The Holy Grail Press
Proudly Made On Earth By Earthlings
Short Stuff
Saint Buddy (1107-1114) In 1114, the Earl of Gadwater, after losing a game of cards to Lord Cadbury, was converted to Catholicism as part of their wager. Upon his baptism, it is said that a bright light entered the room, temporarily blinding all inside, except for the Earl of Gadwater, who swore he saw the Archangel Gideon. It was Gideon, himself, who instructed Gadwater to travel to the Holy Land and rescue the Holy Grail itself, which was said to be in the possession of Suleiman Ach-nam alla Hom. Within a month The Earl and a rag tag collection of knights and mercenaries were on their way to Jerusalem. Poorly outfitted and undermanned, the Crusade was a shambles from the start. Choosing to go overland, they became lost in Northern England. Unfortunately, they had decided to start in the winter. Half frozen and out of supplies, they certainly would have all perished had it not been for what Gadwater attested was yet another miracle. In the middle of a blizzard, a dog appeared in their camp. Gadwater stated that “the sight of the dog alone filled his men with an unearthly will to go on....” Over the next several days, they followed the dog as it led them to the safety of a cabin. Unfortunately, there were no supplies in the cabin, so to keep from starving they ate the dog, which gave them the nourishment they needed to make it to a nearby town when the storm finally abated. Indeed, only Gadwater was injured, losing a toe to frostbite, which he said was God’s reminder of humility. Shortly thereafter, the wound became infected, and Gadwater did not live to see his beloved Southern England ever again. The Church, upon hearing the tale of Gadwater, was convinced it was nothing less than a miracle. Therefore, a petition to canonize Gadwater was begun: St. Gadwater, the Patron Saint of Wool Stockings. That is when Church politics took over. A faction in the Church opposed Gadwater’s canonization on two major grounds. First of all, not only did his Crusade never make it to the Holy Land, they never got out of England. And most importantly, Lord Cadbury, who Gadwater had been playing cards with, admitted that he had cheated. Therefore, Gadwater was converted under false grounds, thereby nullifying the conversion. Whereas the first condition has always been one of church debate in which intention is deemed to be as important, if not more important, than the actual outcome, the second condition was a deal breaker. However, by this time the canonizing process had already become public knowledge. Gadwater’s supporters, though small, represented a considerable amount of political strength, especially among sheppards. In reality, they didn’t care who was canonized, just as long as their town could lay claim to a local saint. They further argued that regardless of who was responsible for the miracle, there had still been a miracle. So it was decided to canonize the dog. The dog, after all, was the only other member of the Crusade who had died, and he had truly saved the Crusaders. He even sacrificed his life for theirs. So became Saint Buddy, Patron Saint of Travelers Lost in the Snow. Saint Buddy probably had the most popularity from the late 15th to the early 17th centuries. His greatest popularity was in Southern Spain, where he become know as Señor Perro, or simply, El Perro. Buddy’s popularity waned with the coming of modernization, and he was all but forgotten until the middle of the 20th century, when an American dog food company adopted Saint Buddy as their mascot. Outraged, the Church tried to get a court injunction, but failed. It was shortly thereafter that the Church re-evaluated Buddy’s sainthood. In a controversial decision, the Church overruled Buddy’s sainthood altogether and reinstated Lord Gadwater. Regardless, there are still those who consider Buddy to be a genuine saint. Currently the church does not recognize any Patron Saint of Travelers Lost in the Snow. Unfortunately, there is no current Patron Saint of Travelers, either, Saint Christopher having been refuted as well.
Kenny and Bruce Kenny and Bruce were these two friends who were always trying to figure out different ways to get money. You know, just trying to survive. So Kenny comes up with this idea that they go downtown and take their shirts off and see if anybody were willing to pay them to hit each other. And people were. Sometimes they wanted Kenny to hit Bruce, and sometimes they wanted Bruce to hit Kenny. And sometimes they just paid them to beat the living hell out of each other, often offering whoever won something extra. And at the end of the night, Kenny and Bruce always made some pretty serious money, more than they ever made with a guitar. So one day this guy says he’ll pay Kenny if he hits Bruce with a board. They’d never used weapons before, and it was easy to see where it could be going, but the guy offered twice as much as they ever made before, so Kenny hit Bruce with the board. And then one night some guy brought some brass knuckles, and another night this guy had a pair of nun chucks. And finally, one night this guy pulls out a piece. And he’s willing to pay Kenny if he’ll shoot Bruce. And Kenny did. No hesitation. Shot him right in the chest. Because he knew that if it had been the other way around, if the guy had chosen Bruce to shoot Kenny, Bruce would’ve done it. After all, they had a deal. And nothing’s worse than somebody who breaks a deal.
