The Holy Grail Press
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Word of the Every So Often
anneloid: (adj.) In the natural word, an “annelid” is any critter that has ringed body parts, such as earthworms and leeches. If something is “anneloid,” then it is “like an annelid.” Whereas this is a term that is probably still mostly confined to the natural world, it doesn’t need to be. Your local government, for instance, can be anneloid.
Everyday History
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was born on August 30, 1797. Of course, back then she was Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. She wouldn’t get the “Shelley” part until she married Percy Bysshe Shelley, the famous Romantic poet.
For those of you who didn’t study literature in college, Romantic poets (with a capital R) were not poets who wrote about romance. Well, I guess they could have, I mean, there was nothing stopping them, but what it really means is they were from the Romantic period of literature, which generally ran from the 1780s to the 1850s. Think of it as the Punk Rock era of poetry. The writers were rebelling against all that structure and really stuffy stuff. They thought that poetry and the like should be more spontaneous, more emotional. Quite frankly, better. And out of all that came the Gothic Novel. And there is no better example of a Gothic Novel than Frankenstein, which Mary Shelley wrote in 1818.
Nobody knows for certain how many movies have been made about the Frankenstein monster, but a conservative guess is somewhere around 480 feature films. Here at the Press our favourites are Universal’s 1931 classic Frankenstein, starring Boris Karloff, and Mel Brook’s 1974 version, Young Frankenstein. And though it’s equally hard to figure out how much money was made off of everything Frankenstein, two billion dollars is probably pretty conservative. Mary, on the other hand, made about $8,000 total. That’s not then. That’s 31 pounds and 14 shillings from then adjusted to now.
Shelley died on February 1, 1851, and then was brought back to life in March of the same year, only to be burned up in the fire that consumed the mad doctor’s evil laboratory. And then she was brought back to life yet again... and again... and again. Apparently, there is no end to sequels.
Cartoon of the Week
Grid Your Lions
Stuff
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.
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