Date: Wed, 15 May 1996 13:23:44 -0400 Subject: The Neverending SWILnews #11, 12, 13, and 14 Top Ten Reasons Why You Haven't Gotten a SWILnews Since the Last One 10. Slow delivery from Appetito's. 9. The notes entrenched themselves in Liberte's room, and it's taken us this long to locate them. 8. The SWILnews is always in the last place you look. (Very profound, Egalite. -F) 7. The earth was knocked out of its orbit by a dinosaur the size of a caveman, and was sent hurtling towards the radioactive octopus. 6. Two words: Killer guppies. 5. Back off, man! We're co-presidents!!! 4. This is Swarthmore... work it out. 3. We wanted to end the year with a bang, and so stockpiled our SWILnewses hoping we could find something in them that would explode. 2. We wanted to include a Top Ten list in this SWILnews. 1. Oops. We now present the Really Condensed works of various authors: Tom Stoppard: "Heads." (repeat) Ayn Rand: "Boy meets girl. Boy rapes girl. Boy blows up building. Socialism sucks!!!" William Shakespeare: Tragedy: "Boy meets girl. Boy and girl die." Comedy: "Boy meets girl. Boy meets another girl dressed as a boy. 1st girl meets another boy. 2nd boy meets 2nd girl. 2nd girl meets donkey. Everyone gets married (except the donkey)." History: "Boy with lots of relatives meets girl. Boy impresses girl by oppressing the French. Many relatives die. " (The idea that you can impress someone by oppressing others is typical of the aural stage of development. Freud expresses it well, when he says, "Vat eez dee French? Don' mess vith zee French. Zey smell bad. Ja.") Stephen King: "Something terrorizes a small town in Maine. Sex. Many people die. More sex. Sex with a terrible, horrible thing. " Anne Rice: "Boy meets man. Man sucks boy's blood. Boy lives forever. Sex. Angst" J.R.R. Tolkein: "Hobbits walk over fields. Hobbits walk over forests. Hobbits walk over mountains. Oh, yeah, something to do with a Ring." H.P. Lovecraft: "Eldritch unspeakable blasphemous horror with unpronouncable name arises from the stygian depths and terrorizes quaint Massachusetts town. Mind-blasting terror causes everyone to go insane ." (Insanity is a social construct. Were it not for nasty hegemonic labels, drooling people raving about stop signs speaking to them could wander society happily. And the stop signs would finally have people to chat with.) Charles Dickens: "Poor orphan boy wanders streets in London, suffering. He becomes rich and lives happily ever after."(...after about a thousand pages. -E) Agatha Christie: "Person dies, with unlikely accessories lying around. Quirky personality logically leaps to solution. Everyone did it!" Dave Barry: "Cows explode." Arthur Conan Doyle: "Cocaine-snortin', violin-playin', woman-hatin' hombre shoots bullets into his wall, thereby solving the mystery of the speckled orange Bohemian sign of the Baskervilles." God: "Thou shalt not." * We interrupt this SWILnews for a special and tragic announcement. * We reget to inform you that Egalite has flipped his lid. He is unable to do anything more than lie on Fraternite's bed and rant about conspiracies. "They're going to kill the president! They're going to do it, I tell you!" He has also been raving about glow-in-the-dark frisbees breeding and taking over the campus, a tribute to sugar cereals, and starting a war against Haverford. (Liberte and Fraternite, trying to get rid of the raving Egalite, send him downstairs to determine the status of the television, which they hope to commandeer to watch Babylon 5. (We do have our priorities, you know. -F)) We now present a drama in four parts. Part I: The Beginning Liberte attempts to be dramatic, departs the room, closing the door behind him, and reenters, shouting, "AHA! I have found you!" The door is unimpressed. (Tough crowd. -L) Part II: The Early Middle Egalite plods up the stairs, (dolby sound: THUMP THUMP THUMP) bearing good tidings of the basketball game, and as he enters, Liberte demands he say something dramatic or die. He responds with "Alack, I am undone." (Wait! I need to have theme music. Sinister organ music will do. -E) Part III: The Exciting Part Liberte demands satisfaction. (He ain't getting none from me! -F) (I can't get no.... I can't get no... I can't get no... -E) A sword fight ensues. Egalite stabs Liberte, who falls, sighing, "Lo! Deadly death do I thus die, dying to death's deadly death dead de....." (I think he's dead. -E) (He's dead, Jim! -F) Part IV: The End Fraternite, who has been sitting here undramatically this whole time, notices a corpse on her floor. "Will you two quit playing and pick up your toys?" The corpse gets up, apologizing for the blood stains on the rug. Exeunt, pursued by a bear (A Russian Bear? -F). (The co-presidents pause a moment to check how large this SWILnews currently is. Not big enough! More witty banter!) The Co-Presidents Review Courses They've Never Taken Egalite - CS20 was billed as a top action thriller, but I thought some of the key actors were a little robotic. I found the doctor to be the most sympathetic and human character in the entire class. All in all, a disappointing effort from the same group that brought us the techno-thriller "AI". Thumbs down. Liberte - Where to begin on Social History of Consumption? What a performance! A smorgasbord on the topic of consumption, featuring mega-stars Ramen and Coke, along with a brilliant supporting cast of comestibles of historic significance. This appetizing class could easily be the main course of any semester's schedule. Thumbs up. Fraternite - When I decided to try Technology and the Text, I thought I was going to be treated to a CS course with a new and exciting script, like The Little Schemer (Hooray for Elephants!). Alas, I soon found that it was a dreaded English course! Once I had accepted the fact that I was committed to one of the inferior Humanities productions, I took pleasure in the thought that it would perhaps blend the two ideas and explore the wonders of sex on the Internet. Alas again, the government censored this performance. Yet another wonderful Swat class whose potential was deflated. Thumbs sideways. * We interrupt this SWILnews to bring you the rest of the SWILnews. * SWILbusiness: There is quite a lot of this, as one might expect, so in order to help clarify things (and also to spread it out into as many K as possible), each piece of SWILbusiness (and non-SWILbusiness for that matter) will be presented in four non-dramatic parts. We apologize for the inconvenience. CONTEST CHESS a) The long-awaited battle of might, muscle, and dance steps finally happened at 2:45 on Parrish Beach, somewhere below the barbeque and volleyball game. While unsuspecting parents milled about, the forces of Dark and Light battled it out in such contests as disco-dancing, pole-balancing, and wooing (Interpreted by one participant as tackling. -L). The winner of the fight was Annie, leader of the forces of whiteness. (The previous leader, Egalite, was ousted from that position when he dared to walk about campus in a green turtleneck! -F) b) Since it was over by this time, it wasn't mentioned at this meeting. It intruded on our memories and gave us all weird dreams, but that's about all. c) By the third meeting, live chess had faded into the collective unconscious, lurking, ready to break out in the fall and pounce on unsuspecting frosh and devour them and digest them and chew and yummmmmm. d) We discussed the fall live chess, and decided that fall is far away, so we don't need to plan yet. (And so it begins. -L) MOVIES/SCHLOCK a) Muppet cannonballs, Escher mazes, manic fox fencers, and, of course, David Bowie in tights: truly, Labyrinth was a fabulous film. Many thanks to Don and Egalite who managed to infiltrate Kohlberg's defense grid and acquire a room for us that had a VCR that could actually play a super-long cassette. The movie was well-attended, someone even brought refreshments (those colored marshmellows were scary! -F), and we all enjoyed the baby-brandishing and those tight pants. ("You remind me of the babe." "What babe?" "The babe with the power." "What power?" "The power of voo-doo." "Who do?" "You do." "Do what?" "Remind me of the babe." I can't believe I know that song!! Someone help me!! -F) The movie for the week after was chosen to be Ice Pirates with Tron as a backup. As for Schlock, with the movies chosen, and the space having been reserved by Liberte for the 6th, 7th, and 8th of May, all that remained was how to get the extra money for the thing from the so-called President's Fund. Egalite was sent to beg, uh, ask politely. It was also noted that the silly things had to be ordered by that Monday. Anyone want to postpone Schlock until September? b) Although the populace (especially the Lesley part of the populace) had cried out for Ice Pirates, the leadership revealed its iron fist and removed the movie from Blockbuster, thereby subverting the democratic process, and thus not letting us see Ice Pirates. (As a sidenote, when I went home that weekend, it was on TV. Should have