Transcript
from Q&A with Steve Tomasula, author of VAS: An Opera in Flatland,
and students enrolled in Art 390: Cyberfeminism_Creativity_Connectivity in
Second Life.
This
discussion was held Monday, April 2, 2007 on NMC Campus 4. For more information on the NMC visit
their website: http://sl.nmc.org/
Participants included: Steve Tomasula (aka
"FLATLAND Sands"), Krista Hoefle (aka "DeeDee Repine",
referred to as "You" in the transcript that follows), special guests
Maria and Ava Tomasula (aka "Athena Ahn"), and students Nicole H.
(aka "Sinaryn Dyrssen"), Jen D. (aka "Jedan Dixon"),
Therese T. (aka "Thursday Broek"), Katherine S. (aka "Sidney
Enoch"), Robin F. (aka "Helva Halasy"), and Alison L. (aka
"Navi Barbosa"). Student
Molly W. used a surrogate for this discussion, as the Second Life interface
made her extremely nauseous.
[11:00] You: hi athena
[11:00] Athena Ahn: Is that you, Krista?
[11:00] You: yeah! i changed my look
[11:01] Athena Ahn: I like it!
[11:01] You: thanks! what's that glow that
surrounds you?
[11:01] Athena Ahn: My Bubble.
[11:01] You: its gorgea
[11:01] Athena Ahn: thanks
[11:01] You: do ya' wanna have a seat for our
q&a?
[11:02] You: wow you're tall...
[11:02] Athena Ahn: I might stay for a bit of
the class.
[11:02] You: cooool!!!!
[11:02] Jedan Dixon is Online
[11:02] You: we're filming it right now,
actually!
[11:02] Athena Ahn: filming it?
[11:03] You: yeah, you can "shoot
movies" in SL!!!
[11:03] You: ill show you sometime...
[11:03] Athena Ahn: i never knew that!
[11:03] Athena Ahn: thanks
[11:03] Sinaryn Dyrssen: Hey guys :B
[11:03] You: if you go to "file" menu
you can "start/stop" a movie
[11:03] Athena Ahn: steve changed his avatar,
too. Wait till you see him...
[11:03] You: i can't wait....does he look like
a gap ad still
[11:03] Athena Ahn: thanks, deedee
[11:04] Athena Ahn: not at all...
[11:04] You: coool!
[11:04] Athena Ahn: quite the opposite!
[11:04] You: are you teaching class right now?
or are you on a break? this is maria, yes?
[11:04] You: hahahaha
[11:05] Athena Ahn: this is ava right now, but
marai'll be here soon...
[11:05] You: oh!!! hey aren't you supposed to
be at school? hahahaha i just assumed you were in school!!!!
[11:05] You: i love your poof skirt!
[11:05] Athena Ahn: thanks!
[11:05] Athena Ahn: i'm on break this week
[11:05] You: im in your orb
[11:06] Athena Ahn: cool, isn't it?
[11:06] You: that's right! im a dope..i
remember alba telling me that...
[11:06] Athena Ahn: here's maria:
[11:06] You: hi !
[11:06] You: how are you doing?
[11:06] Sinaryn Dyrssen: I love how you only
come up to her waist, Krista XP
[11:06] You: hahahaha
[11:06] You: and that's how it is in real life,
too....
[11:07] You: it looks like helva is part of my
petite tribe....
[11:07] Athena Ahn: hello, oh great and
powerful krista, this is maria speaking.
[11:07] Sinaryn Dyrssen: Heehee, you're hobits
[11:07] Helva Halasy: yeah i shrunk
[11:07] You: im going to stand by her....hi
maria!
[11:07] FLATLAND Sands is Online
[11:07] Athena Ahn: whoa, you got so buff,
buzzy
[11:07] You: omigaawwwdddd....steve achieved
"boxdom"
[11:08] Athena Ahn: ya, he did
[11:08] Sinaryn Dyrssen: That's hiLOLious
[11:08] FLATLAND Sands: Yeah, life as a square.
[11:08] Thursday Broek: life imitating art?
[11:08] You: why don't we all have a seat and
quiz Flatland Sands on his terrific book VAS!
[11:08] FLATLAND Sands: Second life imititating
art imitating art, which is even better.
[11:09] Thursday Broek: that sounds dangerous
[11:10] Sinaryn Dyrssen: Hokay, I'll start. One
thing I was curious about is what motivated you to write from Square's point of
view? Why not Circle's?
