Alice Foley on 30 Nov 2000 21:44:30 -0000 |
[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]
[Nettime-bold] Happy news |
Dear Delegates, We are pleased--and disturbed--to relate a strange new development, one which luckily does not sport the dark hues of the last. But first of all, we would like to thank all those who took the trouble to write us regarding possible clues to Dr. Bichlbauer's untimely demise. Fortunately, these clues have proved unnecessary, for it turns out that while our friend has indeed passed on, it has been a passage from the realm of WTO representation into that of the most utterly fraudulent fiction! Those who found Dr. Bichlbauer's talk "peculiar," "puzzling," and so on were alert to a situation that has only now become clear to our overcentralized eyes: Dr. Bichlbauer was an impostor! He was only by conniving and self-falsification a WTO employee, and there was never a pieing, even less an infection and death. He, his "security guard," and his "cameraman"--who was indeed also the "reporter," as some suspected all along--belong, it turns out, to an anti-trade cabal called "The Yes Men," whose interests run exactly counter to our own, and who will stoop to any level whatsoever to make points. (The point they were attempting to make with this trickery, according to the handwritten letter which we received by this morning's post, had something to do with "corporate power" and "democracy," though the syntax and handwriting of the letter are, truth be told, too execrable to make much of. ((We will be happy to provide a copy of the letter if anyone wishes to see it.)) But if their point had indeed to do with such issues, they clearly failed to make it, since all the questions we asked you regarding "voter fraud"--questions we were prompted to ask by an equally fraudulent "investigator"--met nothing from you but confusion, dismissal, and an inability to recall. ((To add insult to injury, we suspect the "infection" and "death" were arranged precisely so that the "investigator" could prompt us to ask these same questions, whose wombs have proven so barren. So much for points made by death! So much for corporate power!)) ) It is of course extremely embarrassing to us that we can have been conned, like common dowagers, in this way. But in our defense it must be said that while, in our brief acquaintance with him, Dr. Bichlbauer's explanations of WTO principles were often elaborated in a way we found somewhat tasteless, they never did amble beyond the confines of WTO orthodoxy; there was a thoroughness to his adherence that made it impossible to fault him, and which allowed him to become our full representative with little to-do. We hope the inconvenience caused you by our lack of vigilance is offset by the value of new knowledge, however bizarre, and we apologize for any emotional turmoil you may have undergone as a result of this experience, especially in its (fortunately not tragic after all) denouement. The memorial service, to have taken place at 4 p.m. this Sunday at St. Ruprecht in Vienna, is of course cancelled. With very best wishes, Alice Foley _______________________________________________ Nettime-bold mailing list Nettime-bold@nettime.org http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold