From chaos @ condor.sccs.swarthmore.edu Sat Jul 17 19:32:15 1999 Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 15:43:52 -0500 (EST) From: chaos golubitsky To: _swat.org.swil @ cc.swarthmore.edu Subject: Somewhere Over the SWILNews #5 It was a gorgeous day. Well, not really *gorgeous* as such - we're in Pennsylvania, after all. But, as days go, this one was fairly tolerable. Hlokk, Goll, and Skogul were wandering north campus aimlessly, in search of the fabled third floor of Papazian. Suddenly, the weather changed. It was snowing first, then hailing, then drizzling - even by Swarthmore standards, this was miserable stuff. The intrepid co-presidents darted into Papazian. "What's with this weather? My nose is cold," Goll whined. "Actually, i kind of like it," Hlokk responded, dodging a large hailstone. "We can probably blame it on el nino," interjected Skogul. (Everything is el nino's fault. -h) (except the sudetenland. -s) Just then, Papazian began to shake. The co-presidents could do nothing besides stare out the window and curse the philosophy department for once again rejecting the law of gravity; the building was very definitely rising. (Very Themistoclean, don't you think? -s) The errant psychology building spun around several times and flew through the air for some time, accompanied by witty dialogue from the co-presidents. (You can't expect me to believe that! -s) After awhile, it landed, and everything was very quiet, except Hlokk, who continued talking more or less nonstop and had to be whacked on the head severely by her fellow valkyries. The three exited Papazian to find themselves in the middle of a Technicolor plaid world. In comparison to this, even Papazian third was boring-looking, so they stepped outside to have a closer look. "Hmm, there's a lot of plaid. We could be in Scottish Munchkinland," Goll remarked. Unfortunately, several very Scottish-looking Munchkins chose that particular moment to show up and be quite offended. "Well, of course you're in Scottish Munchkinland - what did you think? Still, you just killed the Wicked Witch of the Humanities by dropping a remarkably ugly building on her, so i suppose we forgive you." Just then, a very attractive woman who was quite obviously intended to be a good witch showed up. She looked strangely sleep-deprived. "Hello, there, dears. I'm sorry i'm late for our appointment - my lab ran over, you see." The valkyries looked confused. "Oh, I should have introduced myself. I am the Good Witch of the Natural Sciences, you see. (Not that we're biased or anything... -h) You have destroyed one of the evil curricula plaguing our land, for which we thank you." "Umm, that's all very nice, i suppose, but we need to go home pretty soon. I have a Soc/Anth paper due at 5, and..." The Good Witch cut off Goll's sentence with a growl. "I'll abide no talk of Soc/Anth around here. There is still one evil force left in this land, the Wicked Witch of the Social Sciences, and i think it would be good for you to destroy her before you leave." "But we *really* don't have time." (Omigosh! It's after the ball--i should do this ... -s) "Hush. Killing evil witches builds character. Just follow the overpriced textbook road (Earthlust will love that. -g) till you reach her castle. Once she is dead, i will send you back to Swarthmore." The co-presidents shrugged their shoulders and began along the path, Goll carefully avoiding the Orgo textbooks as they walked. (AAAAACK! NO! Not the straight razor! -s) After awhile, they came across a cornfield. Being pale, overworked students used to spending all day at computer screens indoors, they didn't know quite what to make of it. Being just about anyone, they didn't know quite what to make of the kilted scarecrow in the middle of the field, with melanistic canaries swooping all around. The scarecrow turned to speak to the co-presidents, who fled in terror and hid under the nearest rock. Fortunately for the story arc, there were no nearby rocks, so they were forced to stay around and introduce themselves to the scarecrow. "Hi, my name is Terry. I was once a Scottish dance instructor at a small, liberal arts college, but i've been cursed and forced to wait in this land forever until i can find a new pair of ghillies. can you help me?" "Umm, we're just trying to kill the Wicked Witch of the Social Sciences so that we can go home and get some work done, but you're welcome to join us, if you like. Hey, maybe if you come with us, the Good Witch of the Natural Sciences will give you some ghillies." They helped Terry down, and he cheerfully joined the party, followed by a small flock of melanistic canaries (aka crows). (the cashew chicken or the pork lo mein? -s) As they walked, they came across a few trees, then a few more, then more, until the trees were so thickly crowded that the party couldn't see the forest. (We're sorry - you should probably have us hanged for that one. -h) The trees thinned a bit, and they came across a young female tin woodsperson morosely hacking at a tree with a rusty axe. The girl was surprisingly trendily dressed in chrome and stainless steel. (this is a randomly predetermined comment -s) "Oh, it's so nice to see people around here," Buffy exclaimed as the party approached. "I've spent the last hundred years trying to chop down this tree to make a new stake for myself, but the axe is too rusty." "Why don't you come along with us? Maybe the Good Witch of the Natural Sciences can help you." "Natural Sciences? Ick..." Buffy looked skeptical, but decided to join the party anyway. The five walked a little further, and came across (this is a shocker) more trees. Finally, they got out of the trees, and into the grasslands, the habitat of (come on, you saw