Ha! Faked you all out! Bet you thought we were stating another story sequel, didn't you? Well, you're wrong. Maybe. Actually, you're not. In this story, we are ALL characters. It's the plain, yet ordinary, yet somehow everyday and mundane story of a heartwarming young liberal arts college called Swarthmore and the heartwarming young liberal arts students who go there. It's a story of dreams, of stories on the SWIL account, of aardvarkian epics and hard-working engineering majors. It's an American story, a true story (well, loosely based on one, anyway), an epic story, a heartwarming story, a repetitive story, a story of true love and false answers on multiple-choice tests, a story for the ages, a story for now, a masterwork of revisionist propaganda and yet, still, a piece of Americana beautiful in its tear-jerking emotionalist simplicity. It is the story of [cue dramatic soap-opera music] SWARTHMORE -- ITS LIVES, TIMES, STUDENTS, LONG STORIES, AND EVEN LONGER TITLES OF STORIES -- PART II -- THE SEQUEL -- SWARTHMORE LIVES ON. Jim Moskowitz awoke to the sound of birds chirping in the room. "Kir released Muffins again, I bet," he mumbled incoherently, to which Eric sleepily replied "Mrffm?" ...(and so we continue the tradition of the three dots...) to which Jim, in his all-nightly wisdom (24 hours a day 7 days a week he's ready to be wise any time you want him, go away) replied, coherently, "Well, yes, of course there are lots of things wrong with applying differential equations to the philosophy of egg-beaters, but I happen to LIKE eggbeaters!" And of course Eric, a vegetarian with lots of chickens, threw his feather pillow at Jim, who punched it (Jim not being a pacifist he can do that) and then, realizing that he had thereby made himself into something vaquely logically similar to an egg-beater, collapsed in fits of recursively-reinfoirced egotism. Eric took a shower.....(five dots now, just to confuse you all) ...Actually, Eric could not have taken a shower at that particular time, because the downstairs room-mates, in character as usual, got all their time screwed up, and were queueing for the shower, all trying to make their 8:30 classes. Eric, not having any classes, wandered down to the kitchen hoping to find some Hydrox. (wait, here guys, is this supposed to be a true story?? ) Meanwhile, this lodgefolk, getting tired of being so darned self-referential, wandered the story over to visit Pierre Deess, who, once again, finds himself a prisoner in his tiny basement abode (I am not a number...!). " AAAAgh", he screams when he realizes that the hinges have been soldered in one position and the window is covered with aluminum siding... ...El Queso Grande no duerme mucho. Hay llamas altas que duermen en la cama. Cama cama cama ca mealy an. Pero, Perry habla otras lenguas; alema'n, por ejemplo. SPRACHEN DE DEUTCH? Eric smiles, quietly. Ruth is in the shower which means that Perry can't take one (don't take just one! We want the hydrox to be used up and we are now in the speck between lodgelife and deessdeath. Do not attempt to adjust your set.) Kir let muffin out and Debby relaxes. Soon it will be daytime and they all will pull out their hair... ...All right, who's being obnoxious? Self referentiation is one thing, but this is ridiculous... ...but even more ridiculous was what was happening in the middle of campus at that very moment. Right in front of Parrish, a large group of students had gathered to watch a chairfight. During the night, someone had done another creative arrangement of the chairs (including one hanging precariously by an arm from the peak of Clothier Tower), and two of the chairs seemed to be involved in a wrestling match. muffin streaked by, in hot pursuit of something fuzzy and transparent (and blue!!?). Perry picked up a black king from the chessboard on the floor and caught a glimpse of a metallic grid; someone had bugged the room. He quickly dialled Lodge 4 on his SWILphone, but misdialled and the telephone rang in ML OCB... ...Whereupon it was picked up! Omigosh golly gee what a coincidence, just at that very second someone else was planning to cal that very same number, but for a very, VERY different reason (d'etre). It just so happens that the phone number for ML OCB is very similar, in fact there is but the difference of a sinlge number, the frist one, area code 225 instead of 215, to the hotline from the White House to the Kremlin. It so happens, by a staggering coincidence, which coincidence was staggering because it couldn't stand up under its own weight, that a White House tourist by the