D             <<< SPCVXA::$1$DUA2:[NOTES$LIBRARY]X-NUTWORKS.NOTE;2 >>>0                                 -< X-NUTWORKS >-P ================================================================================P Note 20.0                           Issue 19                          No repliesP SPCVXA::BEN "Ben Cohen"                             451 lines   6-MAR-1990 19:45P --------------------------------------------------------------------------------I -------------------------------------------------------------------------    C        @@@    @@@@             @@@          @@@@                @@@ B       @@@@    @@           @@   @@          @@                  @@I      @@ @@   @@  @@  @@ @@@@@@  @@    @    @@   @@@@  @@ @@    @@ @@  @@@ G     @@  @@  @@  @@  @@   @@     @@   @@   @@  @@  @@  @@  @@  @@@@   @@ I    @@   @@ @@  @@  @@   @@ @@   @@ @@ @@ @@  @@  @@  @@      @@ @@     @@ G   @@    @@@@   @@@@ @@  @@@     @@@   @@@@   @@@@   @@     @@@  @@  @@@ ) @@@@    @@@                    @@@    @@@    1                        Electronic Humor Magazine.    :               Issue019, (Volume V, Number 1).  July, 1987.   8                NutWorks is published semi-monthly-ish by8                 Brent C.J. Britton, <Brent@Maine.BITNET>H -------------------------------------------------------------------------                           Standard Disclaimer -                           =================== 6                  From: Marc Kriguer <REMARCK@UCLASSCF>5                    (Origin: Dave's Fido, Gardner, MA)    E This product is meant for educational purposes only.  Any resemblance C to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.  Void where C prohibited.  Some assembly required.  List each check separately by A bank number.  Batteries not included.  Contents may settle during @ shipment.  Use only as directed.  No other warranty expressed or= implied.  Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy > equipment.  Postage will be paid by addressee.  Subject to CABB approval.  This is not an offer to sell securities.  Apply only toC affected area.  May be too intense for some viewers.  Do not stamp. C Use other side for additional listings.  For recreational use only. ? Do not disturb.  All models over 18 years of age.  If condition D persists, consult your physician.  No user-serviceable parts inside.C Freshest if eaten before date on carton.  Subject to change without E notice.  Times approximate.  Simulated picture.  No postage necessary E if mailed in the United States.  Breaking seal constitutes acceptance D of agreement.  For off-road use only.  As seen on TV.  One size fitsB all.  Many suitcases look alike.  Contains a substantial amount ofB non-tobacco ingredients.  Colors may, in time, fade.  We have sentB the forms which seem to be right for you.  Slippery when wet.  ForC office use only.  Not affiliated with the American Red Cross.  Drop E in any mailbox.  Edited for television.  Keep cool; process promptly. B Post office will not deliver without postage.  List was current atA time of printing.  Return to sender, no forwarding order on file, D unable to forward.  Not responsible for direct, indirect, incidentalD or consequential damages resulting from any defect, error or failure? to perform.  At participating locations only.  Not the Beatles. > Penalty for private use.  See label for sequence.  SubstantialE penalty for early withdrawal.  Do not write below this line.  Falling C rock.  Lost ticket pays maximum rate.  Your cancelled check is your A receipt.  Add toner.  Place stamp here.  Avoid contact with skin. = Sanitized for your protection.  Be sure each item is properly C endorsed.  Sign here without admitting guilt.  Slightly higher west C of the Mississippi.  Employees and their families are not eligible. ? Beware of dog.  Contestants have been briefed on some questions ? before the show.  Limited time offer, call now to insure prompt C delivery.  You must be present to win.  No passes accepted for this E engagement.  No purchase necessary.  Processed at location stamped in E code at top of carton.  Shading within a garment may occur.  Use only E in well-ventilated area.  Keep away from fire or flame.  Replace with B same type.  Approved for veterans.  Booths for two or more.  CheckA here if tax deductible.  Some equipment shown is optional.  Price @ does not include taxes.  No Canadian coins.  Not recommended forA children.  Prerecorded for this time zone.  Reproduction strictly = prohibited.  No solicitors.  No alcohol, dogs, or horses.  No B anchovies unless otherwise specified.  Restaurant package, not forE resale.  List at least two alternate dates.  First pull up, then pull B down.  Call toll free before digging.  Driver does not carry cash.; Some of the trademarks mentioned in this product appear for E identification purposes only.  