*** syncr0w has changed the topic on channel #mist to welcome to a realm
of sight and sound of such fury that is beyond experience.. ***

+ⁿⁿ+
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WHAT THE FUNK DID. ,$$$╜`,a$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$Ωa,

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,aΩ$$$$$Ωπa,.`"╜$$$$$$$$$$$ aaπππΩΩΩΩ$$$ⁿ"``,aπΩΩ$$$$$ΩΩπa┐.

"Live Free or Die."

(This is a bit of a warning, but this infofile is going to be preachy and
morose.  If you want to skip moralization and mental anguish then skip to the
bottom where there might be some interesting mist-related information.)

"It's midnight in Israel
and all the children know
it's the art
that's the part
that's the hardest letting go."

Last month Levi Dedi, better known as The Night Daemon of Fuel and iCE,
a talented young high resolution artist, percieving nothing remaining in his
life, leapt from his 9th story apartment window during the quiet part of the
night and met his end on the ground below, leaving behind only a note asking to
"let him die."  This happened in Israel but news finds its own way through the
wired youth of today and soon we were all feverishly exchanging rumours and
trying to find the truth, something which may be never known.

People die all the time; thousands of people every hour.  This is
nothing new.  It is true that though a member of the art scene may have (and
probably has) died before, never when so prominently placed, if active in the
scene at all.  Perhaps most telling of all, however, the reason this death hit
us so hard, is because it is likely that we played a part in this death.

The facts are not known, but the signs are chilling: if someone is
permitted to allow the computer and everything inside to become their life,
their work, their hobby, their friends, their community, and then if the
computer is taken away, the person has nothing more to live for; no community,
no friends, no hobby, no work, no life.

We have a body on our collective conscience.  We have a martyr self-
sacrified for our cause, to bring us together and allow us to see what we have
become and will become.

If the rumours are true and the issue at stake was rights of
communication, by being forcibly removed from us he lost the thing he lived for.
I  will neither condone nor condemn suicide, but can you imagine the
passion that he must have had?  Most of us have participated in this silly scenefor a number of years, having poured in spare time and invested effort in
playing at politics and pretending art; it was a pleasant diversion.  But most
of us consider it nothing more - a frivolous pursuit, certainly no matter of
great import.  Certainly not a matter of life and death.

It may be that our brightest star was the first to burn out.  Imagine
what masterworks could be produced from our community if we put a piece of
ourselves into every work, not creating for material gain but for pure artistic
enlightenment and rapture.  Would an occasional death be recompense for
the ideal of art?  That's how the Romantic poets felt... not a feeling man alivewould choose to live as Wordsworth rather than Lord Byron, though his life was
many times longer.

This will either make us stronger as a community or ultimately destroy
it altogether.  No single event in the history of the art scene, no pack
release, no group merger, has ever warranted the attention this tragedy
recieved from all sides.  And if the trends of the information age progress,
this will only be the first casualty in the battle again mundane reality.

The question is, are you willing to die for this?

Having dealt with matters that apply to everybody, I shall now segue to
matters dealing exclusively with us.  Mistigris.  Three years old, and people
still think we died in the days of Integrity.  If ten-meg packs won't convince
these skeptics to the contrary, I don't know what will.

Accompanying the text here on the side are the FILE_ID.DIZ files which
never quite made it to the final release.

m i s t ████████ ▄█▀▀████   08/97First of all, if you only have this
single archive (Mist3yrA.ZIP) I strongly
urge you to rush out and get the other two
parts of this pack right now.  Mist3yrB is
chock full of goodness and high resolution,  ▐███▀███▌██ ░░▐█▌██████▌   including the triumphant return of Thanatos   ████▓▓█▌██▌hb!██████▓▓█   and a world exclusive guest appearance of
ts formerly of TeklordZ.  Mist3yrC is
"RE-USING DI--   bursting at the seams with music, just
wait."aching and straining to bust out and blow
your ears (and mind.)  Then again,
-quip▄▄▄mistigris - 3 years   I suppose this reccommendation
of funkcan't exactly be called unbiased.

but this opportunity will be

pack which may be

<- this one got my vote but what do I know...

A tradition which was missed all throughout the
tour and still needed a kick in the pants is
furthered in this pack - we release a new issue of
Kithe, number 14, containing probably about as many█articles as all previous issues combined, in a new
and innovative interface to which mere words cannot █   █ █ █▄    █pay due tribute.  Unzip it and give it a whirl.
Rage :)    We can guarantee that it'll be like no other mag
out there up to now.