taped it... -F) In fact, this week proves once again that should Mr. Thompson actually get around to propping a movie, that movie immediately becomes unavailable without prior payment of two sheep, a bagel, and 101 credits. Therefore, we watched Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (Who chose that monstrosity? -F). Most heinous, dude! The order for Schlock was finalized (uh, sure) as Monday 8:00 - The Day the Earth Caught Fire Tuesday 8:00 - It Came From Beneath the Sea Wednesday 10:15 - One Million B.C. The time was changed for the Wednesday movie so that those of us who are musically educated and appreciative could go to the 16 Feet Sing-All-We-Know (in which they skipped "Hair," "God Shuffled His Feet," "Mighty Mouse," and the "Holiday Schmedley." I was most upset. -F), and so that those of us who were culturally educated could watch B5 (We do have our priorities. -L) (They're just rather skewed. -F). c) Schlock was rapidly approaching, and we discovered that we didn't have a projectionist, as most of the projectionists in SWIL also happened to be the seniors in SWIL. Fortunately, Greg Ingber volunteered to project on Monday, and to teach his craft to someone else at that time, and so we were able to present our fine films. d) Just when you thought there would be no more Monday night SWIL movies, Deathstalker II arrives to prove you wrong! That's right, this Monday night will be the final final (and this time we mean it) SWIL movie of the year. Schlock happened, and boy, was it awful! Due to the idiocy of parties who shall remain unnamed (because we don't know who was in charge of shipping at Films, Inc. -L), It Came From Beneath the Sea did not, in fact, come on time, so we were forced to switch the order of the films and watch One Million B.C. on Tuesday instead. (It was bad! -MiniProp who is currently looking over F's shoulder and giving her a nice back rub.) (But it was quality bad. -L) Someone mentioned that perhaps for next year we should hold awards for the worse scene in a SWIL movie. Nominations for this year included: - the sword fight in the dark from Dragonslayer - 15 minutes of dawn from 2001 - 10 minutes of pretty colors at the end of 2001 - the "sex scene" in the tree while being attacked from below by a large lizard from One Million B.C. Send any more nominations and/or votes to Liberte who promises to promptly lose them. WALPURGISNACHT a) Due to the fact that the Most Evil Debate Tourney was being held that same weekend, and they had reserved EVERY SINGLE SPACE ON CAMPUS (including MY clinic! -F), we were graciously given Sharples III in which to hold our annual festival of horror and erotica. And there was much rejoicing. YAY! The lovely and most fearful Kendra asked that before arriving this Friday at 8:00, to please read stories aloud to determine their length and whether all those three syllable words are actually pronounceable, and to please bring a Walpurgisnack. b) The festival over, the survivors compared notes. In between pieces by H.P. Lovecraft, G.K. Chesterton, and other authors with initials, a most important scientific phenomenon was discovered when you add Cool Whip to Coca-Cola. With not-so-fond memories of Bio 1 and 2, Egalite has written it up properly: Abstract: Cool Whip was added to Coca-Cola to determine whether it would make a good mousetrap or alternative to gasoline, or whether cold fusion would happen. The final result was much better. Introduction: Coca-Cola: nectar of the gods. Cool Whip: artificial dessert topping of the gods. Not since jello and hot dogs have two things been better suited to be combined. We had to try it. Materials and Methods: We started with one plastic Sharples cup of Coca-Cola. To it was added several dollops of Cool Whip, out of a plastic container. Temperature was about 65 degrees Fahrenheit. Saturn was in trine. The lights were on. Results: 1) it fizzes quite nicely (fig 1: Alka Seltzer. It looks like that.) 2) it tastes like pop rocks in the back of one's throat (fig 2: Pop Rocks) 3) Wa-hoo! 4) it congeals and looks rather like plastic (fig 3: plastic.) Discussion: Everyone was in awe of the amazing transformation. We had no idea such power was in Cool Whip. Sprite and Pog seem like logical alternatives for further research. Jolt, however, may be too much: we fear an uncontrollable fizz-fest. Acknowledgments: Thanks to Albert Schweitzer, Douglas Hofstadter, Lewis Carroll, and Murray Gell-Mann for their helpful discussions and paradigm shifts. c) Since it was