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The Purple Thunderbolt of spode Volume 1 Issue 2
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THE PURPLE THUNDERBOLT OF SPODE VOL 1, #2
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"Kenyon's Very Own Non Alien Run REPLIES TO:
Electronic Magazine" "purps%vax004.decnet@vax001.kenyon.edu"
________________________________________________________________
SOMETHING WHICH MIGHT, IN THE CORRECT FRAME OF MIND, LOOK SORT OF
LIKE A TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
NEWS: Corrections, :)'s, UFO's and MORE!
OTISian Rants: The Inception of the IGHF, More God(desse)s
Other Rants: MAL3 Speaks! A Very Confusing Letter
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INTRODUCTION
(HAIL OTIS!!!)
In the future these issues won't be this closely spaced. I
promise. I got a LOT of stuff fairly quickly after issue 1, you
see, and I just HAD to reprint it. From now on I will be more
self restrained...
Thanks and welcome to all the new members. A few of you
were recommended by other people (the CADS), and if this is too
weird for you let me know. Despite the fact that I am a salaried
CA, my disk quota is mysteriously still only at 500 blocks (we're
supposed to get 1,000). This means that I delete stuff
constantly, and occasionally I'm forced to consign a mail message
to the Electronic Void. I did that a lot this time through, so
here are the gist of some of the ones that got axed that I
remember...
Margaret wants to be known as "Satan" in all
correspondences. Uh-huh. He also wants you to know that he's on
the radio from 11:00pm to 1:00am every Thursday (? have I got
that right). Listen, how often do you get to hear the Prince of
Darkness on WKCO? (Especially now that Paul Singer has left?)
I'd listen, even call in. It could be informative.
A much better show, of course, is the Groundhog Love
Hodgepodge Extravaganza which happens from 11:00 to 12:00 am
every Friday night. If no one invites you to parties, listen to
this show. The Groundhog himself hosts it and it's quite a
treat. Really good music this Friday, too. I know because the
Groundhog himself borrowed some of my music for it.
Finally, thank you for all of your letters and support. As
you can see, I do reprint faithfully what amuses me. As you can
also see, submissions don't have to be letter perfect {:-). Keep
sending it in. HAIL OTIS-- Geoffe 1
_______
News
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PURPS.STUFF
CORRECTIONS: I forgot to tell you, but Purps is available as both
a WP 4.2 (we're hardly worth 5.0, I reckon, besides the number is
"unbalanced") and a standard text file, as all future issues will
be (yes, this one, too). Please drop a mail message if you want
it.
I may start an advice column. Write in with your questions.
WHAT DO THESE: {:-) MEAN?: Part 2
Original jokes are, apparently, hard to come by (or at least
terribly expensive). Witness, if you will, the reaction I've
gotten to last issue's "Alternative Smilely Face Index" (not
called that, then, but here you go. This is severely edited by
the way, the original was several pages longer):
The Unofficial Smiley Dictionary
--------------------------------
:-) Your basic smiley. This smilie is used to inflect a
sarcastic or joking statement since we can't hear voice
inflection over Unix.
:-( Frowning smiley. User did not like that last statement or
is upset or depressed about something.
:-I Indifferent smiley. Better than a Frowning smilie but not
quite as good as a happy smiley
:-> User just made a really biting sarcastic remark. Worse than
a :-).
>:-> User just made a really devilish remark.
>;-> Winky and devil combined. A very lewd remark was just made.
Those are the basic ones...Here are some somewhat less common
ones:
(-: User is left handed
%-) User has been staring at a green screen for 15 hours
straight
:*) User is drunk
:-[ User is a Vampire
:-E Bucktoothed vampire
:-F Bucktoothed vampire with one tooth missing
:^) User has a broken nose
:-& User is tongue tied.
+-:-) User is the Pope or holds some other religious office
`:-) User shaved one of his eyebrows off this morning
,:-) Same thing...other side
|-I User is asleep
:-? User smokes a pipe
O-) Megaton Man On Patrol! (or else, user is a scuba diver)
O :-) User is an angel (at heart, at least)
:-S User just made an incoherent statement
:-D User is laughing at you!