[11:10] FLATLAND Sands: Hang on, somehow I
walked out the wall.
[11:11] Sinaryn Dyrssen: huzzah for glitches
[11:11] You: so nicole, maybe repeat your ? to
Flatland...
[11:11] FLATLAND Sands: Okay, I'm back now. For
somereason it just flipped out.
[11:12] FLATLAND Sands: Anyway, actually, I did
originally start to tell it from Circle's point of view.
[11:13] FLATLAND Sands: The original draft I
had was from her point of view and the 'Procedure' that was going to be the
motif throughtout the book was an abortion.
[11:13] FLATLAND Sands: As I got more into the
book though, it started to make more sense to write from Square's v.p.
[11:14] FLATLAND Sands: Mainly, because I
wanted to make this link between language and bodies.
[11:14] FLATLAND Sands: In our culture, unlike
others, lineage is traced through the male, through the father.
[11:15] FLATLAND Sands: Kids typically take
their father's name, at least that's the tradition.
[11:15] FLATLAND Sands: They also get their
genes from both parents, but since they get their genes and family name from
the father, the linkage is tighter there.
[11:16] FLATLAND Sands: So a family name, like
any word, has an etemology, a history.
[11:16] FLATLAND Sands: A family name also has
a genetic lineage, a history.
[11:16] FLATLAND Sands: And the two, the
entyemology and the genes overlap.
[11:17] FLATLAND Sands: What I was interested
in was the fact that for the first time in history we have a chance to break
this sequence.
[11:17] FLATLAND Sands: For the first time in
history, evolution doesn't depend on an unbroken chain of evoltion.
[11:18] FLATLAND Sands: We can comeinbe the
genes of a fish with a cow, for example, two animals that would never mate in
nature.
[11:18] FLATLAND Sands: We have this ability to
step out side of nature, evolution, lineage, and that was one of the driving
ideas in the novel.
[11:18] FLATLAND Sands: I wanted to mirror this
in the language, so it started to make sense to tell this from the male point
of view.
[11:19] FLATLAND Sands: Plus, the abortion
story was not mine to tell, it also dawned on me: women had told this story
more fully than I could.
[11:20] You: that's interesting....in the
context of what we're reading in addition to VAS especially....
[11:20] You: so we've been reading
cyberfeminist fiction that works to subvert cyberpunk in that the protagonist
is typically
[11:20] Athena Ahn: We know why you switched to
Square, but why did you start with Circle's p.o.v.?
[11:20] You: female...in addition to other
things....lesbian, etc.
[11:20] Poeffie Messmer: Hello - what is
happening here?
[11:21] Sinaryn Dyrssen: Class.
[11:21] You: this is a Q&A with author
Steve Tomasula....you're welcome to sit and join us, especially if you've read
his novel "VAS"
[11:21] Poeffie Messmer: Sorry, I havent.. ill
look it up now and join for a few mins
[11:21] FLATLAND Sands: So anyway,
[11:22] You: id like to add though, steve that
you're book does have a "feminine empathy" that even tho. its told
from a male pov
[11:22] You: could you talk about that a bit?
[11:22] FLATLAND Sands: Sure,
[11:22] FLATLAND Sands: Poeple often bring up
the feminist reading of the book....
[11:23] FLATLAND Sands: I don't think this was
something I was conscioiusly trying to do
[11:23] FLATLAND Sands: but it's probably
inherent in it in that women have typically lived in 'flatland' their whole
lives.
[11:24] FLATLAND Sands: They get that aspect of
being invivilsble, of having nature constructed for them,
[11:24] FLATLAND Sands: often by powers and
institutions that don't have their interests at heart.
[11:25] FLATLAND Sands: Look at the fashion
industry, for example.
[11:25] FLATLAND Sands: For men, it's a lot
easier to take all of this for granted since the consequences aren't so hard
for them.
[11:26] FLATLAND Sands: This is probably
especially hard for women when it comes to body manipulations, and
childbearing.
[11:26] You: that's why we love this book...or
why i love this book....
[11:26] You: i know some of the students had
"nuts and bolts" ?s for you......about the process and design of the
text...
[11:26] FLATLAND Sands: Yeah, it is sort of a
sequel to Flatland.
[11:27] You: and the "nonlinearity"
of it...or potential for that, which is so appropriate given the hypertext
projects we're working on....
[11:27] FLATLAND Sands: The thing in flatland
is that Abbot wasn't just telling a story about geometry.
