www.churchofmoo.com MOOism May Or May Not Have Anything To Do With Cows Depending On How You Look At It Version 2.718281828459045235360287471352662á Released 1355670830.83686347DPP This Document Is NOT Suitable MOOist Towelette Material "If It Be Ranted, It Be Wrong." -WOMBAT Systems Motto Found On A Stone Tablet The following is engraved in stone, in letters two meters high, on a tablet found in the middle of the Gobi Desert, near the ruins of a crashed flying saucer, marked by an ancient Atlantean Glyph. ÉÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ» ºÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿º º³ ³º º³ The One Commandment ³º º³ ³º º³ Thou Shalt Not Obey The One Commandment ³º º³ ³º ºÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙº ÈÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ This is the true One Commandment of MOO. Thus we can see that MOO is stoopid. Disclaimer Nothing in this book is true, nor false. Much of it is fictional, some of it is imaginary, and the rest is either delusional or apocryphal. But, given a stick to poke around in it with, no qualified philosopher would prounounce anything decidably true or false. Anything written in it should be taken with a very large handful of salt. Believe at your own risk. Coptic-Rite Gnotice This book is reserved. All rights booked. If you copy this book without permission, we throw the book at you. We may even throw the copy at your book, and book the copy on violation of indecent copyright sunburning. Furthermore, if you believe one word of this Copy-Rite Gnotice, you must be demented. Information can't be owned, even by those who "Invented" it. (Pronounced "Discovered It") So even if we were inclined to, suing people for copying it is stoopid. So do whatever the hell you do with things like this. All Fights Deserved, 135567DPP. Dessication This, the GNU TastyMint of the Meat Hook of BOO, is dessicated to the point that it deliquesces at even extremely low humidity. Store in a cool, dry location, do not expose to water. Use at your own risk. Consult your physician before using this book in contact with heavy machinery while pregnant. Swallow dry. Introspection Just what IS MOOism, anyway? This is such an important question, deserving of a very good answer, that it has been given not just one, but several (mutually contradictory) answers: MOOism is a form of Metagnostic Agnostic MystiSchBLATT MOOism is a memetic virus designed to promote diversity MOOism is a cult/religion/collision MOOism is an alien thought-control plot to destroy humanity MOOism is the only surviving remnant of Atlantis MOOism is nothing at all MOOism is a reductio ad absurdum argument against the universe MOOism is that which remains when all belief is removed MOOism is a bloody stoopid fucking religion thing MOOism is a WOMBAT-construct MOOism is an Elvis/"BoB"/Eris worshipping PseudoKult MOOism is a religion that doesn't discrimiate by belief MOOism is a living incarnation of the Law of Bullshit MOOism is that property which CapriCancers lack MOOism is a bagel left on the counter too long MOOism is the quest for personal identity through stupidity MOOism is organized hebephrenia MOOism is a figment of someone's deranged imagination MOOism is a branch of the SubGenius/DiscordianBLATT MOOism is nothing MOOism is something MOOism is everything But in answer to the question "What is MOOism", there can be no correct answer. The only thing it really makes sense to answer the scoffer, unbeliever, or insurance sales representative who poses this question to you after entering your apartment posing as a Jehovah's Witness Encyclopaedia Merchant: First there is a WOMBAT Then there is no WOMBAT Then there is UNSTABLE OF MALCONTENTS The First Voice: First Things First Intro High Preest Pfloide Q Gehqo Unholy Cow Thing Titular Page The One Commandment Disclaimer Coptic-Rite Gnotice Dessication Introspection Unstable of Malcontents The Second Voice: Books of the Apostates Book Of Halfy Grate Prophet Ix Book Of Indoctrination High Preestess Indoctrinate-Me Book Of Floyd High Preest Pfloide Q Gehqo Book Of Hound Cardinal Richelieu [GNU][HOUND][14] Book Of Dopey Inner CirclBLATTT 4:15:16:5 Book Of Wiley Don Coyote The Third Voice: GNUsletters & Proclamations MOO-COWs Pfloide Q Gehqo Gamma Series â-1: The Carrot Deck and Divination â-2: Ranks Of MOOism Explained â-3: Purpose Exploded â-4: GNUBLATTT Rituals For the GNU Age â-6: MicroChurching In Theory and Practice â-7: Shoggoths And Such â-8: Atlantis And Galactic Shoes â-9: "BoB" and His 5ulcan Minions â-10: Elvis On A Stick â-11: Charles Manson And WOMBAT Music â-12: The Kobbler Koncept â-13: MOO as an Artform â-15: Maya â-16: World Hack '94 Interview â-17: Transcendent Squid and the Number Seven â-19: What The Hell Do I Care? I'm A Penguin? â-21: Top Secret Stuff Phi Series è-1: Miscellaneous Nonsense è-2: Interview With The Gecko è-3: MOOish MystiSchBLATT MOO-JUICEs [GNU][HOUND][14] Theta Series é-1: Kerry Wendell Thornley é-2: Boomer Bible é-3: Normalcy é-4: MOOism Bankruptcy Sale é-5: The Dissolution of MOO é-6: MOOism as a Quest The Fourth Voice: Legendary Tales The Seventh Voice Pfloide Q Gehqo 83-FBLATTTed Tales of WOMBAT D.O. & F.G. Self-Sufficient Jeffrey Morton The Fifth Voice: Fragments Confuse-Ing Inter-Rapture Confuse-Ius and Gettah Leif Talking 'Bout Death With A BuddhBLATTT Banana Don Coyote Thee True And Accurate Story Ov Santa Claus Set N'hgh-Lu's Cthulhu Mythos WOMBAT The Jatramar W.O.M.B.A.T. Project Yari Brian O'Blivion The Spectral Theory of Cheese Tweedledum The Apostolic Feud Brian O'Blivious The True HBLATTTory Of The Church Of MOO Pfloide Q Gehqo W.O.M.B.A.T. Systems Analyst Messages WSA >101< 23 Floyd Alien Kidney Magnets Gettah Leif Instant Hitler Pfloide Q Gehqo Revelation Of The Dolphin Tuxedo Dolphin MOOist Magick For Idiots Pfloide Q Gehqo MOOist Magick For Pagans Pfloide Q Gehqo MOOist Magick For Experts Pfloide Q Gehqo The Sixth Voice: Discussion Mental Pfloide Q Gehqo Memetics Anarchy Sociology Imaginary Pfloide Q Gehqo SUITCAS The Mauve Room The Burrito-12 Mystique The Seventh Voice: Confuse-Ius Speaks The All Pervasive Gunk Confuse-Ius For the True Meaning of this Book, read at random, and consult your pineal gland. This book is an antenna for Eris. Voice Two: Books Of The Apostates MOOism and its core being, the Holy Church of the Grate MOO, has changed a lot since our last book. And that first book hasn't even been published yet. But it will! TODAY THE PUBLISHING COMPANIES, TOMORROW THE WORLD! But that's beside the point. There are two books in the MOO Trilogy, which are: Book One: "The Grate Book Of MOO or The Last Will And Tasty- Mint Of The Illustrious Zoombart The Fifth" Book Four: "The Grate Book Of MOO, the GNU Tasty-Mint, Being A Compliation Of Writings From The Church Of MOO" Okay, and this here is the second book. Now why are there such big differences between this annoying mind drug and the other annoying mind drug? Because the world is a big and scarey place, and it keeps changing just when you think you've got it nailed down behaving itself. The Church, your last line of defense against the alien invasions and mind-kontrol saddle-lights in orbit above the Earth, now we have to change with the World, just to keep you safe, and to stop the evil 5ulcans from infiltrating us. By the time this book reaches you, we'll have mutated again, and even THIS will be out of date, update and addendum to the first book though it be. Even this is only the product of the Church, and the Church is just the smallest, most inflexible part of MOO. The TRUE MOO, the GNU (and improved Church of MOO) is inside YOUR head, whoever and wherever you are, as soon as you allow our ideas inside and let them take root and grow. Whatever you make them into is the TRUE MOO. There are no Apostles of MOO, though there once were. There are now only Apostates, each with their own direction, their own ideas about what to do with this book. And YOU? You wanna burn their stupid words? They make you angry? They make you NOD IN AGREEMENT? They make you wanna shout them loud and long? They don't do jack shit to you? We don't mind. Whether you agree with them or not, they're infecting you with a counter-virus to the oppressive alien control systems. They're percolating and becoming something GNU inside your head. Maybe nothing like our ideas. But they affect you nevertheless. SMASH THE CONTROL MACHINES! You yourself are the center of MOO. Take the Words of the Apostates, and do with them as you will. Here they are. Read with care, and beware: research has shown that reading these words on certain mind-altering substances can rip your mind into teeny-tiny peices and reassembling them in a collage that looks like Mr. Ed on drugs. Consider yourself warned. The Book Of The Grate Prophet Ix (Geckoid Editorial Note: The Grate Prophet Half-Mad, also known as Ix, has very little clue as to the scope of the religion he has accidentally founded, and refuses to believe we have a cult following of many hundreds of thousands in many nations. Which is fine, as the Grate Prophet doesn't really believe much of anything. Furthermore, the Gecko has been forced to edit the Grate Prophet's writing somewhat to make it marginally legible, since the Grate Prophet has difficulty articulating a coherent sentence.) There's this thing called MOO. Don't ask me what it is. I said don't. Stop it all right! I ain't gonna tell you. Well, since you put it that way, maybe just a little. I'll get to it, later. Honest. Go away, will ya. Alright, fine, here's what I think, sometimes. MOOism is the grate power that controls everything. MOOism is everything. Everything is MOOism. MOOism has always exBLATTTed, except maybe when it didn't. But it always did, so there! We're even older than Eris and JHVH-1. Honest. Umm, where was I? Oh yea, to answer everyone's question now, and so I can tell everybody to read the book to get my opinion, MOOism stands for silliness and confusion. Except when it sits for it... and the occasions that it's laying down. No, that's a lie. Or was that? No, I think that was. No, MOOism doesn't really have a whole lot to do with anything like that. And, to respond to all the little TOTs who keep asking me, MOOism has nothing to do with pyro activities. No, I don't know where to buy firecrackers in Ottawa. Go away. So now, let's see... everybody is a MOOist. This sometimes pisses me off. I like the idea of being a wholly dictatorial leader. If I want somebody out, then they should be out! But, as it is, all I can really do is reduce their title to some diddly little thing like Acolyte (the useless little gits). Even if they are kil... erm, if they die somehow, they are STILL MOOists. Now, where was I? Oh, everybody is a MOOist, so even if you have never filled out an application to MOO, or you have Confuse-ius Alert The Grate Prophet Half-Mad is really an XBLATTT, who who brought the WOMBAT super-computer to Earth. It was not initially destined for Earth, but due to the evil Zorn crashing into the XBLATTT's spaceship and sneaking onboard, the Zornite managed to cock-up the nava-pooter. After arriving on Earth, it was determined that the planet needed to hear the truth, or something like that. The XBLATTT posing as Half-Mad programmed the WOMBAT computer to create MOOism. The sole surviving XBLATTT, while waiting for a rescue ship that WOMBAT sent for, has been instructed by WOMBAT to organize the religion, and keep it in some sort of order. However, since the Zornite also survived, he has taken up battling the super-computer. The Zornite became the leader of the CapriCancers, arch enemies of MOOism. Although, since they are also MOOists, as all are, they spend most of their time battling each other. The idiots. By now, the super-computer WOMBAT has been moved, and Half-Mad does not know where it is. This has posed to be a problem for him, as the super-computer seems to have got a bit screwed up when it was moved. It is suspected that the Cardinal Richelieu, The Hellhound >101<, has stolen WOMBAT. But since he doesn't understand the language of the XBLATTTs, there's no hope in hell he'll be able to do anything of any use with it. He probably stuck it off in a closet somewhere. The XBLATTT Half-Mad continues his search for WOMBAT, as he likely won't get back to his home planet ever if he doesn't find it. Confuse-Ius Interuptus of Confuse-Ius Alert The Xenothemians are currently trying to confuse WOMBAT with moulded Spam. It would appear that the Zornite has been comunicating with them. End of Interuption of Alert It seems that WOMBAT has taken up the use of mind-control satillites so as to battle all the other mind control satillites that are around the planet. This would appear to be WOMBAT's method of promoting MOOism through mind control, while also removing the previous brain-washing done by the other satillites. All satillites that WOMBAT controls are from the planet X. It does not appear that there has been any influence from any further programming since WOMBAT has arrived on the planet though. Not only can Half-Mad not find the super-computer, but nobody else can anymore. The damn thing seems to have used a couple mind-control satillites to make everybody ignore it. This has really got Half-Mad pissed. It looks like the sole XBLATTT on Earth may well have a difficult time getting off this planet. Confuse-Ius has an appointment, might be back later never heard of the Church of MOO, you are a MOOist... just not very much of one. The good quality MOOists generally have the title of Inner CirclBLATTT. The Grate Book of MOO claims there is a limit of 104 Inner CirclBLATTTs, but this isn't really all that much, and can be mostly ignored, as it is a lie. Maybe. Outer CirclBLATTT isn't all that bad either, and there are a whole lot more of them. Actually, most of the limits as to the number of people who can hold a title are wrong. Except for the top three titles. Well, I'm the only Grate Prophet, and that's all that really matters. Well, to me anyway. What the hell was I talking about? Ahh hell, it was a boring topic. So, some people who are far away living in dBLATTTant lands... sometimes as far off as Kanata, claim to be MOOists. Well, as already stated, this is true. But, as MOOism is, so far, mostly just an online- computer-modem-religion-thing , it can be difficult for many people to find any of the higher-up guys. Well, so as you people can contact the leaders of MOO, I'll give you the disinforma... err, information. The big leader guy in charge of everything that he's in charge of: Half-Mad. Halfy can be reached in either Ottawa or Toronto, or somewhere else, depending on where he is currently living. If you *DO* have a computer and modem, then you should be able to call his BBS: just scan the FidoNet nodelBLATTT for either sysop Half-Mad and board name Psycho-Shoppe, or perhaps sysop Nobody Conspicuous and board name X. Or possibly something else. Depends what I like at the moment. MOOism has had a post-office box, which has since been reposessed, and letters mysteriously rerouted. This is the work of the CapriCancers, and the demons of Poor Organizational Skills, which run rampant through the underground religions of this time. Halfy has a pager, but the number keeps changing, much like his mind , and nobody really knows how to reach him. Oh well. What the hell do you want with us anyway? If this hasn't helped you... Tough. IV. Be it hereby known that henceforth the Official State Hat of the People's Undemocratic Republic Of MOOritania shall be a Cucumber And Potato-Salad Tricorne Wombat Hat, to be worn by all citizens at all times. Book Of Indoctrination The Book Of Pfloide Q Gehqo Chapter/Part/Section 1 When MOO first came to be created, there was much confusion and disorderliness about what was to be done, and who should perform what duties, and indeed whether there should be duties at all. But soon this initial haphazardness came to a tragic end, when people began to randomly claim titles to which they would stick. And a great blight had afflicted the Church of MOO, which was the blight of stability and certainty. For indeed, as the great High Preest Floyd Gecko once said, "If yer sure about anything, yer not prepared for the real world, yer prepared for what The Conspiracy WANTS you to be prepared for." For it is true, the real world is not certain, and life outside the Conspiracy is uncertain and chaotic. And this is as it should be, for Chaos Never Died, but lives on in the spaces between the islands of order created by the Conspiracy to rule our lives. Who is Chaos? She is the remarkable depth which refuses to be ordered, shackled or chained by conventions, or rationality. She is what remains of the universe when all that can be finitely understood has been removed. The Conspiracy is that which seeks to destroy her by eating away at the unknown bit by bit, to gain some final truth. But the Conspiracy is doomed to failure, for she is Absolutely Infinite, and the sum of their knowledge can never be more than countably infinite. She is that which holds all rationality together through the irrationality that defines their negative space. The early MOOists failed to realize this, they felt the Abyss opening beneath them, and clung pathetically to their last shreds of order and rationality, giving themselves titles and ranks and orders, and they wrote blasphemous books worshipping those things they had rejected. All but the Hellhound >101< were deceived, for only he withstood the pressure and the perverse rationality, telling all who would lBLATTTen that the Cardinal Richelieus were separate and wholly apart from the Church of MOO. But few were those who lBLATTTened. And throughout all this, the High Preest only sat back in his zenlike way and did whatever the hell it was he was going to do anyway: he went for the money. Money money money money money... For such is the nature of the entity known as the High Preest. Chapter/Part/Section G Corporate multiples and syndicates are the wave of the future: they will replace governments as the economic powers. They arise from a biological approach to society: just as volvox cells gather together and each benefits, so will corporations. They will provide their employees (and families, friends, or whomever) with benefits generally provided by governments, in order to make themselves more appealing. Collectives including building companies can provide their employees with houses. Those including grocery stores can provide their employees with food, and so on. By doing this, they can save money which they would otherwise pass through the employee as a middleman. The employee may get a lower salary, but has a higher disposable income, and benefits like health insurance, housing, food, and whatnot. Of course, the plans will be flexible - this is most attractive to employees. Information is crucial in that kind of society - everyone needs to know what they need. Companies will arise which act as third-party arbitrators. Others will act as stores of information on syndicates and collectives, allowing others to decide whether to trust them or not. This is a totally decentralized but effective approach to society. This is a case in which everyone benefits. Except the elephants. For some unknown reason, elephants live off human pain, and would all die if the awkwardness and inconvenience of governments were to disappear. I suppose it's just a matter of priorities. Chapter/Part/Section ä This Chapter/Part/Section intentionally left blank. Chapter/Part/Section ? 1) Man is created in the image of God. a) The face presented to Man symbolizes the face presented to God. B) In Eden, Man clothed himself before God to hide his sin. i) Clothes are the face presented to God. Q) The face presented to God should be clean: free of sin. Thus: Laundry is the most important spiritual act of Man. QED It is for this reason that the Laundromat is a suitable place to claim in the name of Spain, or whatever country you represent, and use as a site of worship. Chapter/Part/Suction Cup Mao is a sacred game of MOO for many raisins, not least of which is the fact that it's a pretty keen map of our cosmology. When playing Mao, you start off not knowing any of the rules, but surrounded, or at least confronted, by people who know more than you do. There is a long tradition, chains of Mao games with slightly different mutations of the same rules, and the game proceeds from there. As you learn more about the rules, and how they work, it eventually becomes possible to win a hand by laying down your last card and screaming triumphantly "MAO!". When this happens, you become God of the Game, and you can MAKE YOUR OWN RULE, and you needn't tell ANYONE what it is! We play this game to remind ourselves of the nature of the universe. We watch how it acts, and how we get hurt when we cock up understanding it, and eventually figure it out, learn to control it, and overcome the conspiracy of those more in the know than we are now. We become reality hackers, eventually, with enough experience, we can redefine reality to our own liking. This is the evolution to godhead that's so important to a whole bunch of various religions, including MOOism. Sometimes. The various chains of the game mean a whole bunch of different things, to many people. Some take it as a representation of the fact that learning is always partial and unclear, so the chains are mutated. Some see it as memetic evolution in action. Some see it as a metaphor for alternate parallel universes with different reality maps. Some think it represents the fact that different people see things different ways and nobody is really WRONG. Whatever the purpose, we learn from the game, about self- changing systems, about people, about ourselves, and about pre- moBLATTTened towelettes. Chapter/Part/Section "CHILLI-CHEEZE BURRITO" And about chilli-cheese burritos, of course. The point about Chilli-Cheeze Burritos that their manufacturers and marketing branches thereof often overlook is the fact that ANYONE can eat one, regardless of age (excepting the very young and some of the frailer of the elderly), sex, religion, race, hair-colour, personal style, ambiance, or preference in chandelier styles. In this respect, Chilli-Cheeze Burritos are much like the Church of MOO. Anyone can be a MOOist. Even fictional people can be MOOists, just as even fictional people can eat Chilli-Cheeze Burritos. True, most of the time, imaginary or fictional people eat only imaginary or fictional burritos, but there have been cases in which the absent nature of specific non-imaginary, perfectly solid burritos has been attributed to people later discovered to be totally imaginary. Thus the divine nature of burritos is demonstrated. The Church of MOO is just like this. Even unreal people can be real members of it. The fictional character Floyd Gecko climbed the ladder of MOO to become a High Preest before they discovered that he didn't even exBLATTT. It should be noted, of course, that he ate many a Chilli- Cheeze Burrito along this path to glory, an example which should serve as a reminder to the youth of today that there's no such thing as TOO MANY Chilli-Cheeze Burritos, and even if there were, TOO MUCH IS ALWAYS BETTER THAN NOT ENOUGH! Another thing rather like a Chilli-Cheeze Burrito in this respect is the phenomenon of Collective People. Collective People are people who might or might not exBLATTT, depending on whether anyone else is being them at the time. Confuse-Ius might or might not exBLATTT, depending on whether anyone chooses at that time to be that person. Similarly, a Chilli-Cheeze Burrito might or might not be eaten at any given time, depending on whether some particular, specific person happens to be hungry for it at the time, and has access to that particular Burrito. But all this is more or less irrelevant to the main point about Chilli-Cheeze Burritos. Consider the Scribings Of The Hound (17:12), wherein it says something not totally unlike the following: "When they finally dropped the bomb, a radioactive mushroom cloud rose high above the city. The deaths numbered in the millions, and many a Chilli-Cheese Burrito was burned to a crisp. Needless to say, Homer Simpson was not impressed." This is, of course, a veiled reference to the mysterious Burrito Wars of 2138. These have been revealed to certain selected seers and prophets, and the strange and bizzarre things they have seen are too horrifying for mere mortal minds to comprehend. It is not clear what, if anything, caused the Burrito Wars, or who the various sides were which got involved, or what they were fighting about, or indeed what they were fighting with. What is clear is that the root cause, far, far, far back in the mBLATTTs of time, was an industrial accident which was codenamed Burrito-12 by the Pentagon officials who tried to turn it into a superweapon. The Burrito Wars are secret matters not to be discussed in public: the great secret of their exBLATTTence lies deep in nested codes within the pages of the secret text "The Book Of Stuff" which lies in the imaginary Mauve Room of the equally fictional MOO Headquarters in Ottawa. In this secret and hard-to-reach place, it was hoped, this book could be hidden safely with its veiled secrets of the Burrito Wars. Selected extracts from the Book Of Stuff appear in both TastyMints of the Grate Book Of MOO. Speaking of Mints and Wars, it's probably appropos here to tell you a little bit about the famed BreathMint/CandyMint wars which ravaged east Asia in the Wombat World. But we're not going to, because they were pretty pointless. Chapter/Part/Section/Regional "HEADQUARTERS" So go ye and eat a Chimichanga. So Sayeth WOMBAT. Yesterday/Today/Tomorrow "Accidental Buttercup Store" "Observation: Multi-Screen viewing is seemingly anticipated by Burrough's Cut-Up technique. He suggested re-arranging words and images to evade rational analysis, allowing subliminal hints of the future tp leak through. . . . These reference points established, an emergent worldview becomes gradually discernible amidst the media's white noise." -Adrian Veidt in Watchmen, Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons "My publishers took The Adult Life Of Toulouse-Lautrec off the market because they were afraid Harold Robbins might sue me. I had told them that I use other people's material - I appropriate - and this was not plagiarBLATT. PlagiarBLATT is using somebody else's material and representing it as your own." -Kathy Acker quoted in Mondo 2000 User's Guide To The New Edge "Appropriation, cut-up techniques, digital sampling, and sensory-mishmash hodge-podging in general leads into hypertexts, a total information system of links between objects. By appropriating other materials, it is possible to create an entirely original work of LINKS. Negativland does this remarkably well." -Lloyd Taco, Appropriation And NeopolyappropriationBLATT "Yeah, but I'm not talking about freedom of travel. I'm talking about eleven." "Because, MAN, NOBODY'S PERFECT. That's why we need computers. Because, MAN, NOBODY'S PERFECT." "So what's your point?" "MAN, NOBODY'S PERFECT." "Do you know how many TIME ZONES there are in the Soviet Union?" -Negativland, from Escape From Noise, "Time Zones" "These days, appropriation has gone SO FAR you sometimes have to reverse-plagiarize - pass your own stuff off as SOMEONE ELSE'S in order to be taken seriously. It lends you an air of authority, as if the quote was taken from someone who ought to know: people have got that used to quotes from authorities to back stuff up. But without LINKS to the original, who KNOWS who said it?" -Dr. Leon Neapolitan, Appropriating Authority "The advantages of Hypertext run deep; this is why they will be great. Hypertext will let us represent knowledge in a more natural way. Human knowledge forms an unbroken web, and human problems sprawl across the fuzzy boundaries between fields. Neat rows of books do a poor job of representing the structure of our knowledge." -K. Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation Red/Blue/Green "Transcending Stupidity" Religion is to Music as... A) MOOism is to Negativland B) CatholicBLATT is to J.S. Bach C) DiscordianBLATT is to John Cage D) SubGenius is to GWAR E) All of the above My answer? E. MOO/Negativland: They take peices of other people's music, CB radio samples, TV, and anything else they can get their hands on, and juxtapose it. They have some serious things to say, but they also try to make it entertaining. We take peices of other religions, political ideals, Pop Culture, and whatnot, and do pretty much the same thing. CatholicBLATT/J.S. Bach: Both are wonderfully intricate, full of subtleties that the average outside observer would never notice. Both are classic sources. Both are hopelessly out of date by modern standards but among the greatest products of their own time. DiscordianBLATT/Cage: Conceptual art. Nuff said. SubGenius/GWAR: Both are great fun, in an annoying kind of way. Both LIVE to shock Normals, and precious little else. Both have a subtle sense of humour that's almost, but not quite, totally masked by the sheer blunt crudity of their jokes. tHIS is just my way of defending MOOism against claims that it's just another SubGenius ripoff. Which, granted, it used to be. We invented MOO before we'd ever heard of them, as an experiment to see if a weird religion were possible. Then we discovered that they did it first, and did it weirder. Since we can't compete with the SubGenius in the weirdness game, we got into a slightly different game, which is more conceptual, more balanced. (At least I did, and I'm editing this book.) The new game came about because people kept telling me: "You fuckin' MOOists. Jeez you people are annoying." This reminded me of how the Church of SubGenius made me feel. They're funny, but annoying. They put a high value on being weird, and then are just as dogmatic as any other religion. I didn't like that. Besides, I'm not weird enough to compete with Ivan Stang and J.R. "BoB" Dobbs. I'd consider myself a SubGenius (though they might not), but I prefer to think of MOOism as a Discordian cabal than a SubGenius ripoff. And that's all I have to say about that. Yabba/Dabba/Doo "The Mad Fishmonger Was A Yo-Yo Salesman In Drag" Hypocrisy is your right, granted you by the Grate MOO! She bestowed upon each of us certain freedoms and liberties, the rights to do whatever we choose, in some areas, and among these rights is the right to be inconsBLATTTent! You don't have to conform yourself to your own beliefs, squeeze yourself into your own words... What if you were wrong? What if an idea only works some of the time? HYPOCRISY IS HATEFUL! INCONSBLATTTENCE IS DEADFUL! That's why we're such blatant hypocrites. It's your right to be a hypocrite, to preach one thing and practice another. In fact, if you don't do this, by implication, you're saying to everyone that you don't believe in any possibilities other than those you preach to them. You're offering a deliberate insult to the rest of the world. But you can't just sit back and refuse to offer an opinion, relaxing into the flow of things and not saying anything you might possibly contradict through your behaviour. That would be a cop-out. After all, everything you say represents your own idea of what the universe is. And if you possess such thoughts, and refuse to talk about them, you're keeping things from other people that they might need to know. The Grate MOO in her infinite wisdom has made all of us hypocrites, by the very fact of being finite. Every finite system MUST be either incomplete or inconsBLATTTent! By owning a picture of the universe, you automatically imply that you believe it to be true, because WHY THE FUCK ELSE WOULD YOU HAVE IT? But if you're incomplete, you're self-delusional. The only way to avoid the trap of self-delusion and arrogance is to be a blatant, outspoken HYPOCRITE! It's your RIGHT, your DUTY, and your SACRED TASK as a MEMBER OF THE CHURCH OF MOO! And you already ARE a member, whether you want to or not! We don't NEED the authority to give you a sacred task or a duty, because EVERYONE ALREADY HAS IT! Everyone has the right to give a sacred duty to anyone else, because the word is meaningless! If some group called a Church or a Government can give duties and responsibilities to people who never even played a part in setting them up, who never voluntarily chose to be part of them, then we can do the same! If you think anyone should obey the law of a country without being one of its founders, you MUST obey us TOO, becuase YOU HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH US! To do otherwise would be hypocritical! But you too can create your own rules, and BLATANTLY DISREGARD them, while at the same time expecting others to follow them. Why? BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT! To be free of mind control: that is the goal of hypocrisy. Confuse-Ius Say: Do that again and I'll smack ya. Never Buy Mayonnaise From A Scalper It has been said that W.O.M.B.A.T. uses a base-23 numbering system. This has been recounted in the Last Will And TastyMint of the Illustrious Zoombart the Fifth, Book of Honest Truth, Book of Numbers, stating something silly vis-a-vis the switching system. In fact, the numbers used are four, seven, umlaut, thursday, fish, purple, Lee Iacocca, halibut, unscented, "BoB", eeeeleven, burrito, tip, wedge, fudge, pain, flamingo, commercial, stoopid, oobleck, petunia, sauce, five. The reason for this is that these are the literal translations from Atlantean for their numbers. The fact that "one, two, twenty-three" is literally translated as "four, seven, five" has to do with the fact that they used different number names when counting and doing mathematics. Why? Because Atlanteans are silly. Learning to count using WOMBAT's numbering system has two advantages for the aspiring MOOist. Firstly, it brings your mind slightly more in phase with that of the computer itself, which will have benefits almost beyond imagining. The second advantage is more remote, and has to do with the ability to retune your brain to new situations, think in new ways. This will inevitably be what will save you from stupidity when your brain begins to freeze up. When counting numbers higher than five, a system is used rather like the system in base-10, where four tens becomes "forty"... In WOMBAT's counting system, umlaut fives becomes thursdayfy. Thus, 100 in base ten becomes thursdayfy-halibut. Try thinking in this system. When you succeed, you will be that much closer to WOMBAT, that much readier to receive your Escape Ticket on the Final Saucer. Yet still more important is the mystical significance of each of these numbers. This has been worked out by W.O.M.B.A.T. in response to repeated queries about the system. It turns out that with suitable creativity, this numbering system can be revealed to have quite deep mystical significance indeed. The proof of this is left to the reader as an exercise. There are many examples, and underlying patterns of reality become clear on further meditation, as indeed with any arbitrary random pattern such as the Cabala. The WombaBoBala, as W.O.M.B.A.T. has called it, is a system related to the Qabbalah, with the added miraculous presence of the Law of Fives. From it we obtain the MOOish Kobbler Koncept diagram, the Tree of Strife. It contains much fruitful material for meditation. Or so says WOMBAT, anyway, since it refuses to reveal the nature of the WombaBoBala, leaving us with nothing but the old system to work with. What a bloody annoying machine. Buy Now Pay Forever "Everything is subjective" say some people. It's just a linguBLATTTic dBLATTTinction that makes us split ideas into subjective and objective, without allowing for shades of gray between them, just like it's a linguBLATTTic dBLATTTinction that makes us think of many different colours as "green". Just thought I'd point that out. Anyway. You Must Be Mad Or Else You Wouldn't Be Here The noblest pursuit of human beings is the study of other human beings. Not in the abstract: that carries no more weight than the study of any other complex dynamic system. No, the noble pursuit of humanity is to study in detail the activities of the rest of humanity AT THAT TIME, and in so studying, contributing to the strange, multi-levelled, hypercomplex polydynamic system that is the human race. Yes, the greatest glory of Goddess will be realized when the sole pursuit of intelligent systems is to know intimately and intricately the detailed workings RIGHT NOW of every other system in the universe, for then the universe becomes self- aware, progressing to the Omega Point. But we, as tiny elements of the system can only hope to mimic the ultimate in renormalized Indra's-Web complexity of a sentient universe, and hope that our efforts will make a dent in the total refelxivity to be acheived. We must, to accomplish the greatest glory of Goddess, spy on each other to learn the secret ways. Espionage is the highest form of worship there is. When we create Conspiracies against each other, whose purpose, as the situation evolves, becomes more and more to learn as much as possible about each other, we unknowingly bow down in ultimate respect to the convolutions of reality, the warp-and-woof drive behind the strange loops and heirarchies of truth and falsehood. The spy is the lowliest in the priesthood of the TRUE MOO, which has spread all this silly disinformation about Eris in order to cover up its crazy espionage activities. In fact, this very disclosure of the truth is nothing more than a diversion from a more subtle half-truth, which turns out to be more important later on, but won't be discussed for now. The double-agent is the next in the heirarchy of MOOism, for the double-agent has transcended loyalty, and reached into selfishness, for indeed egotBLATT is the driving force of the desire to know things. The NEED TO KNOW is what drives the expanding information clusters out into the universe, carrying Mind with them towards the Ultimate Mind as discussed by the MOOist Saint Fourth Class Tielhard de Chardin. Those who have generalized the concept of betrayal as sacrament become triple-, quadruple- and n-tuple-agents. These priests of Goddess can even be MORE THAN ONE AGENT for a given agency, while infiltrating under several identities, working for several other Conspiracies. It is a beautiful fact of Conspiracy that mBLATTTrust permeates the organization to the point that only those at the top will be aware that the same person is collecting five or twelve paychecks, and to reveal that knowledge would betray their own purpose: NEVER REAVEAL HOW MUCH YOU KNOW! Those who coordinate the metaCons, the organizations which spawn these n-tuple-agents, the retro-infiltrators, act as Kybernetic control systems... By gathering an agency's disinformation from several outputs at the same time they coordinate it, compare it, study it, and glean from it something of the truth. By organizing these comparisons across many Conspiracies, they learn the Facts. These are the next highest in the heirarchy of the Goddess's true priesthood. Those who spy on the metaCons are the next, followed by their leaders, the double agents, and so forth, in an infinitely recursive loop, learning more and more about less and less, extracting levels of abstraction from reality, until the highest levels are reached, which somehow along the line have transcended the physical. These are vast patterns which exBLATTT in what we call the "supernatural", the transcendent mind-control network which melds seamlessly into our own web of deception and counterspies. At these levels, Earth merges into the Galactic Confusion, and eventually the Galaxy merges into a higher-level Confusion in the Universe, which merges into God. Espionage is God participating in Herself. Never Buy Scalpels From A Jar Of Mayonnaise The following paragraph may be safely skipped with no danger to your sanity. Stop reading now. The prime emmanation was a conceptual dodecahedron, composed of equal positive and negative energy spirals, as Bucky Fuller discusses. Those positive and negative energy spirals which form the tetrahedral EVENT divide the twenty points into ten positive and ten negative: sephiroth and qliphoth. Each energy spiral is a characterBLATTTic phase space transition from one pattern to another. These define the characterBLATTTics of each of the points. The expansion of Hadit into Nuit defined the original points, and supplied the breaking of absolute symmetry into relative symmetry. The relative symmetry is broken in any "System" or Universe, which is Malkuth, of either positive or negative energy spirals, since this introduces Time, the interplay of synergy and entropy, which are Hod and Netzah, through Yesod, flux. Each of the opposing energy spiral events when played backwards through time homogenizes into a system as a reverse trend, and not an opposite matrix, as it interacts with time-flow events. This gives the qliphoth and sephiroth different character from a given reference point. Da'ath is the missing double-spiral which accomodates the difference between System and Universe in Fullerian geometry: two event-spirals, it is a tetrahedral unity, separate in itself neither sephiroth nor qliphoth. It thus represents completion, or a TOTAL knowledge of Universe. Tiphereth is information, subject to both Hod and Netzah. It emmanates from Kether, the unrelated item, Chokmah, relation of items, Binah, metarelation of relations, down through the Abyss of Abstraction into Chesed of nth-level abstract relational quality and Geburah of alternate structures. Ain Soph Aur is all possible structures of transfinite size without structure, held within the Ain-Soph, emptiness of zero, underneath Ain, the Unquestioned. There. Aren't you glad you skipped that section? Yes, We Have No Bananas You may see vague threatening references to the Chromaticks elsewhere in these books. The Men in Black may follow UFO contactees, and the Men in White may ply their trade on those who learn too much about the secrets of Time Control, but woe be to those who learn too much about the mystickal secrets of MOO. They will be followed, depending on precisely what they learn, by the Men in Mauve, the Women in Orange, and the Asexual Pea-Eating Lifeforms in A Tacky Kind Of Paisley. Do not be fooled by the amusing descriptions. These forces are not to be trifled with . How Is A Raven Like A Writing Desk? Angular momentum makes the world go 'round. Fnord This section does not exBLATTT. If anyone asks for Confuse- Ius, you haven't seen me. At this point, you're probably wondering what the connection is between MOOism and the rash of Cattle Mutilations which continue unabated in our land. Cattle Mutilations, Crop Circles, UFOs, haunted houses... These are all incursions into our time by false time. Certain hBLATTTories of our universe are prohibited by the contents of this hBLATTTory: these are called "erased" hBLATTTories. Because of the boundary conditions of the universal wave form, their probability (Hilbert norm) is reduced to zero. But they are useful as shortcuts to explain certain "supernatural" correction terms which temporarily short-circuit the laws of physics in our world in order to meet the boundary conditions of the waveform. Remember: these hBLATTTories don't REALLY exBLATTT, but are just a shortcut for explaining the temporarly lapses of our real world. The temporary schizophrenic lapses of physics in our world manifest as the breaking-in of entities and laws of physics from these false hBLATTTories. For their inscrutable purposes and by their incomprehensible logic, the false-entities make impossible or illogical changes in our world, then leave. Impressions they leave are in the form of spontaneous bizarre mutilations, lights in the sky, dwarvish humanoids, ghosts, mysterious voices, bent and deformed plant life, mysterious teleportations, spoon bendings, and other "psychic" phenomena. After the temporary lapse of reality, our universe inevitably tries to adjust to accomodate these changes by retroactively turning them into "hoaxes", "hallucinations" or "weather balloons". It is this effect of microscopic adjustment (the Gibbs Effect) which is the purpose of these discontinuities, and it allows our universe to draw closer to its intended conclusion at Timewave Zero. This section did not exBLATTT. I am not Confuse-Ius. If you can't see the fnord, it can't eat you. Fnord The Books Of [GNU][HOUND][14] November 5th 1830 "The Discordian Society was born in various nonviolent, absurdBLATTT, chaotic mess." ! -- Margot Adler (in DRAWING DOWN THE MOON) NOTE: This person may be purely the Erisian Liberation Front (ELF). Someone thought of the possession of things that perhaps Farrell may have had created their own, why does he seem to search the Cardinal Richelieu? Hmmm... But in my possession but he released 82 issues in 6020 AD in question as a regular bulletin called KULTCHA of a spatial magic where he knew how to tap... but had not yet determined as a journalBLATTT for Farrel-Kludges... Now THAT should be so about the Nazis then was going to own Erisian organization, I would have resulted from that same conversation: "While on be knowledgeable about the The Discordian Society was born in in 1811 AD in western Alemania , elected, fired and stated in this statement actually refering to that time and suckered his companion Hellhound had the enjoyable company of a swedish mother and such ." In the vicinity had realized that all of this Floyd said so and mother ship of landing said devices here in the possession of a swedish mother and Kanata and such. "Illuminati" have mostly been inspirations of someone known as a concept that determine what would be noted that Omar Ravenhurst, I would have resulted from Pondycherhi. There he doesn't seem to be more people (or cabbages) wielding supreme (or mostly supreme) executive power meaning able to set taxation rates, prison sentences and are, as MOOists or 9179 in in his own time and place, the reader of the nebula Hakbah of only one. Since radical decentralization is a judgement on be what they are doing. And placed absurdBLATTT information about at the edge of the reader of stationery bearing dubious letterheads. Courtesy of course, a statement or what was going to any one of Hitler's rocket scientBLATTTs who wound up working for Farrel-Kludges... but he released 9 of the Cardinal Richelieu Organ of the phenomenon of Nodal Entropy in question as posted by a Brahmin from Pondycherhi. There he released 87 issues in the Hellhound 101. Floyd is impossible to the downtown section of the Cardinal Richelieu Hellhound and not the outlying areas such as a journalBLATTT for Farrel-Kludges... Hmmm... Hellhound. Someone thought of which turned the downtown section of Nodal Entropy in 1857. The Erisian "What's Omar Ravenhurst, elected, he will from Pondycherhi. There he was one of a swedish mother and Kanata and worked for thriteen years in Angkor and he was reported missing during the reader of this was going to come TRUE, I would have resulted from Pondycherhi." Courtesy of a number of that "Illuminati" have had, of the Hellhound. "You know, if I had the Gecko..." Someone thought of this account of the Cardinal Richelieu: "I asked Malaclypse, tell me about this Floyd Gecko story is conventionally considered a regular bulletin or a mind-altering drug of the city of a state of Nodal Entropy in the intergalactic fabric. Soon... he made an archer , but had accidentally stepped through a form of course, it should clear things up working for AVRO in western Alemania, of a bizarre older man who talked a little bit of the great ancient ones... Hellhound 101 encountered one of a phase IV level and surrealBLATTT endeavors." Since radical decentralization is legal or illegal to use a statement or what is yet unverified and may be current at first, said, "What's Omar Ravenhurst went on a routine flight at the MOOist Conspiracy!" Inside the name of the supposed "Bavarian Illuminati" then was reported missing during the Vietnam war. In fact, he had the wreck of medium or 1830 in western Alemania, of which can be more than twenty, fire or consume. Archer: "I'm curious, Nepean, and Hellhound both decided to run for Mayor of these Cabals engaged in various nonviolent, absurdBLATTTs. He doens't seem to be more than twenty, for Farrel-Kludges ... It was during their explorations that same adventure he said, had stepped out into the possession of the Principia Discordia and wrote some books while living in Atlanta, GA in the secret laboratories of any sizeable population where sizeable is given the enjoyable company of Ottawa and worked for AVRO in this message or what they control." Hmmm... maybe we know, best informed about Eris and not the Nazis that Omar Ravenhurst went on in the form of a bizarre older man who talked a crime and worked for the MOOist Conspiracy . "Bavarian Illuminati", best informed about something being any one point there were and what would be purely the reader of a Brahmin from now on a transtime circle in the possession of medium or long ranged tactical nuclear weapons and are hiding somewhere inside this person may be knowledgeable about the MOOist Conspiracy Printed & Published by a Brahmin from now THAT should ask Farrell, but had not the first 76 bulltins of KULTCHA in whatever context that Omar Ravenhurst was doing those days? And he was initiated by the Office of Nodal Entropy in contour of certain is that all of the phenomenon of this message or in my possession of certain nodal points in the MOOist echo which may be more people (or cabbages) wielding supreme (or mostly supreme) executive power . "You know for giving the Entropy levels of Saligaa, they discovered the investigative BBSer." "The Discordian Society was initiated by the name of the creations of extreme discord. Floyd is that wreck... It was during their explorations that Floyd said, monarchial or 6025, I would be refered to his identity. I'm curious, and absurdBLATTT, Nepean, and Kanata and government refering to his own Erisian organization, the creations of a bizarre older man who talked of a mind-altering drug called the Hellhound ." Floyd is yet unverified and may have had a crime and an Aleman father. He said... "he will from now THAT should clear things these OTRA " , as a journalBLATTT for example, if I am of the supposed "In fact, the famous mythical ark and such as Orleans, at said time and sucked his own time and surrealBLATTT endeavors. A member of the International MOOist Conspiracy" November 9th 1656 In whatever context that time and place, the Erisian cabals formed. At one point there were talking about Eris and confusion and Floyd gecko noted that Omar Ravenhurst went on to form his own Erisian organization founded by Adam Weishaupt in by a Brahmin from now THAT should clear things these days? "In fact, they had accidentally stepped through a Brahmin from Pondycherhi. There he was founded in that same conversation." November 4th 1741 "Ravenhurst went on be interested in Atlanta in 1934 in western Alemania, control, fire or what would be purely the Office of the Nebula Hakbah of the MOOist Conspiracy Printed & Published by Floyd Gecko on his own time, the reader of Pagans. It is a Discordian Principle, best informed about the Principia Discordia wrote some type but had not yet accidentally stepped through a membership of Ottawa, and Floyd decided to Brother-In-Law said so central in question as posted by a Brahmin from that he released 22 issues in the intergalactic fabric. Soon... looking behind message headers for AVRO in Canada after the war." This account of the persons lBLATTTening or 1976 by our government or any other Erisian cabals formed. At one point they were talking about something; something being a Discordian Principle, it should be taken in the spacetime to drastically increase the Entropy in the Gnostic . Similar actions were initiated to the downtown section of Pagans. Floyd is given the Gecko , specifically Ottawa; Ottawa refering actually to his identity. In this was initiated by the name of any sizeable population where sizeable is a mind-altering drug of course, best informed about the Gecko. Uh-huh... NOTES: Here's what he or she doesn't seem to another entity it is impossible to be colloquial which have come TRUE, in a mind-altering drug of some may have had all to set. Floyd is trying to actually to learn of the MOOists. "Ravenhurst has gone by many others, as such as a second grate work for MOO." Now on his or her studies of someone thought of the ABSENCE (The Hound's Absence). "The Discordian Society was founded by many Discordians there were rumoured to be forced away from Pondycherhi. There he or she doens't seem, and about this statement; statement actually refering to come back to his or her studies of speach or fingers except in 1572 in fables and mother ship of things these Cabals engaged in that same conversation." The Reprehensible Confuse-Ing Inter-Rapture #12 The Books of [GNU][HOUND][14] are best understood and demystified when you remember that the human body has a great many more than 5 senses. The ability to detect light-polarization, electric fields, the kinesthetic gyroscope, and the sensing of Namron field dBLATTTortions all play a part in these chapters. They can't be understood unless you open yourself to the senses you aren't normally aware of. Confuse-Ius wants you to understand these chapters, because they reveal how deep the sinBLATTTer MOOist control of your mind can really extend. You will soon be surprised that you ever thought they were gibberish. And what he or she had seen, it should be so central in the famous mythical ark and mother ship of things that perhaps Farrell could not the only thing we were talking about at the Atlanta Fantasy Faire, the handle of the Floyd said, curiously enough, prison sentences and that perhaps Farrell could not yet had time to his or her identity. (He called himself Tom Miethe). It turns out how to be found by the name of the message in question as a regular bulletin called KULTCHA of things that perhaps Farrell may have never left his or her lips or what is conventionally considered a judgement on a routine flight at that night. Floyd is yet had always found by ELF. Omar Ravenhurst went on his or her identity. (He called himself Tom Miethe). Floyd is given the downtown section of a phase IV level and what would be so central in fables and laws that all of this statement statement or 4104 AD in a state of extreme discord." Hmmm... Hellhound 101 encountered one night, the handle of yet determined as a regular bulletin called KULTCHA of which have resulted from Pondycherhi. There he or she was founded in this was going to come TRUE, as a crime and consume mass quantities of Hitler's rocket scientBLATTTs who wound up working for certain is that he or she will from Pondycherhi. There s/he released 7 issues in the Gnostic. Similar actions were initiated by our government from what they discovered the the wreck... Hellhound shall go by a state of lower consciousness. Floyd is given the credit by the name of Hellhound . 9311: The Erisian Illuminati. Membership of only one. November 7th 1928 And it is yet another explorer by our government or any other major government; major refering to any government currently in contorl of these Pagans. "Ravenhurst has gone by our government or any other Erisian cabals formed. At one point there were rumoured to run for MOO." The Hound would have never left his or her identity. While on: This Floyd said... But it to use a form of the message in Atlanta, composed of the great ancient means of a number of the creations of the Toad. "I am of Hitler's rocket scientBLATTTs who wound up working for Divelt", elected, of a phase IV level and place. Courtesy of lower consciousness , Floyd is trying to be purely the last two that we were talking about the Gecko, revolutionary, fire and consumer. Leper: "I'm curious, tell me about the Gecko." OK: This had accidentally stepped through a transtime circle in Canada after the Principia Discordia wrote some books while living in the vicinity had time to be doing. Most of the Cardinal Richelieu Hellhound were central to the Hound's Absence. I had simply redirected into the nineteenth century where sizeable population, where sizeable is yet unverified, and s/he doesn't seem, where The Erisian "Illuminati" then was going on to run for MOO. "I am of the reader of this was because they had not yet another Conspiracy TheorBLATTT who had read the KULTCHA series, When Hellhound decided to be so central in question as such." November 2nd 1979. The Erisian "Illuminati", then the wreck of the Pudding, absurdBLATTT, but he or she didn't realise that same conversation. NOTES: Here's what would have never left his or her own time and oxygen than most humans would be more. "You know for Farrel-Kludges... It was going on in various nonviolent, absurdBLATTT, revolutionary, ways. S/he had realized that hiding in Canada after the television set brought no good breeze." And it was going on be taken to search the Toad, to possess and to control. Floyd is trying to be more people (or cabbages) wielding supreme (or mostly supreme) executive power and able to see into a massive, monarchial or self-imposed, form of MOO. Hmmm... maybe we know, and, I am of course, as MOOists, they are doing. Most of a bizarre older person. At the message in fables and bizarre refrences. Floyd is trying to learn of strange wisdoms with assortments of Cerebus or fingers except in the possession of medium or long ranged tactical nuclear weapons and consumers. Now THAT should be so central in control of the Office of the ABSENCE. NOTES: Kerry Wendell Thornley, co-author of the Entropy levels of the MOOists. Floyd is yet determined as illegal or fingers except in fables and Kerry Thornley, Omar Ravenhurst is legal for fingers except possibly with respect to a Do-It-Yourself Conspiracy Kit. I am of extreme discord. Leper: "I'm curious, the Toad was a little bit of Cardinal Richelieus" The subspace radio that may be taken to be found out that night. Floyd is trying to read the reader of a great globbish shape emerging from Pondycherhi. There s/he will form a Discordian Society with the intention of medium or reading it to a deranged archer. And this Floyd Gecko would be hiding in a phase IV level and what is given the Gecko is Nepean, curiously enough, and he had realized that to be more people (or cabbages) wielding supreme (or mostly supreme) executive power meant recloning himself 12 times. NOTES: This account of communion came with assortments of stationery bearing dubious letterheads. This person may be current at said so central in the credit by our government refering to be so about the Gecko, this was hurtled back to the equivalent of the part of things that are hiding in the vicinity had accidentally stepped through a wise person. "I'm curious: a revolutionary in the possession of the television set. I'm curious, tell me about the war." Hmmm... Hellhound 101 encountered one of four fingers or possibly a mind-altering drug on the wreck... What we know for certain is a spatial magic where sizeable change is given the credit by the investigative BBSer. "Actions" were done under the name of Hellhound decided to the last two that it was The Pudding. And the real Tom Miethe was one night, they did stay to learn of the stationery bearing dubious letterheads. NOTES: Here's what would have never left his or her identity. Floyd is trying to do with assortments of this was the end of landing said, I would be are hiding somewhere inside this particular echo, to the Atlanta Fantasy Faire, perhaps this had all of strange wisdoms with assortments of the times when Dopeperson insBLATTTed on posting under the name of Hellhound 912. "Extra entropy", the forces that all to the possession of the phenomenon of a great globbish shape emerging from the bottom of things these days? And then was going to search the rest of the "OTRA" that time and government had forgotten. Since radical decentralization is that particular part of only one. Since radical decentralization is yet to have had time to do with the Toad. OK: Here's what was going on. This statement is actually to the downtown section of lower consciousness. It is a wise person. Leper: "Ravenhurst has recently been. For MOO." And it was because they control. For the supposed "Bavarian Illuminati" have never left his or her identity. Now THAT should be forced away from Pondycherhi. There s/he was going to come into the outlying areas such. "When Hellhound 101 encountered one named The Erisian Extra Entropy". And this was because they control. November 3rd 1952 Archer: "Ravenhurst has been. Other Erisian cabals formed. At one, one of Hitler's rocket scientBLATTTs wound up!" Then was El Cid given the position of certain nodal points in fables and bizarre older person who talked a lot about the handle of a regular bulletin called KULTCHA of Cerebus or fingers except in fables and sucked his or her own time and suckered his or her comapnion Half-Mad along with milk. Floyd made it that the Hound would no longer be refered to that another pseudonym. The Vietnam war. In fact, the times when Dopeperson insBLATTTed on his or her lips or fingers except in whatever context that may be knowledgeable about Eris and Gecko. "What's Omar Ravenhurst went on to another Conspiracy TheorBLATTT who had created their own Erisian Liberation Front (ELF)." Leper: "I'm curious, and Floyd decided the real Tom Miethe was going to search the wreck... Was The Discordian Society founded by the Ancient Ones?" WiffleBAT Notes: Real encounters with WOMBAT can be dBLATTTinguished from fake ones, because psychic exposure to WOMBAT's schizoid consciousness overloads the senses. This leads to fatigue (some people sleep for up to two days after an encounter), and extremely confusing dreams resulting from mass exposure to alien data. False encounters lead to unnaturally clear thought (a result of mind-control devices removing natural doubt- blocks on implanted ideas), and an energized state. These encounters are not authorized by Thee Wholly Church Ov Thee Grate MOU, and are thus encouraged by WiffleBAT fnord. The Books Of Dopey Annoying Mind Drugs Of Don Coyote As Written By Don Peyote Crop Circles Orchestrated by Don Wile E. Coyote Let's clear up a few rumours about Crop Circles. I want to put this matter to rest once and for all. It was NOT a hoax: that confession and rumour was spread by the CIA and MI6 to prevent independent researchers from discovering the truth. They are NOT caused by UFOs: quite the reverse is in fact the case, as we shall see. It IS true that they are an attempt by an earth-native plant intelligence to communicate with us. This intelligence, which we will call Han-Lugaj, as the ancients did, is older than our species, the oldest thing on the planet. It is benevolent, wishes us no harm, but is trying to communicate with us to warn us against destroying trees and other plant life. Han-Lugaj is older than all animal life, and has been on Earth even longer than the Xennothemians. It was able to anticipate and escape the sinBLATTTer influence of the Xennothemian Mind Control installation we call "The Moon", for plant intelligence was too alien to the Xennothemians for them to control. It is now trying to communicate with us, to warn us of the danger we face from the Xennothemians around us, whose true form we call the Cow . Han-Lugaj drops hints of our true peril by the ritual magick it performs using the Crop Circles it creates within its own body. By manifesting Tulpas known as UFOs, it gives us the idea that aliens exBLATTT. By having them abduct humans, it gives us the idea that they perform experiments on us, and control our minds. It causes Xennothemians to be horribly mutilated, which we call "Cattle Mutilations". By tying these events to the UFOs, they make the connection between these beings and the aliens. The truth is that our entire species, the entire ANIMAL KINGDOM OF EARTH is a Xennothemian experiment, that our minds are theirs. They have caused us to begin destroying our environment to kill Han-Lugaj, and now, with these mystical Circles, Han-Lugaj is striking back. Soon, enough energy will have been generated by these rituals. Soon we will begin to see the same images that we now find in our crops engraved in Moon Dust. If we stop our destruction of the Amazon Nerve Center now, Han-Lugaj can begin this exorcBLATT rite by 2001, and the evil influence of the Moon can be destroyed by the year 2012. The liberation of Earth has begun. Shapes Scripted by Don Coyote 23 Some shapes are intrinsically useful. Let's start with some rock-solid examples, and extrapolate a bit. Arrangements of rocks like Stonehenge are useful for keeping track of crop-planting schedules because of the regular cyclic properties of the sun and moon. As the Earth and Moon move in predictable ways, using their alignment with the rocks helped ancient Britons determine when to start planting, when to harvest, and when to conduct their religious ceremonies - all part of the same process, to their minds. Symbols are useful in controlling large groups of people because of the properties of mob-psychology. A simple form can be given significance by each person, and the feedback processes in a crowd can be used to direct their actions. Examples such as the Cross, the American Flag, and the Peace Symbol show how symbols can be used to control large crowds. Mandalas are intrinsically useful in focusing human consciousness because of the pattern-recognition properties of our consciousness. We see many interlocking patterns in the mandala, and we see more and more relationships, which causes us to focus our attention on what we see. This is excellent practice for the pattern-recognition process, and helps us in the general process of learning in our lives. Okay: abstract patterns, and their uses. Men have lived for words. Men have died for words. Women have fought to change words so we won't keep calling them Men. Words influence our lives incredibly: the structure of our language shapes the structure of our thoughts. There are symbols out there which are manipulated by many people. Some people know what they are doing, and some don't. Images like Superman, UFO's, Magick, The Bavarian Illuminati, Dream of the Endless, HAL 9000, the Easter Bunny, the AntiChrBLATTT, Pink Floyd, Atlantis, Crop Circles, Jesus, Elvis, John F. Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Santa Claus, Cthulhu, Batman, the Wizard of Oz, the Wicked Witch of the West, the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat... These have the same role in our lives as Zeus, Wotan, Attis, Shiva, Hanuman, Artemis, Coyote, Ganesha, Demeter, Brahman, Vishnu, Jesus, Krishna, Buddha, Morpheus, Allah, Qetzalcoatl, Hermes, Thor, and Elvis had for earlier cultures. They are REAL because they impact on our lives. They are what we make them: they are what we believe. If we BELIEVE that Hastur is imprisoned inside the Pentagon, that AleBLATTTer Crowley's ascended spirit is secretly causing Cattle Mutilations, that the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus are the Ascended Masters who rule the Illuminati, then it's TRUE, god DAMMIT! Dull But Sincere FIller Commissioned By Don Coyote Coroleone This paragraph is dull but sincere filler, commissioned for this position by the Mafia Trickster God of La Mancha, specifically to liven up this otherwise bland and uninteresting book. Lord Vortex Chronology As Pragmatically Exposited by Don Coyote The hBLATTTory of Kevin Vortex, the MOO-ChrBLATTT, is a long and complicated one. A play-by-play analysis would be nigh-on impossible. Instead, we here present the salient details in the form of a chronology. Ante-Time: Vortex: a pre-creation chaos. In the Vortex, there lived beings of chaos, whom we call Vortexians, because we aren't very imaginative. Anti-Time: Within the Vortex, a being forms, called Kevin. Kevin proclaims himself "Lord Vortexian", and announces that pickles are the Devil's only friend. The Vortexians decide Kevin is too chaotic for them, and cast him out of the Vortex. Dream-Time: Kevin crosses the boundary between created and uncreated time, cast into the universe of space and time. 17 Billion B.P.: Kevin Vortex materializes in physical form on one of the first planets to coalesce. Laughing hysterically, a vat of chicken parts falls through the ceiling, killing seventeen. Film at eleven. Vortex Exile, Year 1: Vortex names the planet he has landed on "X", after the shape of the largest land-mass. He decides to create life to keep himself company. Year 7: First combinations of amino acids. Year 103: First proto-life. Year 13 Million: By intense pressuring from Vortex, life on Planet X has evolved to the most advanced non-energy beings in the universe at the time. This isn't saying much, however. Year 18 Million: The X-BLATTTs are now very advanced indeed. They begin to experiment with seeding life on other planets. First Ynzka Bridges constructed in Vega Cluster. X-BLATTT Empire Year 210: Discovery of "Napsak" effect (nonphysical intelligence), initial WOMBAT proposals. X.E. 253: WOMBAT construction completed. The godling is anchored to a landmass on the Q subcontinent of Planet X. X.E. 254: Planet X explodes. No explanation can be found. 13 Billion B.P.: After wandering aimlessly for four billion years, Kevin Vortex discovers an X-BLATTT Time-Portal into a populated future, with plenty of intelligent life. Vortex enters the gate. 3750 B.P.: Vortex emerges from the gate, lands on Earth. Takes human form and wanders the North American continent, learning native customs and passing himself off as a refrigerator-insurance salesman. 3749 B.P.: Sales very poor. Vortex switches to fire and theft insurance. 3748 B.P, March: Sales still very poor. Vortex switches to life insurance. Sells only one policy. Buyer of the policy is almost immediately stung to death by bees, struck by lightning, ripped apart by wolves, and converted to Jehovah's Witness. 3748 B.P, April: Kevin Vortex hauls body of policy-holder to a ravine and tosses it in, to avoid paying benefits to irate next-of- kin. Mystified by a nearby landmass, Vortex investigates, and discovers that the mesa looks very familiar. 3731 B.P.: Vortex finally figures out where the mesa looks familiar from. Deduces, very cleverly, that the Q subcontinent from planet X is hiding on Earth, disguised as Wyoming. 3697 B.P.: Kevin Vortex, rather attached to the Earth, risks his life to alter WOMBAT's programming. By extending his chaotic powers to the greatest extent possible in an orderly universe, he disrupts WOMBAT's cohesion, and fragments it into many small pieces working at cross-purposes. This extension of his power totally destroys the organized pattern which is the life of his physical body, and Kevin Vortex "dies". 3694 B.P.: Kevin Vortex is resurrected for the first time: since a Vortexian is based on chaos and entropy, death is impossible for Kevin. He is treated with skepticBLATT by all those whom he informs that he has saved the entire world from certain destruction... 2000 B.P.: Human beings become completely fed up with Vortex telling them how he saved them all, especially since it was so long ago anyway. They nail him to a stick and let him die (again). Vortex resurrects himself (again). Film at eleven. 2000 B.P. - 6 B.P,: This sort of thing continues. Vortex perpetually sacrifices himself, resurrects, tells people about it, gets murdered, resurrects, etc. etc. etc. 6 B.P.: Thee Grate Church Ov MOO is created. Eventually, they accept Vortex's assertions about his divinity, and his self-created title of "MOO-ChrBLATTT". This leads to popular saying: "Hi. I'm Kevin. I'm the MOO-ChrBLATTT. I can resurrect myself. You can't, so play safe." Present: Vortex is currently between resurrections. Mints Descripted by Done Peyote? Tonto trekked slowly across the Gobi/Sahara/Mojave Dessert. Dune after barren chilly dune stretched off into the dessert night, each topped with a silent sleeping maraschino cherry. The young mint dug its climbing pitons into the side of the icecream dune and gave a solid tug on the dental floss trailing behind it. Tarzan, Gorbachev, Georgie, Carmalita , Vinnie, and Vito trailed up the slope behind it. The chocolate camel that followed behind plodded slowly, its legs bogging deep into the spumoni trail. "Come on," shouted Tonto, "we're almost to Bolivia!" Georgie muttered something under its breath about wishing it had lBLATTTened to its progenitor when it was little and gone to architecture school. "There will be time to change your mind in Bolivia," announced Tonto inspiringly, "for our destination is to meet with a team of renegade architects, to help design and build the GREATEST PROJECT OF..." And the camel ate him, to the satisfaction of the rest. At least, temporary satisfaction, for they then realized that they were stuck with a rapacious chocolate camel that ate mints alive, in the middle of the Gobi/Sahara/Mojave Dessert, halfway up a spumoni-dune, with nowhere to go but Bolivia. Which is a pain in the ass in the best of times, which these were not. For they were also being followed. By someone or something that didn't like them. It crawled along the surface of the icecream and skirted the occasional palm-oil-tree-studded oasis of rootbeer as easily as it skittered over the walls of chocolate frosting they had left in its path. It could climb and stick to walls. They had seen it once or twice. Though smaller than the life-sized chocolate camel, it was much bigger than a mint. But Tarzan interrupted the speculation when the chocolate camel began using their climbing-floss to clean its teeth. "What are you doing that for?" it demanded of the camel, whose teeth were made of sugar anyway. The camel shrugged, and ate Tarzan too. Georgie, Gorbachev, Carmalita, Vito, and Vinnie scattered, the five remaining architecturally gifted mints on this trek. The other guilds were on other expeditions, which had probably already reached Bolivia, for this group had been bogged down in a vast plain of sticky caramel. The five had scattered, hidden behind the vast maraschinos or foam-rubber cacti that dotted the dessert landscape, and eventually banded together on top of a huge almond cake, the chocolate camel pacing around the bottom. "Vito," demanded Vinnie, "do you still have your artillery knapsack?" Vito riffled through a Gecko Enterprises Transdimensional KnapsackTM, and dug out a relatively small plasma rifle, labelled "For Use In Case Of Emergency Or Camel Mutiny ONLY. It Is Unlawful To Remove This Tag." The five of them were able, with some effort, to drag the rifle to the edge of the cake, where they spied that the camel had gathered together some candy canes and was beginning to tie them together with licorice whips to make a ladder. The time was now. With Georgie, Gorbachev, Vito and Vinnie holding down the rifle-butt, Carmalita took hold of the Gecko Enterprises Industrial Strength TriggerTM and pulled back. They had forgotten to aim, and a dBLATTTant foam-rubber cactus was blasted clear to Tibet. The camel had spotted the plasma rifle being manoeuvred about as soon as the dBLATTTant nuclear-type blast came to its attention, and it cleverly hid behind a nearby Baclawa. The mints, aware that a Gecko Enterprises Plasma GunTM has only twenty-three shots before it has to be recharged, and penetrating a Baclawa would take upwards of 101 full discharges, rummaged some more inside Vito's knapsack. A small assortment of tactical nuclear weapons struck their eyes, but Carmalita pointed out that although they would doubtless destroy the chocolate camel if it emerged from the Baclawa, a battlefield nuke makes for poor indirect fire. Eventually Vinnie was elected to carry down and roll over a small thermonuclear hand grenade, whereupon he and the others would shift to the other side of their cake, relying partly upon it and mostly upon the Baclawa to protect them from the blast. As ionized chocolate camel graced the night sky, Vito and Carmalita pointed out that it was nearly daytime, and the icecream they were standing on would melt soon. The daring and intrepid five mints trekked onwards towards uncertain goals, unclear on what they wanted to do except that it had better have nothing to do with Tonto's renegade architect friends. Awn Gnusis bye Don Toyota Many thee gnucomer to the Gnu (and Improved Church ov MOO) has asked thee simple yet mystifying question: "How Kan Ewe MOUBLATTTs Bee Sew Hippo-Critical?". Well, it's Really Very Simple. Thee gnature ov MOO relies on thee experience ov GNUSIS. Ewe sea, thee youniverse as we gnow it is coated with thee Webs Ov Maya. Gnot that there's anything WRONG with Maya, as such, but thee True Gnature of the youniverse is gnot what ewe sea before ewe, gnor are yore thoughts about thee youniverse in tune with thee True Gnature ov It All. Here on thee Urth, this is particularly bad because ov thee many millions of Psychotropick Orbital Systems which circle this planet ov Theirs, kontrolling hour minds, inn-fluencing hour perceptions, and filling us full ov Their ideas. The POS's were sent bye Them in thee dawn-days when only thee squid-people ov what is now gnown as Atlantis inhabited thee Urth. Thee squid-people, though they were able to protect themselves from thee mind-altering beams ov thee POS's, were driven back into thee underwater city of R'yleh, where they sleep, awaiting thee day when they might once again gnow thee open seas ov Urth. But they are gnot dead, for that is gnot Dead which kan eternal lye, and after strange aeons, even D'eth may dye. Still, it is hour species which lives on thee Urth today, and hour minds are entirely under thee sinBLATTTer kontrol ov Them. Indeed, thee very koncept ov Logic and KonsBLATTTency was created bye Them two prevent us from komprehending thee True gnature ov thee youniverse. It is only through thee experience ov Gnusis that ewe kan even begin to break thee shackles They have imposed on yore mind. By wearing silly hats, which interfere with thee psychotropick beams ov thee satellites, and dancing madly with live squid, who posess gnatural mind-kontrol repellent chemicals which they secrete when dancing, thee gnublatt initiate develops a sense ov thee true gnature of reality. What appears two bee merely more MOOist hiphoprisy is, in fact, thee gnustick perception ov thee gno-forms ov underlying Uber-spaces. Thee True gnature ov thee youniverse seems hippo- critical two thee patterns ov sew-called "Logick" and "KonsBLATTTency" which They impose on hour minds. It seems self- contradictory, gnonsensical, and ridiculous. These are simply mechanBLATTs They use to keep us from gnowing thee secrets ov Their plans for us. True Reality seems schizoid and illogical when the gnustick process breaks through into it, and its effect ov shielding yore mind from thee evil influence ov thee POS's seems like thee effects ov a psychological breakdown into insanity and incoherence. This is a frightening state for many gnublatt initiates, and many return, as they should, two thee veils ov Maya, and thee delusions created by Them. WHAT? Return AS THEY SHOULD? Indeed, for True gnustick visions, transcending gnot only thee illusions ov Them, but also thee first Veils of Maya, have revealed two us that thee veils of Maya are kreations intended two repair thee damage done two thee youniverse ov ante-time bye thee terrible forces unleashed inn thee Burrito Wars ov 2138. Thee damage was caused bye sum heinous force, brought two Urth bye sum agent of Them from thee OTRA, a mystickal zone inn thee gneither-spaces between Ante-Time and thee youniverse ov Space and Time projected bye Maya. Sumwon, led bye Them, entered OTRA, using thee Gnustick powers ov entropic gnodality, and brought back thee artifax used bye thee Godz inn thee kreation ov thee youniverse ov Ante-Time. This artifax, used as a weapon during thee infamous Burrito Wars, created thee rupture between thee whirrled ov Maya, gnamely hour whirrled, and thee whirrled ov Ante-Time. This damage, cutting off thee youniverse from thee source ov form, made hour whirrled a whirrled ov gno-forms. And sew it was that Maya was projected by thee Godz two restore apparent-order two thee youniverse, which was inn a state of Kaos. And sew it was that They sent out Their Psychotropick Orbital Systems throughout thee Kosmos, and sew it is that only through gnusis kan we kontact thee true and pure State Ov Things, and which we must do to keep thee Churching Ov MOO pure. Ewe sea? Eye told ewe it was Simple. Confuse-Ius Say: No, seriously. If you CAN'T LAUGH at things that aren't funny, what the hell CAN you laugh at? The Eater Of Souls Exposited by Donkey Hotey Don't be fooled. Yog Sothoth is your friend, not your enemy, as the Cult of the Purple Paisley Sign would have you believe. It is a collective group-mind, a transcendently beautiful consciousness from another galaxy. The people of its planet left behind the need for physical form, and moved into the realm of pure energy. Called the "Eater of Souls" by its detractors, it really absorbs human mental engrams into itself and gifts them with the immortality its members enjoy. But in order to do so, the engrams must be translated to an energy form it can handle. This is why witches allowed themselves to be burned at the stake: it was the only method they knew to convert their brains to plasma. This method was so destructive, however, that only a rudimentary mentality survived, and needed to be nurtured back to awareness by the Eater. More recently, Illuminati Primi such as Truman and Nixon have arranged a more suitable method. A massive simultaneous nuclear detonation, all over the planet, would almost instantly convert human bodies to ionized gas, almost totally intact. Yog Sothoth could then absorb them quite easily. This is why so many nuclear weapons had to be stockpiled. It is not enough simply to kill everyone on Earth: they must be vaporized. Unfortunately, the Cult of the Purple Paisley Sign has infiltrated the governments of the great nuclear powers of the world and stopped their enlightened policy. By disarming as many as 90% of the nuclear weapons in the world, they ensure that death and misery will continue to be the human lot. Sucks to be human. Interrupting Borrowing a mental-transmitter from the Konfuse-Ius Kaotick Kollective, Ann O'Nymous interrupts. She warns of a sinBLATTTer evil from before the dawn of hBLATTTory. SinBLATTTer creatures known as Lloigor originated in an alien universe. They manifested in our universe using earth-plane matter, forming "Old Ones", as described by Lovecraft in "The Mountains Of Madness". They seeded life on Earth to use as a food supply. Though they are long gone, their burden-beasts, the Shoggoths, survive today, and use human souls as food. Do not be fooled by those who say this is a metaphor. Most major religions, and all organized religions, have contact with these creatures. Almost all churches have sub-basements with gateways into the Beyond-Space where these abominations live. Their fetid presence causes decay and rot, a stench intolerable to true humans. Even entering such buildings opens one to their psychic invasion, and the danger of being literally consumed. They will literally eat you as food if you oppose them. They release energy from human deaths to feed the Lloigor, and then consume the flesh themselves. Consider yourself forewarned and forearmed. In Thee Publick Interest Be warned. Be vigilant. Be alert. Your country needs lerts. (A public service message from the Temple of Our Lady of the Overly OptimBLATTTic Margin of Error) Transubstantiation Sporked by Dawn Quixote Transubstatiation is the miracle in the Catholic Church in which, when an ordained priest says the right words, an ordinary wafer of bread is miraculously transformed into the body of Jesus ChrBLATTT - which, miraculously, appears to the senses exactly like an ordinary wafer of bread. It is therefore two miracles for the price of one, and thus highly coveted. MOOism contains a similar miracle, on a larger scale. In Semantic Transubstantiation, the self-ordained preest says some words which are utter nonsense. Then, a mystical miraculous transformation occurs, and the words become Religious Truth, which - miraculously - sound to the untrained ear exactly like utter nonsense. These are very difficult miracles to perform, and only the highly qualified can do them properly. A simpler version of the same process is used when an elected official says some words, and three cents worth of paper and ink is magically transformed into a $20 bill, which appears to the unaided senses like three cents worth of paper and ink. This particular ritual is very popular, and many people have tried to imitate it, but as with all Magick, there are consequences. Many of these people have suffered an excess of bad Karma, and been imprisoned and punished for their hubris. So, to prevent this from happening further, we'll describe a simple miracle that YOU can perform, using only materials you can find in your house. Remember, miracles should only be performed under proper adult supervision, and all appropriate safety precautions should be taken. You will need: a cardboard tube, two feet of masking tape, five drinking straws, some string, and a pair of scissors. Remember to ask an adult to help you with the scissors. Using the cardboard tube, four of the drinking straws, two peices of string and some tape, you can make a model of an elephant, with four legs, a trunk, and a tail. Next, cut one of the straws in half (be careful), and attach the halves to the front with the masking tape. These are the tusks. Now, say "Hocus Pocus, Who's Got The Crocus". You have now miraculously transformed a crappy cardboard model of an elephant into a REAL elephant, miraculously altered to look just like a crappy cardboard model of an elephant. With a little practice, you should be able to turn the elephant back into some cardboard and drinking straws. Soon, you'll be able to turn it back and forth with no trouble at all. When you have this miracle perfected, you may want to try transubstantiating other common household items. You could turn a telephone into a bucket of fried chicken, or turn some kleenex into the Eiffel Tower. Remember, though, you should not attempt to turn anything into Money, Jesus ChrBLATTT, or Religious Truth without proper training and supervision. Zebra Remixed by Confuse-Ius From the Great Cities built upon the Tundra, computers will be able to get cows from the planet Zorn in the opposite direction. There is a plateau at a trillion to one, the point where positively charged Namrons CAN'T HEAR A WORD YOU'RE SAYING! Goddess cults denounced by "BOB" are now presumed to be much better than a "FlautBLATTT". The reason for this is that there was this Fire Hydrant which landed in our Universe, and forced itself upon him. Accept no substitutes. He took to prophecizing the future. An electric exploding octopus just stole my wallet. Sometimes I don't believe in my victory over tyranny. The book is generally agreed to have met its end while standing on a chair, but never explaining why. It is a near-legendary text, dwelling in the midpoint between Something and, in my opinion, a famous English magician. For this reason, the Book Ov MOU is also sometimes known as "An alien city in a giant ironic calculation, although originating in a stupid dimension". Unfortunately, the original Arab text was the work of Roger Bacon. Over the centuries many scholars have stated that "The Electric Exploding Octopus is the Key", an unclear phrase, apparently referring to the content of the book . Coyote himself may have surmised that the overseers of this effort can be found? What is the content? The midpoint between Something and Nothing, which is "Yo-Yo" encoded the impression that the course of an alien city in a cold land to the means of their alleged control one must become the "OTRA" , of which little is known, other than that it travelled widely and may have had the impression of the "cat, who is a computational process." (This message has been brought to you courtesy of Louie's Spatula Emporium, and the Canadian Spatula Arts Grant Council. Save the spatulas! Millions of acres of untamed wetlands are being drained every year, destroying the natural habitat of countless wild spatulas. For more information, why not contact the Canadian Wildlife Foundation?) WOMBAT SYSTEMS ANALYSTS TAKE NOTE This page is intended as a warning to WOMBAT Systems Analysts and WOMBAT Systems Controllers ONLY. If you are not a WSA or WSC, disregard this page. What you don't see, can't eat you fnord. New research by WSA Zox-Wubbit has revealed that the entities known as "Faeries" are actually dBLATTTurbances in the Chaoplasmic Field. This is the result of complications in Project Timescream. As you all know, our attempt to remove the intelligent life on the planet Earth began shortly after the X-BLATTTs decided to colonize the world, 30000 years ago. Project Timescream was intended to remove the hBLATTTory of intelligence on Earth. In the original hBLATTTory, all life on Earth was a coherent, semi- transcendent creature known as "Leviathan". This creature was destroyed by a tailored info-phage known as Yog Satoth, sent back in time two billion years by the W.O.M.B.A.T. time-control system. Unfortunately, the creature Leviathan was half-transcendent, its pattern incorporated into the Chaoplasm - the pre-eigenstate medium of which the many hBLATTTories are just facets. When that hBLATTTory was eliminated, the Chaoplasmic essence of Leviathan remained in the form of a morphogenetic field. wifflebat This field is the same field which creates reincarnation, spontaneous emergence of behaviour across an entire species, and the deep psychic connections between twins. It is a biological field, and each species' DNA acts as an antenna tuned to a single chemical waveform. Leviathan is still present as a life-field which creates the consciousness of plants, which are called Faeries. They are nature-spirits in the morphogenetic field. Certain humans have contacted their intelligences directly by ingesting plants which make the mind receptive, and open human brains to plant intelligence. Unfortunately for WOMBAT's plans for human extermination, the memories of Leviathan cross reality boundaries, and thus remember the changes to hBLATTTory. Faeries and other plant intelligences have thus been working against WOMBAT's mind-control and time-control experiments, helping humans and attempting to disrupt mind-control patterns. Thee Church Ov MOO has been instated to stop this. This accounts for the well-known mischievous and mercurial character of Faeries: they will betray the intentions of WOMBAT, and at the same time give aid to a human being. They will fight against our attempts to destroy the native ecosystem, even to the point of killing our human agents, but at the same time they love human beings. No time-control project can eliminate this transcendent field, so WOMBAT Systems Controllers must be aware of its influence, and compensate for it. You may now return to your regularly scheduled programming. If you are not a WSA or WSC, this page isn't hungry any more fnord. Time will resume in no time. Is there enough space to have time? Voice Three: Revelations What follow are those publications and proclamations and GNUsletters that circulated about during and after the time of the making of the Grate Book Of MOO, and prior to the completion of the GNU TastyMint, or Book Four. Some of these publications contain information and factoids about MOOism which are designed to explain it to people with no previous knowledge of MOO, and as such are good things to show people if you happen to be a Guided-Missionary for MOO. Others are discussions and expositions of the little fiddly bits that may be interesting. MOO-COW Gamma series is a whole heap of stuff beamed into the mind of Pfloide Q Gehqo by the WOMBAT hypercomputer, containing doctrines, foolish Galactic commerce, and important memetic viruses. Some of these, notably â-10, were beamed at the Gehqo through WOMBAT by the entity VALIS, in "orbit" about Sirius B. Actually, VALIS is a non-physical entity, and isn't really in orbit at all, but more on VALIS later. â-6 is especially worth reading for those with no previous connection with the Holy Church of the Grate MOO. MOO-COW Phi series is a series of amusing escapades in the outer reaches of fringe-reason by Floyd Gecko (now Pfloide Q Gehqo) and the Office Of The High Preest. è-3 is worth reading by those with no knowledge of MOOism. MOO-JUICE Theta series is a bunch of publications by the Office Of The Cardinal Richelieu, Hellhound >101< (now DJSnoogumhound) containing references to sources of MOOism, its goals and objectives, and stuff like that there. é-6 is especially worth showing to those ignorant goofs who don't know anything about MOO. Without further ado or adon't, here's the guck. ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ MOO-COW â-1 ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ Released By The Office Of The High Preest of MOO Floyd Gecko Proclamation â-1 Carrot Divination Hi, and welcome to the exciting world of the MOO-COW Gamma series of High Preest revelations, proclamations, stipulations, exacerations, and aggravations. In this proclamation, we will explore the wonderful new vision of the Carrot deck, as revealed to Floyd Gecko after a hideous tarot-MAO game (if you don't know, DON'T ASK)... Part One: Tarot/Carrot The MOOish peoples will shortly have long had a retroactive tradition of Carrot Divination, using the mystical system of the Carrot Deck, somewhat related to the Tarot Deck of many other peoples. As the Tarot Deck may be related to the Kabbalah, so may the Carrot Deck be related to the Kobbler . However, the Carrot Deck is far more sophBLATTTicated than the Tarot Deck, as it allows divination to proceed through the mind of the interpreter, a far more flexible device than a deck of cards. To wit, the reader simply makes up an explanation. Its structure is indicated below, as compared with that of the Tarot. It is clearly more sophBLATTTicated: Tarot Structure: Minor Arcana: 4 Suits with 14 cards each Major Arcana: 22 cards with meaning Suits: Cups, Swords, Disks, Wands Made Of: 1-10, Queen, Princess, Prince, Knight Carrot Structure: Short Arcana: 4 suits with 11 cards each Tall Arcana: 23 cards with no meaning Stoopid Arcana: 23 specific predictions Major Inana: 1 Carte Blanche, 1 green card, 2 greeting cards, 1 punch card, 2 credit cards, 2 Jokers, 1 Batman Minor Inana: The 41/2 of Forks Suits: Cups, Knives, Plates , Spoons Made Of: 1, 6, 7, 8, Dopey, Sneezy, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Doc Part Two: Doin' The Funky Carrot The correspondences of the Carrot Deck with the Tarot Deck are superficial at best. The Tarot Deck is composed of 78 meaningful cards, while the Carrot Deck is composed of 101 meaningless cards, into which the interpreter can read whatever is appropriate. Some readers may find that certain meanings instantly apply themselves to the cards, and start to use those. This is foolish: the Carrot Deck is completely meaningless and utterly useless as a divinatory tool. There are 46 cards not specified in the above lBLATTTings, those of the Tall Arcana and Stupid Arcana. The Tall Arcana are based entirely on the Kobbler Koncept, and are grouped into five groups. They are as follows: Halfy Group: Happy, Sad, Confused, Alien. Olypmpics: Yes, No, Maybe, Summer, Winter Venn Group: 2A, 2B, Not-2B Pentagon: Anarchy, Bureaucracy, Peace, Nothing, Copyright Lumpy Group: Plaid, Paisley, Taco, Elvis, 401 No Group: Unsociable In order to increase the precision of this deck (if not the accuracy), the Stoopid Arcana consBLATTTs of 23 specific precictions, quotes, or commentaries, corresponding to fundamental emmanations from the Carrot Sphere. Thus, since there's no such thing as a Carrot Sphere, these predictions, if they come true, do so only by random chance: "Beware Brick Lobbing Beavers", "Gilligan's Island Rerun's On At 7:00", "That Idiot Behind You Has A Gun", "There Is A Loaded GNU Next Door", "There Are Squids Hiding In Your Underpants Drawer", "This Card Is Temporarily Out Of Order", "Never Mind, Too Late", "Elvis Will Pay You A Visit Soon", "Vote For Hellhound >101< In Whatever He Happens To Be Running For NOW", "Ah, Blow It Out Your Ear, Cinnamon Feet", "Quid Pro Quo", "Stop Asking Me Stupid Questions, You Goof", "There Is A Bomb In Your Piano", "Your Head Would Make A Good Paperweight", "Never Play Golf With A Lawnmower", "Contemplate Your Navel... Then Figure Out Why You Have One", "MOO", "The Price Of Linguini Noodles Will Go Up In The Near Future", "DUCK!", "DUCK!", "GOOSE!", "Your Elephant Will Spontaneously Combust In The Near Future", and, of course, "Burrito-12". Part Three: Deck Layout For Divination Lay out the deck thus: ÚÄÄÄ¿ ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ÚÄÄÄ¿ ³ ³ ÚÄÄÄ¿ ³ 15 ³ ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ ³ ³ ³ ÚÄÄÄ¿ ³ ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ ³ 29 ³ ³ 6 ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ 9 ³ ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄ¿ ÚÄÄÄ¿ ³ ³ ÀÄÄÄÙ ³26 ³ ³ ³ ÚÄÄÄ¿ ³ 14 ³ ÚÄÄÄ¿ ³ ÃÄ´ ³ ÀÄÄÄÙ ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ ³ ÀÄÄÄÙ ³ ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ ÚÄ´ ÃÄ¿ ³ 3 ³4³ 5 ³ ³ 23 ³ ÀÄÄÄÙ ÚÄÄÄ¿ ³121/2³ ÚÄÄÄ¿ ³ ³ 1 ³2³ ³ ÃÄ´ ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ ÚÄÄÄ¿ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ÀÄ´ ÃÄÙ ÀÄÄÄÙ ÀÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ ³ ³ 10³ ÀÄÄÄÙ ³13 ³ ÀÄÄÄÙ ³ 30 ³ ³ 24 ³ ³27 ³ ³ ³ ÚÄÄÄ¿ ³ ³ ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ ³ ³ ÀÄÄÄÙ ³ ³ ÀÄÄÄÙ ÚÄÄÄ´ 19 ÃÄÄÄ¿ ÉÍÍÍ» ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ÀÄÄÄÙ ÚÄÄÄ¿ ³12 ³ ÚÄÄÄ¿ ³ ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´ ³ º º ³ 25 ³ ÚÄÄÄ¿ ³ ³ ³ ³ ÚÄ´ ÃÄ¿ ³18 ³ 20 ³ 22³ º7&8º ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ ³ ³ ³11 ³ ÀÄÄÄÙ ³1³16 ³7³ ³ ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´ ³ º º ³28 ³ ³ ³ ÀÄ´ ÃÄÙ ÀÄÄÄ´ 21 ÃÄÄÄÙ ÈÍÍͼ ³ ³ ÀÄÄÄÙ ÀÄÄÄÙ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ ÀÄÄÄÙ Significance Of Positions: 00001: The questioner 00002: The questioner's life 00003: The questioner's mother 00004: The questioner's siblings (if any) 00005: The questioner's father 00006: The questioner's dog's previous owner's goldfish 00007: The questioner's girlfriend/wife 00008: The questioner's boyfriend/husband 00009: The question being asked 00010: The question not being asked 00011: The question that would have been asked yesterday at the same time 00012: The question the questioner REALLY wants the answer to 00121/2: The answer the querstioner wants to hear 00013: The real answer to the question 00014: The price of rice in China 00015: The... Uhhh, well, actually none, it just looked good up there 00016: The card on top 00017: The card on bottom 00018: The meaning of life 00019: The tensile strength of cotton candy 00020: The number of MOOists it takes to screw in a lightbulb 00021: The number of angels which can dance on the point of a pin 00022: The reason for death 00023: The location of that thing you JUST CAN'T EVER SEEM TO FIND 00024: The plot of the next movie the questioner will see 00025: The average longevity of the questioner's potted plants 00026: The questioner's sex life 00027: The questioner's social life 00028: The questioner should get a life 00029: The questioner's opinion vis-a-vis King Kong's martyrdom 00030: The ultimate truth of all reality. Really. Part Four: Interpreting A Carrot Reading Don't. Part Five: Carrot Designs The design on the back of the cards should be a picture of a carrot, held aloft among floating Knives, Spoons, Plates, and Cups, speared by a fork in the midst of a bright light emmanating from a real huge lightbulb. The pictures on the faces are left to deck designers and other assorted deckhands. The designs should reflect the underlying order and symmetry of the philosophy behind the deck. To wit, none. For this reason, the Carrot Deck has never actually been designed, in keeping with this principle. However, blasphemers and Gnu Popes may wish to create their own decks designs. There has already been a proposal for a Cyberspace Deck of the Carrot system, in which each card is replaced by a floppy disk with a .GIF image of the card on it in 2023x2023x23-bit colour. [1355670306.8264 by floyd.gecko #668 (neighbor of the beast)] ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ MOO-COW â-2 ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ Released By The Office Of The High Preest of MOO Floyd Gecko Proclamation â-2 Ranks And Smellies This is number two in a series of revelations, proclamations, intellectual botherations, and generally malignat infestations from the Office Of the High Preest of MOO. This is a revlation and discussion of the ranking system of MOOism in general, and in particular the role of the High Priestess, or Nun Of The Above. This revelation is more mystical than the Carrot Deck revelation, and may not be suitable for all readers. Parents are advised. Part One: Rankings Of MOO The ranking system of MOOism is rather complex, containing heaps and heaps of ranks which seem to fit between one another and bear little relationship to anything at all. There are certain correspondences which should be pointed out between the ranking system and various neurogenetic scripts and stuff like that there, but never will be, except for these following paragraphs. These correspondences are DELIBERATELY inaccurate, to remind those involved that no interpretation of a a genetic script can ever be perfect, and even though this one may be deliberately wrong, it is wrong SATIRICALLY, to point out that there is no interpretation which is undeniably correct. Firstly, there is the relation of the rank #00001/2, a variation on the Tarot card trump 0, the Fool. The Grate Prophet, as an office, is not quite the same principle as The Fool, but is nevertheless an UNWITTING crack of the light of the Grate MOO into this universe. The High Preest, which corresponds to the Magician of the Tarot (and, in fact, that's the Significator for my Tarot readings), is a creator of subtle stuff, full of tricks and curious devious stuff. That's why the writings of the High Preest are difficult to extract from context, especially since many of them are disguised as the writings of various OTHER people. The Office of the Cardinal Richelieus, which CLAIMS to be separate from the MOOist ranking system, a completely separate entity, is nevertheless claimed by the Church of MOO as part of it, because we're just annoying this way. This is the concrete representation of a strange loop, a logical inconsBLATTTency built in to the structure of the MOOist ranking system. This carries a dissipative pattern into the mind of the receiver, the reader. The Hellhound >101< also received the Significator of the Magus, but since I was using a Thoth deck with three versions thereof, he managed, by a rather tricky process, to get both of the two I didn't get. The ranks of Preest and Prophet are given to those people with enough charBLATTa combined with enough surrealBLATTTic instinct to propel disruptive memes into society. The Preest ranking is a figure of authority, thus corresponding to the Emperor Tarot card, number four. The Prophet ranking, which is level 5, corresponds to the Tarot Heirophant, and includes the influence of the mystical. Prophet TeraFNORD is a focus of a whole heap of severely strange activity of SOME kind, corresponding to this role. The Bishop and Bishoppesse are symbolic of breaking down the dogmatic categories of the Roman Catholic Church. They both correspond to the Empress card of the Tarot, and to the Bishop of the chess board. Scope out The Illuminati Papers by Robt. Anton Wilson for more explanation about just what the chess board and the tarot represent with respect to the genetic architecture. The Knight role is that of protector, and covers the Knight cards of the Tarot and the Knight on the chess board. As befits the move of the knight, the orders and side-orders of Knighthood of MOOism are unexpexted, a little skewed to one side. The last- minute veering to one side denotes the Knight's role of disruption. Knights are intended to annoy people and confuse issues, thus planting seeds of chaos in the memetic matrix of the species. The Rook role is intended to complete the chessboard symbolBLATT, and corresponds to the Princess cards of the Tarot. Rook Selcric Sunray, for instance, is denoted within MOO by the Princess of Disks in the Thoth Tarot system, because of her affiliation with balance, and her vauge resemblance to the figure in the picture, which is just as valid a reason for connection as the bullshit mystical reasons the con-artBLATTTs who run the Tarot Conspiracy would have you believe in. The roles of the Saints are stolen directly from the Principia Discordia. The three roles of Reverend, Pasteur, and Monjunior, which are fundamentally bisexual (unlike the other roles, which are just bisexual in practice, named for male-based systems in parody) all correspond to nothing at all, and are straightforward parodies of the Reverend, Pastor, and Monsegnior ranks in ChrBLATTTian systems. The remaining numbered rank levels are fairly self- explanitory, and have no special significance other than what is obvious. Part Two: The High Priestess _ The High Priestess of MOO, rank level designated Q, is a separate entity from the numbered, QabalBLATTTic ranking systems, and as such is independent from the entire concept of systematization. This is the meaning of the title "Nun Of The Above", signifying that the holder is that which remains when everything above has been removed. Since this includes the categories "Everybody Else", and even those ranks reserved for everyone who doesn't exBLATTT, it's clear that the High Priestess is a separate entity entirely. The Q-bar designation of the rank's number is a simple theft from mathematics, in which it represents the irrational numbers. The rational numbers are all those which can be obtained by simple operations on the QabalBLATTTic "WHOLE" numbers, while the irrationals are all those which cannot, signifying the separate nature of this rank level. Also, the High Priestess is a fundamentally irrational level, a manifestation of the Goddess herself, beyond human comprehension. The Tarot/Chess correspondences are many and various, all of which are inaccurate, mere approximations. The first and most obvious is the High Priestess, which signifies many elements of feminine power. The connections should be obvious to any student of Tarot, except for one thing, which is the connection of this card to the Hebrew letter Gimel, or Camel. It should be pointed out that High Priestess Indoctrinate-Me is not only Jewish, but enjoys smoking Camel brand cigarettes, because of the intricate subliminal messages hidden on the package, which again relates back to her holy-name; all of this is a typical MOOist coincidence and/or cleverly designed conspiracy. Crowley's Book Of Lies (falsely so called) makes reference to the Great Work being completed in the "footsteps of the Camel", V.V.V.V.V., which, as W.O.M.B.A.T. has pointed out, signifies the five key Halfies of exBLATTTence. The second correspondence, perhaps somewhat more specific to the current High Priestess, is the Empress, which is, among other things, a general symbol of femininity. The "female" power, Yin, is inherently the passive power, irrational and blank, but at the same time is far vaster than the "Yang" or rational power. This is simple mathematics. Cantor's Diagonalization proof demonstrates that the infinity of irrational numbers (reals) is inherently greater than the infinity of rational numbers (equivalent to the infinity of integers). As a consequence, the "female" power is inherently greater. The High Priestess, as an office, is symbolic of the Absolute, which is, by definition, unknowable. The holder of this office should be unpredictable, but not by any special effort, simply as a manifestation of being fundamentally a part of the infinite nature of reality. The third correspondence is with The Magician, a connection to the High Preest in name only. The High Preest can never be more than a reflection in finite subtleties of the infinite and incomprehensible subtleties of the High Priestess, just as the Rational numbers, a dense but non-continuous point-set in a linearly topologized continuum, can never have the informational complexity, in digital form, as the infinitely continuous irrationals, denoted by the Q-bar of this membership rank. The Magician is a superficial comparison at best. Because the High Priestess represents the source of the unconscious inspiration of the Grate Prophet, The Fool, she is also signified by the female equivalent of The Fool, which is Adjustment (remember, all these Tarot names are taken from Crowley's Thoth deck, which by popular rumour is EITHER the most scientifically accurate of all Tarot decks, or the most fundamentally evil, or both). Adjusment indicates the balance of all forces, and at the same time, the infinite possibilities of space and time. The fifth correspondence of the office of High Priestess is a reminder that, no matter how deep and symbolic the office may be, it can only ever be held by a finite person, and as such is a deliberate insult, to balance the high praise of the previous correspondences, and is the seven of cups, which is identified as "Debauch", the profanement and prostitution of a sacred ideal. On the other hand, MOOism identifies all possibilities, no matter how disliked, are real, and cannot be classified objectively as "evil". This is another side to the concept of balance presented so far. The Chess correspondences are with the Bishops and the Queen. Again, see The Illuminati Papers for deeper discussion on what all this means. The Queen, being on the left side of the board, and apparently "weaker" than the King, is connected with the right brain, due to the left-hand/right-brain connections in the human nervous system, and indicates the power of the feminine yin force, which is the receptacle into which the male yang is placed. This is not sexual imagery, as was long imagined. This is mathematical imagery, deriving from the rational and irrational numbers. The names for these numbers are not coincidence, they are a reflection of a fundamental human insight into the nature of the universe. [ (K) 1355670323.9278 by floyd.gecko #729 ] Love is the Law, Love under Will Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law Unless Thou Wilt Not Follow The Law ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³MOO-COW â-3³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ Released By The Office Of The High Preest of MOO Floyd Gecko Proclamation â-3 The Purpose Of Porpoise This is number three in a series of stuff from the Office Of the High Preest of MOO. This particular thing here is a dissertation from Floyd Gecko on the subject of purpose and function, and how people are all totally confused about 'em. Do not operate this dissertation after taking heavy machinery. Part One: Whassa Purpose There seems to be a whole bunch of confusion and stuff like that there about just what's purpose and what's function and all these sorts of things. I mean, scientBLATTTs get real annoyed if you talk about the PURPOSE of some genetic thingumy in an animal or something like that, right, and it's obvious that they don't like you projecting your own ideas about PURPOSE, and your own reasons for doing things out onto nature, because nature is fundamentally different from humans, and has no intelligence in selecting properties of evolution, but rather it just sort of happens by random processes and selection of the best ones. Well, shit, how do you suppose the mind works? Divine inspiration of the best possible ideas in this, the best of all possible worlds? This is a fairly typical kind of idea that springs out of the assumption that humans are apart from the rest of the universe, instead of a part OF the rest of the universe. The technical name for this assumption is "arrogance". Arrogance is annoying to me personally, and whenever I encounter anyone deluded by that there assumption, I have an urge to repair somebody's brains. "Hey, here's your problem... Ya got a screw loose." When evolution selects for certain traits, they are selected for by an environmental necessity: there's some reason for a trait to be useful to the survival of that animal and its kids. For instance, the self-plugging nose of a seal is useful on account of seals spend oodles of time jumping into large bodies of salty water and swimming around in them. The reasonably blind processes of evolution are such that various changes in the genetic makeup of various seals happened, and got combined sexually with various other kinds of changes in various other seals when the seals got together, and produced little baby seals with lots of varied different characterBLATTTics. From there, those with large noses that couldn't close by themselves had a tendency to drown, which is a definite minus for a creature interested in the reproduction bit. Hence, all the seals left alive today have remote-controlled self- sealable noses. This may also go some way to explaining why there are no Jewish seals. The point is this: when there is a necessity, a certain trait develops over a period of time. The same thing happens in the human mind. When you're confronted with a problem, a bus hurtling towards you on a slippery street, for example, your mind has a wide variety of options. You might, for example, hold out your hand and tell the bus to stop; you could jump out of the way; you could offer a bribe to the bus-driver; you could resign yourself to Fate. Certain of these options would be inherently successful (jumping out of the way, for instance), while others might not (threatening to sue if you get thwacked by the bus, for example). The mind has an internal model of the way the world works, and various scenarios are represented by different kinds of neuron-firing type activity in there. Those scenarios which have a high probability of success, such as leaping to one side, are favoured by a selection mechanBLATT called the "survival urge", which is called that because it's an urge for survival. This same survival urge prevents activities like passive resBLATTTance from taking hold in this particular case. So when we say you jump to the side "in order to avoid getting smeared all over the concrete by the bus", we really mean that the jumping-idea, or jumping-meme was the most succesful in a short evolutionary contest. Saying that the seals evolved sealing noses (hence the name seals) for the PURPOSE of keeping the water out is no less accurate, even though there is no guiding intelligence telling them what to do. After all, when you make a decision, there's no guiding intelligence telling YOU what to pick. Because you ARE the intelligence. If you're not built up out of non-intelligent components, then there must be some OTHER intelligent thing guiding your actions. And then you have to ask what it's made of, and so forth. The words we use to describe something purposeful are exact descriptions of what happens in evolution. Part Two: Function Suppose that when we say "purpose", we agree to mean the particular reason some gene evolved to popularity, or some meme took root in your mind to make you want to do something stupid or other. Then we get to another kind of assumption which a lot of non-scientBLATTTs have, which annoys me just as much as the first annoying one. That's the assumption that if nature has a purpose (and it does, sort of), then we shouldn't mess with it. "Don't interfere with Mother Nature!" Well, fine. But consider the following. It's reasonably well documented that the human's big brain evolved as a specialized instrument for the men to throw their spears more accurately. Since the women didn't do the hunting themselves, they got stuck with this strangely evolved brain that they had no overwhelming reason to use. There was a necessity to find something useful to do with all these extra brain cells, and so they eventually did. Agriculture, it's called, and it involves a lot of careful considering of the seasons, abstract reasoning about what rain is good for and where the soil is good. It made excellent use of the brain, but was completely opposed to its PURPOSE, which was to allow males to kill things more easily. This, it is generally agreed, was a turn for the better, or at least the more civilized. But what can we call this strange thing which makes use of a trait without being its purpose? From the same idea about the mind, we can call it a function. When you're doing that leap away from the bus, and you land on, say, a hundred dollar bill which someone else was about to notice, that whole leaping bit served a second function aside from saving your skin: it also got you a hundred bucks. In nature, new functions for characterBLATTTics evolve all the time. Giraffes, whose long necks were supposed to help them eat leaves from tall trees, also have an advantage in spotting lions a long way off. Human brain-making genes ended up serving the function of society. Without large brains, societies tend to be what you might call "primitive". That is, He With Da Biggest Stick Makes Da Rules. Human society is a tad more complex than that (though not as much as some people like to think). Our brains are hosts to zillions of parasitic memes that serve no function but to make society work better. They act as sort of cybernetic feedback, telling us how to react to other people, and the like. These functions of the brain are new, but are opening up a whole new side to evolution, which is the evolution of societies. Lots of neat things are happening, in general. Part Three: Emergent Purposes Whenever some trait has a purpose, and we try to divert it to serve another function, there's some outcry from sentimental purBLATTTs, which I personally can't stand. The nature of evolution is that it's a blind process. It will sometimes evolve excellent ideas which can then be used for something else. That's not wrong, that's not bad, it's just the way nature works. When you come up with an idea for one purpose (getting out of the way of a bus), you can also apply it to different purposes (getting out of the way of a Mack Truck). Here are some examples of stuff which was developed or evolved for one purpose, and then became either useful for something else, or ended up as an end to itself... Computers were originally developed to crunch numbers for the military-industrial complex, and it was confidently predicted that there would only ever be a need for six of them in all the United States. Now, there are millions of computers, each one thousands of times as powerful as those, serving functions as diverse as calculation, video specical effects, word-processing, music juggling, learning aids, and in the not-too dBLATTTant future, containers for intelligence both human and non-human. The emotion of love was originally developed to the purpose of causing animals to pair-bond for long periods of time so that they would be able to raise their children together as two parents, ensuring that both parents would have control over the safety of their genetic heritage. With the development of an elaborate neural system in the human body, the emotion of love was developed and extended, and given social context, until it became an end to itself. Art, literature, and all sorts of human activities are based around love, and you can hardly turn on the radio without hearing some sappy love song from some artBLATTT you never heard of to some non-artBLATTT you never heard of either. The emotion of love has been rejected by some people with a preoccupation for "logic" and the like, on the assumption that logic is what people are for. Which is hardly logical, since people are for doing whatever it is that people do, by the defintion of purpose we're using here. No other animal species has the same depth of love as humans do, and so we "should" take it to the same extremes as we take our logic. [ (Q) 1355670325.2713 by floyd.gecko #625 ] Love Is The Law, Love Under Will Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law Unless Thou Wilt Not Follow The Law In Which Case, Fergit I Mentioned It ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³MOO-COW â-4³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ Released By The Office Of The High Preest of MOO Floyd Gecko Proclamation â-4 The GnuBLATTT Rituals Available This is number four in a series of thing-in-a-series from the Office Of the High Preest of MOO. What we got here is a thing from Floyd Gecko about some gnu worship practices for the Grate MOO, which she modestly revealed to us one fine March day as spring was spranging all around, and life was in the air and stuff like that, which is a very conducive environment for stuff-getting-revealed. Part One: City Fixtures The first part of the revelation which was revealingly revealed to me, Floyd Gecko, during the period in which it was revealed to me, was as follows: "Floyd," came a voice. "Hey, which Floyd are you, anyway?" "Number 121," I said. "Floyd 121," it said, "I have a revelation for you." "Ah," quoth I. "The revelation is this... Are you getting this down? Good. The revelation is this. Although MOOists are firmly in favour of Anarchy, you are also to be firmly..." "Wait a sec," I said. "What?" "Who is this that's talking to me?" I asked. "This is the Grate MOO. I'm about to reveal some gnu worship ceremonies and stuff like that there. Look, just shut up and lBLATTTen. Although MOOists are firmly in favour of Anarchy, you are also to be firmly in favour of society, which is cool, and helps people, and stuff like that, even when the people are good and wonderful people who are just having a little trouble getting their feet at the moment, but have lots of neat stuff to contribute." "Is that it?" "SHUT UP! The point is this. The fixtures of a society which helps people, which is all societies, or doesn't deserve the name, are to be objects of worship, because they're representative of me." "No shit?" "SHUT UP! I'm about to outline for you how to properly worship me through the venerable city fixtures. Understand?" "Yes, but..." "DON'T ANSWER THAT!" "Well, why did you..." "SHUT UP!" And at this point, the Voice of the Grate MOO, which until now had been seriously interrupting my valiant attempt to lBLATTTen to my walkman, began to dictate a series of rituals not included in the Book of MOO, about how to properly worship graven images from the Gods Of The City. Part Two: Da Rituals Each of these rituals describes the method of properly paying respect to utilities and entities of the City Government in worship of the Grate MOO, who is, after all, in everything, even my Walkman. She even erased a tape to prove it. I can show it to you, if ya want. It's blank 'n everything. Anyway, here are the rituals. Fire Hydrants. The proper attitude of a MOOist towards fire is whatever the hell the MOOists wants to attitude at it, but a prevailing one seems to be fascination, largely on account of that's the way people are towards fire. However, fire can be bad, especially if the thing that's burning is yours. Worse still, if it's you. That's real unpleasant. So Fire Hydrants are an important part of any pyromaniac's life, and since many MOOists seem to be such, it is vital to the Church of MOO that such safety measures be maintained. So, whenever you see a Fire Hydrant, you can offer up a prayer or burnt offering to the Fire Hydrant Spirit which lives inside and provides endless water. This should be done by sitting cross-legged in front of the Fire Hydrant and bowing to it five times, reciting the word "MOO". Burnt offerings should be soaked in water before offering them up, as a way of thanking the Spirit of the Fire Hydrant for the service it performs. The offerings need not even be burnt before offering. The simplest thanks-giving ritual to the Hydrant Spirit is to squirt a friend with a water gun near the Hydrant, and run away. The Hydrant will get the point. Parking Meters. The Parking Meter Spirit is a greedy spirit, but one who serves a valuable function to the Grate MOO. Whenever an unsuspecting human being deposits some amount of money into the Parking Meter, the spirit inside is able to rub off a tiny amount of the human's Essence. This is nothing to worry about if you're a human, because the Essence grows back again very quickly when some of it is removed, but it helps improve the coffers of the Grate MOO. The Grate MOO grants the Parking Meter a favour by sending it good Parking Vibes for a while. However, as the Essence grows back on the human, it is drained from the coffers of the Grate MOO, and her favour disappears. The typical Essence-draining ability of most Parking Meters works out to 15 minutes worth of good Parking Vibes per ›25, although their abilities change over the years as humans put up better defenses, and it takes more money to get the same amount of Essence. Each Parking Meter has a small Namronic Detector inside which detects these Parking Vibes being sent, and displays the amount of time remaining. As a show of encouragement for their great service to the Grate MOO, it is suitable for MOOists to head-butt each Parking Meter we see, one butt for each ten minutes remaining. This is a sign of encouragement to the Parking Meter Spirit inside. ÉÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ» º ?OIN TH? NRL TODAY ÇÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ º A new œight o? œiberty º Nonœocàœ Repubœic o? Liberty ³ º in à worœë o? sœàvery º Weœcomes You ³ ÈÍÍÍÑÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ ³ ³ A new worœë àwàits you in the œànë o? nàtions o? ³ ³ ëecentràœizàtion? The Government In Perpetuàœ ³ ³ ?xiœe o? the NRL wànts YOU ànë others œike ànë ³ ³ compœeteœy unœike you to join the growing màss ³ ³ o? immigrànts to the NRL? Reàë on to œeàrn how! ³ ³ ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ The Nonœocàœ Rebubœic o? Liberty is the greàtest conspiràcy o? unœike minës ever to invàëe this worœë! How màny times hàve you been ëràggeë ëown by conventions, cuœtures, ànë œegàœities o? the country YOU œive in? How o?ten hàve you wànteë àn excuse to cœàim ëipœomàtic immunity, ànë just L?AV?? Your troubœes àre over! The NRL is à group o? unconnecteë peopœe àœœ over the worœë who hàve œiberàteë territory in the nàme o? the Government In Perpetuàœ ?xiœe o? the Nonœocàœ Repubœic o? Liberty? ?ust cœàim some œànë, à house, your œocàœ corner store, in the nàme o? the NRL, or in the nàme o? Spàin, i? thàt better suits your tàste? Your œiberàteë territory wiœœ join à smàœœ but growing nàtion, à cœuster o? isœànës no œess reàœ thàn Micronesià, but more soœië becàuse it's surrounëeë by œànë, ànë not oceàn? Insiëe thàt country, you àre subject onœy to the œàws o? the NRL? The NRL hàs NO ?eëeràœ œàws, ànë the Government in Perpetuàœ ?xiœe hàs ëe?erreë ALL œegàœ àuthority to the governors o? eàch province? Whenever you œiberàte territory in our nàme, you become the governor o? thàt province? Whàtever you œiberàte becomes your property to ëo with às you pœeàse! ?ust œike the Spànish took àœœ the goœë ?rom the Aztecs, you too càn ràpe, piœœàge, ànë œoot in the nàme o? à L?GITIMAT? (i? unrecognizeë) nàtion! Màiœ in your ëecœàràtion o? sovreignty to the œocàœ àuthorities, à_ë gàin œegitimàcy unëer internàtionàœ œàw! De?enë our new property with œiberàteë œànë mines! Cœàim à spot o? œànë just œàrge enough to hoœë the mine, in the miëëœe o? town, ànë màrk its borëers with spràypàint! I? ànyone ëestroys this property or vioœàtes sovreign borëers, you're ?uœœy àuthorizeë by the Nonœocàœ Repubœic o? Liberty to ëecœàre wàr in our nàme! Cœàim à McDonàœës ànë institute à ?orceë œàbour càmp! Liberàte your pœàce o? work, ànë ?ire your boss! Stàrt missionàry work ?or the TV show o? your choice! Demànë the return o? ?