Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2000 14:28:37 -0500 (EST) From: Felix Lance Falkon Subject: "A Dialog & Writing Lesson" MMM, anal, humor (fwd) "A Dialog & Writing Lesson" M/M/M, anal sex, an erotic lecture on erotic writing ================================================================= The author permits any kind of archiving, posting, reposting, and reproduction in fixed form or otherwise, free or for profit, of this story. Copyright (C) 2000 by Felix Lance Falkon, falkon@netaxs.com. This work is unsuitable for minors. Standard warnings: slippery when wet, this end up, for external use only. Comments invited. You may rewrite this, but if you do, please replace my name with yours and send me a copy of your version. ================================================================= (The ** starts emphasis [underline/italics]; * ends emphasis.) ---------------------------------------------------------------- A DIALOG & WRITING LESSON (revised & expanded version of 2000 Jan 30) by Felix Lance Falkon Morganstern, now on his back, looked up at Jon, the lithe young stud who was just starting his first impaling thrust. But with no more than an inch of himself inside Morganstern, who was the bigger, more muscular of the two naked young writers, Jon stopped and held himself perfectly still. Morganstern asked, "What's the matter?" "Short fuze, real short." "You afraid you'll go off too soon?" "Sure am," said Jon. "May I make a few suggestions?" asked Morganstern as he felt Jon cautiously ease himself deeper. "Go ahead," said Jon with a jerk of his head that swung his blond hair clear of his eyes. "Suggest away." "Don't put your reply in the **same* paragraph as my question, the way you did in the first paragraph of this story. Instead, start a new paragraph with **every* change in who's talking, as I'm doing now." "Uh -- why?" Morganstern felt his abdominal muscles contract into a taut, concave ripple as he curled his hips up to meet the next impaling thrust. He took a deep breath, tightened the layer of muscle that swept across his broad chest, then said, "It makes it **lots* easier for the reader to tell who's saying what. It's like . . . like in that first paragraph, the reader's not **quite* sure who said, `Afraid I'll shoot too soon.' Also, you'll have shorter paragraphs, which are easier to read than screens or pages full of uninterrupted columns of type. Newspapermen call writing such long paragraphs `tombstoning,' because the results look like grey tombstones: boring and uninviting. "Indenting **every* paragraph makes a story much easier to read. And since that's the way almost all printed fiction is done, it's what the reader expects. Don't distract the reader from what you and I are doing and saying Right Now. "And if you're preparing a story you're going to post on a newsgroup or transmit by e-mail, put a blank line after each paragraph, limit line length to about 65 or 70 characters and spaces, and indent each paragraph five spaces instead of using the `tab' key. Do **not* make the right margin straight -- that is, do not `right justify' a text file; leave the right margin ragged the way I'm doing here." Morganstern felt Jon thrust himself in another inch, and met that thrust with another wiggle and squirm as he felt Jon push even harder in response. "Okay; what else?" asked Jon. "When you ask a question in dialog, put the question mark or exclamation point at the end, **inside* the quote marks, without putting a comma there too." "Oh." Jon took a deep breath, went in deeper. "And -- did you say you had more suggestions?" he asked. "Yup. When you have a bit of dialog that **doesn't* end with a question mark or exclamation point, and **is* followed by `he said' -- or `he asked' or `he replied' or a phrase like that -- then use a comma -- **inside* the quotation marks -- like this," said Morganstern. "Use a period just before the closing quote marks when you don't have a `he said' -- or `asked' or the like following the quote marks -- like this." Morganstern squirmed again. "If you begin a sentence with `he said' or a similar word, put a comma right after the last word before the quote marks, and then capitalize the first word **after* the quote marks." Jon began a more vigorous thrust. "I think I understand." "Three more things: Don't feel that you have to reach for substitutes for `said' in speech tags. Using `observed' or `expounded' or `intoned' is far more distracting than the simple `he said,' which is almost invisible to the reader. Those fancy substitutes distract the reader from what's being said inside the quotation marks. Of course, the verb in a speech tag has to be one that makes sense: you can't `squirm' a sentence; you can't hiss, `Take that!' "With questions, use `he asked.' Use `whispered' or `growled' or verbs like those **very* sparingly. Use them only when you're giving the reader additional information that the context doesn't already make clear. "An example: ` "Good morning," snarled Kurt.' In this case, the **way* Kurt spoke doesn't