[11:28] Thursday Broek: i'm curious about the
conception. did you imagine vas first as a text based work, or did you have a
more visual design in mind at the beginning?
[11:28] FLATLAND Sands: Mixed in with all of
his talk about geometry was this running commentary about eugentics, and how
[11:28] FLATLAND Sands: society shouldln't
allow 'irregular" figures to breed. He was soblivious to the cultural
assumptions of his day.
[11:29] FLATLAND Sands: as we are, and that's
one of the ideas I wanted to incorporate into VAS.
[11:29] FLATLAND Sands: Sorry, I think I got
out of sync with some of the questions about the form?
[11:29] FLATLAND Sands: About the visual
aspect?
[11:29] You: yeah...thursday
[11:30] Thursday Broek: yeah. was vas concieved
as a text-based work or did you have a visual design in mind at the beginning?
[11:30] FLATLAND Sands: I alwasys thought of it
as a visual book: from the beginning nI wanted to use the actual book as part
of the story.
[11:31] FLATLAND Sands: I wanted to use the materials
of the book as part of the story, just as our materials are part of us.
[11:31] FLATLAND Sands: So the book itself
became a meetaphor for the body, just as the body can be thought of as 'book'.
[11:31] Jedan Dixon: yes i love the
"bookness" of the book
[11:32] FLATLAND Sands: Thanks, it was
important to me for the book to be an 'object' in the world,
[11:32] Jedan Dixon: especially with the
importance of the DNA code as an object
[11:32] FLATLAND Sands: the way a brick is an
object.
[11:33] FLATLAND Sands: Yeah, that's its
exactly. The DNA is both code and material.
[11:33] Jedan Dixon: killer!
[11:33] FLATLAND Sands: People often think of
books as escapism
[11:33] FLATLAND Sands: or a 'dream you can get
lost in'
[11:33] FLATLAND Sands: I guess I had more in
mind
[11:33] FLATLAND Sands: the idea of langauge as
something that can kill
[11:34] FLATLAND Sands: something that exists
in the real world
[11:34] FLATLAND Sands: as well as the virtual
world
[11:34] FLATLAND Sands: the way text shapes our
world
[11:34] FLATLAND Sands: like a train schedule
or money
[11:34] FLATLAND Sands: or a law that allows
some people linto our country
[11:35] FLATLAND Sands: or might be used to
send others to a gas chamber
[11:35] FLATLAND Sands: in that sense words
really do kill
[11:35] Thursday Broek: language as a tool of
domination
[11:35] Thursday Broek: impose will on others
[11:35] FLATLAND Sands: Yeah, Caroline
Bergvall, a poet I admire, has an installation
[11:36] FLATLAND Sands: that shows video clips
of different people saying "the hills are rolling" or something like
that
[11:36] FLATLAND Sands: at the end of the piece
you find out athat that phraase was used to sort people out
[11:36] FLATLAND Sands: and those who
pronounced the 'r's' in one way marked themselves as being from a certain
[11:36] FLATLAND Sands: tribe that was then
exterminated.
[11:37] FLATLAND Sands: We dont' have that sort
of problem
[11:37] FLATLAND Sands: in a way, our issues
are more subtle
[11:37] FLATLAND Sands: like the idea of what's
a man, what's a woman
[11:37] FLATLAND Sands: what's an individual
[11:38] FLATLAND Sands: and that's what seems
to be shifting,as the idea of what is natural, or nature changes.
[11:38] Helva Halasy: ok i have a really basic
question. why are the characters names shapes?
[11:39] FLATLAND Sands: Okay, I guess for me
the book isn't so much about individuals--
[11:39] FLATLAND Sands: giving a character a
name makes them individuals in the realist sense of the novel
[11:39] FLATLAND Sands: For me they were more
"everyman" and "everywoman"
[11:40] FLATLAND Sands: and the important point
is that they live on the flantland of the page, which is invisible to them.
[11:40] You: and it reinforced that idea of
"natural" beings....
[11:40] FLATLAND Sands: It's theier nature.
[11:40] You: or called that into ?
[11:40] FLATLAND Sands: Yeah, That's right.
[11:41] FLATLAND Sands: One of the quotes I
pull from Abott's book is
[11:41] Little Green Dragon: That tickles, hehe
[11:41] Sinaryn Dyrssen: ...kay.
[11:41] FLATLAND Sands: when he has Square
wonder what the phrase "Upward but not Northward " can mean.
[11:42] FLATLAND Sands: Remember, he's a 2D
shape ona flat page. He can't imagine what a 3rd dimension can be.
