From: Professor Fane.

I.

Perhaps I am writing this in vain. Perhaps -- and I *must* steel myself for this final revelation -- perhaps I am already too late. But nevertheless, I must write. Though it may damn me and hasten theconclusion of this sad comic tragedy which is my life, wretched as it has become, I am compelled to send this electronic missive out to the "new" Feglist. There may be one or two poor souls who are still what they say they are; one or two poor innocents whose sad fate is to be the new ground in which the Feg Ones may plant their hideous seeds, are initiating a new cycle of unspeakable horror. Indeed, the very fact that a new Feglist exists is proof that a few stragglers remain, the wretched and doomed souls who compose the audience to which I now address. Why else would They create a new List so quickly?

My name is Professor Fane, and once, it seems lifetimes ago, I was working for the Wilmarth Foundation, a group based from Brown University whose sole purpose is to study cults and monitor cult activity. Once, long ago, I posted a warning to the Feglist.

You did not heed me.

I told you not to trust this -- this "man" who called himself the Great Quail.

You did not heed me.

I told you about the wretched fate of the Gong Fanweb and of the Dylan Interpretation Newsgroup; and I told you to spurn him under all his incarnations whether he call himself the Great Quail, the Big Bobwhite, or the Mighty Magical Mystery Partridge.

Again, you ignored my warnings.

But perhaps I am being churlish: the time for recriminations and accusations has long passed. Now I only offer one more warning, and after that I must content myself with silence. I will escape from this asylum and I will hide, living out the rest of my days with the knowledge that I am as doomed as the poor denizens of the Feglist. .

. . Doomed, I say. Yes. I know that you believe it was "lightning" which hit the server, an event that resulted in the Feglist going offline for almost a month. There were a few questions, a few hesitant postings --All the better to pinpoint the souls still blissfully unaware of the truth -and then a longer period of silence as the minions of the Feg Ones finished their task. Then came the mailings from the so-called "Woj" and a promise of a new server, a new list .

. . . The signs, the portents, they were all there, out in the open. But in today's world, who can believe such things? Yet there they were, =hiding in the open, like Poe's celebrated letter -- the greatest irony is this: our much vaunted scientific advancement and postmodern skepticism, those tools which have rendered us immune from a new Dark Age, are the very elements which are so perfectly suited to cloak and conceal Their nephandous activities and render our defenses almost useless. Stoker put as much in the mouth of Van Helsing, who knew that their greatest enemy was not the evil vampire, but the doubt and censure of intelligent and enlightened men. As so in the late Nineteenth Century, how so much more true one hundred years later. Our elevated consciousness is the very thing which allows Them to slither through the cracks in reality's facade and bring us crashing down. Whom the gods would destroy, they first make proud. Indeed casting my cold eyes backwards over the List fills me with less a sense of foreboding that a sense of ironic despair, for even I was not fully prepared . . . the Quail's joking negations of his Cult-Leader status, so like Caesar denying the crown three times, pleasing and inflaming the crowd, skillfully trading mock humility for blind loyalty . . . Woj's humorous confessions of an evil twin, the dread "Debbie Flosshilde" diaries, and -- mayhaps the most pernicious of all --=A0Mike Runion's attempts at mapping all the Fegs.

What wretched, blind fools we were! They joked -- the japed and capered and mocked -and yet we *allowed* them to locate us, weWILLFULLY sent Them our addresses, web pages, and even our phone numbers!

And so I write to you, in a vain attempt to reach any not yet ... transformed. In the immemorial --and now, punnishly ironic words of the Elder Hamlet's ghost: List! List! Oh, List!

II.

I placed my first foot on the path to damnation and insanity the very day I contemplated the purchase of Robyn's "Uncorrected Personality Traits." Ludicrous, of course --did we really need another Robyn

collection? Did we already now own every single track independently of the new compilation? Was there nothing new to offer us, not even ademo version of a cover of a B-side of some obscure and long-forgotten Dylan single? What was there that would make us own such a CD? But we all know --this was different. We *had* to buy it . . . and why?

