Viscerallaneous #10

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Poor, poor John Livingstone. Always looking for some publicity. Always looking for a rumble to keep his name alive. And, as much as I know that I shouldn't even acknowledge this, it's my magazine. I pay for the printing, so I can waste as much space as I want.

See, in Crank #5, I featured a Word Find that incorporated all of the goofy sexual terms I could find in Nicholson Baker's book,
The Fermata. My little piece may not have been Pulitzer material, but it was good for a few guffaws. In the opening editorial, I acknowledged that my Word Find was inspired by one submitted by John Livingstone (of the Your Flesh knock-off, Insight.) Well, wouldn't you know it? Livingstone--perhaps a little feisty after having his Goofus & Gallant detournement stolen by Motorbooty--took offense and complained to me via e-mail. Among other things, he claimed the following:

"The word search you printed was a total clone of the one in Insight, which I would have been cool with had my name been somewhere near it (vain huh?) or some credit or something. I read the bit in the intro, but no, I never sent that to you. I never got around to sending that. What I did was told you what my plan was in some detail..."

Well, John, that's just not true. You did send me the Word Find, and it was intended as a contribution to Crank. Remember? We'd spoken about swapping contributions. But when I saw how utterly stupid and juvenile your little gag was, I called the whole thing off but quick. I mean, come now: "poopitypoopitypee?" "assynipple?" "caca?!" For Chrissakes, John--you even repeated "suckle." That's pathetic.

Maybe you should stick to those Killdozer interviews. Leave the satire to people who realize that dirty words, in and of themselves, are not all that funny or clever.

That's John's original Word Find reprinted above; his dopey, handwritten note in which he states that "the work is done already" is above. Please note that this bit of brilliance is copyright 1995, John Livingstone. Make no mistake--it's his intellectual property. He created it. He wrote it. It's his work. And furthermore, it appears here with his permission, regardless of what he may claim after huffing too much WD-40. He submitted it to Crank for publication. No question about it--I've got an original.

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