Jenny Marx's Email Forward

When was the first forwarded survey? When did the first smartass fill in "sex: yes please!" and "favorite album: an album of family pictures I have" to universal mirth of his friends (the earth being young, and humorous humor not having been invented yet)? I would have guessed sometime in the early 70's, soon after the invention of email.

The Redcloud parents, however, while conducting their Cthulu research in some of their musty old books, found something that looks startlingly like an email-forward survey dating from the 1860's, written, oddly, by Karl Marx's daughter Jenny. This is true: she really wrote this, and made all her famous commie friends and relations take it. Some of her questions ("Your maxim") have a slight old-timey feel, but several ("favorite color", "your idea of happiness") seem just as modern and banal as anything you'd see in your in-box.

In order to keep this 150-year-old forward going, we L&E writers are all going to take the survey and email it to everyone we know. You should too! As an added bonus, next week we'll publish Marx's and Engels's survey answers, which are tons cooler and funnier than ours. (Engels listed his motto as "Take it aisy." Engels is the fucking man.)

J. M. Hoffman's Answers to Jenny Marx's Questions

1. Your favorite virtue: Chastity! (haha who else will choose THAT one!)

2. Favorite virtue in man: Endearing madness

3. Favorite virtue in woman: Being an antidisestablishmentarian, also enjoying dorky stuff

4. Your chief characteristic: My chief's characteristic is that he always goes up to the hard working cop who dosnt play by the rules and demands his badge and gun.

5. Your idea of happiness: An internet connection, plenty of food and nothing else to do.

6. Your idea of misery: Working a crappy job for eight hours every day and knowing after coming home each day that I'll have to go back to work tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow until I die alone and unremembered without having left a mark upon this earth except a few manufactured goods or customers I served.

7. The vice you excuse most: Stubborness

8. The vice you detest most: Miami

9. Your chief aversion: Working

10. Literary or historical characters you most like: Che Guevara, Yassir Arafat, Ho Chi Minh The vampire Lestat, and Pokey the Penguin

11. Your favorite occupation: The illegal occupation of Palestine by the Zionist entity... oh no wait that's least favorite.

12. Your favorite hero: Che Guevara

13. Your favorite heroine: The princess Eevie from deathstalker 2, when she says her name it sounds like she's saying "Hi, I'm easy"

14. Your favorite writer: Abbie Hoffman and Anne Rice

15. Your favorite flower: Cannibus Sativus

16. Your favorite color: The color of a well shined sword

17. Your favorite dish: The one that gives me DSL

18. Your maxim: "but you ate the cleric!" either that or "They are a savage breed."

19. Your motto: Llie n'vanima ar' lle atara lanneina (It's elvish, it roughly means "you're ugly and your mom dresses you wierd")