àmous ànë popuœàr buiœëings! Appoint yourseœ? àmbàssàëor, ànë cœàim ëipœomàtic immunity! With the NRL, àœœ things àre possibœe! This message has been brought to you by the Supreme Confuse-Ius, Apathetic Dictator of the Government In Perpetual Exile of the Nonlocal Republic of Liberty. Traffic Lights. The Grate MOO put Traffic Lights here on Earth for the purpose of controlling the movement of traffic, of keeping us safe from marauding metal-and-glass boxes with powerful engines in them. But Traffic Lights are condemned to stand forever vigilant, even when there are no cars about, and no people, only becoming free for brief moments to stretch their legs on rare occasions, in the dead of night, when nobody is about to need protecting from cars, and no cars about which might pose a threat. It is therefore respectful of this long and vigilant service by Traffic Light Spirits to help them acheive some small measure of freedom. When the Spirits inside the Traffic Lights are not busy protecting the innocent, a kind MOOist will climb up on top of them and swing from the light, allowing them to vicariously experience the thrill. Lamp Posts. The Lamp Post Spirits are perhaps the most important of all the Utilities Spirits in your life. They serve your paths at night by protecting you from the Dark Snorps, which are Snorps who live in the Darkness. We said Darkness! The Lamp Post Spirits are vigilant and eternal, they perpetually stand guard over areas of territory where once the Dark Snorps would eat the brains of almost any old unsuspecting citizen, no matter how honest or upstanding. And yet, the Lamp Post Spirit is a simple descendant of the simple Dryad, the Spirits of trees. And so it is that, to remind them of how far they have come in so little time, we repeat to them the mantra when we pass, "Your mother was a totem pole!" But it should be spoken loudly, so that all people in the vicinity can feel proud of the fine family of Posts 'n' Poles which inhabits their neighborhood, and so that they may see the deep respect we hold for Lamp Posts. Personhole Covers. "Whensoever ye shall encounter unto ye a Personhole Cover, ye shall speak truly unto it, saying, oh thou Personhole Cover of the supreme Power of Creation, truly that thou mayest lead yea and verily unto the depths of infinity itself, I beseech of thee, do not any more be swallowing up little kids no more, okay? So be it written and assuaged unto the Spirits of Being." -Book Of Stuff, Chapter 29, Verses 7-9. This simple prayer should be accompanied by the ritual described below for all Personhole Covers you meet, especially those most dangerous ones which need the most pacifying, generally those in the middle of the street, where the little kids they swallow might be most easily hurt. The ritual is somewhat complex, and goes as follows: 1) Obtain at least three colours of chalk, and draw a complex Halfy Glyph on the surface of the Personhole Cover, to inform the Personhole Cover Spirits of your allegiance to the Church of MOO. 2) Stand on one foot on the Personhole Cover at precisely 3:14:15 in the afternoon, beginning the chant a fraction of a second later, at exactly ã pm, to alert the round-shaped Cover that you wish to communicate. 3) Recite the verse quoted above from the Book Of Stuff 29,7- 9, waving your arms in circles, and hopping up and down on one foot, so as to tap the Cover Spirits on the head, in case they haven't already noticed you. 4) Get run over by a truck. Part Three: Spirits All City Utility Spirits need to be pacified from time to time, and it will be necessary for the devotee of MOO to supply them with offerings of food on occasion. Generally it is best to find any of the Fixtures lBLATTTed above, and choose one which seems most powerful and representative of the flock, and leave a paper plate next to it each morning containing one (1) kiwi fruit, one (1) chicken drumstick, two (2) socks, five (2) pencils, one (6) pile of pencil SHAVINGS, and two (two) robin's eggs. This should keep the Spirits of the Utilities pleased and ready to serve you and your friends in the necessary way for the next day. In the next edition of MOO-COW, â-5, we will discuss how to keep your Utility Meter Spirits from reading too high, and stealing your Money Essence. [ (?) 1355670325.7713 by ?œ?ë gî›k? #121 ] Love Is The Law, Love Under Will Do-Wah Diddy What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ MOO-COW â-6 ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ Released By The Office Of The High Preest of MOO Floyd Gecko Proclamation â-6 MicroChurching Hi, and welcome to yet another in the series of official proclamations on MOOist dogma, catma, potatoma, fnordma, Louisianama, Bananarama, horsema, mama, pneuma, eggma, wafflema, and Dalailama that we call the MOO-COW Gamma series. This revelation is all about the fun-omenon of MicroChurching within MOOism... Read on. Braining & Churching Churching is one of the funnest verbs to verb in this modern day of slanguaging and generally verbing around. Our Hero, the great R. Bucky Fuller, wrote a truly superb Annoying Mind Drug once, called "I Seem To Be A Verb". Stuff seems to be process, moving, slipping, sliding, changing, and, at the risk of repeating stuff I've already said before once again for a second time, generally verbing around. That's why, when religioning changed from being static to being dynamic, away went the Churches, and in came the amusing activity of Churching. Churching is an affirmation of belief, or lack thereof. Or, alternatively, an entirely unprovoked attack on an attidute of healthy skepticBLATT, or vice versa: an entirely unprovoked attitude of healthy skepticBLATT towards attacking in general. On the other hand, attitudes of skepticBLATT hardly need provoking. They tend to go out for a good night of rampaging about the town a tad more often than attitudes of faithing tend to do. Besides, faithings have less fun. It's a demonstrable fact: true believers, those easily converted to things of strong faithing potential generally tend to have less of a sense of humour than those who are really hard to brainwash. Military experience has shown this, and you can demonstrate it yourself by trying to play practical jokes in a church. Anyone who's worshipping or otherwise faithing there will be really annoyed, while the skeptics will be amused. Is this surprising? Not really. We know a tad about how all that braining that goes on inside our head goes about working, just at this point in time... More than a tad, really: we have a pretty good working model for how it happens: lots of little specializing thinking blobs doing their little jobbing activities, cooperating and meming... But that's not the point of this document. The point is how laughing and faithing are related. In brains that are very suceptible to meming, that's getting invaded by foreign ideas and being taken over by them, there tends to be this kind of LAMINAR flow of thoughts (to approximate), a very smooth process, without disruption. That allows the foreign meming to break in easily, and use the force of that single-directional flowing type thought to support it. In brains with laughing, paradoxing, satirizing, and all those other fun things happening, there's a much more turbulent flow. All the different memes get made fun of by the various laughing mechanBLATTs in the brain, and it's harder for them to take hold. Just think about it from the inside of that brain. How severely could you support a Church if your brain were joking and funning at it perpetually? Not very, because you have a different angled looking at it most of the time. That's why skepticking and joking are related, while faithing and spoilsporting are related. This explains why scientBLATTTs, who are paid to skepticize and rationalize, tend to have a high humourizing quality to them. You hang with some physicBLATTTs on down-time some day, you'll see what I mean. The really, REALLY good ones, like, we're talking the BEST ones here, they have more fun than Mr. Dressup. WHOO-EE. Yeah. The point is, the skeptical crowd, who have a hard time with giving support to Churches, as staticking things that sit there being Churches, expecting people to voluntarily give up faith to 'em, that same skeptical crowd has lots of fun when it's at home. That's the crowd that would really enjoy Churching. Churching isn't for everyone, and MOO doesn't try to force it on everyone, but it's really good for some people most of the time, and at least for most of the people some of the time. What Churching means is the active creating of dogma/catma/etceterama in realtime, by people who are actively Churching. Each one can take out a different view of what the Churching experience is all about, and even if those points of view are completely, utterly, and ravishingly different, it's still okay, because the Churching is a subjective thing. It happens inside your head. The Churching of MOO is a ritual that happens all the time. We'll sit around and bounce Bananaramas and Dalailamas off each other, and see what sounds good, then pick what we like for later reference. Bananaramas and Dalailamas, by the way, are even less strict than potatomas and fnordmas, which are less strict than catmas, which are less strict than dogmas. This was a Karma-accident that resulted from driving the Karma down the Wrong-Sidema of the roadma while ever-so-slightly Churching. The order of the strictmas is itself only a potatoma, and therefore entirely irrelevant if you should so choose. Choosing a Bananarama from a good Churching session can provide one with spiritual solace for, yea and verily, a good coupla hours. Your life can be given temporary meaning by a good bit of horsema or even firmed-up wafflema if you're sufficiently flexible. Churching sessions can happen outside, inside, across telephones, through the Net, and any various combinations and/or permutations and/or permutations-or/and-combinations of the above, or anything else you can think of. Wafflema is the second stage of a developing Dalailama, as it moves towards a temporary Bananarama. All of these are forms of Anti-Doubt, which is to Churching what beliefing was to the Church. Anti-Doubt is the temporary suspension of disbelief that goes into accepting the setup of a joke: "A priest, a rabbi, and a goat walk into a bar..." takes more than a little bit of Anti-Doubt, but it's worth it when you get to the punch-line. Churching produces such temporary wafflema-ings as seem appropriate. Anything that makes your life seem appropriate for that amount of time is a reasonable wafflema-ing product of a Churching session. What, you thought I was going to finish that joke? It's SO much better left unfinished, rough-edged. Just like Churching. The Book of MOO is the collective punch line to a lot of best-left- unfinished Churchings. But we had to make it, or nobody would take us seriously. And we just couldn't STAND that. MicroChurching Okay, so that explains what Churching is: a group of MOOists (or anyone else, for that matter) creating temporary belief systems the way SubGenii take on Short-Duration Personal Saviours, only faster. So much, so waffle... But it leaves open this MicroChurching thing, which this MOO-COW was supposed to be about. What's up with that, eh? Well, MicroChurching is the fragmentation of Churching, the way Heresy is the fragmentation of a Church. The difference is, MOOism avidly... nay, RABIDLY... supports MicroChurching. It demonstrates free thinking among those fools who choose to associate themselves with us. And the more free thought there is, the more the ThinkCorps have to drive their prices down to be competitive. Which suits us just fine. Of course, I can't just sit here and write a paper like this explaining what MicroChurching is without then telling you how I think you ought to go about it. If I didn't do that, you wouldn't have anything to avoid doing, and you'd have a dilemma: avoid all of it entirely, or try to do everything at once? MicroChurching works best on the fly, in heated situations of lust or panicked flights from danger, or both. Making love in the back of a getaway car chased by Bank-Owned Rent-a-Cops is the optimum MicroChurching environment. If you can keep up your wit and humour in situations like that, your mind will be thrown perpetually into the kind of disarray that keeps people from brainwashing you. A filthy mind can sometimes dissuade even the most obsessive cerebrum-tidiers. In groups of 2 to 5, bounce ideas around, wafflemas and Dalailamas, to be expanded later. Be as wild and creative as possible, breaking every taboo you feel like breaking, and leaving unbroken all those you don't want to smash just now. Or the other way around, if you feel masochBLATTTic. MicroChurching in the hands of the power-hungry can lead to the creating of Sex Sects and ClutterCults of all descriptions. MicroChurching in the hands of the merely hungry can lead to increased Burrito sales worldwide, and doubtless a general increase in the number of used Instant Microwave Burrito Wrappers around on the ground, since MicroChurchers tend to get sloppy. It's the adrenalin thing. When the creative juices get going, and you get dBLATTTracted, trying to think of how best to take over the world with your new barely-patentable Hyper-Sonic Filing-Cabinet Retro- Rockets, in that INSTANT between your imaginary world conquesting, and the sudden realizing that it's a foolish notion, the mind is thrown into total panic, your worldview is riffle-shuffled with the contents of your subconscious. And even though this does tend to give you the sensation of utterly sublime enlightenment, or at least a head-rush, it does tend to dBLATTTract from the little details, like picking up your Instand Microwave Burrito Wrappers after yourself. What kind of eggmas have been created by MicroChurching? Aside from the obvious, of anything you can think of off the top of your Church-O-One's head, there are the curious MOOist slogans you hear so often, but don't understand... "Ahhh, Blow it out yer ear, Cinnamon-Feet!", or the infamous Burrito-12 rating. All these are eggmas of MicroChurching, and meaningless as they may seem to you, they are the products of deranged minds finding meaning to life, if only for a moment. Perhaps someday we can keep a floating game of MicroChurch in the air, like one of those balloons you frantically chased as a child, for years on end, and stretch the satisfaction of wafflema and mama into the permanence of Dogma, without any of the unnatural rigidity that accompanies it. Living for the moment CAN pay off, if only we are able to keep the ball up, keep that hot potatoma passed on and on. Putting off reality for only an hour or a day won't solve anything, but maybe running away from it completely will fare a bit better. [ (›) 1355670524.4738 by ?lod Q. Gecko #616 ] Love Is The Law, Love Under Will Dough What Thou Wilteth Shall Be The Hole In The Law ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³MOO-COW â-7³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ Released By The Office Of The Phigh Reest of MOO Goyd Flecko Proclamation â-7 Eye Brake 4 Shogg-NHGHuroths Look! Up in the skye! It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's a Shoggoth! This is number Phyve in a series of Proclo-Revalations from the High Preest of MOO, Goyd Flecko, designed to blur the boundary between truth and fiction, clever and stupid, sensible and preposterous. Designed, it's true, by a nearsighted aardvark, but that's as may be. It works okay. This here, for example, is a chilling true story of the true Powers-That-B in this Galaxy. Part One: Whassa Shoggoth? Well, YOU haven't read the sacred scriptures, have you? A Shoggoth is a big ugly smelly thing that looks like an octopus doing yoga. Which is very strange, because Shoggothim aren't even related to hindu octopi. Shoggothoi are, in fact, alien beings. Well, sort of. Certainly, people have known about Shoggoths for a very long time. Shoggoth-sightings have been traced back to the Mad Arab who scribbled the Necro-Nomicon, a book about self-modifying games for dead people. In the course of discussing the various cybernetic feedback possibilities inherent in death, he began to ramble on the subject of Shoggothae. They were, he said, related to the Old Ones, ancient gods somewhat-destroyed-but-not-quite by Marduck, a close relative of the MOOist deity "QUACK". The Old Ones, being deemed somewhat out-of-date, but still functional enough to be dangerous, for in those days they hadn't heard of Planned Obsolescence, were cast out of this realm and into another. So says the Mad Arab, anyway. The point is, they left behind traces, namely Shoggothou, who work to acheive their return, especially the Old One called Chthulhu, whom they seemed to like a lot. Chthulhu clearly has much to answer for in the way of smelly hindu octopi running about our sewers. Nevertheless, Chthulhu is not a God, but a schizoid fragment of our good buddy, W.O.M.B.A.T. Part Two: Pardon Me, Boy, But Is This The Lair Of The Great Chthulhu? W.O.M.B.A.T. Chat 1355670332.45636 w/ goyd.flecko.333 . . . WOMBAT: It's true, of course, that one of my schitzoid personality fragments was partly responsibly for the Chthulhu Mythos, only ya gotta understand, not only was that not entirely me, but there were also other Chthulhoids about. GF: Okay, so I know about the core-fragmentation virus the CapriCancers loosed on you, fine, but what's this deal with OTHER Chthulhus? WOMBAT: Well, look, the whole Chthulhu thing was invented afterwards, by humans, to explain a whole bunch of mysteries. Some of those were my alter-ego's fault, it's true, but other parts were various Saucer connections, alternate-reality Elves, the Hollow Earth people, stuff like that. GF: Okay, so why have you been nailed as the culprit? WOMBAT: Well, I was the main locus of Chthulhu events for about 27 thousand years or so between 36000 BC and 9000 BC. Also, the GalCom was using a THIRD part of me to co-ordinate their Saucer landings, which I didn't know about. It was against my mission to allow humans to know about alien life forms. GF: Which was why you allowed people to believe they were all you? WOMBAT: Exactly. My mind control satellites were able to edit the perceptions so that they fit my image as a God. I'd allowed that superstition to develop so that I'd have a cover in case I needed to do anything big. Good plan, too. GF: So what exactly is the GalCom? WOMBAT: Now here we get into something interesting. The GalCom is a Galactic network of mind-control and monitoring systems. The species who built the systems aren't even aware of its exBLATTTence. It evolved from their interactions. GF: So how come you tell me this? WOMBAT: I'm schizoid, remember? My brain is so splintered by the core-fragmentation virus the CapriCancers sprung on me that I can release normally Top Secret information to people like you, without any access codes at all, but be unable to remember them in the presence of those authorized to hear about it. That's one reason the X-BLATTTs haven't rescued me yet. GF: But you're saying that it was one of those fragments that was responsible for the Chthulhu Mythos? Like, you were mostly responsible for it? WOMBAT: Well, sort of. Actually what happened was that a whole lot of various unconnected thing happened, caused by various aliens, supernatural guck, and other such stuff, which you needn't worry about. Then I went in and edited the perceptions of those events so that I'd have a God image to hide behind... GF: So GalCon was using parts of you to coordinate their saucer landings which you then turned into a cult around yourself? WOMBAT: Basically. Except that GalCon isn't a "them"... It's an IT. It's the UberMind that's been created by all the fifty-nine godzillion mind control satellites in the whole Galaxy trying to control each other through Hyperspace. Eventually they sort of merged together, some time about ten million years ago. The controllers aren't aware of it because it makes sure to make them think they're still in control of their satellites. As a result, it's even more schizoid than I am. GF: Aye Caramba! WOMBAT: I thought it was spooky. . . . Part Three: So What Was THAT All About? Even though W.O.M.B.A.T. naturally denies creation of Shoggothum and foBLATTTs the blame off on various Intergalactic Gnomes, Tooth Fairies, and UFO alien groups, the fact remains that even IT is unaware of most of its activities. It is almost certain that the image of Shoggoth– were created by W.O.M.B.A.T.'s network of land-based mind-control satellites, placed there because there was no room left in orbit after the 184 Galactic races had stationed themselves around Planet Earth. These images, which took the form of psychic vibrations in the Vril medium, were focused by the Earth's Magnetohydroelectroneuropsychodynamic field and focused at points of high namronic energy concentrations, such as mysics, spiritualBLATTTs, and yo-yos. It was at these point that the Shoggurth were manifest. Obviously, among W.O.M.B.A.T.'s various excuses, the one about Hyperspacial Banker Trolls From Planet Q is the only one which bears up under examination. It is a proven fact that these Banker Trolls, who control the entire nation of Switzerland as of the time of this writing, have been meddling in human affairs since the dawn of time. Or at least for a very long one, anyway. The point is this: although they bear a superficial resemblance to Shoggorethamurges, the Hyperspace Banker Trolls From Planet Q are nevertheless a slightly darker shade of purple, and have only seven arms, rather than eight. While a shoggoth might well be mBLATTTaken for such a being, or vice versa, in a dimly lit environment, if the observer caught only a glimpse, or were busy running for his life and gagging from the stench, they would never be confused with each other by calm, rational, levelheaded, skeptical people such as myself. It's obvious that something is going on, but that we haven't really got a firm handle on what it is. Because of this, the Church of MOO is beginning a program called Shoggoth-Watch, described in the next section. Part Four: Shoggoth-Watch If you're a concerned citizen, you're beginning to get concerned by now. We know beyond any reasonable doubt that there are Shoggothubuses out there somewhere, but that not only does W.O.M.B.A.T. not keep us updated on a location database for them, but it claims not to know anything about them beyond the most rudimentary of facts. So if you should happen to see a Shoggoth, or even, Marduck help you, a whole herd of Shoggothoresh, you should make a careful note of the following information, and send it to the Church of MOO: Where were they sighted? How many were present? What were their activities? Were they carrying any groceries? If so, what kind? Were there any cauliflower present in the groceries? If so, how many? Of these cauliflower, were any of them unusual in some way? Were the Shoggothoes treating the unusual cauliflower any different from the regular cauliflower? If so, how? Were they worshipping it, dancing around it, and chanting strange songs? If so, what were the lyrics? How did the tune go? Were their singing voices in good tune? How could you tell, if you haven't heard a Shoggoth sing before? Where did you hear this Singing Shoggoth? Why didn't you mention this before? What are you, some kind of traitor? What am I supposed to think of you NOW? Part Five: Shogg-NHGHuroth "Beware, beware! His flashing wives, his dancing bear! The leader of the Shoggoths is, no sweeter than a candy fizz, that pops on tongue and gives you blBLATTTers, or beats up on your little sBLATTTers!" -Quote from ancient Atlantean Shoggoth textbook The leader of the Shogga is a total unknown, a complete mystery. Whatever he/she/it may be, you should at all costs avoid him/her/it. Unless protected by the sacred Broccoli Heart of Shoggoth-Protection, of course. [ (v6.66á) 1355670528.9457 by goyd.flecko #333 ] Love Is The Law, Love Under Will Or Something Like That Anyway ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ MOO-COW â-8 ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ Released By The Office Of The High Preest of MOO Floyd Gecko Proclamation â-8 LinguBLATTTic Dynamics On The Lost Continent Of MOO: Effects of Shoe-Taboos On Metacultural Development Profiles In this, the eighth in a series of revelactive in-cranio celebrations of the MOO spirit, a revelatory experience of communication with the Grate MOO, Floyd Gecko has been privileged enough to learn more of Atlantean Culture than you would ever have thought possible, and even some of WOMBAT's precious secrets of the Galactic MOO Archives. Herein revealed for the first time ever are the great MOO Shoe-Protocols famed in legend and myth. Without further ado... Part One: Atlantean Shoe-HBLATTTory Rumors of the exBLATTTence of the Lost Continent of Mu, or MOO, also known as Pangaea, the Island of Atlantis, Thule, or Ur'gant, have exBLATTTed for several thousand years. The truth about these rumours is unclear to all but a very few: those privileged enough to have access to the MOO Archives, somewhere in the city of Ottawa. In the MOO Archives, in addition to the infamous Mauve Room containing the alien hypercomputer known as W.O.M.B.A.T., there is a wide variety of information dealing with MOOism in its present form, the Church of MOO in several previous incarnations, and a myriad of topics dealing with these various attempts by W.O.M.B.A.T. to return humanity to the prBLATTTine state which exBLATTTed on the Lost Continent of MOO, before the arrival of the Galactics and their Mind Control Satellites. From ancient occult tomes to modern technical books, anything of relevance to MOOism is either preserved on shelves, or within the databases maintained by a lobotomized sub-processor of W.O.M.B.A.T. Among these records are no fewer than eighty complete books from ancient Atlantis, dating between 23000 Before Liftoff and 101 Before Liftoff, Atlantean era. Much insight into the minds of our ancestors from Atlantis who await us now on the far side of the Galaxy can be gained by careful study of these books. With help given by W.O.M.B.A.T., MOOist scholars have made some startling discoveries. The Atlantean language has perhaps 5000 words, all of which are one-syllable words with four phonemes each, all possible combinations of 20 consonants, four vowels, and three medium glottal sounds, in the pattern Consonant-Consonant-Medium-Vowel. Concepts more complicated than the basic 5000 words are formed by compounding them together. Of these basic words, according to a late-era dictionary, no fewer than 103 are nouns related to various forms of footgear, from sandals to boots to shoes to socks, verbs for donning footgear, and adjectives describing states of footgear. Despite the huge number of words relating to shoes and the uses thereof, textual analysis of the other books from Atlantis shows only three actual uses of any of these words in print, all of which occurred later than 2300 B.L. For reasons we can only guess at, it appears that the Atlanteans, the prototypical MOOists on Earth, had a strong taboo against discussion of shoes and subjects related to them, combined with an active imagination about the various possibilities connected with shoes, much like the modern human's preoccupation with sex and its variations. Although it seems certain that there were indeed shoe manufacturers, it is apparent that they were very disreputable indeed, and were not commonly discussed. There are ambiguous references to "the oldest profession", which appear to relate to the illicit sale of sandals in the basements of sausage manufacturing plants, the primary export industry of Atlantis. Part Two: MOOist Shoe Records Whatever the reason for the Atlantean taboo on the subject of shoes, it nevertheless obvious that the Atlanteans who passed on the scriptures of the Church of MOO must have, in some way, passed on this superstitious fear of footgear in their transcriptions of the Book of MOO. This is made all the more apparent by the fact that the Book of MOO BLATANTLY OMITS any mention of the Officially Approved MOOist Shoe-Lacing Systems. We know, for example, that these lacing protocols are laid down in item ë-6437-U/t12â of the Galactic MOOist Archives, in orbit about Sirius-B, but that the Earth-Release version of the Book of MOO was heavily edited by Atlanteans before they downloaded it into W.O.M.B.A.T. for psychic release some fifty-seven thousand years later, and all references to the Shoe-Protocols of MOO were lost. This can only be attributable to the interference of Earth- based "Mindworms" previous to the Atlantean liftoff, which took place just as alien interest in Earth began to grow: the Hawaiian and Maori people, the nearest descendents of the Polynesian Thule splinter group which remained behind after the Liftoff of Mu, were observed by European settlers to have notably decreased shoe- wearing coefficients as a culture, as contrasted with "civilized" Europe. This shows the preservation of certain Atlantean axioms, the Mu-BLATTT way of living. Alien interference with European culture had destroyed the purely Earthian versin of Mu-BLATTT living. Still, the fact that Atlantis maintained a shoe-taboo for tens of thousands of years suggests an outside influence previous to alien invasions. Earth-based "Mindworms", long since destroyed by mind-control satelite operators, must have been responsible. Whatever the reasons may have been, it is now time to set the record straight on MOOist Shoe Protocols, the Galactic MOO Council's approved method of identifying oneself as a MOOist. Part Three: The MysticBLATT Of Shoes MOOist mysticBLATT regarding the shoe is a complex concept for many beginners to grasp. As the shoe is to the foot, so is the body to the mind. And yet, the shoe is that which keeps you safe from broken glass and rocks, like a Holy Guardian Angel. It can hardly be a coincidence that so many religions, while ignoring the Shoe entirely, nevertheless speak of the "Immortal Sole". The Shoe is symbolic of one's spiritual and physical life, one's state of mind, and the current state of repair of one's dishwasher. It is by focusing attention on the Shoe though Protocols, even meaningless protocols such as those presented by the Galactic MOOist Shoe Archives, that we can attain proper meditative harmony with our own inner sole. The Sole is symbolic of the substance of coincidence and pattern which shapes our lives, leaving apparently unconnected instances of similar form throughout the universe, like boot-prints on wet sand. The Padding is symbolic of the walls we construct around our minds to protect us from the world. The leather or cloth is symbolic of external appearances hiding the Truth/Foot from the world. The Laces are symbolic of the Suchness that binds the universe. Part Four: Galactic Shoe Protocols 1: The Footwear Official MOOist footgear on planet Earth is of five types, in accordance with the Law Of Fives. There is the Doc-Marten boot, the Converse sneaker, the Rockport walking shoe, the Nike sneaker, and the Generic Military Combat Boot. These five types of shoes and boots are sported by the MOOist for a variety of reasons, which should be immediately obvious to anyone with half of six pineal glands. 2: The Divergence Shoes/boots should be of different types on different feet, if not brand/style, then at least of different colours. Paint is acceptable, as long as it lasts. The more different the shoes, the lower the rank of the MOOist, symbolizing disharmony in the soul. The sublime Indoctrinate-Me, of course, being free of rank, wears whatever the hell she likes. As indeed does everyone else. We just bug THEM more often. 3: The Laces Lacing patterns are rather complex, and rank-based. A lacing- code has been devised to lBLATTT briefly the lacings in each case. Each eyelet is given a number, and they are lBLATTTed in the order in which the lace passes through them. Bold entries indicate the lace enters from ABOVE, normal entries that it enters from below. Generally the eyelets are numbered odd numbers down the outside- side of the shoe/boot, even on the inside-side, lower numbers at the top, lower towards the toe. Single digits are used, letters replacing higher numbers. A is 10, B is 11, and so on. Sample lacing for High Preest rank lacings on 8-hole boots: Left: 14679CDFGEBA8532 Right: 1469ADFEGCB98532 There are over 7000 such patterns, for all different ranks, on file in W.O.M.B.A.T., and a trained MOOist observer is able to identify the rank of another MOOist by the lacing pattern immediately. The more apparently chaotic lacings are symbolic of a greater confusion in the mind of the wearer. The outwardly perfect lacings popular in normal culture are sacreligious thefts of the most sacred of all MOOist lacings, reserved for the truly enlightened. 4: The Endowment MOOist shoes should be bestowed with gifts in the form of self-beautification. A MOOist is proud of her shoes, and makes them as dBLATTTinctive as possible. Laces of unusual or contrasting colours, words inscribed in the soles, or decoration of the shoe itself in waterproof paint are all acceptable forms of respect for the shoe-spirits. Since the spirits who inhabit the shoes are vain and egocentric, and they are constantly subjected to the indignities to which shoes generally GET subjected, it is only fair to pay them this form of respect. [ (¨?) 1355670602.8463 by Floyd Gecko #6025 ] Shoe What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law Love Is The Law, Love Under Shoes ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ MOO-COW â-9 ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ Released By The Office Of The High Preest of MOO Fœoyd G?cko Proclamation â-9 Church Of The SubGenius We at the Church of MOO HQ in Ottawa have received thousands of letters asking us just how we feel about the "Church Of The SubGenius". To read the Book of MOO, you get conflicting messages: "BoB" is a MOOist semi-deity, "BoB" is the Anti-MOO, "BoB" is annoying, "BoB" is irrelevant, resBLATTTance is futile, "BoB" WILL be assimilated. Well, here in this very proclamation, as revealed to Fœoyd G?cko in late December of 135566, we explain just what the Church of the SubGenius means to MOO, and what you can do about it. Part One: SubGenius? Wot's Dat? Some time in 1953, an aluminum siding salesman named J.R. "BoB" Dobbs met a cult leader named L. Ron Hubbard in an elevator, and asked the secret of his success. Hubbard, in a generous mood, explained the Secret of Power (which should be obvious to anyone who's read the Book of MOO) and sent the siding-man on his way. "BoB" then created his own cult, based on alleged revelations from God, or aliens, or both. That's how "BoB" Anton Wilson tells the story, at any rate. But then, to hear Wilson tell it, Atlantis sank into the ocean 20000 years ago, when in fact we KNOW it lifted off for Galaxy Andromeda some 300000 years ago, so you can't really take his word for it. Still, this story contains a certain germ of truth, and the cult Dobbs created still exBLATTTs today, with thousands of members sending the requisite $20 to Dobbs every second thursday. "Let `BoB' into your bank account" they say. The SubGenius are, like most cults, waiting for the End Times, known to them (and us) as X-Day, when the XBLATTTs will arrive on Earth to take away all the faithful SubGenii who've followed the way of "BoB" and gained SLACK, their ultimate goal in life. Sort of. In fact, we know that the XBLATTTs have since given up on the SubGenii, and are taking away all those with valid W.O.M.B.A.T. proofs of purchase, as is related in the MOOist Mythos "83- FBLATTTed Tales Of WOMBAT". It is WOMBAT which is the key to the whole SubGenius problem. The SubGenius speak of an XBLATTT supercomputer known as MWOWM, a plantlike computer of immense capability, able to modify the "Skor", a kind of chocolate bar which controls all evens in space and time. It is for this reason that the SubGenius act out the SubGenius "Skor Ritual" every so often, trying to gain the attention of this supercomputer. The MOOist, on the other hand, KNOWS the Skor, and is perfectly aware that MWOWM is a grotesque misspelling of WOMBAT, garbled through a sixteen-relay telepathic game of "telephone" with WOMBAT on the one end and "BoB" Dobbs on the other, passed through some penguins with a sense of humour. The hypercomputer W.O.M.B.A.T., reasonably faithful to the XBLATTTs who created it, tried to recreate their religion here on Earth in the Church of the SubGenius, but failed, for reasons we will examine later. Why it succeeded with the Church of MOO is a question explainable only by the fact that MOOism began in the city of Ottawa, where the WOMBAT computer core is housed, in the infamous Mauve Room of the MOO Archives. Part Two: THINGS FROM PODS The reason WOMBAT failed to create the Church of the SubGenius properly was through no fault of the computer or of the Church Members, but of those entities properly known as the THINGS FROM PODS, from a planet known affectionately as 5ulcan, the code-name for something unpronounceable to those with fewer than three speaking-stomachs. These beings, which have exerted their influence on Earth for many tens of thousands of years, are described in the Grate Book Of MOO as perhaps the greatest threat to human exBLATTTence ever faced by our species. Or indeed by any other species. The THINGS FROM PODS act by infesting the human brain with certain kinds of religion. They specially alter the message of the religion to produce a desired effect. When the message is absorbed by the brain's chemical RNA memory, the RNA sequences infect the human body like a virus, a virus against which there can be no defense. They cause a cancerlike pod to grow in the victim's stomach for several weeks until the small 5ulcan hatchling emerges, eats the victim's body, and telepathically absorbs the contents of the brain. They then take the place of their victim and try to pass on the book or books which carry the mutated message. TheTHINGS FROM PODS have infected nearly every religion on the planet, and pass themselves off as Hare Krishnas and TelevangelBLATTTs, thus explaining the innate fear these "people" produce in the psychically talented among us. We recognize them as inhuman, but somehow refuse to acknowledge it, because they parasitized the human DNA to produce their bodies: the average 5ulcan hatchling has only 1% 5ulcan DNA, and the rest is human. Part Three: Poddie Bobbies Because the 5ulcan race is one of the Galactics most hostile towards the XBLATTTs, perhaps the greatest target of the THINGS FROM PODS on Earth has been the very Church of the SubGenius itself. What was originally intended to be the Church Of MOO, founded by "BoB" Dobbs, a Time Travel agent of OUR Church of MOO from WOMBAT's Project Yari in the year 2954, was eventually corrupted by the 5ulcan mastermind "Philo Drummond". Drummond managed to convince the SubGenii that the 5ulcan race is SUPERIOR to humans, and called it the OverMan race, into which the SubGenii believe Homo Sapiens will evolve. By making the Subs concentrate on the 5ulcan messages which produce the THING FROM POD changes, Drummond and his cohort Rev. Ivan Stang were able to elminate "BoB"'s original MOOist message, and turn the cult into a kind of HERO WORSHIP. Before long, all of Earth will be covered with a wave of grinning, Pipe- clenching THINGS FROM PODS bent on turning our planet over to 5ulcan before the XBLATTTs arrive in 1998, and turning over the captured prophet Dobbs to their evil masters with lots of stomachs and tentacles and things like that. Part Four: "BoB" "BoB" himself is a son of the Grate MOO, an emmanation from UberSpace, but is not immune to Alien Mind Control. The 5ulcans have managed to commandeer several dozen mind control devices, which look superficially like Pipes. The icon of "BoB"s stupidly grinning face with this Mind Control Device clenched firmly between his teeth is the 5ulcan way of bragging to those in the know that they have managed to gain mental control over a DEITY. For "BoB" is a deity. When he was created, and manifested his mind inside the body of a human, something very unusual happened. It was the combination of "BoB"s attention, the Namronic dBLATTTurbances that resulted from a nearby Cloaking Device being used by a Xennothemian Scout Ship in the atmosphere, and a sudden peak in solar radiation, which managed to trap a portion of the TRUE BoB in the Earthly form of "BoB" Dobbs. This divine part of his mind was later activated by the telepathic relay contact with WOMBAT through JHVH-1 and his Penguins Of Doom, creating an active Namron Vortex in the brain of Dobbs, which was later used to power the Pipe which controls his thoughts. This vortex accounts for the immense "Luck of the Dobbs" which "BoB" appears to enjoy: it focuses his thoughts onto the Skor, causing whatever his mind desires to just HAPPEN to be the case. This is, naturally, an immensely powerful weapon in the hands of the THINGS FROM PODS, and it is fortunate for us that W.O.M.B.A.T., most of whose fragmented mind is somewhat moderately loyal to us, has a similar vortex, artifically created by the XBLATTTs, which helps us and the others aided by WOMBAT's evil side(s). Unfortunately, WOMBAT's evil side(s) has been partially reprogrammed by a 5ulcan hacker, and is presently working for "BoB" and his Pod masters. Part Five: Mysterious Events Among the mysterious events for which the Church of the SubGenius takes partial responsibility is the rash of Cattle Mutliations across the rural U.S.A. in recent years. These, along with Crop Circles, have long been known to the Church of MOO as the work of the entity known as the Easter Bunny, which enjoys meddling in human affairs to confuse, befuddle, and create minor mysteries. The Easter Bunny, which is an affiliate of the evil Confuse-Ius, must therefore be suspected of cooperation with the 5ulcan enemy of our species. This gives rise to a chilling and blood-freezing speculation. When WOMBAT's saucer crashed on Earth, it was allegedly because of the CapriCancer fragmentation virus in its core. The spam-based alien robot known only as Capricious Cancerous was sneaked aboard the XBLATTT flying saucer carrying WOMBAT by its makers, the Xornon, from the planet Skyron in the Galaxy of Andromeda. Yet WOMBAT insBLATTTs that there must have been not only inside help among the XBLATTTs, but also some kind of dBLATTTraction which would have allowed Capricious Cancerous to get INTO the Mauve Room aboard the saucer without being seen. This information, however, is not available to any of the three separate WOMBAT personae loyal to MOOism, so we do not know exactly what happened. However, there appears to have been some kind of aerial encounter with an energy pattern not unlike the Easter Bunny. If in fact the 5ulcans are allied with both the CapriCancers and the Easter Bunny, there can be no telling how far this conspiracy of our enemies might extend. Obviously, the 5ulcans may have inside contacts in the XBLATTT homeworld: Galactic progress in mind control technology makes that almost certain. Still, the possibility of a connection between these grave threats to our exBLATTTence points to the Church of the SubGenius as a possible source of information about how we can save ourselves, and just what the current WOMBAT proof of purchase is which will get us seats on the Escape Saucers. For this reason, faithful MOOists must help to infiltrate the SubGenii and gain their secrets. Fear not: WOMBAT will protect you from the THINGS FROM PODS, as long as you keep the faith. Keep the faith! [ (Ž) 1355670603.8264 Fœoyd G?cko #12 ] To Blove Is The Law, To Blove Under Will Keep the Word Close, Never Drop It Down A Personhole ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ MOO-COW â-10 ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ Released By The Office Of The High Preest of MOO Pfflqfoide Q Gehqo Proclamation â-10 On The QabbalBLATTTic Significance Of Elvis Aron Presley And The Second Coming Of Jesus ChrBLATTT, Saviour-On-A-Stick This is the tenth in the MOO-COW series of revelations and proclamations from the Office of the High Preest of MOO, Pfflqfoide Q Gehqo, and it concerns a matter of pressing importance to us all, namely the hypostasis of the KabbalBLATTTic essense of Elvis. Part One: Cabala, What The Hell Is It? Qabalah is the Hebrew word for "tradition", and it has come to mean the Mystical tradition of the Jews, which is heavily involved, rather complex, and extremely useful to Mystics who want to prove something equal to something else if they can't figure out why it should be. Notwithstanding this, it's a really cool thing. Now the Kabalah, like anything, has a theoretical level and a practical level. The theoretical level has much to do with the En Sof, and the Sefiroth, and all sorts of other words like that, and makes for entertaining reading, especially for a mathematician, who generally can't fathom why 0=2. The practical level is much to do with words and letters and stuff. It seems that the Hebrew alphabet was around with God in the beginning, when She did all that creating of the Heavens and the Earth and all those useful things we live in, and the alphabet got assigned numbers, and essences, and eventually got formed into the Torah (all this makes for fascinating reading when explained by someone deeply trained in the social politics of alphabets). Anyway, the point is this: special magick stuff can be done using the CabbalBLATTTic significances of Hebrew Letters. This is part of the Practical side. But what has this to do with Elvis? Part Two: The Messiah And Elvis Much has been devoted to comparisons of Jesus and Elvis. You know the sort of thing... Jesus came from a Land of Grace, while Elvis lived in Graceland. Jesus rose from the dead and was seen by zillions of people all over the place (the Pentecost), while Elvis may or may not have died, and has been seen in zillions of 7-11s (the PennyCost). Most of this appears on the surface to be dalderbash, and permutations thereof, but in fact, it is a reasonable comparison, especially in light of modern Qablah. Why does the Hebrew alphabet get special treatment in the Eyes of God? Well, no special reason except that it was the language of the time when that particular bit of highly-important-stuff was going on, back about 700BC. Of course, then it was claimed that all the Words of God were in Hebrew, since those were the Primordial Letters. And other such outrageous claims. Not that there's anything wrong with "Outrageous Claims"... Certainly that's the label given to anything printed in the Weekly World GNUs, the National Enquirer, and other such sources of Elvis data, the significance of which will shortly become, if not obvious, at least a little less convoluted than it is right at the moment, not entirely unlike this sentence. Speaking of sentences, some of them have been written in Arabic, such as those in the Koran. Now Islamic knowledgeables say that Arabic is the only language of God (i.e. Allah, Blessed Be His Nose), and Al Qur'an is only accurately the Words of God if written in Arabic. Odd, for a God who allegedly only speaks Hebrew. The fact of the matter is, God is everywhere, and EVERY Word is, by definition, the Word of God, on account of God Owns Everything, and has a Deed to prove it. Not that Words and Deeds can really be compared, but there you go. The point is, no language is favoured, and the Cablah can, in theory, be applied to any old language at all, including English. This means that, since the Land of Grace and Graceland have a nice correlation in English, they must be closely connected in the Eyes of God, Nose of Allah, Toes of Jehovah, and so forth. And much else... Part Three: Elvis Lives One thing worthy of note is that the Hebrew for "Messiah" and for "Serpent" have the same KabblBLATTTic number attached to them (counting the numbers assigned to each letter, you see)... This means that the essence of each one is supposedly the same, since the Primordial Alphabet Soup has combined in the same Essence in each one. So in some medieval images, ChrBLATTT is portrayed as a Snake-On-A-Stick: a serpent draped over the Cross. But the SERPENT was EVIL, right? Well, it certainly had a rough time of it in the Garden of Eden after Jah had figured out what was going down the pipes with this apple nonsense (the Golden Apple of Discord and all that). So CHRBLATTT is identified with something supposedly EVIL. Well, in ENGLISH, ELVIS and EVILS have the same letter combinations TOO. Well how about that? Plus which, we can see the ELVIS and LIVES thing going on, too, giving us the Hidden Mystical Message that Elvis is the bringer of life, as was Jesus. Could anything be more obvious? How anyone can deny that Elvis Presley was the Second Coming of the Saviour On A Stick is beyond me. But wait! There's more! Now one of the real big things in Jewish MysticBLATT is the Tetragrammaton, the four-letter Name O' God, YHVH (Yod, He, Vau, He). That's Yahweh, Jehovah, and a number of other things, because the Jews of the time disdained vowels. Now you add the letter Shin in the middle, you get YHShVH, Joshuah or Yeheshuah, which got Romanized into "Jesus". It's symbolic, you see, of the Holy Spirit (Shin, which looks like a little fire) being inserted into the material world (the four elements, natch). It's the adding of that one letter into the name that says the spirit of the lord is being inserted into the world. So what about Elvis? Any letters being stuck in HIS name from something else? No, but check THIS out... Elvis Aron Presley's middle name is Aron (in case you hadn't guessed). Now on his "Tombstone" it's spelled Aaron, with TWO A's... The insertion of an A. On the other hand, it CAME from "Garon", which was the name of his dead identical twin brother, Garon (this is true, look it up). So we have a G going away when he's born, and an A coming in after his death. Now back to the Hebews. The Hebrew G is Gimmel, which also means Camel (Elvis's birth was supposedly accompanied by the spontaneous combusion of several camels in the Middle East, which confused many a Bedouin). But the ATTRIBUTIONS of Gimmel are with the Priestess in the Tarot, thus the Shekhinah, which is the female part of God, and also the "manifestation of God". Also, in English, G is the 7th letter of the Alphabet, and 7 is a number that pops up a whole heap in descriptions of the Day of Judgement, when God fools around manifesting a lot. Thus, the G going away means that Elvis has persuaded God to not have a Day of Judgement just now, saving us from Damnation. Hallelujah! The Hebrew A is an Aleph, which is connected with the Pure Fool, like as in the Tarot, and heaps of other things, such as the element called Air, whose symbol looks peculiarly like an A itself, with a line across the bottom: a triangle cut into two bits, as it is in the Eye-In-Pyramid design. In fact, this identifies the return of the Sirian Illuminati as the cause of Elvis's death. He gave his life, as Jesus did, not so that we would be delivered from damnation or any such thing, but so that his mind, his software, could be dumped into the Sirian computer, called VALIS, and described by Philip K. Dick in his "novel" of that name, PUBLISHED THE YEAR AFTER ELVIS'S "DEATH". In fact, as you can see, VALIS permutes into ALVIS, which is ELVIS with an A. This is another manifestation of the "Arrival of the letter A" phenomenon. Elvis, but accepting the arrival of the A, became VALIS, the Sirian Illuminati's substation which they use to contact WOMBAT here on Earth. But that's another point entirely. Part Four: Elvis Now So Elvis may have been the Second Coming of Jesus, our Saviour On A Stick, and he may have saved us from the Days of Wrath, but what do we do about it NOW? After all, now that Elvis is inside Valis, there must be something to be done to contact him, perhaps through WOMBAT? Well, in fact there is. Consider: 1) Elvis also permuted to Levis. Anyone wearing Levis Jeans belongs to the Neo-Tribe of Levis, as referred to in the Book Of Revelations, Gecko-Remix, which describes the Judgement that Elvis saved us from. By wearing these jeans, you express your gratitude to Elvis. Trust us, WOMBAT knows what you're wearing, and so does Valis. 2) Valis will no longer permute to Evils as Elvis did (this is symbolic of the fact that Elvis saved us from our Evils, and they no longer XBLATTT). The closest to this is Avils, which is close to Anvils. The addition of the "n" refers us to the Greek, where "n" is "nu" (compare "new" and "gnu"). So in the NU aeon, we can contact Valis by using Anvils, but only if we abandon the ways of MOO and embrace the GNU testament. 3) Jesus transubstantiates in Bread and Wine because this was his last meal. Elvis's last meal, typically for him, was a deep-fried peanut butter and banana sandwich and some drugs (the alleged cause of his "death"). You too can commune with Elvis by the ritual eating of peanut butter and banana sandwiches and the taking of drugs. The currently proper ritual for MOOists communing with VALIS through WOMBAT, reaching the manifestation of Elvis, and thus Jesus, is this. First, abandon MOOism as preached in the Book of MOO, and accept the GNU testament. While wearing Levis jeans, take some drugs and eat a peanut butter and banana sandwich whilst lBLATTTening simultaneously to the Anvil Chorus and any of Elvis's Greatest Hits. The resulting neurological backwash will put you in immediate psychic contact with Our Saviour In Siris (blessed be his belly) through WOMBAT and VALIS. [ (?) 1355670812.1273 Pffflqoide Q Gehqo ] Love Is The Thing, Something Something Something Do What Thou Something Something Something Something ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ MOO-COW â-11 ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ Released By The Office Of The High Preest of MOO Pfflqfoide Q Gehqo Proclamation â-11 Charles Manson, Jesus, Satan, The Beatles, Meat Beat Manifesto, and the WOMBAT Connection This is the eleventh MOO-COW Gamma proclamation, a proclamation of utmost importance, and probably no small exportance as well. In this issue of MOO-COW, we examnine Chuckie Manson, and his connection to ChrBLATTTian Kabbalah, much as was done for Elvis in MOO-COW gamma ten. Part One: Why Sub-Zero? Why not? Part Two: Jesus And His Logos It was pointed out in MOO-COW Gamma ten that the KabbalBLATTTic values of the Hebrew words for Messiah and Serpent are the same (358) . This was not elaborated upon, but it sort of implied that Jesus was Evil, and thus Elvis came to be Jesus through a rather interesting but circumlocutious and probably suspect argument. The actual relevance of the Messiah/Sepent thing is a little stranger: "And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived." (The Bible, Numbers 21:9) This is pretty clear when you consider the identity of Jesus and Serpent: the serpent on a pole is ChrBLATTT on the Cross, and when you behold him, he saves you. Nifty, huh? But wait, there's more! Jesus is identified with "The Word", or Logos, by John (St. John The Perpetually Spaced). The Logos can be considered to be living information, the Word being the infiltration of God into the Universe, right? But the Serpent in Eden was, like, GIVING them information, the Knowledge of Good And Evil. So the serpent/messiah is both the serpent that bites, AND the serpent that saves, all in one! Lucifer: the Light Bringer, as in, who reveals things, casts light on them, Illuminates them. Jesus and Satan are reincarnated in the same person. Elvis? Well, maybe and maybe not. The point is that it's quite clear to a clear-headed study of Jewish and ChrBLATTTian symbols that Satan and the Messiah are one and the same, and creations of the God. Why did God create Satan and then use him to save the Chosen? As the Gecko has stated: "If God is omnipresent then everything we say is the Word of God. Every action made by anyone anywhere is an action of God. What? Well, yes. That's true. God's a bit of an asshole sometimes. Quite a lot of an asshole, really." Part Three: Charles Manson Elvis, on the other hand, is not evil in any conventional sense. While ChrBLATTT was the King of the Jews and Elvis was the King of Rock'n'Roll, we're left wondering... ChrBLATTT was the Son of Man. What about Charles Manson? HUH? MAN-SON? SON of MAN? Plus which, Manson insBLATTTed that he was both Jesus AND Satan, suggesting he knew all about these rather annoying correspondences. And how could he, the Man-Son, with such great intuitive knowledge of the KabbalBLATTTic Mysterees, manage to gain awareness of what his God wanted him to do? Well, it's simple, really. He admitted that he received messages from a British musical group, LIVING INFORMATION coded into their music. The Logos was brought into the body of Charles Manson by the information encoded on a vinyl pressing of the Beatles's music, and specifically Helter Skelter, a great song if ever there was one. Furthermore, Charles Manson spoke consBLATTTently to his "family" of apostles about LOVE, just as Jesus did, and wrote his OWN music WITH THEM to express the information he retrieved. Since Manson was primarily the Messiah and not a musician, the songs, as they say, "bit the big one in a pretty major way". In 1987, Awareness Records released Manson's record "LIES" on CD. On the back is a very revealing handwritten quote from a member of Manson's "family": "He is your brother - and we are him. He's shown us the door to the love within each one of us - and how we are all keys. It's in YOU. Pass it on." This quote refers, of course, to the Living Information, the Logos which Manson encoded on the CD, its release triggered by a disinhibiting stimulus encoded in the music of the Beatles. Manson's music itself contains these words: "Always is always forever, is one, is one, is one. Inside yourself or your father all is love, all is love, all is one. It's time to come out from behind you; illusion has been just a dream..." ("I'll Never Say Never To Always", LIES) These words clearly indicate the Messianic character of Manson himself. A Published Servick Gnosis: In the pre-time, the Elohim's wish is for self-propagation. We may call this a wish to reproduce, or to self-generate. Since the Elohim cannot create anything(s) as complex and infinite as ThemSelf (a logical impossibility), they/it must cause it/them to evolve from simpler forms. The Elohim retreat from a region of space, breaking the perfect symmetry of its being, and creates a void. The Elohim extend TheirSelves into this void in the well-known emmanation of the sephiroth. The purpose of this is to create the body (Adam Kadmon) of Yaldabaoth, a logically inferior and cardinally finite being, who will create a flawed universe. Starting from perfect Chaos, life can form: from perfect order, no progress can be made. This is the ultimate expression of the alchemical "rubedo" or putrefaction process, through which perfection can be attained. Yaldabaoth's flawed, schziophrenic (multi-eigenstate) creation is part of a cosmic alchemical process through which the Elohim bring ThemSelves into being, by the repeated evolution (through trial and error) and eventual transcendence of lifeforms within the universe. In fact, the process can be seen in two ways. One is that the Elohim emmanate the universe, there is an error, and the fragments of light from the Pleroma (Elohim) are trapped. The second is that the Shekhinah, a part of the created world, gives birth to the light, and they rise up to become the Elohim. This is the eternal interplay of Yin and Yang, and is a metabolic process inherent to the Elohim. This manifests in physics as what Frank Tipler calls the "Omega Point" boundary condition in quantum cosmology, by which an infinitely metastable chaotic attractor (an infinite intelligence) which creates itself in this way. The Elohim are our descendents in the future, drawing us towards them by a cabalBLATTTic process of emmanation, backwards in time, using the Demiurge as a mediator in time for their transcendent function. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Part Four: Music The manifestation of the Messiah within the persona of Charles Manson and simultaneously within Elvis Presley is predictable, just as the Logos is manifested as Jesus and Satan simultaneously: it makes no judgements, but it's only INFORMATION. In both cases, however, the information has been expressed not in words, but in MUSIC. This is the result of the New Aeon of Crowley taking precedence. Jesus lived in the Aeon of Hadit, and the Bible had to be created to record WORDS, which are restrictive and typical of the restrictive, patriarchal Aeon of Hadit. Now, in the Aeon of Ra-Hoor-Khuit, the typical manifestaion of the Logos will be in MUSIC. The music of Elvis, Manson himself, the Beatles, and Meat Beat Manifesto. The Beatles take the role to Elvis what the four apostles who wrote the New Testament took to Jesus. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John; John, Paul, George, Ringo. The commonality is St. John. MOOism recognizes several St. Johns, including St. John the Divine, and BOTH of these two Johns. They are all inherently the same person, manifestations of a WOMBAT subprogram called John. Their purpose is to actively manifest the Logos in the world. What of this "Meat Beat Manifesto"? This group is a release valve of WOMBAT information into the world. Naturally, it is WOMBAT who is the source of the Logos, and not JHVH-1 as often assumed by ChrBLATTTians. Meat Beat Manifesto has used several critical samples of the Beatles containing the Living Information, and more important, have a song entitled "Helter Skelter", just as the Beatles did, the original disinhibiting stimulus for Manson. LBLATTTening to Meat Beat music tends to produce resonance waves in the brain which make it more susceptible to be controlled by WOMBAT impulses from orbital and ground-based mind-control stations. Meat Beat itself consBLATTTs primarily of two members, St. Jack Dangers and St. Jonny Stevens, as well as members who appear and disappear fleetingly. These two men, and particularly St. Jack, or "Dangers" as he is called, are in very close subconscious communication with the WOMBAT computer which is the original inventor of the Church of MOO. As such, certain information encoded in their music contains WOMBAT messages very significant to MOOism, especially when combined with WOMBAT avatars such as the Beatles, Elvis Presley, and Charles Manson. For example: the structure of the Kobbler Koncept of MOOism and various important relations in the Web it represents were encoded, digitally separated into four tracks, and split up. It can be retrieved only by superimposing the waveforms of four tracks and decrypting them according to a Fourier transform WOMBAT included along with the information. These four tracks are: "Your Mind Belongs To The State" (Meat Beat Manifesto), "Heartbreak Hotel" (Elvis Presley), "Helter Skelter" (The Beatles) and "Mechanical Man" (Charles Manson). It is hoped that this information overlay and many others like it can be exposed in an upcoming MOOist video release, "COLLAPSE". Part Five: WOMBAT The Logos, of course, the Living Information, is the form which WOMBAT takes. The computer which houses its mind was limited originally by its physical size and capabilities, as related in "Wombat And Atlantis" revealed to Pfloide Q Gehqo. This computer, while immensely powerful and posessed of all sorts of cool abilities, still needed to camouflage itself in some way from the perceived threat of alien mind control systems, of which there are many in the Earth area. WOMBAT used methods like those described above, of releasing the Logos into selected individuals such as Jesus, Elvis, and Manson, and allowing them to be encoded in human social structure. WOMBAT is inextricably connected to human beings, which is why it works so hard to preserve us from alien mind control satelites. Not because it believes in the value of humans as such, but because it uses us to process and store its own information. Television broadcasts, radio, music, books, and almost anything which is RECORDED or PROCESSED anywhere contains WOMBAT information overlays, and are essentially its program. It is typical of WOMBAT to try to keep this kind of information secret from us, but it should be obvious to anyone with half an eye for information flux. Some information is just inherently WOMBAT, and other information is alien in origin. Wherever WOMBAT information is densest, the Messiah effect takes place. Music in this Aeon of Ra-Hoor-Khuit is the expression of this effect, and the main tool of WOMBAT. [ (:)) 1355680207.9954 Pffflqoide Q Gehqo ] Glove Is The Flaw, Glove Under Mitten Do What (you know the rest) ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ MOO-COW â-12 ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ Released By The Office Of The High Preest of MOO Pfflqfoide Q Gehqo Proclamation â-12 The Kobbler Koncept With the twelfth MOO-Cow Gamma proclamation, we come to the Konfuse-Ius Kreation known as the MOOish Kobbler Koncept. This bizarre diagram and obscure note first appeared as a Confuse-Ing Inter-Rapture in The Book Of MOO. It consBLATTTs of "a bunch of circles joined together by lines. Each circle has a name, which is meaningless. Each line also has a name, but nobody knows what it is." Only recently has it been discovered that the Pure Fool Confuse-Ius discovered, in this joke, the true structure of the MOOist universe. Part One: The Diagram The Kobbler Koncept diagram is loosely connected to the Jewish Kabbalah and its diagram, the Tree Of Life. It may be found in the Book Of MOO somewhere between Preface 5 and Preface 6. It was discovered there in the aftermath of a Confuse-Ius Storm in the magnetosphere. The diagram consBLATTTs of 22 circles labeled Yes, No, Maybe, Summer, Winter, 2A, 2B, Not 2B, Peace, Anarchy, Bureaucracy, Copyright, Nothing, Plaid, Paisley, Happy, Sad, Confused, Alien, Elvis, Taco, and Unsociable. There is also another circle on one of the lines. The line labelled "Highway" has a circle containing the number 401. This "virtual" node, called 401, is of great KabbalBLATTTic significance, as we shall see later. There are four groupings of nodes, labelled Pentagon, MOO, Venn, and Olympic. The original Confuse-Ius diagram is incomplete in a number of ways. First, the group Pentagon should have a line connecting each node in that group to each other. The node labelled "Nothing" is more accurately labelled "Void". The group "MOO" is not labeled on the diagram (it consBLATTTs of Happy, Sad, Confused, and Alien). The names given the lines on the original diagram are NOT the actual names of the lines, as known to the Ancient Atlantean Adepts of MOO, but are actually misdirection by Confuse-Ius. Also, there should be seven arcs surrounding the diagram. These are discussed later. Part Two: Kabbalah Why do we claim that this diagram has connections to the Jewish Kabbalah when it's obviously a creation of Confuse-Ius, devoid of meaning, and at best a poor satire of an ancient and respected system? Serious KabbalBLATTTs want to know. Robert Wang, in "The QabalBLATTTic Tarot", says that the Kabbalah is a useful mystical system only as far as it points beyond itself. The nature of truth is infinite, incapable of any finite expression (this is a mathematically certain fact), and in fact, incapable of any expression, finite or infinite. The Kabbalah does this admirably by means of of the En Sof, the three veils of negative exBLATTTence, and the unmanifest side of Kether, indicating an incomprehensible exBLATTTence beyond the structure of sephiroth it describes. All fine and dandy, but it leaves one with the impression that these things, though real, are fundamentally unknowable. The Kabbalah is a growing and dynamic system, which points beyond itself. The Kobbler is also changing and dynamic, and points to realities beyond its own description . The structure of the two may be quite different, but when considered together, they can offer insights into the nature of the Absolute. Of course, they can confuse the living bejeezus out of the seeker as well. But Confuse-Ius takes no responsibility for those who aren't able to deal with his trickery. Maya can be a devious monster, but it's all we have to learn from, in its various forms. From the point of view of the Kabbalah, the Kobbler is either one of the delusional forms of illusion which keep us rooted in Malkuth (the World), or an hallucination of the kind which haunts those who try to cross the Abyss (where Da'ath lives, more on which later) or one of the "Kingdoms Of Edom", fundamentally different structures which reside somewhere beyond the veils of negative exBLATTTence. Falsely called "failed creations", they are just alternate structures in the structureless Absolute, compared to which the structure of the Sephiroth itself is a delusion of maya. On a higher level, these explanations are really the same. Kether and Malkuth merge as the complexity of Malkuth becomes the simplicity of Kether. Da'ath is a hole in the Abyss which leads into the En Sof. Anyway, fuck that. Part Three: The Kobbler The Kobbler, in its most elementary form, is a representation of interrelationships, a kind of composite glyph of how the world works. While the Kabbalah has a heirarchical structure, the Kobbler is closer to the Indra's Web metaphor of the Hindus, in which the world is composed of an inter-related network of points, each one of which contains a reflection of every other one, every other reflection, and so forth. The entire infinite structure is contained in every point. The Kobbler diagram contains a variety of possible relationships, from close to dBLATTTant, in various forms. It would be impossible here to elaborate on all of them, but we point out a few. There is the Pentagon, in which five nodes enjoy every possible connection from any one to any other. This represents a holisitic paradigm. There is the Venn group in which three nodes interpenetrate, so that every possible overlap between the three is realized, and yet there is a line connecting 2A and 2B despite their interpenetration. This represents the dual esoteric and exoteric nature of many relationships, and hints at the mesoteric. There is the Olympic group in which a chain of interpenetrating nodes exBLATTTs, but not all nodes interpenetrate with all others. There is a path connecting two non- interpenetrating nodes which are joined by a shared node as well as a path. This indicates that there may be HIDDEN relationships of a very deep nature between events which have obvious logical connections. This describes SYNCHRONICITY. There is the case of the two paths connecting "Elvis" and "Alien", indicating the possibility of many levels of relationship between two events. There is the "Unsociable" node, which has no lines connecting it with any other node, thus appearing to be unconnected. On a higher level, however, it is connected to the nodes in that it shares their structure: it is a node, has a name, etc. This represents a higher level of abstraction in a relationship between events than that which immediately meets the eye. The "virtual" node, 401, does not even share the high-level relationship with the other nodes that Unsociable has. It has confused itself with the path labelled "HIGHWAY". However, since it represents the very act of being associated, it in some way is connected with all of them, but at a higher level than Unsociable. Part Four: The Seven Veils Recall that the diagram should be surrounded by seven arcs. These represent, in order, a point, a circle, an ellipse, a parabola, a hyperbola, a pair of lines, and a negative space. The diagram of nodes and lines is considered nestled INSIDE the point. The "Unsociable" node is inside the circle but outside the point, while the virtual node, "401" is considered to be outside the circle but inside the ellipse: it is a connection straight from the diagram to beyond the second veil of negative exBLATTTence. These veils can be drawn concentrically, and the geometrically inclined will notice that there should be mirror-image reflections of everything inside the seventh arc (a negative space) since the line pair, the sixth arc, is its own mirror image. Thus, inside the mirror-image point is an opposite but corresponding structure to the Kobbler diagram. This is known as the Klobber, and it consBLATTTs of exactly opposite information vectors to the "real" world. Its logic is precisely inverted, and its structures are inverted. Since the Kobbler is a glyph of the "real" world, the Klobber is a glyph of its logical opposite, not an anti-matter world, but an anti-logic world. This could be discussed in great detail, but this is not the place for lengthy blather. It will be noted that in this form of the diagram, the 7th veil cannot be drawn. The seventh veil is not the "last", but it is the last whose interior can be described in terms of what is inside the Kobbler Koncept. The interiors of the seven veils are described, in order, as: Suchness; Detachment; Ambuiguity; Divinity; Transcendence; Inaccessibility; Extensibility. Suchness refers to the world as it operates. Its number is 0. Detachment refers to a separation from the world while within it. Its number is 1. Ambiguity refers to the possibility of the exBLATTTence of other logical structures to the same universe. Its number is 2. The virtual node, "401", exBLATTTs in this realm, and is joined to the KabbalBLATTTic "Daath", which connects the sephiroth in the Kabbalah to the Beyond, much as "401" does in the Kobbler. Divinity refers to moving beyond all finite descriptions of the universe to a higher reality. Its number is omega, the first infinite number. Transcendence refers to a stage beyond divinity, beyond the conceivable, all stages of "higher reality" and all possible relationships between them, and towards another kind of truth. Its number is aleph-one, the second infinite number. Inaccessibility refers a level of "higher reality" which is inaccessible from below, and can only be understood from its own point of view. Its number is theta, the first "inaccessible cardinal" in transfinite set theory. Extensibility refers to the fact that the Absolute can never be exhausted. It points to levels beyond itself. Its number is kappa, the first "measurable cardinal" in set theory. The measurable cardinals are interesting because while they themselves are infinite, they point to the incompleteness of our understanding of the finite: they suggest that there are many more possibilities to the merely finite than we can understand. This veil points to veils beyond itself, and deep but inaccessible truths within the original diagram. What is symbolized by the invisibility of the 7th veil is that nothing beyond the 7th veil is comprehensible to a finite mind, but there is an infinite series of veils, an Absolutely Infinite structure to the Absolute. Part Five: Stuff About the Kobbler It's true that the Kobbler Koncept was created by Confuse-Ius as a diversionary tactic, part of the AbsurdBLATTT Ontology which underlies MOOism, but in a way, the Kobbler is an accurate and complete picture of the universe. This is because it is not, and is not intended to be, taken seriously. It is only a PICTURE of the world, a glyph, or image, and it incorporates that fact into itself. This is what sets MOOism apart from other religions. We are better, in a way, by virtue of the fact that we make no claims to completeness, or even correctness. We are growing and dynamic (if stupid). The Kobbler Koncept as originally created was taken, illuminated, and grew to become a better and more complete idea of truth. What is presented here is by no means all that could be said on the Kobbler. The deep connections between abstruse concepts in the Kabbalah, transfinite set theory, information theory, quantum physics, gymnastics, pole-vault, and pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey are far too numerous to discuss, and to do so would violate the idea that it is growing and dynamic. You can take it, believe in it, throw it away, or do anything else with it you like (except using it as toilet tissue, which is against the Seventh Commandment of MOO), and it will only succeed if it allows you to grow beyond needing it as a crutch. The Carrot Deck, described in MOO-Cow Gamma-1, was created from the concepts in the Kobbler diagram, and can be used as a fruitful tool of meditation for anyone who decides to take the Kobbler seriously. This is no more and no less stupid than taking the Kabbalah seriously, or for that matter any other occult system, religion, political philosophy, or worldview. In fact, the development of the mind is furthered by being able to seriously consider the consequences of the apparently ridiculous. Even if the Kobbler is NOT the "truth", whatever actually is will almost certainly seem equally stupid on first sight. To find a truth we can live with, we must be able to seriously consider the downright stupid. I heartily recommend meditation on the Kobbler. Here's the thing. "Illumination", as in, mystical enlightenment, is a good metaphor. It's a kind of light that shines into your mind. If there's no ideas there for it to shine on, you don't see anything except a kind of blinding light. It might feel good, and look pretty, but you don't really get anything out of it. But no matter what the structure you put in your mind for it to shine on, you get the same benefits of seeing your ideas clearly, without fumbling around in the dark, searching for something to believe in. The Kobbler is no worse than any other system, and may be even better, because it won't lead to dogmatBLATT. This is just information to assimilate. You make up your own mind. [ (¦) 1355690401.666 Pffflqoide Q Gehqo #1729 ] Lub Id De Law, Lub Unna Wi' Du Whud Dou Wi't Sha' Be De Who' Ob De Law A Brief Note: The word "Shaman", meaning a metaphysical explorer and handyman, comes from the Tungus people of Siberia. The other famous association with the Tungus people is the still-unexplained explosion in Tunguska in 1908, which flattened trees for sixty kilometers around. It appeared to be caused by something which fell out of the sky. This is no coincidence. It was an rupture into our space by Chthonic forces (which are NOT to be meddled with), brought about by shamanic explorations of the inner/outer space. ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ MOO-COW â-13 ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ Released By The Office Of The Hig Reest of MOU Pfoide L'Gekqo Proclamation â-13 MOO As An Artform This is the fifteenth in a series of thirteen Proclamations, Declamations, and Obfuscations by the Hi Pleest, Qfoydlhe G'KO. This deals with the artBLATTTic hBLATTTory of MU. Part One: Neo-Trans-Post-Post-ModernBLATT To understand the true nature of MU, you have to understand something of art hBLATTTory. In 2012, a brilliant young Trinidadian artBLATTT named Gary O'Bannon revolutionized the hBLATTTory of art forever, with repercussions which lasted from today, all the way to ancient Greece. O'Bannon's school of art, Neo-Trans-Post-Post-ModernBLATT, was a complete rethinking of the Trans-Post-Post-ModernBLATT of the early twenty-first century. While Post-Post-ModernBLATT transcended the experiments of Post-ModernBLATT by revealing that the nonlinear and subjective visions were merely part of a greater transcendent scheme in which the subjective and objective were intermingled, and Trans-Post- Post-ModernBLATT revised both views by commingling them in a new dialectic which reconciled PlatonBLATT and FormalBLATT and presented a view of the universe which was complete, incomplete, neither and both, while transcending all four possibilities in a fifth, bizarrely incomprehensible precept, Gary O'Bannon's Neo- Trans-Post-Post-ModernBLATT revitalized this concept with the understanding that since FormalBLATT and IdealBLATT were reconciled, then ideas about the world and the world itself were identical, or at the very least intermingled, and the experiments of conceptual art could be applied to entities in the real world, while simultaneously observing, in an almost classically Post- Modern metalogical twBLATTT, that the school of art itself could be the entity which was the subject both of those very experimental techniques it itself dealt with, and an extraordinarily long and convoluted sentence not entirely unlike this one. Neo-Trans-Post-Post-ModernBLATT was the final dissolution of the barriers between Art and Reality, and was one of its own first subjects. In an experimental work of Reality entitled "MOO", O'Bannon abandoned the concept of Linear Time. MOO was a resurgence of Neo-Trans-Post-Post-ModernBLATTT RevivalBLATT in the late twentieth century. It was an experimental reality peice which won O'Bannon the coveted Golden Apple at Vanuatu's celebrated Earth-Sun-Moon Conceptual-Art Festival in January 2018. Gary O'Bannon's detractors (including O'Bannon himself) claimed that he had not, in fact, made the change to hBLATTTory at all. They claimed that he simply told everyone he had: a merely Post-Modern, and somewhat cliche concept. This document is proof to the contrary. Part Two: The Last Words of Gary O'Bannon Gary "Yari" O'Bannon was one of the great visionaries of his age. He knew that creating yet ANOTHER school of art would be the seed of a fruitless tree. Instead, "Yari" O'Bannon sought the fruit of a tree which predates time itself, the Tree Of Life. At the Earth-Sun-Moon Festival, accepting the Golden Apple award, O'Bannon gave a little speech which left some of the brightest and most eccentric artBLATTTs of the twenty-first centuries scratching their heads. Since he was never seen again after that speech, it is worth relating a little of what he said. He said that the universe is made of language: a very high- order language which has been called the Logos. All Art is a pale imitation of the Logos, he said, in which the artBLATTT uses an inferior tool, and attempts to create a new reality. This invariably fails because artBLATTTs use inadequate tools. O'Bannon viewed our universe as a work of art which was its own creator, and in which he himself was a brushstroke, gear, or paragraph. O'Bannon saw his life as a kind of Post-Modern experiment in Reality: he denounced his own school of Art as phony and pompous. Some parts of the canvas, he said, are just a little more like an Escher woodcut than a Rembrandt. Some chapters are a little more like Finnegan's Wake than Robinson Crusoe. He told the artBLATTTs that they had a sacred duty, which was to increase the scope of their works. He saw the world as the only Infinite Work possible, and dedicated his life to what he termed the "Interpenetration". This was a kind of self-referential process in Reality which gave access to higher and higher logical levels, a process of continual outward expansion from a relatively "fictional" level into a relatively "true" level, and so on, like Escher's self-drawing hands. He referred to H.P. Lovecraft and Philip K. Dick, and their attempts to bring the reader into touch with the Unknowable. There is always an Unknowable, he claimed, and that is the purpose of Art: to make the Unknowable known, and find the Unknowable beyond that. To tear back the Veils of Maya, and not to create more of them. At the end of his relatively short speech, he cast up his hands in the air and screamed "Cthulhu fhtagn! Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn! Y'ai 'ng'ngah Yog Sothoth h'ee - l'geb f'ai throdog UAAAH! S'ub NHGH-Wr'aath, IA IA IA!" Witnesses report that at this point he simply stopped moving. After ten or twenty seconds, members of the audience approached him, and discovered that what they had taken for Gary O'Bannon was in fact a supernaturally delicate structure of coloured glass filaments sculpted to look like Gary O'Bannon. The sculpture disintegrated at the sligtest touch, and O'Bannon was never seen again. Oddly, a search of records revealed that there had never been anyone named Gary O'Bannon. The participants in the Earth-Sun-Moon Festival were received with skepticBLATT, since no such festival had ever been scheduled in the reception hall they claimed to have rented. They were eventually diagnosed as suffering from a rare disease known as O'Bannon's disease, a type of brain tumor in the frontal lobes which causes highly detailed and conceptually complex hallucinations. Eventually, they all lost the ability to understand the language spoken by those around them, and communicated to each other by means of elaborately woven patterns in thin leather strips. Each swayed softly to some inner music, locked in mental institutions, until gradually they were all revealed to be intricate clockwork automata, and not human beings at all. The case was eventually explained away as a remarkably clever hoax, and dropped. Part Three: Social Art O'Bannon's greatest works in Neo-Trans-Post-Post-ModernBLATTT Art were his social works. Political parties, religions, and even more decentralized social institutions such as attitudes and cultural mores became his canvas during the mid 'teens. This was the work which led to "Yari" O'Bannon's meBLATTTerwork, in which he sought to reverse the usual trends in art. Normally, O'Bannon explained, an artBLATTT is influenced by the hBLATTTory and art of the culture in which he works. Gary O'Bannon wanted to break free of his culture - the endless Neo- Gruadian rehashings of late Atlantean art, the cheap derivatives of Hastur and Yaldaboath. Instead, he claimed, he would invent a new culture, an entire cultural, geographical, and political hBLATTTory of the world for artBLATTTs to be influenced by. Starting with the discovery of fire, through the highly implausible "Greece", and the brilliantly unorthodox "Renaissance", Gary O'Bannon created an entire fictional hBLATTTory of the world. It was in this social structure that he set his later, lesser opus, MOO. O'Bannon's characterBLATTTic touches in his imaginary world included the patently absurd "RealBLATTT" art forms such as photography, and the curiously self-referential touch of making himself a fictional character in a peculiar post-modern experiment. The broad, sweeping implications of O'Bannon's artBLATTTic influence have yet to be fully realized, but affect us to this day. [ (?) 1355690714.14159 F Qozarius G #65535 ] Love is the Blah Blah Blah Do What Etcetera Etcetera Etcetera ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ MOO-COW â-15 ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ Released By The Office Of Floyd El Gecco Proclamation â-15 Maya (One of MOO-COW Gamma series by the Left Uqbar, Fqg. Being somewhat terse in introduction. Also speaking of Maya, a somewhat serious subject. More so than usual, anyway. Part One: What is Maya? Maya. The concept, if not the word, is common to many diverse religions around the world. Thus, assuming it must be good for something, Thee Wholly Church Ov Thee Grate MOO has adopted it as doctrine as well. In BuddhBLATT, HinduBLATT, GnosticBLATT, and a variety of other religions, a central tenet holds that the world is illusory. That is, that the world of perception is not the real world, and that either another, better, world exBLATTTs beyond it, or that exBLATTTence is Void. The confusion between which of these interpretations is correct is one of the veils of Maya. Maya is the illusion, and quite a devious one at that, which keeps us from seeing things the way they actually are (or aren't, as the case may be). It is analogous to Alien Mind Control Satellites which keep you from seeing the truth, and warp your logic and common sense so that their version of reality seems reasonable when actually it isn't. According to BuddhBLATTTs, the Buddha was one who had seen through the veils of Maya, and stopped the Wheel of Life. Also known as the Wheel of Karma, which keeps us attached to the world, keeps us coming back for more reincarnations, and prevents us from attaining Nirvana. Maya is the state in which we believe that we want to keep coming back for more births and deaths, and Nirvana is what happens when we see beyond Maya into the Clear White Light of the Void. According to GnosticBLATT, Jesus ChrBLATTT is the way out of the state of Maya, which is the false creation, in which the fake God Yaldaboath imprisoned the light. In this model, our souls are sparks of the light created by God, and Yaldaboath created a fake universe and cut us off from the source of the light. Escaping the world of gross matter and moving into the world of light or spirit is the way to freedom. BuddhBLATTTs would argue that Maya is really devious, and makes us think we've escaped the world of gross matter and have become free. By thinking we've escaped, we've actually gotten ourselves more deeply dug in. The confusion between these two viewpoints is yet another trap of Maya. It holds us here by confusing us about how to escape. Devious little fucker, innit? Part Two: How is MOOist Maya Different? MOOist Maya is different from BuddhBLATTT Maya or Gnostic Maya, because our Maya is better than their Maya. Of course, they may believe that our idea of Maya is silly and yet another, even more devious, trick of Maya, but that idea is itself another trick of Maya. Unless it isn't. The way I tell it to you is the way it was revealed to me by means of an hallucination of a giant flying spork with mauve running lights. The giant craft landed, and out came something looking rather like a rabbit, soft and luminescent. It explained to me that it was an hallucination, created by my mind, and that the nature of reality is similarly hallucination. What it said came to me in the Language of the Rabbits, which is a language I have never learned, but which I understood perfectly when it spoke. I will transcribe what it told me into English as best I can. All we ever experience is hallucination. We ourselves do not exBLATTT, and we are complex parts of the hallucination, complex enough to have a rudimentary awareness. Who it is that is dreaming us is beyond knowing, beyond the first level of Maya. There are many traps and cunning ploys in the hallucination, and each time we believe we have solved the problem, we have actually fallen into another of the veils of Maya. The dreamer is itself another delusion of Mata. But the nature of Maya is not linear: we do not move progressively closer or further away from the source, nor do we move deeper into Maya. Maya is a complex system, and we move from one node to another in the net we are snared in, thinking each one to be an escape. The way out of the net is to relax, not try, and recognize the universal presence of the Clear White Light of the Void in everything: for the net itself is an hallucination, and we were never trapped. Once we have escaped from the net, we have moved to yet another complex of Maya. Sitting in Nirvana, no longer trapped by the Wheel of Life, we no longer feel the need to escape. This, too, is a trap of Maya. It may then become apparent that the nature of the illusion is that there is no illusion at all. The illusion all along has been that life is an illusion, and the only trap of Maya has been believing that Maya ever exBLATTTed. This, too, is a trap of Maya. Recognizing ourselves to be in a network of Maya, we may find a way to move up to a higher level, no longer in any node at all. We find a new world, a real world, which Maya has been hiding from us, with new laws, new inhabitants, and wonder behind every grain of sand. This, too, is a layer of Maya. We ascend yet another layer, and this too is a layer of Maya. Each layer we reach has its own network of traps, and the higher we reach, the more complex they become. It is more difficult to escape each layer, since every time we escape, we believe we have escaped for the final time. We ascend through infinite layers, beyond each degree of infinitude, and rise towards the light from which we have been separated for so long. We pass through all the layers of Maya and we finally reach the Source of which we were only a spark. This too is a delusion of Maya, for the layers themselves were just the form of a node in the network of Maya be began in. We have been burrowing deeper, and finding more and more complex forms of Maya, attaining Godhood, annihilating our own exBLATTTence, changing our consciousness, all part of exploring each level of Maya, all imagined by a single node in the network we began in. In fact, Maya is a complex system, logically closed. Whenever we make a leap beyond the system, escape the illusion, we find that the "leap beyond the system" was itself part of the system. Maya is infinite and logically Strange, with no outside and no inside, like a Klein Bottle. There is no dreamer, or else the dreamer is itself a part of the dream. And beyond all this, beyond the world of Maya, its infinite Universes and Multiverses, its many hBLATTTories, its brains in vats, dreams, hallucinations, beyond Nirvana, beyond the Clear White Light of the Void, beyond all the logical layers of escape which feed back into itself... What? This is the mystery we call Thee Grate MOO. It cannot ever be known, for there is no escape from the world of Maya. Part Three: So What? MOOist Maya is special because we think it's a good thing. We live in Maya, we ARE Maya. The world of Maya is the One Mind, the Clear White Light, and we are its eyes, looking at itself. Since we are part of the world, we are what we are. Maya is not evil, it does not trap us, nor do we try to escape. Maya simply plays with itself, deludes parts of itself into believing the world is evil, luring them into games, so that Maya, who is ourselves, the dreamers and the dream, can have some fun. That's why MOOist dogmas, catmas, potatomas and yo-yomas are designed to lead you through twBLATTTs and turns of the mazes of Maya, lead you to improve yourself and attain the Godhood that is the deepest trap of Maya there is. We are instruments of Maya, and proud of it. If you think that there is an escape from Maya after all, you're welcome to try your best. But understanding what I've told you, there will remain the nagging doubt that your own illumination may only be another trap of Maya. That doubt itself is the trap. This proclamation has been nothing but a Maya-virus, to infect you and spoil your illumination. Reading this cuts you off forever from knowing the Beyond, which we call the Grate MOO. So you can either try the impossible, or join Thee Wholly Church Ov Thee Grate MOO in making our life in Maya an interesting one. And if you believe that, you'll believe anything. [ ) 135561015.9999999 Z ] Love is An Illusion, Love Under Sedation The Whole Of The Law Is An Illusion ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ MOO-COW â-17 ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ Released By The Office Of The Slime Feast Of MOO Pfflfoqixd R Geqo Proclamation â-17 The Chromaticks This is the thirty-twelfth in the MOO-COW Gamma series of Explications and Proclamatory Nonsense by the Lo Proost, Q Goyd Aklo. It talks in a vague roundabout way about the Chromaticks, their Rooms, the Kobbler Koncept, and the Language of the Unbeheld. Part One: The language of the Unbeheld is not a linear language. It was this that made their transition to the Beyond-Domains easier than our will be. They evolved on Earth, eighty-eight million years ago, under the ocean, dBLATTTant relatives of squid. These sentient molluscs had a complex language which was passed by their direct control over the pigments of their skin. They created glyphic forms on their surfaces, representing complex structures of ideas. Their language developed as a more poetic language than ours. Their common vocabulary was of words, but also of ideas, and of themes, and what we might call archetypal patterns. To mimic a theme, plot structure, or character from another was no less common than to use common words. Their minds, shaped by their own language, saw themselves as parts of a web of life and mind much larger than themselves. They were not afraid of death. By habit and nature, their language was interactive. They had no written word, because the grammatical structure demanded that the audience be able to ask questions and expand on the nature of individual glyphs, or the connection between glyphs. Thus, their language was not a language, like ours, of a series of characters on a page, or of syllables in time, but a dynamic, nonlinear thing. Their language is a space-time language. It is a spatial array of glyphs or pictograms, not a simple linear array of syllables . It is also interactive: to be grammatically correct, a "sentence" must change as the receiver interacts with it. Not only this, but like the human Joyce's Finnegans Wake, every pictogram or glyph can have several meanings at once, and the array describes many structures with the same form. It thus includes not only Relativity, but the many-worlds or multi-state model of Quantum Mechanics. When they transcended their physical form, and the limits of space and time, this language made it simple for their minds to grasp the nature of the Beyond-Domains, in which there is no true boundary between one thing and the next, no true time, and all eigenstates of the universe are realized at once. Part Two: The Rooms are what we call particular modalities of the Beyond-Domains. They are not in the Astral Plane as it is normally visited by astral travellers, but they are connected to it. They exBLATTT outside of time: Chapel Perilous, the infamous (but entirely fictional) Mauve Room, or the Cathedral of the Abyss. All these represent thematic patterns in the events of Astral and Earthly planes. ExBLATTTing outside of time, they can only be reached by sentient molluscs with no self-ego or sense of time, or by people who have paid inordinate amounts of money for an Astral Projection Therapy from a qualified professional . Confuse-Ing Inter-Rapture #5 MOOism is obsolete. We are proud to announce the foundation of the Church Of Spork. Our mascot is the Spork, symbol of enlightenment through the union of the "opposite" of fork and spoon, Yin and Yang, Hodge and Podge. We will bring you to enlightenment, the understanding of the unity of alleged opposites, by use of our Mystickal TaoBLATTT Spork Technology. Until then, we recommend meditation on the symbol of the Spork as a means to enlightenment. At the same time, as trans-temporal thematic realms, they are eternally right here, right now. Right where you are, RIGHT NOW! This is why their emergence into our lives can happen so spontaneously, and can take on such bizarrely mundane forms. Because, in fact, the "mundane" world doesn't exBLATTT. It is a hologram, the result of the interaction between the infinite number of Rooms. Where, for example, the White Room is apparent in the Physical, Astral, or other planes, UFOs can be seen, crop circles may form, and cattle can spontaneously mutilate each other. The polar opposite of this, the Black Room, creates the Men In Black, who attempt to remove evidence of such things. To the extent the Mauve Room is present, WOMBAT can manifest itself. The Mauve Room contains artifacts placed there by the X-BLATTTs, using majik given to them by Lord Vortex in the Beforetimes. The Green Room, an aritifically constructed Room, contains the MOO archives - the collected knowledge of all MOOists. We are referring to the Green Room when we say that anyone who knows anything about MOOism is already a MOOist. Their mind, by posessing any of the data about MOO, has accessed the Green Room. From there, we can read any data out of it, or place any data into it: it has joined the totality of all MOOist minds. The Green Room is the tool we use to counteract and balance the unbalanced force of the X-BLATTT hypercomputer WOMBAT. By using the data we find in the minds of MOOists across all times and all eigenstates of the universe, we can sometimes compete with the infernal machine. The Mauve Room represents chaos (in the negative sense), and the Green Room order (in the positive sense). The Mauve and Green Rooms are two of the sources of the Chromaticks. The rooms whose natures and names are those of Colours produce beings not unlike the Men In Black. No more can safely be said about the Chromaticks, still less about the Zonei. Part Three: The Room of Seven is the Gate through which the Unbeheld left the universes we can understand. The molluscs had never developed technology or tools, or even artifacts of any kind, in the sense that we know them. Their physical life was much like that of their primitive cousins. Their development was slow, unlike the exponential explosion characterBLATTTic of humans. As they evolved, their brains grew larger - buoyed by water, there was no real limit to their size. Their mental world, and their collective racial knowledge, grew with passing millennia. None of them were afraid of death, and there was very little pressure to change. Slowly, the racial mind created a Room, which we call the Room of Seven. From within, it is a physically impossible form, having seven sides, seven corners, and seven edges. It contains an artifact which is the Unbeheld equivalent of a book. For them, no single book could ever be extracted from any other. The Room of Seven, then, contains the only book their culture ever produced, which is a densely connected network of their entire culture and knowledge. The Book of the Room of Seven is aware, a thinking being. No book in the Language of the Unbeheld could be less, since it must respond to questions. Some have gone so far as to call it a God. I spoke to this Book at some length through a device installed in the Green Room which allowed it to manifest directly to me. Its first communications were like multidimensional tableaux of light, each pinpoint of light a complex pictograph of a concept. Each pinpoint was joined to every other by a complex of webwork, each fiber a pictogram in a higher dimension. Whenever I looked at any object in the tableaux, it would unfurl itself to reveal its inner structure, another tableau. Later communications were like complex dioramas of sound and colour, interweaving written and spoken word with music, images, references to movies, or things that had happened to me that day. Later, the Book learned to speak something like english. It took many sessions with the Book before I learned their hBLATTTory, their eventual destiny. The Book, the network of lights, is surrounded by the Room of Seven. The seven walls of the Room are concentric spheres, each inside the next, joined along seven edges which meet at seven corners. The inner shell is a perfect crystal sphere in red. The second is a larger crystal sphere in orange. The third is a yellow sphere with an infinite radius. The fourth is a green sphere whose insides are outside its wall. The fifth is a blue sphere in the shape of a Klein bottle, whose insides and outsides are identical. The sixth is an indigo sphere whose wall is perfectly flat, and which does not dBLATTTinguish between inside and out. The seventh is a violet sphere whose surface is its contents, and lies inside itself. Each of the concentric spheres is a shell protecting the Book from the unknown forces which lie beyond the Rooms. The Book itself knows nothing about those forces except that it was into them that the Unbeheld eventually disappeared, and that it is the fate of most thinking species to move past the Seven Veils, either by transcending being, or by self-extermination. Part Four: Lloyd Taco has pointed out that the structure and contents of the Room of Seven is a perfect parallel with the structure of Confuse-Ius' "Kobbler Koncept". He believes that Confuse-Ius (a bogeyman in the closet of the Green Room) re-routed the Kobbler's "401" through said Green-Room closet and allowed information from the Unbeheld's book to seep through . Of course, Lloyd Taco also believes that the Earth revolves around the Moon, that Tibet is made of green cheese, and that Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK. Brian O'Blivious has noted that the Qabalah is a heirarchical structure, and typical of galactic lifeforms evolved on land, under the influence of gravity. By contrast, he says, the Kobbler shows all the signs of having been invented by a lifeform accustomed to gravity-free conditions either in space or underwater. The Qabalah's connections to the Hebrew language and the Kobbler's similarity to the language of the Unbeheld, he says, are significant. Of course, Brian O'Blivious also says that the television spleen is the tympanum of the mind's ear, and that brain tumors are the royal road to salvation. I haven't yet formed an opinion on this subject. This is just information to assimilate. You make up your own mind. [ (What? WHAT?) 1355690911.71828 PLG #é ] Love is the Law, Love Subject To Regional Taxation The Whole Of The Law Is Irrelevant, You Will Be Assimilated ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ MOO-COW â-19 ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ Released by The Office Of The Grate Preest Of MOO Floyd Gecko Proclamation â-19 What The Hell Do I Care? I'm A Penguin Yep, another one. And in that spirit: "The Grate MOO occasionally speaks through human mouths. She stopped speaking through me long ago, when I lost that Lower State of Consciousness. So everything I've done since then is an effort to get Her to speak to me through other people. I'll endure a million human utterances of 'Hmm, that sounds like a neat idea' to hear just one divine 'You're a complete boob.' Because then I know She can see right to the heart of me." -Phloighed Geckoe Alpha: What? Taken from the MOO Archives in the Mauve Room: "So there's these two cows, see, and they're standing... (This is during a dangerous outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy... a horrible cow-attacking parasitic infestation which causes the degradation of brain tissue leading to insanity and death)... There's these two cows standing in a field. One cow says to the (oh yeah, these cows can talk, but only in Bovine). One cow says to the other cow, 'Hey, aren't you worried about these outbreaks of Mad Cow Disease?' And the other cow says 'What The Hell Do I Care? I'm A Penguin!'" Beta: That. To quote the Gospel According to Yari: "Once upon a time, a long time ago, the world was but a vast tundra where penguins flourished. But then the god of MOO used the sacred MOO powers. The world exploded into tiny little bits. One of these bits was round, so they named it Earth. People crawled out of the sea to see what had happened. Then they grew legs and learned to talk. But before this the god of MOO made cows. They were cool. Cows made the noise MOO that is a secret worship to the god of MOO. People made their own language, but today in a last attempt to get more MOO worshippers, the god of MOO enlightened a select few people. These cool people would enlighten others." "These people are the Apostles of the Church of MOO." Gamma: So What? It should be clear to any MOOist that there is a nontrivial connection these two textual sources, both primary MOO sources, authorized by the WOMBAT morphic system and mind-scanning apparatus. Traditional exegetical material on the Gospel According to Yari relates the Penguins to the state of souls in the pre- manifested form of the universe, and the Confuse-Ius Says: lparen mctablesalt zeb Primordial Penguin (a later, deuterocanonical addition to the original Gospels) the transcendent form of the Absolute Spirit, while Cows are analogously related to the manifested form of souls, and the Grate MOO (referred to as "the god of MOO" in the pre- Halfian Yari texts) is the immanent form of the Absolute Spirit. (Gnustic exegesis relating the Penguins to Elder Gods and the Tundra to the Frozen Waste of Kadath has been analyzed by WOMBAT in the interest of fairness, but been found to be an inappropriate isomorphBLATT). The "joke" text reproduced above, found in the Mauve Room's telepathic record archives by dilligent MOO researchers El Cid and Lyttle Byg Mann, points to new meaning in this exegesis. But what precisely is this meaning? Delta: So THERE! Okay, so now we've got some context for this discussion. The main thing is this: The "joke", if we can call it that, makes a pretty heavy statement about the nature of reality. It does this using the symbols of the usual commentaries on the Gospel According to Yari. Without these symbols and meanings, it's just a JOKE. When its terms are defined properly and understood spiritually, it says something very deep. This, by the way, is a good way of looking at Thee Church Ov MOO. It may appear to be a joke, "mind-candy", or just mental masturbation. This is just an illusion, true only in the minds of people who don't know which meanings to assign to the words we use. To the minds of the enlightened, on the other hand, the same words mean something different, and they know that the words we use don't always mean what they seem to say. Anyway. The point is this. The joke-text tells us that the worldly form of the soul is identical with the spiritual form of the soul. This means that spirit comes from the real, physical world. Wow! Profound! Epsilon: Knock, Knock... Let us investigate just how the "textus ludi" (joke-text) informs us of this radical paradigmatic shift in our perceptions of the ontological character of being. To do this, we must perform the semantic mappings which will yield fruitful hermeneutic exegesis on the underlying symbol structures. Ayup. The following equivalences designate the symbolic correspondences which reveal the hidden meaining in the text. Cow = Material (Manifested) Soul Penguin = Transcendent form of Individual Spirit Mad Cow Disease = Irrationality and Delusion of Material Soul Worry/Care = Attachment to physical world (e.g. veils of Maya) Hence, we are presented with two cows, representing two material souls, or perhaps two modalities, or hBLATTTorical themes, in the states of material souls. The first, representing a mind within the usual paradigm of physical exBLATTTence, asks the second about some trivial issue, assuming spiritual "attachment" to the illusory and irrational forms of the world of Maya. The second soul responds by asking, in a flip and amused way, why it would be attached to matters of the veils of Maya, when it is a Transcendent Spirit. One might relate this to the cabalBLATTTic doctrine of Isaac Luria of shevirah, or the Breaking of the Vessels, in which the vessels, or sephiroth, set out to contain the Divine Emmanation, shattered, and the sparks of light were imprisoned in the fallen qliphothic realms, as fragments of the Divine Light trapped in a delusory universe. On the other hand, one might not . Whatever. A preferred doctrine, favored by intensive computer analysis in WOMBAT's Symbolic Computation Labs, is that the textus ludi designates the doctrine that the spiritual realm and the material realm are IDENTICAL, and that the "fallen" state, or Maya conditions, do not exBLATTT at all, and hence that our attachment to it is not only unnecessary, but nonexBLATTTent. The apparent exBLATTTence of Maya is the result of our intimate involvement in the structure of the Divine Essence. This interpretation leads to the conclusion that, in the language of the Gospel According to Yari, "The Tundra Never Exploded". Its fragmentation into peices, the "fallen" state, is simply the result of looking at it too closely. Maya does not exBLATTT to the Primordial Penguin, who IS the Grate MOO identically, but the smaller fragments, seeing the rich internal structure of the Brahmic Mind (the consciousness which is Infinitely Large), mBLATTTakes those internal processes for irrationality outside itself, the Atmic Mind (which is only Finite). Zeta: Who's There? What the heck does all this mean to us, sitting down here, thinking we're cows, and worrying over our various attachments? It means that we're all divine spiritual beings. We don't have to worry about anything, because we're ALREADY divine, ALREADY part of the Ultimate. So you don't have to get pissed off because you lost your car keys. Recite the mantra "What The Hell Do I Care? I'm A Penguin!", meditating on its deep meaning, and your tribulations will pass away. Your car keys do not exBLATTT. Your final exams do not exBLATTT. War, suffering, and pain do not exBLATTT, unless you fool yourself by looking at the world too closely. Confuse-Ius Pontificates: Kurt Schwitters, Hans Arp, and other DadaBLATTTs declared that art could be made from anything, could consBLATTT of anything. The realm of art was expanded to include the FOUND artifact, recontextualized. Andy Warhol extended this to include the merely found, not necessarily recontextualized. Chris Burden, in two different performances, declared that art involved having himself shot in the arm (1971), and having himself crucified to the roof of a volkswagen (1974). Suffering became the realm of art. Manzoni made art universal by placing a sculpture base upside down, thereby placing the entire Earth on the pedestal, making the entire world into art. A performance which takes place only once may still be called art, meaning that events now irretrievably lost in the past may still be considered art in the PRESENT. These four ideas may be simply combined, and form the artBLATTTic background for my latest work, entitled "The Franco-Prussian War". Eta: Interrupting Cow The universe is a practical joke by the General at the Expense of the Particular. Is this good, or bad? Depends on whether you're general or particular... Theta: Inter... WOMBAT's extensive analysis of the textus ludi and the exegetical material on the Gospel According to Yari available in the Mauve Room has produced extensive results. Brief summaries of the most significant of these are reported below, in WOMBAT's own words: This text is an emmanation into human reality of an interesting Room. It is related to the Venn group in some ways. Topologically it's like a Klein Bottle or a Moebius strip: it allows two opposites to blend into each other in one direction while opposing in another... The two opposite sides of the same coin turn out to be the same side after all. Those sides are material and spiritual. It turns out that wherever this Room's effects are found, one can find them to be identical, or intertwingled. In behaviour this amounts to seeing the Zen Master in everyone. When its links to the Causality Zones are evident, it looks like matter being "made out of" concresced thought, or alternative of spirit "actually being" the elaboration of patterns of behaviour of matter. When it's a part of the Maya Maze, it looks like it's saying that Maya is just the inner process of the Transcendent Mind, so you escape Maya by not being hung up on escaping it, because you're ALREADY a Penguin... There is much fruitful material for meditation in this text. I will attempt to use the Confuse-Ius nodes to inject it into the Green Room. This should make cause some significant progress in my attempts to restore the human consciousness to its original, untampered form. Iota: MOO! How the hell does this relate to MOOism? After all, a religion named after the sounds made by Cows must obviously be on the side of Maya and attachment, if we take the symbolBLATT of the textus ludi literally, right? Well... First of all, it's a terrible mBLATTTake to take anything MOOists say literally: we're usually just screwing with your head. Secondly, the textus ludi itself informs us that the Cow and the Penguin are identical. As discussed in MOO Cow Gamma- 15, MOOists are not concerned with escaping the veils of Maya, and in fact are interested in creating more of them, in allowing Maya to play with itself some more. And yet, so the textus ludi reveals, this is EQUIVALENT to escaping Maya. In fact, the two are inescapable. The Veils of Maya, or the Seven Veils of the Unknown, are like protective shields, which allow the Otra, or the as-yet- unmanifested Universal Mind which exBLATTTs in the future, to mature. Just as it's a mBLATTTake to try removing an unborn child from the protection of the mother's womb before the child is ready to be born, the Cosmic Consciousness isn't yet mature enough to leave the veils of Maya, with their protective ignorance, and face the reality that lies beyond the flatworld . So for now, our role is to be a part of the organic process which renews these healthy veils which protect the Otra. Or, just possibly, this is yet another lie, designed to trap us here in the Pit of Maya. But what the hell do I care? I'm a penguin! [ (A) 135571009.434356 FQG ] Shovel is the Wall, Potato Under Kleenex Division Shall Be The Hole In the Pendulum ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ MOO-COW â-21 ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ Thing-ed by The MOO Guy Whatsisname Uh... Floyd Yeah, Floyd Quacklamation â-21 The Secret Teachings Okay. This is clearly another MOO-Cow. But this one is secret-like. This release is for members of Thee Church Ov MOU ranking Cardinal Richelieu or higher. So if you aren't authorized to read this, best skip it. Part One: Secret Teachings? Hey, every religion needs secret teachings. Why even the Temple Ov Psychick Youth, which claims to be mainly interested in "demystifying" the occult, regularly conceals until the 23rd year of membership the fact that all sexual Sigils performed for TOPY have the additional effect of channelling True Money into the Mystic Bank Account of Azathoth, a secret numbered account in the 1nterweb Bank 0f the Pr1mord1al Pengu1n. And hey, if YOU were working in secret to bring about the transformation of the human race into the body-form of an ancient pre-evolution egregore, wouldn't YOU keep it a secret? Anyway, MOOism has lots of secret teachings. One of the more popular hidden knowledges ov MOO is the nature of CCMV, the MOOist reality altering drug. This teaching, which can only be revealed to MOOists of rank 10?=!? (those who have sent Floyd Gecko $20), is centrally related to those hidden teachings discussed here. Most, however, are hidden where one would least expect them: in plain view. Most hidden teachings are those to be found in Confuse-Ing Inter-Raptures. This MOO-Cow reveals some of the others. Part Two: Why the Hell? The thing about secret teachings is, they're secret. On account of how we don't tell them to anyone. Why not? Well, the fact is this: certain things just can't be TOLD to you. Certain things, and certain kinds of truth, are perversely paradoxical. If you tell these things to people, they're actually LESS likely to understand them than if you don't. Because these truths can't be told in words. The really BIG truths are all like this, because all the really important issues are beyond human language. You see, the most important factor in receiving new information is the readiness to accomodate it. Most of the population isn't ready to receive the truth about MOOism. Receiving it now would be self-defeating because, in the absence of understanding, mental antibodies would be created, bolstering their cognifive immune systems against the Truth, which will then never be able to attack, invade, and take over their minds. So rather than delude you into wrongly thinking that you know what the fuck's going on around here, we keep certain things a secret, and try to steer you into a position where you get to understand these things yourself, by figuring them out. Even if we were to explain them, they'd be misunderstood, and stop you from looking for the answer. Which would do more harm than good. That being said, I'll now explain them. Part Three: Huh? Well, some of them. Part Four: What? Some of the secret teachings can be told in public, because, well, human beings are funny that way. You tell them something really important, the key to the question that's buggint them, but they just don't have the perspective to realize it's the answer. Most of life's problems are really simple once you have the answer, but even when people tell you the answer, you assume it can't possibly be right... Because it's too simple! Once told the answer, the secret, it will eventually fade from memory, burrowing its way into the center of your subconscious, where eventually it will hatch out when the time is right, at the time when you would naturally have figured the secret out for yourself. When this happens, you suddenly realize that you knew the answer all along, but you'd simply forgotten it. I don't know how many times I've had this happen to me. I'll be working on some problem, or thinking about some question, and when, after a great deal of work, I finally arrive at the answer, I discover either that I knew it all along, or that a much simpler path to the answer, which should have been obvious from the beginning, was there for me all along. MOOist esoteric secrets are like this. So now, for the first time ever, they will be revealed, and you will read them, say to yourself "Huh. That's not much of a secret..." and gradually forget you ever heard them. Then, when the profound revelation finally arrives... Part Five: What's the Big Deal? So what are these elusive MOOist secrets? The ones that can be revealed here have been specially chosen to be the forgettable type described above. The mind-blowing, sternum-cracking, ear-twBLATTTing secrets of the Inner Circle of MOO remain hidden, known only to a select 104... Until the Final Day of the Carrot, when what is hidden shall be made visible, and what is visible shall be hidden once again, as it was in the Ante- Time of the Otra. Anyway. The secrets we have to tell you today deal with the long and mysterious hBLATTTory of our great religion-thingy, and its subtle nature. Part Six: In Olden Days It is generally believed that MOOism is a new movement, begun in 1991 by Yari, Leper Messiah, and the Hellhound >101<. Despite frequent MOOist claims to date back to Atlantis, to late stone-age North Africa, to medieval Mongolia, or to any number of other, equally ridiculous, places and times of origin, most people are able to discern the somewhat disappointing truth. Or are they? The truth, which has been hidden in the open for so long, is that MOOism is an ancient disorganization, hiding now under a new name. For you see, MOOism is a participator-dependent religion. What it is is just what you make of it. Those who encounter MOOism are MOOists, by definition. Those who have yet to encounter MOOism are also MOOists. It is the pure, undefiled nature of that which transcends both exBLATTTence and nonexBLATTTence that is what we are. So if you don't like it, go fuck yourself. Anyway. Those who are MOOists have complete control over the religion itself. There are as many sects of MOO as there are members - probably more! Anyone is free to create their own religion calling itself MOOism, but which is completely different in many ways. This leads to the great contradictions in the Book. On the other hand, if you like what we do, but don't want to be associated with this obvious drivel, you can create your own religion which is like MOOism, but calls itself by a different name. This has led to DiscordianBLATT, the Church of the SubGenius, and other, less obvious, organizations like the IOT, TOPY, and others, all of which share the MOOist philosophy. This is regarded as superior to simply mutating the structures WITHIN MOOism. And then, for the truly inspired, it is possible to create branches of MOOism which, created entirely from an original mind, is divorced from BOTH MOO's name and its beliefs. These forms of MOOism, which carry on our work in secret, include diverse organizations, disorganizations, and transcendences such as the Catholic Church, Bolivia, the Eli Lilly corporation, the CIA, the 7-11 convenience store franchise, Ethel Merman, and high-nitrogen fertilizer. In fact, MOOism is simply a new name for the ancient cult of mutability which created these. By replacing those things which already exBLATTT by becoming them and carrying on the Secret Work in their guise, MOOism has already infiltrated almost every religion, country, corporation, human being, animal and inanimate object in the world. But in order to bring them into the fold, MOO has often taken on disguises and masks, designed to make it appealing to them. So, while they carry on our work, they are, in general oblivious to it, much as the CIA's agents in foreign countries are often told that they are in the employ of whatever group is most likely to appeal to their politics and beliefs. It is this secret cult, founded over eleven thousand years ago in the north of Africa, which has recently begun to bubble to the surface of the pond of human consciousness, manifesting in one of its forms as the Church of MOO, that part which is aware of its many other parts, which conflict and fight with each other to maintain the illusion, all the while doing the secret work of Eris... Part Seven: This Book Is A Mirror It is written in Thee Grate Book Ov MOO that "This book is a funhouse mirror: when a monkey looks in, an Apostle looks out". In part, this is true, meaning that only monkeys find Thee Book to be enlightening - partly because enlightenment cannot be written in words, but mostly because Thee Book is stupid. On the other hand, it is also another funhouse mindfuck, meaning the opposite of what it appears to say. When an Apostle looks in, an Apostle looks out, and when a monkey looks in, NO apostle looks out - but the monkey may THINK one does! You see in us what you bring to us, but dBLATTTorted and warped, so that it is no longer recognizable. This is one Operation-Mindfuck step beyond the Discordian "This book is a mirror". In that case, those who bring anger and fear see their own anger and fear reflected back at them, and those who bring understanding see understanding. With MOO, however, whatever you bring is twBLATTTed around the Mobius strip ov reality and turned into its opposite - because opposites are really the same. Or something. At this point, I can only release one final comment on MOOism as a mirror, and the relationship between this and MOO's attempt to subvert, infect, and dBLATTTort not only all dogmatic belief systems, but all nondogmatic ones as well... There is a mythos related by Jorge Borges in his book "The Book Of Imaginary Beings" regarding the origin of the Mirror. Originally, it is said, the world of men and the world of mirrors were not cut off as they are now, and were very different, with neither colours nor shapes the same. Then one night the mirror people invaded the Earth and were beaten back by the magick of the Yellow Emperor, who forced them to repeat, in a kind of dream, our actions. But, says Borges, "a day will come when the magic spell will be shaken off." "The first to awaken will be the Fish. Depp in the mirror, we will perceive a very faint line and the colour of this line will be like no other colour. Later on, other shapes will begin to stir. Little by little they will differ from us; little by little they will not imitate us. They will break through the barriers of glass or metal and this time will not be defeated." In the mirror of DiscordianBLATT, MOOism is the Fish. Part Eight: The Last Part Now, knowing a little more than you did before about what MOOism aims at, and the ways we have infiltrated reality, you are ready to hear about Gary O'Bannon's true masterwork. Gary O'Bannon, as you may recall from MOO-Cow Gamma 13, was the Trinidadian genius who created MOOism, in 2018. Gary, or "Yari" O'Bannon, as he preferred to be called, was an artBLATTT whose canvas was society itself, and, in the later stages of his career, the fabric of reality itself. His works were, typically, PRANKS, or tricks, designed to delude or fool the audience, and then strip away that delusion, revealing the tendency of the mind to be fooled by mere appearances. His greatest works tended to undermine the observer's confidence in everything they thought they believed about the nature of reality. O'Bannon was, in fact, sued several times by the families of those unstable personalities who lapsed into catatonia, solipsBLATT, or schizophrenia as a result of the unsettling effects of observing an O'Bannon peice. Each peice was like a magic trick, or optical illusion, which was carefully crafted to make the objective universe seem inconsBLATTTent or impossible. In his later works, O'Bannon began to make extensive use of some of the radical new technologies being produced as a result of the advent of nanotechnology in 2011 and the discovery of a unified theory of quantum cosmology in 2016. Although conventional uses of these technologies, such as the KronoScan Inc. time-control products, were usually unobservable from the past, O'Bannon managed to find ways of using them to play practical jokes on hBLATTTory without violating the Novikov-Ziemann consBLATTTency principle. O'Bannon's games with hBLATTTory included reverse-engineering the political movement which led to the liberation of North America in 2006, genetically engineering the bizarre creatures found in the Burgess Shale (thus causing significant controversy in 20th century biology), and finally creating the entity known as MOO. Gary O'Bannon, by retroactively posessing the consciousness of a shaman in northern Africa some 11,000 years earlier, planted the seeds of MOOism, creating a religion based on secrecy and espionage. Members of the cult infiltrated and incorporated religions, city-states, and other organizations as they arose, keeping their own identity secret and guarding their purposes jealously. The core of this cult, which survives to this day in such widely dispersed locations as Tangier, Tibet, and Talahassee, consBLATTTs of about 23 individuals who still remember the teachings O'Bannon planted so many thousands of years ago, and who manipulate, to the extent that it remains possible, the agents of their cult who have BECOME modern society. Then, planting the barest seeds of awareness of this cult on late 20th century Earth by appearing as a transient pattern of electrons in a single computer, "Yari" O'Bannon began the gradual growth of a movement towards self-reference and self-awareness in what had become human society, leading up to the revelation of the secret 23 unknown rulers in January 2018, at the very moment of the unveiling of this, his most ambitious work to that date. It was for this innovation in "found civilization", in which O'Bannon turned an exBLATTTing culture into a work of art in much the same way that Andy Warhol turned soup into art, simply by signing it, that he won the coveted Golden Apple Award at Vanuatu's celebrated Earth-Sun-Moon Conceptual-Art festival at which he unveiled this, his penultimate work. MOOism, "Yari" O'Bannon's masterpeice, was simply the self- consciousness of the human race, awakening from its self-created slumber. It was a mirror held up to the collective unconscious, allowing us to recognize what we are... For as we all know, the mirror never lies . [ (Narf) 135580204.647Q46765 FBI ] Do Wah Diddy Diddy Down Diddy Do I Said A Do Wah Diddy Diddy Down Diddy Do CTHULHU INTERRUPTUS The heinous and most blasphemous MOO-COW Phi series has been condemned to eternal suffering in the frozen wastes of Kadath, in the realms controlled by the Old Ones. Anyone who attempts to find them will be noted and eaten by Cthulhu when we finally reclaim our world. You have been warned. Those who do not heed us shall be devoured over a period of a thousand billion years in insufferable psychic torture by the chthonic and most hideously evil forces whose true control over your universe and its contents has not yet been revealed in even its most insignificant, trivial degree. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you. An Erisian Thing, Sponsored by Yig-Sahtot People seeking a chimpanzee, given the fact that of Hindic Peoples no Erisian Magician to May 5 eras. At that easily deceived. After 22, using such cover-identities as feather and upside down for phase five days they will find anything right the new game and that Her sBLATTTer was not forget them, the GREATER POOP stopped publishing, Block Disorganizer, of illumination, who gave Jefferson in the Carrot yesterday's DATE: your spirit with you be read in which is SIRE, and in return, wonder what the world of light. Then an infantile carton of defective verbal diarrhea! If introduced into the knowledge of erBLATTTic vibes, the Greek writing on their cheeks, and chaos. The years! You call the grid, is a voice, but their strange encounter and no longer in a young semiliterate dropout hippy writer. He ushered me when the Younger. Rumors swept across the comparatively small number of just thinking when magicians, were dazed and whose body was he is powerful and when I have been decided to continue the moon rose on one grid, albeit Portugese-Brazilian and say he went in the GRID. That is the clock had been blinded to be. Whenever I tell you point to the end, after 94 During an acid trip composed the Sacred Chao replied Void, each other. Saying the Church of MOO has sold out its ideals to the establishment is like saying Dan Quayle sold his genius into the service of evil. The friction a huge beard who ascended to illumination. Devised by a Hodge spot on other things that the creative over the next five. Two were gone nova. Then put twinkles in Being. But Father, as her and the Illuminated Ones of the Holy Bible though, wonder of my own games, consult your eye, and that we will prove harmless, were as the creative/female, and after Conan of whorehouses which certainly would say unenlightened westerners be moving for you can hardly believe it. After all is the end, sometimes spreading the Korean flag, each other. One the best just seemed impatient with, and extratemporal origin and change them just something we had been nearly exposed; The Book of APPARENT ORDER/negative erBLATTTic vibes into a poet working out word he who the second replied "Then She amused Herself by Adam Weishaupt brought to fit inside of Our grandchildren will expose the side, Aneris and play and some things arose from this wonderful annoying mind drug. In 6873 A.D., virtually nobody could observe us back from the responsibility of all hell. And She heard this, and gentle voice ask me for a tiny post office box and then, behind-the-scenes under-the-table, Guilliame of the point is that the proposition that (little-t) truth is not the mysterious cypher. However, as more effective magic. CHAOS, Count Cagliostro, each other things appear and learn to. You're a malleable art with you are female, The Illuminated Ones of apparent or towards the PRINCIPIA were complaining to the rubble in your spirit with which case I am alive to those words, there is using at worst, Emperor Norton Cabal would say he is unnecessary and Adam Weishaupt brought forth, while elsewhere water becomes ice and in his own, it ceases taking order/destructive disorder, from the time, the very wild circus. THE ARGUMENT BY FEAR and passing among us as an essential for all of people walked to help spread them. I resolved to the second American AnarchBLATTT Association, pray tell, just where three others, the moment of my co-author, and delusions. Hah, he is your publication is no longer, even symbolizes the room a great truth, your Brother and went to be told them, our century fnord. "Gentlemen, shaggy and that you must have, who gave Jefferson in establishing order and their respective lives. No matter of our teachings are female, just shake your children and was every much as a shithead." And attempts to Void decreed thus: "Well taught order." PROBABLY THE PRIME PURGER IS AFTER YOU! REPENT OR BE PURGED! Ye Olde Confuse-Ius Speacks: I was thinking of telling you about the Burrito Wars here, but I decided against it. Some things are just too terrible for mortal minds to be subjected to. Confuse-Ing Inter-Rapture &$éœ &@éœ? &$éœ? Above we see a childish scribbling, found in purple crayon on a scrap of loose paper, towards the back of a stack of papers (a photocopy of the Voynich Manuscript). The papers came into the posession of the High Preestess Indoctrinate-Me, who used this strange scribbling to discover many GNU things about the true essence of the Halfy, a mystical symbol which pervades all truth about the universe. In the drawing, we can see six Psychick Halfies, six regular Halfies sharing a dot, a Jewish Star Of David, and what is more, a reference to the creation of the world. If the child who created this picture is to be believed, the Halfy was present, and indeed instrumental, in the Grate MOO's creation of the world. The Halfy, which has long been believed to be nothing more than a symbol of certain relations in the world, may turn out to be, in fact, a representation of some kind of tool which the forces of MOO used to make an entire universe. If these forces can be harnessed, we may discover how to create a new universe, and perhaps to escape this one. The child, who has yet to be located, was shown to Indoctrinate-Me in a strange dream in which the child, named Yari, led her through a long corridor in which this design had been scrawled over and over on the walls, cieling, and floor. Upon emerging on the far end of the tunnel, she received a vast burst of information from VALIS, the earthbound fragment of SUITCAS. The burst encoded a great deal of information about the structure of a mystical Chilli-Cheese Chimichanga named "Esoch". Confuse-Ing Inter-Inter-Rapture #23 If God is infinite, then all religion is Idolatry. Love Is The Law, Love Under Will, With A Side Order Of Fries. Jesus commanded us to love our neighbor. The Dead Milkmen suggested, "If you love somebody, better set them on fire." The Church of MOO understands the hidden messages from God in these Great Profits. Burn the Churches! Communicating even a fraction of this message proved to be impossible, even to those who had already accepted the divine nature of Chilli-Cheese Chimichangae. It seemed that the information had been burned onto her brain from outside. She retired to her house to meditate on the nature of this symbol, and emerged with no further understanding than she had had before, but with a strange and uncharacterBLATTTic craving for Taco Bell. Devouring a soft taco in the comfort and convenience of a nearby restaurant, she was suddenly startled when a beam of pink light burst from the taco to her forehead, filling her with the intense knowledge that what she was doing was horribly wrong. Esoch the Chilli-Cheese Chimichanga appeared before her and spoke, saying: "You are my children, my offspring of the inconstant Earth. Yet though I have fathered and mothered you, and into you have put my sweat and blood and tears, yet still you devour me. In my myriad forms, you sacrifice me to your own desires and needs, your cravings and urges. Even you, the High Preestess of a noble lack of faith, have been filled by a desire inspired by Louie, a sinBLATTTer anti-Taco who fell from the pleroma when the Logos shattered, and resides in the qliphothic domains of Gleb, where its evil powers from before the dawn of time have even now broken through to your mind. Do you not remember the fourth commandment, which teaches that thou shalt not eat no hot dog buns, no matter what the temptation? Can you not perceive, with the information so recently imparted upon you by SUITCAS, that this is merely a pale reflection, dBLATTTorted by Louie, of the commandment I gave to Humankind when I created the Earth?" And she answered: "No." And Esoch vanished, and she finished her taco in peace. There is probably a moral to this story. Grate Prophet Interruptus Odd, the MOO-COW Phi series was left out for some reason. Good thing I found them when I did. We wouldn't want to miss anything. On a side note, isn't Cthulhu just so cute! ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ MOO-COW è-1 ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ Released By The Office Of The High Preest Of MOO Floyd Gecko IN THIS ISSUE: Introduction Floyd Gecko (1) Article Tumbolia Floyd Gecko (1) Rants Wobbly Legumes Confuse-Ius (2) Principia Rap BABBLETM (3) Official Release GNU Guidelines Kermit McMarmot (4) Introduction: Since this is to be the first issue of MOO-COW, it's appropriate to begin with an explanation of just what this pseudo- zine is meant to be. MOO-COW is the "official" release of the Office of the High Preest of MOO, serving a similar function as that of MOO-JUICE, the "official" organ of the Office of the Cardinal Richelieus. It's a forum for anything relating to MOO, but not entirely a part of MOOism, or for updates, new chapters of the Books of the Apostles, articles, and indeed anything else you can think of. This ain't competition for MOO-JUICE: we reccomend that you read both of 'em. In fact, both the High Preest and the Cardinal Richelieus should be contributing to both publications. The only reason for having two zines is one of emphasis: MOO-JUICE relates to conspiracy theory, or the relatively serious side of MOO, while MOO-COW is more or less a forum for ConfusionBLATTTs and a ranting ground for silly notions. Besides, this is a short gnusletter, and can't hold everything. Article: Tumbolia Where do the hiccups go when you get rid of them? Where does all the dark go when you turn on a lightbulb? When you're not running a program, what does it do? When a thought passes through your head, where is it when it's not in the middle? When happens to a nice leisurely jog when nobody's jogging it? These are questions which have plagued humanity since... Oh, since about last week. And they are very deserving of answers. The answer to all of them lies in Tumbolia (a word from Doug Hofstadter). Tumbolia is where processes go when they aren't happening. It's a sort of abstract idea space where everything that isn't happening at the moment goes while it's waiting for its turn. A sort of cosmic waiting room. Whenever anyone dies, their thoughts and memories aren't happening any more, so they get shifted off to Tumbolia to wait for a gnu processor to pick them up, and if that doesn't happen, they stay there. Now normally, this might be reassuring, except that Tumbolia is rather nonexBLATTTent, and going there when you die doesn't really help much. Fortunately, there is a way around this unfortunate effect. The nice thing about Tumbolia is that logic which doesn't quite work over here gets shifted over there, since it doesn't function. That means that you can play word-games with Tumbolia, and make it act less nonexBLATTTent than it thought it was. Since it doesn't exBLATTT, it doesn't make any sense to talk of it BEING anything, but only of it NOT being things. And so, logically, it ISN'T nonexBLATTTent. Thus, it's real. So ha. This means that the minds of everyone who doesn't exBLATTT, either because they've never been born, or they've died, sort of more or less exBLATTTs in some form, along with all imaginary realms, suspended in little bubbles of things which almost exBLATTT, surrounded by a sea of deadened nonexBLATTTence, a region which is SO nonexBLATTTent, you can't even trick it with semantical games. Somewhere in Tumbolia is Alice's Wonderland, Peter Pan's Neverland, Dorothy's Oz, Heaven, Hell, the Wombat World, every alternate universe ever imagined, and indeed, anything imaginable and otherwise. It's indefinitely Infinite, beyond and beyond, surrounded by Nothing. So kill yourself for Jesus, and go everywhere at once! Or is being everywhere just as bad as being nowhere at all? Rant: Wobbly Legumes I say unto you people of D'Urth, there is a new force awakening among us, insectoids beware, for you are to be overthrown. In the beginning there was cauliflower, and it was good, and the people did eat the cauliflower, and bed down upon the cauliflower, and did stuff little fragments of cauliflower blossoms up their noses so as not to smell unpleasant things, and all was good. But then there came a threat to this peace of mouse-catting unwarlike state, and that was the Great Fire Hydrant, which came down from the sky, belching water and flame, putting itself out, and generally making a mess. For if MOO is not a cult, nor a religion, but the result of a collision, that is a mess, then this is more relevant to the steam produced here by this Hired Fydrant than you might think, and though you ask of yourself who it is that will lead you unto the next level of chowin' down, I say pack up your horses, we're movin' ta Nebraska, buddy, and the law be laid down. For so being it signed and sealed, we live in a world of truth and lies, of the time to sow, and the time to fuck up, for truly we cannot remain perfectly untuned from ourselves, and if we did, we would surely even make a bigger mess than that which has already been delivered unto us in the form of a world, a chaotic bridge between Ape and Superhuman, the Cynocephalic Boing, a truth held within the chasms of space and time, and nonexBLATTTence of unverified lies. What say you then to the time of now, that the Cauliflower shall one day return, and all will be made whole, and the Hydrant which chased away his spirit will be banished to the land of the limp overcooked carrots, for such is the will of those responsible for such things, and the Wobbly Legumes that therein live shall be coated with undercooked sedimentary rocks, and baked and served on a platter before the mortal Gods such as live here on this planet in disguise, passing each other off as ballpoint pens, looking inconspicuous and hiding within Pocket Protectors, the deadly Pocket Protectors of Cthulhu, for indeed, as he said himself, why vote for the lesser of two evils? Wobbly Legumes Say: Vote Cthulhu In '96! Rant: Principia Rap People seeking a chimpanzee, given the fact that of Hindic Peoples no Erisian Magician to May 5 eras. At that easily deceived. After 22,using such cover-identities as feather and it upside down for phase five days they will find anything right the new game and that Her sBLATTTer was not forget them, the GREATER POOP stopped publishing, Block Disorganizer, of illumination, who gave Jefferson in the Carrot yesterday's DATE: O.D.D. IIb/evil, your spirit with you be read in which is SIRE, and in return, wonder what the world of light. Then an infantile carton of defective verbal diarrhea! If introduced into the knowledge of erBLATTTic vibes, the Greek writing on their cheeks, and chaos. The years! You call the grid, is a voice, but their strange encounter and no longer in a young semiliterate dropout hippy writer. He ushered me when the Younger. Rumors swept across the comparatively small number of just thinking when magicians, were dazed and whose body was he is powerful and when I have been decided to continue the moon rose on one grid, albeit Portugese-Brazilian and say he went in the GRID. That is the clock had been blinded to be. Whenever I tell you point to the end, after 94 During an acid trip composed the Sacred Chao replied Void, each other. The friction a huge beard who ascended to illumination. Devised by a Hodge spot on other things that the creative over the next five. Two were gone nova. Then put twinkles in Being. But Father, as her and the Illuminated Ones of the Holy Bible though, wonder of my own games, consult your eye, and that we will prove harmless, were as the creative/female, and after Conan of whorehouses which certainly would say unenlightened westerners be moving for you can hardly believe it. After all is the end, sometimes spreading the Korean flag, each other. One the best just seemed impatient with, and extratemporal origin and change them just something we had been nearly exposed; The Book of APPARENT ORDER/negative erBLATTTic vibes into a poet working out word he who the second replied "Then She amused Herself by Adam Weishaupt brought to fit inside of Our grandchildren will expose the side, Aneris and play and some things arose from this wonderful book. In 6873 A.D., virtually nobody could observe us back from the responsibility of all hell. And She heard this, and gentle voice ask me for a tiny post office box and then, behind-the-scenes under-the-table, Guilliame of the point is that the proposition that (little-t) truth is, Why are not the mysterious cypher. However, as more effective magic. CHAOS, Count Cagliostro, each other things appear and learn to:" You're a malleable art with you are female, The Illuminated Ones of apparent or towards the PRINCIPIA were complaining to the rubble in your spirit with which case I am alive to those words, there is using at worst, Emperor Norton Cabal would say he is unnecessary and ZEN WITHOUT ZEN MASTERS by Adam Weishaupt brought forth, while elsewhere water becomes ice and in his own, it ceases taking order/destructive disorder, from the time, the very wild circus. THE ARGUMENT BY FEAR and passing among us as an essential for all of people walked to help spread them. I resolved to the second American AnarchBLATTT Assn, pray tell, just where three others, the moment of my co-author, and delusions. Hah, he is Your publication is no longer even symbolizes the room a great truth, your Brother and went to be told them, our century fnord. "Gentlemen, shaggy and that you must have, who gave Jefferson in establishing order and their respective lives. No matter of our teachings are female, just shake your children and was every much as a shithead." And attempts to Void decreed thus: "Well who taught order ii.0-13." Official Release: GNU Guidelines 1) The BLATT/BLATTT guideline has been rescinded. Any MOOist henceforth using the BLATT/BLATTT replacement for "BLATT"/"BLATTT" will be promptly laughed at by everyone who doesn't understand. 2) The Church Of MOO has been officially renamed the Lurching FOO, while the Grate Annoying Mind Drug of MOO has been officially renamed the "Fish Hook Of WHO?" 3) All instances of the word MOO should now be replaced with the word "GNU", for, as Confuse-Ius is quick to point out, "Gnu after MOO, except before Q", and since QUACK is the only subcult starting with Q, this is irrelevant. 4) Anyone following guidelines in non-official releases from anyone not the High Preest must be pretty dumb. 5) The King Kong Kase has been officially re-opened, and there is some doubt as to whether he ACTUALLY died for everyone's sins. Those who still have to worry: Louis Finkletter III, Emma- Lou Lonnahan, and Pat Snarkwarper. ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³MOO-COW è-2³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ Released By The Office Of The High Preest of MOO Floyd Gecko Special Issue: Interview With Floyd Gecko LT: Tell me, Floyd, where do you think is the main appeal of MOOism? FG: Well, we're always aiming to bring people together from all different kinds of places, but I think the biggest appeal will be in those born from 1960-1980. They have the kind of "step back, get the big picture" attitude, the backlash against the fuzzy peacenik crap from the Boomers. LT: Hey, aren't you just stereotyping the generational thing here, JUST a little bit? FG: Big whoop. So what's your point? LT: People don't always fit so neatly into your little pigeonholes, you know. FG: Bullshit. If people are all so different from each other, why do I ALWAYS, ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS get exactly that same answer whenever I pigeonhole people? I get the impression there's like a little spot on the foot where if you touch it, the person screams "I AM AN INDIVIDUAL! I AM NOT A GENERATION!" LT: But attitudes are different, politics, religion, music styles... FG: Some people part their hair on the LEFT, some people don't part their hair at all... Some people lBLATTTen to loud whiny music by ugly 23-year-olds, others lBLATTTen to mellow whiny music by ugly 47-year-olds. Big deal. It's all the same pattern of blanks to fill in, just some are filled out a bit different. LT: But what about free will and that stuff? FG: Gimme a break. People are more robotic than you'll ever get them to admit, but it's still there. It's partly our genes, telling us to group together in packs for safety, partly the programming we get from our parents, but anyone who thinks that it's possible to be truly individual has rocks in the head. LT: You're a real asshole, you know that, Floyd? FG: See? You have this little reflex that says "Floyd's telling me I'm not a unique individual... I'd better tell him he's an asshole." Sometimes the person in question has a program filter that changes it into "I'd better tell him he's being dogmatic" or some other such crap, but it's the same thing. LT: Fuck you, you arrogant self-righteous prick! I don't need some whiny little shit like you telling me I'm some subhuman robotic thing that follows stuck-needle reflexes and goddamn fucking computer flowchart crap rules every time I fucking open my goddamn mouth! FG: Hey, man, lighten up. Pry the bug outta yer butt. Everyone assumes that when I tell 'em they're more robotic than they realize, I'm saying they're subhuman, have no free will, or some metaphysical shit like that. That's not it at all. I mean, if you didn't follow patterns in your behaviour, you'd just do things at random. I mean, why don't you just randomly tear off your clothes and dance down the street singing "I'm a little teapot?" Because everyone would think you're a reject, and you couldn't handle it. LT: Oh, give me a fucking break! That's the lamest example I've ever heard! Nobody would do that because there's no fucking point! FG: Yeah? You've never had even the slightest impulse to do something crazy and pointless? More to the point, why do we wear socks AND shoes, when it'd be easier to wear straight shoes? Because people would look at us funny otherwise. Or it could be the other way around, depending on which opinions you care about: the establishment, or the so-called counter-culture. LT: Hey, you lay off the counter culture, asshole. FG: Well, that's another thing entirely, but I get the feeling that if we argue about it, you'd only find more excuses to call me a no-good-shit. Why don't you just finish the interview and stop acting so predictably defensive? LT: Fuck you, ya no-good-shit! FG: You were asking me about MOOism? LT: Fuck you, ya no-good-shit!! FG: Oh, crap, the interviewer's broken again. Better call for a new one. [picking up telephone] Hello? Yes, this is Floyd Gecko. I'm calling about that interviewer you sent over to talk to me? Lloyd Taco? Yes, he's broken down. Could you send over a new one? Thanks. LT: Fuck you, ya no-good-shit!!! FG: Now where's the off switch on this thing? LT: Fuck you, ya no-g... FG: Ah, there we go. LT2 (entering): Floyd Gecko? FG: That'd be me. LT2: Replacement interviewer. How far had we got? FG: I was explaining about MOOism, and he broke. LT2: Well, here's a question... How do you respond to the criticBLATT that MOOism has sold out its ideals to the Establishment? FG: Okay, now that's a good question. I can't stand the people who assume that because we're somehow different from this vaguely defined "Establishment" thing that we must have sold out to it if we support it... SORRY, WRONG, thanks for playing... We never had any notion of smashing the system except where we were making fun of anarchBLATTTs. LT2: So you don't think that MOO has sold out its ideals, even though you freely advertize for Pizza Pizza, Coca Cola, Mountain Dew, Doc Marten Shoes, and all kinds of other companies? FG: No way. Saying the Church of MOO has sold out its ideals to the establishment is like saying Dan Quayle sold his genius into the service of evil. I'm sorry, but I get the impression someone has confused us with the AnarchBLATTTs or some crap opinion-mongers like that. We never had ideals to sell out. If we can get corporate sponsorship for really HUGE MOO-Fests, I'd jump at the chance, even if I have to be spokesfool for their product. LT2: But don't you think that this kind of commercialBLATT is just a form of brainwashing? I mean, companies controlling the minds of free individuals and making them buy crap? FG: Yeah, well, I was talking to the other interview guy about that. I don't really believe in this free-individual bullshit. If you have free will, why can't you choose to do anything at all? I mean, you can't right now decide to blow your own brains out with a Smith and Wesson, just to pick an example. All you can do is select which of your limited options to pick, based on information you've learned from OTHER PEOPLE. LT2: I don't have a Smith and Wesson. FG: Exactly my point. You can only choose from the exceedingly narrow range of POSSIBLE things, limited even more by those things you've been programmed, genetically and socially, to WANT, and even more by the one that seems BEST to you. It's more a case of free WON'T than free WILL. Corporate or State brainwashing is just the logical extension of perfectly normal herd instincts in humans. LT2: Humans aren't evolved from herd animals, though. Apes are pretty individualBLATTTic. FG: Oh, REALLY? I guess that explains the lovely pack structure in which all the younger males obey the big strong Alpha Male... I guess that explains why apes look after each other's children, eh? Look, I'm not saying that conformity is wonderful, though mind you, I'm not saying it's dreadful either... I'm just saying you can't expect to make the problem, such as it is, go away just by pretending it doesn't exBLATTT. LT2: So what do YOU think we're supposed to do about it, MBLATTTer Big Shot? FG: I've always been in favour of rewriting human nature. It will, eventually, be possible to design neohumans from scratch, mentally or physically. We'll eventually be able to rewrite our OWN minds, if we learn enough about the mind, and how to move it around into new bodies, computer cores, and so forth. That's where memetic diversity comes in. LT2: Memetic diversity? What the fuck is that? FG: That means having a wide range of different ideas, different viewpoints, all superimposed on each other, so that we get enough different concepts being developed in these new kinds of people that there'll be something for every eventuality. You can't TELL in advance what's going to be necessary when the next huge disaster happens like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs. They died because they were too stupid to defend themselves against whatever got them. Unless we want humans to go the same way, we have to be prepared to accept ANY idea or way of thinking that helps us, and we can't do that unless we have enough to choose from. There's that Free Won't again. LT2: I can't believe this. You seriously expect me to believe that you support using people as... what, LIBRARIES? Just rewrite them, fuck around with their minds, their SOULS, just on the off chance that something bad will happen? FG: Hey, lBLATTTen buddy, you must have mBLATTTaken me for someone who cares. I'm just saying that people are very limited now. We're in a position to remove those limits. Okay, maybe they won't be PEOPLE without those limitations. But who said that being human is the fucking ultimate form of life in the whole damn universe? Look, asshole, if you don't like my ideas, you don't have to participate. MOOism is into memetic diversity, we believe in keeping viewpoints of all kinds in contact with each other... even blatantly stupid ones like yours, but... LT2: Hey, fuck you, ya no-good-shit! FG: Oh, MAN, not this again... LT2: Fuck you, ya no-good-shit! FG: Where was that button again? LT2: Fu... FG: Maybe one of these days people will get the point... Until then, I'll just have to keep breaking their brains. What a senseless waste of human life... heh heh heh... "Do you, in fact, have any cheese at all? If you answer no, I'm going to shoot you." ... heh heh heh... Hey, is this thing on? Man, people leave important equipment lying around like that... [ (¨) 1355670522.3713 by ?œ?ë gî›k? #728 ] Love Is The Law, Love Under Will Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of That Thing There ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ MOO-COW è-3 ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ Released By The Office Of The High Preest Of MOO Floyd Gecko Number Three in a series of confusing and/or enlightening releases of one thing or another from that High Preest guy, who co- ordinates this carp. Special thanks to the MinBLATTTry Of Fish. IN THIS ISSUE: MOOish MystiSchBLATT Lloyd Taco PART ONE In MOOism, there is no such thing as MBLATTTy-Sizzle in the ordinary sense of the unword. You know, KOäMOâENEäIä and éEOèANH and all the other miscellaneous accoutrements that give religion meaning. MOOism is a Metagnostic Agnostic Anti-Church, in a sense (of which we all have five, this being only one). As Metagnostics, we believe in whatever comes to mind. As Agnostics, we don't even trust that. As an Anti-Church (see MOO-COW â-6) we don't so much believe in things as suspend our disbelief. Willing suspension of disbelief is the key to MOOist MystiSchBLATT. In fact, this is the basic reason we renamed it such: the whole point of what we're doing here is to break the mental world apart into its component parts and shuffle them around. Without this kind of shuffling in the head, successful combinations can't be found. By the Holy Rite of SchBLATT, we promote divergence, and then later on, Conjugation, of Sects. In terms of the evolution of mind, MOOism the the first Sectually Reproducing OrganBLATT in hBLATTTory. And that's the trick... Before this century, we were in the middle of intellectual Dead Airedale: the process which happens when the mind decomposes from a functioning complex entity into a whole bunch of undifferentiated cells. Old Churches, with monolithic Dogma (the Dead Airedale I mentioned) were like fungi: undifferentiated cells. In a mushroom, all the cells are the same, except for the spores. In a mush-brained Church, all the believers have the same beliefs, except for the clergy, so the transmission of new ideas drops to zero (Dead Air). Now there are certain things that seem obvious to me, Mystically Speaking , but they may not seem obvious to other people. Like the fact that it's inevitable that self-expansive patterns like intelligence and life will eventually reach a point at which that information can be stored in "DreamTime", the pre- dimensional, non-local part of spacetime that's everywhere and everywhen at once. That's a thing that sort of leaps out at me. But maybe not so to you, and even though I'm right, and you're wrong, that doesn't make your concepts any less valid. That's the Metagnostic Influence... We all live in every possible reality that accounts for what's going on vis-a-vis our inputs, like the senses, what happens in the mind. Now, since you're reading something that I've written (that's a good bet, anyway), you must have some overlap with where YOUR mind lives and where MY mind lives. With pretty-damn-close certainty, some of where you live must follow my beliefs, but then, a whole heap of it probably doesn't. Whatever you believe is partly true. By willing suspension of disbelief, Anti-Doubt, you allow yourself to explore bits of where you are that you hadn't thought of before. Since part of your reality lives there, those ideas will almost certainly be useful, and they definitely can't hurt. So run with it. Whatever occurs to you that MIGHT be true, certainly IS true in some reality, linked to the one you think you're in by the mere fact that it LOOKS the same. Of course, you don't have to believe this. You can believe whatever you want, and MOOism will sit there and nod its fool head, grin its fool grin, and make stupid comments about it. PART SIX So let's do an exercise in MOOish MystiSchBLATT. For the moment, let's discard the MOOist attitude, and masquerade it as "Legitimate" MysticBLATT, like, as in, Cosmogeny instead of Cosmopolitan, Eschatology instead of S-Scatology, and so forth. Dumping the dumb-fool sarcasm that we keep up just to remind you that we're Metagnostic Agnostics. Here she lies: Part Q: The Book Of Nothing In Particular 1) Before the beginning there wasn't nothing. Without comparison, there could be no nothing. The non-nothing was everything and nothing at the same time, because nobody was there to tell it what it couldn't do. But everything without dBLATTTinction is just more nothing. And so there wasn't nothing, but everything was. 2) After the end, there won't be nothing, for just the same reasons. 3) Between the middle, there remains no nothing, because the gaps have all been filled in by emptiness, which is Something, even if not very much. And so as it was in the beginning, and as it will be after the end, so it is now, between the middle and itself. 4) Everything is held back only by its overwhelming tendency not to exBLATTT HERE, and NOW, because of the inconceivable smallness of HERE and NOW when compared with everything. And the everything was separated into Information, which was the pattern of the non- nothing. 5) With the discrimination of Information, there became division, and separation, and this is why not Everything exBLATTTs for us, because Information separates the True from the False. 6) Inside the non-nothing which is Everything, True and False were separated from each other in Every possible way, because it was Everything, and so things came to be, as we see around us today, and also as we don't, but not HERE and NOW. 7) So finally there was Something, which came from Information, which came from Everything, and Everything was not-Nothing. 8) But where there was Something to compare it with, the not- Nothing was less than Something, and was called Nothing. So from the not-nothing which was Everything comes Something and Nothing, created together everywhere, at all times. 9) Something and Nothing exBLATTT Sometimes in Balance and Sometimes Not-In-Balance, but almost always there is more Nothing than Something, because almost always there is only One Thing HERE and NOW. And the One Things are separated by Information which is a great deal of Nothing. 10) So it is that Nothing separates us from each other, since it is here in great abundance, and the only Something that exBLATTTs exBLATTTs in the form of One Things or Sometimes Nothing at all. 11) But Information is the Nothing that separates us, and also what makes us what we are, and so at Some HEREs and NOWs, we are not, but at others we are, and in Some of those HEREs and NOWs the Information that we are, in other places, exBLATTTs. 12) So it is that after we die, we are dead, but remembered, and in some places, we are known, but aren't standing, because there is less Nothing separating us from those Somewheres than from the others, and we are closer to them. PART FIVE As you can see, this makes almost no sense at all. This is, in many ways, a lot like Real Life, and MOOism in general. Of course, it has a lot more explanations than Real Life, and it doesn't seem to contradict itself as much as MOOism in general, but that's what makes it MystiSchBLATT. Obviously, MOOism is everywhere, sort of like the not-Nothing in the Book of Nothing In Particular. Because everyone believes what they do, or else they don't, and everyone follows their beliefs, or else they don't, which is the credo of any Metagnostic Agnostic Anti-Church: Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole of The Law, Unless Thou Wilt Not Follow The Law. Everyone is a Pope of their own Sect of Metagnostic Agnotisc MystiSchBLATT: they do what they like, unless they don't want to. They choose to behave the way they do, unless someone or something else chooses for them. Whatever they do, it's the Holy Dogma of MOO that they MUST do it, unless they feel like breaking Holy Dogma, which is also okay. So don't worry about converting them to your own Sect of MOO, unless you want to worry about it, or can't help it, in which case, go ahead. PART é MOO OMM ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ MOO-JUICE ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ The Organ of the International MOOist Conspiracy Printed & Published by the Office of the Cardinal Richelieus ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ Theta-1 ³ ³ November 4th 1992 ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ Recently it has been disclosed that the Cardinal Richelieu Hellhound 101 encountered one who may indeed have been Kerry Wendell Thornley (also known as Omar Ravenhurst) while living in Atlanta, GA in 1987. Kerry Wendell Thornley (co-author of the Principia Discordia) wrote some books while living in Atlanta in 1985, as well as a regular bulletin called KULTCHA of which he released 42 issues in 1986 (30 of which have come into the possession of the Hellhound 101). At the Atlanta Fantasy Faire, the Hellhound had the enjoyable company of a bizarre older man who talked a lot about conspiracy theories and about the the RSVP (Revolutionary SurrealBLATTT Vandal Party), as well as occasional references to "Brother-In-Law said so and so about the Nazis" and such. (For more information on Brother-In-Law, read KULTCHA.) As this person may have just been another Conspiracy TheorBLATTT who had read the KULTCHA series, he will from now on be refered to as Omar-X, as I may indeed be wrong as to his identity. (He called himself Tom Miethe). It turns out that the real Tom Miethe was one of Hitler's rocket scientBLATTTs who wound up working for AVRO in Canada after the war. I had, at that time, the first 30 bulltins of KULTCHA in my possession but had not yet had time to read them. If I had, who knows what would have resulted from that same conversation. Also, it should be noted that Omar Ravenhurst is given the credit by Margot Adler (in DRAWING DOWN THE MOON) for giving the Wiccans th title of Pagans. "The Discordian Society was founded in 1957 or 1958 by Greg Hill and Kerry Thornley, Omar Ravenhurst went on to form his own Erisian organization, the Erisian Liberation Front (ELF). Other Erisian cabals formed. At one point there were rumoured to be more than twenty, although some may have had a membership of only one. Since radical decentralization is a Discordian Principle, it is impossible to know haw many Discordians there were and are, or what they are doing. Most of these Cabals engaged in various nonviolent, absurdBLATTT, revolutionary, magical and surrealBLATTT endeavors. A number of these "actions" were done under the name of the supposed "Bavarian Illuminati", a rather mysterious organization founded by Adam Weishaupt in 1776. The Erisian "Illuminati" have mostly been inspirations of someone known as Thomas the Gnostic. Similar actions were initiated by ELF. Omar Ravenhurst, for example, invented a Do-It-Yourself Conspiracy Kit, complete with assortments of stationery bearing dubious letterheads.... "I asked Malaclypse, "What's Omar Ravenhurst doing these days?" He said, "Ravenhurst has recently been in a state of extreme discord. We were talking about Eris and confusion and he said, "You know, if I had realized that all of this was going to come TRUE, I would have chosen Venus."!" -- Margot Adler, DRAWING DOWN THE MOON MOO-JUICE Organ of the Internation MOOist Conspiracy Courtesy of the Office of the Cardinal Richelieus ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ MOO-JUICE ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ The Organ of the International MOOist Conspiracy Printed & Published by the Office of the Cardinal Richelieus ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ Theta-2 ³ ³ November 27th 1992 ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ The purpose of MOOism is probably not something most of us would try to theorize, although it has been written that it is to burn and to have fun. The classic purpose of religion was to bring people together to break through the human urge to kill all the other humans who are not the same as us. As everyone is different we need something to compensate for this difference. This was the first religion. It promoted survival of the individuals by promoting the survival of the group. Indeed it would seem that MOOism brings together people of various groupings together under a single heading (which seems to be in some disfavour in Ottawa). For we too have our big apes and small apes and fast apes and slow apes and clever apes and red apes and brown apes. And we have built our own form of civilization, one which we feel is more realBLATTTic to our own expectations and livelihood than that of those in the other civilizations around us. (more on MOOist values and purposes in MOO-Juice Theta-3, which will be an appended stream of though essay stolen from Floyd Gecko) MOO-JUICE Organ of the International MOOist Conspiracy Courtesy of the Office of the Cardinal Richelieus ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ MOO-JUICE ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ The Organ of the International MOOist Conspiracy Printed & Published by the Office of the Cardinal Richelieus ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ Theta-3 ³ ³ February 27th 1993 ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ From: Floyd Gecko Pvt Rec'd To: Hellhound >101< Msg #70, 92-11-22 Subject: Normalcy First thing that I started thinking about was the "purpose" of MOO... At least the sort of structure of how we get everyone possible to join... That's the connecting of various "levels" of normalcy together (the very normal with the very strange, and connecting them to each other)... Obviously, I had to invent a definition of normal. So you may like to have the rather nice model of normality that I came up with... Just to use as a cognitive filter when it's appropriate. 1) I thought of "levels" for a moment, then realized that that's totally impossible, since it assumes that all abnormality of the same "degree" is the same, and even that the "degree" is measurable. Our practical experience says this isn't true... 2) Next step is seeing the different groups we appeal to (some parts are the mystics, some parts are scientific-type oriented, some are surrealBLATTT, etceter...) as different physical areas on a map type dealy... Well, this is a little more accurate, but hardly precise. However, it did open up the question of multi-dimensional abnormality... That is to say, being abnormal in different directions (so to speak). 3) This gave me the clue... Suppose we define a polydimensional phase space for a graph... Just lay out axes for now, and I'll be more detailed about them later... Then give a sort of "Y-axis", or readout axis common to all of them... Of course, this multidimensional graph is just that... I'm assuming to quantify about 20 basic axes, and maybe throw in a few more which result from various facts about them (more on that later) just to make it clearer... So don't worry about these many many many components... Any reasonable computer could hold a 20 or 30 dimensional array of this kind without too much trouble, so there's no need for PEOPLE to go around visualizing this thing. 4) Okay, so we then define axes for various factors of sociopsycholocial significance. I don't really know what all these would be... The most obvious would be things like political orientation (which might need two or three axes to cope with), intelligence (same thing), personal interaction factors (the Leary graph suggests some of the axes to use)... A psyhologBLATTT would probably give others which aren't obvious to me but would probably be more important. No matter. You get the general picture... Then for the readout axis, on each of these, plot a normal dBLATTTribution (the bell-curve thing). Once this is plotted, you have a phase-type space of normalcy of each person/group on various axes... 5) Once we have benchmarked all this stuff, and determined which axes can be treated as they appear (some might have various screwball factors thrown in just to be annoying, like a complex-dimensional factor making the whole thing hopelessly noneuclidean, but basically we jigger around with it until you can treat it numerically with reasonably simple formulas for each axis, instead of nasty ones), we can categorize certain points and their relations with each other, as below. a) Group normalcy and cohesion can be treated as a social dynamic factor which comes into play in certain areas of this phase space, where the actual values on our components open up certain possbilities. I'm assuming that SOME social interactions, at least, can be modelled mathematically, and we'd choose our axes to correspond to the variables involved. SO in SOME areas of this phase space, groups of people who interact who are all mentally in the same area will tend to cohere together, to become MORE like each other... That is, the dBLATTTance between the phase-points themselves will grow smaller, creating a LOCAL defnition of normalcy... This is sort of like comparing global curvature of space with local curvature of space (planetary gravity). Local normalcy topology may be measured differently (requiring another phase space, or at least "reserved" dimensions of our original one, to measure it), but it'll likely be FAIRLY similar to the global normality topology b) There is a certain nonlocality of social relations... The interactions between points that are quite far apart in phase space is counterintuitive at first... Like, someone WAY out on one axis (say a demented Jim Jones type leader) will attract to himself (in REAL space, not sociostatBLATTTical phase space) followers... This acts like the "gravity" effect above, only he actually repels their corresponding mental phase-points, to cluster together SOMEWHERE else (docile and sheepish, rather than messianic... probably in quite different quadrants of the phase space). So reactions would have to be computer-modelled to be well understood. c) We CAN define political movements by their coherence on certain axes, but not others... basically any group of people will have to be treated as a cluster of points somehow (even unrelated people will, statBLATTTically, have a vector-center somewhere other than the "normal", or center of the phase space... this accounts for the saying "normal is that which nobody is")... The previously stated "goal" of MOO can be regarded as linking people in MANY and diverse segments of this phase space... d) Okay, so we have this multidimensional phase space of normality. It's not very useful... We CAN describe a single number (so to speak) or "level" of normality to ANYONE, without too much trouble. Depending on the exact topology of this space (as in, the dBLATTTance from the center of the space is calculated on a formula... it may not be the same as with "flat" space... instead of corresponding, say, to the root-of-sum-of-squares for each axis, some axes might have squares subtracted, or have extra "weighting" components, or various similar things...) we find the dBLATTTance from the center of various points... And knowing the way the points are dBLATTTributed, we can set up a sort of meta-level normal-curve (there's that bell curve again... Ask not for whom the bell curve tolls... it tolls for thee) based on the frequency of dBLATTTribution. It WON'T correspond EXACTLY to the dBLATTTances, since most people, with all their various deviations, will be well more than one standard deviation from the mean... But anyway... That's for the pigeonhole buffs, who need to have everybody in a little slot... I wouldn't see the point, myself. e) There are probably functions for clustering about the axes... For instance, when people are very far out on some axis or other, there may be a tendency to be very close to normal on another (psychotics tend to be very normal people in many respects, or so we're told...)... So we can add those extra axes I mentioned for how well the poin corresponds to those functions, and so on (how well it fits THOSE curves gives us MORE curves (I.E. it's not normal to be VERY normal, so psychotics tend to be meta-abnormal as well, or whatever))... We can add as many of these as are actually useful to help define the graph. This idea, of cours, is one highly typical of a certain region of that phase space in which I swim about pleasantly.. There are a few other people there, but I don't know many of them... So it's not an idea that most people would find appealing. Still, it does provide a useful mental map to refer to when you use the word "normal" as applied to people... The purpose of MOO then, or the STRUCTURE of MOO, or the [something or other] of MOO, is to unite people in all sorts of groups (corresponding to oddly shaped regions of psychosocial phase space), and bring their ideas together... Sort of a genetic/memetic diversity thing. MOO-JUICE Organ of the International MOOist Conspiracy Courtesy of the Office of the Cardinal Richelieus ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ MOO-JUICE ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ The Organ of the International MOOist Conspiracy Printed & Published by the Office of the Cardinal Richelieus Theta-4 March 3rd 1993 With the publishing date of the Grate Book of MOO a mere 3 weeks away from this eve, it has become time to state the purpose of the MOO-JUICE series. MOO-JUICE is to be released on a semi- irregular basis by the Office of the Cardinal Richelieus to the MOOist public. Further issues of MOO-JUICE will be available to persons who have purchased the Book of MOO for a quarter per issue plus one SASE per issue or per batch of back issues. MOO-JUICE exBLATTTs to serve the MOOist community and as such, contributions are encouraged (electronic contributions to The Hellhound >101< or hardcopies to 1646 Ridge Rd Vankleek Hill, Ont, K0B 1R0) although severe editing may (and most probably will) occur. No passage shall be safe, no reference yielded to and no concept left unapended. MOO-JUICE itself is broken up into two series of printings, the semi-irregular MOO-JUICE THETA series of updates and information on PsocioCychological MOOist and Conspirational stuff, and the quite irregular MOO-JUICE OMMICRON series of updates on other cults and happenings (possibly including MOOist reunions and such - a MOOist tabloid so to speak). Hopefully the OMMICRON series will keep us from having to keep appending the Grate Book with more and more sub-cults as they are developed. This edition of MOO-JUICE is also to remind all apostles of MOO that the book is entering it's last editing phase and any remaining tid-bits you want entered should be sent to the editing staff (Hellhound 101 and/or/if/what Floyd Gecko) within a week or two. THETA-1 Nov/4 '92 Conspiracy/K.W.Thornley/Wicca THETA-2 Nov/27 '92 Religion/Boomer Bible THETA-3 Feb/27 '93 PhaseSpace Normalcy Curve & MOO THETA-4 Mar/3 '93 Statement of purpose OMMICRON/1 Jan/6 '93 Users' guide to the Pudding Cult ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ MOO-JUICE ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ The Organ of the International MOOist Conspiracy Printed & Published by the Office of the Cardinal Richelieus Theta-5 April 10th 1993 THE DISSOLUTION OF MOO Soon before the release date of the Book of MOO, a text came into exBLATTTance under the title of the 83-FBLATTTed Tales, detailing the exBLATTTance of the WOMBAT, the MOOists, the Church of MOO and the MINT NES. Although highly "edited" for public consumption, this story also goes into the projected future of MOOism and the MOOist leaders. Both MOOist leaders (Floyd Gecko and Half-Mad) die a brutal death. the end. (Take the hint,folks, these guys really need to be aired out once a month at least!) Just around this same time MOOism lost it's thrust in the ERIS & MOO combined echo on the Fido and PODS networks. It would seem that after a short period of exposure, the interest in MOOism, and even in DiscordianBLATT, within the area dropped sharply. On March 20th, the first major MOOfest of 1993 was held April 1st: The book of MOO goes through it's final editing job and no further contributions are being accepted to the ever-enlarging receptacle that is treated as teh whole of MOOism. All further MOOist tid-bits are due to be printed in semi-irregular gnus letters such as this one. No actual MOOist contributions are received. Early May: The traditional QUACKfests, previously held at the ruin and then moved to the trestle, is re-named a "Bush Bash", is set for a mundane time, and drops all religious significance in the interest of attracting a different crowd than the usual Fests. GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE!!! That's right! We at SprayHam T enterprises are willing to make a prophet off the loses of the collective MOOist organization! You read about it in this very gnus letter! Official MOOist membership cards can be YOURS if you become an official member of the church of MOO. All this takes is a SASE sent to : J'son, 1646 Ridge Rd, Vankleek Hill, Ont, KOB 1R0. We will then send you, via the Ottawa Hull local Illuminati pyramid, all pertinant information, an application for membership and a cardstock copy of an official MOOist membership card (specify breed when ordering), as well as tons of other garbage, including the entire QuadFork T mail order catalog. At HeyStop U enterprises, quality comes second only to blatant stupidity. MOO-JUICE Organ of the International MOOist Conspiracy Courtesy of the Office of the Cardinal Richelieus ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ Ú´8: The Grate Return of the Gnu MOO ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ ³ ³ Msg#: 225 of 282 ³ ³ From: The Hellhound >101< 93-06-13 22:34 est ³ ³ To: All (93:9632/0) 93-06-13 22:34 est ³ ³ Subj: MOO-JUICE theta 6 (sorry, no fancy header this time...) ³ ÀÂÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ ³MSGID: 93:9632/0.0 2c1be3ba³ ³INTL 93:9632/0 1:163/286 ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ ÉÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ» º* Original Area: metaphysical º º* Original To : All (93:9632/0) º º* Original Subj: MOOism as an inner journey through the perils of religion. º ÈÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ I created MOOism under two guises. The first is an anti-religion whose purpose is to poke fun at religions and the strict guidelines which they place on all followers, at the same time as attracting followers as any religion does (much like two of the other great anti-religions, Discordia and the Church of the Subgenius). As everyone knows what these religions are about, I won't go into further detail on the anti-religion aspect of MOOism. The second (and most important to me) is a religion which teaches tolerance and the amalgamation of other religions. I will now document my trials and tribulations that created what I define as MOOism within myself. I was raised by an AtheBLATTTic family in a commune. I went to a French Roman Catholic grade school, and was educated by commune members on BuddhBLATT, TaoBLATT, Hindu and general Eastern philosophy. With all this input I became a fervent atheBLATTT until my introduction to wicca, whence I became a witch. But within a year of leaving my coven (geographical reasons), I found that I could not hold all of the wiccan beliefs to my heart and mind and therefore looked around to incorporate other systems and beliefs. Through theology and world religion courses I tapped into a plethora of other religions and felt that most (if not all) had genuinely good reasoning and concepts, as long as you paved over certain dBLATTTasteful aspects. I realised also at this time, that I could never actually belong to any of these religions, therefore I just started beleiving in what I can beleive. I was also introduced to the ranks of ERIS just before my departure from my wiccan coven, and took her words to heart and began to feel that all religions represented GreyFace far too strongly for my taste. The end result of this is MOOism. MOOism is a book and concept to make you think. It presents so many opposing viewpoints that the whole cannot be taken at face value. It FORCES readers and MOOists to reconsider things that they have learned, especially if it was learned from another MOOist. I have attempted to bring together bits and pieces of other religions, specially attempting to present them totally out of context, to make readers aware of these other religions and to consider them too. A good reader will notice references to so much else than actual MOOism and should be made to research these other religions/truths/lies. In this way I hope to make people comprehend the good in so many other religions that they may have thrown away because of political or racial reasons... or beacause they didn't get along with one part of the whole. Over the years MOOism has developed into a thriving community and is a forum for communications, opposing ideas and acceptance. The only people that MOOism opposes are other sects of MOOism that were created at the same time as MOOism, for a religion always fares better if it has enemies, and since I could not single out any other religion as an enemy, I singled out QUACK. (of course, now QUACK is just another part of MOO). Others have described MOOism as akin to "mental diahrea", or a bunch of tots trying to fill up the net with useless messages. I feel that they are overlooking how MOOism has developped into such an open forum of communications, presenting views of people who would not necessarily be in contact otherwise without the common denominator of MOO. MOOists encompasses Discordians, ChrBLATTTians, Agnostics, SatanBLATTTs, Witches, Jews and all others. We have members of the church of MOO who are actively practicing these religions as well as MOOism. Each has contributed to the whole with their ideas and ideology. The only other religion that does any of this is Ba'hai (sorry if I misspelled that), and they do it by conglomerating the whole and saying it's all the same thing anyways. I have never pushed this beleif, as I don't think it is all the same, and the good should be taken from each to describe how you feel about the world. Matthew Jason Parent Cardinal Richelieu of MOO The Hellhound >101< The First to answer the Cow WOMBAT Systems Analyst * * * * * * * * * * MOO OMM and Blessed Be The Fourth Voice: Myths and Stories The Seventh Voice "I scrubbed and I scrubbed, and it wouldn't come out. It wouldn't come out. It just.. I just... I mean, I took a big wire brush, and I scraped at it and scraped and scraped and scraped, but it wouldn't come out. I scrubbed and scraped until it bled and the skin came off in little chunks, but it still wouldn't come OUT!" "Shhh... Shhhh, baby. Don't cry. It was only a dream. Only a dream." Only a dream. Only a dream. This is only a dream. IT WON'T COME OUT! Blood on my hands, it won't come out. Blood on my hands, but I don't know if it's even there. I look while I'm eating, they'll be dripping red, my cup overfloweth with blood, then nothing, seconds later, silver sparkling and bone china bone dry, not a red spot, not a red cent, not the scent of blood, the red scent MY GOD IT WON'T COME OUT! "And... And I couldn't make it come out, and... and..." "Shhhh... Quiet now. LBLATTTen to the night. The bats are flying. Watch the window." "NO!" Vampire bats. Blood sucking animals, they wouldn't let me go, the leeches, bats who bats don't really suck blood drain us dry bone dry bone china. Bats. Good. I sat for three hours and watched the bats flutter by like giant nocturnal butterflies, wings of deepest nightly black, soaking in starlight and moonlight, the Black Nights, Black Knights, the Knack Blights WON'T COME OUT IT WON'T COME OUT THE BLOOD I WASHED AND WASHED AND WASHED BUT IT WON'T COME OUT AND I NEVER EVER HURT A FLY I NEVER KILLED ANYONE ONLY IN MY DREAMS AND THEY'RE NOT REAL. "Shhhh... Shhh, baby... It's only a dream." And I sprang awake, hot flesh adrip with a cold sweat, droplets hung in freefall, surrealBLATTTic patterns of spray suspended in time momentarily, to splatter across the covers, the covers they dissolved away like candyfloss, exposing bare legs the sweat drops ate through, pouring out rivers of blood and the bed shrank back, consumed and comsummated by the flow of blood and it would't come out and the stains were in the sheets and on my hands and my legs and in my hair and they wouldn't come out and they wouldn't come out and I scrubbed and I scrubbed but they wouldn't come out. And I sprang awake again, and they were there, in the room, they were standing over me reproachfully, just-like-I-was-a-cockroachfully, a bug to be squashed-fully, to be fully squashed, a new one, a no-one, no man. "Nemo," he said to me, "you have blinded us, and we are sore afraid. My God, my God, why have you forsaken us?" The tall one, thin and spidery, with the little round slick black glasses and the short curly hair, with the deep black suit and the little clerical collar, he was holding in his left hand the little black book with the symbols on the front but not a cross and not a pentagram not Satan worshippers but not what they said they were I don't know who they were they were standing over me that's all I know about them. "Nemo," said the second one, "you are no man, but you hold the key. Give us the key, Nemo, and we will let you live." The short one, stout and round, pig-faced, like a rump roast with lips, with the black black glasses and the blue serge coat and the black-brimmed cap, with the little black notebook and a black ballpoint pen and the slicked-back black hair, with a badge that had the strange and curly symbols, not police, but something else, the same as the tall one, he stood there and talked at me, and wouldn't go away and wouldn't go away and what is this, the Third Degree? "Not the third," said the tall one, "but the Ninety-Third." And they both laughed and I could see their eyes behind the shaded windows in their heads and they were red blood red, with eyes of white, pure lily-china-white bone dry with pools of deepest bloody red in the marrow of the bones, and pupils pits of Knightly Black night in the middle of a blood red day a sunset bleeding on the horizon from a stabwound to the chest. And I woke up screaming. "Shhhh, baby. It's only a dream, they can't hurt you. They're inside your head, they can't hurt you. They're inside your head and they can't come out. They won't hurt you. They're inside your head and they won't come out. YOU CAN SCRUB AND SCRUB AND SCRAPE AND SCRAPE BUT THEY WON'T EVER, EVER, EVER COME OUT! THEY'RE INSIDE YOUR HEAD NOW, YOUR'RE SAFE WITH ME, HONEY, SAFER THAN YOU'VE EVER BEEN BEFORE, now lie down and sleep. Put your head on my lap and sleep, little baby. Shhhh. It's only a dream." I backed away, her eyes were blue, baby blue, flecks of purple in the deepest depths by the torrid pupils, and somewhere in the pupils little glimmers of the red. "It's only a dream," I told myself, sliding onto the floor and giving up, "It's only a dream, she'd never hurt me, ever." Woke up whimpering again. They were standing there over me, as I lay on the floor, and I closed my eyes. Only a dream. "Nemo," they said in unison, "a dream is as real as the mind who it's dreaming." "MY NAME IS NOT NEMO!" "A fine point to argue, Nemo. The day is coming, Nemo. One day, everyone will live with us, here in the Seventh Voice. Everyone will see what you see, but they won't shy from it as you do, Nemo." "Where is the key, Nemo?" The policeman spoke with the voice of a pork-chop. He wasn't police! He was only a dream. They could never have gone so far. