Nomorenomicon

Wherein are collected the traditions, ideas, quirks, and randomness of the Lancaster site of the Center for Talented Youth.

{Section 0}

0.0 The Nomorenomicon

In the summer of 2005, Polveroj the Plural, then a minus-onemore and rather disappointed not to be attending CTY LAN.2, was worried that the decline in bathrobe-wearing and in general insanity he had witnessed the previous year would continue, to the detriment of everyone (not) involved.

P: Oh noes, whatever shall I do?
Z: Go write a book or something.  Make it insane.
P: That would be too much work.
Z: Then get someone else to write it.

Thus, Polveroj wrote a book, in order that the book would write itself so he wouldn't have to. It worked, somehow.

0.1 The Lorekeeper

The Lorekeeper (aka the Wearer of the Tape Bathrobe and Protector of 42) is a meta-traditional office whose holder's role it is to monitor the randomness (or insanity) level at CTY and generally participate in its increase. The Lorekeeper makes further additions to the Nomorenomicon as he sees fit, either by writing them himself or by accepting submissions from others. The events, thoughts, musings [etc.] recorded should be of interest to future CTYers. The material chosen is up to the Lorekeeper; it may focus only on the present, or it may extend to years before the creation of the Nomorenomicon. The Lorekeeper is also an honorary member of the Order of the Dodecahedral Watermelon, for reasons that may become apparent.

"Yog-Shoggoth is no ordinary rabbit!"

- St. Tim the Enchanter

0.2 Hail Eris All Hail Discordia

  "I find that the Principia Discordia is
  even more gloriously insane the
  harder I look."
  - Polveroj Zorn, Lorekeeper 2005-2004 Zelihar
    (KSC, KSG, ODW)

0.3 This space intentionally not left blank

There is no section 0.3. Go read the Principia instead.

0.FNORD Numerology (Law of Fives)

• Thursday is the 5th day of the week
• 42 = 5(2³) + 2

23 = 5(2²) + 3

• There are 5 books of the HHGG series
• The CTY session is divided into 5 sections: 3 weeks and two weekends
• The CTY day is divided into 5 sections: 3 classes and 2 activities

0.5 Philosophical Musing #0

In the days of yore, CTYers averted cosmic catastrophe by balancing the forces of Bing and Bang through an ingenious phone-flipping campaign. Bing and Bang, of course, were simply other names for the Hodge and the Podge, the universal opposing elements of reality - the Eristic and the Aneristic. The phones themselves, though, had no connection to either element, whether upside-up or rightside-left. It was the act of flipping phones, a random and insane action in a predictable and ordered environment, that restored balance to the Force (or at least to the Franklin and Marshall campus). Though phone-flipping is no more, the subtle acts of subversion and numerous minor reality hacks performed at CTY keep Pennsylvania, and indeed the world, from imploding with Aneristic Overload into a tiny quivering sporkule.

{Section 1}

1.0 The Game

YOU LOSE!

If you do not know what The Game is, you shall now be enlightened:

1. Everyone is playing The Game, all the time. You cannot stop playing, nor can you win. If you know what it is, you are playing it, whether you want to or not.
2. If you think about The Game, you lose. You must say that you lose. Then you cannot lose again for thirty minutes.
3. If you die within this thirty minute period, you lose FOREVER!!
4. If you die outside of this thirty minute period, you get a Patch. No one is quite sure what this does. We are working on it; Philip Punn's [sic] family will receive one shortly.
5. If you lose and someone asks you what you are talking about, you must explain all of this to them, thereby inducting them into The Game.

1.1 Rhythmic Ceremonial Rituals, Part I

1.11 The Afterdance: C is For Cookie (begun by Jeff Sachs, LAN.06.2)

C is for Cookie
That's good enough for me
C is for Cookie
That's good enough for me
C is for Cookie
That's good enough for me
Cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C!

If you take a bite out of a cookie,
It looks like a C
And if you take a bite out of a doughnut,
It looks like a C also,
But it does not taste as good! [sic]
Sometimes, the moon looks like a C,
But you can't eat that!

C is for Cookie
That's good enough for me
C is for Cookie
That's good enough for me
C is for Cookie
That's good enough for me
Cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C!

1.12 American Pie

American Pie has more traditions than everything else on the site combined, many of which vary from year to year with the Alcovians. Only a brief overview of things the campus yells will be recorded here.

After first verse: "LEFT [sic] FOOT FIRST!"

Third verse:

"While Lenin [sic] read a book on Morx [sic]"—yell "Which one? [sic]

Fourth verse:

Yell the last three words of the line, "The marching band REFUSED TO YIELD"

Fifth verse:

Yell the last three words of, "My hands were clenched in FISTS OF RAGE"

"No angel born in Hell"—yell "Not even one!"

Sixth/last verse:

"I went down to the sacred store"—yell "Turkey Hill!"

