>I was Bhagwan Eva Marie St. Clyde the Second, at least that was
>one of my names. Though I was the leader, the only Orthodox Nekimud was
>someone else. And she gave it up after a while--it got too tedious
>praying five times a day to the modernist concrete fountain in the center
>of town. We had ritual greetings, a few customs, and some strange claims,
>but mostly we had extremely silly names. They got stranger as we went, so
>mine is one of the least silly.
I love it!
When I was in high school (H.B. Beal Technical & Commercial, in Dull &
Mindless London, Ontario, Canada) the power utility, Ontario Hydro, ran a
series of adverts in the comics section featuring a horrid comic character
named "Zap the Safety Bird." This annoying white fowl (seagull? duck? you
couldn't tell) wore a baseball cap and spoke in rhyme (Oh, I get it! He's
supposed to be rapping! How lame!). Each week in his comic he would be
flying along, then see some idiot kid about to fry themselves on a
transformer or transmission tower or downed power line, and he'd come down
and warn the kid away, only to fry himself while demonsrating what you
shouldn't do - *ZZZAP!!* He would then be hauled away, all black and
crispy.
We realized, of course, that Zap was the Saviour. He looked down from on
high and saw all the sinners below him. He came down and took their place,
and was fried for their sins! Of course one week later he would rise again
and get zapped all over again. And again. And again, without end, Amen.
We had to form a religion, of course. With these terrible advert/comics as
our Holy Text. Around this time I began singing in my first band, the
Dormant Checker Effeckt, most of us founding members of the Zappist Church.
I gave a sermon at our first gig, in which I pledged our performance to the
greater glory of Zap the Safety Bird, Father Hydro, and the Holy Current.
A few years later, we briefly invented another religion focussed
exclusively on the ritual worship of Civic snow removal machinery. Which,
in Canada, is not an entirely foolish concept for a celebratory ritual.
>Eva
>Who discovered in high school that
>1.) there were other people like her, and
>2.) Douglas Hofstadter is cool.
Amen to that.
Hey, maybe we should be worshipping Doug? Hofstadterianism, perhaps? The
Gebstatder Temple? I know... how about... "Subjunctivism"!
Glenn
-----------------------Glenn Grant-----------------------
<pawn@cam.org>
Web: <http://helios.physics.utoronto.ca:8080/ggrant.html>
"The courts may not work anymore, but so long as everyone
is videotaping everyone else, we'll be okay."
-- Marge Simpson