Why -- I'll tell you why: because it mentioned *us.* There were anecdotes of our own, our List, our tribe . . . and in that fact lies a certain degree of horror. They baited the hook with our own vanity. We can only lay the blame at our own feet. And so, undoubtedly like you, I decided to purchase the CD. But alas! for I could not find it in my local store. Like any good consumer of the nineties, I decided to order it online, and I turned my trusty Browser to the Rhino Web Site. Eagerly scrolling down the list of offerings I clicked my way through ELP, Allen Ginsberg, and the AMA until I was at the Robyn section. Oddly this section seemed rougher than the others, less polished and professional -- almost as if it were an afterthought. And the second thing that struck a false note was this: all the Rhino releases were there, each with a small picture and a paragraph -except for "Uncorrected Personality Traits." That was just a small link at the very bottom. Intrigued, I clicked it and was taken to a special page devoted only to the CD =

Ah, this was more like it! Interested, I perused it, searching for an ordering address.

Then I noticed that the background seemed . . . familiar. The background GIF was different that the rest of Rhino's site, and it had a hauntingly familiar quality that dogged the corners of my mind. =

. .Then I knew. I knew where I had last seen the background -on Mike Runion's Homepage. A coincidence? Feeling the first tongue of apprehension lick the neck of my perspicuity, I backed my way to the Main Rhino Page and I punched up their search engine. First I tried a few normal Rhino selections, and of course I was directed to their proper entries. All was well and good. Then I tried "Uncorrected Personality Traits." Nothing. My response was this: "Selection not Found. Have you typed it in correctly?" Sitting back and staring at that condescending and unctuous message, I felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck. Returning to the "Uncorrected Personality Traits" page, I then looked up at the site address . . . everything check out, and --Wait a moment . . . The official site was at "www.rhino.com," but the URL of this particular page started with "wvw.rhino.com" !!!

Did you see it? Look again more closely, patient reader.

Insidious! After a few checks, I assured myself I was seeing the truth: "double-yoo dot *vee* dot double-yoo!" It was so easy to miss . . . I WASN'T ON RHINO'S WEB PAGE AT ALL! Which meant that the CD was not . . .

Was not *what?*

Weirdly dissonant and atonal X-Files music skittered against the soundtrack of my mind, and goosebumps erected a map of fear across the terrain of my flesh. Outside my window I heard the sound of children at play, a sudden awareness of background noise that threw the whole scene into a sharp, hideous focus. . . . was it beginning already?

the sound of my cat startled me and brought my attention rapidly back into "reality." But Reality was not to be so merciful as to soften the edge of my sudden apprehension -- for the first thing I noticed was a CD case tossed into the corner of my den . . . Gong's "Flying Teapot."A disembodied voice floated through my head on a wave of referential =pop-consciousness: *It is happening again. . . .*

Copying down the mailing address of the spurious CD, I made a fateful decision: I would stop this. I would bring an end to this dread Cult once and for all.

III.

I arrived at the address under cover of dark. I was hot under the black jeans and sweater I wore, but I didn't want to take any chances. I could feel the prickling of my perspiration under the clothing, and the memory of the drive over was still alive in my tired ankles and my numb backside. I was in New Jersey. . . .

Near Woj's house, as a matter of fact. ( WOJ -The fegmanix list moderator)

I know that it is now September, so permit me to take you back through memory Lane. This was midsummer, shortly before the List was visited by the fateful "lightning accident." Topics of conversation were the Loud Family, the Bumbershoot, and the LA Feg get together. We had just welcomed a few new Fegs to the List, and all was normal: Eb was being contentious, The Quail was his usual arrogant and narcissistic self, Susan was slowly returning back to her old posting limit of twenty times an hour, Natalie was proving to be a correspondent as eccentric as the rest of us, and Tom Clark was bemoaning Bill Gates. . . . all seemed normal.