"And in the streets the children screamed"—scream

"Not a word was spoken"—either "shhh" or yell "Not a word [sic]

"The church bells all were broken"—yell "Clang!"

"The three men I admire most"—yell any three names, usually "Mo [sic], Larry, + Curly"

"They caught [sic] the last train for the coast"—yell "LA sucks!", respond "So does New Jersey", or both

After last verse: "LEFT [sic] FOOT FIRST!"

At the end of all refrains except first and second-to-last: "Die! Die! Die! Die!" Live! Live! Live! Live! Sex! Sex! Sex! Sex! More! More! More! More! ORGIE [sic]!"

1.2 Rhythmic Ceremonial Rituals, Part II

1.23 High Holy Canon (played at every dance)

i. American Pie (always played last)

ii. Stairway to Heaven

Traditions:

Headbanging circle

"And the forest will echo in [sic] laughter—yell, "Does anyone remember laughter?"

iii. Forever Young (always played second-to-last)

Traditions:

Yell the line, "And diamonds are forever!"

iv. In Your Eyes

v. Nightswimming

vi. Bizarre Love Triangle (BLT)

Traditions:

Some people make a human tunnel, and others run through it

Many take off their pants, ONLY if wearing boxers or shorts underneath (this began as a protest in the 80's, when the song was very popular and the DJ failed to play it)

1.24 Low [sic] Canon (1/2 played at every dance)

i. End of the World [sic] - join hands to form a chain and *cough* not run *cough* around the Quad

ii. Time Warp [sic] - Do the Time Warp, silly!

iii. Istanbul (is Constantinople Now) [sic] - conga line

iv. Oh, L'Amour [sic] - sit near the speakers alternately slap thighs and clap to the beat

v. Birdhouse In Your Soul - jump. the entire time. which is way too long.

vi. Blister in the Sun - get in a circle and kick to the beat; when the music gets quiet, crawl into the middle and and stay down until it gets loud again, then jump up and resume kicking

vii. Rock Lobster - get in a circle and kick; during the Key [sic] changes, kneel down and slap the ground

viii. James Brown is Dead - rave song

ix. Tunak Tunak Tun - do the dance from the online video; this song was added to the Canon in LAN.06.2 [sic]

1.25 Time Warp [sic]

On Second Saturday (aka Drag Day), Time Warp [sic] is temporarily added to Canon, and during Time Warp and Sweet Transvestite, selected Alcovians perform corresponding scenes from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

1.3 Frank Wang

Deep in the darkness of a massive black hole, approximately 1.4916253642 parsecs away from Squornshellous Beta, stirred the most awesome, the most terrifying, the most awesomely terrifying creature ever to plague this part of the galaxy, or any part for that matter. This creature, with a mighty effort, heaved itself free of the intense gravity, using nothing but its strength, its willpower, and its very loud voice. Meandering randomly about the Universe, the creature stumbled upon a tiny, backwards planet called Earth. It landed in a tinier, slightly less backwards place known as the Lancaster CTY site.

"Hmm, this place is tiny and backwards," said the creature. "I should take it over and become lord over all the stupid Earthlings." But because this was CTY, the Earthlings were not quite so stupid. Or at least the students weren't. So they were able to prevent the staff from doing anything dumb like allowing the creature to work in the cafeteria and make the food even less edible. They made him an RA instead.

Soon, however, it became clear that this was a bad move. The creature soon began to instill terror within those innocent young hearts with his shouts of, "GUUUYS!" his wanton frisbee confiscation, and his frequent reprimands of lanyard-swingers. The staff saw that the students were slightly better behaved, so they kept him. The students were not too happy about this, but at least it gave them an endless supply of material for Acting Improv—as long as he wasn't the RA running it.

1.4 Quotes

Because people at CTY say very random things.

i. Silent Football

"It's creating a cold rush of air.  It turns all your immune system into flesh-eating viruses
and Twinkies."

"You may not shrug a schrotum [sic] or schrotum [sic] a shrug.  It's the worst
possible thing you could do.  It's dividing the universe by zero.  It's like... stepping on
kittens.  It's like pouring milk on something that doesn't... like... milk..."

"You must address the Dictator as Mr. Dictator, or Madame Dictator, depending on the
Dictator's preferred gender at the moment.

ii. Acting Improv

"Oh Great + Powerful Sphinx, how do I get rid of this rash?
"You" "put" "two" "ants" "within" "your" "...oh my."

Subconscious:
  "flash a little, flash a little, pull it up—*gets slapped*  Hey!  I'm your subconscious!"

Party quirks:
  "Anyone with quirks get in the circle!"
  "Assigned quirks, or quirks in general?"

