================================================================ THE PURPLE THUNDERBOLT OF SPODE VOL 1, 11 ================================================================ "Kenyon's Very Own Non Alien Run REPLIES TO: STEVENSJ Electronic Magazine" INTERNET: "Stevensj@VAX001.Kenyon.edu" * PPPPPP U U RRRRRR PPPPPP SSSSSS *** P P U U R R P P S ***** P P U U R R P P S ******* PPPPPP U U RRRRRR PPPPPP SSSSS ********* P U U R R P S *********** P U U R RR P S ***** P UUUUU R R P SSSSSS ***** * * ***** ** ** ***** *** *** ***** **** **** * **** * ** ** *** *** *** ** ** **** * ***** ** ** ************************************ ** ** **************************************** ** ** ************************************ ** ** **** ***** ***** ** ** *** ***** *** ** ** * ***** * ** ** ***** ** ** ***** * * ***** ======== ***** |Golden| ***** |.11th.| *********** |issue.| ********* ======== ******* ***** *** * ________________________________________________________________ SOMETHING WHICH MIGHT, IN THE CORRECT FRAME OF MIND, LOOK SORT OF LIKE A TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: A Short History of the Thunderbolt of Spode! News: Should casual Drug Users be Shot? OTISian Rants: The Members React to Purps Other Rants: The Worst Country Song Titles EVER, a Word from Mike Dow (who, rumor has it, used to run this place), The Usenet Oracle Speaks!, The Illuminati! Members list: The new, updated FULLY REVISED members list ---------------------------------------------------------------- INTRODUCTION (11 issues of Success) Welcome to the pardon-us-as-we-sit-on-our-own-horn golden 11th issue of the Purple Thunderbolt of Spode, still Kenyon College's ONLY non-alien run magazine. As you are probably well aware it is a long standing tradition of periodicals that, upon reaching some landmark issue, like the 50th or the 11th, to dedicate an unusually long editorial to the kind of shameless self-back patting one usually expects from senators and sports figures. Well, we here at the Purple Thunderbolt would hate to break a long standing tradition but we are a little short on space, seeing as how we have lots of stuff this week which is far more interesting than hearing me talk. So let me give a very BRIEF history of the magazine, welcome our new members (of which there are several), and we'll get on with it. As you all know, Purps was not always the great and glorious enterprise you see before you today. Started in a shoe box in a back alley in the roughest section of DesMonies, Iowa almost 11 issues ago, by a rough an tumble bunch of neo-Jesuit Apocalyptic nuns led by the now legendary Sister Mary Truman. The early issues of Purps were marked by a long string of territorial knife fights (where the good sister held her own), the infamous yak tossing scandal, and Sister Mary's disappointing defeat in the bid for the presidency (in 1989). We pulled through, however, despite the lawsuits lobbed against us by animal rights groups (including the infamous International Yak Liberation Front, now safely in the custody of the Tibetan authorities) by, in retrospect, something just a little bit short of a divine miracle struggling all the way until we finally achieved fame when we became a fortune five hundred company after a very very very small, tiny really, government financed bailout in late 1990. Today, of course, Purps remains the most well known of all the popular taxidermy magazines in America with a virtual corner on the huge "dentist office reading" market, and the favorite electronic journal of several very well known dead people. We here at Purps are proud to have, just this week, made it to the top of the FBI's most wanted list, proud to have been able, just a few short issues ago to, with the help of you, our beloved readers, have been able to make a small (and entirely tax free) contribution to the Bay Area Doctor's brave Campaign for the Prevention of Inherited Flatulence, proud of all of the achievements of our staff of thousands (give or take) and proud, very proud, to have been able to have faithfully served you, our beloved readers, for almost 11 issues. Thank you, and OTIS bless you. (Excuse us while we wipe our tears off the terminal). Alright. We have new members. For them, welcome! We have also updated our distribution list; it will be appended at the end of this article. Memorize it to avoid the embarrassing necessity of name tags when we're finally rounded up by the FBI and stuck in a cell together. Please remember the Pope's b-day party, here, at Kenyon College, possibly in Ernst center, possibly in Scott Simpson's half of his room in the New Apartments. We expect almost 40 people (almost being a highly relative