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That line from the father's song in Mary Poppins, where he's going on about how nothing can go wrong, in Britain in 1910.  That's about the point I realized the boy was gonna die in a trench.

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The Thread for Intermittens #3: Weirdness

Started by AFK, December 13, 2008, 02:23:12 PM

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Manta Obscura

Repost from my Whoroscope thread:


Discordian Whoroscope finished!

Note: I have made changes to this one. Last issue I made the Discordian Whoroscope pretty close to the Western one, and both just ended up being sort of silly. This time around, I tried making the Discordian one have more of a sincere message giving actual advice, but in a (hopefully) interesting way.

The descriptions of the Discordian signs are still silly. Thanks to vex for picking them out.



Discordian Whoroscope
by Manta Obscura


Yeti
January 1 – May 26


As we head into the new year, make note of the fact that the beginning of the Gregorian calendar year is an arbitrary designation and, as such, there is no reason to commit yourself to giving up booze/smoking/other wholesome vices for your resolution just yet. Wait until the Chinese New Year and live it up during the cold, hard January.

Tube Sock
May 27 – May 29


Correlation does not equal causation. The news poll on Channel 5 is lying to you.

Preacher
May 30 – August 16


Once, in a fit of mysticism-induced euphoria or something, I bought a copy of Lao Tse's "Tao Te Ching." Turning to a random page, I read the horribly translated phrase, "The Tao that can be taoed is not the true Tao."

The moral of the story: all the wisdom of the sages means nothing if it is not made relevant to your life or what you can understand.

Fairy
August 17 – December 23; December 26 – December 31


Once and forever upon a time, there was a man who was born, lived, died, and was then forgotten.

Don't let it be you.

Republican
December 24 – December 25


You won't find what you're looking for here. Put the paper down and go for a walk. Tap your toes to music. Smile at strangers. Learn to dance.









Yeti
Those born under the sign of the Yeti tend to be musically-inclined and lovers of art. Though sometimes brash and quick-tempered, their delicate analytical skills help to balance their passionate tendencies.

Tube Sock
Tube Socks are often what others would call "oddballs," both figuratively and literally. As such, they tend to behave in strange ways, and often have inferiority complexes relating to their genitalia.

Preacher
Preachers are generally quiet and introverted, preferring quiet, logical analysis to outspoken idealism. This can sometimes lead to conflicts with the more zealous Yetis.

Fairy
Fairies are mythological creatures who owe their loyalty to Maab, Titania and Auberon, among others. They love having stories written about them, and have a special fetish for Lewis Carroll and J.M. Barre.

Republican
By dint of their birthday, Republicans are all symbolically connected to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and are thus impervious to all forms of physical attack except martyrdom.
Everything I wish for myself, I wish for you also.

Manta Obscura

Final piece, I swear. It's still a bit rough, so I'll have to go back over it:

Lord of the Dance
by Manta Obscura


Two blocks from my home, at the corner of First and Main, lives the greatest artist in all the world. He lives in a cardboard hut set behind a crumbling stone pillar in a never-to-be-finished park project, his thin tenement decked with random marker scratches, holes, and a moth-eaten old bed sheet covering the portal.

Each day as I drive by in my metal coffin, I see him laying on his belly, staring out at traffic with a half-smirk, his lips moving almost imperceptively, as if he were counting the seconds until some nebulous appointment only he was aware of.

For a long time after arriving in the city, I felt bad for the man, wondering how hard it was to live outside, clad in the cold of night and the darkness of broken city lights. Daydream thoughts at how he had come to be there would flicker through my mind, saddening me.

On one occasion, filled with pity, I tried to help him, bringing him food to him in an old lunch sack at midday.

"Sir, here's some food for you, if you'd like it."

He looked up at me and shook his head, smiling. "No thank you. I have everything I need."

*   *   *

Three days later it was raining.

Driving to work through the heavy downpour, trying to avoid the choking traffic snarls in front of me and cursing my luck at falling behind a red light, I almost missed the sight out my driver's window:

The man had arisen, for the first time in all the days since I'd seen him. As the rain poured down about him, and the wind clawed at his heavy coat, he stood erect on the sidewalk, unperturbed and doing the unthinkable.

He danced.

Not clever or elegant dances, to be sure. His jigs were bastard semblances of long-forgotten grooves, part Robot, part jitterbug, part random heel shuffling to a tune that only he could hear. He threw his hands into the air, holding them aloft one moment and stiffening them to his side the next. The chaotic swinging of his torso, his hips, his neck, matched the visceral turns and twists of his ankles and wrists one moment, and in the next lost all sense of rhythm and order.

As the rain kept pouring down, he continued to dance, spinning one moment and sliding the next. The laughs and jeers of drivers stuck in front of and behind me were audible, condescending, yet still he danced. His chest could be seen heaving, lurching, drawing in lively breaths for his kinetic art.