Record additional transactions on back / of previous stub.  Decision of judges is final.    % This supersedes all previous notices.    H ------------------------------------------------------------------------(                                 Contents(                                 ========A               NewsWorks ...................... Points of Interest    9               Nuts & Bolts ................... Commentary    3               Clone of My Own ................ Song    "               This Is the Title of"               This Story, Which Is&               Also Found Several Times4               in the Story Itself ............ Story   3               Noah and the Ark ............... Joke    H ------------------------------------------------------------------------   (                                NewsWorks(                                =========6                   (If news = none Then news <-- good.)   F     It's NutWorks Humor, the magazine that has been called many thingsH but never "A Dylan-esque tune with a driving beat" and this is the firstH issue of Summer, 1987.  (Another thing NutWorks has never been called is "on schedule.") F     Seeing how it's that laid-back time of year when people everywhereC toss all thoughts of an honest day's work to the wind, the NutWorks D staff feels no guilt in informing our readers that we have basicallyE been on vacation since mid-May, and so are taking this opportunity to H publish some of the readers' contributions that have been sitting around@ taking up valuable disk space for the past two and a half years.H     Enjoy!  Oh, and if you're ever at the Carlisle Hotel in Montego Bay,% say hi to Sherry for us, ok?  Thanks.     Le Staff de NutWorksH ------------------------------------------------------------------------   *                               Nuts & Bolts+                              ============== .                          by Brent C.J. Britton   C     Living smack in the middle of a place like Maine means that you A have to drive a fairly good distance to get anywhere that doesn't @ look like a Jack Daniel's ad.  You know the ones where there's aF black and white picture of some old redneck with no teeth to speak of,G wearing overalls and a baseball cap with the visor flipped up, and he's @ sitting on the back of a '68 Ford flatbed pickup truck whittlingF toothpicks out of a two-by-six pine plank?  I have to drive a long way% to escape that sort of thing up here. F     One of things I've noticed while driving across this great land of@ ours is this:  The people who make road signs have Q-tips Cotton Swabs(tm) for brains. E     I'm not talking about your average, humdrum road sign like "STOP" H or "YIELD" to which the average, intelligent American driver pays littleG or no attention in the first place.  No.  I'm talking about the kind of G road signs that make you wonder if the guys down at the DOT are running D with a full frame of resident pages, if you get my proverbial drift.#     These are some of my favorites:    -                           LOW-FLYING AIRCRAFT    F     Tell me, does the placement of this sign on the highway imply someC action on my part as a motorist?  I mean, just how "low-flying" are F these aircraft?  What am I supposed to do if I see one?  Duck?  ShouldD I assume that the aircraft has the right of way?  This sign is about as valuable as its cousin:   /                         WATCH FOR FALLING ROCKS=3                    (little picture of an avalanche)=  =F     "Well officer the reason I rear-ended the school bus was because IF had my eyes peeled on that mountainside so I could swerve to avoid any8 boulders that happened to come loose as I drove past..."  -/                         ROAD UNDER CONSTRUCTION-.                          PASS AT YOUR OWN RISK  -D     What this sign means is, if, as you are driving through the con-C struction area past the ten or twelve road workers who are standing C around in small groups with their hands in their pockets discussing@D whether or not the color of the steam-roller conforms to their unionH contract, and one of them flicks a cigarette butt your way which ignitesD your gas tank and your car explodes, you cannot hold them liable for damages.   -                           NO TRUCKS LEFT LANE         No verb this sentence.   8                 BLASTING AREA.  TURN OFF TWO-WAY RADIOS.  0G     I wonder how many crazed pyromaniacs drive around with a carload ofb- walkie-talkies looking for these babies, hmm?n  .*                               MEN IN TREES  -/     Don't worry guys, evolution is your friend.-  -6                  LAST SANITARY FACILITIES FOR 30 MILES   ;     "Gee, I guess we'll have to use the unsanitary ones..."o  M5                   HAVE YOU CHECKED YOUR TIRES LATELY?g   G     This is on the Maine turnpike just after you come over "The Bridge"pF from New Hampshire.  