for 11 August 1999. Updated every WEEKDAY.

More sycophantic mail for
you: You say the bitter get
southern Italy and the sluts
get the South Pacific. What
if you're a twisted,
perverted, bitter slut? Would
that involve a lot of
commuting? I like beer, so
maybe we could ask the
religious types to get us
Germany too.

Why is it, BTW, that the rest
of Suck is obsessed with
dissing Canada and making out
that we Brits are upset that
we don't have colonies in
North America (or indeed
anywhere) anymore? Honestly!
Most people here are only
vaguely aware Britain ever
had any territories in North
America at all, and the ones
who do know couldn't give a
shit.

Benjamin Hardcastle

<benjaminh@epic.co.uk>

Do you Brits all have names
like Hardcastle? Good Lord
Fauntleroy!

Miss Polly,

As my ideals slowly fade away
like grunting little Buddhas,
your words bring them
companionship and a
nonabstract coffin in which
to lie.

Thanks.

Matthew
<mtg@teleport.com>

My words keep your fading
ideals company? Fabulous!
More tuna casserole anyone?

Polly

Who filled your vat with
vinegar?

Vous attrapez plus de
lesbeeans avec le miel.

Oscar Wilde peut ditester mon
papier peint.

But he is dead and I'm still
clinging to mine!

La Femme Nikita
<lafemmenikita@angelfire.com>

You catch more lesbians with
honey?

You catch more disillusioned
men with vinegar.

Illusory,

Polly

Dear Polly,

I find the picture of you in
the Fish section utterly
disturbing. It reminds me of
something from my early
childhood in the USSR.
There's some grayness to it.
Depressing, sad grayness like
one may find in a state-run
hospital. In combination with
your last name, it brings me
to the verge of vomiting. You
deserve to have a better
picture up there. Please?

E. D.
<mlandas@hotmail.com>

Perhaps you know firsthand
what one may find in a
state-run hospital, yes?

Vomit-inducingly yours,

Polly

Re: Goofy and Pluto

What is the deal with Goofy
versus Pluto? A bunch of us
at Caltech figured this out
long ago. They are in fact
brothers. Goofy sold Pluto
into slavery in exchange for
the power of human speech.
(And evidently he was robbed
too, given the unsatisfactory
results.) Why else the hat
than to hide the surgical
scars?

Allen K.
Mouseketeer
Plutocrat
<aknaton@math.mit.edu>

I'll be the first to sign on
to a Free Pluto movement,
especially since, in
addition to Goofy's dog
being a slave, Pluto's
namesake planet is being sold
down the river.

Subject: Dog article

Excellent. One of the best
recent Suck essays. The
phrase "sniffing the
information-rich anus" had me
in stitches for some time.
This kind of quirky writing
about topics of complete
irrelevance is why I read
Suck. I hope this marks the
beginning of a good streak.

Bradley Messmer
<messmeb@rockvax.rockefeller.edu>

It does mark the beginning of
a good streak. Continue to
read, continue to learn,
continue to stitch.

Subject: Re: Man bites dog

I have to say you are right
on track with your learned
behavior theory of our love
for dogs (and repulsion to
dog barbecue).

I just spent two years
working and studying in
China. Three people (two
Chinese and one Korean) told
me a common childhood story:
They had a dog they
considered a loved pet, and
they came home one day to
find that Mom and Dad had
either eaten the dog or sold
it as meat.

The twentysomethings who
told me this certainly
regretted the fate of their
furry little pals, but their
parents apparently considered
these particular dogs as
high-grade, tasty, and
expensive-to-raise meat. I
don't know if this supports
Budiansky's theory or not,
but it does show a stark
difference between the
behavior of two generations.
The older one was born during
a time when pets were either
illegal or prohibitively
expensive, and the younger
one was exposed since
childhood to cute puppy
posters and Disney movies.
The fact that dog meat as a
delicacy still exists in
these cultures shows that old
cravings die hard. Maybe in
20 years we will know if the
canine species can pull off
another Darwinian conquest in
the Far East.

David Stone
<david_stone@hotmail.com>

From what I've heard, Falun
Gong is recruiting pooches to
its cause. This has led to an
interesting response from the
Chinese government, which,
though opposed to cooking and
eating dogs (on ideological
grounds), has no qualms about
sending them to Marxist
re-obedience camps or to
loading them into Long March
missiles to be fired over the
Straits of Taiwan.

The Shit

"Gary's Trajectory," A Wanderer in the Perfect City, Lawrence Weschler, Hungry Mind Press, 1998 The Parallax View, Alan J. Pakula, Paramount Pictures DVD, 1974 Rogues to Riches: The Trouble with Wall Street, Murray Teigh Bloom, Putnam,1971 Actual Air, David Berman, Open City Books, 1999 Tibor Kalman: Perverse Optimist, Peter Hall and Michael Bierut, editors, Princeton Architectural Press, 1998 Canary-wing parrots, Dolores Street, San Francisco Super Shitty to the Max, Hellacopters, Man's Ruin Records, 1998 Request magazine (any issue after June 1999) On the Road to Vietnam, Bob Hope, Cadet 4046 vinyl, 1964 The Flying Ballerina, Drums and Tuba, TEC Tones, 1998 Dino, Nick Tosches, Delta Alpha Publishing, 1999 The Soft Bulletin, The Flaming Lips, WEA/Warner Brothers, 1999 Big Red soda