then calmly ask if Rocky Balboa roots for the Flyers." No problem - I saddled up the car and hit the turnpike. Following the instructions, I asked for my cheesesteak, and lo and behold, a ticket was inserted into the wax paper. It was a ticket for the Sunshine Blind/Switchblade Symphony concert at the Trocadero.

Of course! I immediately knew what to expect, and I wasn't disappointed. A rendezvous with Iggy the Mouse, formerly of the Barry Manilow Jingle Analysis Center of Grover Mills, NJ. See, Iggy was in hiding, traveling from one goth show to another, all so no one would ever suspect that he had been partially exsanguinated by a few alien joyriders back in 1993. Luckily he escaped their clutches, but his experience has left him pale and sensitive to light. Well, at the goth show (By the way, in ref. to the males on this list and the thread about babe singers, Caroline Blind is not to be sneezed at) I cornered Iggy on the balcony of the Trocadero.A little pressure on my part revealed the name of a contact on South Street, where I spend the next afternoon. I met this unlikely informant at the Marina Day celebration on Penn's Landing. He was huddled in a "stowaway" berth in the decommissioned "Becuna," a diesel sub. Seems he just got back from the South Pacific, where he was running human organs into Singapore. His whole piracy operation was apparently located on Pagan Island, a small islet in the Marinara Chain. Well, something had this guy spooked, and he was spooked good. He had a hot packet - something he wanted to get rid of, and apparently he was using Iddy the Mouse as his feelers in the underground. The guy refused to get off a boat, and his skin was pasty white, impregnated with the long funk of a deep down fear. Well, in the coincidental way that acts as the hallmark for these sort of meetings, I was the exact man he needed to see. His price was a small statuette of some froglike diety, easily scored from a South Street hobbyshop. (Ugly thing, mind you - a head full of tentacles and a pair of batwings. Yuck.) That, and a few grams of pure 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine were his only price.

I made the score, and took the packet off his hands. Turns out my contacts were right after all: a few tattered pages, written in the familiar spidery scrawl of our beloved Chairwoman Mao, and addressed to

"My Dearest Susan and the Feg List."

I will now relate to you these amazing details. I fear that due to the crabbed nature of Debbie's writing, I can only transcribe and post part one today.

Here it is:

**************************************************************

April 7, 1996

Suzie! I know that you will not be getting these letters until after I reach Sydney, Australia, but I figured I might as well write a little bit every few days. First of all,I want to thank the whole list for sending me to Australia. I mean, I expected last year's trip to London to meet with the UK Fegs, but when Woj asked me to head out to the Land Down Under, it was just "wow." (You can stop humming "Men at Work," now,Susan.) I mean, just because we added one new Feg from Australia, I neverin a million years suspected that you would pull off this lovely surprise! Raising the money through all those bake sales at gigs was just a brilliant idea. Speaking of which, the Egyptian cream and the body oils came intact; but I shall have to purchase a new feather when I hit Sydney. The US Postal system crushed the one you sent me. Oh dear! Imagine welcoming a new Feg without tickling his feet? Well, I better go now, the boat is about to depart.

April 8, 1996

It's me again, Sue. The boat is wonderful! All the people are so nice,but so far none of them has really opened up to me. It's night now, and I'm on the deck just sipping some rum and cokes and listeing to Jay's XTC tape on my walkman. Everything seems peachy, except for the first mate. He seems a bit unwholesome, and he keeps eyeing me. I was so embarrassed that I had to button up my shirt over my bikini. There was something about his eyes, like two blobs of greasy meat . . . . I keep expecting them to swivel around inside his head, undoubtedly to watch the pornos of me he's filming in his mind. Shudder.

April 9, 1996

You have to do this, Sue! It's just wonderful! The weather's been fabulous, and I can hardly wait for our stop in the Islands. I'm so relaxed . . .

