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"In all the world, one man has been born, one man has Died.
To insist otherwise is nothing more than statistics, an Impossible extension.
No less impossible than bracketing the smell of rain with Your dream of two nights ago.
That man is Ulysses, Abel, Cain, the first to make con- stellations of the stars, to build the first pyramid, the
man who contrived the hexagrams of the Book of Changes, the smith who engraved runes on the sword of
Hengist, Einar Tamberskelver the archer, Luis de León, The bookseller who fathered Samuel Johnson, Voltaire's
Gerdner, Darwin aboard the Beagle, a Jew in the death Chamber, and, in time, you and I.
One man alone has died at Troy, at Metaurus, at Hastings, At
Austerlitz, at Trafalgar, at Gettysburg.
One man alone has died in hospitals, in boats, in painful solitude, in the rooms of habit and of love.
One man alone has looked upon the vastness of dawn.
One man alone has felt on his tongue the fresh quenching Of water, the flavour of fruit and of flesh.
I speak of the unique, the single man, he who is always Alone."
Borges, You
"Given a description of an isolated part of the physical universal in the most complete terms that have physical meaning, that is, down to the smallest elements of which our physical operations give us cognizance, then the future history of the system is determined within a growing penumbra of uncertainty, this penumbra growing broader as we penetrate to finer details of the structure of the system or as time goes on, until eventually all but very certain general properties of the original system, such as its total energy, are forever lost in the haze, and we have a system which was unpredictable"
P.W.Bridgman, The Logic of Modern Physics
Combat Diary 9
In which Wendy Connors signs off, her Motel Time Share of a mind blown into consumer infinity. Poor Panzerben apologises for causing her hysterical fit, and says it is all the fault of the Brentford
Polonius, who encouraged him to experiment.
The Bad man announces an attempt to make a West End Musical of the UFUupdates List, entitled
Factspiel. Kelly Peterborough asks a dread question, and Laurel Oplatka praises our Hero yet once again.
From: Wendy Connors <FadedDiscs@comcast.net>
Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 12:20:13 -0700
Fwd Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 16:00:14 -0500
Subject: Re: Corso - Connors
>From: Colin Bennett <colin@bennettc25.fsnet.co.uk>
>To: UFO Updates <ufoupdates@virtuallystrange.net>
>Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 16:26:53 -0000
>Subject: Re: Corso
<snip>
Colin,
Now I understand why your mother named you "Colin". Not only was
your delivery, without a doubt, the longest in history and like
the punctuational (sic) use of the colon, your name itself hints at
never knowing how to stop babbling.
The only saving grace your prose may have is for a sure cure for
insomniacs. Like others on this List, I too, shall no longer open
your posts.
I suggest a colonic, Valium and basic course in Net Etiquette.
Wendy Connors
From: Colin Bennett <colin@bennettc25.fsnet.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 23:52:46 -0000
Fwd Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 08:16:38 -0500
Subject: Re: Corso - Bennett
>From: Wendy Connors <FadedDiscs@comcast.net>
>To: <ufoupdates@virtuallystrange.net>
>Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 12:20:13 --0700
>Subject: Re: Corso - Connors
Dear Wendy,
I am so sorry that my post offended you. The trouble is that it
is not my fault. As you will see from my post, the Brentford
Polonius himself encouraged me to write more interesting stuff.
His appreciation of my work and his encouragement came at a time
when I was thinking about being as boring, factual, predictable
and mundane and "scientifically objective" and sensible
indeed as Mother Hall and Mother Aldrich.
The trouble is darling, that once you've been affected by von
Brentford's infectious humour, there's no stopping. I was, as I
say prepared to be a reformed character and wear sensible shoes
and present unsmiling arguments based on facts and research and
all the rest of the petite-bourgeois fantasies of the late 17th
century trading classes.
