This document will be stamped with such legends as OFFICIAL-DO NOT USE THIS PAPER AS TOILET TISSUE; SECRET- FOR YOUR EYES ONLY; QUIXOTE LIVES, etc., all in the most tasteful blues and reds, together with Easter Bunny seals, ribbons, and whatever other decorations it pleases the local cabal to attach. Often it will be accompanied by a button or an armband, making the possessor a five-star General, adorned with a classic rendition of the Knight of the Mournful Countenance. Copies, of course, will be sent to the radical students at the school to guarantee that the principal being honored will see and hear many references to Don Quixote in following days, lest he think he is dealing with a single "harmless lunatic." (The official signal of the Knights of the Five-Sided Castle, needless to say, is a pentagon with a golden apple inside.)
Other groups to which individuals may be given honorary membership for conspicuously Aneristic behavior are:
the Hemlock Fellowship for academic leaders who have taken strong actions to protect students from disturbing ideas and/or to deny tenure to controversial teachers or professors;
the St. Famine Society for War Against Evil- for people who have exhibited unusual concern for the moral behavior of their neighbors;*
* Annual meetings are held on the Feast of St. Famine at the Casa de Inquisitador in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
the Flat Earth Society- for legislators or citizens' groups dedicated to preventing the dissemination of "modernistic" ideas in education;
the Fat Jap Anti-Defamation League- for Women's Liberationists and others who have found good ideological reasons to object to the English language;
the Fraternal Order of Hate Groups- given to allegedly libertarian groups only if they have engaged in conspicuously authoritarian behavior and have developed a philosophical line proving that said behavior is actually libertarian. (That group which has found the best libertarian justification for opposing liberty receives the Annual William Buckley Memorial Award and joint membership in the St. Famine Society for War Against Evil.);
the First Evangelical and Reformed Rand, Branden, and Holy Gait Church-for those who are simultaneously rationalists and dogmatists;
the Part-of-the-Solution Vanguard Party- for any Supreme Servant of the People who has shown inordinate zeal in banishing most of the people as Parts-of-the-Problem.
Other aspects of Operation Mindfuck include:
Project Eagle. Day-glo posters have been printed which look like the old Eagle proclamation saying TO THE POLLS YE SONS OF FREEDOM. The new, improved Discordian posters, however, have one slight word change, and say cheerfully BURN THE POLLS YE SONS OF FREEDOM. Like the Old ones, they are posted in prominent places on election day.
Project Pan-Pontification. Since the Rev. Kirby Hensley founded the Universal Life Church and started ordaining everybody as a minister of the gospel, the Paratheo-Aname-tamystikhood of Eris Esoteric has decided to raise the stakes. They are now distributing cards stating:
THE BEARER OF THIS CARD IS A
GENUINE AND AUTHORIZED POPE
So Please Treat Him Right
GOOD FOREVER
Genuine and authorized by the HOUSE OF
APOSTLES OF ERIS. Every man, woman and
child on Earth is a genuine and authorized Pope.
Members receive a handsome banner proclaiming
IN YOUR HEART YOU KNOW IT'S FLAT.
Similar cards, with "Him" replaced by "Her" and "Pope" by "Mome," are being prepared for Woman's Liberationists.
Project Graffito (and Project Bumpersticker). Anybody can participate by inventing a particularly Erisian slogan and seeing that it is given wide distribution. Examples: Your Local Police Are Armed and Dangerous; Legalize Free-Enterprise Murder: Why Should Governments Have All The Fun?; Smash the Government Postal Monopoly; If Voting Could Change the System, It Would Be Against the Law; etc.
Citizens Against Drug Abuse. This organization possesses elegant letterheads and is engaged in a campaign of encouraging Congressmen to outlaw catnip, a drug which some young people are smoking whenever marijuana is in short supply. The thought behind this project is that, the government having lost so much credibility due to its war against pot (a recent ELF survey showed that in some big cities a large portion of the under-25 population did not believe in any of the moon shots and assumed they were all faked somewhere in the American Desert), a campaign against this similar but more comical herb will destroy the last tattered shreds of faith in the men in Washington.
APPENDIX KAPH: THE ROSY DOUBLE-CROSS
Saul, Barney, Markoff Chancy, and Dillinger were all puzzled that a man like Carmel would bring a suitcase full of roses with him when fleeing to Lehman Cavern. Those who knew Carmel in Las Vegas were even more perplexed when this fact was made public. The first readers of this romance were not only puzzled and perplexed but petulant, since they knew Carmel had loaded his briefcase with Maldonado's money, not with roses.
The explanation, as is usually the case when seeming magick has occurred, was simple: Carmel was the victim of the oldest swindle in the world, the okkana borra (gypsy switch). It was his custom to transport his earnings to the bank in the same suitcase which he used when looting Maldonado's safe. His figure, and the suitcase, were well known to the shadier elements in Las Vegas, and among these were three gentlemen who decided early in April to intercept him during one of his journeys and remove the suitcase from his possession, using, as young people say, "any means necessary"; they even considered striking him upon the temple with a blunt instrument. One of the gentlemen involved in this project, John Wayne Malatesta, however, had a sense of humor (of sorts) and began to devise a plan involving a nonviolent gypsy switch. Mr. Malatesta thought it would be amusing if this could be carried off smoothly and Carmel, arriving at the bank, opened a case full of horse manure, human excrement, or something else in equally dubious taste. The other two gentlemen were persuaded that this might indeed be worth a laugh. A substitute suitcase was purchased, and a plan was devised.
Two changes were made at virtually the last minute. Mr. Malatesta learned from Bonnie Quint (a lady whose company he often enjoyed, at $100 a throw) that Carmel suffered acutely from rose fever. A more hilarious image occurred to him: Carmel opening the case in the bank and starting to sneeze spasmodically while trying to figure out where the switch had been made. The roses were purchased, and the caper was set for the next day.
When Carmel, Dr. Naismith, and Markoff Chaney collided, Malatesta and his associates abandoned the switch idea: Two collisions in a few minutes would be more than a man like Carmel would accept without profound suspicion. They therefore decided to follow him to his house and revert to the more old-fashioned but time-proven technique of the sudden rap on the skull.
When Bonnie Quint left after her violent interview with Carmel, the bandits prepared to enter. To their amazement, Carmel came running out, threw his suitcase into his jeep, and then ran back in. (He had forgotten his candies.)
"It's God's will," Malatesta said piously.
The switch was made, and they took off for points south in a great hurry.
Several weeks after the crisis had passed, a state trooper found a car with three dead men in it off the road in a ditch. His own symptoms were self-diagnosed while he waited for the coroner's crew to arrive, and he received the antidote in time.
The empty suitcase in the car caused only minor speculation: A Gila monster had obviously eaten most of one side of it to shreds. "Whatever they had in there," the trooper said later, "must have been pretty light. The wind blew it all over the freaking desert."
APPENDIX TETH: HAGBARD'S BOOKLET
After prolonged pleading and vehement prayers of entreaty, the authors finally prevailed upon Hagbard Celine to allow us to quote some further illuminating passages from his booklet Never Whistle While You're Pissing.* (Before we made these frantic efforts, he wanted us to publish the whole thing.)