Fun_People Archive
18 Nov
Solid Evidence (aka fun with anagrams)

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 96 20:21:55 -0800
To: Fun_People
Subject: Solid Evidence (aka fun with anagrams)

[ Damn!  This is almost as convincing as numerology!
			--Gospel Entrant (Rotten Spangle) ]

Forwarded-by: Lenny Foner <foner@media.mit.edu>
Forwarded-by: Alan Bawden <Alan@lcs.mit.edu>

[ Some forwarding removed and/or clarified...  --Lewd Banana ]

Forwarded-by: Greer Gilman <gigilman@husc.harvard.edu>
Subject: but who was the eggman?

Has anyone here seen the November issue of Harper's?  There's an excerpt
from a new book by one Richard Wallace, a child psychotherapist (god help
them), who proves ineluctably that Jack the Ripper was none other than Lewis
Carroll.

Golly.

Like many of our sublimest loons, Wallace is obsessed--nay, besotted--with
anagrams, rendering the first verse of "Jabberwocky" as:

         Bet I beat my glands til,
         With hand-sword I slay the evil gender.
         A slimey theme; borrow gloves,
         And masturbate the hog more!

And there's more in this throbbing vein--much more--and all darkly
encoded in the children's books.  Can this be coincidence? the doctor
asks, trembling.  And strokes his beard.

Browsing the 'Net, I found the following demure reply:

  Dear Editor,

  We enjoyed Richard Wallace's revealing "Malice in Wonderland" reading from
  your November issue. It soon became clear to us, though, that the author
  was trying to hint at something...perhaps even unburden himself of a great
  weight.  He seemed obsessed with anagrams.  Could that be some kind of
  clue?  Sure enough, the very first paragraph of his article contains a
  grisly confession, thinly veiled in an anagram.

  Rearranging the letters of:

      This is my story of Jack the Ripper, the man behind Britain's worst
      unsolved murders. It is a story that points to the unlikeliest of
      suspects: a man who wrote children's stories. That man is Charles
      Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, author of such beloved books
      as Alice in Wonderland.

  we arrive at:

      The truth is this: I, Richard Wallace, stabbed and killed a muted
      Nicole Brown in cold blood, severing her throat with my trusty shiv's
      strokes. I set up Orenthal James Simpson, who is utterly innocent of
      this murder.

      P.S. I also wrote Shakespeare's sonnets, and a lot of Francis Bacon's
      works too.

  Painfully obvious once you spot it, isn't it?  Off with his head!


       Francis Heaney,
	 New York, N.Y.

       Guy Jacobson
	 Bridgewater, N.J.


Grin.  Hope it's published.

--Gremlin Rage

© 1996 Peter Langston