Through no fault of my own, I have been asked to forward to the list the following from Professor Pharr Horrissons, erstwhile academic colleague of Prof. Peregrine Inverberon. I am in no way a responsible party to the ongoing dialogue between these two titans of anthropological research. JS Greetings to all noble Paddlewisers, with apologies for my lapse in communicating with you all. I have been absorbed in relocating my laboratory and personal domicile. Contrary to scurrilous allegations this relocation was not precipitated by the noted, and misguided raid on my laboratory by the neo nazis of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Nor did it have anything to do with the suddenly obvious pregnant condition of my former research assistant Christine and her father's collection of shotguns. No, I simply decided that my ongoing efforts to characterize various uses and users of paintball weapons had exhausted the possibilities available in the fetid swamps of the upper Texas coast and Louisiana. Indeed I had found the local gene pool notably limited, not unlike that attributed to significant inbreeding, but that's another story. Looking for fresh air and a place well grounded in reality so to speak I rather naturally found my way to Northern California. Now I must say Zounds and Egad! Once again we are abused by the irresponsible ravings of Inverberon. In defense of scholarly truth, indigenous ethnic integrity and holey virginity, I feel it my responsibility to correct the record lest any Paddlewise virtual virgins be taken in by his madness. First, I have to inform you all that the northern native peoples are uniformly outraged upon hearing of Inverberon's self-serving use of the DNA samples which he coaxed from them. In exchange for mailing him samples of hair and fingernail and toenail parings, the charlatan had promised them rewards of "modern appliances for indefinitely preserving blubber and muktuk" (turned out to be a few Igloo coolers, no less). Mention his name there now and the response is: "If he comes our way, we'll take him out for a cold-water paddle, heh-heh, and we'll have the harpoons." Heaping insult on top of ethnic pollution, Inverberon writes: "for the Inuit, while having a surfeit of fish, had no chips or bangers and a Brit paddler cannot survive more than a few days without greasy chips and bangers wrapped in a British tabloid. Brits separated from their native diet soon go berserk and attack innocent soccer (football) fans interspersed with obscene sexual fantasies of Prince Charles and Camilla." Indeed what Inuit in her right mind would have a single thought of needing chips or bangers? In fact the Brits of course are always fantasizing about Prince Chuck and Camilla. This is not without provocation, given the tabloid disclosures of the Prince's own recorded lewd fantasies about toilet bowls, Camilla's panties and the like. 'Tis a veritable national fixation, and along with the attacking of innocent(?) soccer fans, is firmly in place regardless of the availability of greasy chips and bangers, much like Inverberon's hangup with certain South American drugs. This latter is connected with the open scandal that P. Inverberon disappeared for several months and then published a paper on the alleged subject of the myriad northern native words for snow. This work ostensibly derived from his tours of northern climes . Subsequent scholarly efforts by myself and others deciphered the entire writeup as various veiled references to cocaine, albeit apparently written from a radically altered state of mind. One researcher even claims to have seen the Professor's passport, clearly stamped from the time by the Colombian Immigration Service and with no record of visits to Innurfaclik or any other northern areas. Indeed it has become quite obvious that Professor Inv. is stretching things beyond credulity in fabricating a link between northern indigenous paddlers and the Mayans, and that his motive is to gain support for more treks to South America, where he will no doubt further indulge his unacknowledged but terrible addictions. It is not without cause that he also frequently refers to the Drug Enforcement Agencies of various southern countries, for he knows them well, and they know him equally. But in retrospect the ominous signs of a dependent personality were there early on when Peregrine wrote glowingly of his heightened sense wellbeing upon working in his laboratory/kayak shed with its redolent odors of concentrated sulfuric acid, fuming nitric acid, toluene, isooctane, aniline, tetrahydrofuran, acetone, benzaldehyde, cyclohexane, MEK, methylene chloride, perchloroethylene, TCE, carbon tetrachloride, and even PVC cement. Alas, his colleagues and neighbors did not suspect his indulgences, for they attributed his enthusiasm to the late-night company and assistance of Brunnhilde, his sturdily buxom blonde assistant. It was only when Brunnhilde revealed his own true gender and his Hell's Angel identity as he roared out of town on his fire-belching Harley that tongues began to wag and heads to nod knowingly. Speaking of Inverberon's addictions, the other theme which surfaces time and again in this demented man's writings is that of virginity, and notably always compromised, violently threatened or ravaged virginity at that. Has the man no self-respect? The mind boggles at what he may have had in mind when he poses the rhetorical question as to whether Hillary is a virgin! Are there no limits to his venting of obvious frustration in ever more bizarre delusions? Most repugnant of all are the accounts of the trail of fondled, cuddled and otherwise molested baby seals when Inverberon actually had visited the far north. Subsequent travellers' accounts of their doleful