this one coming pages ago -h) Thor, the Cowardly Lion. Right on cue, Thor appeared. He joined the party, mumbling some excuse about needing a blessed rustproof +2 Mjollnir, but it was pretty obvious that he was after Buffy. Buffy, of course, was oblivious, but the valkyries suspended their better judgement and let him join the party anyway. Just then, the castle of the Wicked Witch of the Social Sciences appeared on the horizon. A faint scent of deconstructionalism filled the air. The witch watched their approach, and sent her evil pet, with the hope of destroying the party before they could reach the castle. Eager to do his master's bidding, Ratatosk, the squirrel of discord, flew through the air. (It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Ratatosk, the squirrel of discord. -g) (Sorta like those annoying CP&P mailings, eh? -s) Unfortunately, Ratatosk's bid for evil was ill-fated. The melanistic canaries set upon him with great fervour, and devoted themselves to the task of taming the evil squirrel. Fifteen minutes later, Ratatosk could fetch newspapers on command. Terry decided to keep him as a pet. That out of the way, the party marched fearlessly into the Wicked Witch's castle, only to discover that they hadn't the foggiest idea how to kill her. "Bwa ha ha! You fools!" the Wicked Witch cackled gleefully, "The only way to kill me is by throwing sponges at me, and there's not a single one in the castle." Ratatosk looked up with a twinkle in his eye, and a few seconds later, Thor, Buffy and Terry had been transformed into the needed invertibrates. (i'll believe it! -s) "Take this, poriphora," Hlokk shouted gleefully, clobbering the Witch with a sponge. "Oh, no! I'm melting, i'm melting..." the Witch screamed, as she metamorphosed into a fairly large amoeba. (there's an amoeba stalking our SWILNews... -h) The Good Witch of the Natural Sciences showed up, and, as promised, returned the three Valkyries and Papazian to campus at 4:45, in time for Goll to write a fairly poor excuse for a Soc/Anth paper. (It's Soc/Anth, what do you expect? -g) SWILBusiness: It's SWIL shirt time again! Ben and Chaos are in charge of t-shirts this year, so please submit t-shirt slogans or designs to either of them. The two current suggestions (provided by JimMosk) are "SWIL life with fruit", and "Our bodies, our SWIL", neither of which currently has an illustration. We have several ideas for Spamageddon this year, including using Spam to derail SEPTA. The chemical formula for Spam is probably not Sp2A4M?, but it seemed like a nice idea at the time. If you have ideas for Spam events, e-mail us, or bring them to meeting, or, heck, even volunteer to organize it. Some of the current suggestions are: - blow up Spam - launch Spam in a rocket - Spam in a balloon - Spasma (Spam plasma) - put Spam on Honors Reserve (note: we think this has been done before) - Spam sculptures - levitate Spam - draw and quarter Spam (possibly using cars) - electric Spam Schlock will happen. We're looking into the possibility of a 3D movie this year. We couldn't find one last year, so if you have any suggestions, let us know. Also, if you have the catalogues (or any other catalogues), please bring them to meeting. Also, if you have an opinion on whether "Crawl" is a good movie or a bad movie, please bring that to meeting. SWILCon: Sign up if you want to be staff at SWILCon. Staff members will be asked to work about 12 hours over the course of the weekend. Also, if you're going to be on staff and don't want to eat in Sharples Friday night, give your ID number to Megan, since Sharples is making carry-out trays for us. There was a SWILCon meeting Sunday, and will probably be another one next Sunday. Dave will be putting together the easels for the art show after meeting next week - please come help out. The movie tonight will be "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension". You should come. It's supposed to be even more exciting than Megan's experiments about the aerodynamic properties of breakfast cereal. Submit to BEM. We're not kidding this time. Dammit. E-mail submissions to bem @ swil.org, or give them to Heather or Kira. Non-SWILBusiness: Ben proposed running an organized charades tournament. If you're interested, let him know. (bnewman1 @ cc) Babylon 5 will be at JimMosk's tonight at 7:30. The episode is called "Learning Curve". Buffy will be shown at 9:30 at Megan's on Tuesday. It's a new episode, called "Passion". You should come watch. This Friday, there will be an English/Contra dance at 8 in TIC. You should come. Also, bring food if you can. Screw Your Roommate will be next Saturday night. Chaos will be off campus. She's laughing at you. (I don't suppose anyone's setting me up ... just as well, i'd only go with Olaf -Gustav) Jim channelled Joe, but there was too much interference. Jim wants to organize a dramatic reading of the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" radio scripts. Get in touch with him (jimmosk @ fi.edu) if you want to participate. Sophomore Paper List - 21/2/98: Anna "Help! Not the sophomore paper!" Hess Ben "MAKE IT STOP!" Newman Tim "The Plan is almost finished" Handley Jimmy "Kong, James Kong...with my solaar powered flashlight" Kong Hannah "Feta cheese" Rakoff Sarah "co-conqueror of the furniture hordes" Bergstrom Megan "The truffles shall be vanquished!" Powell Dave "Spam shall be destroyed!" Phillips Jennifer "I can tell you all about Spam sculpture" Tyson Kyla "I don't touch Spam with a nine-foot, six-inch pole - _or_ a vorpal sword" Tornheim Several hundred trillian cells claiming to be Jim Moskowitz Megan "I got a _cat_!!" Hallam Larry "We are very displeased by this turn of events" Miller Joel "Vultureness of igloos" _McNary_