A Note from the Author...

The Clambo Chronicles have enjoyed a long and interesting history. They began sometime in the middle of my sophmore year at the State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNY-Buffalo). I had only recently received my first computer account, and begun my discovery of the big world of mainframe computing. One of the curious features of the VAX system is something known as the finger.pln file. This file is displayed to another user when they type in the command "finger" and your username. The primary purpose of the finger command is to show another users' login status. I had already taken up the computer nickname "Clambo" because of the events described in "Clambo meets a John the Baptist-type fellow", but I continually had to attempt to explain the meaning behind my nickname to other curious computer users.

The idea struck me to put this information in my finger.pln file so I could just tell people to "finger me." (Yes, I know it's gross.) I had only recently finished reading a parody of Frank Herbert's book Dune, entitled Doon, and written by the Harvard Lampoon. This parody of a fantastic tale of power, politics, and religion led to my inspiration to create a pseudo-autobiographical tale of my life as a clam messiah.

I wrote the first installments into my finger.pln starting with "Scallop Attack and the discovery of the Clam Messiah." After each story was finished I would write a new one and make that my finger.pln. There were about a dozen computer users who regularly fingered my account so that they could read the latest installment. Some people missed installments, and whined about it, so I took the stories and placed them into chronological order. I sent these out to true believers so that they might spread the word.

It should be noted that all of the events that take place in the Clambo Chronicles actually happened during my life, I have just twisted them to increase their humor, and integrate them into a coherent messianic tale. I have written the clamtales in the third person so that Clambo is me, but not me. The author is a narrator, describing the life of Clambo to the readers, who are assumed to be true believers.

"The Holy Word of Clambo: King of the Bivalves" was eventually spread to a fairly large number of users, including 50 people on a listserv list out of Brown University called "Weirdlist". To get on this computer mailing list you had to submit a strange piece of fiction. I, of course, submitted the Clambo Chronicles.

Somewhere during this process, Marc Cannava received the story. He recognized that the story had never been edited into a coherent whole, and took on the monstrous task of editing and laying out the Clambo Chronicles using a typesetting language known as TeX. For the first time, the Chronicles could be laser printed in an appealing fashion. There's nothing like a good editor.

After this, the finger.pln installment technique was no longer used, as it was simply too cumbersome. Instead, I wrote stories and sent them to Marc for editing, and the Chronicles became larger and larger.

This, the latest version, was created after Marc got his hands on a TeX-to-Microsoft Word converter. Now the Clambo Chronicles can be read by all who have a personal computer. Marc and I look forward to increasing the number of amused and satisfied readers through conversion to this new format.

Mark E. Kinsey
Pawley's Island, SC
29 January 1994