It serves as a reminder to tourists that it could# snow at any minute without warning.dH ------------------------------------------------------------------------  t+                             Clone of My Ownn+                             ===============r-                            by Randall Garretti7                 Sung to the tune of "Home on the Range"g  i Oh, give me a clonee Of my own flesh and bone+         With the Y chromosome changed to X.  And when she is grown, My very own clone,%         We'll be of the opposite sex.   s Chorus:i         Clone, clone of my own,r+         With the Y chromosome changed to X.m         And when we're alone, !         Since her mind is my own,p.         She'll be thinking of nothing but sex.  eH ------------------------------------------------------------------------  s;              This Is the Title of This Story, Which Is Alsom7                 Found Several Times in the Story Itselfc7                 =======================================o  V+                              by David Moserl:               Submitted by David N. Blank <BLANK@BRANDEIS>  .@     This is the first sentence of this story. This is the secondF sentence. This is the title of this story, which is also found severalE times in the story itself. This sentence is questioning the intrinsic D value of the first two sentences. This sentence is to inform you, inE case you haven't already realized it, that this is a self-referentialsD story, that is, a story containing sentences that refer to their ownE structure and function. This is a sentence that provides an ending tog the first paragraph.  r<     This is the first sentence of a new paragraph in a self-F referential story. This sentence is introducing you to the protagonistC of the story, a young boy named Billy. This sentence is telling youaC that Billy is blond and blue-eyed and American and twelve years oldsA and strangling his mother.  This sentence comments on the awkward C nature of the self-referential narrative form while recognizing the F strange and playful detachment it affords the writer. As if illustrat-B ing the point made by the last sentence, this sentence reminds us,F with no trace of facetiousness, that children are a precious gift fromB God and that the world is a better place when graced by the unique# joys and delights they bring to it.p  e=     This sentence describes Billy's mother's bulging eyes andeC protruding tongue and makes reference to the unpleasant choking andaE gagging noises she's making. This sentence makes the observation thatmE these are uncertain and difficult times, and that relationships, eventE seemingly deep-rooted and permanent ones, do have a tendency to breakw down.t  aF     Introduces, in this paragraph, the device of sentence fragments. AB sentence fragment. Another. Good device.  Will be used more later.   @     This is actually the last sentence of the story but has beenF placed here by mistake. This is the title of this story, which is alsoB found several times in the story itself. As Gregor Samsa awoke oneB morning from uneasy dreams he found himself in his bed transformedD into a gigantic insect. This sentence informs you that the precedingF sentence is from another story entirely (a much better one, it must beD noted) and has no place at all in this particular narrative. DespiteB claims of the preceding sentence, this sentence feels compelled to> inform you that the story you are reading is in actuality "TheC Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka, and that the sentence referred to by D the preceding sentence is the ONLY sentence which does indeed belong@ in this story. This sentence overrides the preceding sentence by? informing the reader (poor, confused wretch) that this piece of D literature is actually the Declaration of Independence, but that theD author, in a show of extreme negligence (if not malicious sabotage),? has so far failed to include even ONE SINGLE SENTENCE from that-> stirring document, although he has condescended to use a small@ sentence FRAGMENT, namely, "When in the course of human events",B embedded in quotation marks near the end of a sentence.  Showing aD keen awareness of the boredom and downright hostility of the averageC reader with regard to the pointless conceptual games indulged in byd@ the preceding sentences, THIS sentence returns us at last to theF scenario of the story by asking the question, "Why is Billy stranglingF his mother?" This sentence attempts to shed some light on the questionB posed by the preceding sentence but fails. THIS sentence, however,@ succeeds, in that it suggests a possible incestuous relationshipD between Billy and his mother and alludes to the concomitant FreudianF complications any astute reader will immediately envision. Incest. TheD unspeakable taboo. The universal prohibition. Incest. And notice theB sentence fragments? Good literary device. Will be used more later.  