Included in this archive is AIRS, a comprehensive set of rules in the
Advanced Infinite Roleplaying System, devised by Joe Picard aka Onyx, in an
endeavour to show you folks the kind of stuff we put together when we're not
drawing and tracking.  We're pretty sure it's the only RPG to have been releasedin an art pack to date.

Also note the new KitschNet nodelist (now run by Happyfish from The JadeMonkey) and the new Application Generator by Quip.  We're hoping people will
make use of both of them and either join mist, attach their boards to our
network, or both.

Two other items of note in this archive include operation: mistfunk, a
massive collaboration between pretty much our entire ascii department (it can befound under the filename MISTFUNK.ASC) and as well, for those of you who are
inclined to read lit (if not, boy is this the wrong pack for you) we feature
rare words from Magic Elvis, Eoanya, Etana, Crowkeeper and Bast!  No!  Wait!
What are you doing!?  Come back!  Oh well, I guess they couldn't wait to finish
the newsletter before running out and reading all the poems.

A few other mentionables: though our world headquarters is still The
Jade Monkey, this will have changed by the time the next pack is released.  Lookout for the new one.  And, well, what the hey.  Look out for the old one too.

A final newsworthy item for mist members for whom communication may be
a trifle difficult - we'll be having a meet on Rememberance Day (November 11th)
to celebrate three years and many more to come, as well as top secret discussionabout up and coming projects such as...

PABLO!  The new version!  Actually, it was very nearly ready to release
in this pack, but we figured that we'd better add a few more silly bells and
whistles before unleashing it on the world.  (Note to those of you who haven't
been following the travails of Mistigris since October 1994 - Pablo is the
ultimate ansi drawing program.  All you need to know is that somehow we outbid
Tribe for releasing rights to it back in '94.  And ooh, they were so mad, they
died.

T-SHIRTS!  We've got the designs.  We've got the demand. (We've got a
half a pack of cigarettes, a full tank of gas, it's dark, and we're wearing
sunglasses.) Now we've just got to do up some stencils, get the shirts together,and silkscreen our asses off.  And because we're going to be doing all the
manual labour ourselves in our hidden Mistigris swatshops, we cut out the middleman and can get them to you for low low LOW factory direct prices.  No gimmicky
showrooms!  No comissionned sales staff! er...

Oh yeah.  Because Kithe has really gotten too big for its britches it
will soon be budding off regular releases of other mags to ease the
proliferation of certain types of articles - look particularly for the topics ofwriting, cooking, dreams, and a general-purpose art scene mag.

. .And finally, to wrap it off, the TOP TEN REASONS this pack was late!. .

(While it is true that we've hardly conformed to deadlines in the past, this is
the second year in a row now that we've celebrated our anniversary actually one
month late.  Also for consideration is the thought that during the pack delays,
it some how grew by about five megs.)

(Oh yeah, and these are all totally true.)

10. Oh-prah.  Oh-prah.  Jazz-uh-saaahz.

9.  Wild Thang got his foot stuck in Cthulu's asshole and couldn't get it out.

8.  Going to hear Jessica Johnson, a former New Shoots instructor, do a public
reading at the Tyger Café.

7.  Buttafuco.

6.  Otnoo Ishfoo playing with Makeshift at the Gate!

tied with...

6.  Yohimbe and Marauder doing DJ sets at the Whip Café.

5.  Going to the Parade of the Lost Souls, put on by Public Dreams, and
having Merlyn's hair singed by a torch a stilt-walking former teacher of
Cthulu was waving around.

4.  Seeing Cthulu perform (and write) JAMES BROWN IS THE DEVIL! uNGH! with
Zamfir Worshipper at Jack Karaoke Night at La Quena.

3.  Going to Silver Angel's and Hippy's house early on Hallowe'en night to
celebrate both the day of the dead and the opening of their very first BBS,
The Divine Inferno!

2.  Getting Cthulu dolled up in fishnet stockings and lady's underwear for the
midnight showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show in the UBC theatre (for
which he purchased the last two tickets out of a lot of 300.)

(If you're lucky, we won't scan the processed pictures for the next pack.)

And the number one reason this pack was late...

IT WAS PUT TOGETHER THE DAY AFTER HALLOWE'EN, BUT CTHULU HADN'T SLEPT ALL NIGHT
AND HE COULDN'T REMEMBER WHAT DIRECTORIES ANY OF THE FILES WERE IN!

Oh boy.  What a laugh riot.

Well, er, come back next month.

- Cthulu
Mistigris Founder
Not a Fish
November 1st, 1997