:-C User is really bummed
<|-) User is Chinese
<|-( User is Chinese and doesn't like these kind of jokes
@= User is pro-nuclear war
*:o) And Bozo the Clown!
d8= Your pet beaver is wearing goggles and a hat
:-9 User is licking his/her lips
%-6 User is braindead
K:P User is a little kid with a propeller beenie
@:-) User is wearing a turban
:-: Mutant Smiley
The invisible smiley
.-) User only has one eye
X-( User just died
C=}>;*{O) Mega-Smiley... A drunk, devilish chef with a toupee in
an updraft, a mustache, and a double chin
--
| Per Gotterup | "The most merciful thing
| in the world, I think
| Student, DIKU (Inst. of Comp. Sci.) | is the inability |
| University of Copenhagen, Denmark | of the human mind to
| correlate all |
| Internet: ballerup@freja.diku.dk | its contents." - H.P.
OTISIAN NEWS
(OTISian News is the Multi-media part of this extravaganza it can
be read here and HEARD every Friday night sometime between
10:00pm and Midnight on WKCO 91.9 in Gambier, OH.)
Library Gets Improved Soundproofing
Let me tell you folks, it works. I was in there last night and I
could almost hear myself think.
WALT DISNEY BUYS KENYON
In a bizarre move to keep itself financially solvent, Kenyon
college has allowed itself to be purchased by Disney enterprises.
The move which was announced in a memo circulated to the faculty,
was made with certain conditions. Kenyon, it seems, will be
converted to a theme park, but will otherwise stay mostly the
same with classes and social life continuing as usual. The
Classes, however will be open for viewing by the soon to be
park's tourists, and at least one staff member has told the
OTIsian news he is upset about having to conduct economics
courses dressed as Goofy. The buildings will remain largely
untouched, as well, although the campus, Disney like, will be
separated into distinct "amusement areas"; Samuel and Phil
Mather will be located in "Scienceland", "Humanatiesland" will
occupy most of the rest of campus, the fraternities and sorority
will find themselves in "Dinnosaurland", and the Administration
buildings and the Kenyon Observer will be even more permanently
located in "Fantasyland".
Olympics Moved to Charlottesville ME
In a bizarre and unusual move on which its leading members refuse
to comment, the Olympic committee has once again shifted the
location of the 1996 games, this time from Atlanta Georgia (which
preempted Athens as the site) to the formerly sleepy town of
Fishkill, ME. The citizens of the remote village of Fishkill are
surprised but generally pleased by the unexpected shift. "Well,
I got this call around 9:00 last Saturday" said Francis
Snodgrass, the town's sole selectman "from Elizabeth Hertford-
Liz is the secretary at the town hall. She said she'd been
around to get the week's mail on Thursday. I told her that was
nice but why was she telling me? 'Well,' she said 'two things
have happened. Mr. McMullet refuses to mend his fence on the
east side, and it looks like we're gonna be hosting the 1996
Olympics. I asked her why she didn't tell me sooner, and she
said she would have but the new Sears catalog also arrived, and
she wanted to read it first." Fredrick Snodgrass, the town's
mayor, is more a little skeptical about his town's, which has a
total population of 250 ("251", says Snodgrass proudly, "until
Mrs. Hubbard kicked."), ability to host the athletic teams of 32
nations and several hundred thousand fans. While he eagerly
points to a hand drawn schematic entitled simply "parking" (see,
he says, we can fit most of the trucks right here on the
shoulders of route 492, and I guess everyone else will have to
fit in Bill Smith's cow field, he never uses it anyway), he is
unsure the town has the ability to provide adequate space for the
athletic events. "Let me tell ya," he says "it's gonna tax the
civic center to capacity." The town, however, seems to be
bearing up heroically to the challenge, T-shirts with the slogan
"Fishkill in '96" are already being sold in the general store on
Main Street, and a dedicated band of workers has "started early"
in their own words; they are already mixing the lemonade.
