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Author Archives: Jeremy Rosen
Letters: February 2005
Written Correspondences from Good Natured Gentlemen Who Have Read Our Previous Installments and Wish to Comment on Some Aspects Thereof
Dear Axes and Alleys,
The magazine is fucking awesome. I’ve read the first three issues. Do you have hard copies of it and are you selling it? I want a hard copy of one of them if you have one. They are intelligent and funny and I love them. The want ads at the end made me laugh really hard and Matt was laughing his ass off too. The whole thing is really good.
Warmest Regards,
Katie O’Connor
To the Editors,
RE: Jewry in Space (Volume 456-BR7, Issue 7),
604. To deal with a beautiful woman taken captive in war in the manner prescribed in the Torah (Deut. 21:10-14) (affirmative).
605. Not to sell a beautiful woman, (taken captive in war) (Deut. 21:14) (negative).
606. Not to degrade a beautiful woman (taken captive in war) to the condition of a bondwoman (Deut. 21:14) (negative).
I’m curious about average women. Are they fair game? If the Jews on Mars find themselves in need of women, are they allowed to raid the Earth for it’s most stunningly unexceptional females?
Myriad Edwards
Dear Axes & Alleys,
Of course Rommel couldn’t beat the Allies in the Battle of the Bulge (Volume 456-BR7 Issue 6)—Rommel committed suicide on 14 October 1944, just over two months before the Battle of the Bulge began.
Litson P. Nerdis
Dearest Editors,
The bus was late this evening, and my colleague demanded reading material as I was away somewhere in my head and not talking, so I handed him my print-out (as I have explained elsewhere, I find reading pdfs a pain). He very much liked the monkey song (H.G. Peterson, Volume 456-BR6 Issue 18). The other bus-awaiters seemed to appreciate it too, as he insisted on reading it aloud. Mainly, I liked the pretty girls and some of the classifieds.
Alice Lyall
To whom it may concern,
That is clearly a fake llama, a clear and blatant forgery. I can assure you that the Peruvian Department of Internal Copy Knavery and Llama Protection Services has already been notified of this grave offence and will take immediate action in the form of writing a stern letter to former President Chester A. Arthur and signing it “Love and kisses, Alvin P. Snapwarbler Esq.” If this llama forging doesn’t cease immediately, it will cause someone in a very remote area of western Siberia to yelp in an altogether unbecoming manner and a badger to fall over somewhere in Australia.
Charles Pufer
Dear Editors,
How fantastic to find someone sharing my name and a great sense of humour (sorry I’m a Brit)! I hope you survive the mistaken identity issues but you strike me as being pretty well grounded! And thank goodness you’re musical. I don’t think I could have handled being linked to someonbe [sic] who [sic] tone deaf!
Warmest regards,
Dear Axes and Alleys:
I am incredibly greatful to you lot for brightening my day!
Love,
Zeke
Volume 456-BR7 Issue 9
A More Elegant Magazine for a More Civilized Age
Scientists at the Franco-American Theoretical Astronomical Studies Society (FATASS) recently published the first pictures of Saturn’s moon Titan. Titan is one of the largest bodies in our solar system and has a thick atmosphere which some scientists posit may be similar to Earth’s early atmosphere. As there are liquids on the surface of Titan some have even speculated that there may be exotic forms of life found on the icy moon.
But, the researchers point out, the most important thing found on Titan is rocks. As seen in the above picture, Titan is similar to Mars, the Moon and Venus, in that it has rocks.
“Truly ours is a solar system full of rocks” said Nicole Baugh, one of the graduate students helping study the exciting information on new rocks found in the solar system.
We at Axes & Alleys salute these bold scientists. With each discovery of new rocks on some planet, or whatnot, human knowledge grows. Rocks are cool.
Our Special Guide to Surviving Adversity
Camping, hiking and exploration are fun and exciting diversions. But it’s best to be safe when you’re out in the great untamed wilderness. So, we now present a guide for survival. Keep this on your person if you venture from the enveloping warmth of your home and you’ll always be safe, secure and alive, even in the worst situations. Have fun out there in the wild with all those trees and squirrels and junk.