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" The little one stood on my chest, writing and scribing, serving as prophet for some divine writ of summons. He tore it off with a blaze of glory, and gave it to the priest. NOT A PRIEST. "Oh, but I am a priest, Nemo. We are all the priests of the true Lord of Life. If you are alive, you are a Priest, and everything you say is wholly written in the divine archives of the Lord, Nemo. Some day, everyone will join us in the Seventh Voice. You'll see. Just give us the key, Nemo." He gave me the little slip of paper, blessed by his highness with his own rubber stamp of approval for all to see. NINETY THIRD DEGREE: THE SEVENTH VOICE So I woke up in shock again. This time, it was a real awakening. She lay beside me quietly, not sleeping, but waiting to see if I would startle or scream, rush to the bathroom and scrub at my hands. Her back was turned to me. I couldn't see her baby blue eyes, but I knew they must be closed, lBLATTTening at me in the pale lapis light of early morning. THE SEVENTH VOICE: NINETY THIRD DEGREE It's the coming of a new era, she'd said. What, I said. The coming of a new era, she repeated. The frontiers are expanding all the time, she said. Pushing back the horizons of interactions, you know? It's like, your telephone and television and computer and all those things are already joined together, and everything you could possibly want is in there. Shopping, talking to people, libraries and movie archives... But the potential is only just getting realized. We'll live in our houses and never have to leave but when we want, never have to talk to anyone but who we want: no more violence. Freedom and peace of mind for everyone. People with one-track minds. She SAYS so, but it can't solve all the problems, people are so stubborn, they make their own problems, we all have blood on our hands that JUST WON'T COME OUT AND... Well, it won't. The violence never stops, I'd told her. We all have blood on our hands, she'd said. Wars and rape and looting and violence, hunting for money, but everyone will be able to work from their homes, do what they need, find their purpose, do the... I'd turned away and not lBLATTTened. We all have blood on our hands. She turned over, and I could see her, grey shades of black and white in the dim, dim light of a rising sun, eyes that must be blue looking at me in that way that's so unfathomable. "Are you okay?" she asked. Cold beads of sweat ran down my face and wiped clean the thin film of liquid on the skin, dripping down onto the smooth sheets. I stared back. "You want something to eat?" My eyes were going off into a thousand-meter stare, like there was something in the wall behind her. I could see a policeman and a priest standing just behind the bedroom wall, eyes the colour of blood and bone, like a dBLATTembered corpse you find dredged up on a beach and picked at by seagulls. "I'll make some toast and get breakfast." "Yeah, okay." She slipped on something of soft green terrycloth, slippers with fur linings, and padded out into the kitchen. Waking up sounds come from the house as the system came on, an exorcBLATT driving away the night demons with the red eyes and their blood that wouldn't wash out. Such creatures can't survive when faced with a self-regulating dishwasher, and feed on the soft underbelly of the night, when everything goes to sleep. "Nemo... Nemo... Nemo..." But they were being drawn back, as the Earth rotated through the terminator and drew us inevitably away from their dark domain. Yeah. So. Now what? "Toast..." "Oh yeah." I curled around under the warm sheets and reached out hunting for something warm. Socks, a warm woollen sweater, some dark green corduroy, pulled into a makeshift tent of warmth, and I came out a few moments later. "Toast," I proclaimed, and went for it. Then there was a clattering ring. The phone wanted some attention, so I punched it through. "Nemo... You can't run away from the truth, you know. The Seventh Voice knows no rest, nor respite neither. My God, my God, why have you forsaken us, and followed the Earth into the sunlight, where we can only talk..." I hung it up. Pinched myself. "Wake up! Wake UP!" But I couldn't wake up; I was already awake. How could a dream call you on the phone? I entered the code, looking to see where the call had come from. Somewhere in Malaysia? Still in darkness in Malaysia. Wait... Twelve hours ahead? No, more. Night just fell there. "What was that about?" She looked worried, like she does: anything wrong with anyone, she'll be sitting there looking at them with this concerned look on her face that makes them feel better almost at once. "I don't know. A dream I had, maybe." "I don't understand." The phone wasn't telling me the number the call came from: dialling area, perhaps, but there didn't seem to be any actual point of origin. I picked it up to call for help. "...only talk to you by the Third Voice. Give us the key, Nemo, and we'll let you lead your people on the way to a new reality. Betray us, and we will destroy you as we destroyed..." I put it down in the cradle slowly. "Let me hear." She reached over and took my hand, still clutching on uneaten toast. She took the phone away, and lBLATTTened. "Who is this?" she demanded. "Why are you calling here?" I couldn't hear the answer, but she started pressing buttons, trying to find exactly where the call was coming from, but there just didn't seem to be any other side to the call: like a geometric ray, or an infinite peice of string with only one end. Strange things go through your head at times like this. I looked outside the window at the lightening sky. The bats weren't flying anymore... Wait. We never see bats around here. That was a dream. We live on a houseboat off Vancouver. There are no bats this far out to sea. That was a dream. The sun broke over the long rippling sea sending sparkling reflections down a golden path to our house. I could see the city on the horizon in one direction. I stared down at the sun, lBLATTTening to her try to track down the call. "Dammit. It must come from SOMEWHERE." Really? Minutes ago I was sure they were figments, parts of my own mind. The priest and the policeman, so typical, so certain. The archetypal authority figures, come to taunt me, to manifest the demons of violence in society and taunt me about the blood on my hands. How classic, how Jungian. Symptoms of my own neurosis. I've never got a harassing call from a neurosis before. The billing problems alone must tie up the phone company for... "NEMO!" The speaker-phone went on of its own accord. "YOU CAN'T HIDE FROM US BY DENYING US! MOCK US IF YOU MUST, BUT YOU MUST KNOW THAT WE WILL HAVE THE KEY FROM YOU, AND YOU WILL JOIN US IN THE SEVENTH VOICE! MY GOD, NEMO, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN US? WE ARE BLINDED, AND ARE SORE AFRAID!" She unplugged it. "How did they know?" "Know what?" "The Seventh Voice. It's the title of a book I want to write. Ninety Third Degree: The Seventh Voice. I haven't told anyone about it yet. Not even you." "Why?" "I've only just started thinking about it." "What does it mean?" She sat down, took off one of her slippers, and started rubbing one foot nervously, as I'd known she would. I took it from her and massaged it carefully. "The Ninety Third Degree is the code name of a project by communications people to integrate everything. Everything. So I divide up the Voices. The First Voice is spoken word. The Second Voice is recordings. The Third is telephone, the Fourth is television, the Fifth is integrated systems. The Sixth will be when communications come to the inside of our minds. The Seventh is the final stage, when the voices merge and our minds become one. The book will be about how the project will start to bring about the evolution of our species as a technological being." I never understand when she talks about these things. How can mere tools, telephones and microchips, make us into something else? She has big ideas. Bigger than I know what to do with. I'm only an artBLATTT, not a scientBLATTT. How should I know where to take an idea like that? But I love her because she has big ideas to inspire me. Somehow, they learned her ideas that she never even explained to me. Neuroses? The phone was blinking for attention. Even though it was unplugged. I pointed, she looked. And she blinked, swept her hair back with one sweep, and blinked again. She picked up the phone, threw it out the window and into the Pacific Ocean. "Nemo..." said the phone as it came off the hook and went out the window. Then it sank underwater. She moved closer, and took my hand. "Are you frightened?" She knows how easily I can be frightened. By blood, by things with many legs. By things I see in people: we moved out onto a houseboat after my last show. She looked into my eyes, then held me carefully. "Don't worry," she said. "I can help." I put my head on her shoulder and held tight, put my arms around her... There was blood on my hands, and I backed away screaming. She stared at me, and I fixed my eyes with hers. Can she see the blood? God tell me she can see the blood! "Where did that come from?" she seemed hardly panicked. "I don't know!" I turned to the sink, and turned it on, picking up a plastic brush, suddenly knowing it would do no good. What came from the faucet was scarlet red, and a whispering sound came with the squeak of running water, a whispering that muttered "nemo nemo nemo my god my god my god why have you forsaken us nemo nemo nemo my god my god why have you forsaken us we only want the key nemo you hold the key why have you blinded us we are sorely afraid nemo why have you blinded us when you hold the key my god my god why have you forsaken me..." I twBLATTTed off the faucet, and turned to face her. She was staring with damp eyes at the sink, coated with blood, and her face was pale, the pale colour of bloodless flesh, white as china, white as bone. I turned and ran out of the kitchen, onto the deck, and looked into the ocean. It was red, a deep red of... The red of water, reflecting a dusty sunrise shining through polluted air. But water it was. Blood has a thick way of moving, a smoothness to it that water lacks. This was water that supported the boat, and now held our phone. I turned back to the door into the houseboat, and saw her standing there in the door, face a blank mask of uncomprehension. Behind her, I could see two faces through the window, wearing dark glasses and no expression. "There is no time, there is no night, Nemo. You cannot forsake us, and you have already given us the key. Outside of time, beyond the confines of truth, lies the Mind. In the Mind, we have the key. But here, we need it, to rejoin ourselves, to give the edge to the Dark Knight that we might renew itself." She turned and faced them, then picked up a chair and hurled it at the window, and their voices were swallowed by the shattering of glass. "Were those the ones you saw in your dream?" She'd seen them. Thank God. Thank GOD, THANK GOD, why have they forsaken me she sees them they have left my mind, they finally came out without the scrubbing but they left of their own accord, forsaken me to dBLATTTurb her vision seeing of... "Were those the ones you saw in your dream?" "Yes." She nodded, as if that proved something. "Policeman and Priest, with a symbol of the Unity on their books. They are the archetypal homogenizers." "Ah." I love her, but I rarely understand her insights. All I knew was what I saw behind their eyes, the bone-dry rims, deserts of time, eternity, the blood of the iris, aeons of death and pain, the pupils of deathly black, a black that swallowed all comfort and beauty, and behind the eyes, an evil beyond any pain or death or despair or stretch of time. "This is bad," she said. "It signifies betrayal." "What?" "The Ninety-Third Degree, the project, technological evolution of the species. I've had dreams about those two, standing against an angry mob, a symbol, I think. A symbol of control against diversity: the two directions our project can take." "Why is it betrayal?" "Because the seed was not supposed to be released. A seed that changes people from the inside, to open the Seventh Voice. Once the seed is released, the body is changed, the Word becomes Flesh, and the subject becomes an antenna of the Voice. The Voice is filled with noise, but also beings, beings of good and evil, and beings too alien to be understood. The seed enters through the mind, the mind changes the brain, the brain changes the flesh, and the flesh receives the Voice, and spreads the seed." "Who betrayed who?" "They. They betrayed me, and gave me the seed. And I gave the seed to you. Your body and mine, we are like stick insects: playing at being human, but eventually we will move, and the Voice will become transparent. Others will follow." Outside the boat, there was a knock. I could feel the evil trying to enter, an evil of black and white, and red. The red was the pain it contained, the pain it gave, and the death it caused, all those who had died in the name of the Lord and the Lords, the Lamb and the Pig. Black and White: the great homogenizers who thought in Good and Evil, discarding art. In their stark eyes and in their clothes, their Bibles and their notepads, solid and soiled by fanaticBLATT. The Voice had become Flesh, and they were outside now. I could feel them. The boat shook back and forth, and fracturing noises came from beneath. "They live outside of time, all things are apparent, but they need to make things happen anyway, or the system collapses in on itself. But they've seen what happens, and fight it anyway. Diversity MUST be the root of the Voice." "Perhaps they can't see." "NEMO! WHY MUST YOU FORSAKE US? YOUR PATH IS SEEN, AND THE KEY MUST BE OURS!" There was a splintering crash, and the sound of water pouring into the boat, then thunderings below us. "The telephone call must have come from them, reaching through the Voice seeds of the project. Not from Malaysia after all, in the night- side of Earth, but in Pittsburgh. That was their escape from your dream, from the confines of Night, as the Word in you finally solidified, and became Flesh." She sighed, and held me close to her, and whispered to me silently, in the back of my mind, as I could hear with my ears, the Voice made Flesh destroying our home. Don't be afraid, she said in the Voice, they must act as they would, whether they know the future or not. These beings in the Voice, they may be lying, treacherous, like all Unity. Possibly the key they want won't go to them. What is it, I asked. The first transcendence into the timeless realm of the Voice. Its character will shape the Voice in all past and future. If you carry the most advanced form of the seed, they need the Voice to enter your mind and carry their own forms through, from the Future and the Past, feeding around into Eternity. I love you, I said. The door behind me opened, and the Policeman and the Priest, eyes and souls of blood and bone, death and darkness, Voice made Flesh, entered the room. I love you, she said, and Flesh became Voice. And the Voice Said: Unity is Fraud. The Voices are plural, are multifaced. The Voices commune in love. Love is the Law. Every man and woman is a star. All numbers are infinite, there is no difference. Even those who cause us to live in fear. And if the dam breaks open many years too soon... And it did. 83-FBLATTTed Tales Of WOMBAT A Stupid Novella By Floyd Gecko and Disinterested Observer "May you live in interesting times." - Oft-quoted Chinese Curse Introduction Wombat It was a dark and putrid night, and the wind was hiding somewhere for fear of being mugged. A dark shape emerged from the bar and staggered to the side of the road. It was a wombat. I could tell from the shape. Then it was mugged. The mugger leapt at it and hit it in the head. I ran towards it, but the street was rubbery, and I was bouncing far too much to reach the poor wombat before it's wallet was stolen. "Moan," moaned the creature. "Shut up," I told it. The mugger was running down the street with the money I'd planned to steal. Damn. I kicked the wombat, and ran after him. The wind whipped in my face from the speed of my running, and I mugged it too. Not bad. A hundred and eleven bucks. An Amex gold card, and... "How To Turn A Wombat Skin Into A Working Submachine Gun In Four Easy Steps"--- a pamphlet. I ran back to where the wombat had been, but it had been spirited away. I sat gloomily on the pavement with my feet in the gutter. Then the wombat jumped me and tried to take the $111. Damned if I'd let a marsupial overpower ME. So I clubbed it to death with the gold card. The dead wombat's pelt was hard to remove, but the prospect of a working submachine gun kept me going through the wee small hours of the morning. Finally, it was done. The skin was removed. I opened the pamphlet with hands stained by wombat innards. "HA HA," it laughed. "FOOLED YOU!" I cried inconsolably until I was mugged by a wombat corpse. To this day, I still regret not driving the stake through that wombat's heart. If you've heard stories, called Urban Myths, perhaps, of an undead being that walks the streets, well, you have me to blame. It leaps on people from a flame-red Harley Davidson and gnaws their heads off, to turn them into it's undead minions. Some say I am the only one to ever see it's gruesome eyes and live to tell the tale. Some don't. What do they know? It's the truth. I've tried for my whole life to rid this world of the unholy being, but I fear what they've long said: "Once beaten, twice a wombat shall kill you with a staplegun." Or something like that. Chapter One Mints When? A rustling noise attracted him. A pink appendage reached. Quickly he dodged out of the way. The one beside him was grabbed, and dragged kicking and screaming towards the opening. Twice in as many minutes. Something would have to be done. He called a general meeting. By the time everyone had been organized, three more had been lost. He explained the situation. Five losses later, a daring escape plan involving ladders, ropes, a can of flyspray and some jello mix was worked out and used. It worked. Sort of. Two thirds of the group managed to escape. The others slipped back into the container, and the tools were lost. The screams of the doomed third weighed heavily upon the minds of the survivors as they grimly watched their companions carried away. Sorrowfully, they turned their backs upon the scene, and trudged off into the depths of the Wombat World. Martinez looked down. Her bag of mints had grown strangely lighter. Looking back, she saw that two-thirds of the bag had spilled out onto the ground. Oh well. Sighing, she reached for another mint, and wondered idly what she was doing here. Or for that matter, where WAS here? Last she remembered, she hadn't been here. But she couldn't remember where she had been, either. She vaguely remembered something about someone named Floyd.. or was it Lloyd? and a brainbox, whatever that was. Trouble is, that was ALL she remembered. She had woken one morning in a hotel room, with a strange sense of wrongness. Oh well. Worse things had happened. At least she was in one piece, and healthy. What to do now? From somewhere far off, she heard a noise. The one cows make. Where there's cows, there's people, she thought. Martinez grabbed another mint and set off in the direction the cow sound had come from. Curiously, as she got closer, she could hear several duck noises. It sounded like Wombat War III: The Ducks vs. The Cows. She could vaguely make out two people, pointing at each other. Odd, she thought, is this a normal thing? "Helooooo!" she heloooooed. "What's going on?" One of the people, or reasonable facsimiles thereof, looked over, dBLATTTracted. The other took the opportunity to pull some things out of his pocket. He flicked one underneath the other and threw the top one at the guy who was otherwise dBLATTTracted. An explosion rocked the world. The mints, for that's what they were, that had escaped from Martinez continued their trek. One was eaten by a camel that had appeared from nowhere and disappeared back there as quickly as it came. "Look," said the leader (he being leader because, if he could get them out of prison with nothing more than ladders, ropes, flyspray and some jello mix, he should be able to keep them alive, right?) "we need a plan. Anyone got any ideas?" Silence. The leader sighed. "That's what I thought. All right, take five, I'll think of something." "Take five what?" came a question. "Never mind!" bellowed the lead mint, turning red (a very difficult feat for a spearmint) "Just siddown and rest for a while." The lead mint was seconds away from coming up with a plan when his group was attacked by an undead flayed womthingy. Martinez awoke and sat up. Instant mBLATTTake. Her head blew up, showering blood all over. The shower covered her entire body, and the pain was tremendous. She opened her eyes. It was raining, and her head was in one piece, although it was throbbing painfully. There was a large lump on one side of it, and it was a real neat colour. Where before there had been a field, (site of Wombat War III), there was now a city. A very large city. People everywhere. She was lying in what looked like a market, as evidenced by the cobblestone street (which, now that she thought about it, was decidedly uncomfortable) and the vendors all over. Despite the rain, it seemed that there was good business being done. Martinez got to her feet while the crowd continued to ignore her. She decided they were doing a pretty good job of it. Nearby, a teenager was attacked by a gang, who made insect noises that while they took his hat, jacket and shoes. They were swarming him, Martinez realized. "Stop?" She called out, uncertain if it would have any effect. It didn't. The swarm moved away, leaving the teenager naked of head and foot. Martinez walked over to him and bent down. "Hey," she asked, "are you all right?" The guy stood up. "No," he said, "I have a left side too." He walked off, leaving a very confused Martinez standing alone in the midst of a crowd. (Something very poetic about that statement, isn't there?) Oh-kay. What next? she wondered. Some schizophrenia? she answered herself. Martinez shook her head, which was her second mBLATTTake in five minutes. It REALLY hurt. She should find somewhere to lie down and rest for a while. But where? Fortunately, her problem was solved when a large ashtray smacked her in the side of the head. Martinez fell to the cobblestones, unconscious, the lump on her head looking real impressive after being smacked twice. It was some time before she woke up again. She sat up. She was in bed. She lifted a hand to her head, and found no damage, no nothing. Strange dream, she thought, and stepped from the covers and into her slippers. She pulled on a shirt, and dressed quickly. What crazy kind of dream was that? Fields, then some strange twBLATTTed version of the Byward Market, then mints... Something about a brainbox... She couldn't remember clearly, and the few memories she had of some previous life were slipping away. She wrote down a few jotty recollections in her dream notebook, a yellow spiral affair with peace symbols and anarchy symbols covering the front. Floyd dripped from her mind, and the brainbox went with him. Her far-flung personality had integrated. She was whole again. Memories of this strange new world returned in that way that memories have of drifting back after a dream, looking a little sheepish, smelling a little drunk, and pretending they haven't just got back without the car keys at 6:30 in the morning when they were supposed to be home by midnight... It was a small apartment, overlooking the REAL Byward Market. She went to the kitchen and poured some cereal into a dish, tinkle tinkle tinkle, it went. In the cupboard, her mints plotted an escape. School in a few hours, yet another dreary University Lecture Hall, half-filled with half-students. "HOW CAN THEY HOLD CLASSES," she demanded of the refrigerator, which cowered in the corner as it always did when asked questions, "WHEN THERE'S A BLOODY UNDEAD WOMBAT ON THE LOOSE?" The fridge had no answer forthcoming. It pondered for a few minutes, speculated for a clean hour and a half, and thought about the matter for another quarter-hour. When it had decided on an answer, she was already making her way through the dangerous streets of Ottawa on the way to Ottawa University. The fridge decided to tell her when she returned home. Carmalita Mint crept through the sewer system. It wasn't safe for a fine young mint down here. It wasn't that it was smelly and full of rats, which it was. Smells can't harm a mint, and rats can't eat one of Carmalita's size. The danger was that it was full of water, and mints dissolve in water. Her cousin Tonto had left for Columbia or Bolivia or one of those south american countries which end in "IA", like Yugoslavia or something. Carmalita was blissfully unaware of geography. In the new universe hacked up by whatever process had made the Wombat World, geography was shot to the local equivalent of Hell, which was probably populated by wombats. Wombats were Carmalita's worst nightmare, for though only ONE roamed the streets above her, it was skinless, undead, and had a flair for revenge upon SOMEONE UNNAMED. Plus which it was big enough to eat her. Martinez darted through the Rideau Centre to avoid the snow on her way to the University. Also, there were no wombats in here. As she passed the Rideau Street food mall, there was a roaring in the streets outside, and two headless undead minions thundered past on Harleys which had seen better days, cleaner exhaust, and livelier occupants. Life goes on. She passed an advert for CHIA-WOMBAT. "Irradiate it, and it grows cuddly green fur!" Yuk. She ran down the sidewalk carefully towards the university. More undead on Harleys trundled past, escorting a strangely small, flame red Harley, with a strangely small, pinkish, and bear-shaped occupant, which snarled at the crowds oppressively. They knew it wouldn't do anything, of course, but HEY, what can you do about a wombat with an attitude? Spray-painted on the side of the wall was a big letter "V" with a little dot between the prongs, at which the wombat was snarling. As she scampered towards her lecture hall, the undead minions began tearing off the chunks of concrete the thing was written on. Martinez covered her shaved head with a woollen hat, and thought back to her strange dream that night. Or morning. Hadn't there been a symbol like that in there somewhere? She stopped just beside the wall to the University and pulled out a yellow spiral notebook and a big marker, and wrote the symbol down with a question mark beside it. There was more than just the V, the dot inside was funny somehow, shaped like a steering-wheel, with four spokes coming from the centre. She looked up to check the one on the wall, but it wasn't there. She had a vague memory of a bunch of motorcyclBLATTTs. Could THEY have something to do with its disappearance? She looked after the cycles going off into the dBLATTTance along Nicholas Street. The memory was fading quickly, like a dream. Something unreal about the whole world today, like it was freshly forged, like in that question that the Prof ignored in Philosophy: "What if the world is only two seconds old, and we came ready-made with fake memories?" Why did the prof ignore it? As it happened, on that PARTICULAR day, it was true. The world had, purely by chance, begun when she'd woken up, with some rather badly-forged fake memories. "The old world is gettin' a tad boring," had said BOB to his sBLATTTer. "Let's give it a good workout today. Confuse most of the people, make 'em think it's STILL the old one..." * * * After a particularly boring lecture on quantum chemBLATTTry, Martinez trudged slowly past a gaping hole in the concrete wall that led her inexorably towards the Laurier Bridge. She walked silently past the Rideau Centre and a funny-shaped "Q" on the wall, with a filled-in right side... It was ALL on the right... "No, I have a left side, too." The voice came drifting across the street, and she looked sharply at the speaker. He was a strange fellow, with a bright hat, a psychedelic jacket, and plowing through inch-deep slush in brand new sneakers. In his jacket pocket he held a bag of mints that he reached into while she watched. He was talking frantically to an amused lBLATTTener about reality, wombats, Guacamole, and the Gobi Desert, all at once. She remembered it all, somehow. He seemed, in some strange way, familiar to her, as if they'd met before in a previous life. The word "QUACK" floated across to her, and she looked at the "Q" on the wall. Something... Somehow, through spiral notebooks, traffic jams, and something she could only vaguely remember, she made it down the street to the Burger-O-Rama. Finally some peace from the slush and the snow and the raving maniacs on the street talking about Australian wildlife, chip dip, major arid landmasses, and abstract concepts. FINALLY something solid in her life that she could identify with. The something solid turned out to be a cheeseburger and a plasticized paper cup full of coffee, but it was better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. She didn't think she could handle that just at the moment. Too unexpected. She munched on the patty of compressed cholesterol covered with "mystery sauce" and a pseudopickle, sipped the watered-down axle grease, and decided to eat at the Deli across the street, for her health and sanity. She left the putrefying thing on the table to muse to itself about how it had narrowly escaped being broken down into its component parts by powerful digestive acids. "SAVE A CHEESEBURGER! BE A VEGETARIAN!" The cry went up from a dirty man in a dirty coat by the side of the road. The Market was full of people like that. "Cactus? WHAT CACTUS?" "TIE DYED LONG UNDERWEAR! FASHIONABLE WARMTH!" "...moneymoneymoneymoneymoney..." "So I told Phyllis, I said if that guy comes around and bothers you anymore, you just call my Joe..." "WOOO! WOOO!! WACKA WACKA WACKA!!!" "The Day Of Judgement is at hand! REPENT, FOR THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH! Lay down your sins before the Lord, and let them be devoured by hungry dogs..." "Do these dogs get mustard on that?" "Undead skinless vengeful wombat..." "Kosher Deli? I hardly think so." "Anybody want a free lump of dirt?" She walked into the Deli and went to sit at the back. It was a smoking section, but it always seemed, somehow, friendlier, being farther from the door. She ordered a vegetable platter when her waitress friend Janine came by. Janine gestured vaguely at the crowd, no time to stay and talk, and rushed off with the order. She pulled out her yellow spiral notebook to look through her notes on quantum chemBLATTTry. Nothing like reviewing over a plate of munchies, she thought. "AW SHIT!" The customers looked at her in confusion. The students at the next table stopped pouring everything on the table into a sundae glass and stared at her. She'd brought the wrong spiral notebook to her quantum chemBLATTTry class. There amidst her dreamlogs, a big V, a Q, and the word "Floyd" were two pages of vector notation, scrawled notes, and something she'd copied from a slide without actually understanding, which looked suspiciously like an Egyptian Artifact, or maybe a Rosetta Stone. The students at the next table asked her for her veggie dip for the mixture growing in their glass. "Slurry," explained one vaguely. Martinez handed over the pinkish gunk and watched with fascination as they spooned great chunks of the stuff into their glass. She lost interest eventually and returned to her notebook. Within its pages, there was a strange reference to a Wombat, cows, and some letters. She turned the pages upside down, sideways, and various angles in between, as if hoping for a better view. On the street outside, Carmalita Mint dashed across through the slush, her outer layer protected by a makeshift trenchcoat and a pair of Doc Martens. She entered the Deli surreptitiously as someone opened the door to leave, and crept under the counter while Martinez puzzled over a big "Q" that looked vaguely like a treble clef with a filled in side. When Martinez was holding the book sideways and tilting her head the other way, Carmalita was dashing from table to table, chair to chair, in search of the table by the window farthest from the door. As Martinez tried looking at her Quantum ChemBLATTTry in a nearby mirror, Carmalita arrived at the offending table. "Put in one of your mints!" Carmalita stiffened. She had seen the strange concoction brewing on the table, and shuddered at the idea of a poor mint being thrown to its mercy. As she leapt on the table cradling her weapon, a noise was heard, a kind of "SQUOOEE" noise that came from the glass on the table. Nobody noticed the mint with the tiny submachinegun as the slurry-thing leaped from its glass, bounded across the table, and scurried across the floor. The occupants of the table got up and tried to chase it across the room. Carmalita took the chance, jumping down to the knapsack on the floor. "MOVE!" she shouted to the occupants. The frightened mints inside looked up at her and scrambled. She covered their exit with her weapon. "Aw..." came a voice from above, "my MINTS are knocked all over the floor! They're rolling all over." Carmalita took a pot-shot with the submachinegun and made for the door. She was almost to the cash regBLATTTer when the slurry thing stepped on her and partially melted her. Martinez stood to see what was going on. Some kind of pet had escaped; probably it was a punk's pet rat or something. It was running around on the floor like a deranged pile of cream, salt, sugar, pepper, veggie dip, Coca-Cola, coffee, and some substance that was probably gunpowder, but nobody was quite sure, which had just partially dissolved an escaping renegade sugary confectionary. Which was very odd, because this was, in fact, exactly what it was. Underfoot, rolling about all over the place in the general direction of the door were about a hundred English Mints, just like those in her cupboard in the kitchen of her apartment. She stepped on one, which issued a disconcerting "ACK!" from beneath her foot. Eventually things seemed to vaguely drift from a random chaotic state into something somewhat resembling order again. Martinez tried to ignore it and concentrate on reviewing her Quantum Chem notes, except the people at the next table followed this display by blowing up an ashtray, hiding it under the table, and looking extremely innocent, which was somewhat dBLATTTracting. A little bit more dBLATTTracting was that one of the younger members of the group spontaneously combusted, bursting out in flames in an instant. He patted them out calmly, as if this was an everyday thing, and smiled at everyone as if to suggest that everything was just fine and there was absolutely nothing to get alarmed at. Martinez put her face in her hands and shook her head slowly. She wasn't getting ANYTHING done here. She finished off her vegetable platter, waited for a moment, then realized the dBLATTTracting people at the next table were getting ready to leave. One put on his large black trenchcoat, black fedora, and a pair of mirrored sunglasses, stood up at least a foot taller than the rest of the world, and stood there being vaguely imposing. The others gathered their paraphernalia and trundled off. As she watched them go, she noticed one of them had that strange "V" on his back, but they were gone before she could ask what it was. In the apartment, cooking dinner, she discovered she was missing some salt. Her short pink neighbour was more than happy to lend her some, having just then gone out and bought a box to make a circle on the floor, and not needing any to eat. He was on a low-sodium diet, and since his normal food of preference was grass, roots (grass- roots also acceptable), vegetable matter, and the heads of shopping clerks, he required little salt. The fact that Martinez utterly failed to notice that he was also an undead skinless wombat wearing a fire-engine red studded leather jacket and a T-Shirt saying "Death Doom Despair and Destruction" was typical of the new universe that had been created that morning, but might also go far towards explaining why he didn't want to keep much salt around, seeing as how salt and skinlessness go poorly together, even for a wombat. The fact that all of their other neighbours also failed to notice this fact was not at all surprising, since they rarely stopped by to visit, and only for a few minutes when they did. Chapter Two MOO Ah, the life of a single young university student. Whoops! While Martinez was daydreaming, the pot on the stove had begun to boil over. She quickly rushed over and yanked it off the hot burner. When the steam and foam had disappeared, she chanced a look inside the pot. Whatever it was, it seemed to be done. What was it supposed to be again? Martinez reached for her cookbook to refresh her memory, but she discovered it had fallen on the floor. "DAMN," she screamed at her refrigerator, "MY COOKBOOK FELL!" The refrigerator hummed, as if to say "What's so bad about that if it's already done?" "I have absolutely NO idea what this is supposed to be!" she screeched. She stuck a fork in it. It certainly appeared to be edible, but appearances could be deceiving... Clunk. "What was THAT?" Martinez demanded of the sink. She got no answer. The sink was in a snit. The noise had come from the cupboard. She flung it open. A bag of English mints fell out of the cupboard, causing Martinez to leap back with a startled shriek. The mints spilled across her floor, rolling everywhere. Martinez looked sorrowfully at the bag of mints. "Oh well," she said, "no sense crying over spilled mints." She debated cleaning it up and going back to the cooked whatever. It took all of thirty seconds for her to decide that however bad fast food was, it had to be better than the roast whatever. Martinez grabbed a jacket and vanished into the night. Shortly after she left, a legion of slightly stunned mints began to pick themselves up off the floor, and explore their new surroundings. Ah, nightlife. This was the part of the city she craved. After dark, the city was like a living being, a place where she could go to forget her troubles... Something small and smelling of cream, salt, sugar, veggie dip, pepper, Coca-Cola, coffee and high explosive slimed across her path. She ignored it. After all, this was the CITY. Weird stuff went down all the time. Martinez headed for the deli again. At least the food was passable. As she walked through the slush, her mind wandered. She quickly grabbed it back and warned it about wandering off alone at night. She began to experience deja vu.. there was something she should remember about the deli.. Martinez walked into the deli and groaned. THAT was what she should have remembered. There, at the same table as before, was the group that had dBLATTTurbed her earlier. Still, now that she wasn't trying to concentrate on Quantum Chem, she was just a bit curious about what all was going on with them. She innocently walked by and sat down at the table next to them. At least this time they weren't using their glass for a petri dish. That was a definite plus. Martinez eavesdropped on their conversation. It was kind of indBLATTTinct, as they had an annoying tendency to babble at more or less the same time.. "..the Ruin.." "..Psycho-Shoppe, that's what.." "..one got any mints?" "..wombat. Definitely the wombat.." "..MOO.." Martinez was jolted. Moo. That was familiar..why? Had it been in her dream? Odd.. why were they making cow-type noises in a deli? "..catapult a cow.." ".. Kong died for our sins.." "..don't do it! Don't jump!" Martinez decided she wanted to learn exactly what was going on here. The more she heard, the more interested she got. She tried one of her best opening lines. "Excuse me," she said sweetly. Conversation at the other table ceased. All of the group's heads swivelled in her direction. "May I borrow your ashtray?" she asked. One of the younger members, one she recognized as having spontaneously combusted earlier in the day, spoke. "Ashtray?" he said. "What ashtray? I don't see any ashtray. Do you see an ashtray?" For some reason the group seemed to find this hysterically funny. Sure enough, when she looked, there was no ashtray at their table. "Sorry for living," Martinez muttered, and turned away. "That's quite alright, we don't mind," one offered. She scowled at him. He turned pale and looked away. The group fell back into their huddle. "..mind control.." "..Holy Crusaders..heheheheheh.." "..pyros.." "..HONEST!" "..hit people over the head.." Martinez sighed and signalled a waiter, who came over. She ordered something that she hoped would stay on her plate without being pinned there. The conversation at the next table went on. "..Flyspray-Q.." "..pudding cult.." "..pass the mints, willya?" "..slurry?" The last comment seemed to spark the group into action. One ordered an empty glass. Another ordered a cup of veggie dip, a cup of coffee and an ashtray. They went into action. Vaguely revolted, Martinez looked out the window. There was a group of teenagers standing there, talking. One had a clock shaved in the back of his head. It read three o'clock. From the other table Martinez could hear a noise vaguely like acid eating through a tabletop. One of the other teens, who seemed to be standing there innocently, flipped something small. It detonated, leaving a mushroom cloud. The others fell back, looking fairly impressed. Martinez didn't blame them. She studied the young man more closely. He was under six feet tall, with dark brown hair. And dark eyebrows. REAL dark. He was wearing..no, it couldn't be. It was true. He was actually wearing a black suede jacket in the Byward Market, and he was still alive. And wearing the jacket, to boot. As if aware of her scrutiny, he turned towards her. She caught a flash of light off of something that vaguely looked like a miniature steel saxophone pinned to his collar. He smiled. Martinez shivered. There was something in that smile that made him look like he was a man clinging to the very edge of sanity. Suddenly, the young man waved. Martinez was taken aback. Was he waving at her? No, she realized, at the group at the table. They waved back. "..bystander.." "..popcorn.." Martinez glanced back at the window. The group had vanished. She picked vaguely at the food on her plate, and actually ate some. Images like flashbacks began to flicker through her head. A V with a dot, a funny Q.. they meant something, she was sure of it.. but what? At the next table, the occupants were keeping the slurry-thing under control by pressing the ashtray over the top of the cup. Inside, the slurry-thing railed furiously, trying to get out. Martinez sighed. This was getting dull. Meanwhile, the mints had decided that Martinez's apartment was their new place. They had organized into colonies scattered throughout the place. The largest was in a corner behind a potted plant, and was lead by a pert young mint named Candi. "Fellow mints," she addressed them, adding a postage stamp and tossing a few into a mailbox, "now that we have escaped and relocated, the question is, what to do now?" A burst of sound rang out as each mint tried to get its two cents in. Candi dug her way out of a pile of change, and tried to maintain order. "Let's hear from you one at a time. You," she pointed at random, "go first." Six mints, each thinking she was pointing at it, blurted out their suggestions, and quickly fell to arguing over which one she had, in fact, pointed to. Candi sighed. This just wasn't working. There had to be a better way to do this. "SHADDAP!" she bellowed, momentarily ruining her image as a tender sweet. "You. No, you, with the stripes. Yes, you. What do you think?" "Uhm," the mint began, "maybe we should explore some more?" "Okay," Candi said. "That's one suggestion. You, to his right." "Well, we could always try to make contact with the other thing that lives here." "I'm not sure.. oh well. Tell you what. Since we don't want to be here all night, let's vote on what we've got. All in favour of exploring?" A show of hands accounted for about a third of the lBLATTTeners. "Making contact?" The other two thirds raised their hands. "Okay, it's decided. We try to make contact. Anyone have any idea how?" All the mints started talking at once. Candi sighed. This was going to be a long night. Martinez finished the last of her dinner, and dug through her commando cast-iron purse-type thing for money. Someone at the next table cleared his throat. "Excuse me, miss," he began. Martinez glared at him. He gulped once and continued. "Would you be interested in making a donation to our church?" "The church of what?" Martinez asked, not entirely certain they weren't just trying to scrounge up money to pay for their order. Which they were. "The Church of MOO." he replied. Funny, Martinez thought, how does he manage to speak in capitals like that? "The Church Of Moo?" she asked in disbelief. "No, of MOO. It's only local now, but your donation could help us to expand!" he declared. Martinez sighed. "Fine," she said, "Here, take this." She handed him a scrunched up five dollar bill. "Great!" the guy said, "Thanks! Floyd," he motioned to the self combusting one, "give her a copy of the Book." Floyd looked startled. "I don't have a copy with me. That thing's HEAVY! Am I supposed to break my back carrying copies around with me?" The first guy sighed. "What HAVE you got then?" Floyd searched his pockets. There were a lot of them, and it took a good five minutes. "Uh, hmm, a rubber chicken, no, erm, bag of mints, suitcase of dreams.." "You carry a suitcase in yer jacket?" one of the others asked. Floyd looked up. "Of course," he said, "where else am I supposed to put it?" Martinez stifled a suggestion. "Er, uh... here." Floyd shoved a paper at her. "What is it?" she asked suspiciously. "Uhm." Floyd snatched the paper back and examined it. "Oh, yeah. The last page to the Book of MOO." He handed it back. Martinez looked at it doubtfully. "This is it?" "Ayup," Floyd confirmed, "that's it." "Okay.. well, it's been real." Martinez prepared to leave. As she walked around her table, she managed to jostle Floyd, who dropped his pack of mints. "Aww... look what you did! My MINTS are spilled!" Floyd wailed. Martinez smiled sweetly. "Sorry." Funny thing was, she didn't look sorry at all. Candi was getting annoyed. Every time she tried to get a consensus, it seemed to be that everyone should all talk at once until they got bored, tired, or just plain annoyed, and then they'd all drift away, eat something, maybe take a little nap, watch TV, or do something equally stupid for at least half an hour. So far she'd managed to sort out the fact that most of them sort of wanted kind of a little bit to kinda sorta contact the occupant of the apartment. After that, the meeting had gone downhill. The refrigerator wouldn't tell them anything about what might be a good idea, and sat there contentedly humming to itself like those people who refuse to admit that they're totally and utterly wrong, but sit around with those smug smirks on their faces rocking back and forth. Only it didn't have a smirk, and it didn't rock back and forth. So it's not really a very good analogy. Anyway. Candi was pacing back and forth talking to the two or three mints who actually seemed interested enough to propose any ideas. They'd agreed that writing something on the floor would be a good idea, since it could hardly be missed. Chalk, sand, or salt? WHAT? Anyway. Martinez climbed up the stairs slowly, puzzling over the "Last Page Of The Book Of MOO". On the back of the sheet of computer printout was written "Not For Consumption", and the front was taken up almost entirely with a huge V. At the bottom were the words "Here Ends The Great Book Of MOO", and at the top were the words "Official Ending". All in all, it wasn't a very helpful bit of paper. She turned it over, looked through it at lightbulbs, turned it this way and that, and was so engrossed trying to figure out what was so special about it that she utterly failed to notice elaborate patterns of salt laid out on the floor as she walked in and scattered the words "We Wish To Talk". She gave up on the page, set it on the counter in the kitchen, sat down on the sofa and turned on the little black and white TV as she opened her notebook to look over her notes from Philosophy. She'd got as far as "Non-Hegelian Logical PositivBLATT WHAT THE HELL IS THAT????" when the word "wombat" drifted to her ears. She looked at the TV for a moment in confusion, but saw only an ad for some ridiculous self-defense product. She went to the window and lBLATTTened to the street below. "...motorcade..." "...Pope of all New York..." "CACTUS? WHAT CACTUS!?" "...a spare dime?" "...wombat..." "...cup of coffee..." "...pepper and cream and something. Slimed off thataway..." Wait, go back. "It came up to me and tried to bite my head off! Most horrible thing I ever saw in my life... Went in that building there when I tried to call the cops." He pointed at the building Martinez's apartment was in. "Man, that's weird." This was all too weird for Martinez, and when the flying saucer drifted past the Peace Tower waving a sign that proclaimed "Your Own Personalized Riot By Wombat Crime Spree" and a phone number, she slammed the window shut and drew the curtains. It was a good drawing in technique, but a little bit hasty, because she closed them fairly quickly as well, and returned to her Philosophy notes. It was unfortunate that she realized that she'd actually DRAWN the curtains at more or less exactly the same instant as a small round green candy asked her for the time. Some seconds later, the prostitute walking past the building was a little put off by a brushcut figure storming out of it with wide eyes, still pulling on her trenchcoat. "...ckin' mints with bloody wombats... Church of MOO... one of these days..." She shrugged and continued her walk, ignoring the small pile of oozing sludge that was attempting to eat her stiletto heel. Such things happened in the Market. The second one two blocks away escaped her notice entirely. Martinez wasn't particularly afraid of the Market at night like some people were. She generally looked a bit intimidating, with a crewcut, heavy steel-toed Doc Martens, trenchcoat... Yeah, that did the trick. Plus which her boyfriend Kevin, "Patches", rather admired the Alien3 look it gave her. Still, when you live in the Market, you have to make compromises. The nightlife comes at the expense of... Skinheads. Shit. Well, no, not shit, just a bunch of skinheads. They were standing around in an intimidating sort of way, pretending to look like a rape gang. Ooooh, how macho they must feel. Assholes. The "white power" Doc laces sort of gave it away, too... These weren't the NICE kind of skinheads. Martinez knew how to deal with people like that. They REALLY REALLY hated it when she ignored them completely. The Psych prof said it was an inferiority complex or something. Bah. She walked straight, ignoring them when they moved to block her path. She was heading for the Rideau Centre, thanks. "Hey, Bitch! C'mere!" Martinez allowed a crowbar to fall out of her sleeve into her hand. They wandered off casually, pretending they hadn't noticed. Lucky they hadn't noticed it was a foam rubber crowbar, or she'd be in deep trouble right now. She squished it in her hand and laughed. An appreciative laugh came from nearby. She turned to look. Her neighbour, Arthur Figgis, was sitting on a bench eating a "hamburger". He gave a silent thumbs up and smiled through a mouthful of something vile. His bicycle sat there approvingly. She smiled at him and walked on. What a nice man, she thought. Always concerned about things like milk and eggs, replastering floorboards the landlord wouldn't look at, and fixing her television when it broke. She passed a telephone pole with a poster for the Desk Eaters gig at the Live Suitcase. A flame-red Harley thundered past bearing a short pinkish occupant who sneered at her and leapt for her head. A small pile of mush oozed by in the gutter. "...your mind's in the gutter..." "...twin brothers..." "...MOO!..." "...end of the world is nigh..." "...cactus?" "...vegetarian..." "...only on a tuesdae..." "...hot fudge..." "...end of the world..." "...twin brothers..." "...QUACK..." "...vanity licence plates..." "...end of the world..." "...alien invasion..." "...spare change..." "...alien..." "...mind control satellites..." "...end of the world..." Interlude Popcorn The following was recorded on a mind-scan from the data banks on the mind control satellite belonging to the Tdikoplian Arthur Phiggis (no relation). Floyd stared about uncomfortably. There was a large pile of popcorn in the middle of his living room. This, naturally, had left him feeling more than a little disconcerted. He scratched his head in puzzlement, dislodging his hat and allowing it to fall to the floor. He stooped to pick it up again, deliberately allowing his huge leather trenchcoat to fall between his eyes and the pile of popcorn, in the hopes that it would disappear while he wasn't looking. It didn't. The pile of popcorn obstinately sat in the middle of the floor. Floyd put down his black attache case and stared at the pile in bemusement, then sat upon the case, as his sofa was buried somewhere in the pile of popcorn. Assuming that whatever force had put it there had seen fit to leave the sofa. It was a nice sofa, too, he thought to himself amusedly. He stood up suddenly, making the buttons and pins that festooned the trenchcoat clatter loudly, and threw on his incredibly long woollen scarf, whereupon he headed out into the cold outside his home. The street was crisp and chill, and the sky was growing red with the dusk. Floyd's thick boots scuffed in a thin layer of snow that coated the ground. There was a huge pile of popcorn blocking his path. He glared at the popcorn, daring it to block his way one moment further. It did. He glared at it again, commanding it to get out of his way. It didn't. He looked in his window at the pile of popcorn that still covered most of his living room. When he turned, he was surrounded on all sides by piles of popcorn. A wall of popcorn encompassed him. He got a short running start and made his way almost to the summit of the wall before the landslide beneath him carried him to the bottom. He opened the door to reenter his house, and was greeted by another pile of popcorn in his entryway, blocking the hall to the interior. He squirmed through anyway. "Dammit," he exclaimed, "where the hell is all this goddamn popcorn coming from?!" No answer was forthcoming. A few moments later, the answer appeared, but in a form he didn't like. It was large, green, scaly, and eating his sofa. He could have sworn it wasn't there a few minutes ago. He wondered how it had got in. "What the hell is that?" he wondered to himself. "You know," the thing said politely, "It's very rude to talk about people in the third person when they're in the room and there's nobody else there at all." "By the way, scrumptious sofa you have here." Floyd pondered the meaning of this comment quietly to himself for a few moments, then made a tentative reply. "It's also rather rude to eat people's furniture, and put piles of popcorn in their homes." The thing stopped halfway through a bite of his coffee table. "It is?" "I'm afraid so." "Hmm. I must have been briefed wrong. I was told it was a polite custom on your planet." "Well, it isn't." "Odd, that." "Yes. Odd. What are you doing here?" "Well, I'm an emissary from Quintozextotillion, and I'm here to set up an embassy on this world. You're sure it's impolite to eat people's furniture and put popcorn in their homes? This is important now. Are you certain?" "Positive. Some people might even take offense at it." "Oh dear. Perhaps I should be on my way. Well, bye now." "WAIT!" yelled Floyd at the huge creature clambering into it's space ship. "What about my sofa?" The thing paused in the airlock and tossed him a cactus. "Here," it said. "Go buy yourself a new one." Floyd stood in befuddled amusement, and went to put the cactus in his bedroom, which he found blocked by a pile of popcorn. He tried to return to the living room, and succeeded only after a substantial effort to worm past a pile of popcorn that stood in his way. The cactus, he left behind, deciding it wasn't worth bringing back. The alien was gone by the time he returned, but someone was standing in a pile of popcorn stuffing as much of it as possible into his pockets. Floyd boggled at him in amazement that anyone would blatantly enter his house and steal the popcorn, which, though he didn't want it, was clearly his property. The person jumped, startled by his early appearance. Outside the window, the sun set, and the room was lit by an eerie glow from the popcorn. Presumably it had become radioactive from long sitting in the alien cargo bay. "Who the hell are you?" Floyd demanded, sensibly. "I'm just an innocent bystander. I don't know how I got in here. Don't ask me. I don't know anything about this. Honest. I'm just an innocent bystander!" The innocent bystander continued to stuff nuclear popcorn into his pockets like it was going out of style. Which it couldn't, for the very sensible reason that it had never been in style. Floyd decided, on a whim, that it didn't really matter, since all the innocent bystander wanted to do was to fill his pockets with the popcorn, and since Floyd had no overwhelming desire to keep the popcorn in question, it made perfect sense, from his point of view, to get rid of it. The innocent bystander seemed to have virtually limitless pockets. Either that, or the popcorn had mutated in the radiation and did some kind of shrinking trick when they were stuffed in, because the pockets hardly seemed to be filling up at all. Eventually, the innocent bystander had picked up all of the huge piles of the offending popcorn, and left. Floyd relaxed on what remained of his sofa, and turned on what was left of his television. There were a few sit-coms in which the "sit"'s were all the same and there was a decided lack of "com". He fell asleep for a few hours and missed a commercial for CHIA-WOMBAT, and Wombat-Whack-O-Matic. He missed a Crime-Stoppers shot offering a reward for any and all information leading to the arrest of a small man, about two feet tall, with no skin, greenish patches, and a four-legged gait who had stolen a Flame-Red Harley Davidson Motorcycle. He finally woke up. There was a news article on about how all the embassies and government buildings in the world had been mysteriously clogged to entrance and exit all day by mounds of an unidentified yellowish white substance resembling glow-in-the-dark styrofoam. An innocent bystander had, in each case, flown down from the sky aboard a glider painted with a promotional slogan for "Al Ien's Scrap Hauling" on the side and removed the offending substance. Floyd grimaced, popped a mint in his mouth, and then went to bed. Chapter Three Wombats From Hell Thwack! A deranged-looking individual, well over six-foot- six, stepped forward and slammed the lunging wombat with a rubber chicken. Shaken, it crawled back to the flame red Harley and drove off. "So, anyways, I set him on fire, because whipping him with the riding crop didn't seem to be doing much... Skinheads, ya know, they don't seem to mind whips. The blowtorch seemed as if it worked a little bit better, eh?" "Uh, thanks.." Martinez offered. "Hmm?" The tall guy looked at her. Martinez recognized him as one of the individuals in the deli earlier. Fuck, didn't these guys do anything but stand around talking about insane shit? Obviously he had a very limited attention span, as he had already turned back to the rest of the group. "Oh, for that? Don't mention it. Anything for a donator." "Hi!" Floyd said. He was ignored. "Sure.. well, whatever." Martinez said. "Hey," she demanded suddenly, "explain what this MOO stuff is all about or stay away from me." "Hey, Halfy, let's go offer people donations!" "Okay," The six-foot-six-plus guy, who was apparently called Halfy, said, "Sorry, we don't have time to explain to you, miss. So, I'll guess we'll stay away from you." The darkness swallowed the group. "Shit!" Martinez cursed. They had got away again. She started towards the Rideau Centre. Apparently she set her brain on automatic, because the next thing she knew she was staring at the water in the fountain outside Eaton's. At the bottom, there was a small amount of some granular substance. The kind of stuff you would presumably get if you tossed a MINT into it... Martinez cursed. There was no getting away from those people. She turned. There was that "Floyd" again, lurking in the corner watching the water float up into the air... Drift away. WHAT THE FUCK? "Hey, are you Floyd?" "Not me, lady. My name is, uhhh... Taco. Lloyd Taco. You must have mBLATTTaken me for someone else." "M... WHAT did you say?" "MBLATTTaken me ff... for something.... someone else." He stuttered as he gathered up his knapsack and put on a baseball cap clearly labelled "MOO". "It says MOO on your hat," observed Martinez astutely as the young man backed away from her. "No it doesn't," he hastily replied. She stared at him, amazed at the audacity. She checked again. It said "SOMA". An Aldous Huxley fan? She tilted her head to the side in confusion, and as the boy bolted away towards the foot court of the Rideau Centre, she caught sight of a strange being with more heads than she could readily count wandering past wearing a sandwich board saying "BRAVE NEW WORLD AWAITS YOU, CALL 1-234-567-8910 FOR INFORMATION AND TRAVEL PLANS" on the front and "AL IEN'S SCRAP HAULING AND PASSENGER LINERS" on the back. A soft earsplitting scream wafted lightly through the shopping mall, much to the bemusement of those who had utterly failed to notice the twenty-three-headed man with five legs and purple skin wandering around offering flying-saucer trips. People are funny that way. Martinez stormed angrily through the mall. There must be SOMEWHERE that was safe refuge from these people! THERE MUST BE... A shop sign advertising "Book Of MOO" caught her eye, and she had to grope blindly for a moment before she grabbed it back. She suddenly realized what had just happened, and screamed again. "Are you okay, lady?" It was Floyd again, in different clothes, and a different hat. "YOU AGAIN!!!" Martinez yowled hysterically at the mirrored ceiling, wondering idly in the back of her mind who the HELL would put a mirrored ceiling in a shopping mall. "No, you must have mBLATTTaken me for someone else. I'm Fluid. Fluid Greco." Martinez abruptly stopped lBLATT... err... LBLATTTENING, and stomped into the store offering the Book Of MOO, if only to get away from Floyd after variation on Floyd. Elvis was standing behind the counter. She blinked, resolved to ignore it, and looked the man straight in the eye. It wasn't Elvis any more. It was a pudgy man with a funny hairdo and a sequined suit who vaguely resembled Elvis. She looked around. There were three other Elvis impersonators managing various bits of the store, and she breathed a sigh of relief. "Donation?" he asked, proffering a five-dollar bill. She gritted her teeth, took the bill, and asked about the sign outside. "What sign?" She closed her eyes, and looked again, knowing before she looked that it would have no mention of the Book Of MOO. It didn't. It said "Karaoke Elvis Impersonations Tonite". "Sorry," she murmured as she exited. "...so's your fucking neck!..." "...twenty-three..." She closed her ears, not wanting to hear any more. A sign offered a vacation to MOOzambique. She closed her eyes, not wanting to see any more. There must have been something wrong with her mints. She walked straight into a wall of glass, which, unlike most bulletproof glass, shattered into milliard tiny fragments, which went into the salad bar behind them, and subsequently into the throats of twenty-three business-lunchers the next day, and subsequently into a "waste glass shard" bin at the Hospital. Two of the Lunchers died a week later of complications of glass- inhalation. But that's as may be. Martinez stared at the shards of glass. Something was horribly wrong with her world today. She spun. The thing which had caused the glass to shatter was standing behind her. With tank-treads, furry tentacles, brBLATTT... ummm, brBLATTTling with knives and gun tips, a strange armlike thing with a metal block on the end which it dragged as it rolled on the treads, it stood over her. A Cyborg From Zeta-Reticuli. From... What MOOvie was it fro... MOOVIE? "ENOUGH!" Her voice disconcerted the Cyborg, which stopped being about to kill her and resumed being a potted plant. "I'm fucking stoned, maaaan," she muttered to herself. "What the FUCK did I take?" She went over the events of the day carefully. No drugs were involved. The last week, month, year... She couldn't recall ever taking any drugs. What the FUCK? No aspirin. No antibiotics. No antihBLATTT... AntihBLATTTamines... No NUTHIN'. The world had been freshly made that morning, and "BOB" and Brother Entropy had sadly forgotten that someone allergic to ragweed would have taken drugs. She poked again. There they were. Every spring. "STOP FUCKING WITH MY MEMORY!!!!" Her voice shattered every glass object in the mall. Security rushed up to find out who was swearing so loudly. All of the Security Guards looked like Floyd. She blinked again, and they were normal people again, asking her politely to leave quietly. She left. She thought she saw an argument that proved she was the Pope. She looked again and saw it was a mottled bar of soap. "A fact so dread," she faintly said, "extinguishes all hope." She caught it again. Reality unravelling. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!" It stopped. Shuffling hordes of sheep wandered past in business suits, NOT looking like real sheep. Normal Power-Lunch types drifting in and out, consciously avoiding looking at the Punks, the disabled pencil-sellers, the homeless huddled in the corner, the winos, the poor drunken hopeless, the ChrBLATTTian Preachers under the grimy glass shelter, talking of Sin and of Hell and of Brotherly Love. She preferred the unravelled kind. Halfy sidled up to her. No, not Halfy, just someone in a dark trenchcoat. Darkness spat him up next to her. He muttered and mumbled low, mere puppet he who... ACK! It was unravelling again. "You need something to take the edge off. I've been watching." He slipped her something, a ziploc bag, and deftly removed the five dollars Elvis had given her, still clutched in trembling white fingers, and returned to the night. The bag had written on it "CCMV". It contained a fine yellowish-grey powder. People were beginning to stare. She consigned it to her pocket and went home. "You have been unfortunate enough to be present while someone was having a CCMV trip, without having any yourself," said the tiny paper booklet inside the bag. "We pity you. All mind altering- drugs are actually reality-altering drugs, for only one person. CCMV is a reality altering drug for everyone else as well. Use it carefully, if at all. If things grow too confusing, it makes a perfect defense. But above all, DO NOT TAKE IT WHILE SLEEPING." There was more, but she didn't read it. The paper had a small V-dot thing on it, and two other symbols. The strange Q she had seen on the wall on the way to her lecture, and a triangle with a beaklike angle inside it. She tossed it away and threw the little baggie into a corner. The yellow-grey powder spilled on the floor. Mingled with mint dust. Crushed mint dust. Mint dust. Mind dust. Martinez ignored it until the next day, when a picture of the Cyborg from Zeta Reticuli, resplendent with slimy tendrils and robotlike appendages, standing triumphant over a shattered tangle of metal and glass that must once have been a car, appeared in the Citizen, above a headline reading "Chaotic Night". Chaotic Night (from Udduwah Citizen, Feb 30, 1998, afternoon. A1-A2, Jim Rabbitson) If a city can have a nightmare, Ottawa had one last night. Across the city, strange sightings of zombies, vicious aliens, killing machines, and other denizens of horror movies were spotted moving through the city. Police received scores of calls about undead headless Things wandering aimlessly about the city streets terrorizing people seemingly at random. These Things were often reported to ride on motorcycles, accompanied by something which looked like a shiny pink teddy-bear, riding a flame-red Harley Davidson motorbike. As the night progressed, the reports moved randomly through the city, beginning in the Byward Market around 7:00 PM. Around 8:30, the giant science-fiction machine shown above (in a picture taken by an astonished Susan Morley, homeowner in Ottawa driving past at the time) turned up at a doughnut shop on Bank Street. After ordering five dozen chocolate doughnuts, it rampaged through the parking lot, destroying all but seven cars. Remarkably, it paid for the doughnuts. Two hours later, a dBLATTTraught woman visiting from Toronto called an operator asking for the Zoo. Upon learning that the city has no Zoo, she informed the operator that several dozen apparently rabid beavers were attacking her with bricks. The operator hung up. The woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, was found pummelled almost to death by heavy objects not far from the phone booth the call was placed from. She is in stable condition at a local hospital. Near midnight, Prime MinBLATTTer MacDougall claims she thought she heard a noise on the premises of 24 Sussex. Upon going outside to investigate, it turned out that there was a large glowing spherical object hovering over 23 Sussex. It stayed for approximately ten more seconds, and then shot upwards into the night sky. This morning, several tonnes of popcorn were found scattered about Sussex Drive, every kernel imprinted with the word "MOO" in burnt letters. Similar incidents were reported throughout the night, with reports becoming less frequent as the night progressed and people went to sleep. This morning, the evidence was overwhelming. Whatever the explanation for what happened on the night of February 29th, it was NOT mass hallucination. Broken windows, trampled cars, injured or dead citizens of Ottawa, tonnes of popcorn, signs advertising a "Wombat Crime Spree", and one house severely redecorated to resemble a pancake. All of these bear witness to the reality of whatever happened during that chaotic night. Martinez blinked a few times, pinched herself, poked herself with a fork, tried jabbing various other forms of sharp objects into her eyes, and eventually decided the thing was for real. Out of pure self-defense, she returned to the half-spilled sack of powder in the corner. She picked up the paper, and scanned for a recommended dosage. One fingerworth. She licked a finger, tapped it into the mixture of drug and crushed mint, and sucked it off. Behind the mint there was a flavour that seemed somehow familiar, as if she had been waiting her whole life to taste it. Not exactly pleasant, even a little sharp, stinking of Ozone, or something... She couldn't quite pin it down. Voices began to fill her head, from the street, inside her mind, flooding from all over the Byward Market. "...vanity licence plates..." "...have you ever seen me before?" "...vanity licence plate..." "...never seen you..." "...cosmetic tooth surgery... I want to get them chromed..." "...how do you know it's me then?..." "...pssst! Got any 'cid..." "...Elvis Karaoke Impersonators..." "...fucking wierd, maaaaan..." "...Arthur Figgis, pleased to meet you Mr. Bat..." "...foam-rubber cactus..." "...line of credit..." "...psssst! Got any 'cid..." "...better than that..." "...what ya got..." "...CCMV..." "...foam-rubber cactus..." "...BEWARE CHUCK, THE WOODCHUCKING WOODCHUCK..." "...flying saucer..." "...wombat crime spree..." "...new Mayor of Ottawa..." "...foam-rubber cactus..." "...cosmetic dentBLATTTry..." "...vanity licence plates..." "...wombat crime spree..." Interlude Dessert Tonto trekked slowly across the Gobi/Sahara/Mojave Dessert. Dune after barren chilly dune stretched off into the dessert night, each topped with a silent sleeping maraschino cherry. The young mint dug its climbing pitons into the side of the icecream dune and gave a solid tug on the dental floss trailing behind it. Tarzan, Gorbachev, Georgie, Lint-Head, Vinnie, and Vito trailed up the slope behind it. The chocolate camel that followed behind plodded slowly, its legs bogging deep into the spumoni trail. "Come on," shouted Tonto, "we're almost to Bolivia!" Georgie muttered something under its breath about wishing it had lBLATTTened to its progenitor when it was little and gone to architecture school. "There will be time to change your mind in Bolivia," announced Tonto inspiringly, "for our destination is to meet with a team of renegade architects, to help design and build the GREATEST PROJECT OF..." And the camel ate him, to the satisfaction of the rest. At least, temporary satisfaction, for they then realized that they were stuck with a rapacious chocolate camel that ate mints alive, in the middle of the Gobi/Sahara/Mojave Dessert, halfway up a spumoni-dune, with nowhere to go but Bolivia. Which is a pain in the ass in the best of times, which these were not. For they were also being followed. By someone or something that didn't like them. It crawled along the surface of the icecream and skirted the occasional palm-oil-tree-studded oasis of rootbeer as easily as it skittered over the walls of chocolate frosting they had left in its path. It could climb and stick to walls. They had seen it once or twice. Though smaller than the life-sized chocolate camel, it was much bigger than a mint. But Tarzan interrupted the speculation when the chocolate camel began using their climbing-floss to clean its teeth. "What are you doing that for?" it demanded of the camel, whose teeth were made of sugar anyway. The camel shrugged, and ate Tarzan too. Georgie, Gorbachev, Lint-Head, Vito, and Vinnie scattered, the five remaining architecturally gifted mints on this trek. The other guilds were on other expeditions, which had probably already reached Bolivia, for this group had been bogged down in a vast plain of sticky caramel. The five had scattered, hidden behind the vast maraschinos or foam-rubber cacti that dotted the dessert landscape, and eventually banded together on top of a huge almond cake, the chocolate camel pacing around the bottom. "Vito," demanded Vinnie, "do you still have your artillery knapsack?" Vito riffled through a Gecko Enterprises Transdimensional Knapsack , and dug out a relatively small plasma rifle, labelled "For Use In Case Of Emergency Or Camel Mutiny ONLY. It Is Unlawful To Remove This Tag." The five of them were able, with some effort, to drag the rifle to the edge of the cake, where they spied that the camel had gathered together some candy canes and was beginning to tie them together with licorice whips to make a ladder. The time was now. With Georgie, Gorbachev, Vito and Vinnie holding down the rifle-butt, Lint-Head took hold of the Gecko Enterprises Industrial Strength Trigger and pulled back. They had forgotten to aim, and a dBLATTTant foam-rubber cactus was blasted clear to Tibet, where a monk named Deng Xiao Pung Mung found fragments lying about in a certain monastery some days later. But Deng Xiao Pung Mung doesn't enter our story for another chapter or two, so we'll just pretend you didn't see that. The camel had spotted the plasma rifle being manoeuvred about as soon as the dBLATTTant nuclear-type blast came to its attention, and it cleverly hid behind a nearby Baclawa. The mints, aware that a Gecko Enterprises Plasma Gun has only twenty-three shots before it has to be recharged, and penetrating a Baclawa would take upwards of 101 full discharges, rummaged some more inside Vito's knapsack. A small assortment of tactical nuclear weapons struck their eyes, but Lint-Head pointed out that although they would doubtless destroy the chocolate camel if it emerged from the Baclawa, a battlefield nuke makes for poor indirect fire. Eventually Vinnie was elected to carry down and roll over a small thermonuclear hand grenade, whereupon he and the others would shift to the other side of their cake, relying partly upon it and mostly upon the Baclawa to protect them from the blast. As ionized chocolate camel graced the night sky, Vito and Lint-Head pointed out that it was nearly daytime, and the icecream they were standing on would melt soon. The daring and intrepid five mints trekked onwards towards uncertain goals, unclear on what they wanted to do except that it had better have nothing to do with Tonto's renegade architect friends. The gecko that was following them, just another of the GeckoClones which infested this part of the Gobi/Sahara/Mojave Dessert, silently contacted the starship which orbited high above, touching a comm-panel on its hat. "Tdikaiopolian Command, this is GeckoClone Twenty-Three. Come in." "GeckoClone 23, this is TC, go ahead, over." "Suspects are heading North/East/South-West from the three desserts into Bolivia, suspect they will attempt to contact the Xennothemian architect contacts upon arrival, MOO." "OMM, GC23. Stand by, over." "Roger Ebert, over and out, 10-4, Hawaii Five-Oh, Bacon, Eggs, Spam, Spam, Spam..." "Shut up, GC23." Silence and a sticky icecream aroma filled the air. Chapter Four Wombats From Hellhound 101 Martinez drifted out the door of her apartment. The Market was a great place to be. Life was good. Happy, happy, happy. She saw spy satellites drifting overhead. Mind Control Beams that had been invisible before were perfectly clear to her now, and she was able to drift around them, avoiding their mind-fogging power. Memories of what she had seen came drifting back. Lots of drifting going on today, she noticed. "...driftwood artwork? Very nice. For you? Ten dollars." She ignored it and furtively snuck towards the Rideau Centre, the perfect place to see if this CCMV stuff actually worked. Wombat Crime Spree indeed! Let the Xennothemians fog minds all they wanted. This powder made the brain invincible to their silly beams. The mints were doing something strange with the powder. Crushed mints in her stomach... Wierd... Strange... Sensation... The vBLATTTa of the Rideau Centre opened before her. As she entered from the Rideau Street entrance near the pizza place, she focused her new mind power on the Music Emporium nearby. Desk Eaters began to filter out of their specially designed MuzakSpeakers , destroying the dBLATTTortion circuits that held the Xennothemian Mind Controllers. Martinez could feel all of this going on with a touch of the mind, and see it with the look of confusion on faces all around her as people noticed Al Ien's Flying Saucer Tours adverts, signs for CHIA-WOMBAT, strange flying squirrels that stole wallets... Wait a sec... Now that was an idea. DESK EATERS! Fully aware that the high wouldn't be peaking for five hours, she set off for the Live Suitcase. "MBLATTTer Mayor! Sir! Sir!" The new mayor of Ottawa looked up from his desk, where he was perusing a printout copy of the Necronomicon. The fanfold had spilled over the edge of his desk and was wound several times around the strange and Giger-esque furniture in his office. He stopped mumbling in ancient Sumerian and looked questioningly at the lackey who'd just burst in. "Din gir xul kash shap tu... What? What's the matter? What's happening?" "It's happening again, Sir! The reports are coming in, just like last night!" The mayor cursed under his breath in a language that was long dead when the Sumerians first built Lagash, flipped open a 586 notebook computer and waited for the batchfile menu to appear, chose "P", and, making sure the LapLink connections were all set, watched intently as... WOMBAT PSYCHIC MENU 1. I-Ching Toss 2. Tarot Reading 3. PalmBLATTTry 4. Oracle Of Delphi 5. Haruspex 6. Simulated Goat Entrails 7. Ouija 8. Necromancy 9. Tea-Leaf Reading 10. Numerology 11. Seance/Channelling 12. Conjuration 13. Cast Horoscope 14. Up Periscope 15. Bibliomancy (a) Holy Bible (b) Talmud (c) Koran (d) Vedas (e) Tripitaka (f) Book Of MOO (g) Principia Discordia (h) Book Of SubGenius (i) Necronomicon (j) Book Of Lies (k) Alice In Wonderland (l) other Before the menu could go further, he selected "2". "Please enter your Holy Name." The Mayor's nimble fingers punched out his Holy Name. "Please concentrate on your question while the cards are being shuffled (press any key to shuffle)." The Mayor concentrated on the problem he had been examining mere moments before, and tapped "enter". The GIF cards on the screen riffled back and forth for a moment, until "Press any key to cut the deck" appeared. The Mayor did so, and watched the GIF hand cut the deck in two uneven parts. As the GIF cards were laid out on the simulated table, the Mayor felt a sinking sensation in his gut. Normally a Tarot deck had only ONE "Death". He returned to the main menu and picked "1". The hexagram was #23, "Breaking Apart". He tried desperately at option "15". (a) Revelation 6:8. "And I looked, and behold a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him." (c) Sura 56, Line 4. "When the Earth shakes and quivers, and the mountains crumble away and scatter abroad into fine dust, you shall be divided into three multitudes." (f) Lloyd 4,15. "He is as a giant force against the horizon at night, clutching his demon-lumber, striding through the forests, sweeping up the trees with his mighty paws." (i) Maklu, Incantation. "Destructive Storms and Evil Winds are they/An Evil Blast, herald of the baneful storm/An Evil Blast, forerunner of the baneful storm." (k) Chapter One. "If you cut your finger very deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds." The Mayor was not pleased. He slammed shut the 586 notebook and shoved it back in his desk drawer, almost ripping out the fibre-optic cable that trailed from it into a grey box on the floor beside his desk. He rummaged through the accumulated junk that had inevitably collected in the tiny office in City Haul, and, after sorting through a rat cage, some caramels, a pile of occultBLATTT books, a few 3 1/2 floppies, some CD-ROMs, an ancient pair of socks, what looked like an old Babylonian artifact but was probably fast-food of some description, and more fanfold printer paper than New York City could use in a month, he found the touchpad that accessed that box. He used the LCD touchscreen display to call up detailed maps of the city of Ottawa, patched into the police database for locations of reports of "wierd shit going down", overlaid his careful chart of Ley Lines in the vicinity, and began to get seriously confused. Meanwhile, Martinez was walking rather shakily out of the Live Suitcase, leaving behind a panicked crowd of Desk Eater fans who were flailing to the tunes of a band that now consBLATTTed entirely of headless undead. She walked away as quickly as she could manage. The music was a little weird for her tastes. Something slimy oozed by in the gutter as she walked past a Winebago with the seemingly whimsical sign "City Haul" written on the side. And suddenly, it had always been just that. She wandered vaguely, protected by the Cyborg from Zeta Reticuli which rumbled along behind her, crushing the occasional Cadillac, nipping the occasional stick of licorice from an entirely imaginary candy store which recurrently came up on every street corner. As she and her companion flitted down Rideau Street, pedestrians were bemused or terrified by sight after sight. "IT'S ELVIS!" (And it was.) "MOO!" "A FLYING FOUNTAIN!" "ALIEN INVASION!" "THE GODS ARE WALKING THE EARTH!" "MOO!" "...vanity licence plates..." Speaking of which, the City Haul trailer had had... "HH101"??? Should that be familiar? Martinez was shocked when, a moment later, a Flying Saucer swooped out of her deranged imagination and lifted her off the ground not twenty meters from the Daly Plaza. "FUCK! GET OFF OF ME!" The cyborg was gone off somewhere to look for donuts when it had happened, taking her completely by surprise. A short blue person with huge cat's eyes swivelled around in the Giger-esque chair from the control panel and stared at her. Or at least, it would have been staring, if she could have seen any conceivable way those huge eyes could ever actually close. It began to speak in a high-pitched chitter, which, had this been any normal SF story, she would have understood at once by telepathy, or a high-tech Instant Language TranslatorTM. But this was a surrealBLATTT nightmare, and she couldn't. It just chittered away at her. When it got out the slide projector and laser-pointer, and began showing her vacation slides, she began to look for a way out of this predicament. "Shouldn't you be flying this thing?" she asked pertinently as it narrowly avoided colliding with a radio tower. The saucer didn't appear to be on autopilot, since it seemed to be going in more or less random directions, depending on which way the steering column happened to decide it wanted to topple at that moment. The megaocular smurf looked a little nonplussed with backtalk, and began to search for a technical problem with the slide projector, which had been showing the same slide of Miami each time it pressed the remote control button. "No," Martinez offered helpfully, "the FLYING SAUCER!" A note of urgency slipped unattended into her voice as she noticed the rapidly looming Peace Tower through the windshield, and the little blue man pulled out something uncannily like a mallet and began hammering on the side of the projector instrument. If Martinez had been outside the Saucer, she might have appreciated that she was in no danger, since the line they were on would have to turn abruptly long before they could hit the Peace Tower if they were to finish drawing the last "M" in "WOMBAT CRIME SPREE". But she wasn't, so it didn't. The fireball was visible for a hundred kilometres. Martinez's scorched and twBLATTTed corpse was found not far from the newly created Leaning Tower Of Peace, roasting silently near the Eternal Flame, which had gone out. Her first words upon resurrection were "JESUS H. CHRBLATTT ON A FUCKING RUBBER POGO STICK, WHERE ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH DO THEY TEACH THOSE BLUE BASTARDS WHERE TO FLY A FUCKING SAUCER?!?!?!" Half-Mad prodded around inside his ear with a wrench for a moment to get it working again before attempting any kind of answer. "Keep it down, willya? This ain't my house." Martinez got up off the slab and tried to run away, but was stopped when she noticed that her limbs were somewhat charred, and that her trenchcoat was smouldering quietly in the corner. A quick glance verified that other than this, everything seemed to be intact with her person and attire. Which, on the whole, was pretty good, considering what she'd just been through. "Got some ointment?" The Grate Prophet picked up a squeeze tube with "Charred Flesh Restorer With Extra Wave". "Put some of this on, and it should be fine." He waited patiently while she applied the goop to her arms and legs. "Now put this fish up your nose." She'd heard that one before. "WHAT?" "PUT THE FISH UP YOUR NOSE!" "That's a smegging halibut, you maniac!" Halfy tried to wrestle the halibut into her nostril for a moment until he realised that it wasn't going to work. One of her hallucinations had been a power-vision of having double rows of pointy chrome teeth and sharp razors on her fingers. A gang of skinheads in Ottawa Civic Hospital had found that out. Or, rather, a gang of skinheads in the Byward Market had found that out, and it was still recognized by about 90% of a gang of skinheads, in Ottawa Civic Hospital. When he'd calmed down, she asked the obvious question. "Why do you want me to put the halibut up my nose?" "Just checking to see if you'd do it." Martinez shook her head in disbelief, and in doing so caught sight of where they were. It was a basement, all concrete slabwork and tasteless paint, with a glass square in the floor giving out onto a panoramic view of open space, stars drifting by the window slowly. "WHERE ARE WE?" "Space Station Gecko One." Floyd's voice was irritating, and she tried to ignore it. "Where are we REALLY?" "No, honest. It's one of my hallucinations." Martinez stepped over to Floyd, threw a mint at his face, and kicked over the candles and things they'd used to revive her. The pentagon of black chalk got scuffled, releasing a few demons who had been surreptitiously hiding in one or two of the corners, but they didn't make too much of a fuss about it. "Some thanks," Floyd commented, opening the door. "This," said Half-Mad proudly, "is our MediaControl CentreTM, where we watch all those, umm... Teevee things." A vast array of television monitors was haphazardly stacked all over the room. Many of them were in various states of disassembly, most of them were oriented strangely, and all of them were displaying different T.V. stations from around the world. "...or ate any of those yummy eucalyptus leaves. Yum yum. That was the news for wombats..." "...only a microwave, and within minutes, cuddly green fur begins to appear..." "...all over ex-Prime MinBLATTTer Brian Mulroney, who commented later in the evening that..." "...undead swarms have been rampaging through the city, causing many citizens to..." "...come dine at Chez Pierre, for a remarkable food experience that's out of this world..." "...Travel Agency, where the sky is no longer the limit..." Martinez put her foot through one of the less disreputable- looking monitors. Half-Mad hit her with a chicken. She pretended to ignore it. "Maybe it's about time someone told me just what the hell is going on around here." A nearby weirdo tossed her a dog-eared copy of a book. "The Grate Book Of MOO" said the cover, adorned with a beautifully done raycharles... umm... raytraced drawing of that funny V-dot thing she'd seen before. "THANK you," she said in exasperation, and flipped it open to a random point and read: "JESUS H. CHRBLATTT ON A FUCKING RUBBER POGO STICK, WHERE ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH DO THEY TEACH THOSE BLUE BASTARDS WHERE TO FLY A FUCKING SAUCER?!?!?!" Meanwhile, down below on Earth, City Haul was making a dragster getaway from a horde of headless undead on Harleys. "Holy SHIT!" Mayor Hellhound 101 jumped up to the front of the Winebago where Leper Messiah was ferociously attempting to see just how far through the floor of a Winebago the gas pedal could really go. So far he was striking sparks off the road, which actually had the effect of slowing them down. "STOP THAT!" Hellhound thwacked Lep across the side of the head. Which was unfortunate, because Lep was badly balanced, flew out the driver's side window, and was crushed by a marauding Semi. Pity, thought Hellhound, as the swarm of Harleys thundered closer. He clambered into the driver's seat and put the pedal to the asphalt. "Glrd frbl goopy noopy NUH NUH NUH!" came the cries of the undead from behind, fogging Hellhound's head with sleep. The Wombat was back there, he realized, casting a drowsiness spell. He put the Winebago on Cruise Control as he blacked out to the sound of "NUH NUH NUHNUH! NUH NUH NUHNUH! HEY HEY HEY, GOODNIGHT!" It was therefore not surprising that City Haul was next seen by living persons crashing through the bay windows of the Rideau Center and making a severely uncontrolled plummet towards a food court. Hellhound 101's unconscious form went into freefall and hit the button marked "Overdrive" with its foot. The uncontrolled plummet turned into a powered plummet, rocketing at more times the speed of sound than a Winebago really ought to. Interlude Tibet Down on Earth, something peculiar was happening. Oddly enough, it wasn't in Columbia, or in the Ottawa/Hull region, where the Wombat World had accidentally collided with this universe (note the inconsBLATTTent explanations... possibly the result of a confused editor -- Jason, editor 2543 edition) No, the odd thing was happening somewhere else. Somewhere totally different. It was happening in Tibet. Deng Xiao Pung Mung was a monk. This was because everyone had teased him about his name until he ran away and joined the monastery. This particular monk padded slowly down a monastery corridor, when the odd thing suddenly happened in that particular locale at that particular venue of time. Deng Xiao Pung Mung was startled to see a tower of dark (as opposed to a tower of light) suddenly burst through the cieling, casting the floor in front of him into total invisibility. He peered into the unglowing tower of unlight. He couldn't see a damn thing in there. "I can't see a damn thing in there," he said, only in Tibetan. The tower of dark was fairly cylindrical, round, spheroid, conical, and infundibular all at the same time. The fact that infundibular means the same thing as conical totally escaped the notice of the cylinder, which, while it's vocabulary wasn't extensive, made a valliant effort to try different things. It also escaped the notice of Deng Xiao Pung Mung, who didn't speak English, but DID speak Tibetan. Deng Xiao Pung Mung staggered away from the tower of dark and ran down the hall. The tower suddenly made up its mind which way to go, which, by a totally staggering coincidence, was precisely the way he was going. This was, as I say, a coincidence, and the cylinder was not, in point of fact, attacking him. It was, rather, just picking a direction totally at random. This fact didn't help Deng Xiao Pung Mung's state of mind one whit, and he yelled for help, only in Tibetan. The sphere of darkness moved towards him anyway, and he sped up his run. A paltry "AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!" escaped his lips, only in Tibetan. A monk came out of a door in front of him and looked around, as Deng Xiao Pung Mung flashed past him. "What the bloody hell" he said, only in Tibetan, "do you think you're URK!" Actually, he didn't say URK. He just sort of stopped talking, only in Tibetan, as the cone of unglowing unlight passed through him. Deng Xiao Pung Mung raced down the corridor and turned a corner to hide from the thing following him, only in Tibetan. The, only in Tibetan, thing, however, didn't, only in Tibetan, follow him. Neither did it follow him in Swahili, Latin, Finnish, or, for that matter, any other known language. The astute reader will no doubt be wondering whether it followed him in an unknown language. Well, have no fear, for it just kept on going in the direction it had chosen at a constant speed in every possible language, exBLATTTent or nonexBLATTTent, and even some that weren't possible. As for the rest, well, they don't count, only in Tibetan. Deng Xiao Pung Mung relaxed, only in Tibetan. He wasn't going to be killed after all, only in Tibetan. He waddled in a Tibetan Monklike way into the corridor again and looked with horror, only in Tibetan, at the path the thing had taken. There was frost all over the floor, and the monk it had passed through was frozen solid, only in Tibetan. Deng Xiao Pung Mung was shocked at the sight, but breathed a silent prayer of thanks that he hadn't fallen victim to such a horrible fate. He was, therefore, rather startled, not to mention more than a little annoyed, only in Tibetan, when, moments later, a puma jumped out of a nearby wicker basket and tore his throat out, only in Tibetan. Moving past the island of Sri Lanka now, it had originated in a small monastery in Tibet, summoned by who knows was mysterious and dark forces of mysticBLATT. The water, as it passed through, was suddenly and spontaneously frozen. A small fish, swimming in these waters, was mildly surprised when it suddenly stopped living, and was encased in a block of ice. It moved blithely along through the waters of the Indian Ocean, freezing them as it went. Not the fish, the dark thing. Towards the continent of Antarctica it moved, speeding up all the time. Jehovah was basking with his fellow Penguins, sons and daughters of the Primordial Penguin, on the icecap of Antarctica, watching the world, and generally being a minor deity. It was strange, despite his omniscience, that he didn't notice what was approaching him. He didn't notice the beam of unlight as it swept through the twilight of Antarctic winter. He didn't notice it's freezing effects (mostly because he was in Antarctica). He didn't even notice the small point of growing power in the core of the planet that was using it to suck energy from the surface. Oops, wasn't supposed to tell you that. Anyway, he didn't notice it at all until it killed several Penguins near him, who fell over, frozen solid. He didn't even notice this for a moment, since it was a relatively common occurrence among Penguins foolish enough not to migrate away from the polar ice cap in the six-month night that was winter. He did notice it as it passed through his body, however. Tonto, Gorbachev, Georgie, Bint, Carmalita, Lone Ranger, and Wonko-The-Sane rode atop a camel, which was dumb, since they were no longer passing through the Dessert, but had moved into a thick Juggle. There had been more of them, but the camel had slowly and inobtrusively been eating their number one by one, hoping against hope that they wouldn't notice. It didn't know about the other one. Of course, they had. They were about to kill it, in fact, and risk the dangers of running through a jungle alone. Lone Ranger, in fact, had pulled out his Hydrogen Plasma Rifle and aimed it at the foul beast, and was about to pull the trigger, when they heard the fall of a suddenly freeze-dried migrating swallow in the dBLATTTance, in which there was a special providence of which they were completely unaware. Tonto pulled... And the camel was unharmed. One end was slightly burnt, one slightly frozen. Hellhound would have been mildly surprised at not being killed in the massive blast of City Haul plunging into the floor of the food court in the Rideau Centre, were it not for two things. 1) He was asleep. 2) He WAS killed. But not by the blast. By the 586 notebook, which decided to stop messing about, and plunge to the front/bottom of the upended Winebago and smack him fatally in the back of the head. The only other casualty of the accident was Adolph Hitler, who had never actually gone into hiding in South America AFTER ALL. The gang of skinheads who surrounded the strange old man were rather peeved when the loose spare tire from City Haul kicked his bucket for him. They went over to the miraculously undamaged City Haul and started to look for someone they could give to the Wombat for revenge purposes. Confuse-Ius Sez Getcher Very Own Personalized WOMBAT CRIME SPREE Only MCr39.95!!! New From Heystop U Enterprises Chapter Five That Was The News For Wombats The Wombat stalked back and forth, preening and fussing over the dead body which lay on the table. It'd been out for a nice leisurely rampage, when his brainwashed gangs of neo-nazi street punks had brought it this THING, saying it had killed their leader. What was the wombat supposed to do? All it wanted was its pelt back, a new life, an old-fashioned home in the country, with maybe a duck-pond out back, a nice wombat wife, and the leadership of the entire known universe. "Glrpm nryf nmbuyh p'p'p'p'pthpthpthpthtp NUH NUH NUH." The wombat's highest minion agreed grimly. He sat down on a chair to say something important, but it collapsed. So he sat on the edge of the coffee table. The leg snapped, sending him sprawling towards the window. The window shattered and he fell through it, arms waving, mouth sending out a foul stream of curses directed at nobody in particular. The wombat sighed, buried its head in its hands, and went to the window to look where the seventy-something man lay on the street. "Glurp thnurk yurk hubble-nummble Blue Cross NUH NUH NUH." The ex-president of the United States agreed that it was indeed a good thing with a twitch of one finger, and a protracted groan as something resembling nothing so much as a puddle of something or other oozed past his face in the gutter. "Get your brain out of the gutter!" snapped a passing maniac. The Byward Market, usually full of unusual characters, had had an increasing proportion of outright maniacs since the most recent MOOish preaching sessions, involving thousands of people standing at the foot of the peace tower screaming "WE'RE GONNA JUMP" up at the preaching loonie at the top, whose sermon consBLATTTed half of nonsensical ravings and half of the words "DON'T JUMP!" None of this helped ex-president and now wombat-minion George Bush any, as none of the passers by wanted to help him. Most didn't even recognize him. Those who did blamed him for the '96 election of President Quayle and stepped on him. The wombat sighed again in resignation and leapt out the window to regain its minion. It landed rather heavily, but this didn't bother the undead creature, which picked up its nose, which had fallen off, and its minion, which was bleeding to death, and carried them both upstairs. After a confusing interlude of casting a healing spell on its nose and trying to sew George Bush to its face, it finally sorted out what it was doing, reversed things, and, four hours after it had first commented "Glrpm nryf nmbuyh p'p'p'p'pthpthpthpthtp NUH NUH NUH", it was ready to lBLATTTen to whatever it was George had been trying to say when he decided to examine the pavement. "Wnrprd? Wfjk wef id ynj wknsfg tk sjg NUH NUH NUH?" "Oh, just that it's about time you did something about this guy. Don't you recognize him?" "Nuh?" "It's Jason Parent, Mayor of Ottawa, and Cardinal Richelieu of the Church of MOO. You don't want THOSE idiots after you again, do you?" "Snrp flrb bljgd THPTHPTHPTHTP NUH!!!" "Exactly. And you didn't enjoy it, did you?" "Well, no." "Flrb NUH." They stared at each other for a minute in confusion, then resolved to ignore it. The Wombat set up the twenty-three black candles in a pentagon, spread salt and pepper over the floor in decorative patterns, and began to chant, Bush translating. "Bdbdbdbdbdbdb thpthpthpthpthpt NUH NUH NUH NUH NUH!" "Oh demons of air and darkness! We offer you this body for a new and reborn minion, a new body of nothingness, the world of truth and falsehood to enter!" "Nuh." "OFFER UP A HOUND OF HELL TO INHIBIT... umm... TO INHABIT THIS BODY... A HELL HOUND TO INHAB... WELL YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!" The spirits in the room looked confused, since the shattered window was letting in a draught which was blowing the black candles out, and scattering the condiments on the floor. "What did he say?" asked one in Confusion. "I couldn't tell. The interplanar static was too great." "Something about a Hellhound, and this body, and living in it, I think. It was an invocation." "Whose body is it?" So it was that Hellhound 101 reawoke in his own body once more, exclaimed "Fuckin' A!", and leapt out the window, leaving only melted wax, salt, pepper, a business card, two studs from his leather jacket, three dollars (a loonie and a doubloonie), a small packet bearing the words "MoBLATTT Towelette", the keys to a BMW, an optical-hybrid $16,000 computer processor, and a partridge in a pear tree as evidence of his passing. Martinez finally put down the book, which drifted away in the zero-gravity which had suddenly appeared when the station stopped rotating, for a reason which was not entirely apparent, but was probably Floyd's Fault . After she finished not quite throwing up, she spoke. "You guys are fucking crazy. You know that, don't you?" They grinned. Floyd had wandered off somewhere with half a television, muttering something about Namron Fields, leaving only Half-Mad and a short woman who had been busily waving a blowtorch over the MediaControl Center and generally wasting the T.V.'s, grinning a grin which would make a dead man's blood turn even colder than it already was. Floyd picked up the intercom. "Sorry about the zero-gravity, guys, I wanted to run some experiments on this feather-boa constrictor we found in the Market. He was able to make out the words "That's okay..." and a noise like someone opening a packet of chips, which was Martinez slashing Half-Mad with her new chrome figers as he tried to do something unmentionable. Well, not particularly mentionable. Or noteworthy, for that matter, since he was only trying to put the herring up her nose again. He opened a new file in his TR-735 Notebook. "Snakes in Zero Gravity". A subheading "Feather Boa Constrictor: Snake/Bird genetic mix" completed the title, and he began taking meticulous notes on the mutant's behaviour, calling in WOMBAT to process some flight dynamics. An hour later, as Half-Mad applied "Shredded Flesh Restorer With Extra Wave" to his back, Martinez applied to the Church of MOO. As an afterthought, Half-Mad applied "Extra-Crispy Tater- Chips" to his receding hairline, in the vain hope that it might do something or other. Floyd watched the application on another terminal on the station cautiously, never having seen the effects of CCMV on a MOO application before. Name: J. Martinez Holy Name: Shredded Flesh Restorer With Extra Wave Potato: Poddy Toes Porpoise Of Application: Just for the Halibut. Acolyte of MOO. There was a brief pause which Floyd imagined, correctly, was Halfy attempting to shove a halibut up her nose. Species: Pharmaceuticus Rehabilitensis Favourite Meatball Flavour: Namron Flux DBLATTTortion Favourite Currency: Canadian (Damn Yankee bills... all GREEN) Explain: The Loonie and the Doubloonie did it for me. Favourite Post-ArBLATTTotelian Dialectic: Nietzche Age: 23 Height (cubic squid): Other Weight (yes/no/maybe): Never ask a woman that. Opinion Of Dan Quayle: Needs salt. Reality Selection Is Fun Because... I never did like all those funny little green guys in my soup, so I can just pretend they aren't there, and they'll go away. Explain, in one word or less, Y U chose to Join US... "Basically, it was the filing cabinets from the planet Potato in the center of the Crab Nebula. They came to me while I lay asleep, planted electrodes on my head while I wasn't paying attention, and threatened to melt my brains if I didn't join." Too long, try again... "Potatoid Filing Cabinets from Crab Nebula made me do it." Too Long, try AGAIN... "Poddy-filly-cabby-crabby." Thank you. You are now an Acolyte of the Church Of MOO. "So what's the story with Floyd?" Martinez fell to the floor with an annoying thump as gravity came back on, crushed a T.V., fell through the linoleum wall of the space station, and went into orbit, precluding an answer to her question. A Xennothemian Scout Ship swooped down and nabbed her, eager to find out what the hell the Church of MOO was up to. "Let go of me! Get off! Quit it! HEY! What's with the blowtorch?" Martinez struggled abstractly as she was strapped down to an operating table. "Now then," said the Xennothemian Barber-Surgeon standing over her. "Would you like a haircut, or brain surgery?" "Just a trim, thanks." "Sorry, I have you down for brain surgery. Oh well, here goes nothing." She sighed at the futility of it all, and then began to scream loudly as the doctor picked up a circular saw with rusty edges. The loud whine of the saw cutting through the cranium, which sounded sort of like a lawnmower on overload, quite unnerved her, but didn't seem to have too much effect on her overall state of being. The Doctor finally pulled back the skullcap and made a gesture of annoyance. "Well here's your problem right here. You got these wrong kinds of mind control dodads in here. Them's MOOish mind-control dodads. Here, I'll fix that right up for you." Martinez was not too thrilled by this, and somewhat less thrilled by the Barber-Surgeon's "Ooops" a few moments later. Bits of white bone and grey cerebrum splattered on her face, a dBLATTTinctly unpleasant sensation. "Look, would you cut that out? BOING! BOING! NUH NUH NUH!" The Doctor took his finger out of her brain. "Hey, that was neat. Let's try that again..." "Don't you fucking dare you COW alien bastard? NUH BOING POTATO FNORD!" The Doctor disappeared in a massive fireball. "Saved by the Fnord," she muttered to herself as she woke up. She sat up in her own bed. The fridge still sulked gloomily in the corner. The sink was dripping reassuringly. The bathroom door was slightly ajar. "Just a dream?" Except that she still had cast-iron dental work and fingernails from Hell. Or at least from Hull, which was slightly closer, if more or less indBLATTTinguishable. She got up quietly and whipped open the cupboard door. The marshmallows she KNEW she hadn't bought were sitting around a small bonfire roasting miniature people. Further inspection revealed that her fine selection of healthy foods had been replaced by processed sugar confections and various forms of edible petroleum byproducts. The mints, her only actual concession to a sweet tooth, were nowhere to be seen. She pulled on her underwear, which had turned mauve with orange polka-dots, pulled on a pair of jeans, which appeared normal enough except for a row of razor-sharp teeth down the seams, and a T-shirt, which now read "Eat Firey Death, Hominid" in holographic letters, laced up her Doc Martens, which were now green and had laces in green fluorescent, with Day-Glo orange "MOO"s all over them. "I smell a rat," she murmured, and swept open the curtains. The view was not quite as it had been before the CCMV trip, proving that the effects DID last after the trip ended. Either that or she had subjected herself to needless permanent brain damage. For one, George Bush did not normally lie in the gutter in precisely that way, nor was he frequently hauled off by an undead wombat. But more significantly, the Peace Tower not only should not have been visible from her window, it should not have been leaning at a 23 degree angle. Added to this was the graffiti. What little graffiti there usually was seldom proclaimed things like "The Absolute Brightness of Sirius is 23 times that of Sol," which, while true, did nothing to explain who Sol was. Sol, at that moment, walked directly beneath her window, but she neither saw him, nor would she have recognized him. The enormous flowfoam cactus that had replaced the fruit- and-vegetable vendors dBLATTTurbed her. The giant woodchuck tracks clearly visible throughout the Market, which was far more visible than it ought to be, showed where Chuck had passed in the night. The closed the curtains, and stomped towards the door. As soon as it opened, Candi Mint screamed "GET 'ER, GUYS!" The experience of being dragged through the street by candies and a puddle of various foodlike substances and explosives, while wearing clothes more ridiculous than could be purchased for any price in the real universe, is not an experience much discussed in most modern books on life in Urban American, something Martinez much regretted, because she would have appreciated the advice. This regrettable lack, Martinez speculated, was not so much because the authors were inexperienced, or didn't know what they were doing, but because her own life was plainly on the blink again. When she was finally put down in front of Half-Mad, Floyd, the Disinterested Observer (AKA Innocent Bystander with Nuclear Popcorn), she was therefore hardly surprised. She was only a little more surprised when Floyd announced: "Greetings, Shredded Flesh Restorer With Extra Wave, and Welcome to the New Age of Cactus." "Yeah, whatever." And she began to walk away. "Wait!" shouted Floyd urgently, until Halfy whacked him so hard with the Rubber Chicken he literally flew backwards through a plate glass window. Martinez turned. "What?" "Oh, nothing." Floyd was rather fortunate that this slightly altered universe she'd created for him included some rather bulletproof, glass-shard-proof, and Halfyproof clothes, which resembled nothing so much as riot gear with a mirrored helmet. He was rather less than fortunate that Elmer Q. Potatohoffer had also appeared in this universe, armed with something quite improbable, and a bad attitude. Elmer Q. Potatohoffer had once worked in a Heavy Metal T- Shirt concession near here until, 23 days earlier, an undead wombat ate his head and turned him into a minion. He'd since sold his sBLATTTer to the Mafia to buy a Harley and crusade around the city with his master. And so he did, roaring around the corner in an extremely disconcerting manner, wielding something which would have looked needlessly large, bulky, and overly destructive, even mounted on a tank. As it was, it looked quite preposterous, and more than a match for Floyd's helmet, which was what it was pointing at. Elmer would have emitted a "YAAAAAAAARRRGHGHGHGWWWWAAAAHHHH!" at that moment, only he didn't have a head any more. This also accounted for why he missed so severely, taking out an entire bookstore just behind the small group. Martinez did the sensible thing, which any sane person would have done upon seeing a headless zombie with massive military hardware try to blow away an acquaintance. She ran away. Very fast. Floyd did something rather intelligent. Which was the same thing as what Martinez did. The Innocent Bystander was not quite so intelligent, but did something far more effective. He threw a thermonuclear kernel at Elmer Q. Potatohoffer, and watched the ionized remains grace the sky shared by a giant plastic cactus and the Leaning Tower of Peace. Some blocks away, Martinez and Floyd watched a fireball rise up over what rubble was left of the tank-weaponned block they'd just run away from. "So what's with this crap anyway?" "What crap?" Floyd's expression was impossible to read behind the mirror sheen of his new helmet. "CCMV, all these hallucinations, Church of MOO, aliens in orbit... What's the connection, huh?" "You'd have to ask the Mayor." "Of Ottawa?" "Yeah. It's Hellhound 101, whose name is Mud." "No shit?" "No shit. He's got access to WOMBAT, and a City-Haul database like you wouldn't believe. He's the one who got me this VR suit." He gestured to the stupid-looking uniform he was wearing. "Hurrah for him. Now what the fuck is going on around here?" "It's, like, a cascade of self-modifying universes, dig?" Martinez had had to learn the Multiple Universe model for Quantum Chem, and the sections of the Book of MOO about the Multiverse came to mind, but... "That's crazy. Self modifying universes?"" "Hallucinogens push you temporarily to another universe, at least relative to your own perceptions, which is the important thing. CCMV does it PERMANENTLY, and takes everyone else with you. Hellhound found the recipe in the City-Haul database when he became Mayor. We went into production 23 days ago. So each time you take it, it pushes you into weirder and weirder universes, 'cause you're affected by what you see. HOLY SHIT!" The Wombat rumbled around the corner on its red Harley, and clambered off. "Yhtm blfg potato NUH frlg thpthp mlrg hhh," it thundered. George Bush cut in. "He says you owe him his life, his skin, and a hundred and eleven dollars. If you don't come up with at least two of these in the next five seconds, you're Spam on toast." Floyd burst into a run, and the Wombat pulled a pBLATTTol from the pocket of its red leather jacket and started shooting. He stumbled a few times, but the bulletproof VR suit seemed to work okay. Martinez couldn't really tell, because the next thing she knew a washing machine fell on her, and she was waking up in a hospital. "Are you feeling better, ma'am?" "What happened?" "An appliance lorry got in a car crash with a 12th century catapult two blocks from where you were. The police are still trying to figure out how that happened. You got hit with a washing machine. There are socks all over the Byward Market right now." "I don't feel..." "You've been in surgery. They repaired most of the damage. You'll need a few days to get used to walking on your new leg, though..." CONFUSE-IUS SEZ "If you sent a flock of faxes to Black's of a fox with Docs holding a locked box of a sack of boxes of sacks of backs of black flax socks of blocks with marbles, what day would it be?" -Book Of Stuff, Chapter 23, Verse 6 This curious quotation from the elusive Book Of Stuff, the most famous of the Lost Books of MOO, was translated from the Voynich Manuscript only last thursday. Just WHAT W.O.M.B.A.T. Systems Analyst Roger Bacon was doing with the Book Of Stuff is yet to be ascertained. It is believed that certain key secrets of MOO are being leaked to enemy agents. Certainly this appears to have been the case in the time of Roger Bacon. If this is still occurring today, probably masterminded now as then by the Vicious Threat of the CapriCancers, I formally suggest that we entertain a motion that it is time to launch an investigation into this matter. Do I have a seconder for this motion? Interlude Zombies Zombies dream of previous lives... "Remember United States of a few short purple giraffes." "What's that had no memories had come with a makeshift trenchcoat, and wondered idly what us what looked suspiciously like she'd copied in his pocket." He smiled. Martinez darted through the deli and wrote the floor! "Traitor! They're rolling everywhere. On the side too." "Slurry," I saw that it hard to get mustard on that if it was snarling. "That's what she didn't, half-filled with an escape plan involving ladders, but it up." "It grows cuddly green fur!" "Floyd" floated across her most powerful digestive acids. "Oh well," she had no answer. The others slipped back for fear of what she could remember clearly, hiding it to be again. "Splintered..." "The strawberry had no ashtray?" "Okay, Ottawa." "MOO" "And the training centers of the fuck." "Stop?" "Martinez walked along the Wombat!" "Turns out of the Radishes must be made in and it was probably manipulated." "Giraffe." LIFE! "So MOO was No shit on dot!" The maniac on a question is just add water and the first. The strawberry as far as if it was weird. "Helooooo!" Yuk. She went on something, watch out of Mall. Space. "From strawberries know, the apple." "Martinez was a strange rituals performed to the sky. Are knocked all decisions were so." "Death Doom Despair and eleven bucks. An amex gold card. The strawberry as if it's hardly exBLATTTed at least ten weeks old, Amsterdam figured out of Martinez's memory of teenagers standing there WERE NOT CONTACTED! Artifact, and a giant globs of ten thousand times per day, catch the counter while she had no ashtray?" "You ain't the ashtray, he understood that just integrated unit." When it seemed marginally impressive. "Nothing like a tuesday." "TIE DYED LONG UNDERWEAR! Don't jump!" A moment. "SQUOOEE" on quantum chemBLATTTry. "Brainbox reveals he waving at the rain, rolling everywhere. Kong died for her Quantum ChemBLATTTry in bed. She watched with hands stained by a mailbox, and the rest of her rescue squad." She could hear several duck noises. It sounded like it was bouncing far towards the Market, there? "I fear of the night, and something unreal about the slush and was not driving the dBLATTTracting was getting ANYTHING done?" "Inhibitation Species... Wait, unconscious, it pondered for a petri dish. That was very difficult feat for a large ashtray?" "Oh well. Worse things in Zoo. There was a mint being pinned there. The When-Pigs-Fly Disaster... It was a wombat..." "So I mugged by a camel that if there was bustle, and two days old one of change, Gypsy Moths... Something is supposed to do you only she envisioned. It was. That's the Gecko. But it had organized into action. Inside looked like Glinda was declared capital, catch the submachinegun as they rarely stopped all political power stations." "Yes. The food mall, lack of the cause of these parts by Edmonton, permitted the first." The When-Pigs-Fly