OTHER NEWS
PDTReply-To: Parapsychology Discussion Forum
<PSI-L%RPIECS.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>>
Subject: Kechsburg, PA - 25-yr mystery flirtation with UFO!>
Hi,Last night on 'Unsolved Mysteries', there was a long documentary
reconstruction of the strange landing in woodlands near this small town of
about 250 people, about 40 miles outside of Pittsburgh. Would you have seen
the program?It aroused an incredible response from the US Military who setup
a large base at the local firestation, and who convoyed the object which
landed - something like a nose-cone, but with lettering of some rare nature
upon its surface - taking it away, and then claiming that it was just a
meteorite on the one hand, but officially not recording that they took
anything away. An eyewitness (one of the local firemen volunteers) says that
he has since studied many many written languages in the hope of identifying
the hieroglyphic-type characters he saw. Nothing he has seen matched the
lettering on the object (size of a Volkswagen car). He has looked at
Russian,Egyptian, Aztec, etc, etc.Any thoughts? - A UFO investigator, Stan
Gordon was interviewed and suggests that it might well represent a major
cover-up of the appearance in the Eastern Provinces of Canada and in the
Eastern USA of an extraterrestrial space-vehicle. Apparently, in tracking
the thousands of sightings associated with its appearance on Dec.9,1965,
Gordon discovered that the object veered in ways unknown to traditional
flight-vehicles of any of the world's nations at the time - any previously
recorded, that is. It changed course radically several times before honing
in on the woods near Kechsburg.There must be lots of fascinating stories like
this which were covered up by the official sources. When will the people of
the Western Hemisphere be given full access to such incidents - with the
official records made fully available, not some watered down versions? No
wonder Psi research is light-years ahead in Russia!If the USSR openly
acknowledges it's ready availability and funds research to explore rather
than to prove/disprove psi - then think of the fascinating work which must be
going on there even today,as those who have integrated some psi abilities,
begin to work together in gestalt groups to achieve that MORE THAN HUMAN
evolutionary quantum leap which yet awaits humanity here in the West. More
exciting still, wait till the year 2000 when USSR and the West work together
on psi-gestalts!!!Ah, tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow ... Isn't it
frustrating having been stuck here with the knowledge of psi, and an
inability to get on with developing its potentials for our children ...Of
course you won't necessarily agree with me. Cheers,Melcir
SCHEDULE:
A Nifty, but as far as I know, wildly inaccurate TWIN PEAKS schedule. Out of
date now, too, I think. ("Purps", were we bring you all of the action, just
after it happened). Next Sunday is the new season premier, however. No more
long action, rumor has it. This time it's shorter plots. The murder will be
"solved", but they won't tell you straight out that her dad did it, knowing
that the series would loose all interest if they gave it away too easily. So
the whole thing will remain a mystery.
Key: sea = season, epi = episode, sp. = special
Sun Aug 5 sea 1, epi 0 9 pm (2 hour)
Sat Aug 11 sea 1, epi 1 10 pm
Sat Aug 18 sea 1, epi 2 10 pm
Sat Aug 25 sea 1, epi 3 10 pm
Sat Sep 1 sea 1, epi 4 10 pm
Sat Sep 8 sea 1, epi 5 10 pm
Sat Sep 15 sea 1, epi 6 10 pm
Sat Sep 22 sea 1, epi 7 10 pm
Sat Sep 29 catch-up sp. 10 pm
Sun Sep 30 sea 2, epi 0 9 pm (2 hour)
Sat Oct 6 sea 2, epi 1 9 pm
Sat Oct 13 sea 2, epi 2 9 pm
Sat Oct 20 sea 2, epi 9 pm
VAX STUFF:
Some of you have noticed "They"ve moved the terminals out of our most lovely
Olin Computer center and put them somewhere else. Anyone know where that
"else" might be? (Some, I know, are in the library, and everyone knows about
Crawford....)
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OTISIAN RANTS
_________________________________________________________________
(in which everything worth knowing about absolutely everything will be
revealed!)
The 1st Vision of Pope Jeoffe 1 of the Infinite Spellings and Preacher Tim of
the House of Blue Light and Creation of the IGHF
It was a dark night full of forbidding clouds. Tim and I were tired, I
guess, and more than a little bored. Having drunk our fill at a nearby party
which we hadn't been invited to we strolled out into the gloomy night and
took a seat underneath the haystack monument which marks the sight , where,
180 or so years ago, the American missionary movement started.