The mailing address proved to be that of a small laboratory in the New Jersey hinterlands, close enough to the Barrens to have a desolated, spooky air about it; close enough to Philly and New York to have access to modern technology, and close enough to Woj's house to have a sinister air of suspicious intent. . . . There were several vans parked in the driveway, black vans with no markings, links in a malicious chain whose purpose was to soon become all too clear.

Lights illuminated the first floor windows with a soft glow, but I could see naught but milky paleness behind their frosted glass panes.

Crickets filled the air with a chorus whose insectile susurrus only tainted the atmosphere by reminding me of that mad Arab, Abdul Alhazred, who claimed that the voices of desert insects were communicating the secrets of the nether regions to him. After transcribing their nocturnal symphony into the black book known as the Necronomicon, he was torn apart on the streets of Baghdad by invisible and malign forces. . . .

Suddenly several figures emerged from the lab, carrying identical medium sized boxes in their arms. Although they seemed human enough at first glance, each walked with a most unwholesome gait that was not quite a stuttering lurch, but not quite a shambling gambol. Caparisoned in black labcoats and trousers that could have been crushed blue velvet if it weren't for the fashion faux pas that would have represented, each creature seemed directed, oddly intent on their task, more like a cluster of dronish zombies than men and women. And their voices . . . these ghoulish creatures, male and female alike, did not speak in the tongues of men, but glibbered and meeped to each other in a soft but thoroughly disgusting language that had a disturbingly familiar sound to it, like the babbling of subterranean birds. . . . *Microsoft employees?* I found myself wondering, but they were more nauseatingly pathetic than blatantly sinister. As this procession reached the driveway, each creature detached and moved to a van, where they opened the back doors and unburdened themselves of their boxes. After this act, which removed the obstructive boxes that had been preventing me from seeing the front of their black labcoats, I was rather surprised to find that each member of this ghastly crew wore a small nametag, stitched into their breast in the manner of professional bowlers and auto mechanics. As they returned to the house, their names availed themselves to my curious eyes, and I was able to peruse this gloomy parade of epithets. With a dawning sense of horror, the names aligned themselves in my consciousness, a roll call of infamy: "Adobe Slugbelch . . . Milo . . . Mrs. Watson . . . Nick Winkworth . . . Inspector Pobjoy . . . Linda Ryan . . . Dennis . . .

My God. All "fictional" Robyn Hitchcock characters!The last figure ("Steve") approached the vans not with a box, but with a collection of large, floppy ovals which he was carrying under his arm. As he peeled them off one by one and placed them onto the sides of each van, I realized finally what I was witnessing, for with a small magnetic "snik" their nature was revealed to me -- they were counterfeit logos for Rhino Records. . . .

Then there was a moment of complete quiet as all the horrible, lurching minions lurched horribly back into the lab, and I was left alone with my Greek chorus of crickets and my dramatically increasing sense of horror. Gathering together what little courage I had to call my own, I snuck to the driveway and scuttled into the open back of the van at the far end of the driveway. With my penknife I pried open one of the more out-of-sight boxes, and my inspection was rewarded with the results I had been expecting -- as I am sure you, my reader, have also been expecting. For in each box were assembled several dozen "Uncorrected Personality Traits. . . . "

Appalled but hardly surprised, I discovered that true horror was yet to come. Creeping silently to the front of the van, I spied a truly shocking thing -- even now I find my flesh crawling and my blood slowing to a congealing cool. . . . for I had discovered the Thing on the Dashboard.

The Thing was affixed to the dashboard of the van with some sort of putty-like material, and from its haughtily imperial position it was able to survey the entire cockpit of the van with its cold and inhuman black eyes. For the Thing on the Dashboard was none other than an idol of a hideous god, and I fear that I have reached the point in this paragraph where I must reveal to you what it was:

A Quail.