[11:42] FLATLAND Sands: So nature for him is
like living on a flat map with no 3rd dimension.
[11:42] FLATLAND Sands: That seemed to mirror
our situation today.
[11:43] FLATLAND Sands: Where we can't imagine
what the brave new world of this new nature we are bringling into existence
will be.
[11:43] You: i seem to recall someone having a
? about the "opera" part of the text.....
[11:43] You: does the fact that the
"opera" is essentially a graphic novel/comic add to what you were
just typing about....
[11:44] You: upward but not northward
[11:44] FLATLAND Sands: Yeah, when we got to
the 'opera' in the text,
[11:44] FLATLAND Sands: we ran into the issue
of how to stage an oopera in a flat 2d world.
[11:45] FLATLAND Sands: That is, what would an
opera be to characters who live on a page?
[11:45] FLATLAND Sands: Stephen Farrell, the
designer I worked with came up iwtht idea of doing it as a comic book
[11:45] FLATLAND Sands: and that seemed ideal.
[11:45] Thursday Broek: how'd you find the
designer?
[11:46] FLATLAND Sands: I worked with Stpehn
for some 10 years before this.
[11:46] FLATLAND Sands: Originally we met when
we were both working on a lit mag.
[11:47] FLATLAND Sands: We started doing collaborative
pieces for the magazine, then shorter works, so I had him in mind all along
while I was wriging the novel.
[11:47] Navi Barbosa: regarding the structure
of the text, how did you imagine it would be read?
[11:47] FLATLAND Sands: That's a pretty
interesting question
[11:47] FLATLAND Sands: I always hoped the
reader would be co-author
[11:47] Little Green Dragon: What's up?
[11:48] FLATLAND Sands: in the sense that the
reader would be able to read the novel in different ways,
[11:48] Navi Barbosa: right.
[11:48] FLATLAND Sands: and bring their own
experiences to it
[11:48] FLATLAND Sands: and in that sense be
able to "get"
[11:48] FLATLAND Sands: different narratives
out of the story.
[11:49] FLATLAND Sands: I also wanted there to
be different narratives within the story.
[11:49] FLATLAND Sands: Much of it is laid out
like a double helix.
[11:49] Little Green Dragon: Frying tonight!!
[11:49] FLATLAND Sands: A reader can read the
strands in differeing orders and they'll get slightly different versions
[11:50] FLATLAND Sands: out of the book.
[11:50] FLATLAND Sands: But I also didn't want
to frustrate readers
[11:50] FLATLAND Sands: So consciously tried to
build in a lot of "sign posts"
[11:50] FLATLAND Sands: as to
[11:50] FLATLAND Sands: how to read the book.
[11:50] FLATLAND Sands: For example, there'
some places that are prettydense,
[11:51] FLATLAND Sands: like footnotes
[11:51] FLATLAND Sands: but I dind't expect
people to read all that--they could if they want too--
[11:51] FLATLAND Sands: but I also tried to
invite tehm to skip over those parts, see them more as a form
[11:51] FLATLAND Sands: than something to be
read through, so used different fonts, etc. to indicate this.
[11:52] You: i really loved that part of VAS
[11:52] FLATLAND Sands: But really, I think
there's a pretty straightforward
[11:52] You: that i could chose to read the
footnotes or not...
[11:52] FLATLAND Sands: story within the games
etc.
[11:52] You: unlike what i remember from
attempting to read "infinite jest" by David Foster Wallace...
[11:52] FLATLAND Sands: Yeah, I think people
look at them, maybe come back later, or not.
[11:53] You: i felt "forced" to read
his footnotes.....like it was an endurance test of reading....
[11:53] You: and teh "bookness" of
his book was painful (flipping back and forth from front of the text to the
back of it for teh footnotes)
[11:53] FLATLAND Sands: There's a group on line
reading Pynchons new novel called the "Pynchon Death March"
[11:54] FLATLAND Sands: But really, I think the
joke of the footnotes in INfinite J. etc., is that there are these really dense
footnotes.
[11:54] You: i still haven't finished
"infinite jest"....its sitting on my mantle mocking me for not
finishing it...
[11:54] FLATLAND Sands: But I think once you
get that, you don't need to actually read them. Just look at them. Same with
[11:54] FLATLAND Sands: the pages of DNA code
in VAS, for example.
[11:55] FLATLAND Sands: Your a dedicated
reader, DeeDee!