If you have a magnet, a piece of cork and a needle, all you need to do is make thread from a nearby plant, so you can sew the magnet to the piece of cork.
It’s easy to get despaired when you’re lost. A good way to pick yourself up is to use the skulls from animals you kill to perform cheery puppet shows.
If you’re ever lost in the Alps during a bitterly cold winter, make sure you have a number of different items that will interest future archaeologists. Make sure to include items of a cultural nature.
Getting lost in Antarctica can be hard sometimes. Don’t waste time trying to find a polar bear you can disembowel to shelter in its body cavity. Polar bears only live in the North Pole.
Make sure you learn how to say “Can you help me?” in Chinese. As there are 1.2 billion Chinese, odds are that one out four people you come across will be Chinese.
If you lose your way when traveling through the Mystic Caves of Aar’ushbak, try and find the Talisman of Gindor. If you utter the sacred chants it will cast forth a guiding light and show you the way to safety.
Long hours of tedius boredom can result from being lost in an unfamiliar enviornment while waiting for rescue. For entertainment, try looking at things.
Snowstorms can result in a phenomenon called “White Out” which makes it very difficult to see your surroundings. So don’t forget to bring your glasses or bi-focals.
If you’re lost, there’s an easy way to tell where you are. Look in the sink as the water drains out. Does it go clockwise? You’re in the Northern Hemisphere!
Dehydration is a major problem in the desert. Make sure you drink lots of water. If you can’t find water, remember clouds are made of water!
For thousands of years, sailors have used the stars to navigate. You can too. Look up into the sky. Do you see a comet? Remember, the comet’s tail always points away from the Sun. Also, comets may herald the coming of a new king.
If you ever need to make a fire, try to find a thunderstorm and use the lightning.
If you lose your way in the forest, a tree will tell you which way to go; remember that bark only grows on the outside of trees.
Do you see waves crashing on the shore? You’re probably near an ocean.
An easy way to ensure that you never get lost is to always carry a map with you. The easiest way to do this is to carry around a miniature globe pencil sharpener that you can use as a keychain.
If you find yourself naked in the forest, remember that swans make wonderful dresses.
You can always use the Sun to find out where you are. Do you see the Sun? Good, you’re 93 million miles away from it.
If you’re hungry, there are many edible plants in the forest. The way you can tell if it’s edible is to see whether it fits in your mouth.
If you’re ever lost at sea, remember that salt water is non-potable. Next time try to get lost on a lake.
An Editorialesque Diatribule
Save Knobbery
by The Rev. Katie Phelps
Reverend Phelps is a renegade obstetrician and part-time
architect with buildings in Nunavut, Greenland and Yonkers.
She is an astute profiler of cabbages.
In this world of touch-screens, scroll wheels, buttons, sliders and switches, it’s often possible to think everything is perfect. “What could be missing,” I hear many people ask when examining their state-changing interface options. Some people are so happy with buttons that they do not realize the other common options available. So, what could possibly be missing from this world?
Knobs! I tell you, there was a day when knobs were king. There was a knob for the television, the radio, the gramophone. We had knobs for controlling the thermostat, knobs inside the refrigerator, knobs for our dogs and cats, even knobs in the car, of all places. Take a look around today. Do you see any knobs? No. All around are crude manifestations of state-changing interface systems. Most commonly, one finds buttons. You might think there’s nothing wrong with buttons.
You’d be wrong! Let’s examine the so-called “button.” A button does two things: move up and move down. You’ve got two options with a button, on or off. What good could possibly come from an on/off option? Here’s a button scenario. You go to your television and press the power button. The TV comes on, right? Well, yes, but what if you wanted it to come on at half power? You’re out of luck. That TV’s either on or off. You try making it do something different. You can’t. It’s just got a lowly button.