match the words Kurt used. Here, you have to use `snarled' to make the reader aware of that mismatch. "And the other two things?" asked Jon. He was breathing harder now, and pulling back between strokes. "One way to break up the monotony of `he said' `he said' `he said' is to leave off the speech tag entirely -- but only when it's perfectly obvious who's speaking. With just the two of us, and you asking questions and me answering them, we can leave out `Jon said' and `Morganstern said' and go for several paragraphs without confusing the reader. With ordinary conversation and only two speakers, you should identify who's talking about every third paragraph. And always make it clear which `he' you mean, **especially* if you have three male speakers going at it. "Then, if one of us talks for more than one paragraph at a time -- as I'm doing right now -- leave off the end-of-paragraph quote marks until the **last* paragraph of that multi-paragraph speech," Morganstern said as he tightened his arms around Jon's chest, locking their naked bodies together. "But you still need opening quotes at the **start* of every paragraph of that speech, like this. "Another way to break up the monotony of `he said' is what I'm doing right here." Morganstern felt Jon's muscles tighten, felt him drive in hard. "In the same paragraph with a within- quotes speech, end the quoted part with a period -- or a full stop if you are a Briton -- and then put in something like my feeling you tighten up as you sink yourself hilt-deep into me. This can advance the plot at the same time that the writer establishes who is saying the words inside the quote marks. But again: readers just don't notice the `he said' as long as what he's saying is **interesting."* "Yeah? Lemme get this straight. When you interrupt the quoted part, and you want to use a verb that is **not* a synonym or substitute for `said,' you end what's inside the quotes with a period, and start what follows the quote with a capital letter." Jon stopped his next stroke in mid-thrust. "And with questions and question marks, do them like this?" He grinned down at Morganstern. "But if you **are* using `he said' or `he asked' right after some stuff in quotes, then you **don't* to put a capital letter on the `he' -- right?" he asked. "Exactly." Now Morganstern felt Jon thrust even harder with his next stroke, felt a bit of rotary motion as well. "And just like this," he said as he grinned back up at Jon. "And I even noticed how you're using single quotes inside the double-quote marks without your telling me." "Actually, I'd rather use `` and '' for opening and closing quotes, but I haven't found anyone else who likes them, even though they are standard keyboard characters doubled. Using anything **not* on a standard keyboard in e-mailed or news-group stories -- like using `smart quotes' or any of the **typesetting* double-quote codes -- is a real pain for readers whose equipment doesn't fit yours just right." "Well," said Jon, "I still say this a really weird time t' make with a grammar lesson -- but yeah, my equipment fits into yours real nice and tight." Morganstern felt a grin spread across his own face. "Well, the grammar lesson's keeping you cooled down, isn't it? A lusty young colt like you will usually go off too soon when he climbs onto a big, hunky muscle-stud like me; and you've been riding me for -- Hey! Slow **down!* You're getting there too soon!" "Yeah -- I -- noticed. Talk -- t' me -- about -- something -- else -- quick," Jon panted as he slowed almost to a stop. "Lemme see -- you got **me* going too -- there's, yeah, emphasis: since plain-text e-mail doesn't have underlining or italics, I use ** to begin emphasized words and * to end that emphasis. I do the same for a character's unspoken thoughts." Morganstern silently told himself, **Now we're both cooling down.* Aloud, he said, "The reader can convert those asterisks to his own word-processor's codes for underlining or italics, or just leave them in the file that way. "There **are* other ways to emphasize in text. One is simply to capitalize the Initial Letters of the words you want to emphasize. For even greater emphasis, since ordinary e-mail doesn't support bold-face or bold-face-italic type, capitalize the WHOLE word. Beyond that, you can (on **very* special occasions) do T*H*I*S. Although _some_ people like to emphasize with a single underline before and after an emphasized word, I think the ** and * work better, especially if you use lots of dashes for punctuation. Watch out for the difference between the dash -- which pushes phrases apart -- and the well-placed hyphen, which pulls words together into compounds like `plain-text' and `e-mail' and even `well-placed.' Jon asked, "What about those -- what do you call 'em -- three dots?" "They're called an ellipsis. You can use one instead of a dash. Most readers will see the dash as showing an abrupt change in what you're saying, or -- at the end of a word -- that you've suddenly stopped. The ellipsis . . ." His voice trailed off, then