name of Donald T. (Tomatobi) Deagan had, out of pure curiosity, picked up that phone at that very second abd had dialed ML OCB intsead of the Kremlin. Which was a good thing because at that very moment the Politburo was having a barbecue in the Kremlin, and disturbing a Kremlin barbecue is tantamount to a crime punishable by having many hours of Soviet aerobic dancing foreced into your face. Or invasion of your home country, if it was a particularly good barbecue. But Perry called mere split seconds earlier, hair splitting seconds, and thus Donald got a busy signal, decide it wasn't really worth the effort to continue in this pursuit, and hung up. His decision was somewhat reinforced by the large bazooka pointed into his face by a Marine guard and a fellow intellectual, (that is a fellow intellectual of the marine guard) Donald Regan. Donald Degan put the phone down. And Perry saved the world as we know it from destruction. Good job, Perry. For his efforts Comrade Perry will receive a free trip to any warm spot in the world of his choice. Go for it, Perry. We'll take care of the Swil budget while you're gone. Won't we, Eric?..... Perry departed for a beach on Polyethylene, the planet of his choice, leaving... ....Behind him, weeping for acrimonious joy, his tired and dpressed draft registration card. Poor Card. It had worked so hard for Perry, doing all of his nasty work, saving the world and Swarthmore from the horrible evils of the migrant soccer players from Haverford, working its way into almost every Saga entree beginning with an "X," playing Welsh chess on the back ground of the Mona Lisa with a Soviet counter attack, for good old "Mika" Gorbachev on the way any minute then. You mean??!!?? (Look of shock and amazement on everybody's faces.) Yes, it's a for-Mika counter attack!.... ... Well, then, you know, I was talking to that perfectly wonderful young doctor over at the hospital, you know, oh, what's hisa name again, that's right, Dr. Broderick, and he told me, can you belive this Helen he told me this simply awful joke about a formica counterattack! He told it to you too? Well, doesn't that just rock the boat, I mean he must've told simply everybody in town! Isn't he simply a wonderful young man. I wouldn't hesitate for a momentto send one of my children over to see him about absolutely anything. Oh, isn't he jsut the darlingest young man though? Where did he go to school, do you know? I don't have the foggiest notion of where he went to school, but I'm sure it had to be in the East. Harvard you say? Well, doesn't that just take the cake, I mean I just knew he was a Harvard man from the moment I laid eyes on him. Isn't he just he just the sweetest young man? Well, I really must be going Helen, I have to leave room and time in this file for someone else to type something you know, after all these SWIL types are occasionally creative, you know... She left, leaving Helen wondering what a SWIL type was (something like moveable type? but hadn't that been invented by some guy from Brooklyn named Goodenberg or something?). But Helen's active mind (as opposed to her inactive one, which was sleeping) soon moved on to a new topic: she was sure that Dr. Broderick had gone to some small liberal-arts college called Swarthy Moors or something like that. And he was the CUTEST young man. Maybe she would stop and visit him... ...but Dr. Broderick was clueless and thus missed the dames and the dudes on the beach, thinking only of muffin. Now would you miss a dude that only thought of muffine? Cluelessness is a transparent fuzzy blue thing, so only pay it in inactive minds. And call it from OCB when Eric wants a hydrox. And all that really matters are frosh. Like Janice, the vampire. Type a positive in the eyes of the lert. A whole nother lert... ...Lert? Lert? What's this business about Lerts? I had the distinct impression that we were talking about Dr. Broderick! I find Dr. Broderick a particularly fascinating topic of conversation, primarily because I created him! And what the hell is a muffine? Is that strain of muffin transplanted from some weird planet like Mars or New York? Oh, right, some of my friends are from New York. Sorry about that, Friends From New York. Also sorry that you're from New York. Oops, didn't mean to say anything mean or nasty about Scum City, oh, damn there I go again, insulting Hell on the East Coast. Oh, my, nobody from New `ork is goingto like me now. 