over, it was not mentioned. d) See part c). T-SHIRTS a) Andrea needs your money by 11:30 tomorrow!! Oops. I guess we're a little late on that one. Sorry guys. b) The t-shirts have, in fact, been ordered from Rob. (Rob? Who's Rob? I don't know Rob... Do you know Rob? -L) c) The official word is that t-shirts will be in "any day now." We're all holding our breath. d) The t-shirts are now in! Pick yours up from Will or Andrea. They're white on black, and quite spiffy. SPAMAGGEDON a) Seeing that the event was too far in advance (i.e. more than a week), it was not mentioned in order to save time for more important things, like spoo. b) It was noted that Mr. Danforth and Mr. Rosolowsky had not been doing their jobs in this matter (and, in fact, were unaware that we thought it was their job), and the planning was given over to Mr. Quale. Charles and Erik were recycled into Spam for Will's convenience and usage, so if you have any ideas for this year, speak to him. c) After a short brain-storming session, we decided that this year we would hold the Spam Put event on Magill Walk the following Saturday at 1:30. Hopes were high, as we all eagerly looked forward to flinging Spam at high velocities from the steps of Parrish. d) The third annual Spamaggedon was held this day at 1:30 at the top of Magill Walk. The Spam Put was conducted with great skill by the best athletes in our group (which isn't saying much -F) who putted chunks of Spam down the walk towards innocent pedestrians. Many laurels to Will for this fine performance. BEM a) Even though Larry was at this meeting, BEM was not mentioned. Hmmm.... b) It has been announced that BEM is in its final stages, i.e. stapling and such. We won't have much longer to wait now, folks. c) A moment of deliberation as to why Mr. Miller was not present led us to the conclusion that BEM had developed a life of its own, and, being a hungry magazine, had consumed poor Larry. A short but touching memorial service was held in his honor. Fortunately, we were wrong, and we were later informed that all was going well in the production of BEM. d) BEM is here! Pick up your copy... check that, pick up a whole stack and distribute them amongst the populace! And don't say anything to Megan about drumsticks and bites. Other random SWILbusiness items mentioned were the 24-hour reading which seems to have died, the yearbook picture which likewise seems to have vanished into nothingness (or at least the photographer has), the free books which Ms. Eshleman distributed to those who were wise enough to make it to meeting,and freshman-stuffing and Live Chess for next year (Oooo, can I have a stuffed freshman for my mantle? -F). At this point, Fraternite would like to mention that, since Liberte couldn't find his notes for the 5/4 meeting, she had, in fact, constructed a long and involved thriller about those self-same notes developing language skills, taking over his room (Oh, the things they did to poor Joel!), and trying to take over the entire basement only to be stopped at the last moment by Josh's cat Natasha (Such skill! Such bravery!). Unfortunately, he found them, and the story was removed. And now, the moment you've all been waiting for all year... Non-SWILbusiness: Oh, wait. We seem to have forgotten something. Oh, yes, those silly SENIOR TRIBUTES Peter Wong: nose, 'nuff said "I am secretly a lizard." "I punch the wall." "Harvey Gant!" Peter of the green shorts Peterhaus "Ask me if I'm an orange." Joshua Fairfield: He didn't marry the Mennonite. Kylian Robinson: Dan Berenberg's freshman year roommate Kylian "I want to be a shaman" Robinson Jove Graham: The Yoda watch A full-page letter requesting permission to go on the Lloyd Alexander trip. Jove "_Applied_ to SWIL" Graham Jove "Hobbit" Graham Got 16 Feet to sing the Cantina Song Assisted us (ahem) with the Quaker Matchbox this year Dan Wells: Official representative for Lord Julius's Goat Had his computer dissected and underweared Dan "DU sucks!" Wells Man of Death Triplet and Public Safety anecdotes Dan "locked out of his own house" Wells Man of the 2:00 shuttle The Game Warden Annie Fox: MEOW!!! The Were-cat Set her hair on fire with birthday candles Annie "Could you for me?" Fox Managed to get a table and chair out of Sharples Pat and Kiwi Jim MacLeod: Jim "zzzzzzzzzz......" MacLeod Mountain Dew Twisted his ankle pas-de-basque-ing to "Staying Alive" The Scotsman at RenFaire MacLeod: there can be only one The door knocker Wore shorts at Puckers... more than once! Bear and Coyote