psychoceramics: Shark Fear (fwd)

[Andrew C Bulhak <acb @ cs.monash.edu.au>]

Is this person crazy or just weird?  You make the call.

 -- acb

----- Forwarded message from h--@l--.com -----

for the alt.conspiracy.aquatic file. 
 
This is from the New York Press, Nov. 29 - Dec. 5, 1995 [all typos mine]: 
 
Shark Fear, Shark Awareness 
c/o Darin Johnson 
1420 NW Gilman Blvd., Suite 2400 
Issaquah, WA 98027-7001 
 
Take a Bite. "Please solve the following equation: If human U is walking on
some train train tracks at a velocity of 5kph, and shark V is stalking
human U at the same velocity, how long before there is only one
high-ranking  member of the food chain? Answer: It depends on how long U
can go without sleeping." 
 
That comes from the brilliant second issue of Shark Fear, Shark Awareness,
a completely unheralded shark-centric zine that ends up having as much to
say about single-minded obsession in general as it does about nature's
fiercest predators in particular. 
 
The groundwork for Shark Fear was laid when its editor, Darin Johnson,
began postering the town of Olympia, WA, with a series of fliers over a
10-week period. The fliers, supposedly sponsored by the Society of Shark
Fear ("We promote a healthy fear of sharks") were loaded with great
propaganda: "We have uncovered evidence that sharks are responsible for
every war, plague and shark attack that humankind has ever suffered";
"Sharks control the Masons, the Earth's weather patterns and all human
communications systems";  "Conclusive evidence reveals that most humans are
eaten by sharks... The facts also show that because of their lack of
opposable thumbs, sharks are not very adept at using the media. Our fear
and our opposite thumbs are our only hope." 
... 
The current issue of Shark Fear reprints several of Johnson's fliers and
features a detailed recap of [a "secret" Shark Fear] meeting. Scattered
throughout the rest of the issue are photocopied pages from assorted shark
books, random shark illustrations, a hilarious interview with a guy whose
ad agency developed the "Great White Sale" at Johnson's local Chevy dealer,
some very astute analysis of shark literature, more propaganda ("Shark
biologists from the University of Washington arrived on January 22 and
identified seven lemon sharks using video surveillance equipment") ... and
some great shark-related quotes (my favorite: "The best way for a shark to
decide if something's edible is to eat it"). 
 
Relentlessly obsessive but never humorless, Shark Fear ends up as an object
lesson in ther uses of creative irony. ... Get it from Johnson for $2 --
you'll never be able to to watch Jaws in quite the same way.  
                                                                    --Paul
Lukas 
 

----- End of forwarded message from h--@l--.com -----

-- 
a--@c--.monash.edu.au        "These crazy words of mine,
http://www.zikzak.net/~acb      so wrong they could be..."