Carved from a mass of Sculpey was a terrible quailiform deity, cobbled together in bands of roughly-hewn Sculpey of monstrous and unspeakable colors. Gobs of sulphurous yellow clashed with bands of Martian pink; strips of some nacreous and wretched purple mottled a flank of unutterably loathsome polka-dotted mixture of bilious brown and congealed-greasy grey never before used by any sane race of men. Its bulbous body was squat, toadlike, and there were two things clutched in its evil talons: a small packet of Taco Bell Sauce (Mild) and a small figure of a human woman being crushed to death. The woman was carved so as to appear alive and screaming, fully aware of the terrible fate awaiting in the beak of the gigantic quail-bird. Looking closer, I realized their was something familiar about her face, and after a second or two of dire reflection I realized that I *recognized* the sacrificial effigy, that I *knew* her and had seen her face on a GIF she once sent me on an online dating service . . . the poor wretch was none other than LJ Lindhurst!! Ah, Gods, the horror!

And yet that was not the most terrible feature of this idol, for I have yet to discuss the head. Staring from this Sculpey head were the most malicious pair of eyes I had ever seen, twin black beads of =inscrutable inhuman malice. Looking into their alien depths filled me with terror, and I imagined I could see the cold voids of interstellar space, the howling yet silent vacuum that was older than our world, indeed was already old when the first stars were young and still whispered secrets to each other. . . . I finally understood why

Max Ernst chose birds to represent inhumanity. But still, that was not the worst -- no, that black honor was reserved for the feather on top of the head --that blasphemous hallmark of the quail some call a "h'muh" -- for this feather was sculpted with an almost childlike devotion, still carrying the imprint of the artist's damnable thumb.

And the color? This -- this *thing* was colored with some unearthly spectrum never before seen under our sun, (Mauve?!?! my mind screamed; tope?!?) and was molded and stuck on the head at an angle that seemed to ensnare the eye and run it through a non-Euclidean trigonometry of elemental evil. It did not directly rain terror upon the soul, but the angle of the feather rather *implied* blasphemous hints as too a perkiness far beyond the mind of a mere mortal to ever contemplate without inviting soul-annihilating madness!

How long I was enthralled by that unearthly Quail deity I cannot say; but if it weren't for my choice in vans, I might not be here today. For I was snapped out of my horrible contemplation by the sound of a van door slamming shut, and I realized that the evil crew were returning. Adrenaline flooding through my system, I pulled myself into the back of the van and rolled out into the bushes, a mere second or two before the creature named "Milo" slogged past and threw the doors closed with a satisfied meep.

The drivers glibbered a few confirmations to each other, then the vans departed, their destinations all to obvious. As I watched the convoy of death snake its way into the hot New Jersey night, I realized suddenly that I was being watched.

Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997

From: Runion, Michael R.

Subject: Re: The Doom that Came to the Feglist

I sit here quivering, shivering, and nearly sh*tting my pants. I've just read deeply and truly Alan Ruch's horrifying treatise. With trembling hands I checked further into my inbox and discovered a small and unassuming link:

> http://www.echonyc.com/~ljl/stone.jpeg

A blaze of warm light lit my abode - a mid-morning blast of a summer sun. The stones...the stones! lj at the stones! Truly this is our last hope. Fear not the Taco Bell, or the minions of the Quail. We've won!

lj has saved...the...

Dear Lord! The sickness has returned in a all-engulfing swell of nausea and emptiness. Something familiar here in this jpeg. No, it can't be. No! lj is wearing...crushed blue velvet? And the stones...sweet mother no!

Witness the horror - http://www.rpg.net/quail/bio.html

Subject: The Cones Strike Back (Re: The Doom that Came to the Feglist)

Dear Fellow Fegs,

A solitary spark of light glimmers now on our dark and ominous landscape. A yellowed envelope found its way mysteriously to my mailbox this very morning, and its contents were truly glorious. It is a sign of the coming battle. lj's journey to Stonehenge was merely a portent. Fear not, I feel the Great Quail's days are numbered...

http://www.spacecoast.net/users/mrrunion/cones.gif

Subject: The Doom that Came to the Feglist, Vol II

THE DOOM THA T CAME TO THE FEGLIST

Professor Fane's Recap: when last I wrote, I had narrated my tale up to the point of watching the ghoul-vans recede into the night, freighting away their dread cargo of faux-Robyn CDs. The truth had just blasted my sanity when I saw the hideous quail statue, proving that these cultists were under the power of very evil forces, indeed. . . . I was just about to leave when the door opened, and a figure was silhoutted in the light. . . .

