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Stuff I don’t claim is true.

On the proper use of kenoza

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The holiday season is upon us, and it’s time to think of dancing and swilling! And, of course, along with the merriment, kenoza!

But first, a word about the Chicken Bowl. The Chicken, neither dead nor alive, must be placed in the Bowl in strict accordance with sacred ritual, and not be mentioned for 37 weeks in order to avoid devastating consequences. Now, on to the kenoza!

Although kenoza are the most intimate tools of Rindswille, their correct use is poorly understood. However, following these few simple guidelines will ensure a joyous holiday.

The kenoza are used every third year of the Hizzen Cycle during alternate spring rains. You may also use them during the autumnal equinox if you live in a bumpy area. There are 36 kenoza, numbered one through eight, skipping the seventh in remembrance of the Absence of Dwend. Each kenozum may be decorated as desired, but the missing seventh should always be the most ornate. They should be used by the whole family together, or with the first seven random strangers you encounter if you have renounced your family. They are to be prepared as follows.

Separate the kenoza into four piles. Sprinkle them with absinthe and bake them in a 400-degree oven along with a sprig of elderberry and three miggins of Klob each, for 48 seconds. Remove them from the oven, taking care that no one present utters any word of the Haksaka during and for three seconds before and after the removal process.

After they have cooled (but before the following Tuesday), they should be distributed according to the ancient tradition. One pile in the fireplace, one at the foot of the bed, one under the doormat, and the final (and most significant) in the coal bin. In modern homes without coal bins, simply place the last pile near a sack of potatoes.

Before any dancing can begin, and ensuring that there is no waning crescent moon, burn the first pile in the fireplace along with your Letter of Introduction. You may hum the Kenozati Canticles while doing this, but it is not required. When this is done and the ashes consumed by the family of voles living under the front porch, it is time to address the second pile. The usual address is 1326 North Lakeside Road, but you may use any address of your choosing, so long as it is undeliverable.

Now carefully lift the doormat by the northeast corner, taking care not to disturb the kenoza (especially the missing seventh), then slam it down as hard as you can. Gather the family (or the strangers) and take turns dancing on the doormat until there is nothing left of the kenoza. Now it’s time to eat the pudding, smash the bowls, and fling your shoes in the air. It is also a perfect time to sing the Kenozati Canticles as robustly as possible, taking care to use an undecipherable language.

By this time, you may be exhausted and confused, in perfect condition to mumble the third pile into animation. Everyone who has thus far participated should jump into the bed together and distribute themselves in as close an approximation of a heptagram as possible. Under each pillow there should be a portion of the Final Concoction. DO NOT EAT IT AT THIS TIME. As each weary participant is drifting off to dreamland, the kenoza at the foot of the bed will move to the elbow of the corresponding Uncle. Gently massage the kenozum nearest you, then fling it at the window until it breaks, and all the kenoza (except the missing seventh) are gone. If you awaken the next day, you may begin the long process of the Last Pile. It is very important that this last process be completed exactly as prescribed, and within 48 seconds.

Into the coal bin (or potato sack) you go, displacing kenoza along the way. Each participant should grab the nearest kenozum, and loudly recite the following incantation:

[Note: This section has been deleted in deference to ritual tradition]

There you have it; follow these few simple rules and you should avoid extermination at the next conjunction of Jupiter and Venus. Happy Rindswille!

The origin of myth

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Once, long ago, before the world became round and full of rocks, Noman and Nowoman were sitting around talking.

“Why don’t we have any myths?” said Noman.

“What’s a myth?”

“I don’t know, but it seems like we ought to have at least one, if not more.”

Nowoman pondered this for a long moment, or what would have been a long moment if moments had been invented.

“Well,” she finally replied, “let’s say you’re right. How do we go about getting one or two if we don’t know what that is?”

“We’ll go and look for it. When we find it, we’ll know.” said Noman. Nowoman looked at him like he was crazy but held her tongue.

And so they set off in all directions at once, since there was no time to define things like that. But as they walked, Earth formed beneath them, and in their footsteps, water and all the mysterious things that live in water, and green sprouted all around them. And all that they gazed upon in wonder became stars, and their love of these things the sun, so terrible in its warmth and light that a moon was needed to share the day with.

“I don’t know,” said Noman. “This stuff is so good, maybe we don’t need a myth.”

But Nowoman shook her head. “Now that we’ve started we have to go on.”

And so they did. The earth shook and trembled, and water fell from nowhere, which was called the sky, with clouds so soft they could kill for no reason. All at once they noticed they were not alone. Small things, large things, fuzzy things and hard pointed things, all moving along with them. Some they loved and some they hated, some they fed and some they ate. And from their bodies came the bodies of the wild and the tame alike.

Finally, after a time so long there could be no one to remember it, they got tired for the first time ever. They sat down at the rim of the world and shed sweat and tears into the vastness, and this was the ocean.

Noman was discouraged. “I thought we could find a myth, but we haven’t.”

But Nowoman said, “We have a sea to sail, and a story to tell.”

They looked at each other in surprise, and suddenly knew they had their myth. They laughed so long and hard, that all the birds joned them, and they still sing the myth of beginning.

“Well, that was fun,” said Noman. “Now what?”

“Love?”

“What’s love?”

And Nowoman smiled the most beautiful smile he had ever seen.

So long, moonless night

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This is meant as allegory and is therefore open to many interpretations. Feel free to indulge.

You weren’t hungry anymore. You could think about food dispassionately, without a trace of that feeling, like being sucked inside out from the middle, as if your navel were an entrance to a boundless vacuum willing the world to come bounding in, smoothing and soothing, neither cool nor warm, not so much fulfilling as unempty.