re-started. "The ellipsis originally meant there was something missing, and still does in scholarly writing. Now, in fiction, it also implies that you **gradually* stopped, either in the middle of a sentence . . . or at the end of a complete one. . . ." Morganstern wet his lips. "Note: complete sentences, period **plus* three dots. Incomplete ones, just . . . "All too many writers have the bad habit of reaching for substitutes for words they've already used. A very perceptive science-fiction writer once wrote, `English has no synonyms; it has a great many words that mean **almost* the same thing.' But Mark Twain wrote, `The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug.' He also wrote, `Use the **right* word, not its second cousin.' Or to paraphrase Samuel Taylor Coleridge, `Good writing is the right words in the right order.' " "Some writers -- present company excepted, of course -- will invent several different ways to identify someone in a story, and then -- for no other reason than avoid using the **same* words for the **same* thing -- such a writer might call you `Jon,' and in your next appearance, `the lithe-bodied youth,' then `the lusty writer.' Next, he might use your last name alone, then `the naked young man mounted on Morganstern's magnificently muscled physique,' and then `the blond studling,' and finally back to `Jon,' leaving the reader unsure if the writer has one character on stage, or six." Jon snickered, then said, " `Magnificently muscled' indeed!" "Well, I **am.* I worked hard to get these muscles, and I'm not letting the reader forget them." "I know, I know. And since muscle-hunks like you happen t' turn me on --" "I noticed **that* already." "-- but conceited ones don't, and --" "You wouldn't want me to **lie* about my magnificent musculature, would you?" "-- and I can't tell if you're kidding when you say things like that; and that makes it even funnier, even if you are being serious; but if we start laughing while we're doing **this* --" Jon thrust hard, squirmed, eased back, slowed almost to a stop. "-- it'll be over much too soon. So -- let's get back t' the writing lesson, before I -- you know." "Just as bad as reaching too often for substitute words is to begin a story with tiresomely detailed physical descriptions, measurements, and past histories of all the principal characters -- which is precisely what we did not do here. Instead, we followed the ancient advice: start **in media res,* which is Latin for `in the middle of things.' Homer did, some three **thousand* years ago, beginning the **Iliad* with: `Sing, Goddess, of the anger of Achilles, . . .' right smack in the middle of the Trojan War. His words sing to us yet. "Thus, we started **this* story, quite literally, during your first thrust. Blocks of explanation, like these paragraphs, are useful to cool someone down. But fiction works better if the writer slips in background details and descriptions of the principal characters a few words at a time, early in the action, like the time you tossed your head to get your blond hair out of your eyes. Break up lectures, if any, with action and dialog. Here and there, the point-of-view character may be reminded of something in his past by what's happening in the main plot." "Like -- like maybe your very first -- you know . . ." "Right." Morganstern took a deep breath, feeling his broad chest expand, remembering, for a few seconds, the smell of the gym down by the beach. He remembered the ache in his muscles after a hard workout, remembered the first time he'd stayed behind after the other bodybuilders left for the evening. He and the gym's night manager had stripped down all the way, stiffened themselves up, and then, on a bench in front of the biggest mirror in the gym, . . . Morganstern shook the memory away. "Yes, because a first **any*thing is something that people, real and imaginary, **do* remember. Even more so, the very **first* time you go all the way, whether with a well-buffed hunk or a twenty-buck hustler, leaves you changed, **deeply* changed. What's happened, what's made you change is **important* to you -- which makes what happened in that story important and interesting to the reader as well. "Now, **this* deep into a story really isn't the time to stop for a static description of my electric-blue eyes; my curly brown hair; even my winsome, snub-nosed face. The reader might have decided, pages and pages ago, that I have aquiline features and dark eyes and shoulder-length black hair, because I didn't **show* the reader otherwise in the first few paragraphs, either by having me **remember* how I look or by letting the reader **see* those details through my eyes. And since you didn't have a convenient mirror mounted on the ceiling for me -- and the reader -- to look up at my reflection while you were busily . . . "But you're right, of course: mentioning my `magnificently muscled physique' **was* overdoing it, especially this far into the story, and even more so if I hadn't already established in the first few paragraphs that we're a couple