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From: John O'Regan
Date: Wed 06 Oct 1999 - 17:41:30 IST
On Tue, 5 Oct 1999, Malcolm Dick wrote:
I borrowed the book from a trusting friend (who will no doubt also be
sending his greetings) which was in a perpetual transition state
between being lost and found and had the habit or turning up
unannounced in locked drawers. Which begs the question as to whether
the book itself is a quantum type thing (technical term) and whether
there is some sort of communication between all existing copies of the
book or whether, indeed, there is only one existing copy shared
amongst all owners.
Bandito Malcolm,
Now you've really spooked me, man! I first found out about CB through
my friend and fellow subscriber, Gary Casey. He found a whole stack of
them (I wish I could travel back in time and snap them up) in a secondhand
bookshop in Cork. He read the blurb on the back, said "What the Hell?"
and bought a copy. He liked the book so much he loaned it out to all his
friends. They all loved it, too. Some of them bought copies of their
own. One individual went so far as to send copies in the mail to his
friends abroad. When I finally got my grubby little paws on Gary's
much-read copy and decided to go look for one of my own, the pile of
remaindered copies had vanished. I'd left it too late! I was
inconsolable.
But the spooky thing is, we used to have conversations about the quantum
properties displayed by the copies of the book. They would seem to
disappear and re-appear, or be lost or destroyed under strange
circumstances. "What happened to your copy?" I'd ask Gary. "I thought it
was in my bedroom at home," he'd reply, "but I can't find it." Arguments
would break out over who had lent which copy to whom: "Dave lent me his,"
Clare would say, "and then I gave it back to him." Dave would refute
this: "You said you gave it to Mike Dwyer." at which point Hally would cut
in with: "I lent him _my_ copy." Mike Dwyer would retort: "I returned a
copy to Ed." Eddy would just shake his head and say: "My copy's at home
where it's been since the day I bought it."
Of all the copies floating around in my circle of friends at college,
only Eddy's survived. I think that's because although we all shared the
Bandito Worldview, only Eddy lived it. Only a True Bandito resonates at
the same frequency as the particles in a copy of CB and that's why only a
True Bandito can hold onto one indefinitely.
The other thing was that only once have I seen two copies in the same
place at the same time and then only briefly. I seriously believe there
is something subatomically fishy about copies of that book. I think there
are lots of potential copies, but very few real copies. Potential copies
only actualize when you put your hands on them. Turn your back on one
and it's potentially in six or seven other locations and if your copy is
actualized in one of those other places, there's always the danger it
mightn't come back to you. That's why I keep my copy in a lead-lined box,
no foolin',
John (the Net Bandito).
PS: I am distressed to find out that you are a real person and that
the book itself did not spring spontaneously into existence.
PS: Maybe Allan is an actor hired by all the copies of CB to lend
credence to their existance - a bit like the character played by Pierce
Brosnan in Remington Steel. Or maybe Allan just showed up at the publisher's
one day and said, "I'm A. C. Weisbecker and I want my royalty
cheque." Hmm, it's easy enough for a writer to kill off a character, but
how would a book that wrote itself deal with someone claiming to be the
author it never had? Maybe all those lost copies of CB are converging on
you, Allan! I can see the headline now: MAN DIES UNDER AVALANCHE OF BOOKS.
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