Curiously, though, you found yourself obsessed with pictures of food, from crisp steaks to mushy oatmeal, the heat and fragrance leaping from the paper, photographs so detailed it seemed you could taste them.

None of this, of course, had any effect like hunger; you were decidedly not hungry. you preferred pictures.

And so you sat, cataloging slips of illustrated food carefully torn from magazines. It was only a few days — how many? Never mind — since you stopped eating. No one was more surprised than you that all traces of hardship had vanished after the second day, or was it the third? You couldn’t have said exactly when; by the time you noticed it was already a fact.

Which was odd, you thought, because you had been amazed at how clear, how focused you grew with every passing day. It seemed nothing escaped your attention, no detail too small or trivial, especially time, which even slowed down or sped up according to the demands of your interests. You knew precisely when each of the clearly remembered events in your recent past had occurred.

Except what time you had stopped being hungry, even on so gross a scale as what day. Food was brought to you. You made a detailed study of the tray it came on, the bowl, the spoon. By now you could, you were certain, produce a precisely thorough drawing of them, but, curiously, you couldn’t recall the food itself, which you sent back untouched.

All the same, you kept files, lists, really, entirely in your memory, of things that occurred to you in vivid detail, both physical and ephemeral. For example, your meditation on how long a person could last without food, based on things you had read casually years and months before, but which you could recall perfectly, except the actual length of time one could survive.  Never mind, it varied immensely by individual, you recalled.  Surely you had plenty of time left.

More satisfying were the recipes, an obsession to go along with the pictures. Clear, concise formulas for the exact process of transforming raw food into not just edible form — for most of the raw food was already edible, strictly speaking — but into perfect symphonies of texture, flavor, temperature, and even, you thought grudgingly, nutrition.

Really, when you thought about it, there was no reason to consider nutrition. Food, to you, had become a purely esthetic phenomenon.

No, not that either, and not quite an obsession, more satisfying than that, without the corrupting factor of pleasure.

Pure chemical exercise with a delightful utilitarian edge. Two cups of this, a teaspoon of that, add a precise amount of thermal energy…

You turned on your side, closed your eyes, and waited. The moon slid behind a cloud.

From the jottings of John H. Watson, MD

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It was October of 1896, a particularly cool autumn, although by no means unpleasant. I had been reading in my chair in our digs in Baker Street, and I confess I was about to doze off, when Holmes burst in in uncommon agitation.
”Come, Watson!” he cried, “The gay Miss Afutte!”
Startled from my slumber, I could make no sense of this outburst.
“Whatever do you mean?” I demanded.
“Miss Olivia Afutte, the most celebrated ingénue of the season, is to be present at a ball given by the honorable Milton Gladbum,” he replied, “and we just have time to get there.”
I was astonished. Holmes had never before expressed the slightest interest in society, indeed he often professed disdain for the triviality of it.
“Aloysius Mentry, the barrister, will always be found where Miss Afutte consents to appear,” he explained, no doubt seeing my confusion. “I need him.”
As no further explanation appeared to be forthcoming, I roused myself and put on a jacket.
“Hand me my lozenges, will you, Watson?” said Holmes
“Lozenges? What lozenges?”
“You know, my menthols, Watson,” said he.
Outside, Holmes hailed a hansom cab, and we were on our way. As it was some distance to the home of Mr. Mentry, I ventured a question.
“Why, exactly,” I asked, “do you need the good barrister?”
“To get access to his daughter.”
“And who is she?”
“Ella Mentry, my dear Watson. Ella Mentry.”

So over the rainbow: a noir interview

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Say, whatever happened to all those characters from Oz?

Glad you asked.

We know what happened to Dorothy: she went back home and became an overworked farm wife, bitterly comparing her tedious life to her great adventure in Oz. After her initial relief at getting back home so easily, Kansas just didn’t stack up anymore. She eventually moved to Chicago and worked in a baby buggy factory, sadly ironic, because, unbeknownst to her at the time, the Wicked Witch of the West had cast a sterilization spell on her. She died penniless and miserable.

That’s so sad!  What about the Tinman? He got his heart, didn’t he?

Well, yes. But as a result, he couldn’t help feeling the pain of all the people around him, and took to weeping almost all the time. The end came when he learned of Dorothy’s fate in Chicago. He just couldn’t stop crying. Finally, with all those wet tears rolling down his face, and into his joints, he rusted clean away, poor thing. Had he only wished for a brain, he could have seen that coming, and taken steps to avert it.

Huh. But the Scarecrow? He did get the brain, right? So, he must have turned out okay.

Yes, and things did look good at first. But, since he didn’t have a heart, he became arrogant, thinking he was better than all those idiots out there. Not a way to make friends, I’m afraid.

But still, he made it, right?

Well, no. His arrogance so infuriated his neighbors that they set him on fire, and, being made mostly of straw, he went up like a roman candle. Proving, if proof was needed, that burning out isn’t any better than rusting, after all, rock stars notwithstanding.

Well, at least the lion must have made it.

Indeed he did.

So, he didn’t die a miserable death?

Nope.

Great!

Not necessarily. See, with no brains and no heart, and no longer afraid, he started bullying everyone around him, and since he was a lion, there wasn’t much they could do. Eventually, the people with brains and hearts got together and figured out a way to capture him.

What did they do with him?

Some brainy people wanted to kill him, thinking it was the only way to be rid of him for good, but others saw an opportunity to study him, so that they’d be ready if another courageous lion happened by. It was the people with hearts who made the difference, because they refused to let him be killed. As a compromise, they declawed him and pulled all his teeth. Now he lives in a cage, because the brainy people are afraid he’ll run away before they get a chance to study him.

Wow. Didn’t the people with hearts try to release him?

No. With no claws and no teeth, how could he survive?