"...you have mail."

This an email thread with an old WBAI Friend. It is confused interesting and snarky. So of course, I wish to preserve it here for all eternity or at least till the collapse of the internet. Eh you should read them from time of posting which here is from the bottom up. Tho' they make as much sense either way.

Begins Mr. Horvath.

This thread wends its way from one subject to another one that’s so many emails distant from the last that reply becomes somewhat pointless. Sort of like, upon discovering a civilization fifty light years away, a message is sent out requesting a reply which, even if sent, would arrive a century later. (The USPS no longer accepts, as far as I know, retail Special Delivery letters.)

> Sent: Tuesday, May 02, 2023, at 5:13 PM
> From: "Sidney Smith" 
> To: "Claude Horvath" Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: More Eric Foner

> Unlike Mr. Foner I still have interest and will as health allows attend to your missives.
> 'Fascinating', as a certain Vulcan would quip, about violent youths of color.
> Those made aware their great-grand parents' recollections of 1930's gangbangers.
> Interesting indeed. A Hulu TV series could be pitched from this.
> A science fantasy series on free floating elder memories affecting current history.

> As for Mr. Gibson. I think his obsessions for the blood of Christ sums up his world view.
> Also bigotry is deep within all human hearts. Alongside a desire for Jelly doughnuts.
> Both are equal in value which sez much about everything we've created in the last 20k years.
> I look forward to further communiques from your most thoughtful self.
> As stated, I shall attend to your earlier missives. I view these as treasures presents.
> The unwrapping of which gives as much joy as the reading of them.
>
> Sent: Tuesday, May 02, 2023, at 6:53 AM
> From: "Claude Horvath"
> To: "Sidney Smith" Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: More Eric Foner
> This is the completion of an unfinished email mistakenly sent out — lucky you!

> It follows... It takes such a one as you to include “my humorous bigotry” in your badinage. Reminiscent of Doug Stanhope’s “…I had said it in a happy, fun-loving, Jew-hating way”. This may be starting to cohere, because the only instance of snuff porn I inadvertently viewed was a scene from an Australian post-apocalyptic movie in which a distant image of a woman, having been raped, being dispatched with a blast from a powerful gun.

> The perpetrator may have been portrayed by Mel Gibson who ‘inspired’ the Stanhope tirade. Yup, Gibson serves here as a connecting thread. I have a vague recollection of having read that people strongly recall movie images from forty years past. You provoked that with your “African American youths from the 1970's onward emulating 1930's ethnic gangsters”. It’s as if they were responding to the memories, not of themselves, but of their great-grand parents movie habits.
>
> By the bye, I do not expect any reply to my previous emails, as you clearly have bigger things on which to apply your attention. P.S. Henry Hill, who informed on a lot of the Lucchese crime family was not done in by any of them, but by his own abused heart a day after his 69th birthday. Seemingly, they’d simply lost interest or predeceased him.
>
> > Sent: Sunday, April 30, 2023, at 10:43 AM
> > From: "Sidney Smith" 
> > To: "Claude Horvath" Subject: Re: Re: Re: More Eric Foner

> > Considering the nature of the pre-digital porn industry. It was, before legalization and the internet the business of a certain southern European-American ethnic group. As were unregulated sex gambling booze and other desired pastimes. The artistic branch was solely northern European with certain exceptions. This if the financing marketing and pigmentation of the actors and actresses involved is any clue.

> > To your point.

>>I agree the evidence that White folks invented 'Snuff Porn" is circumstantial. My stating it as fact was just my humorous bigotry. However, their control of the entire industry could be a smoking cannon. Of course others seeing a good thing picked it up. This may be the cause of your confusion. Much as African American youths from the 1970's onward emulated tactics of 1930's ethnic gangsters. Some supposed they invented it on their own. ...they did not. As these young gentlemen of color got the idea from old movies. So the resurrection of the Prohibition era tradition of the 'Drive by' was derivative.

> > Did I digress?

> > In thinking on the matter Perhaps I shouldn't throw shade on the fine folks of pale decent. Like radio television and oral sex. There may be no particular inventor of the artistic tradition of the 'Snuff Film'. This like aforementioned developments were likely simultaneous efforts. The work of creative persons around the world over a period of time.

> > I thank you for raising this interesting topic and I hope this to a degree clears up the matter. A very good day to you, and good fortune in your many interesting endeavors.

> > (I note there are many missives from your good self-backed up. I endeavor to catch up with as many of your fascinating communications as my health allows. I beg your patience.)

> > Sent: Friday, April 28, 2023, at 8:34 AM
> > From: "Claude Horvath" 
> > To: "Sidney Smith" Subject: Re: Re: Re: More Eric Foner

> > Having no known contact with the Snuff Porn market, it’s thoroughly unknown to me which person or group came up with it. Is it a matter of unmitigated good fortune that your superior level of social connection affords you? Such a cheerful party guy!

> > > Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2023, at 1:17 PM
> > > From: "Sidney Smith" 
> > > To: "Claude Horvath" Subject: Re: Re: More Eric Foner

> > > Piles of death tends to look the same.
> > > Native Americans in piles frozen stiff full of Army bullets.
> > > Negroes in piles after mass burnings and lynchings. Piles of starved Irish would fit the bill as well.
> > > Just about everybody was in those piles excepted white people of northern European decent.
> > > Well, them too but you'd have to go back to Roman times and before.

> > > Is it racist of me to point out it was those same varieties of Europeans that invented 'Snuff Porn'?

> > > Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2023, at 2:32 AM
> > > From: "Claude Horvath" 
> > > To: "Sidney Smith" Subject: Re: Re: More Eric Foner

> > > I borrowed that book from the NYPL and brought it with me to WBAI’s 8th Avenue location. I couldn’t ‘share’ its contents with any of the personnel there — it just seemed too much like snuff porn.

> > > > Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2023, at 12:18 AM
> > > > From: "Sidney Smith" 
> > > > To: "Claude Horvath" Subject: Re: More Eric Foner

> > > > I have long had the book "Without Sanctuary".
> > > > An illustrated history of race murders specially lynchings and burnings.
> > > > Therein over a century of evidence that no one cares about. Ask any Armenian.

> > > > Human Beings are an interesting species are we not?