term, could be 80, could be four) and a wild time. It's on the 9th, in the evening. ALL are invited. If you can get here somehow and want to come, e-mail to the address above for directions. "Pope" Jeffe I of the IGHF Purps: fully compatible with the Eunuchs operating system (TM) _______ News ------- PURPS.STUFF-- Lots more files in the ol' Purps archives, 10,000 VAXen blocks all told. Check 'em out local) or write for a list (internet). They're nifty. ================================================================= OTISIAN NEWS ================================================================= _L.A. Police Chief Urges Shooting Casual Users_ Washington - Casual drug users "ought to be taken out and shot," the Los Angeles police chief, Daryl F. Gates, has told a Senate hearing on the first anniversary of the Bush administration's war on drugs. Mr. Gates, discussing his comment to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, said his harsh assessment was aimed at those "who blast some pot on a casual basis" despite the illegality of the act, as opposed to hard-core addicts who are driven by their physical need for illicit drugs. Mr. Gates said in an interview outside the hearing that he was not being facetious. "We're in a war," he said, and even casual drug use "is treason." ================================================================= An Important Investment Tip Lai See - South China Morning Post - 12 November 1990 Lawyer David Gunson has discovered that investors should go short on insurers between 1992 and 1994. This is when the planets in the solar system will line up in order from the sun. It will be the first time in 25,000 years. "It may well be accompanied by gravitational stress on our jolly little planet's tectonic plates," he said. ******************************************************** OTHER NEWS ******************************************************** Some excerpts from Fortean Times #55 (Autumn 1990): On 10 February 1989 the inhabitants of the tiny town of Fyffe in Alabama witnessed the return to earth of the late glittering pianist Liberace (double-size, 12 foot tall), who descended from a golden banana-shaped spacecraft via a moving stairway* and treated the lucky witnesses to a medley of Hollywood show-stoppers, with glowing fingers on a floating piano. Talk of the apparition brought chaos to the town with 4,000 cars jamming the main street on 6 March 1989. An "American UFO expert" said: "Too many people have seen strange things for it to be a hoax." (Portsmouth) News, D. Star 7 Mar 1989. [Actually an OTIS escalator, eds] *************************************************************************** An estimated 41,000 Parisians got a nasty shock through the post last year--a letter accusing the recipient of murder, extortion and organizing prostitution in the French capital. Embarrassed Justice Ministry officials explained that a computer had mixed up a list of suspects who had jumped bail with one containing the names of people guilty of minor parking violations. The good news for citizens who unexpectedly found themselves on a police "Most Wanted" list was a paragraph in each letter informing them of the penalty for their capital crime: a small fine equivalent to that imposed on those issued with parking tickets. MIS Week (US) 11 Sept 1989. *************************************************************************** Troy Brewer, a Pizza delivery man, was robbed of $50 on 5 June 1990 by two men armed with a snapping turtle in Balch Springs, Texas. He was in a phone booth when the men came up to him, put the turtle to his face and said: "Don't move or you're gonna get bit." South Wales Echo 8 June 19, 1990 *************************************************************************** _Lai See_ - South China Morning Post - 3 October 1990 _Dead Reckoning_ An excerpt from a research paper done on geriatric patients in Hong Kong: "After one year, among the 141 patients studied in the first phase, 37 were dead. The dead and the survived were compared in terms of various aspects of functioning. It was found that, in all five dimensions of functioning, the dead were generally weaker. "The dead had poorer self-perceived economic conditions. More of them thought that their economic resources were not adequate for them to make ends meet ..." "The dead also demonstrated a higher level of anxiety than the survived as they found life dull and had more worries ... " "By and large, fewer dead patients had been able to perform activities to maintain an independent household, e.g. moving around, preparing meal, doing household work and washing light clothing. "Finally, the dead patients had fewer social contacts and