'Course, I don't think that's all that bad of thing, to be disliked by alien beings who elect Ed Koch. I suppose that'senough abuse for New Yorkers, seeingas how they already take enough abuse just LIVING there. And breathing there, which I understand is actually possible after a thunderstorm has washed all the pollution into the river, where it improves the living conditions of the fish. Say, does anybody actually do anything interesting in New Yoirk City besides go to Mets games, make tons of money, and pat themselves on the back for surviving another day? I mean, seriously, can anybody have a good time in New York without an antitank gun? I've heard that New Yorkers need extensive psychotherapy after leaving for a few days and observing actual civilization. Is this true? No, to be honest, I like the people that I know from New York, or did before they died of lack of carbon monoxide. Bye now, folks. That was Eric ("Bellbottom") Murphy, with "Comedy Tomorrow Night" on the Wrong Channel. We now return to our "acquaintance rape video" broadcast straight from the ivy-hallowed halls of Swarthmore College. With us here tonight is Eugene Pierre Dessy, president of some weird club or other at the College and currently residing on Polyethylene. Mr. Dessy, what do you have to say on the subject of College Videos? "Well, I tell you, I think they're obnoxious, they look bad, and if it weren't for the tolerance of this fine institution I don't think we'd have them." Uh, yes, thank you Mr. Dessy, for that wonderful comment on the situation. Wasn't that a wonderful comment ladies and gentlemen? Wasn't that just wonnnnderrrfullll? Let's hear it for Mr. Blessyou "That's DESSY, you orangutang in bell-bottoms." I'm sorry, Mr. Dicey, "Oh, never mind, I'm just going to go play somebody chess somewhere and maybe oppose an unopposed candidacy or two." Well, let's give a big round of applause to Mr. Dessy. ladies and gentlemen, a big hand. Isn't he just wonnnderrrfulll ladies and gentlemen? (The following announcement intoned in a somber voice...) We now return you to our regularly scheduled Presidential News Conference being held ft the Rose Bowl 50-yard line...... He sighed and gazed sorrowfully at the typewriter. This was not going at all as planned. Why couldn't he write a simple story? It kept getting surreal, turning into a broadcast rather than a semi-autobiographical metaphor for life. How was he going to return the scene to his beloved Alma Mater, Swarthmore College? He didn't know, and he suspected the readers didn't either. He sighed again and returned to work, pausing only once to fail to reveal his mystery-shrouded identity. He watched the letters march across the screen two seconds after he'd finished typing them. Oddly enough, there seemed to be more letters coming out than he had put in. Adjectives acquired extra "-ish" suffixes, nouns were pluralized, and in general the story seemed to be more willing to carry on itself than be carried on. "My", sighed the writer, "it seems to have included ME in it too. I wonder what it's trying to do?" Suddenly the frogman, not dead at all, burst into the room and filled the air with clouds of lead. "It may be AARRGGHH!", cried the writer and quickly expired. The story chuckled to itself. Writer down, reader to go... However, at that moment, a platoon of Fundamental Reconstructionists from the Harvard Crimson swarmed into the room. While two of them revived the ex-writer with a good shot of brandy, the rest attacked the story, slashing its modifiers, dealing mortal harm to its I's, and deftly trimming its dangling participles. Then they quickly sang the Harvard Fight Song and went back to Cambridge, there to be publicly humiliated by fun-loving MIT students. I clawed my way up out of sleep, threw my alarm across the room, and yawning, thought, "The smell of rusting pipes and rancid socks filled the room; I kicked my roomate awake and threw on my jeans, shirt, and shoulder-holster... No, that'll never do; I guess I won't enter the Bulwer-Lytton Worst Opening Sentence Contest, seeing as how I can't think of anything." No! No! Enough recursiveness! Blenders! That's what I want to talk about, Blenders! Nuclear Blenders! Gives new meaning to the word "liquify!" Mix and match body parts! Slice up your meals then use "fusion" to put it all back together again! "Nuclear Blenders" are what they use at the Three Mile Island McDonalds! Do people on your block accuse you of exploiting the Pentagon by buying extremely overpriced, ridiculous, and fundamentally inane Weapons systems? Prove them right! Buy a Nuclear Blender today! Get a free Trident Submarine Sandwich Cookbook and Really Freaked Out Microwave Oven with it! For just $19.95 x 109 (that's supposed to be ten to the ninth power) you too can use the power of the atom to confuse astound and take apart the atoms of your neighbors, their trees, in fact your whole neighborhood can be turned into a huge crater for old Ed McMahon Family Give-Away A Million Dollar things just by pressing Puree! on your brand new Nuclear Blender! This is the age of the Nuclear! Be at one with your universe. Act now. Call 1-703-351-1100 for your Nuclear Blender today...... It's people like this, I thought reflexively, who really mess up the continuity of our stories. So thinking, I stepped into my backyard rocket-ship and fired up the engines. Another day, another credit, I thought... ....and it is a race to the next topic: Nectarines! That's right! Dr. Broderick and Dr. Broderick went out to dinner on, was it a thursday?, and decided that nectarines are definitely declasse of 1988. Junior agreed. Ruth and Eric had dinner at TMI McD's, and the nukes made them happy. They glowed. PCDC... ...was the name of the band that played in the background. Ruth and Eric were still happy. They were so happy they decided to go sightsee in western New Jersey. They set off... ...a dozen tiny nuclear bombs under the shield of the propulsion unit of their starship, which propelled them through the upper atmosphere and outward. Ruth set the course for Procyon and settled back to enjoy the ride. Suddenly, a horde of ravening (and ravenous -- they had been skipping meals) bridge players broke loose from the hold! Eric grabbed his portable Lase-O-Matic Gun (It Sleeces, It Deeses, It Even Does Windows) and fired randomly. One shot pierced the hull; another hulled the Pierce Arrow '39 that was bearing down on them from points unknown. All erupted into chaos. A wormhole opened, throwing the entire story back in time to the last point of relative coherence... Jim Moskowitz awoke to the sound of birds chirping in the room... and a wombat gargling in his sink. A wombat named Harvey, to be exact. Jim knew the wombat's name was Harvey because the wombat stopped gargling long enough to introduce himself. The wombat walked out of the bathroom, took off his derby hat, took the cigar out of the corner of his mouth, and said, "Hiya, guy, the name's Harvey. No relation." Jim... ... demanded to see Harvey's gargling permit. "Do you have a permit to gargle here? I hope so, because everyone knows that you can't gargle without a permit, good golly, nobody's done that since my freshman year when... we won't get into that because DVS was acquitted but anyway you realize the importance of what do you mean you haven't got a permit?" Harvey shrugged his shoulders (they do so have shoulders!) and said, "Look, man, no problem. I can dig. I'll just go downstairs. If I'd known you guys were so uptight I'd never have come to visit my friend... ...who lives in your cigar chest. You DO have a cigar chest, don't you?" Jim was confused at now being in a room in ML instead of Lodge 5 (he was unaware that an entire semester had passed since the beginning of the story). He... ....started listening to the wombat talk about an absolutely fascinating garden party that the wombat had been to somewhere in New Jersey. There was apparently a great deeal of metaphysical sorts of things going on, spiritual hide-and-seek, playing poker with space -time and onion dips and whatnot and generally everybody appeared to have had had a wonderful time until... .....Until what? You can't just stop the story like that! That's ... that's ridiculous! protested Jim in his oddly maniacal way that somehow made him look like a Sunday School teacher lecturing her students about existentail philosophy on a church picnic. Well, maybe not QUITE that oddly maniacal, but you get the picture and that's the important thing. Right, so then the wombat shrugged some more and went off to have a simply WONDERFUL time at the church picnic, gargling all the way. Jim, of course, was left still wondering how he could get to this garden party in New Jersey without causing too much damage to his sense of reality or his understanding of the relationship between the Malaysian electoral college and a pet squid in New York City whose name was "Edward Fuller," whichever was less important. So he called his friend Elliott.... ...Moreton... ...who... ...said... ...we're... ...Professor... ...Know-it-all. ...But Jim didn't want to play games, he wanted to go to the garden party, since the last SWIL meeting of the year had come and gone and died in the petunias. "Elliott," he emoted, "Let's go to a garden party." But Elliott said...