From achu1@swarthmore.edu Mon May 31 18:34:40 2004 Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2003 01:41:55 -0400 From: Arthur Chu To: jwaldma1@swarthmore.edu, nward1@swarthmore.edu Subject: [draft] MONSTER RECRUITING! {warning: purple prose ahead} [Class: here's the Blackboard reading I assigned. Most of it is interesting but not that useful; feel free to skip to the end to see what you need to know. Be prepared for discussion afterwards. Thanks.] So readeth the Saga of SWIL, Book IV, chapter ii: The Dark Wizards of the Hunt eye the poor, downtrodden peasants of the Kingdom of Swarthmore. Their desperation grows as they toil under the yoke of the cruel faculty, and violent revolution seems nigh. Their thirst for blood must be somehow slaked, lest the peace of the land be disturbed. The Wizards have convened, and agreed. The Day of the Hunt dawns once more--the Council of Wizards shall again lead the Swarthmoreans to face their ancient foe, and restore honor and glory to our quiet green fields. The Wizards invoke the ancient Covenant 'twixt Human and Pterodactyl, and the ancient beasts swoop forth as in days of old, to claim their prey. The shouts of battle shall ring over the Ancient Forest of Crum! The Killing Fields of Sharples shall feel the tramp of soldiers' boots and dactyls' claw. On the third day of October, the great rift between worlds shall open. The sky shall turn red as blood, and the howls of a thousand inhuman tongues shall roar across the land, and all strong enough to wield a blade shall storm forth in the name of Swarthmore, King Alfred the Bloom, and Tasty Mother Pizza. Soft now, and watch. The garnet-robed ranks swell daily in preparation for the coming battle. The Knights of the Flaccid Worm sharpen their deadly throwing discs in anticipation (unsuspecting that they shall be confiscated by the stern Wizards as a dishonorable weapon). The Dark Order of the Sign of the Delta Upsilon ready eldritch brews to grant themselves unnatural speed, strength, courage and prodigious range of vomit in the coming battle. Wandering Amazon maidens call forth magicks to conjure noble, sword-blow-absorbing, great-heavy- load-bearing steeds out of their lowly male consorts, in defiance of the ancient Law of the Hunt that prohibits the use of cavalry. And the ruthless Baron von Goldstein, unsatisfied with his previous victory born of shifting alliance and treachery, again marshals his troops for an all-out assault on the late Cretaceous foe. Bred on the strongest meads and liquors, these brutish hulks fear not sword nor axe nor squirting venom, nay, not even probation for uprooting yon expensive tiles in communal tavern, nor even the chill breath of winter nor the icy touch of death. Indeed, in times of need they battle true berserker-fashion as the Vikings of old, their gleaming unclad bodies striking fear and horror into all who behold. Truly the forces of the Hunters grow strong, and the foundations of the fortresses of the children of Cain tremble at the very sight. The Council of the Istari, whose sworn duty it is to maintain the ancient balance 'tween Seth and Cain, 'tween mankind and monsterkind, 'tween white sacks and black sacks--sorely pressed are they. The Breeding Pits at Mary-Lyon lie fallow; the great hosts of Orcs and Hobgoblins they once held at their beck and call lie hewed and trampled in the dirt at the hands of the noble hunters. We must recruit! We, the Wizards Council, Composed of the Lord Nicolas, Master of Time; The Great Lady Jillian, Mistress of the Many Devices of Control of the Stations of Play, Lightweight Conduction of Fluid, and Air-Puffed Creamy Garnish; and Sir Arthur the Short-- [Yeah, this is the part you should skip to. The rest is just cultural context. Thanks. Be prepared to answer questions in class about the cultural status of the Pterodactyl Hunt in early Swarthmorean culture and such.] We call upon the mighty ORCs, large and lumbering, Wielders of longswords large, long, lustrously limber, With massive manly chests presented for the easy piercing, Who bear the mark of Sauron the All-Seeing and Saruman the Wise, Singers of the songs of Sullivan and Gilbert as sailors shall in Such spirit, showtunes of such supreme sublimity, Your KING OR QUEEN AS THE CASE MAY BE (all hail the King or Queen as the case may be) Leads ye with monstrous Freudian flamberge! Come, take up your ancient hatreds, teem in unseemly swarms as you tumble from your slimy seedpod shells, to slay, to slay! Come forth, you little-minded HOBGOBLINs, sexy and sleek, With supple small statures slipping past the skillful sword, Your cunning cutlasses cut carefully though they lack length, Proving that size matters less than skill and passion indeed. Mount your goblin gliders and soar to the field of battle, Cackling like Willem Dafoe, for indeed you strike fear In the hearts of angsty arachnid antagonists when you do so. Truly the massive bulk of your battle-battered CHIEFTAIN, Marked with tattoo of red and black and spinning supple Sith-like staff Shall give you guidance under the Golden Fist. Ah, neglected GRUNTs, today we have need of you, in truth. For the days when greenskinned goblinoid could carry the day fade, And weak of weapon and effeminate of chest as you may be, We nonetheless