Date: Thu, 7 Aug 1997 12:48:00 -0500

From: Mark Mandel Mark[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]DRAGONSYS.COM

Subject: "Culprit Zero" attribution



Lest I compound the confusion of who said what when, here is (edited)

the text in which I found the expression "Culprit Zero". It was not used

by the columnist, Mary Schmich, but by Bob Weide, who wrote to the

Vonnegut Newsgroup... at least, according to what I've seen. Anyone

who cares enough about this to want the full text with headers of the

message this is extracted from may have it from me for the asking.



==================================



Wooops! I've just seen the followup to the posting of this on

alt.fan.mike-jittlov : it looks like we've been had.



[...]



Forwarded (and tidied up) post follows:



Bob Weide, Vonnegut's friend and the author & co-producer of the

movie

rendition of "Mother Night", wrote:



:Yesterday I confirmed for the Vonnegut Newsgroup that the MIT

address

:attributed to Kurt, and spread all over the Web, was a hoax. It was not

:written nor delivered by Kurt at MIT or anywhere. Copies of this thing

:were E-mailed to me from all corners -- even received one from

Scotland.



[...]



:There is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune named Mary Schmich. The

:words were hers, in her column from the June 1 issue of the Trib. She



:never passed it off as Vonnegut's, nor was his name ever evoked in

the

:column.



[...]



:The missing piece of this puzzle is: Who is Culprit Zero? That is,

:who originally placed it on the Internet, crediting it to Kurt? Mary

:Schmich, whom I spoke with today (a very nice woman, by the way),

was

:horrified at the idea that anyone