7. Asking directions

-Which way to enlightened self-awareness?
-Through the love of others, if the ancients are not unreliable.
-Such matters are cloudy, but your form is voluptuous.
-I thank you for the compliment by consenting to amorous activity.
-I have been misunderstood, but am glad for it!

8. Emergency Assistance

-I require aid! My person has been approached undesirably!
-Do you prefer a legal or a medical remedy?
-What is the cost differential?
-It is a package deal.
-Sold!

9. Flirting!

-Your local haberdasheries reek of herring.
-Thank you, I find your diction exotic, and what is exotic arouses.
-This is true. Studies have verified it.
-I propose we commence acts preparatory to lovemaking.
-You have my concurrence.

10. Dieting:

-I’d like to enjoy your national cuisine without risk of infection or obesity.
-I can only vouch for the former; we are a large people, but happy.
-Nonetheless, do you have offerings for those fleeing corpulence?
-Such concerns are Western, I assure you. Here, amplitude of flesh signifies liberality of spirit.

11. At the fishmongers

-Do you have any anchovies?
-My regret is absolute: our anchovies have been tarnished.
-Then it is best that their ingestion remain unrealized.

Most jokes are written for pre-modern humans, and focus on things like stone-flinting and the preparation of bear meat. With that in mind, we at Spoonbot thought it time to do some modern joke-writing, so that those who will come after us may find humor, and warmth. Here, then, is our first joke:

A Limited Number of Parachutes

A priest, a rabbi, and a member of some hated profession like, say, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, are on an airplane. The pilot enters the passenger section and tells them that the plane is going down, and that there is only one parachute. He returns to the cockpit in order to die with his craft, and to attempt to steer it to an unpopulated area.

The priest says, “All my life, I have hoped to meet my creator, the Lord Jesus Christ. If, now, I should die by sacrificing myself that others may live, I would assure my place before him in heaven. Please, then, my brothers, take this parachute and think of me as you live on.”

The rabbi replies, “My friends, I have tried to live an exemplary life, that my congregation would have a model of goodness. If my last act were to be one of giving all I can give, my very life, so that others may go on and prosper, no greater act could I show in order to inspire. Please, take the parachute, and tell my family and my people what I have done for you.”

The member of some hated profession (in this instance the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee) then says, “According to House Rule HR-47/R, in any joke involving a priest, a rabbi, a member of some hated profession, a plane that is going to crash, and a limited number of parachutes, the member of the hated profession is supposed to demand the parachute, then mistakenly grab a backpack, jump out of the plane saying, “so long suckers,” and fall to his death.” He then searches for a backpack, and, not finding one, decides that the priest’s extreme unction kit will work just as well, grabs it, jumps out of the airplane saying, “so long, suckers!” searches for the ripcord, fails to find it, and then screams and plunges to his death.

Just then the pilot returns to the cockpit and announces that they won’t be crashing after all, as it was merely a minor engine glitch, which has been repaired. Overjoyed, they fly to one of those tiny island nations where the love between two men is not only tolerated, but sometimes even celebrated.

Most bestiaries come from Europe, which, according to this wire story, is a wimpy place full of carrot-eaters who wouldn’t know an extreme sport if it rolled up on mag wheels and shot fire from its exhaust right into their faces.

So, here begins some entries for the New World Bestiary, soon to be a major motion topiary:

1. The Flightless Dolphin

Like the large flightless birds that became extinct during the post-ice age period, flightless dolphins are easily ridiculed and have low self-esteem. Nonetheless, their inability to fly does not preclude them from having rewarding interactions with humans who throw perch at them, or from swimming. Most flightless dolphins have adopted an aquatic existence, paradoxically living “in” the water while never really feeling themselves to be part of the whole fish crowd. The flightless dolphin is nonetheless fully able to desalinate and respire, and some have even been seen cavorting.

2. The Googolcorn

The googolcorn is like a unicorn, only with a lot more corns. I mean “horns,” because that’s what “corn” means. I encountered the googolcorn when Dr. Shulgin and I were preparing for our midterm exams with the Balaban peoples of the Amazon rainforest basin, a very primitive peoples who nonetheless hold midterm exams. While walking through a marshy section of the lower Xingu which was said by the Balaban to house the bodies of all those killed by indifference, Dr. Shulgin and I stripped the bark from an Acacia, and then infused it in methanol for 48 hours. During this time we played whist. At the end of the 48 hours the methanol was removed by using a fractioning column, a condenser, and a saucepan that Dr. Shulgin’s mother had sold him. We reintroduced the methanol to the bark, and re-extracted, repeating the process until a stripping of the methanol produced a resinous brown agulate. To this agulate was added aqueous HCl (20 ml 10M, but well diluted), and a congealate was extracted and basified with NaOH (which I regret.) From this an aqueous residiferous paste was discalced, and then reshod with CH2Cl2, after which it was allowed to crystallize overnight. Again, Dr. Shulgin and I played whist, with myself talking the vast majority of tricks. We then removed the crystals, placed them in our meerschaum pipes, and smoked them vigorously. Dr. Shulgin went first, and he immediately began rolling on the ground telling me that he was “at the place” and that I’d “know” when I “cheated” him. I then inhaled the rich, aromous vapors from the pipe, and found that my cognation was severely enhanced, and my perceptual apparati now capable of perceiving into the ultra-and infra-visual sequences. After thirty minutes I “awoke” (I had never actually been “asleep”) and found that Dr. Shulgin and I were embracing, which was pleasant. As we staggered to our feet the googolcorn passed by briefly and, I believe (though Dr. Shulgin’s version is different) that it said something in English. Shulgin says it was not English, but we agree that it was something to the extent of “don’t do that.” Further study is warranted.