[11:55] You: hahahahahaha
[11:55] Helva Halasy: is there a certain way
you would like the reader to read the book? like you said the reader can get
differing story lines depending on how they read the story.
[11:55] FLATLAND Sands: That's a good question.
[11:56] FLATLAND Sands: I guess the thing I'd
most want people to come away iwth is the idea that they HAVE a role in
reading.
[11:56] FLATLAND Sands: And by reading, also
mean creating our nature.
[11:56] FLATLAND Sands: I mean, we often
demonize Hitler, as we should, there's good readons for it.
[11:57] FLATLAND Sands: But when we demonize
others, we don't really see how similar what we do can be.
[11:57] FLATLAND Sands: For example, when the
Nazis first were looking for ways to legally get rid of undeseirables...
[11:57] FLATLAND Sands: They found the ideal
model in Indiana.
[11:58] FLATLAND Sands: They called it the
"Indiana Ideal'
[11:58] You: whoa....i didn't know this...
[11:58] FLATLAND Sands: Yeah, the law was used
to sterilze "undeseriable"
[11:58] FLATLAND Sands: And by
"undesierables" you can see how subjective this word is.
[11:59] FLATLAND Sands: To people at the turn
of the century this could mean
[11:59] FLATLAND Sands: alcholics, unwed
mothers, promiscuous, mentally or physsically handicappped
[11:59] FLATLAND Sands: basically whoever you
wanted to get rid of.
[12:00] You: when i lived in new orleans....the
gov't tried to pass a law to forceably implant every woman on welfare with
norplant...
[12:00] You: its frightening!
[12:00] Thursday Broek: geez
[12:01] FLATLAND Sands: Yeah, I thinks that's
what I mean by the "invisible nature" of all of this.
[12:01] FLATLAND Sands: No one is stuffing
unwed mothers into gas chambers here
[12:01] You: i want to get in one more
question......before you have to leave....
[12:01] FLATLAND Sands: but we do pay them to
be sterilized,
[12:01] FLATLAND Sands: Okay,
[12:02] You: a couple of us dog-eared the page
where you write "to have a body vs. being a body"....
[12:02] You: could you talk about this idea?
[12:02] FLATLAND Sands: Once upon a time, we
ussed to BE our bodies, I think.
[12:02] FLATLAND Sands: Your biology was your
destiny.
[12:03] FLATLAND Sands: If you had a genetic
propensity for heart attack, that was probablly how you'd meet your end.
[12:03] FLATLAND Sands: When I was young, there
were a lot of people with deformities around becuase if you had one
[12:03] FLATLAND Sands: you basically just had
to live with it.
[12:04] FLATLAND Sands: Today, though, our
bodies are more and more things we OWN.
[12:04] FLATLAND Sands: I mean, we mainpulate
them to a larger and larger extent.
[12:04] You: (that's interesting in light of
the number of amputees coming back from iraq...sorry to interrupt)
[12:04] FLATLAND Sands: You don't have to live
with the nose you were born with.
[12:05] FLATLAND Sands: And yes, the
prosthetics, the whole cyborg aspect where machiens are becoming part of our
anataomy
[12:05] FLATLAND Sands: e.g., pace makers, limbs,
etc.
[12:05] FLATLAND Sands: So we're slowly
decouling biology and destiny, and that's sort of where that phrase was coming
from.
[12:06] FLATLAND Sands: sorry for the typos:
DECOUPLING I wanted to say.
[12:06] You: whichi s what Donna Haraway is doing
in cyborg manifesto....
[12:06] You: do you think?
[12:07] FLATLAND Sands: Yeah, D. H. is
defintely a spiriti that runs through VAS....
[12:08] You: does anyone else have any last
minute ?'s for Flatland Sands?
[12:08] You: No? okay....lets thank Flatland by
giving him a positive gesture.....
[12:09] FLATLAND Sands: Ohh, tha't definitely
positive!
[12:09] FLATLAND Sands: Thanks
[12:09] FLATLAND Sands: Can I ask a question?
[12:09] You: SURE!
[12:10] FLATLAND Sands: I'd be curious to know,
how people did read the book? p.1-370 or some other way?
[12:10] You: lets go around the
room.....sinaryn
[12:10] Sinaryn Dyrssen: I read it front cover
to back. Conventional reading.
[12:10] Jedan Dixon: 1-370
[12:11] Thursday Broek: i read it front to
back. i'm a "big picture" type.