fC     This is the first sentence in a new paragraph. This is the last- sentence in a new paragraph.  -D     This sentence can serve as either the beginning of the paragraphD or end, depending on its placement. This is the title of this story,D which is also found several times in the story itself. This sentenceB raises a serious objection to the entire class of self-referential@ sentences that merely comment on their own function or placementD within the story E.G., the preceding four sentences), on the groundsD that they are monotonously predictable, unforgivably self-indulgent,E and merely serve to distract the reader from the real subject of this D story, which at this point seems to concern strangulation and incest? and who knows what other delightful topics. The purpose of this F sentence is to point out that the preceding sentence, while not itselfB a member of the class of self-referential sentences it objects to,D nevertheless ALSO serves merely to distract the reader from the real= subject of this story, which actually concerns Gregor Samsa'si? inexplicable transformation into a gigantic insect (despite theaC vociferous counterclaims of other well meaning although misinformednB sentences). This sentence can serve as either the beginning of the- paragraph or end, depending on its placement.    F     This is the title of this story, which is also found several timesD in the story itself. This is ALMOST the title of the story, which isF found only once in the story itself.  This sentence regretfully statesF that up to this point the self-referential mode of narrative has had aD paralyzing effect on the actual progress of the story itself -- thatD is, these sentences have been so concerned with analyzing themselvesA and their role in the story that they have failed by and large to D perform their function as communicators of events and ideas that oneD hopes coalesce into a plot, character development, etc. -- in short,C the very RAISONS D'ETRE of any respectable, hardworking sentence invB the midst of a piece of compelling prose fiction. This sentence inC addition points out the obvious analogy between the plight of thesemF agonizingly self-aware sentences and similarly afflicted human beings,= and it points out the analogous paralyzing effects wrought by ( excessive and tortured self-examination.  uF     The purpose of this sentence (which can also serve as a paragraph)@ is to speculate that if the Declaration of Independence had beenA worded and structured as lackadaisically and incoherently as thist= story has been so far, there's no telling what kind of warpedKF libertine society we'd be living in now or to what depths of decadenceE the inhabitants of this country might have sunk, even to the point ofrE deranged and debased writers constructing irritatingly cumbersome andeF needlessly prolix sentences that sometimes possess the questionable ifE not downright undesirable quality of referring to themselves and theyS@ sometimes even become run-on sentences or exhibit other signs ofF inexcusably sloppy grammar like unneeded superfluous redundancies thatB almost certainly would have insidious effects on the lifestyle andD morals of our impressionable youth, leading them to commit incest or@ even murder and maybe THAT'S why Billy is strangling his mother,B because of sentences JUST LIKE THIS ONE, which have no discernibleB goals or perspicuous purpose and just end up anywhere, even in mid   F     Bizarre. A sentence fragment. Another fragment.  Twelve years old.@ This is a sentence that. Fragmented.  And strangling his mother.D Sorry, sorry. Bizarre. This.  More fragments. This is it. Fragments.C The title of this story, which. Blond. Sorry, sorry. Fragment after ? fragment. Harder. This is a sentence that. Fragments. Damn good  device.,  oC     The purpose of this sentence is threefold: (1) to apologize for A the unfortunate and inexplicable lapse exhibited by the preceding A paragraph; (2) to assure you, the reader, that it will not happen-B again; and (3) to reiterate the point that these are uncertain andC difficult times and that aspects of language, even seemingly stable F and deeply rooted ones such as syntax and meaning, do break down. ThisD sentence adds nothing substantial to the sentiments of the precedingE sentence but merely provides a concluding sentence to this paragraph,h# which otherwise might not have one.y  hF     This sentence, in a sudden and courageous burst of altruism, triesC to abandon the self-referential mode but fails. This sentence triesn0 again, but the attempt is doomed from the start.   