have need of your numerous numbers to finish the foe. Come, weary soldiers who toil under Swarthmore's coil. Come, puny powerless humans, sell yourselves to the service of the Scaly one, and by rank and right you shall be rewarded, as the Most disposable of decoys, as the most careless, fearless of Cannon fodder shall we forget you and fail to include you in our Bardic tales. We summon forth the powers of the JABBERWOCK, for though Polish Thou mayst be, thy jaws that bite, thy claws that catch, shall By tooth and talon hold the ground for Pterodactyl's victory! The heavily-headed HYDRA heaves forth from stinking swamp To hamper and hinder the hunter with horrible hairy hairlike Hairy head-things, while a couple of central cerebra Carefully control the multifarious madness as King Alfred Doth wrangle his very Board of Directors. Truly two heads are better than one. Ominously the ORACLE intones from her abode Answers for those foolish enough to inflict flesh wounds Upon the urban credibility of the invincible BLACK KNIGHT, Her guardian, consort and comedic foil in many a romantic comedy. Beware for her mind though all-knowing is addled, weighted By the weird and wondrous knowledge of the darkest secret of Creation: the means by which the Swillie did come to be. Sly and smart, the SPHINX doth riddle and twiddle with the best, It may rhyme from time to time, but only in frolic and jest. If thy mind doth run in circles cheesy and fun, A precious thing thou mightst soon be using, Else if thou art stumped, then when thou art done, A life, some gold and a whole hecka lot of self-respect thou might be losing. The Sphinx's riddles reflect the past, when Trolls did walk the landscape, The Sphinx soon came to ignore their flames, and now rules the land in their place. Do not worry if their rhymes don't always scan; They may not be great poets, but they do their best. Heroic in a shell halved, fearsome four (tho' th'fates of battle lately Make it two) from stinking sewer they proceed, armed with the stench And glowing ooze that doth proceed from the very mouth of Willets, Invulnerable to the bold backstab of the honorless hunter, They most righteously and non-heinously dispatch of their bogus foes. Cowabunga for the cause, brave TURTLES... Like a woodnymph clothed in the multifarious array Of the springtime butterflies of Velcro, the CAT Slinketh through the brush, feral and clawed, Becostumed in the manner of those who cavort in the manner of musicals of early rock, Mewling with delight as she capriciously layeth waste to the enemy In many a daring deed to be recorded in future LiveJournals. MONGER of FISH, come, Snare the former bearers of Rings of Power with thy glittering prizes, As thy delicate omega-3 fatty acids build up clusters of high-density lipoproteins Reducing the risk of heart disease, We pray thee to abjure the contamination of the quicksilver That doth create our most unusual brain defects and hormonal abnormalities, And may thy catch of the day always be served on the day of thy catch. Whispered rumors fly bringing tale and tiding of The Lord of the Sky, the Risen and Renewed, radiant resplendent PHOENIX, dominance unchallenged by Gazetteers and Agorans, Flaming funeral feast of propagandistic puffery, Grace us with thy auspicious presence, pacifistic photographer, And smile on this our day of foamy honor, That when mouldering in our graves we lie, File archives of full-color photo spreads, verily with captions, shall sing us softly to our rest. Armed to the teeth and dressed to the nines, Of men and arms they sing, on men and arms they dine. With sword and shield and venom in their veins, The PTERODACTYL GUARD's evil eyes glitter from undead sockets, Thirsting to claim revenge for the human friends and family they forfeited In exchange for pizza and fresh water in bottles As well as the chance to vote on movies of Monday nights and win loot in the lottery. The PTERODACTYLS two, ancient enemies of man, From plastic model to guy in cardboard wings, the evolution has been swift. The pizza they guard, the scales they shed, the gold they give-- This 'tis the gift and the curse of the Kingdom of Swarthmore. Truly only the bravest souls shall be incarnated in their unearthly flesh. Monsters we need, and monsters we shall have. Though we comb the depths of the ancient Castle SWIL, we shall have them. Though we entreaty to regiments and kingdoms of Swarthmore, of flying disc and rugby short and ball through basket flying, Though we wander the terror-filled Void in the Great Outside, seeking the shriveled shades of those brave souls lost from our fair Kingdom these many years, Still we shall find them. An army shall we raise, yea, and sword and shield shall we forge by dint of great effort from finest Styrofoam and firmest cardboard; silver, shining and stable shall the wings be, and reliably shall they stay on the Pterodactyl's back; warm shall the pizza be, and voluptuous; many a SWILlie and unSWILlish Swattie alike shall remember this day, and on this day shall feast his fellows, and say Pterodactyl Hunt day is coming, and all those who hold their GPAs dear and their pizzas cheap shall turn their faces away with regret, and wish with all their hearts they had been with us that day... For the Hunt approaches!