From gwes@spdcc.com Thu Apr 29 00:22:41 1999
Date: Tue, 7 Jan 1997 23:30:00 GMT
From: Geoff Steckel <gwes@spdcc.com>
Newsgroups: alt.gothic
Subject: Re: gothic fan in Boston

In article <32D20EA1.50AD@3leftties.com>, Eric  <jaeger@3lefties.com> wrote:
>FAShorb wrote:
>>     >PVC-and-apricot-leather clothing
>>beat? or is that the physical apricot fruit on top of the PVC.kida like
>> a sundae?
>
>No, apricot leather is made by tanning the hides of dead apricots.  Of
>course, it is unethical to kill apricots just for their skins.  It is
>O.K. to wait until they die of natural causes, though.

Oh, that's the explanation the Secret Apricot Leather Makers give
out.  What they -really- do is:

Select trembling, ripe, exquisitely fuzzy apricot.
Cuddle it in your hands.
With gleaming stiletto point, nick the skin just by the stem.
Wait until a drop of juice forms.

Slooooowly peel the skin back, carefully, delicately.  Savor the
blossoming juices.  Feel the contrast between the warm fur outside
and the slippery inside.  Don't break the skin - take it off in one
daisypetaled piece.

Admire your work.  Salivate.

Holding the flayed fruit by the stem, wiggle the blade inwards to
the helpless, blind pit.  Make a single spiral cut, leaving the stem
end anchored, so that the once intact flesh is resected into a long strip.

Begin the next transformation:  Unroll the succulent flesh, tearing
and slicing the fibrous anchor.  When you have separated this still
living strip to its maximum extent, caress its length onto the cold
hard smooth granite slab.

Take the ponderous roller in your hands.  Inexorably press onwards,
reducing the flesh to a mere paper.

Cast the paper on the harsh geometry of the drying rack.  Abandon
it to the heat and wind of the bright and fading autumn.
Burn the pit.

There.

	ash