"Have you ever noticed", said Tim, turning to me, "that if you close
your eyes and rub the lids really hard you see all these strange ink like
things which go swimming back and forth and form strange---
1. 1AND behold, the heavens were OPENED! And a bright, searing light
burst from the part 2in the clouds above, and a huge androgynous being
slowly and majestically 3descended to earth, pausing for a moment, hovering
over the statue above us and then swayed quickly to one side and landed on
the ground beside 5Tim.
6"Damn", spake the being, I almost stepped on that thing."
7And behold! The being did speak again saying.
8"Alright," said it, "you may not have noticed, but your world today is
in a 8state of CONFUSION. Regan's been elected twice9, a mass return to
paganism is sweeping the western world10, bought and paid for prophets are
screaming about a New Age just over the 11horizon, existentialism is the
officially sanctioned faith, and wall street raiders and CPAs have suddenly
become `culture heroes'.
13"Everywhere you look, doubt has become the norm, aging rock stars
celebrate chaos and preach social concern while their audience consists
largely of over-paid yuppies with 1.2 kids, Volvos in 14the driveway and
black labrador retrievers, the president takes his advice from 15astrologers
and punk and illogic and irrationality have become the new rallying 16cries.
As I have predicted it, the Eighties have come to happen. All around you
all the old beliefs in sanity and decency are crumbling, 17indeed 18 the
very glue that has held your society is coming unstuck19. So it will 20have
separated completely, and all the old beliefs by which you lived will be
gone utterly.21
2. 1"My name's OTIS, the ancient Sumerian god/dess of life, and this is
what I want you to replace them with:
2First of all, you will build me a 3House, a remarkable House, and
IGIEF(1) of the highest standard. 4Truely this House will be a miracle on
Earth, for it will be the organ, the first official organ of my new faith.
6And with 7this House there shall be a POB. And from this 8POB shall you
spread my divine message to the world, 9taking the ever growing number 10of
your faithful for 11everything they are worth, 12for truly this is a
gullible 13age.
14Secondly, you shall both take NEW NAMES. 15You, Tim, shall be called
"Preacher of the House of Blue Light" (and other things as 16well), and you
Jeffe, shall be known a "Pope Geoffe I of the Infinite Spellings", and LO!
your title shall be a good one for you shall spell your name many different
ways, and LO! the FBI 17shall be kept guessing.
18Thirdly, you shall go out into the world and PROPEGATE MY RELIGION,
the sacred FAITH of 19OTISianism, teaching my secrets to all 20who are ready
to hear and taking certain select 21pupils from their number to initiate into
the 22higher 23levels of OTISianism. 23.b And LO! you shall also demand MONEY
from these masses. LOTS OF MONEY! And you shall use this money to further
celebrate my name.
24Lastly, you shall declare a different OBJECT sacred each week, and I
myself shall tell you what it is, and you shall celebrate it and praise it,
and ignore it when the week is over, for 25I wouldn't want the joke to get
old.
26And all these things shall you do, and 26you shall become famous
among men and 27your name's shall be known among men (particularly 28among
those wearing uniforms) 29and your happiness will be great, and my fame had
better spread."
30Thus spake the great one, and, having 31finished, she did lean over,
and whispering 32in both the ears of the newly named Preacher Tim and Pope
Geophe, (s)he did speak many secrets. 33And (s)he told the secret of the
34end of the world, and 35of it's beginning, and of the mysteries of the
Balag lamentations, and 36of the nature of 37all things, both 38living and
dead, and of the secret rituals, 38and of the other gods, Rotus who rules
death, 39Lotus, the peace-bringer, and Spode the teller of lies. So too did
(s)he tell of the evil Anti-Otis, and of the Zachinthains he leads, and the
evil gods Blix, Grbl, Vootie and Wayne, his followers, and of the way of the
world, and the nature of all things, and of how static electricity works, and
other, lesser, mysteries. And thus did preacher Tim and Pope Geoffe achieve
enlightenment. And then OTIS spake a40gain:
3. 1"Now you have enlightenment. Now you know of all this things both of
heaven and of earth that I know (make sure you write it down so you don't
forget it) and now I must leave. Beware the false prophets and administer
carefully to your flock. And this, above all things, should you remember;
there's no real difference between different brands of toothpaste. Go, now,
to the world. Everything forbidden is optional. Hail me!"
