BERKELEY, Calif. — Introduction to Cultural Ecology Professor Adam Sirico has eschewed a traditional textbook, instead asking students to purchase a cheaper, lighter-weight homunculus puppet of him from a local copy shop.
“Textbooks are bulky, expensive, and information-bloated, so I’ve sent off only the key information to get duplicated at Copy Central,” Professor Sirico wrote on page 12 of his 53-page course syllabus. “For about $20, you can pick up a copy of me who knows all the course content. He will not, however, know basic stuff like toilet training or which fork goes where at fancy dinner parties, so teaching that to him is on you. In fact, his ability to use the toilet is going to be worth a quarter of your final grade. Good luck!”
Sirico’s students have questioned the value gained by forcing Copy Central to recreate man in an unholy pact unsupervised by God.
“I don’t know how much Mini Adam is actually gonna help my learning,” reported sophomore Emily Hu. “Whenever I try to do homework, he just fills it out for me and demands goat flesh as recompense. Like, I get that Sirico is trying to help us out by not having a textbook, but having to pick up and raise fiery hellspawn really doesn’t seem like that much of an improvement. He’s just narrowing the range of information we can learn on our own.”
One of the hellspawn, Adam #6, has expressed similar concern about his existence.
“Adam is burdened with eldritch horror,” Adam #6 growled while gnawing on a frozen, peanut-butter-filled dog toy. “The fundamental principles of cultural ecology rattle in Adam’s head where love and joy should be. Adam understands the degrowth mindset of Serge Latouche but not the beauty it tries to preserve. Also Adam wants more goat flesh.”
At press time, Copy Central employees were spotted in a seance attempting to make a PDF version of Sirico’s godless visage.