of well-built studs. After that, it can help the reader to **be* the point of view character, to **be* in the middle of the erotically exciting events --" " `Erotically exciting'? Now I know you're kidding." Jon carefully pulled back, slid in hilt-deep again. "-- if I slip in an occasional reminder of our hunkiness. I can mention the pressure of your warm, wide chest against against my powerful thighs, because that's what's happening to me **right now,* and --" "Now you've done it!" Jon thrust faster, harder, faster still. "Can't -- you -- slow -- down?" "Not now. Too hot. **Real* hot." "I -- noticed," panted Morganstern, trying to meet every impaling thrust. Jon suddenly gasped aloud, rammed himself all the way in, went rigid, and then slowly, slowly relaxed and started breathing again. "I was going along okay, stretching it out just like you told me to, until you reminded me just what we're doing, and what your thighs feel like against my chest -- and then how deep I was going, and -- and all of a sudden, I couldn't stop." He panted for a moment, then said, "I bet you can't keep on with this lesson if **you* get on top." "I can so! Where's my shirt? I always carry a few extra in my pocket. I'll put one on before we . . ." "Don't worry -- I got a supply in my bureau. Let me see." Jon straightened his arms, looked down between their still-linked bodies, and said, "Yeah -- as long and thick as yours is, an `extra large' oughta fit just right." "That was deftly done," said Morganstern, as they uncoupled. Jon rolled off and -- a moment later -- sat up. "Huh?" "Without stopping to explain or to cite measurements, you established that we're using protection and that I'm well- equipped for our next round. You're letting the reader decide just how long and thick and wide my `extra large' might be." "Yeah?" Jon, now on his feet, pulled open the bureau's top drawer and passed a foil-wrapped packet to Morganstern, who stood up, stretched, then opened the packet. "I s'pose we could start measuring each other -- chest, arms, waist -- then drop t' the calves, work on up t' our thighs and -- you know. That could -- that would be more interesting than just saying how tall you are and how big around the chest and, as you put it, how long and how thick where it -- it counts." Jon grabbed a towel, peeled off his protection, and wiped himself dry. "Like -- Hey! Like the beginning of this story, where you established -- without ever stopping what was going on, that you're bigger than me -- and a real muscle-hunk at that -- but that I've got an okay body too." "Another problem." Morganstern finished putting on the `extra large' contents of the packet, then applied a dab of the lubricant that Jon dug out of the drawer. "If you write that a story-stud of yours has -- say -- ten-inches, some readers will think this is exciting, but others will think your character is laughably over-equipped. `What is all right for B, will quite scandalize C, for C is so very particular.' " "Again -- huh?" "A Gilbert & Sullivan quote. From **The Yeomen of the Guard,* I think." Morganstern gestured at the bed with a sweep of his right hand. Jon stretched out on his back, tucked a pillow behind his head, and spread his legs. Morganstern knelt between Jon's thighs, leaned forward, found his target, thrust, and then stopped an inch or so inside. "One writer likes his characters to be kind of chubby and well-furred; another likes studs in their twenties, with taut, sharply etched muscles they get from working out at the gym." He eased an inch deeper, felt Jon respond with a squirm and a squeeze. "Got any Rules for which kind of characters t' use?" "Nope. I really don't have any Rules for the writing game -- just lots of suggestions. You **can* write a story that's all dialog, with no speech tags at all; you just have to realize that when you do, that format will take some of the reader's attention away from what's going on in the story. "It helps to have the characters sound a bit different from each other as they speak: I use long sentences with long words; you speak more informally, with more slang, more elisions." "Elisions?" asked Jon. Morganstern wiggled his hips from side to side, then eased deeper still. "Leaving out a part of a word, like s'pose for suppose, or t' for to. "Yeah? I notice that you stress a lot of words as you talk, sorta like **this.* Makes you sound -- you know -- funny." "It beats talking corn-pone hill-billy talk to show what I mean. Somebody with a good ear can spot the difference between a Kentucky accent and a Mississippi one, or even between Brooklyn and Queens, but I'm not **that* good. "Then there's what a story's about. Some readers want you to get on with the Main Event, with just enough plot to get all the characters into the same bed at the same time. Other readers want more plot and dialog, less details and description. Still others get excited by stories of bondage and humiliation, of whipping and torture; a few even like stories of being eaten alive -- or worse -- on stage." Morganstern slid a deeper into Jon, pulled back, thrust again. Morganstern watched Jon grit his teeth, felt Jon clamp down hard, felt and saw him relax with a long sigh. Jon's eyes focused on Morganstern's, and the two men grinned at each other. Morganstern realized he was tensing up inside. He slowed his stroke. "Some get turned on by characters who use all the standard four-letter words, along with a few well-chosen five- and six-letter ones. Others --" "-- manage without any dirty words at all, like -- like we've been doing --" "-- which works as a demonstration, but does call attention to **how* the story's told, instead of what it's **about.