So I say here and now to anyone who is angry or upset about my
previous post, please complain to the Brentford Polonius (the
editor of Magonia Magazine) in the strongest terms about getting
the Bad Man all worked up again and into his bad ways. The
trouble is Wendy that I can't turn back now. After Goldstein,
who next? I am working on a script for a List Musical. I'm
calling it Factspeil. I'm working with George Fox, a musical and
film director I have worked with before, and we can have a West
End UFO show with a clog dance done by Jan and Dick, and this
Goldstein guy doing the catering. Already I have talked to a
director I have worked with before, and some backers are
interested. As always with shows, it is a question of raising
the money. Let's face it Ufology is dead square. It's
desperately middle-aged and frowsty and po-faced. It needs a
face-lift for Christ sake, or it will sink to the level of
chapels, downtown police meet the public meets, and train-
spotting clubs.
I have already discussed some sets with a designer: imagine the
set possibilities, darling Wendy: the web sites becoming live
information animals: Jan sits at his desk one night and Project
1947 comes alive around him, like toy-maker's figures in
Pinocchio. Instead of scowling in the dark, I could make him a
star. We've already got some people in mind to play him, but I
don't want to say too much in case he goes to ground again. He's
a bit shy, is our Jan. Whilst we can read him, we can photograph
him for development if you know what I means. You like that? I'm
going do the script. I mean all that comic factual certainty and
"objective research" trip is simply ripe for a West End musical.
Maybe Factspeil could even make Broadway, I don't know. I said
in a previous post, you're nobody if you haven't been cursed by
Andy Roberts, and next year, if you're not in Factspiel,
Panzerben's Dancing Fantasia of Factual Objective Belief Gurus,
you'll be yesterday, nobody, and not nothing nowhere nohow if
you know what I mean, darling.
We've sketched out some scenes already:
(1) An Andy Roberts cursing scene
(2) A chorus line of document boxes chanting factspiel, labres
and docbox.
(3) A scene in which someone says that they are not going to
read posts anymore, yet they creep to the bathroom and read them
by torchlight. Wendy girl, let's face it, I'm absolutely
irrestable. Where would you be without me? I mean all those
lights in the sky and policeman's torches and scared couples
down country lanes. I mean do me a favour, darling!
(4) UFO "researchers" with butterfly nets, jam jars, and 19th
century pension books.
(5) A scene in which "facts" are presented and the audience die
one by one of grief until the aisles look like the sculptured
dead of a war memorial.
(6) A 19th century lab scene with 19th century talk -- revealed --
it's 2003. Chorus:
"A mechanism a day keeps the purple cloaks away. When the
scientists speak the fantasists grow weak. The dreams just die
'cos the facts don't lie...."
I've got million of 'em, baby!
It's the latest turn-on is a Colin Bennett post! I'd show you my
private e-mail darling, but I think I will wait until you're
over twenty-one.
Colin (Bad Man) Bennett
Now go to bed now Wendy and don't forget that you must not read
this post.
List Bears, you must admit you don't get entertainment like this
every night. Wasn't Wendy just absolutely wonderful, my dears?
What a howl! We must have her up front again. She's got talent.
She's not quite up to Andy Robert's level yet at all, but she's
coming on. Certainly I think my next long post on postmodernism
will do it, although I warn you Wendy that it is longer than the
average TV commercial, so I give you due warning. But what ever
you say and do, darling, like Roberts and Mother Jan, I shall
make you a star despite yourself!
Well, here's to the next performers in line, that's what I say.
I've got a show for every one, so watch this space, Bears! This
is the show where certainties fail, hopes are dashed and
reputations split asunder to laughter and applause. All comers
are welcome. The Big Top is this way. But don't think before you
climb into the ring. That's the best way to do it.
What next complainer is going to take the stage and we can have
some fun! They will all have different complaints, and I shall
have a canvas for each one. The good complainers may even earn a
full oil in the Fortean Times later this year.
Wendy, promise not to peek at my replies, now!
