HACK

Minutes, HACK Seminar I, 9/27/03
Participants:

CR: Sir Chauncey K. Ramsbottom, University of Bootle, moderator
LH: Dr. Launce van Hierophany, grammaticist (Toronto)
DE: Dame Elsie Camano (Seattle)
MN: Mr. Natural (Tompkins Square Park)
HW: Harry Wanadoo, theologian and visiting scholar, University of Tirukkalukunram
RB: Ross Bender, University of University City Village, secretary

Welcome and introductions

CR: "In Tacoma they're still waiting for the other shoe to drop -- stay with us" A novel introduction to a season premiere…

DE: Tacoma -- harummph

MN: Gimme a grape soda

Silence

CR: Alright, here we go. Hack flashbacks:

Mike: You're still a cop and I'm driving a cab
Marcellus: We all have our own paths

Anything of theological import there, Harry?

HW: Actually, it reminds me of a Harry Chapin song

DE: "stuffed the bill in my shirt"

HW: But at any rate I assume we can all accept this postulate as a given -- that we each have our own paths. Self-pity or enlightenment?

DE: Self-pity

Fare: I've been coming to this town for 12 years -- how many times can you see the Liberty Bell?

CR: Here's one for our Philadelphian -- how many times *can* you see the Liberty Bell?

RB: Fair question. I've lived here for 18 years and I've seen the Liberty Bell 2 to the nth power. Conducting student tours and so forth. But a good question.

HW: But isn't the question actually can you *really* *see* it?

Marcellus: I can't help you if you don't drop the knife … as much as your life sucks, it's gonna suck more … violence is never the answer."

CR: Meme or cliché, Harry?

HW: Perhaps we need a penologist on this panel. But I believe we can assume this as a given. Anybody who disagrees is invited to step outside.

Naked blind smartass white kid: Was it OK for you?
Naked white housewife: It was actually pretty amazing.

MN: Show us yer tits.

CR: Exactly how credible is it that a blind white boy would be roaming the streets of Philadelphia selling subscriptions to the New Yorker? Rosso?

RB: Not credible. I think we'll have to call a foul here, or a whatchamacallit.

Fed agent with cigar and jerky hairdo: Holy crap, what did I do?

CR: You just shot four people to death, I believe. Who is this creep?

DE: Actually, Robin, lots of bullet holes but no blood

RB: Family program
CR: Now here we go -- Jacqueline Torres, according to the program notes. Have we heard of her? Quick google check, anyone?

MN: Nice goobers, man

RB: Actually she puts me somewhat in mind of the early Lauren Bacall -- Did Bacall ever play an ex-nun?

DE: Too many ex-es in this show -- ex-cop, ex-nun, two divorcees, ex-priest, maybe ex-show. BTW what happened to the priest?

MN: Went down in New Orleans

DE: Oh, and Rosso, where's 4418?

RB: Larchwood? Osage Avenue, I think -- not where they had the MOVE bombing -- that's further black. Anyway, she reminds me of my shrink: "That wasn't so bad, was it -- having a conversation? We'll do it again." Totally Bacall.

CR: And *most* presumptious

LH: Plus which she talks like a valleygirl on speed

Mike: I used to be a cop and I know when someone's in trouble
SAWK: That's the thing -- it may be the cops who are after me

CR: Do I detect a modicum of paranoia?

Headline in Inky: "Four Gunned Down in Suburban Shootout"

RB: Thank God it was out in the burbs. But, uh-oh, I think I detect an erudite reference -- dude's name is Milo Binder. Anybody still have their copy of Catch-22?

CR: Careful, now, the clock's speeding up

SAWK: I wish my father had said to me just once the kind of thing you just said to your son
Mike: Well -- hello there --Bright Eyes

DE: Gosh, I do hope we don't have overtones of homoeroticism here

HW: No, I believe this is all good clean Father and Son stuff. Reference your Turgenev

DE: The whole show is good clean buddy stuff

RB: Not with the ex-nun next door on the scene

MN: Nice goobers, man

SAWK: We had to win, to compete --finally I missed my Senior seminar, my Western Civ final, my French final. They found me two weeks later -- I was writing down the answers to my exams over and over --*on the same line*

CR: Two weeks is pushing it. Tell me, Rosso, is this pretty much run of the mill Ivy League stuff?

RB: That's the 21 Thousand Dollar Question

DE: So he's eating mashed bananas out of a plastic spoon for several weeks until the meds kick in. How real can *that* be?

MN: Depends on the meds, man. I once knew this dude name of STP John stayed up in a tree in Central Park for three days

LH: Cut to the chase -- men in hoods -- this could be a meme -- cf. Masked and Anonymous, cf. Zapatistas, cf. State of Siege

CR: Down in Chile they were having Allende celebrations recently. We must have a political scientist on this panel soon.

SAWK: What ya gonna do, dump me in the river?

DE: Good idea, it would teach him some manners, the little psycho killer

CR: Let's close it out now, shall we?

Mike: What is it you need, Marcellus?
Marcellus: A friend …

MN: You just call out my name! Hey-hey-hey!

HW: I'll come runnin'

LH: To see you again

DE: What was that number again?

RB: 555-0167

CR: And that's about all she wrote, folks. Launce, what do you make of the discourse structures?

LH: Actually, Sir Chauncey, what impresses me is the remarkably well-formed grammaticality of the utterances. Basically the whole show is a collection of fragments like beads on a string, with a sort of, how shall I say it, *dynamically* interwoven gesture throughout it, like a wave

RB: Like down at the Vet after the third inning

LH: Precisely. Discrete particles but an overall matrix of time-space nodes/movements -- you can't *see* the pixels precisely but as a mosaic they foreground the whole picture, if you get my drift

CR: Speaking of memes, what do we have here?

RB: Ex-nun next door

DE: Father-son stuff plus homoeroticism

HW: Buddy stuff

MN: Nice goobers, man

CR: And some serious mental illness. Next week we *must* have a Freudian genetico-phrenologist on the panel. Remember:

"When you're in trouble, this ex-cop is on your side -- the only person he can't help is himself." Messianic complex, reaction-formation, or self-pity? See you next week.

DE: Self-pity

Hack Seminar II