* And while some people are really into incest or under-age characters; others want to stay away from those areas which are, as the old cliche has it, illegal, immoral, or fattening." "More suggestions?" asked Jon. "An important one: although Kipling wrote: `There are nine and sixty ways, of constructing tribal lays, And every single one of them is right,' I think that a very effective way to construct a story is to pick the **right* point of view from which you can best tell that story, and then put your reader firmly into that point-of-view character -- seeing what that character sees, feeling what the character feels, and thinking and remembering and deciding as the character does those things. In short, let the reader **be* that chosen character from one end of that story to the other. "The reader," said Morganstern, "will experience being **in* the story if you -- the author -- avoid interrupting the action to address the reader directly, if you avoid making the reader jump into another character's head, and if you avoid making him look down on the scene from a set of disembodied eyes hovering over the action. Also, do not start the story with a lecture, or biographies of the characters, or a descriptive passage told from any point of view other than that of your chosen character; don't delay getting the reader **into* the story's point-of-view character and into the story itself." "Hey," Jon said, "I thought you said that if a quoted paragraph doesn't end with a close-quote mark, then the following paragraph is automatically being said by the speaker of the preceding one. So -- why did you identify yourself as the speaker again?" "It's more important not to confuse the reader than it is to depend on the reader noticing that missing close-quote mark. Now -- where was I?" "About four inches deep and counting." Jon squirmed up against Jon's next impaling thrust. "A bit deeper, now." "That too. Point of view -- a long story may be told better as a series of shifts from one character to another -- but only if there is a clear break -- always marked with extra blank lines in manuscript, on screen, or printed on paper. Some writers put a few asterisks across that space. The first sentence following the break **must* put the reader firmly into the next point-of-view character's head. I saw one story recently in which the point of view shifted from one of the story's two characters to the other with **every* paragraph. That's hard to do well, but it's a very interesting way to tell a story: the reader is alternating between those two characters as they interact, physically and in the dialog. However, I still think the most effective way to tell **almost* all stories is to tell them from just one point of view, so the reader can really get into that character's memory, and eyes, and ears --" "-- and other appendages." Jon grabbed Morganstern's hips, pulled in another half inch. "Then if I wanted the reader t' watch us from above, t' watch your back muscles working, t' watch your butt pumping, pulling back, thrusting again, then --" "Well, you really can't do that and still hold *this* story together. You **could* go back and rewrite the beginning so that I look up at a mirror on the ceiling over the bed and watch you humping away on top of my muscular self, but that's about it. Having me remember **now* what I saw **then* doesn't work at all -- you didn't **have* a mirror on the ceiling, because if you **had,* I would have noticed it **then* -- and so would the reader, who was being me at the time. "A minor suggestion is to avoid having characters with **names* that sound or look too much alike: `Joe' and `Moe,' for example, or even `Danny' and `Dennis,' unless they happen to be interchangeable twins and you want to emphasize how much alike they are. With our names -- `Morganstern' has three syllables, while `Jon' has one. Our names don't start with the same letter. They don't even rhyme. So, there's less chance to confuse the reader." Morganstern eased himself deeper. "There -- all the way in. Are you still --" "Billy!" yelped Jon. " `Billy'? That would work -- two syllables, doesn't rhyme with either --" "I don't mean Billy, a two-syllable name that doesn't rhyme with your name or mine; I mean Billy, my kid brother, who just came in through the hall door I forgot t' lock." Morganstern jerked his head around, looked back over his shoulder, saw a sturdy