Will the real Steve Newman please stand up?

[newma_sl@JHUVMS.HCF.JHU.EDU]

Dear Centaurs,

As much as I've enjoyed the chaos caused by "the Other SN," as I call my 
quasi-double, I feel obliged to expose a much more serious and 
diabolical plot behind his little game.  

You see, I was not always Steve Newman; in fact, when I came to 
Hopkins, my name was John Crandall McGillicudy, in honor of an ancestor 
of mine who was supposed to be a signatory to the Constitution but was
late due to a malfunctioning rooster.  In any case,  a couple of years 
ago, I was contacted by one Stephen Newmann, director of a Writing Center 
at Mt. St. Mary's:  He had heard that I had just been selected to found 
and direct the Hopkins Writing Center and he disclosed to me a fiendish 
plan.  Writing Centers, he told me, were _the_ growth industry of the 
'90s; they had already infiltrated most university campuses and had 
become so valuable (in their quiet way) that the schools could not run 
without them.  I'll spare you all of the Perotesque charts he showed me, 
etc. in order to get to the kernel of the scheme.  His idea was to 
corner the market by having other WC directors buy a stake in the 
Stephen Newmann franchise and then, once he had a bunch of partners (all 
_junior_ partners, he could not stop himself from adding), compelling 
the administrations of all concerned to raise Directors' and TUtors' 
salaries and  outfit them with plush quarters (VCR and engraved pens 
included).  He, of course, would get a hefty cut.

When I told him that this kind of power-play seemed inimical to the WC 
ethos and that I wouldn't play along, he glowered at me and asked, "What 
do you think happens at Microsoft?  Don't they work collaboratively?  Get 
real, Lefty, and join up."  When I refused yet again, he gave me a 
manilla envelope with some, shall we say, incriminating photos of me.  
He, of course, had the negatives.

What choice did I have?  The next day, I dutifully went down to the 
courthouse and changed my name to Steve Newman (the other SN thought that 
an exact duplicate would look too suspicious).  And then, through his 
guidance and the unwitting counsel of you Centaurs, I established a 
Center at Hopkins, which I am both glad and, in light of the other SN"s 
scheme, sorry, to say is flourishing.

But it's all over for me.  I'm now on my dissertation fellowship and am 
thus no longer eligible to be Director.  That job has fallen to another, 
and before _she_ or any of you receives an unlooked for visit from the 
Other SN and has to change names, I felt obliged to warn you.  As for me, 
there's no turning back.  My family, when they found out about the name 
switch, disowned me; all I have left is an old bronze of the faulty 
rooster to remined me of my ancestry. And Steve Newman I shall remain 
as I toil in the obscure reaches  of ABD Land.  But it's not too late for you 
all.  Resist at all costs!

"Steve Newman"
Past Director and Dupe
The Johns Hopkins University Writing Center

On Fri, 3 Jan 1997 NK_NYDAHL@commnet.edu wrote:

> I'm confucsed:  A message FROM Stephen Newman with a heading "for
> Stephen Newman only" asking someone to reply off list?  Would someone
> translate this for me?
> 
> Joel Nydahl
>