Careful what you read on the Internet

Dear Friend and Reader:

I never thought I’d see the day: Christian Scientists have made me quasi-famous. Or at least notorious among their own ranks.

Two nights ago, as I worked into the later evening to get Next World Stories looking like a shined-up apple, I received an email:

Meow Mix, the original formula.

“Your blog of Oct. 31, 2008 is causing quite a stir in the Christian Science field. A newsletter has gone out to thousands of people, which contains excerpts from your article, and it is being treated as fact.”

At first I thought, what blog? Then I remembered: Oh, that blog. The one where I made fun of the Christian Science Monitor. The one where I said that “Spaciness is next to Godliness” and explained that both the Monitor and Planet Waves look to the heavens for inspiration.

Now, Christian Scientists are being warned they should stay away from Planet Waves, an “obscure blog.” One commentator wrote yesterday, “If what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and Christian Scientists have no business reading this blog and the comments thereto, what pure and uplifting business does Ms. Trammell have with Meow Mix and Eriscopes?”

Here’s the story. In October, I read that the Monitor was ridding itself of paper and planning to go 100 percent online, which was newsworthy at the time because it will be the first national paper to get rid of…paper. I wasn’t going to write about it, but then I saw the video that they attached to their article, explaining to people about the changing times, how the site will work, what will happen when we stop getting Christian Science Monitor by mail (a grand old tradition in the world), etc.В  It was a pretty boring video until the light went off in my head.

I could write that the Christian Science Monitor was trying to emulate Planet Waves. I mean, we’re the queens of paperless, right? We’veВ been online from the beginning; except of course for all the people who print out our 4,000 word missives on the office printer at 6 o’clock. This was perfect fodder for a satire, which usually takes a factual issue and makes fun of it; I announced to the world that the Christian Science Monitor was adopting the Planet Waves business model. And, for a bit of color, I threw in a couple of cultural references for my massive following of queers in New York.

I explained that I got the scoop from Mary Trammell, the editor in chief of CSM, whom I’d allegedly met at Meow Mix — the coolest lesbian bar I never went to. This makes me so sad I might put it on my headstone: “Here lies Rachel, too young to have gone to Meow Mix before it shut down.”

The first email I received was in November, about two weeks after I published the article. I didn’t think much of it, when you have a fabulously dry sense of humor, people sometimes have to ask if you’re joking. See, like in that previous sentence, I was being sarcastic. The note I received two nights ago made me put my scouting cap on, and that’s when I noticed that I, and Planet Waves along with me, have been exalted to superstar status in the Christian Science community. One blog in particular is really enjoying the story. You can read their articles here.

I commented on the most recent one, from yesterday, explaining that the article was a joke, but it’s yet to be published. We’ll see. One blog has expressed its incredulity that what we printed is not true. As in: Surrrre you never met Mary Trammell in Meow Mix.

We don’t know Mary Trammell and she probably has never seen the inside of a tavern, but we do like trees and thank her on behalf of the many she will save, the more so by the example she is setting taking the Monitor in this direction.

I’ll be sure and update you if the story goes any further, but for the moment anyway, this is the long and short of it. Too bad, nothing sucks the funny out of the room like explaining a joke, but sometimes you just have to.

Yours & truly,
Rachel Asher