young blond stride towards the bureau, shedding clothes along the way. "Don't worry, dude," Billy said as he finished stripping and reached into the bureau. "I'm at that in-between age: old enough to vote, too young to buy beer, so even though I look like a kid, I'm not jail-bait." **So that's why Jon has that size on hand,* Morganstern told himself as Billy stiffened up, rolled on an `extra large,' and climbed onto the bed. Jon said, "Billy, this is Morganstern. Morganstern, Billy." "And," Billy said as he knelt astride Morganstern's thighs and found his target, "since I've got you 'tween me and Jon, this doesn't count as incest either." He slid himself half-way into Morganstern, paused for Morganstern to catch his breath, then completed his impaling thrust. Morganstern felt a beardless chin snuggle against his neck, caught a whiff of something spicy. "Smells good; what is it?" he asked. "Stuff I put on my hair," Billy said, tightening his grip on Morganstern's chest. Morganstern, now spitted to the hilt and stretched tight, rammed himself all the way into Jon. Jon gasped, then said, "Billy?" "Yeah?" "He's an `extra large' too." "He is?" Billy pulled back a couple of inches, carefully slid in again.~ "Sure am," said Morganstern. "Jon's a nice fit; good and tight, and the way he's squirming now . . ." "You'd squirm too," panted Jon, "if you had this muscle-stud plugged into you." Morganstern felt Billy pull back and then ram himself in all the way, heard Billy eagerly say, "Hey dude, that sounds great! After we finish this round, let's swap around; me on the bottom; Jon, you on top; Morganstern, you in the middle again. I gotta find out how this big muscle-dude'll feel inside me." "Before we do that," said Jon, breathing hard, "there's a mirror I bought yesterday. Now that's there's three of us here, we got enough guys to mount it on the ceiling, right over the bed. Morganstern, if it'll keep you from going off too soon, how 'bout explaining t' Billy why we can't just look down on the scene from up there." "You **can* tell a story that way," said Morganstern, now comfortably sandwiched between the blond brothers' warm, naked bodies. "It's just -- usually -- more effective to pick one point of view, and then let the reader **be* that character all the way through a story to the end. And come on, why would **any*body want to wiggle out from between you two hunky studs and go flitting, like a bat, up amongst the cobwebs? Instead, I've got Billy's chest against my back, and Jon squirming underneath, and I'm feeling Billy inside me and feeling me poking around inside Jon, and all three of us -- oops!" Morganstern heard Jon ask, "You getting turned on?" "Yeah." Morganstern felt himself fast coming to a boil as he thrust harder, faster, harder still. As Billy speeded his own stroke, he said into Morganstern's ear, "I'll try and catch up." Seconds later, Morganstern felt his muscles tighten. Another stroke, and he went rigid. Billy thrust a few times more, then went rigid too while he and Morganstern pumped themselves dry. Still later: long, delicious minutes later, Morganstern slowly relaxed, still catching his breath. "Convinced?" "Convinced," said Jon, from under Morganstern. "Beats cobwebs any day," said Billy, his sweat-damp body relaxing on Morganstern's back. "You did seem to be laying it on a bit thick -- `Morganstern heard this,' . . . `Morganstern felt that,' . . . you know." " `Merely corroborative detail, . . .' " said Morganstern. Billy's voice joined Morganstern's. Together, they recited, " `. . . intended to give artistic verisimilitude . . .' " And Billy, alone, finished the quote: " `. . . to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.' Poo-Bah, **The Mikado,* words by Sir William Schwenk Gilbert of Gilbert & Sullivan." "If I laid it on thick enough for you to notice, then I laid it on thick enough to distract the reader," Morganstern said. "Come on, dude; you had to lay it on to make your point." Billy sat up. "Here's a Rule for you: if you don't have copies of a digital file on three separate disks, you might as well not have any. That's because hard drives eventually crash. They're convenient, but not for storing important stuff." "That's a good one," said Morganstern, rolling off Jon and sitting up himself. "Did you --" "-- lose stuff? No, but I once got a real scare. The class nerd saved my butt. Since then, he helps me with computer stuff, and I coach him at the gym." Billy slid off the bed, stood up. "I'll get the ladder; you two bring up the mirror. By the time we get that thing up and mounted, we oughta be reloaded and ready for another round. So: what tools do we need, Jon?" ================================================================= The author permits any & all archiving, posting, reposting, and reproduction in fixed form, free or for profit, of this story. Copyright (C) 2000 by Felix Lance Falkon, falkon@netaxs.com. This work is not suitable for minors. ================================================================= ------------END------------