Well, except for the first mate. Tonight I was out on the deck again, listening to the Higsons on my walkman. And I swear to God, he walked by me and mouthed the words "Gotta Let this Hen Out." I pulled off the earphones and ran after him, pleading him to repeat what he said. But he just smiled cryptically - and a little malevolently, too - and faked like he didn't know any English. I showed him the cassette, and asked if he knew who Robyn Hitchcock was, but he shook his head: but his *eyes,*Susan, his eyes - they were filled with some sort of knowing, deliberate,almost taunting sense of evil, like the time I asked my sixth grade librarian for something fun to read and she handed me The Naked Lunch.

Oh yes - and another strange thing. There was a crewman passing by at that moment, a basket of pears in his hands. At the precise second I asked the mate if he knew who Robyn Hitchcock was, he dropped the pears and looked terrified! I heard him mutter something *like* "Robyn Hitchcock," then he quickly mumbled something that sounded like Japanese and he made some sort of protective gesture! He then apologized, and gingerly picked up the spilled pears. And I swear, Susan, the way the moonlight hit them, I thought one of the pears looked like it was made out of metal, grey and zinc-like. I can't describe the sensation I felt upon seeing them, but I know that they will haunt my dreams, hieratic leaden fruit sinking into the dreamy fruitbowl of my unconscious. Why did that disturb me so?

April 10, 1996

Susan, I don't know if I am enjoying myself anymore! This whole trip is starting to sound like "Night Ride to Trinidad!" I began making inquiries around about the First Mate, but no one wants to talk about him. And again I asked about Robyn Hitchcock, and another crewman looked startled and did that same "evil eye" ward again, like the old peasants in Dracula. I mean, I know that "Perspex Island" was not his best album, but really! And this crewman was Polynesian or something, and again didn't speak much English. I finally asked another crewman: an Englishman this time. He was overall very very dismissive of my worries, and claimed that the "natives were superstitious." It was all very colonial, if you catch my drift, and not at all open-minded. I asked him about the name "Robyn

Hitchcock" and he laughed. He said, and I quote, "Those bloody wogs don't know bollocks about music. You should see what happens when you say 'Brian Wilson!'" Well, I was rather angry with him, and I retired to me room. Tomorrow we take vacation on a lovely island - a few days at the beach should do me good.

April 14, 1996

Reading the last few entries, I fear I must sound terribly childish. I had a wonderful time on the beach, and all is going well again. I understand that a storm is moving in soon, so the going may get a bit rough. I'm not even afraid of the First Mate anymore. (Who, by the way, is named "Nevs." A strange name.)

April 15, 1996

The skies have been dark and overcast. The rest of the passengers look edgy and tense, and I fear a bit of that foul mood has fallen over me again. I have also been feeling a bit ill. First Mate Nevs has begun staring at me again, and a few of the "native" crewmen refuse to talk to me. yesterday morning, one of them was trying to wax the deck around me as I sat in my usual deck chair. He was nervous as hell, and was obviously doing a poor job. He kept looking at me with an expression of almost - well, almost . . .fear. Having never met him before, I can only attribute his attitude to talk among the crewmates. Why me? And why can't I get along with the other passengers? Which, by the way, are seeming increasingly more scarce. Susan, I really miss you, and I miss all the Fegs on the List. Tell Nick that I am sending him the live chambered nautilus he requested. (Though I still wonder why!) I can hardly wait to get to Australia. . . .

April 16, 1996

The storm finally broke, and it has been raging for almost 12 hours. It's terrible! I am in my quarters right now, sea sick, edgy, and running a fever. The sky is black, and all we can do is trust in the Captain - whom I *still* haven't even seen! I'm starting to fear that he is some mythical figure, like Sgt. Pepper or James Dignan.