Confucian master with two rats Jim of Magic Thermos The trip to Florida in the back of Brad's car Super Jim with wings! Sam Weiler: Sam "Lockmaster" Weiler Spare parts collection Sam of The Plumbers Incident A very scary Werewolf "grek" Sam: the spitting dino from Jurassic Park Sam "This t-shirt is a munition" Weiler Wands of wonder! Lesley Tsina: aka Literature, James Lesley "I need toasters!" Tsina Cecilia Tan Half of the flannel shirt gang The dance-party and the anti-formal Mistress of '80's music "Twiggy Twiggy vs. James Bond" "Ramen ramen ramen..." and other high-quality filks Lesley the actress, Lesley the goddess Lesley "Can you keep a secret?" Tsina Little nebbishy guys French films Ripped her closet door off its hinges and then came to SWIL Impromptu formal dates "Crash, bump, ow!" Lesley "Relationships suck!" Tsina Don Lehr: aka The Grotesque, The Giant Peach, (briefly) The Giant Gibbon Owner of every Magic card known to man Don "Clean cut for interviews" Lehr "a) hide, b) hide, c) hide, d) FIGHT!" Don "the perpetually dying" Missed his 3rd consecutive meeting because of drinking something blue and waking up the hospital At Kendra's going-away party, stuffed Q-tips up his nose, tissues in his ears, and sang Registration bouncer Ketchup plates Don and Lesley: Operation Planarian and of course... gibbons! ** We now interrupt this SWILnews for more witty banter! ** Just kidding. Non-SWILbusiness: Hmm... the non-SWILbusiness doesn't seem to want to happily conform to the standards we've set up. Perhaps instead of presenting each one in four parts, we could... AHA! A loophole! 4/20 Doppler Gang sang at 2:00 in the Bell Tower for all students and their unsuspecting parents. Critics claim that it was good. The newest SWAPA has been collated. Talk to Kendra for more info. In order to try to convince the parents that we Swatties do more than sit on our butts working 24 hours/day, 7 days/week, a dance demonstration was held by the Folk Dance club/class at 5:00. Scottish, English, and International were all performed, including the requisite maypole, and those horrible blue skirts were replaced by nice green ones. The result was quite lovely. Many congratulations to Julianna. Larry has been attempting to revive the Tick Fix. Email him if you're interested. (Actually, more on that below...) And the weekly mention of B5 was made. 4/27 B5 was moved to 6:00 this week due to some sports thingy. It was suggested that we have a massive B5-a-thon sometime before the year ends. Although this was met with great support, no one actually volunteered to organize it. Oh well. The chorus concert was at 8:00 and was a wonderful success. Fraternite would like to thank Megan for all her hard work and loving support, and to remind Seth to thank his parents again for coming all the way from Pittsburgh to hear her sing her little mouse solo. The Spring formal was also that evening. However, those of us who decided the room was too smokey and too crowded and the music just too god-awful decided to hold the first (annual?) anti-formal in Dana 2nd with music courtesy of our own lovely Ms. Tsina. Someone suggested that we try to resurrect the magic league. Anybody have a couple of spades? The Tick Fix is officially dead. Long live the Tick Fix. Live Vampire and gaming at MegAndrea's was also mentioned. 5/4 Our very own DaveM managed to get a filk printed in the Phoenix, but nobody at meeting was willing to sing it. (Which is probably a good thing, now that I think about it. -L) Babylon 5 continues to play in jere7my's apartment, and is just getting more and more intense. Definitely not to be missed. Andrea and Will are compiling a book of recipes, tentatively entitled Bug-Eyed Menus. Submissions should be in to them by Thursday, May 9. (Sorry again, folks. ) If you miss the deadline, there will be another volume next year, so hold on to those submissions 'til then. DaveM shared an entertaining anecdote about shuttle driving, ville kids with kites, and campus security. It was very funny, but we didn't write it down, so we can't tell it to you. There will be (was) an anime fest at Bryn Mawr that Monday, though it's all the well known stuff, so if you've seen much anime, you've probably seen most of it before... It was noted that somebody had scribbled some interesting stuff on the blackboard in our room. An example: Steve - Iron Fist Of course, we made our own additions to the list, leaving a nice surprise for whoever was using the room... 5/11 jere7my's hard drive unfortunately be