Part IV._____________________________________________

I turned and faced my doom. . . .

And its name was Woj.

Framed by a globular pale yellow light, Woj stood in the doorway and raised his arm to point directly at me, as if he could smite me out of existence with merely a finger. And in truth, I quickly realized that I was, indeed, rooted in place! Obviously this New Jersey devil was exerting some sort of unholy and profane power over me, the way a serpent is said to charm a bird, or the way a male really cannot stop watching a Spice Girls video no matter how bad the music is. In abject fear, I watched as his fingers curled into an unspeakably archaic gesture, and I felt tiny burning pinpoints of pain at all my joints. With a flick of his wrist my body responded in turn, as if he had magickally inserted marionette strings into my body! Utterly against my volition I was jerked towards my new puppet-master. As I got closer, I could see that Woj had . . . *changed.* If one could say that he was more sinister, he was more sinister. If it could be said that Woj's face was more ghastly, pale, and waxen, then his face was more ghastly, pale, and waxen. His eyes burned at me like two carious fangs, and the tight smile that played at the corner of his thin lips was like that mocking tendency for grinning often found in small lizards. When he spoke, it was not with his old familiar voice, but with a voice hollow with a sepulchral emptiness, and lightly brushed by an accent surprisingly reminescent of East Brimstead.

"Professor Fane. I should have expected you. Of course, you are too late -- but I still plan to force you inside, so I may tell you all my evil plans and gain some small degree of satisfaction in watching the growing apprehension of horror fill your features before I have you disposed of in some painfully medieval fashion, one that, I would expect, shall cause no small amount of blood to flow."

Appalled at both his dire threat and his sophomoric diction, I stumbled along behind him, an idiot dog following the heels of a demented and insouciant master. The lighting was a harsh fluorescent glow, the kind of light made to dissect frogs under, and the walls of the lab were covered by Far Side cartoons depicting various acts of mad scientists and fiendish plots. Passing through a door marked by a Star Trek bumper sticker and a friendly reminder to wear goggles, I soon found myself in the heart of the lab.

It was a large lab, stetching into space as far as my eye could see. The air was permeated with the scent of old coffee, acetone, mercaptanated methane, and that weirdly pleasant smell you get when you first open a can of Play-Doh. The floor was rumbling slightly, as if vast machineries were at work in the basement below . . . Perhaps cranking out "Uncorrected Personality Traits" CDs, I imagined.

My inspection of a Snap-On Tool Girls calendar must have incited Woj's sudden ire, for he felt the need to call my attention to the most obvious feature of the lab, a feature which I had miraculously been spared to witness due to the size of Miss August's, um, spanners, which were completely occupying my gaze.

"Ah-hem. If I may direct your attention to your left, you will see an almost endless row of tanks filled with a translucent green fluid -- there, over by the FAX machine, near the ficus."

Indeed, he spoke the truth. And inside every tank was the floating form of a naked body. Hesitantly, still probing the limits of his control over me, I walked over to the tanks. The bodies floated in the bubbly green goo like sleepers suspended in a sensory deprivation tank. Men and women of various ages were trapped there, a few tubes entering them at various uncontemplateable orifices, each tube pulsing evilly with some sort of fiendish nutrient broth. The overall effect was horrid, but I choked back my fear and spoke --

"Seems all a bit 'Mystery Science Theater 3000' to me, doesn't it?"

My reply did not get the reaction I was hoping for. Woj merely smiled an even tighter smile, ratcheting the taut waxen flesh of his face a few notches so that it passed from the "vaguely ghastly" into the "actually rather unsettling" range. Again, the graveyard voice with its awkward locutions: "MST3K, yes, ha ha, of course. But you are flattering yourself, Professor. Surely you must realize that you have yet to look at the top of the tanks, where your much vaunted and oh-so tediously postmodern experience in the realm of pulp horror should have adequately prepared you for the inevitable shock. . . .Yes, Hummmm?"

