From chaos at cs.swarthmore.edu Sat Jul 17 20:04:51 1999 Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 00:55:21 -0400 (EDT) From: Chaos Golubitsky To: _swat.org.swil at cc Subject: The Revenge of the Cannibal Eggplant, or SWILNews #4 author's note: the history of any conflict is written by the victors. (and the gustavs --gustav) this includes tales of heroism and cowardice, sketchy definitions of right and wrong, maybe even the nutritional information on the sides of your cereal boxes. we won this conflict. so, keep in mind as you read our tale that we could easily be somewhat wrong or just plain lying, and that frank, earl, and daisy may not be the conniving weasels we have portrayed in these pages (in fact, we actually rather like them) (but isn't that _why_ we like them? -g). but that's enough advance warning - on to the sordid tale of destruction and construction and deconstructionism and the twisted cubic. when the story left off, the loyal and wonderful valkyrie copresidents had been ousted from their glorious position of power by an angry ex-pterodactyl and an upstart freshling, for the simple crime of providing transportation to ren faire for their loyal and devoted cadre of non-members and interested members. to make matters worse, the fates (in the form of goll's relatives and the heritage dance festival) conspired to make certain that, on the very next weekend, hlokk would be forced to stand alone against the new regime with the very long name with user-friendly in there somewhere that the authors can't remember offhand (tm). and, hlokk had misplaced her algebraic geometry textbook. things were looking bad for the valkyries, until they hit upon the brilliant solution of bribing the treasurer. this turned out not to be necessary, so we'd like the rest of the canneloni back. things continued in this way for most of a week, and the swilfolk were dejected. (well, some of the swilfolk rejoiced, but we're ignoring them.) then, swilmeeting happened. frank and daisy arrived, and took their wrongful places at the head of the table. they called the meeting to disorder, oblivious to the upcoming end of their short-lived reign of non-terror. then, at almost precisely 12:15, there was a noise at the door, and in walked hlokk, the cannibal eggplant avenger of swil, in full war eggplant garb (which is indistinguishable from ordinary eggplant garb, but never mind), with thok stick in hand. at this point, hlokk, the cannibal eggplant avenger of swil, suffered a mild attack of stage fright and completely forgot what she was going to say. never mind that too. she recovered, and turned her fury upon frank and daisy, throwing down her glove and challenging them to a battle for the rulership of swil. they agreed, and the two ministers of propaganda, amy the rational and jimmy the diminished (maybe you can guess which one was on whose side), were appointed to a contest, best of three. meanwhile, daisy, misguidedly wielding his ill-obtained authority, threatened hlokk with death by anachronistic nerf weaponry if she didn't "behave herself" and stop thokking people. hlokk, of course, was quite justified in thokking people - how else does one overthrow a regime? battle of the miniprops, phase one - best insult of the opposing regime: amy started out well, with "it's so hard to figure out where to start," then followed with a brilliant attack on daisy, the upstart freshling, which ended with a derision of the use of the word "behave" in conjunction with swil, which received a sitting ovation from the peanut gallery. we like the peanut gallery. jimmy countered in style, with "you are bad, bad people. we need new management." in the next round of attacks, amy turned her fire on frank's claims of divine mandate, pointing out that hlokk is, after all, a self-proclaimed deity (chaos, god of the night). frank refused to recognize hlokk's title, but a majority of the peanut gallery disagreed, so the round ended, and jimmy retorted, "you're not as nice as they are." battle of the miniprops, phase two - ex-president naming (by title or real name): amy (who, in strict accordance with the rules of fair combat, had been prepped by hlokk the previous evening), successfully named: liberte, egalite, and fraternite james and the giant peach jimmosk and dvs literature and the grotesque el queso grande jimmy named: abort, retry, ignore queen bondage and king discipline hlokk, goll, and skogul (who were, at the time of the contest, ex-presidents) amy was declared the winner of the day, and the valkyries were restored to their presidency. frank immediately declared all changes made by the new regime (tm) to be null and void, including the divine mandate, conquest of the world, and all that. daisy turned his nerf pistol on himself and died, but frank, with the last of her divine mandate, restored him to life. swilbusiness: the pterodactyl hunt will happen on 23rd october, which is a friday, provided it doesn't rain. we will try to have sword practice this year, to prevent immediate death by women's rugby team. details to follow. sign ups for monsters will take place at meeting this coming week. be there or you're s.o.l. people should bring food for swiloween. they should not bring it right now - it'll be stale by then. just start thinking about it. the next deadline for philcon registration is approximately 24th october. if you want to go, give money to kira sometime before then. it was decided that there is not enough interest in getting a hotel room, so we won't get one. our swilmovie this week was "misfits of science". we hope you went. submit to bem. jim wasn't at meeting, so we didn't discuss the reunion again. the 24-hour tolkien reading has fallen out of institutional memory, which obviously means it's time to have a new one. there was some enthusiasm, so we'll try to do it during finals or reading week at the end of the semester. also, we should have another "eye of argon" reading, for them as missed the first one, or are just masochists. plus, we should have a story reading sometime. robert had attended four consecutive meetings, and even not overthrown anything during at least two of them, so he was dismembered. he started his sentience proof with, "i think the fact that i have decided to twist this organization around my finger..." he then pointed out that his plan to let nonsentients into the organization would have given him a perfect crowd of unquestioning followers. it was declared that robert was conniving, and therefore probably sentient, so catherine hit him with a spoon a few times. non-swilbusiness: there will be a game of wink on friday, with the traditional warmup of full-contact red light/green light starting at 8:00pm in ml lounge. if you don't know what wink is, come anyway. it's a lot of fun. (if you don't mind rugburn... --g) catherine and kyla and heather and lots of other people are putting on romeo and juliet, 5 and 6 november. paris will be sleeping with lady capulet. apparently. jim is having babylon 5 catchup showings on mondays at 7:30 in greylock 301. new episodes will start in late october. season 3 of buffy the vampire slayer starts tonight! (woo-woo! --g) megan will be having a buffy-viewing party in parrish n277 tonight from 8-12. we will watch the episode in real time, then eat food, then watch it again for people who couldn't make the first showing. if you want megan to hold the second showing till you get there, let her know. Dorknuggets who are fickle and not to be respected - 9/26:* Amy "Champion of Right, Slayer of Imposters, objecter to title of attendance list" Swift Amy "I need a nickname" Marinello (i'm sorry, that's too easy --g) Peter "The outsider" Ma Jimmy "Weapons for Coup - Mini Crossbow: 5 rubber bands (unstretched), 3 chopsticks, 1 clothes pin" Kong Hannah "it came from the swamp. it wanted blood." Schneider (That makes two of us... - g) Andrea "I'll sic my bat cookies on you" Hall Sarah "my mom put Satan in my fridge. Yay." Bergstrom (i put london broil in my fridge - i think i win --h) Dave "frisbee at Halloween" Phillips Jennifer "Maire Mhor" Tyson Kyla "hey, who needs to breathe? oh - yeah" Tornheim Catherine "start advertising now" Osborne John "VSEPR" Finkbiner Megan "Black Golf Ball" Powell Phil "In foliage absentia" Stepleton Non-dorknuggets who are loyal and should be respected at all costs: Megan "Ha! How's that for divine mandate!" Hallam Robert "The reincarnated froshling" -hlokk, goll, and skogul * note: these attendance list titles were written by the no-longer-in-power new regime (tm). we disagree and would never refer to members of our peanut gallery as "dorknuggets", even if they deserved it.