World's Worst Dance:
  "All your dance are belong to us!"
  "In Soviet Russia, the dance dances you!"
  "The no canon [sic] dance!"  "The all canon [sic] dance"  (Not Actually A Bad Idea [sic].)
  "The completely appropriate dance: guys on the Quad, girls in Mayser!"
  "The hit yourself in the crotch dance!"  "The hit other people in the crotch dance!"

Park Bench:
  "Greetings, I am the bench.  How may I make your stay more comfortable?"

World's Worst TA:
  "Welcome to Capitalism 101!  I am your TA, Joseph Stalin!"

World's Worst Pickup Line:
  "The word of the day is legs.  Spread the word!"

iii. Other Random Quotes

"My parents don't even know what happens here.  I'm going to tell them good, wholesome, Amish
fun."

"You robbed me of needing my fob!  That's cruel and unusual!"

"This is going to be the longest ten-minute Capitalism game in history."

"And [my non-CTY friends] were like, 'This is not the time for big words!  This is the time for
swear words!" [sic]

"I am not going to procrastinate!  I'll procrastinate later!"

"Are you perspiring?"  "Only at CTY do people use the word 'perspiring'." [sic]

"Imagine a world without hypothetical situations."

"Our RA can beat up your RA!"

"If you look at the morphology of Hallucigenia, you will see that it has no purpose whatsoever
and thus was created by God."

1.5 To Those Who Are Nomore

Let it be decreed that every fifth year, as long as the position of Lorekeeper exists, the new Lorekeeper shall e-mail the current contents of the Nomore-Nomicon to all Alcovians past and present, as well as to all former Lorekeepers, so that those who dedicated their sessions to maintaining the traditions shall always know the current state of affairs at the sacred Lancaster site. Every Lorekeepers should take up the responsibility of keeping the list up to date, so that none are forgotten.

Notes

General

• This section is not part of the Nomorenomicon
• The Nomorenomicon has been copied verbatim.
• The cover page reads "NOMORE-NOMICON", with the word "NOMICON" on a separate line, because the letters were too big. However, Nomorenomicon is, in fact, spelled "Nomorenomicon".
• Even though each person is theoretically supposed to contribute 5 new articles, so far the Lorekeepers have been making 6.
• All paragraphs are actually supposed to be indented. However, MediaWiki does not have this function.
• All in-text bullets are actually dashes, as opposed to bluish squares.
• The actual Nomorenomicon does not have a Table of Contents.
• The Section headings (i.e., {Section X}) do not appear in the Nomorenomicon. They were added here to make the Table of Contents look pretty.
• The Nomorenomicon was transcribed in its entirety to this location by Max W. These notes are of the same author.

Section 0

• The [etc.] in Section 0.1 was an illegible scribble that looked vaguely like etc.
• The rabbit-oriented quote at the end of section 0.1 was on the back of the piece of paper which, on its front side, contained 0.0 and 0.1. It is the only text on the back of said page.
• The two equations in section 0.FNORD should be aligned. There is only one bullet, however.

Section 1

• There should be a half-page-sized space between "YOU LOSE" and the rules of the game.
• The Game rules are wrong. See The Game for the real rules.
• Philip Gunn's name is spelled incorrectly. See Phil Gunn for more information on Phil Gunn, including the correct spelling of his name. Rest in Peace, Phil.
• Similarly, the sentence about Phil was written in small letters in the left-hand margin of the page, and an arrow was drawn to the word "one" in the phrase "No one is quite sure..."
• Technically speaking, Section 1.11 should be 1.1.0; following sections have similar errors.
• The C is for Cookie song has several errors. See the the Afterdance page for more accurate lyrics.
• In American Pie, there are a great number of errors, and very little of the great amount of tradition. See American Pie for more and more accurate info.
• Assorted errors in Section 1.2, especially in that High Holy Canon should be Upper Canon (High Holy can refer to the whole Upper Canon or just the three untouchable songs), and Low Canon should be Lower Canon.
  • Also, the protest may or may not have been about playing the song; it may have been because somebody didn't want the song played. However, BLT has been on the tentative Canon since the 80's.
  • Also, Tunak was added to the Canon in 05.2, not 06.2.
  • Second Saturday is almost never referred to as Drag Day. That's only in Carlisle. At Lancaster, it's Cross-dress Day. Or, most commonly, just Second Saturday. In fact, I don't know any Lancasterian who has called it anything but Second Saturday.
  • Sweet Transvestite is temporarily added to the Canon, not Time Warp. Time Warp is always on the Canon.
• Actually, everybody loves Frank Wang, and it's fun to make AI jokes involving him while he is running AI.
• In section 1.4, for World's Worst Dance, the phrase that starts with "Not actually a..." is off to the right margin with an arrow drawn to the words "all canon dance."

Authors

1. Section 0 = Polveroj the Plural
2. Section 1 = Emily Ehrenberger
3. Section 2 = Kendal Reed
4. Section 3 = Sarah Hackney