My God. Of course. . . . I had forgotten the long slow pan to the top of the tank! Slowly, feeling every inch of my flesh gather itself into a chill blanket of goosepimples, I allowed my gaze to rise upwards . . . To the name plates. Of course . . . Each cylindrical tank had a nameplate, a steel plaque with the inhabitant's name engraved in 125-point Fajita Picante. And the tank I was in front of belonged to -- ? -- my eyes came to rest on the dread label:

JAMES DIGNAN, NEW ZEELAND

I was staring at James Dignan! Poor, naked, helples wretch, curled up like a fetus and -- my God -- sucking his thumb helplessly as Woj piped vile toxins into his noble veins. And the other plates . . . . All Fegs! Each tank contained a Feg! And I tell you, my sanity would have been blasted right there if it weren't for the fact that many tanks were mercifully empty, the occupant's vacancy investing the name plate with an aura of thwartably hopeful expectancy rather than that of a grim and ineluctable sentence. But nevertheless, many were still there, many of the Fegs I have grown to love and admire . . . . Debora, Glen, Mark . . . All floating in the evil fluid, their blood being saturated with God only knows what horrific chemicals. . . .And the font, the fiendish use of Fajita Picante . . . So normally peppy and cheerful, to be subverted in such a way! (*Could Bayard be involved?* my mind screamed at me. *Remember the Glass Flesh CD!?!*)

I turned to face the evil mastermind, resolved not to show my fear. He would get nothing from me! But Woj looked at me, unimpressed with my studied nonchalance. He tapped against the side of a tank labeled LORD OF THE DANCE. (*So that's where he went,* my mind thought frantically. *Perhaps RXBROOME is here as well?*) Woj spoke again: "You see, even now I am cherishing the look of disappointment which is so obviously not on your face. The fact that you are hiding it so poorly fills me with more glee than a thousand hours of your insane shrieking could. You *know* you are beaten. I am filled inside with a black sense of what I can only call joy. And to think, before my....... transformation, I had to listen to Diamandala Galas for this sort of kick!" The Woj-thing (for no longer could I believe that Woj would use such terrible prose) laughed, a sound like shards of coke bottles grinding against a plate of oxidized aluminum. I say he laughed, but in truth his face hardly moved -- it was more of a mask than any true face.

But still I was brave: "Disappointment, yes, oh Woj, I am feeling a profound sense of disappointment -- but only that Susan's tank is empty, so I won't get to see her naked after all."

"You fool! You think Susan is destined for this fate? I tell you, the Anti-Eb has grander things ahead of her."

Suddenly I felt truly nervous. "And what about Eddie Tews? I bet he'd never go willingly. He's probably waging some socialist warfare against you right now, sending you tapes, communist newsletters, and posters of Billy Bragg!"

Finally, a palpable hit! The grin froze for a second, and his eyes flashed wounded malice. "I see. I'm not sure how you found that out, but never matter. Mr. Tews will soon become a part of the System. Libertarian Agent A.B.R. and our Subversive Specialist G. S. Shell will see to that! Very well, Professor -- I *was* going to tell you everything, but now I'm afraid I will just have to let you die in unspeakable ignorance, like a terminally ill Jimmy Buffet fan."

I realized that Woj was quite serious -- I had stepped over the line, and I could see my fate looming large ahead of me. I had only one feeble hope. "Fine, you dumb bastard. And by the way -- you spelled 'New Zealand' wrong!" Seizing this opportunity, I lunged towards him and pushed him backwards. With an audible "bonk," he hit Natalies tank and ricocheted to my left. I ran towards the door --

And stopped.

There was a woman there, a smiling woman with a guitar, and I recognized her immediately -- Debbie Flosshilde. Debbie! My hopes soared. She had escaped! Together we would put an end to this vast and terrible plot! I reached out to grab her hand, to pull her away, to --

Then I saw the Quail tatooed on her wrist, and her sudden giggle of amusement filled my head with mad despair.