[12:11] Sidney Enoch: i skipped around the
first time through and then read in once again 1-370
[12:11] You: i looked at the pictures
first...read the graphic novel part...then read it front to back
[12:11] Helva Halasy: first i looked at all of
the imagery later in the book but started reading from the beginning
[12:12] FLATLAND Sands: Well, I'm glad to hear
this--I always thought the imagesneed ed to be read in the context of the story
[12:12] FLATLAND Sands: and it seems like lit
types don't read the images, and visual people aren't big on reading, so I'm
glad that people are seeing them together.
[12:12] Helva Halasy: the images make a great
statement on thier own
[12:12] You: whaaatt?
[12:13] You: hahaha...visual people aren't big
on reading?
[12:13] Sinaryn Dyrssen: Where does that put
me? I'm Art Studio/English.
[12:13] You: oh, no you're right...i never
finished infinite jest...
[12:13] You: sinaryn is the perfect combo!
[12:13] Sinaryn Dyrssen: yey :B
[12:13] FLATLAND Sands: That makes Sinaryn one
of those special readers....
[12:14] FLATLAND Sands: which you'd think there
would be more of since everytime you turn on the tTV or or comoputer,
[12:14] FLATLAND Sands: you're doing a combo of
reaindg images and text
[12:14] FLATLAND Sands: I sometimes get asked
about the form, but for me it was just a kind of realism
[12:14] Little Green Dragon: Mind the scales!!
[12:15] Little Green Dragon: Frying tonight!!
[12:15] FLATLAND Sands: I mean, telling a story
this way seems more realistic than the conventioal text-only novel, given the
culture we live in
[12:15] You: definately....and i hate to say
this...
[12:15] You: given the "bookness" of
your book...
[12:16] You: but i thought it could've
translated really well as a hypertext....
[12:16] You: but ii know that would've
dematerialized things....
[12:16] FLATLAND Sands: Actually, at the time I
was writing it
[12:16] FLATLAND Sands: there was a lot of talk
about hypertext etc.
[12:17] FLATLAND Sands: and the thing that
bugged me about it was that the text was treated like some medium
[12:17] FLATLAND Sands: that could be poured
into any bottle, any container,
[12:17] FLATLAND Sands: so I was conscioulsy
trying to make a novel that couldn't be presented on line
[12:17] FLATLAND Sands: for the very reason you
cite; basically, I've always thought that any novel that could
[12:18] FLATLAND Sands: be turned into a movie,
for example, was a failure as a novel, in that it must not have been
[12:18] FLATLAND Sands: about its material,
language, all along.... But that' just me.
[12:19] You: im just trying to wrack my brain
for a good book-turned-movie but ive drawn a blank...
[12:19] You: so you must be correct.
[12:19] Sinaryn Dyrssen: Lord of the Rings
comes to mind
[12:19] You: someone mentioned steven king
[12:19] Sinaryn Dyrssen: Or the Bible.
[12:19] You: hahahahahaa......
[12:19] FLATLAND Sands: Tha't great!
[12:19] You: we're really laughing
[12:20] Sinaryn Dyrssen: Not that I'm saying
anything about the Bible...
[12:20] You: no you are!!!!
[12:20] Sinaryn Dyrssen: :3
[12:20] You: lthat's why its funny!!!
[12:20] FLATLAND Sands: I know I'm
exaggerating--a good film maker can do anything--but it seems
[12:20] Thursday Broek: actually, you're saying
more about the lord of the rings
[12:21] FLATLAND Sands: like the best films are
those that just take the book and translate it into something completely
different
[12:21] Sinaryn Dyrssen: Honestly I put the
Bible in there to divert fire from my homie Tolkien.
[12:21] Little Green Dragon: Mind my breath!!
[12:21] You: okay, well....lets send some more
luv flatlands way....
[12:21] FLATLAND Sands: Thanks, was a gas
[12:22] You: we'll email you w/ our edited
video and transcripts in a week or so....
[12:22] FLATLAND Sands: Oh cool. You guys don't
mess around.
[12:22] You: help im short and can't see myself
in the midst of all these gargantuans
[12:22] You: someone wake up athena!!!
[12:23] You: hey athena!
[12:23] FLATLAND Sands: I'll do it. She's in
the next rool so I can do it the old fashioned way. Ciao.
[12:23] You: BYE!!!
[12:23] FLATLAND Sands is Offline
[12:25] Sinaryn Dyrssen: afk
[12:25] Little Gray Dragon whispers: I will follow you :)