Oh yes! I need to mention this, although I am feeling a bit sickish. I was at my usual chair on deck right before the storm hit, reading some Raymond Chandler, when suddenly it began to rain - just like that! So I packed up my book and snacks, and right as I was about to step off the chair, I noticed something quite odd . . . the water was running over the deck as expected, except around me - around me, the water had formed a ring-like design, beading up completely and surrounding my chair! The crewman didn't just do an incompetent wax-job on the deck near me, he had actually waxed a strange circle of some kind - Curious, and more than a little afraid, I nervously stepped out of the figure and looked harder at it: and Susan, as God is my witness, it wasn't *just* a circle - it was a ring of intricately waxed-in figures, a ring of toad-like creatures all linked by their tongues! What the hell is going on here? That line from Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" keeps going through my head: "weave a circle around him thrice, your eyes filled with holy dread, for he on honeydew hath fed, and drunk the milk of paradise. . . ." What do the crewmen see in me?

April 17, 1996

I feel miserable tonight, and all day long. I am definitely sick. I asked to see the Captain, but predictably all I got was First Mate Nevs. He sent a doctor in to see me, a queer looking older Englishman with a Liverpuddlian accent, a strangely familiar face, and a Japanese girlfriend. This "Doctor Roberts" gave me some medicine, but I'm still feeling ill. The fever is bad, and I am running in and out of almost delirium. I swear I woke up once to hear an odd chanting outside my door, but when I opened it up, there was no one there . . . . just this smell, like seafood . . . .

Tonight I had a strange dream, and I want to get it down before it fades. I was in a wax museum of some sort, and there was this ultimate dream hall - you know, like all my heroes in wax. There was Syd, and Robyn, andJuilan, and John, and Bob, and even Beck . . . and there was this other wax figure, one draped with a velvet curtain all covered in little crushed velvet froggies. I reached out to pull the covering off, but a sense of sudden dread gripped me and I was struck immobile! I knew that what was under that curtain - the face on the final wax dummy - was not meant for my eyes. I knew that seeing it would be terrible, that sense of apprehension filled my whole dream. . . . And I don't mean like it was going to be Billy Bragg or anything, no. Something far more sinister . .

. .Oddly enough, I woke from the dream with a song in my head - the best one I've ever thought of, but it faded before I could get the chords down.

Sigh.

April 18? 19? 1996

Very sick. In and out of delirium.

I think the storm is still raging - is that possible?

Last night I woke, and I think Nevs was over me. He had a guitar in his hands, one that looked familiar, almost like the guitar I owned in college. I vaguely remember snatches of lyrics, as if he were teaching mesongs . . . .

I feel snatches of old Feg list postings ripple through my head - and occasionally my delusion whispers to me that I'm also receiving future postings. My destination and an environmentalist woman get confused. Something also about a Wondrous Partridge. And then there seems to be this weird tendency to free associate on "The Can Opener." And most unbelievable of all, that Bayard and Mark actually got "Glass Flesh" out.

Oh, the pain . . . .

I can't eat. Can't sleep. Bed's on fire. I can't seem to face up to the facts. I have this overwhelming need to drop superfluous Talking Heads references.

Susan, I miss you . . .

Visions of a great big kitchen appliance surfacing in the storm, ripping into the hull like a sardine tin. My mind is delirious . . . tuna tuna everywhere, and oh the can did clink, tuna tuna everywhere, nor any boats to sink. . . . What am I doing? Must focus:

I haven't seen any other passengers, and the waters -

Shouldn't we be in Australia by now?

If I don't make it, tell Eb that I tried my best . . . .

April 20, 1996

the medicine!

I stopped taking it, and suddenly I feel better - are they trying to poison me? I must regain my strength - where are the passengers? Why is this storm still raging?

April 21, 1996

Tonight I learned something very strange, and it still fills me with dread, but I must get this down on paper. I am paying one of the few crewmen I can trust - a Haitian cabinboy named Skippy - and he promised he will deliver these papers to you.