The light turned green, and I was forced forward by the push and pull behind and before me. As I went, looking back through my rearview mirror, I saw one last image of him laughing, bursting forth with a mighty and merry chuckle as he spun and twirled in the rainy morning light.

*   *   *

Only on days with rain. He didn't dance on any other days, try as I may to catch him at it.

I do not know what he did for food – something, for he rejected my offers – and I do not know what he did for diversion with his long days, laying belly-down in the dust. I only know that every time it rains, there he is on the street corner, nimbly dancing around the insults of passing drivers and pedestrians, smiling and laughing to himself with a throaty guffaw that pierces through the clamor and the clang of rain.

When I see him, I wonder what his story is, what impels him to dance for strangers or for himself, to turn away food, to lay content on his belly in the dirt. I wonder whether his seeming madness is truly madness, or is induced by a decision hidden behind folds of memory and experience, a madness cloaked in a passion that we cannot see.

And why only in the rain?

On days when I see him dancing, I always make the time to take a short walk during my meager lunch break from my cubicle prison. I stroll the sidewalks, looking at passing cars and smeary storefront windowpanes as I walk the streets of the bustling city.

The one clue I've found to the man's madness is in these rainy walks. As the city bustles and turns, a giant hive of clattering engines and faceless drones in dim-lit shops, I notice that the rain and puddled pools coat the ground, the walls, the lampposts, the cars . . . everything. Soggy and wet, covered with a thin sheen of falling water, the tools of the hive – the cars, the buildings, the thousand umbrellas of be-suited executives racing to their hovels – seem to reflect the dim glow of light that issues from the encroaching clouds.

When I am walking just to walk, not focused on where I'm going but, instead, where I am, the whole of the wet-washed city seems to sparkle, just a little. The water catches the light and lets it go, like a small child with fireflies on a summer's eve.

And all the rat-race millions – stuck in their cars and huddled beneath their umbrellas, or walking head down toward looming buildings, or whispering savagely on handheld phones – they miss the tiny sparkles and the soft silver spears that breed on the metal of the urban land, drowned rats rushing to dreary nests in the dark.

It's enough to make you laugh, or maybe dance.
Everything I wish for myself, I wish for you also.

Rococo Modem Basilisk



I am not "full of hate" as if I were some passive container. I am a generator of hate, and my rage is a renewable resource, like sunshine.

the last yatto

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on December 18, 2008, 11:12:22 AM
I think you should do an advice column.

No really. 

my take on it would be to borrow someones "weird" advice (maybe look in the dear abbies)
and make side comments like Joel Robinson and crew or  maybe Adam Carolla like
Look, asshole:  Your 'incomprehensible' act, your word-salad, your pinealism...It BORES ME.  I've been incomprehensible for so long, I TEACH IT TO MBA CANDIDATES.  So if you simply MUST talk about your pineal gland or happy children dancing in the wildflowers, go talk to Roger, because he digs that kind of shit

Rococo Modem Basilisk

Maybe have 'normal' questions with seemingly batshit insane responses that in retrospect make sense?


I am not "full of hate" as if I were some passive container. I am a generator of hate, and my rage is a renewable resource, like sunshine.

Cramulus

If you want to get some actual questions,
and involve more Discordians in this thing,
I reccommend posting a blurb at 23ae.com and the popular Discordian LJ group

you'll get some letters

it might be L.oveshade, but it's a response

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


the last yatto

Look, asshole:  Your 'incomprehensible' act, your word-salad, your pinealism...It BORES ME.  I've been incomprehensible for so long, I TEACH IT TO MBA CANDIDATES.  So if you simply MUST talk about your pineal gland or happy children dancing in the wildflowers, go talk to Roger, because he digs that kind of shit

Cramulus

oh uhhh actually I can register you

PM me what username you want


the last yatto

Look, asshole:  Your 'incomprehensible' act, your word-salad, your pinealism...It BORES ME.  I've been incomprehensible for so long, I TEACH IT TO MBA CANDIDATES.  So if you simply MUST talk about your pineal gland or happy children dancing in the wildflowers, go talk to Roger, because he digs that kind of shit

the last yatto

did the same for the space monkey cabels
except each message was like a fortune cookie
Look, asshole:  Your 'incomprehensible' act, your word-salad, your pinealism...It BORES ME.  I've been incomprehensible for so long, I TEACH IT TO MBA CANDIDATES.  So if you simply MUST talk about your pineal gland or happy children dancing in the wildflowers, go talk to Roger, because he digs that kind of shit

Cramulus


AFK

Yes.  If you go to the 2nd or 3rd page you will see it is part of the scientific name for some critter.  And Frondicus Intermittens, or something like that. 
Cynicism is a blank check for failure.

Manta Obscura

Quote from: Nigel on December 21, 2008, 12:36:39 AM
That was utterly beautiful, Manta.

Thank you, Nigel.  :)

My apologies for not replying sooner; I was away all weekend, and today I feel like someone has shoved an immersion blender into my ear canal.
Everything I wish for myself, I wish for you also.