Number 48 “Do you like my new cat?” Andrea asked when Jamal walked in the door after a hard day’s work. “You got a new cat?” Jamal asked in disgust. “Yes,” said Andrea. “Isn’t he cute?” Jamal looked around and then asked, “Which one is he?” “He’s...” replied Andrea, and then after a pause, continued, “I’m really not sure. But you’ll just love his name.” Jamal moved over to the liquor cabinet and started rummaging through the empty bottles. “Oh, I’m sure I will,” he stated, with just a touch of sarcasm. It wasn’t clear if Andrea ignored Jamal’s sarcasm, or just wasn’t aware. Said Andrea, “I call him 48.” “Forty-eight?” Jamal wondered. “Well, silly,” quipped Andrea, “he is number 48, after all.” “Where’s all my liquor!” Jamal finally demanded, after making certain that the cabinet really was void of any spirits, except, perhaps, for the spirits of the empty bottles that had not yet followed the light into the next world, where many thirsty parishioners were eagerly awaiting their arrival. “Oh, your liquor,” said Andrea, “that would be Bobo and Leander. They do so dislike milk.” And then, she added, “Where are you going?” “Out!” snapped Jamal as he picked up his coat. “I’m going to the Cat and the Fiddle for a drink!” And with that, he grabbed his hat and headed for the door. “Wait for us,” said Andrea, “the cats do so love to get out. We can take the van.” But Jamal never heard Andrea, for he was already gone. She stood there sadly for a moment, and was only distracted when Bobo rubbed against her legs. He then looked up at her and inquired, “Well, are we going or not?”
Cosmic Rats: The debate continues by Earl Eldridge Ever since Dr. Ivan Tupidsay announced the existence of Cosmic Rats in 1992, debate has raged throughout the scientific community over the reality of this alleged phenomenon. After an exhaustive 17 year survey of the Cosmos, Dr. Tupidsay was able to conclude, much to the shock of astronomers and astrophysicists worldwide, that there is no Cosmic Cheese (Astronomy Today, April 1992). As his argument follows, it would take Cosmic Mice far too long to devour a hunk of Cosmic Cheese. The Cosmic Cheese, though, has clearly been eaten, which explains why none can be found. Therefore, there must be Cosmic Rats, since no other creature would possess such an affinity for Cosmic Cheese. Cosmic Rats, estimated at being perhaps several light years long, are obviously very adept at hiding. Professor Giuseppe Asabuncha, of the Bologna Institute of Technology in Bologna, Italy, has recently announced that Dr. Tupidsay’s research was, at best, horribly flawed. “His survey was by no means exhaustive. He only mapped small sections of the Universe…and then extrapolated the rest. Even those sections he investigated were not representative of the Universe as a whole,” said Professor Asabuncha. (Cosmos Quarterly, January 1995) Still not satisfied, Professor Asabuncha has begun an independently funded search for Cosmic Cheese, which he is confident will once and for all prove the fallacy of Dr. Tupidsay’s Cosmic Rat Theory. Proponents of the Cosmic Rat Theory are quick to point out, however, that even if Cosmic Cheese is discovered it will only strengthen Dr. Tupidsay’s original conclusion. “It is only logical,” Dr. Tupidsay wrote in the Cosmic Mind (Holy Grail Press, 1995), “that since there are Cosmic Rats there must, therefore, be a cosmic food source.” Recently, Messerschmidt and Baum of Southern Cal have proposed a Cosmic Cat Theory to explain why they have been unable to find any Cosmic Rats. (Cosmos Quarterly, February 1995) “Absolutely ridiculous!” was the response of Dr. Tupidsay. “It is most obviously an attempt to find a simple explanation for a complex cosmic phenomenon by manufacturing the solution out of pure fiction.” (Cosmic Mind) Mr. Eldridge is an associate professor of Astronomy at the University of Milan. Other articles by Mr. Eldridge have appeared in Cosmos Quarterly, Astronomy Today, and more recently Astrophysicists Digest. He is currently finishing his doctoral thesis Stars, Planets, and Stuff Like That.