Subject: Re: The Doom that Came to the Feglist, Vol II

Quail fluttered:

Woj spoke again: "And to think, before my . . . transformation, I had to listen to Diamandala Galas for this sort of kick!"

Umm...never heard of her. Some sort of screeching post-goth singer who wails tirades about apartheid instead of AIDS? ;)

The anti-Eb will never vanquish me. ;P

Subject: the awful truth about the great quail...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you for yet more enjoyable weirdness, Mr Quail.

However, I think it is time that your secret is revealed! The Great Quail is an anagram of "I eat laughter, Q." You are laughing at us! WHY??? What is your secret???

Then I realised the dreadful truth: Your 'real name' (hah!) "Allen Ruch" is an anagram of "Real Lunch" Lunch? As in Monday's Lunch? So.... either you are Mark Gloster, or he is another one of your fiendish disguises! Let's take this one stage further Mark Gloster's alleged 'band' is Rubber Shark.This is, of course, an anagram of 'shrub barker' someone who strips away the protective coating from the trunks of small trees - a 'tree marker'.

If we assume that the people you assume the identities of are rendered into a zombie-like state, with no will then the message becomes clearer: mindless - no central nervous system (CNS)! Take the letters CNS from the name Terrence Marks and what do you get? An anagram of 'Tree Marker'! Do these 'identities' on the 'feglist' really exist outside your warped mind? Lets look for other clues... does anyone have an identity that is an anagram of "exist"? No. "Is? no. "Be"????? hmmmm.....

Subject: The Great Quail and the Sacred Crab

I must say that having been name-checked not once but *twice* in the Great Quail's diseased meanderings, I am a-tremble with awe; I feel that I've done very little to warrant such an honor in that I have posted to this list approximately three times total and I can't remember what I said. So, Great Member of the Phasinidae Family, I cry unto your feathered majesty: I am not worthy!

What did I do while the list was down? Well, I went on a pilgrimage to the great Hitchcock idol, the Sacred Crab, to find out where I should go next in my explorations of Robyn's world. I offered it a plate of shrimp curry and bowed down; its segmented granite legs trembled in a faint breeze. "O Sacred Crab," I said, "help me: what record should I buy next?"

The Sacred Crab considered the question. A skylark sang in the distance. "GO NOW, AND BUY 'MOSS ELIXIR,' AND 'INVISIBLE HITS,' AND 'FEGMANIA'!" it proclaimed at length. "AND GET ME MORE OF THIS SHRIMP CURRY, IT'S REALLY TASTY."

So of course I had to obey. I actually bought "Moss Elixir" a few months ago and my opinion is mixed. I think some of it is heartbreakingly gorgeous - "The Speed of Things" is probably my favorite, and anything featuring a lot of violin - but the instrumentation aside, some of the songs partake too much of the general limpness of "Perspex Island" - they're not *bad*, just kind of... there. Since I haven't heard "Respect," I don't know if this is a general trend in Robyn's songwriting or just a minor slump. (Should I buy "Respect"? I've heard such mixed things about it. [insert sound of can of worms being opened up.])

I guess I should be drawn and quartered or something, because, with a few exceptions, I found "Invisible Hits" virtually unlistenable. And I *like* the Soft Boys. Only a heart of stone could resist "Have a Heart, Betty (I'm Not Fireproof)," though.

"Fegmania" was the biggest success of the three albums I bought. It's the only Robyn album that sounds a little dated to me - it's those '80's keyboards, I think - but I really liked it anyway: perfect, surreal littlepop tunes, with more hooks than a boatload of fishermen. That's good eatin'! My only gripe is with the re-release that I bought; much as I like "Egyptian Creme," I don't need three versions of it on the CD. And that experimental instrumental stuff... well, at least it's at the end of the disk.

Oh yes, and the Sacred Crab also told me that Andy Metcalfe whups ass (though I don't think those were its *exact* words).

n.