The Sartre Society Part Deux

Last week Adherents Ondi and Davi asked about the status of the Cease and Desist Order (or, as Dirk calls it, the Cheese and Desist Order) that we received from the Sartre Society on January 25th. I have ignored it. If someone else did that I would think it was a bonehead move and I would mock them.

Yesterday’s mail brought a Cease and Desist Letter, once again from the Sartre Society, but the signees are different than those on the C & D Order. The Society sounds poorly organized. They may even have some loser in the group handing out Nicorette gum.

The Letter is much more friendly than the Order, saying, in essence, Please Stop This. It’s even signed “Very Truly Yours”--but it’s still a snotty legal thingy. The complaint is the same: the Sartre Society says that it has the corner on the Being & Nothingness Cam and we have to stop. Ondi and Davi assured me that one can’t hold a copyright on a title, but there might be a slap fight coming—or, more likely, a leisurely discussion over latte’s--- regarding concrete action taken in setting up cameras and web sites, etc.. I’ve decided to not worry. I doubt that their hallmark is rapid, superhero-like action.

I did some research on the Sartre Society and found that someone is organized enough to have put together a calendar of events. This Sunday they are booked as the intermission entertainment for a monster truck rally. A Society member will sit on a folding chair placed on top of one of those big old dirt mounds, ask for quiet, and then read a passage from Sartre’s novel, “Nausea,” which refers to the disgusting taste of existence and not the beer and hot dog combo at the concession stand.

Being & Nothingness Cam: Being Cam 2?

This may be the latest image capture from what may be the Being-Cam-2 part of the B&N Cameras. We’ve been looking at this while sipping our mid-mid-late morning coffee. It’s disorienting to have a project with a nifty title and no real boundaries or definitions that possibly involves 4 or more cameras at indeterminate locations peering into the soul of mankind and/or the universe. Or the nature of existence. Or space. You’d be surprised at the amount of paperwork involved.

Everyone except our young and idealistic Phaye has agreed that we don’t know what the hell is going on. Not that that’s a bad thing.

We’ve been batting around the possibility that this may be another intrusion of Being into Nothingness, but it’s a tough call since we’re not getting anything on the Nothingness Cams. I don’t want to criticize, but I hope that this isn’t the whole of Being.

We’ve concluded that it’s freaky looking and you shouldn’t look at it too long if you’re stoned.

Coffee Note

Sia says that by early-late-mid-morning we should be able to have whipping cream on our coffee, but I have to be firm. No whipping cream or vanilla hazelnut syrup before noon. I never thought I would say this but I may have to mix in some decaf with the regular coffee. The very idea breaks my heart, but everyone has been up until two or three in the morning and there isn’t that much to do around here. When I came in this morning Tom had fallen asleep onto his keyboard and when I woke him up he had impressions of the keys pressed into his forehead.

What to do? We can’t have less coffee. We have only one Team member who smokes, no one wears a beret, and there's very little languid starring into space. That’s shameful for a philosophy-based project. I’ve kept the lighting as low as I can, but the floor sags a little and I have to do boring things like worry about safe working conditions. Ideally the light level would be like the old Figaros’s on Melrose in L.A.—dim light punctuated by pools of dim light.

Should I require berets? Perhaps get special B&NC Team berets? Or is that too unite-the-people?

B&N Cam Bio's: Gina by Dirk

I volunteered to be in the staff descriptions to help out but I didn’t know I would pick my boss.

I don’t know how much I should say. This isn’t a biography but a list about Gina.

–Dirk

- She’s in her 50’s

- No kids, no husband, no boyfriend

- She sees her sister every month

- She has a big number of animals at home

- She’s nice but not a very good manager because she doesn’t want to seem mean

- She’s says California is the best place to live, but she hasn’t lived anywhere else

- Whenever we go somewhere she always wants to drive

- When she’s at the computer she talks the words of songs but she doesn’t sing them

- She gets very good snacks and coffee for the staff

- If she had the space at her house she would probably join the alpaca club

- She makes crazy suggestions to see if anyone will do them. She asked us if we would go into the bathroom and yell as loud as we could.

- She will argue the opposite side of anything even if she doesn’t believe what she’s saying

- She says things like we’re going to have weekly staff meetings and then we don’t

- She sometimes says very important things to the staff that help everyone get through the day, like telling us to remember that we are all fictional so we don’t have to get stressed about the job

- When she hired me her description for my job was “keep the computers working”