The Undertaker It’s an odd story. A story my father used to tell. Said he first heard it from an old man who used to live in the bottoms. No telling where he heard it from. It’s about this guy that shows up in this little town. First person who can remember seeing him is the undertaker. Come to think about it, I suppose the undertaker was the only one who ever saw him. He was this odd fellow. Short. Didn’t really make eye contact. Not completely. It was as if he was always looking around for something else. Something that he might’ve lost a long time ago, and was always hoping it would show up. Maybe where he least expected it. Someplace where he had never been. He walks into the undertaker’s and says he wants to buy 532 caskets. 532. In all sizes. Says he’s willing to pay twice for what each one is worth. Now that was a lot of money. Cash in advance for the first one, and then cash in advance for each one after that. So the undertaker says he would. Because, like I said, it was a lot of money. 532. It’s such an odd amount. It was odd, but at the same time it was almost familiar. And then it occurs to the undertaker. It’s the town’s population. And so he checks it. But it wasn’t. Not exactly. But then the undertaker gets to thinking about it, and he starts thinking about everybody that’s moved in and moved away since they last counted. Everybody that had been born. Everybody who had died. Because it wasn’t a very big town, after all. And the amount he came up with was right at 532. Close enough that he just couldn’t be sure. After all, there was really no way to count some of the families out in the Wilderness. And the more he got to thinking about it, the more he was sure that it was the entire population of the town. Everybody. Every man, woman, and child. But he makes the first casket just the same. After all, it had been paid for. Took him about a day. It wasn’t fancy. Mostly just a box. Lined the inside with cloth, but nothing special. If the stranger would’ve wanted special, he probably would’ve gone somewhere else. But you see, here’s the thing. The minute he gets it done, someone dies. And when he gets the next one done, someone else dies. In fact, every time he gets one finished, someone else shoves off. Of course, the undertake didn’t put it together at first. I mean, people die. But after about the third one, he starts to figure it out. After all, not that many people die. Not every day. And every time he finishes a casket, the stranger shows up and pays for another. And another. And another. But the undertaker keeps making the caskets just the same. He does this for about a year and a half. Steady. Until the only casket left to make is his own. Like clockwork, the stranger shows up and pays him to make that one, too. And, of course, he makes it.
2011: When the Grammarians Rule the Earth The following essay was originally published in March of 1987 by Mrs. Vula Bimbaum, who is the English Language Consultant for the Holy Grail Press. To quote HGP, “We here at the Holy Grail Press are thankful this prophetic piece joins other great works of literature, such as Orwell’s 1984 and Clark’s 2001. They didn’t happen when they were supposed to, either.” No one is sure where the battlelines were first drawn. Some say it was the University of Michigan that first started allowing only Traditional grammarians to enter their program, and the Traditionalists spread from there. The Structuralists were undoubtedly centered around the University of California at Berkeley. First it was only the professional journals, but it spread from there, slowly at first. The Traditionalists captured the media center of the Northeast by placing key personnel into strategic positions. The Structuralists were able to capture Hollywood and subsequently the Western media machine. As of yet there was no bloodshed, but the demonstrations were becoming increasingly violent. A picture of Noam Chomsky was burned at a rally in upstate New York. And a spontaneous gathering in San Francisco rampaged local schools and confiscated all the traditional grammar books, to later be torched in what was described as “a holocaust of the written word.” The cold-blooded murder of Mrs. Grumsbee on January 28, 1992, was almost inevitable. Although the assassins were never captured, the two men in ski masks that machine-gunned the 87-year-old grammarian while she was diagramming sentences at the blackboard were undoubtedly members of the radical faction Do Wah Ditty Ditty (Death to the Whores of Dead Dialects), fanatical Structuralists who had become disillusioned with the inability of the non-violent Structuralists to prevent the already decisive gains of the Traditionalists from spreading any further. Tensions exploded as the National Convention of English Teachers erupted into the famous Chicago Grammar Riots in July, 1992, in which 47 people were killed and scores of others were injured. The indiscriminate violence that followed the Chicago Grammar Riots turned public opinion against the Structuralists. However, quick