I dropped in to see my attorney, and in the context of our billable discussion I happened to idly mention something I’d seen in the news about Kevin Federline.
She spat her ice cube back into her tumbler of bourbon.
“We don’t speak that name round here,” she said.
End of discussion. The receptionist hastily showed me out, with security behind her.
I should have known better. I’d seen my attorney’s library; her editions of the Pnakotic Manuscripts, the Unaussprechlichen Kulten of von Junzt, The Witch-Cult in Western Europe, Justin Geoffrey, the Livre d’Eibon, Remigius and Della Porta, De Vermis Mysteriis, even a facsimile of fragments from the Philetas translation of the Al-Azif. Living in western Massachusetts, with Miskatonic less than two hours away, I should have known better.
I got on I-90 and pointed my car east.
You’d never expect to find a department of Media Studies at a school like Miskatonic, not when its library’s restricted collection is its chief draw, and especially not in a haunted and gambrel-shrouded tiny New England town like Arkham. But there it is, the newest building on campus, all glass and steel in a weird almost non-Euclidean geometry, not curvy like Gehry but just off in its angles.
“Oh yes,” a TA whispered to me. We were talking, quietly, in her cubicle after I’d found not a single professor with an open office door. “K-Fed’s not the only one. They have titles, you know. And ranks.”
Me, clueless: “Ranks?”
Her, impatient: “Ranks. Principalities, powers, virtues. You know. Dominations, thrones, cherubim, seraphim.”
Me: “No. I don’t know.”
Her: “The ranks of angels. Only these aren’t angels.”
And the TA, whose name I swore I would not print, told me of the eldritch elder gods from the shining rhombus beyond which black gulfs lie, and their avatars.
Bono the Unspeakable. The Sentient Toxic Mist that is Nicole Kidman. Steve Jobs, the monstrous nuclear chaos who dances in the madness outside angled space. Katie Holmes, Bride of He Who Must Not Be Named. The Many-Tentacled Toad-God Jon Stewart. Gretchen Wilson, who is The Key and The Gate. The Mother of Knives, Martha Stewart, who is also The One Who Rends Veils. Bill O’Reilly, The Father of Abominations. The Source of Uncleanliness corporeally embodied as Jenna Bush. Chris Rock, the yellow-scarved High Priest Who Is Not to Be Described. The tenebrous daemon-sultan Kato Kaelin, with his great and terrible Herald and Envoy.
And beyond these, there are names one dares not write.
I must type quickly, now.
Wow. You must have had a terribly squamous day.
Indeed.
Geraldo Rivera, BTW, is described as “The Face of the Void,” a 10d12 NPC with +1 to initiative, AC12, -1 melee attack (microphone) but with +8 indignation and audience must make a -1 save vs. horror-stricken blindness.
The Friday non-diss lives? Speaking of living, how’s Ms. Z and her birdhouse?
Very cool riff/update on Cthulhu mythos. When applying to Ph.D. programs, I almost applied to Brown, but had to admit to myself that their having the Lovecraft papers was not a good reason to go to Brown since I wasn’t planning on studying Lovecraft.
BTW, have you by any chance seen Chaosium’s RPG? In addition to the game, they’ve always provided a number of great supporting materials such as the Cthulhu for president kit back around the 1992 presidential campaign: “Why vote for the lesser evil?” was the slogan. And I see that right now their sponsoring a pumpkin carving contest.
“I’m a 10th level Vice President” – Al Gore (guest appearance on Futurama)
If you have never seen the episode of Futurama with Al Gore, Steven Hawking, The lady who played Ohura (sp) from Star Trek and the creator of D&D you are missing a great comedic performance. Your post reminded me of that episode and Al Gore’s quote at the end.
John, thanks for the reference—didn’t some scholar recently go through those papers and manuscripts and come out with an authorized/edited edition? I knew there was a journal of Lovecraft Studies, and I had a vague knowledge that there was an RPG, but judging from the Chaosium site, it looks like there’s a lot more out there than I thought. My colleague in the office across the hall, by the way, has a “Innsmouth Community College — Go Sea Devils!” bumper sticker.
Rob, my dad occasionally likes to brag about the time when he got to have dinner with Gene Roddenberry in DC, who brought Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura) as his date. I’ll have to look for that episode.
Pop Culture with Lovecraft. Bravo sir, bravo.
Cthulhu fhtagn!
Yeah, some of those celebrities make Wilbur Whateley look nice and normal.
Two words: Michael Jackson!