Meantime, we'll all meet in Fortean Times 168 next month when my
oil of Oberg will be on public display
Question - Where's Corso?
From: Kelly Peterborough <kellymcg@attcanada.ca>
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 11:19:45 -0500
Fwd Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 16:40:07 -0500
Subject: Re: Corso - Peterborough
>From: Colin Bennett <colin@bennettc25.fsnet.co.uk>
>To: <ufoupdates@virtuallystrange.net>
>Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 23:52:46 -0000
>Subject: Re: Corso
<snip>
>Question - Where's Corso?
Who is Corso?
Kelly
Ahem.
From: Colin Bennett <colin@bennettc25.fsnet.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 22:52:19 -0000
Fwd Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 02:52:53 -0500
Subject: Re: Corso - Bennett
>From: Kelly Peterborough kellymcg@attcanada.ca
>To: <ufoupdates@virtuallystrange.net>
>Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 11:19:45 -0500
>Subject: Re: Corso
<snip>
>>Question - Where's Corso?
>Who is Corso?
Darling Kelly,
Please don't mention that name Corso please, or all the old
queens and ballerinas and pantomime dames and steam-footplate
scientists and 19th century Stalinist mechanicals and Maoist
village interrogators will yet once again prance and mince out
from the holes and shake their tuttus on the river banks of time
and Ufology.
Say the majic name Corso and experts will flee, gurus disappear,
hysterical women will refuse to open my post, cabals will be
formed to bully me from the List, I will be the victim of a no-comment campaign organised by the professional ordinaries,
whispering campaign from doomed rationalists, I will be cursed
by losers, nobodies, the fragile of mind and body, the damned,
the perverted and the inspire and the suicidal. I will be sworn
at by old men looking for document boxes on the bottom of a dead
parrot's cage.
So please darling, it you want to know who Corso is, look back
at my last fat 700 line post from a few days ago called Fourth
Day Like For Long Months months of Absence, and several posts
back. Don't for god's sake believe those who wish to replace
dreams and poetry and mysticism and imagination with document
boxes, security categories, and filing cabinets and archives.
They will be the death of Ufology, not the sceptics, and their
manuals are enough to stop charging rhinos in their tracks and
cause hippos to die of grief.
Let's keep in touch Kelly, because this lot are a harder to
modernise than I ever though. I am trying to take them by the
neck and drag them all kicking and struggling into postmodernism
and the New Ufology.
Colin (Bad Man) Bennett
PS Briefly Corso was a man who happend to fire a round into
Headquarters, that's who Corso was.
From: Laurel Oplatka <calabash2003@webtv.net>
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 16:02:17 -0800 (PST)
Fwd Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 03:08:46 -0500
Subject: Re: Corso - Oplatka
Hello All,
Here's hoping Wendy Connors is, in truth, a closet Colin reader.
What are we to make of our lone-UFO satirist? Is he a Dennis
Miller Quaazga hybrid? My take on Colin's Latest: A splendorous,
unparalleled piece of wildly funny, ingenious word-art. Hey,
David Lynche's 'Eraserhead' and H.P. Lovecrafts's 'The Colour
out of Space' were once ignored... Bennett's Ufological art is
way, way cool!!
ONCE UPON A TIME, (this) my primordial quasi-ditty was printed in
"Saucer Smear":
"O'er the loss of Smear I'd
shed a tear,
The Tidbits of Trash
The trashing of Lear
Yea, in no-man's land where Moseley reigns,
Where Willy wails and Whitley feigns
We search in vain for Condor's candor Marching through
a miasma of slander
Denounced as a crock
For Klass to Mock,
I'm flipping your pages,
Having a ball,
In hopes of avoiding
The fate of Forrestal.
Yesterday I read Fourth Day Like Four Months of Absence. The
energizing creations of Mr. Bennett have catapulted us from
nincompoopism to (Post) post-avant-garde ism.
Best Regards,
Laurel
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