victories gave the Structuralists control of the entire Southwest and the western coast up to central Washington State. Seattle, however, remained a Traditionalist stronghold. The violence that followed has been well documented: The invasion of Omaha and its subsequent recapture by the Traditionalists. The sinking of the USS Enterprise off the coast of Texas. The air strikes on Cheyenne. And then the world shaking Presidential Directive. On October 4, 1993, the cities of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Reno, Nevada, were destroyed with nuclear warheads fired from silos in the Midwest. Even though the Structuralists retaliated with the destruction of Pittsburg, Kansas, the cause was lost. The Structural Loyalists fell into confusion, abandoning their cause and dispersing into the populace. Some joined into small bands of armed resistance, but were quickly subdued by the Verb Vengeance, the newly formed corps of crack Grammarians, which later formed the nucleus of the Secret Grammar Police. It was an astounded world that saw the entire Northern and Southern American Hemispheres fall quickly into the militaristic dominance of the Traditionalists in the spring of 1998. Europe was unprepared, especially with the unexpected assistance of Great Britain. Australia offered no resistance. And from there Indochina became incorporated, while Africa was swept from both the south and the north. For a few short months the fate of the world stood in fear of perdition. The decisive blow came when Red China signed the monumental Grammarian Treaty of Peking in the fall of 2000. Soviet Russia had no choice. In the famous communiqué from the Soviet Premier delivered on January 17, 2003, the fate of the world was decided: “What the hell, English, Russian – it’s all pretty much the same, ain’t it?” The transition came quickly. Soon there was no other language but Proper Latinate English on the planet. Stories of death camps have never been confirmed.
Today in Grammar February 4, 1895: The Semi-colon. As early as 1895, after coming off the disappointing loss of the dash to rival Gutwald Buetterstrapp*, Erstl von Hemholtz had confided in his longtime confident and friend, Über Nuebergen-Meinsterhoffenschlager that he was experimenting with something radical, “a mix... no, a combination... of a comma and a period...” what he was calling a “sort-of-comma.” Convinced that punctuation wasn’t confusing enough, he began stacking punctuation on top of each other in the summer of 1883, while vacationing in the Alps. Early attempts had him placing the comma on top of the period, but, as he stated in a letter to Nuebergen-Meinsterhoffenschlager, “I feel the period holds the comma down. Without the period, the comma would rise much higher and take on a life of its own.” It wouldn’t be until 1903 that von Hemholtz would finally let the comma rise and shock the entire world with the invention of the apostrophe. But for now Hemholtz was mired in what he called his “stacking phase.” He confessed once again to Nuebergen-Meinsterhoffenschlager that he “liked the symmetry” of one period stacked on another, but went on to state that he couldn’t “really see any purpose in such a thing.” It would be another eight years, also in 1903, before he would resurrect the colon, commenting at the time, “I was wrong all along in thinking I needed a purpose.” It was on February 4, 1895, while attending a reception at Baron von Yamanstiffer’s, while “watching another guest become violently ill after eating spoiled clams,” that it came to him. Writing to Nuebergen-Meinsterhoffenschlager, Hemholtz stated, “It was there all along; I just needed to put the period on top of the comma!” It wasn’t until that following summer, at the World Grammar Convention in Berlin, that Hemholtz introduced to the world what he had now come to call the “semi-colon.” When asked by colleagues what the purpose of such a thing was, Hemholtz answered, “Purpose? Why, it has no purpose. It does absolutely nothing.” In what Hemholtz later wrote in his autobiography as his finest moment, he received a standing ovation that lasted “a full twelve minutes.” It is still a point of academic debate how Hemholtz could’ve invented the semi-colon before he truly invented the colon. * Whereas researchers such as Le Heungh in Paris and Armorwald, who had begun a movement to establish the English equivalent of L’academie du Français in London, believe that there should be no appreciative difference between the hyphen (which had been introduced at the 1878 World Grammar Convention by Fregelmeyer in Oslo to overwhelming approval), and the proposed dash (which Hemholtz claimed to have envisioned as early as 1872), Hemholtz had been convinced that a dash should be considerably longer “to prevent certain confusion.” Early prototypes by Hemholtz were over three inches long. Stated Hemholtz, “Let’s see you confuse that baby with a hyphen.” Finding such a length cumbersome, it was Buetterstrapp, in 1885, who came up with the idea of “simply doubling the stupid thing.”