What about the touch screen? Oh, lookee, a touch screen. I can put my finger here and it does something. That’s not even at the level of a button. Barring not choosing anything, you get one choice: touch. You’re at the airport and you’re going to get your tickets from one of those kiosks with the touch screen. What if you want to order a sandwich? There’s absolutely no way to do it. You’ve just got whatever option is put up there to touch. You can’t even turn the damn thing off without resorting to a, you guessed it, button. That kiosk not only limits your choices to on or off, but also just to touching whatever they throw at you. Try getting a warm pair of socks from a ticket kiosk. I dare you.
Sometimes you might see a switch. It looks different from a button because it sticks out further and moves from one place to another. Wow, fancy. It moves. It’s also a mass-produced hallucination! While you think you’ve got a choice of several states with a switch, you’ve really just got a fancy button with a tail and that leaves you with an on/off choice. Walk into your living room and turn on the light. That’s it. There you go. Now turn it off. At least this time you had something to hold on to while you were getting screwed by the system. Now we get to the tricky part.
Look, my stereo has a set of sliders for the equalizer. Wonder of wonders, I can choose up to seven or more states for that there equalizer. Wake up, you ninny. Take a closer look at this tomfoolery. You know what that slider is? It’s another damn fancy button illusion. I move the bass from 1 to 2. Now I can move it from 2 to 3. See where this is going?
That’s right, a slider is just a dirty trick that moves what amounts to a bunch of buttons in sequence. Try getting that bass to 5.5. You’ll be there for a while. It’s just as much use as trying to get a falafel from an automatic ATM (don’t get me started on those). Trickiest of all is the modern scroll-wheel. You might think it’s like a knob and it works kind of like one, but try grabbing it. Some genius got rid of the wonderful grasping concept of knobs. If you’ve guessed that a scroll-wheel is just a bastardized and useless knob that should’ve been nailed by the heels to some Peloponnesian hill, then you’ve guessed correctly.
Obviously a knob you can’t hold on to is useless. Now you’re probably wondering what’s so great about knobs. Let’s try the previous examples and insert knobs into the situation. Watching TV one night, you realize that the TV is too bright. So you walk up to your television and there is a beautiful, shiny, sensuous knob. You’re eager to touch it and you do. You turn the screen down. It’s now kind of half on and half off. Amazing, no?
What if you were at the airport again? You walk up to the kiosk and instead of that putrid touch screen you have a beautiful pair of knobs just waiting for your patient hand. You dial an airplane ticket and a sandwich. You could even get a warm pair of socks after you’re done. You get home after your trip and walk from the darkened street into your home. You flip the switch, but the light is too bright! You fall to the floor in anguish, but immediately realize that you have a dimmer knob. You reach up and easily turn the light down to a more appropriate and eye-friendly level. Of course, if you were smart, you would have left the dimmer in a friendly position before you left home.
I want to listen to some music, but I want my bass at 5.5 and my treble at 5.1. What do I do? Simple, I’ve got a stereo with knobs and I turn it right there. Tiny Tim in perfect harmony. Who could listen to Tiny Tim with the bass at 5? A mongoloid sub-creature, that’s who. These previous examples completely obviate the need for a scroll-wheel. The scroll-wheel is poorly constructed to be a two dimensional knob. This is the future, man, 3D, virtual reality and whatnot. You don’t need state-changing equipment that requires special glasses! Now that it’s quite obvious that knobs are the superior engineering concept, what can you do to save them? That sound you hear is the sucking of a million knobs into the aether.
The giant industrial consortiums, the media and Congress have all in one way or another conspired to cut the knob from our tools. We must take back our knobs. When you see a forlorn appliance on the street, rescue its knobs. When you’re at the shopping center, pick only knobbed devices. Play with your knobs at all times. Help others to install your spare knobs wherever they might be needed: in the slot on a toaster, by the empty hole in their stereos and even replace old, worn-out knobs. Slip knobbery into casual conversation. Wear pro-knob clothing. Most importantly, don’t give a knob to strangers. You never know what they might do with it. That knob might end up damaged or lost.
Grab that knob and proclaim “this knob is mine!”