more of them were living alone than the survived." --------------------------------------------------------------- OTISIAN RANTS --------------------------------------------------------------- (in which everything worth knowing about absolutely everything will be revealed!) [My contract states that I only have to work 24 days a year, so every now and then I like to turn this portion of the magazine over to you, our most beloved faithful followers. Seldom, if ever, do you lazy snails rise to the challenge, but after repeated pleas for interesting messages for this issue... the Golden 11th. I got a few responses. Anyway, I thought that at this point it would be nice to hear what you all thought about Purps. Drew, at least, had this to say... PJ] From: VAX001::DAILINGE "IGNATZ PIGFATZ" 13-DEC-1990 01:47:41.06 To: VAX001::STEVENSJ Subj: RE: dis this purps for me, will ya? many thanks, oh great and all-powerful mind-screwer/computer-file-extortionist master from outer east hell. tis much appreciated, and shan't be soon forgotten love drew -------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Dan's mind, on the other hand was, well, elsewhere.] From: VAX001::CHADWICK "Alfred Überhacker Makertail ('Squirrel')" CC: CHADWICK From: VAX001::CHADWICK "Alfred Überhacker Makertail ('Squirrel')" 12-NOV-1990 18:49:32.41 To: VAX001::MERRIMAN CC: CHADWICK Subj: OK, here's one for thought... I wonder when/if they'll invent hallucinogenetics? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Here's an unsolicited endorsement.] From: VAX001::WINS%"an347@cleveland.Freenet.Edu" 14-DEC-1990 15:27:04 Subj: Purps Fantastic, I love it! -- |"Pope" Jeofe I of the Intergalactic House of Fruitcakes \ |pob 235 |Williamstown, MA 01267-0235 USA | | "Everything forbidden is optional." HAIL OTIS!!!! / -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: VAX001::KURELLJJ "I AM FOR AN ART THAT RAPES THE SENSES" 30-DEC-1990 14:21:09.61 To: FISH, TOPHER, GNOME, PUCK, DIRECTAR, FLEA, DREW, LIZARD, HANA, YARA, BOING, JEZEBEL, BRENTZEL Subj: welcome home my wonderous conglomerate! From: VAX001::KURELLJJ "I AM THE ANTITHISIS OF EVERYTHING I AM" From: VAX001::GILGORE 12-NOV-1990 From: VAX001::KURELLJJ "TO GET TO MAIL FROM WP, HIT SHELL, NUMBER 2, AND TYPE MAIL, CAUSE CORN IS THE MOST EXCITING THING IN MY LIFE" Whatz up, my little thingy of hydrogenous delight? I'm just a passing the time, till the meeting... going? or staying. or are you praying, Slaying? sleighing? Fraying, maybe pipe-laying? sky-scraping? touche' ing? conglomerating? masturbating belaying? congregating? flagellating? Debating filleting debasing? singing? bringing? ding-a-linging? exiting? carousing? grazing? delaying? augmenting? Reading? Incubating? Dancing? prancing? shmoozing? boozing? Toot-tooting? rotor-rooting? cloth fraying? clothing making? igniting? flaming? snake-charming? roller-skating? head shaking at this completely senseless pile of compu-junk? Hope you all had sufficiently decent breaks, hope that santa didn't bring coal, and that all is generally safe in the quiet lives of the people that are watching you day in, day out. Enjoy!! -Jed ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: VAX001::SCHROEDER "Screaming Prophet of OTIS Triumphant" To: JAMES SCOTT REID CHRIS JEFFE Subj: This is your brain on philosophy Always thought that a child's mental processes must be a bit simple, yes, perhaps that nothing too complicated could be going on in an unformed mind? Well, check this out: "The child is viewed as using his primary linguistic data either to decide among the candidate grammars that an innately represented 'General Linguistic Theory' enumerates or to 'calibrate' endogenous rule schemas by fixing parameter values that the innate endowment leaves unspecified. This sort of story makes perfectly good sense so long as what is innate is viewed as having propositional content: as expressing linguistic universals, or rule schemas, or whatever. But it makes no sense at all on the opposite assumption." That's from _The_Modularity_of_Mind_ by Jerry Fodor, one of the books I'm likely to be doing my comps on. Whee. -Rob S. =============================================================== OTHER RANTS =============================================================== (in which absolutely nothing will be revealed at all) THIS WEEK: The absolute worst of the 1990 Country Songs, Mike Dow (who ran the original Purps, comments on this incarnation., gets shotgun, The Oracle Speaks! and the Illuminatti Sing!, Will Shatner gets the Last Word, MORE! Return-Path: <@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU:LBSPODIC@USTHK.BITNET> YEAR'S WORST COUNTRY SONG TITLES - PART II By Mike