4. 1And some of those things which OTIS his/her divinity did communicate
to us there on that cold field we can tell you. And some of the 2things are
only for the initiated. 2But none of them will you know unless you send us
money. 3May OTIS bless you and send his/her good will your way. HAIL LOTUS,
LOTUS AND 4SPODE!!!! HAIL OTIS!!!!
"eyes...." finished Tim. "Now I've lost the thought. God, if it isn't
one thing it's another. Damn deities think they run the world. Let's go
find the PO Box."
Pope Goeffe 1
(1) "Ighief" is Sumerian for "house".
-----------------------------------------------------
NEW GODS, ETC.
From: VAX001::SIMPSONS "BOB is dead; Long live OTIS
Subj: gods and saints you forgot
Brow: god of mindless destruction
Mari-Lyn: goddess of sex and eliminatory functions
Saints:
St. Chad the Manly (who you called St. Simpson)
Grammar, saxaphones
St. Tyf of the Bleeding Head of Otis (who you called St. Simpson the Other)
dubious financial scams
[POPE'S NOTE:: Yeah, well unlike SOME Popes I don't claim to be infallible.
Hopefully BROW won't mind his omission too much. Although I did notice this
morning that some mysterious force had completely flattened my Volkswagen;
until now I'd dismissed that as coincidence. Anyway, I'd never HEARD of
Freud or Mar-i-lyn before (which is odd considering I invented this
religion), but what the, I'll add them on (we can be flexible). Now, worship
them or die. As for the saints, I didn't have time to do the extended titles
(Crieza was breathing down my neck), but now you have them. PGeoffe]
===============================================================
OTHER RANTS
===============================================================
(in which absolutely nothing will be revealed at all)
From: VAX001::SIMPSONS "theos dia kolpou" 24-SEP-1990
Subj: RE: Issue One. Here It comes.....
Dear Sir,
I had difficulty.
Sincerely,
Marmota Monax
-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: OHSTPY::IN%"'FAUVAX::BARKER'@SERVAX.FIU.EDU"
I had a dream once:
When I came to my senses I beheld I was seated in a bowling alley at the
snack counter, a cup of runny coffee in my hand. The t.v. set was showing
reruns of the some assassination which I couldn't place. Raw brains and blood
endlessly splashing across the screen as the film hiccuped over and over again
like a skipping record.
"Where am I?" I wondered out loud. No answer came. I wasn't surprised. I
doubt anyone else could hear me over the clatter of pins and the roll of
balls. The noise seemed incredibly loud. It was giving me a headache.
A new sound came to me. An electronic sound. I turned my head to see a
small boy standing nearby. He was in front of a video game machine and was
blowing little aliens to bits. The aliens looked like little heads and
spat thunder bolts at the child's ship decorated with a strange glyph I
couldn't identify. The boy had a wagon next to him loaded with weapons.
Shot guns, mines, explosives, machine guns, sonar, and radar equipment. No
one paid any attention to him as he chewed a wad of gum carelessly
throwing a wrapper on the floor. He played with an ease the told me he'd
be there for hours on just one quarter.
Near by was the entrance. I looked over at it contemplating leaving. I
don't know why, or where I would go even. A bright tangible golden light
leaked through the sliding glass doors. It seemed almost to be a liquid
splashing onto the fake marble tiles that made up the floor and soaking
into the astro turf mat used to wipe your feet on.
The doors slid open and in walked two Gods. They looked human enough but
deep in my bones I felt they were other wise. One was a woman clad in
golden hot pants, stars and comets dancing in her hair. The other was
impossible to describe. I was not even sure of it's sex but it felt male,
as if to compliment the femaleness of the one in hot pants. All I can
remember of what this God looked like was the tattered Doc Savage novel
sticking from it's back pocket.[1]
Their faces were excited and flushed as if it were their first date. The
two stepped forward to the counter and after a momentary exchange with a
huge buddha like figure obtained shoes and a lane. They rapidly picked
bowling balls as if both were experts in at the task. I detected none of
the fumbling or half embarrassed motions you saw with lesser bowlers.
