Date: Sept 1, 2010 at 9:00 AM
Subject: Stone Head
Dear Prof. Gruber,
I have recently come upon a piece which I think will be of interest to your research—a stone head. I was chatting with an acquaintance in his study and it caught my attention. He did not know the origin of the head, but it had been in his family for a few generations. I ran some tests on it at the lab and it appears to be from a time period matching the artifacts you are excavating from the ancient city. Interestingly, I found trace amounts of blood and quite a bit of semen inside the mouth of the piece. My acquaintance, quite embarrassed, told me about the origin of the semen. He had been hosting a monthly swingers orgy, and, well…apparently the men saw fit to use the statue for their own drunken purposes, if you see what I mean. I feel funny writing about this, especially because it is probably of little or no relevance to the piece historically speaking, but I thought it was an interesting tidbit. I never know what to think about historical authenticity. Something is created for some purpose and then other people use it for a different purpose. Why do people tend to emphasize the significance of the original use? Anyway, as for the blood, there is a tunnel dug through the piece, creating a canal from the top of the piece to the oral cavity. Judging by pattern of the blood, it seems as though it was poured into the top of the head such that it came out in stream through the mouth. The blood traces in question are not likely to be from the period you are studying, but my acquaintance had no explanation for them. In any case, he is willing to part with the head in the interest of scientific research. If you are interested, I can have the piece shipped to the university for further study. Please see the photograph attached.
Sincerely,
Henry Vauban
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Date: Sept 1, 2010 at 11:44 PM
Subject: Re: Stone Head
Dear Mr. Vauban,
I am quite pleased you thought of me in conjunction with this piece. The head looks similar to others we have found at the dig. The blood you have found cannot be from the period in question; however, the culture is thought to have engaged in virgin sacrifices that involved blood play. I would be delighted to take a closer look at the piece. I wish you had not informed me about the other matter, because it simply angers me that someone would do something so disgusting to what is likely a 2000-year-old artifact. Your “acquaintance” is a disgrace to collectors everywhere and I hope someday soon he rots in hell with child molesters, the people who key expensive cars just because they are expensive, and vegans.
Sincerely,
Hans Gruber
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Date: Sept 1, 2010 at 12:15 AM
Subject: Conference Time Bitches!
Dear Henry Marshall,
You and your fuckhead colleagues can suck it! We are going to bury you in a pile of shit at the conference next month you research faking twats! And by the way, fuck you mothr.
Eatadick,
Gruber
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Date: Sept 2, 2010 at 8:33 AM
Subject: Re: Stone Head
Dear Mr. Vauban,
I know I sent you an email last night, but please delete it before reading it. I made a value judgment about your acquaintance out of anger that I truly regret. Email is dangerous for me. I have a short temper and to be quite frank, I am normally a little drunk by the time I read my emails. Please forgive my humanity. I copied and pasted the relevant parts of the original email below:
I am quite pleased you thought of me in conjunction with this piece. The head looks similar to others we have found at the dig. The blood you have found cannot be from the period in question; however, the culture is thought to have engaged in virgin sacrifices that involved blood play. I would be delighted to take a closer look at the piece.
Yours in science,
Hans Gruber
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Date: Sept 2, 2010 at 9:13 AM
Subject: Re: Stone Head
Dear Prof. Dr. Hans Gruber,
I deleted your original email without reading it as you requested. I appreciate the fact that we live in scandalous times and would not want to damage your reputation as chair of the archeology department. I am glad that you are willing to take a look at the stone head.
Sincerely,
Henry Vauban
P.S. It appears that you have sent an email meant for a Henry Marshall to my address by accident. I am henry.vauban@googlemail.com. Probably a Google autofill problem. Watch out for that.
Henry Vauban lives in the Black Forest and spends too much time on the internet. He edits Vauban Inc. and has been published in Dogzplot.