A     This sentence, in a last-ditch attempt to infuse some iota ofeF story line into this paralyzed prose piece, quickly alludes to Billy's? frantic cover-up attempts, followed by a lyrical, touching, ands@ beautifully written passage wherein Billy is reconciled with hisB father (thus resolving the sublimnal Freudian conflicts obvious toA any astute reader) and a final exciting police chase scene duringt? which Billy is accidentally shot and killed by a panicky rookie D policeman who is coincidentally named Billy. This sentence, although? basically in complete sympathy with the laudable efforts of thew> preceding action-packed sentence, reminds the reader that such< allusions to a story that doesn't, in fact, yet exist are noC substitute for the real thing and therefore will not get the author 7 (indolent goof-off that he is) off the proverbial hook.t  iE     Paragraph. Paragraph. Paragraph. Paragraph. Paragraph. Paragraph.eB Paragraph. Paragraph. Paragraph.  Paragraph. PARAGRAPH. Paragraph. Paragraph. Paragraph.c  e<     The purpose. Of this paragraph. Is to apologize. For its. gratuitous use. Of. Sentence fragments. Sorry.  nF     The purpose of this sentence is to apologize for the pointless andC silly adolescent games indulged in by the preceding two paragraphs,mC and to express regret on the part of us, the more mature sentences,o@ that the entire tone of this story is such that it can't seem to. communicate a simple, albeit sordid, scenario.  vD     This sentence wishes to apologize for all the needless apologiesD found in this story (this one included), which, although placed hereE ostensibly for the benefit of the more vexed readers, merely delay inlA a maddeningly recursive way the continuation of the by-now nearlyi forgotten story line.o  dC     This sentence is bursting at the punctuation marks with news ofgE the dire import of self-reference as applied to sentences, a practiceeD that could prove to be a veritable Pandora's box of potential havoc,@ for if a sentence can refer or allude to itself, why not a lowly= subordinate clause, perhaps THIS VERY CLAUSE Or this sentenceT) fragment? Or three words? Two words? ONE?    C     Perhaps it is appropriate that this sentence gently and with no E trace of condescension reminds us that these are indeed difficult andeE uncertain times and that in general people just aren't nice enough tohE each other, and perhaps we, whether sentient human beings or sentientuC sentences, should just TRY HARDER. I mean, there IS such a thing as E free will, there HAS to be, and this sentence is proof of it! NeithertE this sentence nor you, the reader, is completely helpless in the faceeC of all the pitiless forces at work in the universe. We should standdE our ground, face facts, take Mother Nature by the throat and just TRYe/ HARDER.  By the throat. Harder. Harder, harder.e  e
     Sorry.  tF     This is the title of this story, which is also found several times in the story itself.  eE     This is the last sentence of the story. This is the last sentencen> of the story. This is the last sentence of the story. This is.  s
     Sorry.  oH ------------------------------------------------------------------------  e,                             Noah and the Ark,                             ================>          Submission by Paul Charette <charettep@nusc-wpn.arpa>     uC       When the Ark had come to rest on Mt. Ararat, Noah said to theTA         animals, "Go then forth, all ye creatures, and multiply."s>             All the animals went forth, except for two snakes.B        Noah said to the snakes, "Did I not command you in the nameG   of the Lord to go forth and multiply?  Why then have you not obeyed?"n   E     The snakes replied, "Behold, we are adders, and cannot multiply."   tH  (Pause for substantial quantities of groaning at such an old chestnut.)  nB        Then Noah sent forth his sons from the Ark, bidding them to@          seek and hew a mighty tree.  The sons of Noah returned,B        bearing with them the trunk of a great tree.  Then did Noah?           bid his sons to strike the tree into pieces, and maken5                      therefrom a great table of wood.t  rD      Noah then said unto the snakes, "Behold where my sons have madeH  for you a table of logs, wherewith you now can multiply, being adders!"H ------------------------------------------------------------------------*                               Three Morons*                               ============2                       by John Squires CUJTS@ECNCDC   F     There were five morons standing in an alley shooting heroin.  They! were all sharing the same needle.g  iE     After a while, they were seen by a passer-by who started yelling:aG "What are you guys doing!?  Haven't you heard about the AIDS epidemic?"e  nB     One of the morons replied, "Not to worry... we are all wearing	 condoms!" H ------------------------------------------------------------------------