1. Meeting with a friend

-How are your ocelots?
-They are well, how are your ocelots?
-The have become infected.
-Unfortunate! My evening supplication to the deity/deities will include their names.
-You are mistaken in your apprehension. The infection is beneficial!
-My demeanor and heart are lifted.

2. Ordering Gazpacho

-Do you manufacture your gazpacho locally, and with correctness?
-Our gazpacho has been certified by authorities of repute.
-That is not an answer to my inquiry.
-It is nonetheless my only response.

3. Contacting the police

-Although I am loathe to admit it, I have given my funds to a brigand unwillingly.
-Did he carry an ocelot?
-He had no mammals.
-It is clear the crime was politically motivated.
-This had been my assumption.

4. Attending a religious ceremony

-Your deities are lovely. Do they have qualities?
-Yes, Evanescence and propinquity.
-How informal! I should be benefited in worshipping them.
-This is what lore claims, but answers in this realm are intermittent.

5. At the Train Station

-When is the next arrival of passengers?
-You have come to the wrong place: this track is for confiscated ocelots.
-Is there much traffic in such things?
-To our national shame, yes.

6. Dealing with the Underworld

-Where would one go to procure narcotics, assuming one were so inclined, which I am not.
-Had I knowledge of such things I would assure you that forty kopeks would deliver to you a finer quality of product than your puny American veins can handle.
-Oops! I have accidentally handed you forty kopeks!
-And I have revealed my employment with law enforcement. The punch-line is your incarceration!

Spoonbot produced this Kant attack ad not out of hostility, but out of real concern for our American values.

Schoolchildren (which are my favorite kind of children) are taught many vicious lies, like that they might one day be president, and that ketchup is made of tomatoes.

But one lie that they never seem to overcome is the teaching that George Washington Carver was a benign force. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Thanks to George Washington Carver literally tens of people have DIED FROM PEANUT ALLERGIES! It used to be that if you didn’t want to be exposed to anything as lascivious and unsavory as a peanut, you just had to avoid the few hairy-knuckled troglodytes who dealt them at circuses and executions.

But thanks to “Mr.” Carver, peanuts are found in virtually every consumer product known to mankind. For example, did you know that peanut butter is not made of butter at all, but is rather produced by distilling pure despair into a resinous goo, and then adding peanuts?

“So don’t eat it!” I hear you say. But how can someone allergic to peanuts hope to avoid inhaling peanut-based perfumes (Chanel Number 5, Obsession, Old Spice Extra Spicy, etc.)? Or what about the terror of encountering, unknowingly, a crevasse that has been cleansed with a peanut-flavored douche or suppository? What then, Mr. Wiseguy?

For this and many reasons, Mr. Carver is known as “The Foul One” and “Lord Death” amongst the peanut-allergic. AND THIS IS NOT BY ACCIDENT!

No, a quick read through the textbooks will show you: Carver sought to destroy the peanut-allergic. In his years at Tuskegee Institute his so-called peanut “research” was really a ruse for a vast eugenics program designed to eliminate “the weak, the undesirable, the sexually compulsive and the slovenly.” Those with peanut allergies were obviously high on his list, as were the asthmatic and those with hangnails.

This is another “Fun With Numbers!” post, and I’ve decided that these will be known as “Fumbers!” posts. It’s short for “Fun With Numbers!” I had thought that perhaps a better name would be “Funbers!” but then I thought that that was too hard to pronounce. Although maybe “Funumbers!” would be better, incorporating more of both words. But then the word “with” might feel left out, so maybe “Fuwumbers!” Ok, let’s go with “Fuwumbers!” as short for “Fun With Numbers!” Feel free to suggest another variant, but keep in mind that in any iteration, the important element is the final exclamation point, as it’s the true source of the fun.

Anyway, here’s our Fun With Numbers! or “Fuwumbers!” post for the day:

It’s nearly impossible to count up to infinity, because at around a trillion, your throat gets dry. Thus, school children fail to understand the immensity of infinity. So! The trick is to count backwards from infinity! That way, you really can make some progress.

So I’ll start you off, and then keep going until you get to a nice, familiar number like forty two billion and six:

Infinity
Infinity minus one.
Infinity minus two.
Infinity minus three.
Infinity minus four

Ok…ready! Now you continue on!

Try to figure out if the following things are vegan or not:

1. Borrowing money from a lemur.

2. Helping a Republican to feel good about himself.

3. Eating Cheetos without permission.

4. Masturbating while thinking of a lion.

(answers: 1. No!; 2. No!; 3. Only during wartime; 4. Depends on which hand you use.)

Some years ago, The Numbers Committee noted that not enough numbers had fun nicknames. Other than “a couple,” “a dozen” and “a baker’s dozen,” most numbers were stuck with names like “sixteen” or “forty.”

Here then are the efforts of the committee to name every known number:

-13: A Greek Fortnight
0: An Irish Dozen
1: The Big Boner Number
2: A Couple
3: Airtight
Pi: Guy
4: Condoleeza
5: An Australian Double Date
6: Stan, or “the dude”
7: An Agent’s Dozen
8 : Double Nugget
9: The Big Wave
10: The Beer Can (when you receive a blank stare upon using this, follow it up with “you know, the flip top…”)
11: A Swiss Dozen

And the rest of the numbers…