Footnotes and Endnotes ain't got nothing on the InterColumn Reference

February 16, 2019 2:51 PM

The Boomer Bible (1994) is a massive work. Its most intriguing feature is the InterColumn Reference, which other Bible readers may know as an Inline Concordance. The complexity and depth of the work truly comes to life when you start following those links between parts of the text. This has only recently become easily possible with The Boomer Bible online version with Live ICR.

R. F. Laird, the purported single author of The Boomer Bible, also has a massive work which was only available on CD-ROM and only worked with MS Word for a short time -- Shuteye Town, 1999. This experience is now available (as of Feb 5) online for anyone to wander around in at the above link.

It's been suggested that The Boomer Bible is an infinite book. And Shuteye Town 1999 is so large it contains other books inside it [The Zeezer Bible].

Two giant worlds to wander around in. If you want more from R. F. Laird, you can visit his website. There's a lot there, if you have the time to find it.

posted by hippybear (7 comments total)

Not sure if maybe it's all taking the Mickey in some way that redeems it if you have better understanding than I do

But this bible seems rather sexist and racist, and I found it unpleasant to read.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 4:26 PM on February 16, 2019

But this bible seems rather sexist and racist, and I found it unpleasant to read.

The source text for the pastiche is no picnic, either.
posted by hippybear at 4:32 PM on February 16, 2019 [7 favorites]

Sweet, I remember having this at one point (not reading much of it mind you) just for the artsyness and for when random people peruse your bookshelf.
posted by zengargoyle at 4:52 PM on February 16, 2019 [1 favorite]

I’ve only poked at this briefly but it’s making me feel very much like I did when I was a child and the adults were watching and discussing Thirtysomething. It seems interesting but I think I lack and am unable to acquire the generational context necessary to actually comprehend or appreciate it. One never stops being a dumb kid, it seems.
posted by jordemort at 5:10 PM on February 16, 2019

The source text for the pastiche is no picnic, either.

The Christian Bible? Because it's been a while since I picked one up, and I just threw away my copy of the Good News Bible, but while I'm well aware of issues within, I also don't remember the specific slur "Chink", or a misrepresentation of the Opium wars, as being parts of the commonly accepted Biblical canon.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 5:14 PM on February 16, 2019 [1 favorite]

Overall, this feature deliberately lures readers into simple-minded conclusions by provoking knee-jerk reactions. It turns out that when the book succeeds in outraging or angering you it is also secretly laughing at you for failing to transcend your own prejudices and orthodoxies. The superficial will see the book as purely satirical. The semanticist will see it as illiterate. The liberal will see it as somehow fascist. The reactionary will see it as cynically and stupidly juvenile. The fundamentalist will see it as blasphemy. The atheist will see it as pointless. The existentialist will see it as a random, irrelevant redundancy. In every case, such readers are only peering into an inverted mirror of themselves.
posted by hippybear at 5:40 PM on February 16, 2019 [3 favorites]

Well that clarifies it a bit, I may be a dumb kid but I’m smart enough to know that “oh I just tossed off a bunch of slurs, if you’re offended it’s your problem, look beyond the surface, it’s all about what you bring to the situation, man” is some gaslighty horseshit. My magic mirror renders me immune to criticism! I am rubber! You are glue!
posted by jordemort at 6:07 PM on February 16, 2019 [5 favorites]