looks and longing glances are enough to melt the coldest heart. Stopping at nothing, Inverberon even crooned to these innocents in baleful versions of "Heat Wave" and "Com' on Baby Light My Fi-yur". Alas, some refrains from this cultural intrusion still echo in current croonings of Inuit teenagers to each other. Regrettably, these stark truths may disullion some readers. No doubt this was once a fine mind, educated and proud. But some inescapable weakness of character, some tragic personality flaw overcame our friend Inverberon and led him on the downwardly spiralling path. Now dissipated in his indulgences and an impotent shipwreck of a man, he is indeed a sorry sight for all to contemplate. Perhaps this sad result can at least serve as a reminder to all that no man is an island, that we can't always get what we want, that moss doesn't grow on a roolling stone, we are what we eat, and you'd better edge your boat if you want to avoid hitting the iceberg. I cannot here resolve all the innaccuracies, half-truths and outright deceptions perpetrated in Inverberon's vaporous theories of Mayan virgins whirling about with Spanish DEA agents and panting priests in hot pursuit, all supposedly instrumental in the spread of narrow-bladed paddling techniques and somehow involving caribou bladders. One thing is for sure, upon his passing, the man's mind should be handled as toxic waste and rocketed into deep space where it will wreak who knows what havoc among other, undiscovered vulnerable cultures. Thus just as in life he will continue to violate the very cultures which he shuld respect as the object of his professional, scholarly investigations. Not that I would hope to see the day. Yours ever in the earnest search for Truth, First Crossings, and Ultimately Complete Gear, Pharr Horrissons, DDO, LED, and DWI Subject: [Paddlewise] Greeenland paddling Style? Greetings from Professor Inverbon on his return from a most dangerous archeological study of Paleolithic Pingo paintings in the Northwest territories of Canada. Consider - is proper Greenland technique a genetic thread passed on from generation to generation through passionate writhing in igloos or did they develop the technique and pass it along orally untainted by western influences, or did aliens beam Inuit gas station attendants up to their ships where they implanted tiny little BCU instructors in their heads who would in turn teach the Greenlanders how to paddle via voices much like Joan of Arc learned how to roast at the stake. the pure Greenland technique down from generation to generation via oral tradition and instruction, that must be discounted out of hand. Would technique not have suffered as boat design suffered? One could, of course, postulate that the Inuit technique of today is but a poor imitation of that of their elders but can we with any authority? . While the implanting of BCU coaches in Inuit brains has a credible ring, it could not have worked, No, the Inuit learned to paddle from ancient Mayan drug dealers that the Inuit met during their crotch dirigible explorations of the world. As they wafted across South America on giant Rossby waves in a caribou paunch induced haze they saw the Mayans escaping in their dugout canoes from Spanish DEA enforcement officers while using a unique paddling technique to attain extraordinary speeds despite their heavily laden canoes. Klohr (1969, Anthropology News) contends that the Mayan sacrificial virgins developed this stroke to enable them to escape Mayan priests and I must say this has a true ring to it for, had not some escaped there would have been no future generations of priest for the Spanish to kill. Mayan virgins must have predated Spanish DEA officers by at least few years for Conquistadors claim to have corrected the virginity of a number of Mayan women on their arrival. How did the Inuit transfer the techniques to their own population when they had no written language? By carving delicate ice sculptures of each step of the stroke which they encased in cocaine insulated bags and flew north to their homes thus becoming the first to unwittingly smuggle drugs into North America and paving the way for little old ladies to claim that they were "just taking a package to a friend of a man the met at the airport. He seemed like such a nice man with all those gold chains. Not all greasy like so many South Americans. I am not prejudiced of course but you know what I mean ". Once unpacked the Inuit would have to learn how to paddle quickly as the little delicate sculptures would melt. That, of course , is why we have no records of it today. As for the ACA, one has to ask if they have been to South America lately for maybe they have learned how to paddle from the source. In the final analyses it should not be the Greenlanders who take offense but the Mayans and every right thinking paddler should object to the Greenlanders claiming they invented the Greenland style when in fact all they did was rename the Mayan style. No doubt they learned this technique of cultural kidnapping from the Brits who assumed that, by giving a place a name (usually some English lord who got his title by killing his neighbor who supported a unsuccessful rival aspirant for the English throne) that they had discovered it. We are indebted to the Brits for this since, had they not discovered the places and named them, we would not have discovered the natives who lived there and had given the places unpronounceable names that prohibited their being printed on maps. Sincerely, Dr. Peregrine Inverbon, Ph.d., DD, LL.d, Ph.G Transcribed by Dr. Inverbon's humble servant John Winters *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Jul 14 1999 - 18:59:49 PDT
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