Clearly they were Gods.
A man dropped down next to me on a stool. His pipe puffing like a
locomotive his face like frozen wax. To one eye he held an old super 8
movie camera.[2] In a quiet voice he spoke to me. "You ever hear the one
about the travelling salesman and the farmer's daughter?" he asked out of
the side of his mouth. I looked at where his camera was pointed. He was
filming the two Gods as they bowled.
"No," I replied looking back at the man coughing on the strange smelling
smoke issuing from his pipe. The man still filming proceeded to tell me
the lamest joke I'd ever heard in my life. He laughed hysterically about
swallowing his pipe. Then he drank the rest of my coffee and bid me good
day, disappearing into the crowds and noise.
I watched the two Gods bowling for a while. One moment they were ever so
polite and cool and the next they were on the verge of ripping each others
clothes off. Then I caught sight of the performer in the lounge. He had a
beat up guitar and was signing old Elvis[3] tunes I could just barely catch
over the noise of the bowling. I approached the lounge and the closer I
got to the performer the more I felt I knew the figure. His side burns
screamed out to me but I couldn't place him exactly. His name was on the
tip of my tongue.
As I entered the lounge I saw he had his guitar case open before him. He
was begging for money. People had been throwing their spent glasses and
false teeth into the case instead of money. Hastily scrawled on a piece of
cardboard attached to the case were the words, "Help Fight the
AntiChrist".
I walked up to the man. He was singing "Love Me Tender". I looked into his
eyes. He looked into mine and suddenly I was aboard a submarine somewhere
in the Bermuda Triangle. Sirens were sounding as we crashed dived. We'd
just fired off a torpedo at an enemy vessel. The skipper with his hat
turned backwards hung from the periscope housing in exhaustion. He had
side burns and a beat up guitar was across his back.
I looked into his eyes. He looked into mine and I was back at the lounge
in the bowling alley. Some rednecks threw beers bottles at him and he left
closing up his guitar case full of spend glasses and false teeth and
slinging his guitar over his shoulder. I followed him out of the bar into
the bowling alley proper. Then across the to the doors which opened. He
turned to glance at me, a tear in his eye, before disappearing into to the
thick yellow light beyond.
The wax faced man with the locomotive pipe and a camera in one eye walked
up to me, a smile across his frozen face. "Good work. That was very
dramatic," he said shaking me hand. Then he laughed hysterically as the
joy buzzer in his palm shocked me. It made me very angry and I ran over to
where the boy with the wagon was still playing video games. I pulled a
shot gun out of his wagon. "Put that back bozo!" the boy yelled turning
from his video game.
I looked at the gun in my hand and slowly put it back. There was something
menacing about him. He glared at me and turned back to his game an
continued to play. I looked around for some other weapons when I saw a boy
with a green face smoking a cigar. He was dressed in very loud clothes.
Words were printed on his stripped stove pipe hat.[4] I read them. They said
"Wake Up" and I did.
----Mal 9/24/90
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Notes by Pope Geophee 1
[1] The elevator Doc rides to his secret layer is an "Otis". His chief
assistant also wears a red fez similar to Pope Jephee's. Is this, then, an
OTIS figure? Is then the consort Arani? Or Eris, who we suspect OTIS "dated"
in "high school", although (s)he adamantly denies it (then again, (s)he said
the same thing about Don Knots). Or are these simply allegorical
representations of the mail and female aspects of the god/dess? We do have
evidence, from Ancient Sumerian balag lamentations (see Rhienhart) that OTIS
was a FANTASTIC bowler.
[2] Obviously, this is "B-b", but notice the super eight camera. "Eight" is a
sacred number of OTIS.
[3] Elvis, as proved in a recent OTISian Directory, is a early incarnation of
OTIS him/herself.
[4] We all know who THIS is, right?
PJ.
________________________________________________________________
THE PURPLE THUNDERBOLT OF SPODE ISSUE #2
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Neither censored nor edited. Deal.
