FREAK STATUE OF LIBERTY ACCIDENT KILLS FED ENGINEER — Header; BRAVE MAN ON CRANE CRUSHED BY 5 TON CAST IRON BURGER— 12-point Subheader;
GENTLE PROMISES SKEPTICAL CUB SCOUT CONVENTION ‘YOU’LL BE ABLE TO EAT RIGHT OFF’ TERRITORIAL U.S. BY END OF TERM’S FIRST YEAR — Header;
ANOTHER LOVE CANAL? — 24-point Superheader; TOXIC HORROR ACCIDENTALLY UNCOVERED IN UPSTATE NEW HAMPSHIRE— 16-point Header-sized Subheader;
‘New Hampshire environmental officials yesterday flatly denied that vast collections of drums leaking industrial solvents, chlorides, benzenes and oxins had been quote “stumbled on” by 18 federal EPA staffers playing a casual game of softball east of Berlin, NH, claiming instead that the corroded receptacles had been placed there against statute by large men with white body suits and short haircuts in long shiny trailer trucks with O.N.A.N.’s official crest, a sombreroed eagle with a maple leaf in its mouth, stencilled on the sides. In the nation’s capital, a quote “full and energetic investigation” has been promised by the Gentle administration into claims by residents of Berlin, NH and Rumford, ME that the incidence of soft-skulled and extra-eyed newborns in the toxicly affected area far exceeds the national average.’ — $3.75 U.S. Nightly-Rental News Cartridge Anchor Lead;
SUB ROSA FUSION-IN-POISONOUS-ENVIRONMENT TEST SITE ALLEGED AT MONTPELIER, VT — Scientific North American Header;
MY BABY HAS SIX EYES AND BASICALLY NO SKULL–Lurid Color 32-point Tabloid Header, Dateline Lancaster NH;
FED EPA SOFTBALLERS ALLEGE TWO MORE ‘POISONOUS WASTE HORRORFEST’ ILLEGAL DUMP SITES ‘STUMBLED OVER’ NEAR NORTH SYRACUSE, HISTORIC TICONDEROGA — NYC Daily Header;
THE FINE ART OF FEDERAL STUMBLING: A WHOLE LOT OF SOFTBALL GOING ON — Editorial Header in Syracuse NY’s Post-Standard;
CANADIAN P.M. DENIES SECRET MINIATURE GOLF OUTING WITH OUTRAGED NEW ENGLAND GOVS — Surprisingly Small 3rd-Page 10-poínt Header;
GENTLE SHOCKER — Pearl-Harbor-Sized 32-point Super-superheader Almost Too Big to Read Clearly; MAYFLOWER, RED BALL, ALLIED, U-HAUL STOCKS SOAR— 16-point Financial Daily Subheader; TWO NORTHEAST GOVS HOSPITALIZED FOR INFARCTION, ANEURISM— 10-point Subheader;
GENTLE DECLARES ALL U.S. TERRITORY NORTH OF LINE FROM SYRACUSE TO TICONDEROGA, NY, TICONDEROGA, NY TO SALEM, MA FEDERAL DISASTERS, OFFERS FEDERAL AID FOR
UPSTATE AND NEW ENGLAND RESIDENTS WISHING TO RELOCATE, CLAIMS FUNDS FOR EPA CLEAN-UP ‘ARE NOT WITHIN THE MAP OF WHAT’S POSSIBLE’ [SIC]— Header from Chemically Over-Garrulous Headliner Eventually Fired Even from Subheader Dept. for Exceeding Verbal Parameters and Now Starting to Get in the Same Hot Water All Over Again at a Much Less Prestigious Daily Paper;
and so on and so forth. Himself’s old optical editing lab has imposing Com-pugraphic typesetting and matteing facilities: it’s hard to tell which of the headlines and other stuff are for real and which have been dickied with, usually, if you’re too young to recall the actual chronology. At least some of the headlines are phony, the kids know; miniature golf indeed. But the accuracy of Mario’s puppeteered account of the seminal meeting of what’s come to be known as ‘The Concavity Cabinet’ gets to stand uncontested by fact. Nobody who wasn’t actually there at the 16 January meeting knows just what was said when or by whom, the Gentle administration being of the position that extant Oval Office recording equipment was a veritable petri dish of organisms. Gentle’s claque of doo-wopping Motown cabinet-puppets have purple dresses and matching lipstick and nail polish, and bouffants so blindingly Afrosheened that there had been special lighting and film-speed problems in the custodial closet: