From Alex Reynolds Sent Thu, Jun 25th 1998, 18:19
From Alex Reynolds Sent Thu, Jun 25th 1998, 18:19
MYSTERY DRAG QUEEN CRASHES FIRST ANNUAL Ms. IDM PAGEANT Albequerque, New Mexico, June 25 (Reuterz) The groundbreaking first annual `Ms. IDM' beauty pageant [wet T-shirt contest --Ed.] was held yesterday in a seedy nightclub on the outskirts of Albequerque, NM, amid much controversy and fanfare. A pool of female IDM music fans was invited beforehand to "strut their stuff" for the mostly male constituency. Late in the contest, award-winning ambient musician and drag queen Erde "Six-Pack" Maemnitz stormed the contestants' platform and took hold of the microphone, delivering a brief lecture on postmodern gender-relations before a mixed crowd of participants, judges, and pissed Welshmen. The event, held in honor of recurring themes discussed on the Internet-based IDM mailing list -- themes that just won't fucking curl up and die -- was organized by resident patriarch Rod "All-American" A. Lester. "I was also considering a `CD-Burn In'," added Lester, "where vinylophiles can get together as one and set a bunch of compact discs on fire in the name of analogue superiority. Holding a pageant somewhere in Albequerque sounded a little sexier." "And when Richard `Aphex Twin' James agreed to both judge and DJ the pageant, well, my decision was pretty much made for me at that point," Lester told reporters at a scheduled conference with leaders from several women's rights organizations attending. "After [NOW President] Patricia Ireland gave her blessing to the event, that sealed the deal." In a telephone interview, Patricia Ireland confirmed that Lester had requested her opinion beforehand. "Since 1942, when American women were finally allowed to join the miltary and kill other human beings, women's rights have improved dramatically. With the establishment of the IDM list in 1991, women were permitted membership, but were only allowed lurking privileges. In '93, after Hyperreal was placed under control of a more liberal leadership, women were permitted to post one-sentence, non-FAQ queries. In the atmosphere of inclusion which dominates IDM today, women are now allowed to post actual responses to questions!" "We'll remininesce one day, noting that the wet T-shirt pageant would turn out to be a large step forward for women on the IDM list. We look forward to working with IDM moderators in the future, with the hope that, one day, we will eventually win suffrage for the women of IDM, for their right to vote in the annual `Best of IDM' poll." Ireland concluded, "These are exciting times, indeed." The contest proceeded without much distraction for the first three hours. The participants were asked several harmless questions by the judges, including, "How would you make the world a better place?" and "Where do you see the role of women in IDM?" while `Twin' James played some phat remixes of his classic `Come On You Slags' in the background. "I see an IDM woman's place by her DJ's side, cooking him breakfast, picking up after him, gently scrubbing his rare Skam collection in acetone," answered one contestant, who declined to be named in this report. Without warning, Erde Maemnitz took the stage in a classy Chanel number with red pumps, on which several women IDMers commented positively. James' decks scratched to a halt. Grabbing the mike, Maemnitz offered a different perspective on what was going on: "The absence of nonessentialist transgenderism in the IDM elite betrays a domination of the genre by male producers and the conventional heterosexism and gender biases of the electronic music industry. Consumption of IDM product disengages the viewer/listener in an awareness of processes of social contextualization. The paradigm of female resynthesis into the IDM list must be introduced along with the under-aestheticization of the female form." Unfazed by the overabundance of dumb stares from the crowd, Maemnitz continued: "Of course, the metholodological framework of this commentary will be reflected in my next release, `Disco Goddess', which is a discourse on the retro-style, patriarchic desires of the heterosexist mass culture. $13.99 at Best Buy. 64-page liner notes. Consume 'em while they're hot!" Maemnitz winked, returned the mike to its stand and walked away. Lester refused to comment on whether "Six-Pack" Maemnitz would be added to the nude 1999 calendar "Women of IDM", with feature appearances by select pageant contestants. © 1998 Reuterz Inc. All rights to satirical use of registered trademarks and names reserved. __________________________________________________________________________ Alex Reynolds Distributed Support Specialist Department of Biology School of Arts & Sciences Computing University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA email:xxxxxxxx@xxx.xxxxx.xxx phone:215.573.2818 PGP Fingerprint: E0E3 BB20 C1BC 3C0D 56A1 1FD5 5B9C 9E91 A7F0 F9B5 "The future belongs to crowds." -- _Mao II_, Don DeLillo