Harden, Scripps Howard News Service * If You Don't Believe I Love You Just Ask My Wife * Timber, I'm Falling in Love * You're the First Time I Thought About Leaving * Love Will Beat Your Brains Out * You Can Tell the Man Who Boozes (By the Company He Chooses) * I Think I'll Drink Myself Into the Past * Play Me or Trade Me * She Can't Get My Love off the Bed * I Got Tears in My Eyes From Lying on My Back Crying on My Pillow Over You * Sleeping Single in a Double Bed * The Pint of No Return * Your Negligee Has Turned to Flannel Nightgowns * Guess My Eyes Were Bigger Than My Heart * The Wife of the Party * It Ain't Love but It Ain't Bad * Would Jesus Wear A Rolex on His Television Show * Thank God and Greyhound She's Gone * Don't Let That Doorknob Hit You (on the Way Out) * You're Out Doing What I'm Here Doing Without * This Time I'm Gonna Beat You to the Truck * You Blacked My Blue Eyes Once Too Often * Walk Out Backwards Slowly So I'll Think You're Walking In * How Long Does It Take a Memory To Drown * I Forgot How Bad My Good Woman Could Be * Now I lay Me Down To Cheat * You Done Stomped on My Heart (and Smashed That Sucker Flat) * Let Me Love the Leavin' from Your Mind * Somebody Shoot Out the Jukebox * My Legs Won't Walk Away From You * You'd Make an Angel Want to Cheat * Take Me to Heaven (Before You Take Me Home) * What's a Fool Like Me Doing In a Love Like This * I've Been Roped and Throwed by Jesus in the Holy Ghost Corral * Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed * Jesus Is a Good Ole Boy * If You Can Live With It (I Can Live Without It) * She Got the Gold Mine (I Got the Shaft) * Somebody Must Have Loved You Right Last Night * Hell Stays Open All Night * She Gave Her Heart to Jethro and Her Body to the Whole Danged World * I'd Be Better Off in a Pine Box * I've Got You on My Conscience But At Least You're Off My Back * You Won't Be Back But George and Jack Will Help Me Make It Through the Night * Bridge Washed Out, I Can't Swim and My Baby's on the Other Side * The Worst You Ever Gave Me Was the Best I Ever Had * If the Phone Doesn't Ring It's Me * I've Got a Funny Feeling (I Won't Be Feeling Funny Very Long) * Does My Ring Hurt Your Finger (When You Go Out at Night) * Lay Back Down and Love Me and Leave the Leavin' for Later On * How Can a Whiskey Six Years Old Whip a Man That's 32? * I Knew I'd Lean (But I Never Thought I'd Fall) * She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye * We Used to Just Kiss on the Lips But Now It's All Over * You're the Reason Our Kids Are So Ugly * If You Keep Checking Up on Me (I'm Checking Out on You) * Don't Come Home a-Drinkin' With Lovin' On Your Mind * It Don't Hurt Half as Bad as Holding You Feels Good * I Don't Know Whether to Kill Myself or Go Bowling * Get Your Tongue Out of My Mouth (Because I'm Kissing You Goodbye) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: VAX001::WINS%"M.S.Dow@exeter.ac.uk" 18-JAN-1991 08:42:44.40 To: STEVENSJ Subj: RE: Happy Wednesday. After sleeping on the matter(after finally giving up on hearing some solid answers as to whether Tel Aviv has been nerve-gassed) I have decided that I really like the changes you have made. They seem to be much more in tune with the new computing situation at Kenyon, the tastes of the people at Kenyon, and in general promises to keep things from getting stale. You just surprised me, is all. Hail OTIS!!! Oh, btw, there's a large Otis symbol in one of the men's stalls in Queens. I wrote Hail Otis next to it, to sort of claim it before some other religion got to it. mike -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was: > How can i learn to play the fluet? And in response, thus spake the Oracle: } The fluet is an instrument with a great tradition; it was played by } the anceint Egyptains, The Romasn and the Greeks. In its most primitve } form, it consists of a simlpe tbue of wood with several hoels cut } along its lenght. By blwoing in the topmots hoel, you can produce a } most Sepulchrla Toen, one which so characterizes teh wonderful fluet. } Finally, it is by rapid figner motiosn across the otehr hoels that you } are able to produec a Wied Vareity of Toens, each Supulchrla in nature } but which as a whoel also form a great Harmoyn. It is for thsi Harmoyn } that you strive. } } Godo lukc ot yuo. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 20 Dec 90 09:43:00 EST From: Bill Marrs Subject: a song To: subgenius@mc.lcs.mit.edu >From the Illuminati BBS Liebrary ILLUMINATI (To the tune of Eleanor Rigby) Steve Jackson, Joe Vail, Creede Lambard used without permission Illuminati... They put a thing made of tinfoil on top of my door... What is it for? Illuminati Shooting a ray at my cornflakes to make them turn green... What does it mean? The Illuminati... They're watching me, I know The Illuminati... They're everywhere I go Illuminati... Doing unspeakable things in the night to a cow... Where are they now? Illuminati... Send an impostor in place of the Popsickle man... What is their plan? The Illuminati... They're watching me, I know The Illuminati... They're everywhere I go Illuminati... They canceled Star Trek, The Fonz, and My Mother, the Car... Are they bizarre? You can't escape them: Even if you take a plane to Nepal or Peru They'll be there, too... The Illuminati... They're watching me, I know The Illuminati... They're everywhere I go I know that they know all about me... They know that I know all about them... Illuminati... Hide their assassins' instructions in newspaper text... Who will be next? They're all around us... Underline every third word in the Times and you'll see How can it be? They're in the attic and the cellar... Bigger than Hunt and Rockefeller... Illuminati... Go through my garbage and count all the pop bottles there... Why do they care? They're out to get me They're fluoridating my water from their UFO... What do they know? The Illuminati... They're everywhere, I see The Illuminati... And no one knows but me ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To prove to you that Purps isn't at all opposed to a public service message or two... From: MTG@csi.compuserve.com Subject: Watch those fingers! I just got my latest issue of the American Family Association Journal, and noticed a couple of toll-free numbers listed for: Philip Morris, International... 1-800-421-1003... who supports Senator Jesse Helms quite amply, and... Procter & Gamble... 1-800-543-7276... who give thousands of pets new, space-efficient homes, and give their lives new meaning and new value. I am sure that many of you dial 1-800 numbers regularly, and I just wanted to warn you of these two so when the opportunity arises, you can avoid their unnecessary expense of approximately $1 each time they answer your call. Dial safely! - Mark G. Rick Moen - via RBBS-NET node 8:914/201 INTERNET: moen@f207.n914.z8.RBBS-NET.ORG --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAST WORD! This Week, William Shattner From a San Jose Mercury News "Sunday magazine" interview with William Shatner: ...The real kick about directing science fiction is that you can start from a clean slate. You can invent things to your heart's content and you don't necessarily have to explain how it works. For example, in *Star Trek V* we shot a scene -- it doesn't appear in the finished film; I don't know exactly why we cut it -- where Kirk and Spock have to make a visit to the men's room. And the camera angle shows them from the waist up, a frontal view; they're just standing there, several feet apart. They don't fuss around with their zippers or anything. There are none of the sounds you associate with a trip to the men's room; just Kirk and Spock looking slightly bored. After a half-minute or so they just walk away -- they're finished. Well, how did they complete their mission? That's up to the audience to speculate on. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- AND FINALLY, AS PROMISED, THE COMPLETE MEMBERS LIST! -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Know who your friends are. WINS%"<@PSUVM.PSU.EDU:JJANZECZEK@SKIDMORE.BITNET>" WINS%"<@PSUVM.PSU.EDU:lbspodic@usthk.bitnet>" WINS%"" WINS%"FSWOF%ALASKA.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU" WINS%"R3JMT%AKRONVM@vm1.cc.UAKRON.edu" WINS%"U91_RBAIN@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU" WINS%"barker@acc.fau.edu" WINS%"bwdavies@rodan.acs.syr.edu" WINS%"el@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu" WINS%"lancer@wpi.wpi.edu" WINS%"liza@media-lab.media.mit.edu" asaro barth brentzel broadie carrott chadwick chamberb cunningh dailinge denhartog fitzgera gregory griffins hamrick hessoun hillv holdcraf hopkinsm keeling kinge kleinsr koehlers kurelljj lane margaret matusek matzke model murray myott neffa nowell pomper reehal schroeder shutt simpsons snyder stevensj tucker waddell zecchin -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The "Golden 11th" issue of The Purple Thunderbolt of Spode owes nearly all of its existence to Spode himself, the living ancient Celtic god of confusion. I thank him very much, and OTIS for the grace to put this thing out. There. I've said it. Take the gun away from my head. ________________________________________________________________ THE PURPLE THUNDERBOLT OF SPODE Golden 11th ---------------------------------------------------------------- Neither censored nor edited. Deal.