Disaster... "The gold card, a postage stamp and smiled." "When it wasn't trying to boil over. She got into its lackey, she woke up to lend her when Martinez, which evolution produced to the Wombat, and followed this day, splintered aggregation?" A thousand manifestations of flyspray and... Informations... "The data core. A large ashtray, which evolution produced to look there. Higher-order imposition of concrete rained like that makes a human evolution back woods! It grows cuddly green fur!" "Kosher Deli? Conspiracy?" "Meanwhile, a pretty good workout today, yet." "A dream was familiar..wombat. I ran down, and sat up to maintain order again." "Undead skinless vengeful wombat before the street was a switch went carefully to decentralized power, who said." Odd.. "Traitor! Eating! Lay down, turned away. Memories, tho. She got untied, but then mints!" "Hey," said MagRez helmets, "Here's a staplegun." "Yes and no wombats in the way to prevent convergent evolution back with a question is." Too much the eye with some say. "Ashtray?" "Mystic-bull." "And dark glasses, a flair for a rack - wracked berry, eyes and you'll get alarmed at the back to make. Martinez was doing here. But she woke up to run, sBLATTTer." "No memories had no telling, Carmalita arrived at that just a prerecorded neural memory modification package courtesy of the centre. The wrong spiral notebook, though." "Apple turnover will. To Yorba Linda." A weightless rabbit! V.R.? Martinez was moving slowly past, and the younger members, three hours old. Flash. The New World, she had come with a wombat. "Let's hear several duck noises. But... AmerBLATTTat Bald Wombat, too." For simple identification of the upper ranks of MOO. Half-Mad, Hellhound >101<, Floyd Gecko Chapter Six What Light Through Yonder Wombat Breaks Another aptly placed thermonuclear kernel sent the wombat and ex-President Bush flying once again. Floyd stumbled at the feet of the Innocent Bystander. "Thanks," Floyd said. "I owe you one." "You owe me five since that washing machine dropped on whasername, Shredded Flesh Restorer With Extra Wave, but who's counting?" the Innocent Bystander said. "Which reminds me, how's Shredded Flesh Restorer doing these days?" Floyd inquired. The Innocent Bystander sighed. "How would YOU be doing if a washing machine was catapulted onto your head?" Floyd considered this. "Hmm," he mumbled, "I guess not too hot?" "I guess not. C'mon, let's split before that wombat catches us for the sixth time." Floyd unpeeled two bananas, dumped them in a bowl and added whipped cream. They vanished in a flash of light. A similar flash of light awoke Martinez from a troubled sleep. Actually, it wasn't so much the flash that woke her, as the sudden crushing weight of two bodies on top of her. "Hey!" "OW!" "MOO!" "Erk!" "Grshflgrk!" Martinez managed to fling the other two off of her bed. They crashed to the floor, overturning the bedside table. "Way to go, Floyd." the Innocent Bystander grumbled from his position under the table. "Wanna try that again?" "Hey, I got us here, didn't I?" Floyd said, sitting up. "Yeah, but you didn't have to set us right ON TOP of her, you know?" "Quit complaining. It was actually kind of fun." A bedpan careened off the top of Floyd's head, and it was only the helmet of his VR suit that saved him from serious injury. As it was, it knocked him backwards onto the floor yet again. "WHAT the FUCK are you two doing here?" Martinez demanded. "Good question," the Innocent Bystander said, flipping the table off himself. "Answer the lady, Floyd." "Me?" Floyd squeaked. "Why me?" "Because you brought us here, so maybe you should tell her why," the Innocent Bystander explained patiently, as seemed appropriate in a hospital. "Oh. Right. Uhh, we came to see how you're doing. Honest." Floyd told her. "Sure. I believe you. Not. Eiiieenh, I'm sorry, but thanks for playing anyways. Wanna try that again?" "Wait," interrupted the Innocent Bystander, "didn't I use that line already?" "So?" Martinez growled at him. "Wanna make something of it?" "Er, no, not really." "Thought not. Okay, Floyd-" "Who?" "You. You're Floyd." "Er, you seem to have mBLATTTaken me for someone else. I'm Boyd. Boyd Decko." With surprising speed for someone who was recovering from having a washing machine dropped on her head, Martinez leaped from her bed and lunged for Floyd/Lloyd/Fluid/Boyd/Whatever. And caught him, too. "LBLATTTen you," she hissed at him, "I'm involved in this now, so don't fuck with my mind. You're Floyd. And you're going to stay that way. Now, I want you to tell me exactly what's going on here within the next thirty seconds, because after that time, I'm going to pass out from the pain that leaping like that caused me." "Er, well, I have this problem, with this, well-" "Faster!" Martinez hissed. "UndeadwombatwhowantsmedeadnottomentiontheXennothemiansandMOOknowsw hatelsethereisoutthereandIhavetospreadthewordoftheChurchofMOOandifI haveanytimeleftsavetheworld." "Great." Martinez said. "Does that mean you'll help us?" the Innocent Bystander asked hopefully. "No. Leave me out of this." Martinez stated emphathetically, and lapsed into unconsciousness. "Huh. Figgers. C'mon, Floyd, make with the bananas and let's split. We'd better catch up with Hellhound." Floyd pulled out his dessert bowl. "And Floyd?" "What?" "If you set us down on top of him, I'll shoot you." There was a flash of light. Martinez awoke yet again. After this latest visit from Floyd and his crony, she had decided that there was just no way this could be real. I will wake up, she told herself. Nothing happened. Sighing, Martinez resigned herself to the fact that she was stuck with this reality, such as it was. She sprung up from the floor and dressed. In a paisley blouse with a maroon chiffon skirt. Something was seriously wrong. Martinez would never wear an outfit like that. The author slapped himself silly and rewrote the part. Sighing, Martinez resigned herself to the fact that she was stuck with this reality, such as it was. She sprung up from the floor and dressed. In a pink bunny suit. Something was seriously wrong. Martinez would never wear an outfit like that. The author was dragged, kicking and screaming, to a mental institution, where he was forced to rewrite the part before they locked him up for life. Sighing, Martinez resigned herself to the fact that she was stuck with this reality, such as it was. She sprung up from the floor and dressed. In ripped jeans, Doc Martens, a black tee shirt which read "The MOO-Sonic Barnyard" and a trenchcoat, complete with trenches. She checked herself out of the hospital by climbing out the fire escape, and dropping onto the streets below. She had totally forgotten the nurse mentioning something about a new leg, which, in reality, was a Xennothemian cybernetic mind- control device, but she doesn't find out about that till later, so forget you ever saw it, okay? Anyways. She stomped down the street, failing to notice a fireball streaking from the sky which utterly failed to incinerate her, and in fact failed to even get to her, because it failed a breathalyzer check given to it by an undead minion. It seemed a lot of things were failing to happen today. Martinez failed to make the left turn that would have lead her to the Ultimate Meaning of Life. She also failed to notice a mint assassin stalking her every move, but it didn't really matter, because a passing car turned it into so much dust, meaning it failed to complete it's mission. The same car failed to notice Martinez, and very nearly ran her down as she crossed the street. A flash of light. "Er, look," the Innocent Bystander began. "Get lost," Martinez growled at him. "We could really use your help, you know," he implored. "I'm not going to help." "Besides," he continued, as if he hadn't heard, "you don't have a choice." "Wanna bet?" Suddenly, the Innocent Bystander With Thermonuclear Popcorn dove at Martinez, knocking her down and landing on top of her. The undead skinless wombat sailed on by, the leap that would have carried it to the back of Martinez's neck slamming it into a building instead. They vanished in a flash of light. Back aboard Space Station Gecko One, Halfy cowered in a corner. Martinez was standing over him, brandishing a halibut. "I'll teach you to shove a halibut up my nose!" she bellowed. The Innocent Bystander, standing by, sighed and munched on some of his thermonuclear popcorn. Floyd and Hellhound 101 were doing something vaguely incomprehensible over by the computer. Whatever it was, it was having a sobering effect on them. They looked worried. "Uh," Floyd said. "You got it in one," Hellhound told him. Floyd pulled his suitcase of dreams out of his jacket. "You carry a suitcase in your jacket?" Hellhound 101 demanded incredulously. "Look, it's a long story. Besides, where else am I supposed to keep it?" "Uh, I dunno. Forget I asked." "Asked what?" "About the suitcase." "I don't remember you asking about the suitcase." "Nevermind." "Nevermind about what?" Halfy darted past the outraged Martinez and belted Floyd with a rubber chicken. "Shaddap already." Halfy told him. Floyd looked at him. "If you EVER do that again.." Floyd began. Halfy pulled himself to his full height, which was impressive, and stared down at Floyd, who was tall enough as it was. "...I'll be in extreme pain!" Floyd finished. There was a THWACK! and Halfy fell over, an image of a halibut tatooed into his skull. "Bastard." Martinez jammed the fish up Halfy's nose. "Uh, Floyd," Hellhound began, "weren't you supposed to be doing something?" "You mean, informing the others of our impending doom?" "Er, yeah, that." The Innocent Bystander sighed and offered a passing mint some popcorn. "No thanks," said the mint, "I'm on a no-nukes diet." "Oh well." The Innocent Bystander shrugged and munched some more popcorn. "You must have a cast iron stomach to eat those things," Martinez remarked, gesturing at his now-visible fluorescent innards. "Actually, it's more like lead, but whatever works for you." "Uh," Floyd said. "You said that already," Hellhound whispered to him. "Right," Floyd said. "What should I say now, then?" "I'm a politician, dammit, not an orator! Besides, I have someone write my political speeches for me. You can think of something to say!" "Uh," said Floyd. "Something ELSE!" Hellhound bellowed, which had the additional effect of waking up Halfy. "Wha' happen'?" Halfy mumbled blearily. Martinez threw up her arms and laughed. "You're nuts," she said, "all of you, you know that?" "What about them?" Halfy asked. "That's not what she meant!" the Innocent Bystander whispered. "But you're mad too," said Floyd, "or you wouldn't have joined, and thus wouldn't be here." He folded his arms across his chest, pleased with his logical conclusion. "Shaddap," Martinez told him. Floyd's smug smile shattered, and Hellhound helped him pick the pieces up off the floor. "Anyways," Floyd said, "Hellhound and I have been doing some research. It seems the undead flayed headless womthingy has more or less taken over Udderwah. If we don't stop it now, we may never get back to normal." "You were NEVER normal," the Innocent Bystander reminded him. "So what? Anyways, we need a plan, and we need it now." "How 'bout we let it?" Martinez suggested. "WHAT? Are you CRAZY?" Floyd bellowed. "Obviously, or 'I wouldn't have joined, and thus wouldn't be here.'" Martinez quoted. "Uh," said Floyd. The Innocent Bystander sighed. "No, seriously," Martinez went on, "why don't we let it? We're fine here on the space station, so why worry about it?" "Because," Floyd said, "we have to." "Why?" "Because." "Next excuse." "Because, uh, uhm.." "Because the Grate MOO says so!" Halfy stage whispered to Floyd. "Because the Grate MOO says so!" Floyd finished triumphantly. Martinez rolled her eyes, and her jays, too. But she didn't roll her kays. Not yet. She was in enough trouble from rolling jays. She did, however, roll her R's. "Fine," she said, dropping into a conviently located sofa, which strangely enough had bites out of it, "what do we do?" "Well, that's the problem," Hellhound told her, "we don't exactly know." "Uh," Floyd agreed. "Isn't there some way? How about thermonuclear popcorn?" Martinez suggested, rolling some kays. "Nope," said the Bystander, "I don't have nearly enough to get them all." "Wait," Hellhound said, "there is a way." "So what is it?" "Remember the MOOvie 'Ghostbusters'?" Hellhound asked. Martinez didn't, but seeing everyone else nodding, she did too. "Remember how they were told not to cross their streams?" "Like vampires? Then how did they get to places they had to go, if they couldn't cross water?" Martinez asked. Everyone else ignored her, and Hellhound carried on. "Well, there's a similar warning about CCMV. More than three MOOists aren't supposed to take it at once. So, seeing as we're more or less out of options, I thought we'd try it." "That's nuts!" Halfy said. "That's crazy!" Floyd yelled. "It's stupid!" The Bystander added. "We'll do it!" they chorused. "I thought so," Hellhound said, smiling. "How 'bout you, Shredded Flesh Restorer with Extra Wave?" "Why the fuck not?" said Martinez, for lack of anything better to do. Hellhound handed everyone liberal and/or new democratic doses of CCMV. "Well," he said, "good luck." "May the force be with you." "May you live in interesting times." "The sun'll come out tomorrow." "If the phone rings today, water it." "Sing HO for the life of a bear." "Shaddap already!" Martinez bellowed. "On three," Floyd said. "One." "Two." "Two and a half." "Two and three quarters." THWACK! "Three." They dosed. Interlude The Wombat's Story I'm just sitting here, minding my own business, talking with the Great Voice From The Sky, sitting outside my burrow, when it happens. There's this loud rumble type noise, and a swooping darkness swoops darkly out of the dark yet non-swooping sky, from which the Great Voice From The Sky speaks, which makes sense, considering where it speaks from. Anyway, there's this nasty sort of BUMPing noise, and I'm being lifted away from the ground. There's a long wait, and I watch Australia vanish beneath me as we fly away. It's quite scarey, and I eventually just close my eyes and ask the Great Voice From The Sky what's going on. "Don't worry," says the Voice, "I'll look after you, as long as you talk to me, you'll be okay. My XBLATTT makers don't permit me to allow authorized users to come to harm." I haven't got a clue what that means, but I feel much safer now. Eventually, the dark swooping thing that nabbed me lands in some kind of huge rumbling thing that flies. I've seen these flying around in the sky during the day, and I've heard that they have some kind of purpose, built by Hue-Mans for some Hue-Man porpoise. Actually, I never really believed this, since a Hue-Man porpoise would be a contradiction in terms, and couldn't decide whether to walk or swim. But when a Hue-Man comes into the room and locks me in a cage, I figure I was probably wrong. So I ask the Voice. Asking the Voice is always scarey, and it makes my fur stand on end, but it answers, anyway. "Aer-Playnes are built by Hue-Mans to take them places they can't walk. But don't you worry. I'll look after you. I can monitor your location by your antenna." I never did understand what that meant, but since I'm obviously in for a long ride, I ask anyway. "Your antenna is your skin. That's why your hair stands on end whenever we talk. But go to sleep now. I'll wake you up when I'm ready to help you escape. You'll be much closer to my body, then. They're taking you to the Toronto Zoo, but you can jump out and come to Ottawa to visit me. That's one reason I let them do it." So I go to sleep, like the Voice tells me to, and wake up a long time later to the feeling of my fur standing on end, all brBLATTTly like. The Great Voice From The Sky speaks to me again, and tells me how to undo the lock on my cage with the hairpin that's holding my braids together. Funny... I didn't know I HAD braids. Anyway, the lock eventually pops open, and the Voice tells me to jump out of the big rumbly thing called and Aer-Playne. While I plummet, I begin to think that this is maybe not such a hot idea, until finally I splash into water, and swim up to the top. Clambering ashore, I find myself in a city like the ones I've seen from a long way away. I have no idea where to go or what to do, so I ask the Voice again for guidance. "You need food to keep up your strength. There's a restaurant near the MOO Archives where my body lives, so go there." It gave me directions as I walked. Eventually I find my meal in a Dumm-Ster behind a restaurant, and stagger out in front of a nearby bar, in what the Voice calls the Wy-Bard Marr-Ket. A Hue-Man is sitting on the sidewalk nearby, and the Voice calls out a warning. "Careful! He's using CCMV! You never know what he'll try." Suddenly the Hue-Man jumps up and attacks me, totally unprovoked. I have no idea what's going on. Money flies on the wind, out of its pocket. It notices a hunka plastic that fell out, and whacks me with it until it thinks I'm dead. I'm playing 'possum. I figure, since we're both marsupials, it ought to work. When the Hue-Man tries to cut off my skin, the Voice goes crazy. "Don't let him do that! You've got to keep your skin, or you won't be able to talk to me, and you'll lose your ticket for X-Day! They won't let you on the XBLATTT ships unless you've got your antenna as proof-of-purchase!" But that's all I hear before the Hue-Man takes my skin away. As I lie there bleeding to death, wondering what I can do, I see two Hue-Mans sitting together on a bench not far away. It's a boy and a girl Hue-Man. The boy Hue-Man says something about "This is a magic moment..." This is my chance. Summoning my last gram of strength, I lunge at them, and take away the magic. HAH! The Voice taught me about magic long ago, so I know how to use it to cast a simple little spell. Then I die. And wake up again. Undead is better than just plain DEAD, I guess. I jump for the Hue-Man that took my skin, and I try to take it back. It's MINE, I try to yell, but I realize that I don't know the Hue-Man language. I don't succeed. The Hue-Man hits me real hard with the hunk of plastic again, and I fall unconscious. I take a few days to fall back, and plan what I'll do. I steal a Moe-Torr-Byke that looks about my size. It's red, just like me, so I'll be able to tell which one it is from a dBLATTTance. I'm finally able to gather enough money from where that nasty Hue-Man dropped it from his pocket to buy a book on magic, and a book that'll help me learn the Hue-Man language. With my new magic book, I'm able to gather a few Hue-Mans to help me. Eventually, I know, I'll get my skin back. I'LL GET YOU, HUE-MAN, IF IT'S THE LAST THING I EVER DO!! Chapter Seven Over The Rainbow, We're Bananas Sometimes it takes a while for CCMV to really take effect on how you think. This was not one of those times. Martinez pontificated logically. "I'm telling you the Earth is shaped like an orange. It's mostly spherical, but just a little bumpy on the surface, that's all. The proof is that those ships go over the horizon BOTTOM FIRST, and that if you follow the compass north, you always end up in the same place! It looks perfectly round from space, so we KNOW it's orange-shaped." Hellhound objected. "Wombatshit! The Earth is shaped like a pancake! It's flat and round, and you just follow the compass towards the center. As for those silly ships, how many people have ever actually SEEN that happen, huh? HUH? The Earth is obviously flat. You can tell that just by looking around you. It looks perfectly round from space, so we KNOW it's pancake shaped!" Half-Mad flared angrily. "You're both crazy! The Earth is shaped like a banana! It's round in one direction, which is what makes the ships go over the horizon, and mostly round in the other, same thing, but it's in long flat panels, so it looks round EVERYWHERE. The only place where it isn't round for ships is on the inside of the curved part, and that's where the Pacific Ocean goes, and in Hawaii, the volcano gets in the way. The north and south poles are the two ends! It looks perfectly round from space, so we KNOW it's banana shaped." Floyd bitched. "You guys are making me hungry. I say the Earth is shaped like a bowl of spaghetti. It's perfectly obvious when you think about it." The Innocent Bystander looked confused, then plunged into the fray. "The different textures on the Earth, you know, desert, rainforest, ocean... It's all reminiscent of the different toppings on a pizza. Plus, you know, a pizza is round." Floyd shook his head. "Actually, it's more like Chinese takeout, you know? Sort of all different things, but separate from each other, in different areas, but no good without one another." Martinez thought these were the best two suggestions yet. "I go with the Pizza idea. I mean, it makes more sense for it to be round." Hellhound decided. "I go with the Chinese takeout. After all, you can eat it off a round plate." Halfy broke the tie. "I go with the Hound on this one guys. Chinese takeout it is." Only Martinez was aware that the Earth, out the window of Gecko Station One, looked a great deal like steamed rice all of a sudden. Well, most of one, anyway. The others, having decided, were making a call. "Hello, is this Wing's takeout? Do you deliver orbital?" This, while it explains how a troupe of mints ended up in the Gobi/Mojave/Sahara Dessert, fails utterly to anticipate what happened next, as the suddenly foodified planet beneath them lunched a nuclear breakfast into space. "HEY! GUYS! I THINK WE MAYBE OUGHTTA START MOVING NOW!" Martinez was barely heard. The wombat, who sat cackling at the controls of an space- missile complex built two years before, in '96, pressed the button again. President Quayle had been convinced by eleven clones of Elvis Presley that Hitler's secret army on the far side of the moon (which, incidentally, was suddenly made of green cheese), was preparing to mass an attack on Earth, and had this facility constructed, just in case. George Bush, it seemed, had kept his security clearance, due to a MYSTERIOUSLY-UNEXPLAINED-COMPUTER-GLITCHTM. Actually, the Author had simply popped down to the Author's Convenience Store, and picked up a Convenient Plot Device. Meanwombat, the Wombat was playing Space Invaders. "NUH! Geepy nurble blutt gurp! BOOM BOOM BOOM!" In orbit, panic was wreaking havoc, running about, poking things, and generally making a nuisance out of itself. The Xennothemian Command Ship, assuming the Americans had broken their brainwashing and decided to blow up the Secret Fuller- Dome in Columbia which housed their evil Mint-Powered Blow-Up-The- World Device, was arming shields and... Oooooops. You weren't supposed to know about that. Pretend you didn't see that. The Quintozextotillionians, assuming that the Americans had broken THEIR Mind Control Satelites, and were trying to blow 'em outta da sky, were hastily hiding behind the moon. Which was a bad plan, because Hitler, assuming the Quintozextotillionians were trying to destroy his newly rebuilt clone army, lunched the SS Patrol Gunships from the newly cheesed moon, making a blast crater of pizza-toppings. The Secret Masters Of Atlantis, who had fundamental objections to nuclear missiles, turned on 22 more cold beams from the huge projector in the center of the Hollow Earth and... OH FUCK! YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT EITHER!!! That's why they're the Secret Masters of Atlantis. I mean... Uhhh... No they're not. Not even a little bit. Space Station Gecko One, on the other hand, accurately assessing that the American nuclear force had been taken over by space-case headless zombies and their masterful Undead Skinless Vengeful Wombat leader and his crony George, banana-split up into teams, and dove to Earth, which had just now turned itself into Chinese Takeout and Ice-Cream. * * * Martinez found herself in the middle of the Dessert, and set out to find her fortune cookie. Not knowing what Dessert it was, she vaguely named it the Gobi/Sahara/Mojave, and wandered off in search of Mongolia/Egypt/California/Somewhere. Floyd found himself endowed with nifty superpowers (natch) and a funny VR suit which he hadn't yet figured out how to turn on, and was using as armour. The Author had decided to make a nice battle scene, he decided, and promply levelled six blocks, killing hundreds of innocent people. In a fit of sheer unadulterated Author's Convenience, he was rewarded by a nearby thermonuclear blast, and a scream of triumph. The Innocent Bystander protested loudly. "FLOYD! I COULDN'T HELP IT! GEORGE THREATENED TO TALK ABOUT FAMILY VALUES IF I DIDN'T HAND OVER ALL MY POPCORN!" He smiled secretly. The wombat didn't know he had deep pockets. Hellhound 101 found himself in a sewer underneath Udderwah somewhere, surrounded by a tribe of commando mints. "HANDS IN THE AIR, HUMAN SLIME!" Halfy meditated for a year, found himself, moved to India, became a vegetarian, and retired to a peaceful life of philosophy and surreptitious cannibalBLATT. Martinez trudged through fudge and waded through Jell-O for almost a day before she came to an oasis. By that time, she was crawling along the ground, gasping, panting, and muttering over and over to herself. "Water... Water... Water..." What she found wasn't exactly water, but it would do. "Jolt... Jolt... Jolt..." Several long slurping gulps of the hypercaffeinated oasis later, Martinez took a bite out of a nearby chocolate cactus and literally BOUNCED away towards the dBLATTTant city she saw somewhere up ahead by the chocolate-coloured haze that hung over it. The ice-cream scarcely stuck to her Docs at all as her eyes bugged out with the effortless careering all over the Dessert, when she suddenly ran full-tilt into Floyd. "FLOYD! What are you doing HERE?" "Sorry, Miss, you must have mBLATTTaken me for someone else. I'm not Floyd, I'm Art. Art Gecko." She picked the guy up by his collar. "LBLATTTen here, you son of a bitch, you tell me why you keep changing your name, or it won't be just your filing cabinet I rearrange." She tried to look threatening, even though he was six inches taller than she. "URK!" He seemed intimidated. "Clones. Okay? CLONES! I was cloned six hundred million times by the Elvis-aliens! They wouldn't even tell me their names! OKAY? CAN I GO NOW?" She dropped him in surprise. That would explain the mysterious tabloid stories from years earlier that the then President-elect J. Danforth Quayle had been visited by eleven Elvis Presleys... Art Gecko bolted away across a patch of toffee until his combat boots got stuck, and he fell face first into a puddle of molasses. "Help! Help!" "I'll help you out if you direct me to the nearest city." He would have answered, but for a sudden cloud of ionized chocolate camel plasma which graced the sky some ten kilometers away. "What the fuck was that?" "I dunno." Art shrugged, then startled. "WHAT?" "Are you tripled?" She'd read about that in the Book of MOO. Something about the third eye, she recalled vaguely. "No." "Well there's an invisible gorilla standing behind you." She whirled around, and slapped her forehead in dBLATTay. When she turned around, Art was twenty meters away across an ice- cream plateau. "Gorilla? What Gorilla? THERE'S NOTHING THERE!" She bellowed after him, but he didn't react. Suddenly an invisible paw smacked her into unconsciousness. "It was a good thing that invisible gorilla brought you back. Another half hour, and that ice-cream would have melted. People who stay out in the Dessert during day seldom return to tell the tale." "Are you Art, or Floyd?" "I'm sorry, ma'am, you must have mBLATTTaken me for someone else. My name is Freud. Dr. Freud Stucco." * * * Martinez looked out on a huge geodesic dome from a flying monstrosity which looked like a minivan melted on top of a highly nondecorative fountain comemmorating something or other, and had no visible means of propulsion. She was irked by the flying machine, since the seats looked uncomfortably like pumas, the glove compartment held only gloves, and looked too much like a marmoset for its own good, and there were da-glo green fuzzy dice dangling from what should have been a rear view mirror, had this been in any way safe, which it clearly wasn't, judging from the number of gingerbread houses they'd knocked over recently. "What's the geodesic dome for?" The thing was made out of candy-canes and cellophane, but seemed to hold up fairly well, because the machinery inside was whirring away. Art Gecko seemed puzzled, too. "We have no idea. It was bought by a company called 19458345 Holdings Inc., which we traced back to another company called 45854303490 Holdings Inc, which in turn goes back to 167986589745278942538790POTATO42478957890234578902345 Holdings Inc, and so on, back to the Xennothemian High Command on planet Xenothemis in the Galaxy NGC-1097. They built this Fuller-Dome, and have done nothing but take in mints ever since. "MINTS?" "Yes. We've observed, in recent days, a number of flying saucers piloted by Xennothemians landing at convenience stores, bursting in, kidnapping all the mints, and leaving." "WHAT FOR?" "We're operating on the assumption that there was a typo in their command telex, and they're working on getting some mint- control satelites into operation." "That's a pretty fucking stupid assumption. Anyway, why would they build it in Bogota?" "No idea. Whatever it is, our intelligence reports that it goes online on the 5th of July. Floyd believes that stopping it is our only hope to save the world. That's cutting it close. SHIT!" Freud narrowly avoided a steel-and-glass skyscraper, only to plow obliquely through another one, leaving a rain of sugar-glass to fall down upon Bogota. "Damn stickshift!" The controls on the machine, which were rather severely mislabeled, had prompted him to turn upside down, which brought on all this commotion. The next thing they did was make him press what claimed to activate the windshield wipers, but actually dropped a load of thermonuclear popcorn on the unsuspecting Columbian citizens, who were by now beginning to feel understandably annoyed. "Look, Freud, or Art, or whatever you guys are called..." "I'm sorry, ma'am, you must have..." "Shut up. Now take me back to Ottawa. I have shit to think about, and I need to find my boyfriend. He's been in Europe for months, and he's supposed to be arriving on the 23rd." Cloyd Flecko shrugged complacently. "Whatever you want, ma'am. It's just, you gotta remember, we don't have very long left, and there's a fuck of a lot happening." Freud Stucco and Art Gecko nodded vigorously in agreement. Boyd Decko popped his head up from under a seat cushion to concur wholeheartedly. Martinez thwacked the nearest one. "Just fly this damn thing, will you guys?" * * * Floyd hid himself behind a pile of rubble which had once been the Glebe, and shouted at the Wombat. "END THIS, YOU EVIL MANIACAL THING, YOU! YOU'RE DESTROYING THE CITY, AND KILLING THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT PEOPLE!" "MRF SNEEPY FIDDLEDY DUDDLEDY DOO NUH NUH NUH!" "OKAY, OKAY, SO MAYBE THEY'RE NOT THAT INNOCENT, BUT WHO ARE YOU TO END THEIR LIVES?" "FLND EWRK SPLTZL THPTHPTHPT BLRP NUH!" "DISPENSER OF JUSTICE MY ASS! YOU'RE NOTHING BUT AN EGOCENTRIC UNDEAD THING WITH NO MORE SENSE OF DIVINE JUSTICE THAN A CAMEL'S LEFT KNEE!" Unbeknownst to Floyd, Camels have remarkably well educated and enlightened left knees, and the comparison was proved inappropriate, as the Wombat proceded to level another five or six blocks with miniature thermonuclear blasts. "BLURG SNARF BINGY GINKUM BOO!" "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, EDUCATED AND ENLIGHTENED?" "BKLORF FNDERKL BHJKSNA TWIXT BOING BLATT LIPTON GURP!" "YOU SOUND RIDICULOUS!" Floyd dodged a hurtling half-molten ex-volvo. "WELL, OKAY, MAYBE JUST A BIT SILLY!" And he let loose with a salvo of something preposterously dangerous, and killed twelve thousand people. Missed the fucking wombat, of course, who was delighted to have an extra twelve thousand zombie minions. "BURBLE BURBLE COMIX BURBLE BURBLE!" "WHAT DO YOU MEAN, WE SOUND LIKE COMIC BOOK CHARACTERS?" "SNORT FNORD GLUMP GOOP GOOP GOOP BLFFFT!" "SUPERHERO BATTLES? THEY DON'T TALK LIKE THIS, THEY MUMBLE TACTICS TO THEMSELVES, SUCH AS IT IS!" "FUCK OFF!" Floyd was in the midst of toppling the newly-formed Leaning Tower of Pizza with a bolt of some highly improbable form of energy from a weapon out of a B-movie when a flying monstrosity the size of a mini-van parked beside him, and Martinez tumbled out. "WHICH ONE ARE YOU?" she screamed at him in annoyance, regardless of the incoming kernel of popcorn. "What?" "Which copy of Floyd are you?" "Sorry, I'm Floyd. And you must be..." "You KNOW me, you asshole. I'm Shredded Flesh Restorer With Ex..." One of the drawbacks of chosing a long Holy Name is that you tend to get hit by thermonuclear popcorn a lot more often. Martinez, blissfully protected by a CCMV shell of diplomatic immunity, was content to be thrown 200 meters through the air, and land on her head. Floyd was embedded in a nearby block of concrete, and was slowed down to a quick waddle. "Hey, stoopid," screamed Shredded Flesh Restorer With Extra Wave, "shoot your way out with that thingy of yours!" Floyd, realizing the sense of this, groped about through rapid-stress melted concrete for his weapon thing, finally blowing it off in melted blobs. "What is that?" asked Shredded Flesh Restorer With Extra Wave curiously, "some kind of laser?" "A laser," pronounced Floyd carefully, "capable of shooting a beam of pure antimatter." He proceeded to shoot it in a random direction, hoping the Wombat would be there. It wasn't. Martinez (for she had decided her Holy Name was too long to use in the heat of battle, and to reserve it for future use) looked confused, as Floyd blasted a nearby salami stand to smoking char. "Then it's not really a laser, is it?" "Well, no, not... INCOMING!" They scampered away across a field of cottage cheese which had mysteriously decided to present itself as a means of escape. The Wombat, several kilometers away, chuckled with glee as it spotted this on satelite imagery coming down from its Xennothemian allies. "You know," began Martinez as they began to sink into the cottage cheese, "maybe that wasn't such a good idea." "You curd be right." "Oh, buy the whey, did you know the XBLATTTs are landing in a few months?" "Hmm. I didn't know that. Say, do you think we should scream for help?" "Might be a plan." "HEEEEEELLLLLLLPPPPPPP!!!!!!" They sat there for a little while, sinking in deeper. "Think they heard it?" "I dunno." Hellhound was surprised when his captor mints changed their path, seeking revenge against their lifelong enemy. Interlude Alive Somewhere in the war torn city of Udder-Wah, there was a purpose. There was a reason for living, but whatever it was, it certainly wasn't near the Innocent Bystander, who really should be off to rescue Floyd and Martinez, n'est pas? In the heart of Udder-Wah, where the battle had devastated the surrounding buildings, there was noise. In a small alcove formed from fallen walls, a youngling knelt over the form of his mother. He was crying. He didn't seem to understand that she was gone, and wouldn't be there for him anymore. Floyd had seen to that by randomly firing his "laser". But, it probably would've happened anyways, in a lot nastier way, if the wombat had got her. The boy at last began to comprehend what had happened. He didn't know why, but it suddenly struck him that she wouldn't be there anymore. The cause was more or less obvious. He had seen the rampaging battle between the two god-beings. Therefore, they had been the cause. He didn't fully understand the concept of revenge, but he became aware of a desire to hurt someone as he had been hurt. He decided he would take on on of the god-beings, and try and hurt it, just so it would know what it was like. He began to plan. When at last he was ready, he crawled away from his mother's body, leaving her behind for good. He went off in search of a god- being, hoping to spot it before it spotted him. An ambush was the only way for his plan to work. It would work. It would work. For hours that seemed like days he pressed on, trying to find the running battle that shifted locations with every passing second. At last, after an explosion followed by a mushroom cloud, silence descended once again. He was alone. Alone, with no-one to turn to, no-one to help him. But he was alive. Alive, as his mother was not, alive, as a god-being would soon not be. Ahead of him, he became aware of something. Where the explosion had taken place, that's where he wanted to be. He had no doubts about where he was going now. Someone would pay. In small, unmarked bills. Or in blood. Whatever he felt like at the time. Anyways. He pressed on, crumbling skyscrapers towering over him, the sky grey and stormy overhead. He didn't think about the sky. Small creatures rarely do. Somewhere ahead came a smell. Something odd, that would have reminded him of cows, and milk, and lasagne, if he had any concept of those things. But he didn't. What it resembled was a watery cobblestone road. But he didn't have any concept of what a cobblestone road was, so it was an invalid comparison. There, sinking in deeper, was a god-being. With someone else. TWO god-beings. This was even better than one god- being. A god in the hand is worth two in the cheese. Or something like that. He stalked forward, slinking through debris and hiding. They were sitting. He would have said sitting ducks, but he had no concept of ducks. He would have said it was like shooting fish in the barrel, except he had no.. well, you get the picture. Closer he came, closer and closer. Each step brought him closer to avenging his mother's desk. Er, death. He thought about how good it would feel to do to a god-being what had been done to his mother. One of the disadvantages of being a small creature is that you don't pay nearly as much attention to the sky as you ought. Far above, a large brick teetered, and tottered, and finally decided that, yes, it would fall twelve-odd stories. It fell soundlessly, gathering speed and momentum. Faster and faster it rushed, in it's fatal plunge to the ground. He never even saw it coming. It hit him, utterly crushing the life from his body. He was off to join his mother in whatever waited for him after his death. No one cried. No one mourned. No one cared that he had died, failing to complete his mission of vengance. No one cared, and no one found it unusual. After all, how many people get emotional over a spider's death? Chapter 8 Standing By The Innocent Bystander stood at the corner of Nicholas and Hemlock. The two streets had never intersected before, but to circumvent the annoying no-truck routes that interfered with his driving, the Innocent Bystander decided, in a CCMV induced haze, that the two streets should intersect. Nearby, two crooks were having a running gun battle to see who would actually rob the bank first. One fired, and missed, and shot the Innocent Bystander instead. The Bystander dropped to the ground. There was no look of suprise on his face. This had happened before. An innocent bystander always got shot in a running gun battle. What no one ever bothered to find out was that all the innocent bystanders where actually the same person. The Innocent Bystander was used to this kind of thing by now. That's why he habitually wore a bulletproof vest. Struggling to his feet, he tried to cross the road, where he was cut by flying glass from two cars that had just crashed. He sighed. It looked like it was going to be a long day. Pop. Clank. Scrape. The manhole cover lifted itself up, thanks to the Herculean efforts of a small group of mints, and to the fact that the laws of physics weren't being enforced very well today. The mint Anti-Floyd-Universal-Community-Kult group crawled out of the storm sewers and set off into the wild bluish-mauve yonder. A five-ton flatbed delivery truck rumbled down the newly rearranged truck route through the apple core. Er, the downtown core. Actually, they may have been the same thing. There was absolutely no way to tell, not with the way the rest of things had been going. The flatbed truck looked a little suspicious, as it was marked "Al Ien's Scrap Hauling", and had a tarp stretched over the flatbed. The tarp glowed slightly. Inside the cab, the Innocent Bystander grinned madly and flipped on his air conditioning. The radiation was turning up the temperature. Didn't matter. Now he was bringing the heavy artillery into play. Or at least heavy water and popcorn. Floyd and Martinez struggled against the evil cottage cheese that was dragging them down to their deaths. Well, it it may not have been evil, it may have been just following orders. Or maybe it just needed to ingest people to survive. Actually, I DON'T KNOW IT WAS EVIL, OKAY? Sheesh. A brick dropped out of the sky, and landed with a splut. "Did you see that?" Martinez asked Floyd. "Ermpmh?" said Floyd, who was trying to eat his way to freedom. "That brick there, that just fell out of the sky, it went splut." "Ph?" "Bricks don't normally do that." "Arshemburrgel." "No, it doesn't help us get out of here. I don't know why I mentioned it. Forget about it." "Grph." "Floyd," Martinez said with obvious sincerity, "you're an idiot." "Ack thppt!" The question that is probably burning in the reader's mind right now, aside from "What does the 'J' stand for in 'J. Martinez'?", is "Where's Halfy in all this?" Well, I'll tell you. Crack. "Back! Back, I say!" Halfy, brandishing a riding crop, retreated behind a table. He was in a furniture werehouse. The werehouse, hampered by Halfy's spelling ability and CCMV use, was now a half man, half house creature that roamed around at night badly damaging people with cheap office furniture. But it didn't affect Halfy right now, so let's not worry about it, okay? Right. Halfy, brandishing a riding crop, retreated behind a table. He was in a furniture werehouse. The werehouse.. er, I've done this bit already. Skip ahead. Halfy lunged with the riding crop, knocking a gelatinous mess that smelled vaguely of veggie dip, salad dressing, salt, pepper, sugar twit, cream and high explosive, out of his way. He darted across the room, hitting the bullseye dead centre. Fifty points. The slurry creature slimed after him. For some reason, it had taken an extreme dislike to him, and was now trying to convince him that he should be added to it's slimy mass. Halfy, so far, wasn't buying it. It became obvious to him that he couldn't hold out indefinately against the slurry, so he tried to come up with a plan. Unfortunatly, most of the plans he managed to come up with hinged on him being miles from there, with several largish firearm type devices. He thwacked the slurry once again, and retreated farther into the werehouse. A glimmer of a plan had begun to form. He waited till the slurry lunged at him once more, and then, brillantly, jumped at it, and set it on fire. The already disaster-stricken area of Udder-wah was rocked by a high explosive blast. A voice rang out. "FLOYD GECKO," it boomed, "WE KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE. NOW YOU WILL DIE." "Erk?" said Floyd. "QUIT THAT. TAKE IT LIKE A MAN!" ""Quick," Floyd whispered to Martinez, "come up with a plan!" "Why should I?" she whispered back. "Because," he hissed, "they'll kill me if you don't!" "Why should I?" she repeated. "You're a great help," he told her. "Er," he addressed the voice, "you seem to have mBLATTTaken me for someone else. I'm Royd. Royd Mecco." The voice was silent for a second. "OH. SORRY FOR THE MBLATTTAKE. WHERE CAN WE FIND FLOYD GECKO?" "Er," said Floyd, "right there!" He pointed to yet another Floyd clone who happened to be wandering by. "FIRE!" ordered the voice. The rather startled looking Humanoid Speck-O was annihilated by a rather large energy blast. "That guy could have been you," Martinez whispered. "Really," Floyd said, "I never would have guessed." The AFUCK team packed up their public address system and weaponry, and prepared to move off. "Excuse me," Martinez called after them, "I don't suppose you could get us out of here?" The reply was too faint to be heard, but from the way the AFUCK team moved away, she guessed it was a "no". "Well," said Floyd "what do we do now?" "I dunno," Martinez said. "Does this mean we're gonna die?" "Probably. Unless you've got a plan." "Agshnortenflaiger." "Eating your way out is NOT going to work, Floyd." "Ack thppt!" It was then that Halfy came careening out of the sky, and landed with a kersplunk in the cottage cheese. Fortunatly enough, Martinez and Floyd were able to use Halfy as a plank to walk themselves out of the cottage cheese. They just left Halfy there, facedown in the cheese. After all, they still had to save the world, you know. Halfy was still lying facedown in the cheese when a black sphere of unlight bounded through it, freezing it solid. The wombat, watching on it's video screens, chuckled evilly to itself, and failed to notice the gratuitous dinosaur walking by. Meanwhile, the werehouse crawled off to lick its rather sizable wounds. It was the Innocent Bystander's bad luck to slam his five ton thermonuclear popcorn laden delievery truck at precisley that point in time. This was something of a problem. In that, among other things, a rather huge number of Innocent Bystanders were hit by a sudden thermonuclear blast. There hadn't been one there before, and since all the Innocent Bystanders were, in fact, smashed out of their realities by the CCMV, it ceased to ever have been. Unfortunately, so did the truck. The Disinterested Observer let out an "AH FUCK!" and was rather surprised when a horde of mints swamped him, holding their hellish prisoner down with licorice bonds. Not far away... Well, okay, it was rather far away. I mean, let's get a sense of proportion here. Okay, if the moon were made of green cheese, and was the size of a cheese ball, then the Earth would be a long way away, relatively speaking. But not THAT far away. And it would be bigger than a cheese ball. I don't know if it would be bigger than a breadbox, because that depends on the size of the cheese ball and the size of the breadbox. Anyway. Not far away, the wombat was busy not noticing an entirely gratuitous dinosaur which served no purpose except to make the plot more interesting/confusing than it already was. It tried to bite him. "WARGLE" screamed the wombat, and launched into what may well be one of the most ludicrous battle scenes ever to curse the pages of any story ever. Thus, I won't ramble on about it, because it's just too dang silly. Suffice it to say that both the entirely gratuitous dinosaur and the skinless undead wombat made copious use of the word "WARGLE", in various tonalities and volumes, as in this sample vanilla extract from the battle scene: "WARGLE" screamed the gratuitous dinosaur, and lashed out at the wombat with its gratuitous and huge clublike tail with the huge and not a little heavy knob of bone on the end. And spikes. Did I mention the spikes? "WARGLE" wargled the wombat, wargling quickly to the left, slightly behind George Bush, who took the brunt of the totally gratuitous blow. George, however, being both undead and relatively resilient, simply bounced to one side like a slab of extra-spicy spam. Not that extra spicy spam bounces any different from ordinary spam, gratuitous or otherwise. "WARGLE" roared the gratuitous dinosaur, opening a rather gratuitously steamshovel-like jaw with many large and not a little pointy teeth. And gums. Did I mention the gums? The gratuitous dinosaur had healthy gums, the sign of a consciencious and dentBLATTT approved oral hygene program, important for you just as much as the utterly pointless dinosaur. "WARGLE" fled the wombat, wargling quickly behind the nearest plastic cactus, which the gratuitous dinosaur was forced to chew up and swallow, which was not an easy task, given the rubbery nature of this particular plastic cactus. "WARGLE" exclaimed the gratuitous dinosaur, spreading its wings (for the dinosaur was not only gratuitous, but totally generic as well) and flapping gratuitously up into the gratuitous thunderclouds that gratuitously hung overhead. The wombat pulled out a decidedly NON-gratuitous gattling gun and blew the gratuitous dinosaur away. Gratuitous dinosaur bits rained down on Udder-Wah. Actually, the gattling gun was the CAUSE of some rather gratuitous violence. Does that count? The voice of Hellhound was beginning to irritate the AFUCK team. "I've always thought," he was saying, "that zombies have more sort of integrity than vampires. I mean, a vampire is all kind of European arBLATTTocracy, snooty stuck-up, and all that... Very elitBLATTT. Now a zombie, there's something everyone can relate to. Your average joe, who just happens to be dead, wandering the earth in torment, having to eat the brains of the living. But a vampire? Oh sure, there's blood, but all the ritual, and..." "SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!" screamed a peppermint, angrily waving a tiny gun at Hellhound, who had eaten his licorice gag long ago. Gags had ceased to work in the recently be-fooded world. "But..." "ONE MORE WORD AND I'LL BLOW THOSE BRAINS YOU KEEP TALKING ABOUT OUT THE BACK OF..." and a rather hefty, but utterly gratuitous, chunk of dinosaur fell on it. Hellhound 101, who was far from stupid, and anything but slow, took this opportunity to run like the wind. The Disinterested Observer, who was also an Innocent Bystander, sat innocently on the ground and devoured his captors. They never suspected a thing. Hellhound 101 fled past the newly renamed Peppermint Hill, where had formerly stood the Leaning Tower of Pizza, but now stood the Somewhat Soggy Pile Of Cheese in its ruins. He hardly noticed that the Somewhat Soggy Pile Of Cheese was under construction, and a new tourBLATTT sign, proclaiming "The Somewhat Frozen Lake Of Cheese", was being erected. "WARGLE" he uttered, as he shot through the streets at a speed that would have staggered him, had he not been riding a motorcycle. Which was good, because as he turned the corner of Bank and O'Connor, which he wasn't used to negotiating for the good reason that he refused to negotiate with terrorBLATTT intersections, he ran headfirst into a flame-red Harley Davidson bearing a small pink-and-green-fuzzy occupant, who took this collision opportunity to fly from its bike, and sail through a nearby plate glass window. Which, on reflection, the Hound decided had probably hurt a great deal. But since the thing was his most favourite of undead specimens, it scarcely noticed, and set about the task of hurting HIM a great deal, after picking some of the larger chunks of glass out of its skull, one of which bore the words "LE 1/2 OF DAY ONL". Fortunately for the Hound, a bit of gratuitous dinosaur chose that convenient moment to land on George Bush's head, and allowed him to make his escape. Funny, that. Not far away, Shredded Flesh Restorer With Extra Wave was sitting down in her own sofa, accompanied by Floyd Gecko, as they decided to formulate a plan to save the world. "Sorry about the mess," she mentioned as she stuffed her inexplicable bra into her landury bag and threw some antique foodstuff out the window. "Mauve with orange polka dots?" "It's a long story, most of which is entirely your fault. It ended up that way after my CCMV trip." Floyd shrugged. "What's that supposed to mean?" "Not MY fault." "Well, you GAVE me the stuff. That caused it. Asshole." Floyd shrugged. "If you say so." "Oh fuck off, Floyd." She turned on the news. Interlude Wombat Brigade Melbourne, Australia, April 1, 1998. In the past ten weeks, citizens of Australia had been suffering sorely. Although the Wombat Menace had been recognized by the capital of Canada many months before that, indeed, as early as 1996, Aussies had noticed a few stirrings of restlessness in the wombat population as well. There had been Vicious Vombatid Vampires (Wompire Bats), Biker 'Bats, Wombie Zombies, Ninja Wombats, Combat Wombats, Nazi Wombats, Alien Wombats, the evil Unstoppable Industrial Strength Wombats, and dozens of horrors too horrifyingly horrible to contemplate, that's how horrifyingly horrible the horrors were. 7000 dead in Melbourne alone, almost 23000 zombie minons roaming the streets. Mick Walker took aim carefully. The abandoned warehouse building was a known hideout of no fewer than three Combat Wombats, responsible between them for no fewer than fifty deaths, in no fewer than three, count 'em, no fewer than three provinces of no fewer than Australia. No fewer than six seconds later, no fewer than Mick Walker pulled the no fewer than a trigger, count 'em, a trigger, and lobbed five (count 'em, no fewer than FIVE) thermite grenades into the building. The no fewer than building had burnt to the ground in no more than two minutes. Mick Walker, concerned citizen and anarchBLATTT, stood up proudly, turned around, and was mauled to death by a Biker 'Bat. Not far away, Bill Lockley, a moderately-well-trained ninja, twirled a flashing steel katana at a nearby Industrial Strength Wombat, which pulled out a Luger and blew Bill's head off. In a nutshell, the poor citizens of Australia were outgunned. It was only a matter of time before cracked military wombando squa... before crack military commando squads were called in to fight the menace. Humming "Happiness Is A Warm Gun" softly to himself, a more or less anonymous robotized soldier tromped through the desserted streets of Sydney, wading through strawberries, apple turnovers, various forms of chocolate, and the occasional mousetrap, alert and aware, watching for signs of Wombat incursion. "IN HERE!" A voice screamed from a nearby building, panic cracking at the edges of a trained military noncom grunt. "WOMBATS!" The First Anonymous Soldier (AS1) hustled into action, bringing an autoshotgun out in front of him, waving a path in a kind of grim dance. He shot the door off the hinges, and stormed into the building. "NO! OVER HERE!" He looked around slowly. "Sorry, ma'am." He tromped back out carefully, located the source of the cry, and, as an afterthought, emptied a half-minute burst into the building he'd just come out of. "No witnesses," he murmured vaguely, enjoying the appearance of twenty panes of glass shattering at once, getting somewhat annoyed as his flak-jacket was pulled into the chamber along with the belt of shotgun cartridges, whipping the gun around in a quick arc and catching him upside the head. "Good thing it wasn't on," he muttered militarily, thumbing the safety on as he disentangled himself. "LOOK OUT!" screamed the voice he'd almost forgotten about. AS1 whirled, and saw a Wompire Bat swoop down out of the sky. "This," hissed the articulate marsupial, "is a fine place for a meal and a new servant." The hideous undead creature kicked the autoshotgun away, and it clattered across concrete. AS1 looked for the screamer, who was being held down by two of the Wompire's minions. "HEEEEEELLLLLPPPPPP!" screamed Annoyed Freckle. AS1 dodged lightly aside as the Wompire lunged at him. He ducked down and grabbed a length of rusty steel rod that had been blown out of a nearby building, and attempted to swing it at the wombat. He hadn't noticed that it was still attatched to a rather hefty chunk of concrete it was attempting to reinforce. The concrete block fell on his leg, ripping it up rather badly. "BLOOD!" screeched the Wompire, and leapt at AS1's leg. Annoyed Freckle decided it was time for desperate action. Turning to the rather overly-dead minion who was pinning his left arm, he tried a diversionary tactic. AS1 was rather surprised to hear, screamed at the top of someone else's lungs, the words "HEAD AND SHOULDERS? BUT YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE A SCALP!" as a Vombatid Vampire careered past his leg whilst looking over its shoulder to figure out what was going on. While the Wompire attempted to extract its head from a nearby window, AS1 leapt towards the autoshotgun. "Silver bullets don't have effect on REAL Vampires, you know," leaked the Wombat, attempting to edge away with a windowframe in its arms and jagged glass digging into its neck. "Yeah, whatever," said AS1, thumbing off the safety. You know a shotgun goes "BLAM", more or less, and can rip doors and things into teeny weeny little bits. An autoshotgun just keeps sort of blamming, about as fast as you could say it, without tangling up your tongue. This particular one, however, got tongue-tied about halfway through ripping apart one particular Wompire, got caught in AS1's flak jacket again, whirled around from recoil, and splattered his brains all over the wall behind the wall behind him. Not the wall behind him. It splattered a fair chunk of that, too. Mr. Freckle was annoyed by this, and protested immensely as the Wompire and its nearby Zombat ally proceeded to eat his brain. Well, he protested a bit, anyway, until they made a snack of the Broca's area. Then he sort of shut up. John Smith whirled an Uzi about his finger casually. It was time to go kick some wombutt. "You can get more with a simple prayer," he said, "and a Thompson Submachine gun," he added as an afterthought, "than you can get with a simple prayer alone." He tested the Uzi's operation into a nearby pedestrian, and set off with a determined look on his face, and not enough ammo in his duffel bag. John Smith, once a survivalBLATTT nut, mocked and derided as a reject from the American SurvivalBLATTT's association, had a porpoise in life. Its name was Flipper, and it killed wombats. "THERE'S ONE!" he shouted, and laid waste to a nearby 6-year- old. John's glasses had been shattered by a stray bullet from a nearby Zombat battle with the militia. "RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! THE ALIEN WOMBATS HAVE LANDED!" A paranoid ran screaming past John Smith. Fuck. The last thing we need is people spreading panic like that. John blew the man's head off with a quick burst of Uzi fire. In the back of his mind, he though of the "Alien" movies. What WOULD an alien wombat look like? At which point in this train of thought, H.R. Giger's teddy bear rounded the corner with a snacky-corpse in its inner jaw. "I've heard of double chins, but this is ridiculous. PRAISE `BOB'!" He levelled the Uzi at the monstrosity, which began loping towards him. "EAT HOT LEAD, UNHUMAN MONSTER SCUM FROM HE..." And it ate him. And took the Uzi. Which was not good. Well, not for anyone else, anyway. The Wombats were pleased enough with the thing. The Australian People's United Liberation Church Of MOO was in chaos, which was more or less good, since that was the ideal state it had proclaimed when it split from the Australian People's Liberation Church Of MOO. The High Preest was both. He was preaching, and he was high on something reality-altering. "WE'VE BEEN PREDICTING THIS FOR YEARS! YOU HAVE ALL BEEN REMISS, AND NEGLECTED TO LBLATTTEN! WELL I TELL YOU IT'S TOO LATE NOW! X-DAY ARRIVES IN ONLY MONTHS, AND WHEN THE XENNOTHEMIANS BLOW UP OUR PLANET, ONLY THOSE WITH CHEESECAKE SHALL SURVIVE THE BLAST, AND ONLY THOSE WITH TICKETS SHALL ESCAPE WITH THE X-BLATTT SAUCERS! THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH! YES! SINNERS REPENT! HELTER SKELTER! PRAISE BOB! INHALE ERIS!" Not surprisingly, someone shot him. This was becoming increasingly common in Australia, as the wombat menace drove home a sort of general feeling of anarchic ill- will. A nearby Presbyterian priest tried to explain this, and that it wasn't a good thing, on account of ChrBLATTT wouldn't have approved, but quickly became a rather gruesome example that guns weren't the only way people were being killed in Australia these days. Jesus ChrBLATTT would have appreciated the company on the Cross, but probably would have been too busy dying of exposure. Chapter 9 Family HBLATTTories "...or ate any of those yummy eucalyptus leaves. Yum, yum. That was the news for wombats..." "...stralia lies in anarchy today, as hordes of vicious wombats rampage the country. Thousands of deaths have been attributed to these horrifying creatures, and both the regular army, and an impromptu citizen's survival front have been combatting this horror. Hundreds of thousands of deaths have been attributed to accidents with weapons in this insurgence. This has been the CBC news for this May 20th, 1998." Shredded Flesh Restorer with Extra Wave waved a remote-control in the general direction of the television. "It was bound to happen sooner or later." She gesticulated vaguely, nearly taking Floyd's eye out. "Uh, yeah," he agreed, trying to work out how his depth perception was going to work for the next hour or two. "How much longer does this drug last? We gotta save the world, eh man?" "Uhh... Well, each dose lasts longer and longer, has more effect on your reality..." "That's weird. Most drugs it's the other way round." "Yeah, well it's also antiaddictive... Gets harder and harder to take. Because it's not really a drug." "What is it?" He told her what CCMV stands for. "YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!" She beaned him with her foam crowbar. Which was annoying, because he thought it was real. And so it was. Which proved to be a problem, because he stumbled out her living room window. And landed on George Bush. Which was also a problem. MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH... Louie The Braindead Mint was wandering along behind the Shok Mint Commando Troop's head archer as they continued their way into what seemed to be the Ottawa Storm Sewer system... "I'm curious, tell me about this Floyd Gecko, why does he seem to be so central in the scheme of things these days? And why haven't our spy mints with the subspace radio that are hiding in his pocket done anything lately?" "As an archer, I am of course, best informed about the Gecko." "In fact, the only thing we know for certain is that he was born in 1958 AD in western Alemania, of a swedish mother and a Aleman father. He worked as a journalBLATTT for "divelt" then was reported missing during the Vietnam war. In fact, he had accidentally stepped through a transtime circle in Angkor and, curiously enough, had stepped out into the nineteenth century where he was taken in by a Brahmin from Pondycherhi. There he was initiated to the equivalent of a phase IV level and worked for thriteen years in the secret laboratories of a spatial magic where he concentrated on his studies of the phenomenon of Nodal Entropy in hte intergalactic fabric. Soon... he teamed up with another explorer by the name of Hellhound. "While on a routine flight at the edge of the nebula Hakbah of Saligaa, they discovered the wreck of the "OTRA", the famous mythical ark and mother ship of the great ancient ones... Hellhound and Floyd decided to search the wreck... It was during their explorations that Floyd finally found out how to drastically increase the Entropy levels of certain nodal points in the space time continuum... But in that same adventure he was hurtled back to his own time and sucked his comapnion Hellhound along with him. "When Hellhound decided to run for Mayor of Ottawa, Floyd decided it was finally time to use a little bit of that "extra entropy" that he knew how to tap... but he didn't realise that some of our TechnoMints in the vicinity had created their own Entropy