A Bland Note from "Ed" the Editor

Rolland "Ed" Pahjourndice, the Ever-Worried Editor

(That's pronounced Pay-jorn-dicky)

• A few things on my mind--we have no idea how many people read this thing (blog--what an unpleasant word!) or even if any of them read Standard American English (SAE), which is what most of the postings are written in, or at least we like to think that's so. Some of the thimbleful of comments we've received have been from fairly foreign lands (!): one from a distant Spanish-ish place (Andorra?) where they probably speak Spanish, and two, surprisingly from Canada where they also speak Spanish, but with a Cathtilian lithp. Why fully 30% of our known readership is from the Giant up North is a big-assed mystery; maybe since it's Winter-in-Spades-with-Bells-On up there the inhabitants all have a lot of free time on their frostbitten hands. We hope it's because Canadians, more than most on this continent, actually understand and appreciate silliness and irony. Oddly, our most consistent and enthusiastic reader is none other than Emperor Akihito of Japan who "tunes in" at least twice a day and pesters us for "more schtuff," as he puts it. What a card! The Pope also reads us which is why you'll find German words scattered here and there, kind of a Germanico-Papal Where's Waldo? that's great fun for us. Again, since we aren't doing marketing surveys or slinging our hash/wares to focus groups or at corners or niches we have no idea what's appealing to whom or what or why or even if or what day it is. It's all a big blind jumble-bumble.
• The postings, being malleable things, are constantly revised so if any reader encounters one that was, say, only vaguely witty or partly bizarre they may want to go back and check again as maybe now, after possibly twenty or so re-renderings by the original author, it might be absolutely knee-slappingly, rail-splittingly, amusing. The opinions posted here are intended to rile and beguile equally and we ask that no one ever be offended as it's all just good clean fun--like a bubble bath or Senate Hearing.
• Distressingly, we find after a lengthy survey of blogs, that certain subjects or "tones" seem to get better responses from readers--Director Zliplitt mocked this phenomenon some months ago in an entertaining (at least to me) spoof. Postings of photos of kittens or mere mention of pussies seems to do the trick; one blogster we encountered wrote of "nipples" (a cat treat, or maybe just the name of a cat?) in the cynical, life-is-grit, I-chuckle-in-death-and-danger's-face, melodramatic way that seems to be very fashionable with youthful writers right now, and received a full 12 or so comments for her efforts, one pretty darned effusive. All Blog diarists mention cigarettes at one point or another, and coffee, naturally. All the younger females seem to have studied the attitude and mannerisms of the younger Lauren Bacall assiduously. That's just for starters and enders as this is a family show--the rest is just as predictable. The temptation is to produce a parody of a Common Blog, but how does one parody something that already reads like torpid farce? I think Dave Dimp (the Ebullient Blogstarian) still has an office here at the Institute; maybe I'll give him a call, and some work.
• The Mt. Palomine Institute of Mysteries is a huge and labyrinthine place and honestly we still don't know how many people are employed here (or who pays the heating bill), although the best guess is somewhere between 50 and 300 based on the fact that on any given day between 50 and 300 horseless carriages are parked out in the main lot. Admittedly, some of those might just belong to visitors or locals who want to avoid the parking meters in town. Anyone at the Institute may contribute to this publication, they just have to get by Public Assuagement Director Zliplitt, which is no easy task. Once that's been accomplished, just about anything, by anybody, can turn up on these pages.
• The Mt. Palomine Institute of Mysteries was established in the year 893 A.P. (meaning 893 years after the birth of the great Roman philosopher Pontius Pilate) by a distant ancestor of the current head--Professor Antonio Pille--who was coincidentally named Antonius Pillus. The Institute (pictured in an early post) is located on lovely tree-shaded grounds at the base of Mt. Palomine which is very near the port city of Portville which is, in turn, located in the Narragansett National District--one of the 93 National Disticts (or Dipsticks, if you really want to misspell it) making up what we call the Empire (which is, on the whole, not quite what you'd think).
• The Empire is one of a goodly number of nation-states on the world we call Erde, which is roughly like a few other worlds elsewhere in the Multiverse. Other random Erden nations are Nipponinc, Brazillion Aires, The Grand Duchy of Swizzlestein, Deutschbrand, The Heldover Twin Kingsters of Al-Barnacle and El-Hootman, Saltyonion, The People's Paradises of Tic-Toc, The Former Republic of Former Russland, Gross Sowt Afrique Owt (Greater Outer Southern Afro-Mongolia), Puta Babylon, the confusingly tri-located and constantly moving Trans-Iberian Xprussia, and Injahlahlahland--where the telephones never stop ringing. Philatelists should note that each of these places puts out snazzy postage stamps.
• Every nation on Erde, including the Empire, is silly and harmless in its own unique way and the worst things we have to put up with are Autistic-Horrorists, who simply scare us by existing, and Nautical Abysses (what you call oceans) full of ravenous Kraken or Giant Squid who thankfully never come that close to shore. Erde is also having a planetary topological problem called by geo-geometers, Global Warping, and we're worried that if it continues it may initiate a new Micro-Age. Overall, though, civility is so widespread that Erdens haven't engaged in any organized (or even disorganized) violence in nearly 1000 years. The very idea of injuring others, inconveniencing people, not offering assistance when people are bedeviled, and so on is so abhorent as to be almost (as you inaccurately express it on "da Urth") hard-wired. Our institutions reflect this happy situation; it does not in any way prevent Erdens from being silly, frivolous, or foolhardy.
• Within the Sol-system, Erde is flanked by planets Ishtar and Thor. Ishtar, the more Sol-ward, is essentially an immense snow-globe sort of place with one civilization living topside and another (that it has no contact with whatsoever) dwelling within a vast darkened ocean beneath the mercifully thick glassy surface. The chaotic interior is frequently shaken by immense quakes; the less spoken about Ishtar the better. Thor is a sadly dead world that was once home to a civilization that we originally thought had been much like our own but which we now realize (whew!) was much more like your own.
• On Erde we have a lot of religions and other nonsense but the omnipotent fellow who's wildly popular in the Empire is Wotan, our hand-picked deity. Flanking (yes, flanking--you figure it our) paternalistic Wotan is the equally affable and fallible (we've tried, for fifty years, to combine those two words into one but with no success!) Creatrix who didn't do such a great job of intelligently designing the world many years ago (she was new to the job, and anyway she was hired retroactively through an agency after we were created--long story) so she's nowadays engaged in some intelligent re-design--sort of a makeover.
• Your world, "da Urth," is known to us through an inexpensive, tinny, almost toy-like device conceived and fabricated as a bad joke during lunch breaks at the Institute. Any schoolchild can make one. It enables us to view what we call parallel Echo Worlds, or versions of our own world where things went differently, or more wrongly, as the case may be. It's called "Der Peeper," it's fitted into an old shoe box, and it cost, in your money, about $1.75 in odds and ends (mostly small magnets and mirrors) to make. Strange you "Urthers" still haven't figured how to do neat technological tricks with simple magnets and mirrors.
• That's a brief run-down on PPPP (how Professor Pille's Planetary Panopticon is listed on the Imperial Stock-Idea Exchange) with a lot of important stuff left out. If anyone out there has any suggestions as to how all this goofy brouhaha could generate some cash, post a note. If you'd like to leave a "Jolly good show, what!" or "Hear, hear!" please do so as it's a total vacuum out in virtual space... where no one can hear you squirm. Good night.