Listen:

After pretending to take the medicine, I worked on regaining my strength. Around ten at night, I slipped out of my cabin and made my way to the crew's quarters. Most of them would be in the galley, playing that strange game of cards they call fizbin. Using a hairpin, I jimmied the lock and snuck inside . . . and lighting a match, I began exploring . . .

The crew's quarters were all as they should be, filled with the typical stuff you'd expect, all freighted with the musty smell of old seamen. A few bottles of bootleg rum, some lines of cocaine laid out on a Jimmy Buffet record, and a coupla old and well-thumbed nudie magazines. Nothing here . . .

But then I went to the First Mate's room:

. . . and then I saw it. It was terrible, and it will haunt me the rest of my life. A - well, a shrine, I suppose. A terrible altar was erected in his seedy quarters, a horrid affair complete with some wicked deity carved out of stone. It was pink jade, I think, for it was flesh colored, rippling with tentacles and beaks, and a preponderance of little (and I may add rather finely carved) feelers. It was covered with valves, tendrils, membranes, and just about any other icky organic protruberance you could think of. And Susan, I am aware that you can think of a *lot.* But the most startling thing of all was the name carved above the statue: "Qlintt." (Well, not actually - frankly, the *most* startling thing about the statue was they way the sculptor made jade actually able to be described by the word "tumescent." That, and a haunting resemblance to Newt Gingrich.) So: "Qlintt." The name had a weird familiarity to it, but again, I was at a loss to explain why. And in front of this altar was a book - a great old book, the kind that I would probably refer to as a "tome" if I were writing this in the earlier half of the century and wanted to invest it with a mystic spookiness. So I opened up the book, and to my surprise, I found page after page of chord changes and tabulature! And again, there was a picture of this creature, along with the name "Qlintt," but this time his full name was given: "Qlintt the Vaguely Disturbing - He Whom Is Occasionally Referred To As The Crawling Chaos and Servitor of the Outer Gods Who Shall Not Be Named Because They Don't Like To Be, And Not Just Because They Prefer Anonymity When Posting, But Beacuse They Get Really Ticked Off When You Address Them Directly, And Are Oft Prone To Eating Your Head For Doing So, So Just Don't Do It."

Well, that was weird. So I was just about to leave, when suddenly my glance fell upon another page. This one was almost completely burnt, but was obviously a picture of some might diety in this bizarre pantheon. Andalthough the picture was utterly destroyed, the name caught my eye upon an inky hook:

RHOBBINITCH COQQ

followed by (umlauts deleted):

THEKWIR KEYSUCK SESSORTO SYDB'AARAAT ANJON LHEN-NHON

My mind reeled! "Rhobbinitch Coqq!!" What a coincidence! No wonder thesuperstitious crewmen were terrified when I mentioned the otherwise harmless homonym of our favorite singer! Filled with a strange mixture of revelation, gratitude, and dread, I returned to my cabin as fast as I could, determined to see the Captain in the morning. . . .

By the way, I must check my maps in the morning. I overheard a sailor mention that we were passing near Guam. That isn't on the way to Australia, is it? Odd. The storm shows no sign of abating, and I still haven't seen any passengers.

But I'm sure all will be cleared up in the morning. . . . .
 
 

****************************************************************

Subject: Re: Diaries of blah blah blah

This is obviously some sort of cliquish private joke. You know, you two COULD flirt in private and spare the rest of us our breakfasts.

What is this, high school?

Subject: Re: Diaries of Debbie "Mao" Flosshilde, Part 1
 
 

> . . and there was this other wax figure, one draped with a velvet curtain all covered in little

>crushed velvet froggies. I reached out to pull the covering off, but a sense of sudden dread gripped me and I was struck immobile! I knew that what was under that curtain - the face on the final wax dummy - was not meant for my eyes. I knew that seeing it would be terrible, that sense of apprehension filled my whole dream. . . . And I don't mean like it was going to be Billy Bragg or anything, no. Something far more sinister . .