"An institution is the shortened shadow of a man."
Stanley Elkin
To keep alive the inestimable legacy of our founder Francis "Skifeets" Sophistrie-Weaving.
If you’ve found your way to this website then you are probably already familiar with the work of the (possibly) late Francis “Skifeets” Sophistrie-Weaving. You may not, however, be familiar with the strange and abbreviated story of his life.
Sophistrie-Weaving was born in Yorkshire in the town of Mounting-sur-Chargé. When he was still very young, his parents, to escape the suffocating tolerance and prosecutorial reach of Albion, moved their family to the United States. Young Francis grew up among the vibrant café society of 1960’s Ely, Nevada. At the close of the 60’s, revolution was in the air in America and Francis, now known as Skifeets to his friends, found himself drawn into the cauldron of student politics at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
At Yale, Skifeets fell in with a group of campus radicals organized around the dashing figure of George W. Bush. Bush, known as “Snuffly,” or “ZOW,” and, sometimes, “SnufflyZOW,” had used his family connections to infiltrate Skull and Bones and was planning a coup d’etat of the group by sponsoring other left-wing radicals to join.
We know from his letters that Skifeets became increasingly distrustful of Bush. He seemed to believe that at some point his friend had been brainwashed or, more fancifully, replaced by a robot. His letters from this time are disorganized and paranoid. He imagines that an organization called “NSA” is monitoring his activities and drugging his drugs.
Skifeets never finished his education (he was, in fact, never enrolled at Yale), the pull of adventure was too strong – at the tender age of 38 he set out for Spain to fight the forces of fascism. Upon arriving, he discovered that he was too late. The forces of fascism had won. Though stung by this disappointing turn of events, he rallied and managed to become one of the nation’s foremost experts on songs sung during the Spanish Civil War. Although he never learned Spanish, he remained in Spain for several years. Skifeets ultimately proved the stronger party and Generalissimo Francisco Franco died in 1975.
In 1976 Skifeets made his triumphal return to the heady atmosphere of Gerald Ford’s America. He settled in New York City, buying several houses in a rapidly gentrifying South Bronx neighborhood called Mott Haven. These were his so-called “slum-lord” years, although, I think it may be argued that his contribution to the development of hip hop far outweighs the suffering visited on his tenants. His eviction, in 1977, of the DJ Kool Herc (Herc went on rent strike because his heat wasn’t working) drove Herc into the embrace of Afrika Bambaataa, the rest is history.
In 1980, Skifeets, increasingly frustrated by the progress of the Vietnam war, went into exile again. He relocated to Toronto, Canada where he organized his famous art school the Long Idlin’ School of Resign’d (pronounced “Liz aR Dee”). LISRD was a success from the moment it opened, attracting distinguished faculty (Patty Hearst, Joey Ramone, Charo) and a diverse student body. In Toronto, Skifeets began to work seriously on the comic strips that cemented his reputation.
In 1990, at the height of his fame, Skifeets went out of his office at LISRD, spoke a few words to his secretary (there is some dispute about the content of this conversation – bystander Cecil LaVere claims to have heard Skifeets mumble, “goin’ out, OUT. Gotta deflate brains. Need a steak. Need meat.” Skifeets secretary, Bunnie “Nest Egg” Walters, maintains that this is, “an absolute, goddamn invention,” but has remained mum about his version of events) and vanished forever. An attempt to organize a search party was abandoned for lack of interest.
The Skifeets Foundation was founded a couple of days later to honor the legacy of this remarkable man.
Skifeets sightings continue to this day. Why, just last week someone called here to the office claiming to be Skifeets. Bunnie hung right up on that fraud. That asshole’s been calling here once a week since we had Skifeets declared legally dead - yelling about how “he only went out for lunch” and how we changed the locks on “his” office and cut the lock off of “his” storage room and “stole” “his” drawings.
Cornelius Jansen,
Chief Operating Officer
Unigenitus Bull,
Chairman of the Board of Trustees
Bunnie Walters,
Secretary and Treasurer
Archivist and Webmaster