( Continued fr om Page 11)
Textbook hype
It went on like that through all 80
pages, liberally sprinkled with no
tations for footnotes that
screamed ‘‘Ibid. pg. 1, 284’’ and
"Finkelstein et al.” at the bottom of
each page, sometimes in such
profusion that the footnotes
shoved the text off the page al
together. But no matter how much
I read, it all said the same
thing...people think.
I suddenly realized that I was on
to something — something big.
That switch was no architectural
afterthought — it was built right
into the room’s circuitry, and I was
willing to bet it wasn't the only one
in the building. I smelled a conspir
acy, a gigantic one, and as I
raced down the hallway, I was de
termined to find out how many pro
fessors were involved in this hein
ous crime that condemned stu
dents to pay exorbitant book
prices, study long hours, and pull
shoulders out of sockets as they
struggled with huge, useless vol
umes of prattle.
I skidded to a halt in front of my
sociology professor's office,
jammed the pass key into the lock,
rushed inside, found the hidden
toggle switch, flipped it, and pulled
another tiny volume from behind
the hinged diploma. The title of
this one was “Translation:
Pseudo-lnteractionality for Dis
corporated Gestaltism" and I pul
led the appropriate text — dead
lifting this time — out of my pack
and opened it at random: to Chap
ter 17, as it turned out.
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"Various socializing exigen
cies," the text read, “can level
demoralizing remonstrances at
non-ego-insulated personalities,
exacerbating existing guilt-self
recriminations, and fostering a
normless climate that gives rise to
anomie, alienation, non
realization of idealized communal
id-satiators, and dissipation of
image-construction mechanisms
on a dramatically descending con
tinuum. Under the vicissitudes of
modified pre-Veblenism...'' and
on and on, I remembered it faintly
from a bleary-eyed all-nighter I
had pulled at midterm time. I flip
ped through the little pamphlet to
the "Chapter 17” page and read:
"Society can screw you over.
I spent the rest of that night
clomping around all nine floors of
the building, flipping switches and
reading pamphlets, and by the
time a rosy glow began to spread
behind the art museum I was
thoroughly disgusted. We had all
been duped, I realized, all 16,500
of us, by this cruel plot.
Some of the "translations' —
ironically, the ones for the largest
texts — scarcely filled two tiny
pages, and in one political science
professor s office I discovered a
pamphlet for the text "Bourgeois
Ipso-Factoism and God" that sim
ply stated "This book doesn't say
anything."
As I sat in the last office of the
building, thumbing through a
matchbook-sized "translation of
a graduate philosophy text titled
"Metaphorically Masochistic
Metaphysics," I tried to decide
what my next move should be I
would release the information, of
course, but the question was — to
whom? The Emerald? Too small.
The Register-Guard7 Still too
small, this was big news. Finally, I
decided to give Daniel Schorr a
call — the nation had to know
about it.
I had just finished the transla
tion of Chapter 33, which read
"people exist, when I heard a key
rattle in the office door. The pro
fessor! Panicked, I flew across the
room and threw the tiny leaflet
back into the vault, but it was too
late. As the door opened the with
ered old man, with a battered pipe
clutched in his false teeth, saw me
shoving the diploma back into
place.
“Oh my God!" he cried, clutch
ing his heart. "You there! What are
you doing! Stop, I say, stop!
But I didn't stop, I leaped over
him as he collapsed in the door
way, gasping, and I charged top
speed down the hall.
“Stop him!" croaked the old pro
fessor. "He knows! Lord help us,
he knows!"
Cries of alarm began ringing
through the hall along with the
desperate, clumping sound of
shuffling sexagenarians in vain
pursuit, but I didn't look back
Charging full-tilt up to the glass
doors I nearly ripped them from
their hinges as I raced out into the
crisp morning air. But a chillingly
calm voice followed me through
those doors, and I glanced around
to see my psychology professor
pointing menacingly through the
glass.
"Don t worry about it. he was
saying to his colleagues. "I know
who he is.
Impossibly, I increased my
speed after that, zooming through
campus and down two blocks to
my little studio apartment. I tore
open the door and dived for the
phone, but it rang before I could
reach it.
"Uh. hello?" I panted
Well, well, well, and how s our
little janitor today? said an icy.
ominous voice Been doing a lit
tle extra-duty cleaning. I hear
“Who is this!
“Never mind about that." said
the voice. The important ques
tion is, what do you plan to do
now? Believe me, it would be best
for you, me, and this little piece of
paper I have here in front of me if
you d just keep it as our little
secret
"Like hell I will!" I bellowed "Lis
ten, what I saw tonight was the
lowest, most despicable,
depraved...uh. what piece of
paper?"
' Oh, it’s a cute little thing," said
the voice "It’s a beautiful blonde
color with bright, perky blue writ
ing at the top that says "Financial
Aid Grant."
"No!" I cried "You fiend, you
sick, twisted fiend! If you've done
anything to hurt that..
Now, now, your little grant is
just fine."
"I don t believe you! Let me hear
it!"
There was a sound of rustling
paper in the earpiece
1 Okay, okay," I said, trying to
steady myself. I took a deep,
shuddering breath and let it out
slowly. What do you want me to
do?"
Nothing much, really, the
voice said casually. Then, intently,
"Just forget what you saw last
night."
But I can t ... you shouldn t ...
they wouldn t ..."
Or maybe you d like us to mail
your grant back to you the voice
whispered venemously, one
piece at a time! This was followed
by an ominous, mirthless laugh
that rose to a piercing cackle I
slammed the receiver into the
cradle and sat down heavily, in a
quandary.
And I still don t know what to do.
Like an American Solzhenitzen.
Ive teetered on the brink of pub
lishing what I know dozens of
times, only to find my conviction
weakening, as a vision of myself
being forced to drop out and plant
trees in Veneta wells up into my
conscious mind. So for the time
being, I ve decided to sit tight, and
follow the advice of a translation
of an ROTC textbook entitled
Prerequisites for Advancement
in the Military Milieu This pam
phlet wasn t divided into chaplers.
since apparently one short phrase
served to sum up the entire vol
ume
Don't make waves
Bioloqv prof receives qrant renewal
Ira Herskowitz, assistant professor of biology
and research of the University Institute of Molecular
Biology has received a $51,979 grant to continue his
research on how genes control an organism's
growth.
The U.S. Public Health Service grant is a three
year renewal of his former grant.
Herskowitz, a molecular geneticist, feels tax
payers should understand what is being done with
their money and why. He says different cells in the
body do different things, even though they have the
same genetic information. If the key to cell function
and growth could be understood, he says it could
ultimately be applied to abnormal growth, as is found
in tumors and cancer.
The bacterial virus Lambda is used in their
studies. "The thing we re interested in is how the
bacteria will affect viral growth, explains Hers
kowitz When the virus infects the bacteria, it injects
its genes (DNA) into the cell. Then, says Herskowitz,
separate events may occur. Either the virus repli
cates itself until the cell bursts, thus liberating the
virus, or the viral genes lie in a silent form as part of
the bacterial chromosome.
"In particular we are studying how functions
specified by the virus interact with bacterial functions
in deciding the growth choice, says Herskowitz. For
example, they are studying and seeking to isolate
mutant bacteria in which the decision between the
two different growth programs is affected.
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