Numb: 1
Title: Definitive Blither
From: KIWI
Date: 08-05-85 Time: 05;21
Since I can't stand it when people blither without defining their terms, I
shall now clarify matters. (I suggest that you print this post out and use it
for reference when submitting future blither or gibberish.)
-----
Blither: 1. n. Rational, coherent nonsense, as opposed to gibberish (q.v.).
Also: "blitheration". 2. v.i. To produce blither.
Blitheracious: adj. Comprised of blither; qualifying as blither.
Definition: n. A statement identifying the nature of the units subsumed under a
concept.
Gibber: v.i. To produce gibberish.
Gibberish: n. Incoherent nonsense, such as could be produced by a simple
computer program with a random number generator, a few heuristics, and possibly
a list of words.
Jabber: n. A pointed device, usually metallic, used to poke someone or some
thing.
Joke: 1. n. A story or remark intended to be funny. 2. v.i. To tell a joke.
Kiwi: 1. prop. n. The One True God of Blither, and ultimate authority on
the subject of blither. 2. n. Any of several flightless birds of the genus
Apteryx, native to New Zealand, and having vestigial wings and a long, slender
bill. 3. n. The fuzzy, edible fruit of the vine Actinidia Chinensis, native
to Asia.
Krill: 1. pl. n. Small marine crustaceans of the order Euphausiacea,
constituting the principle food of whalebone whales. 2. prop. n. The King of
Blither.
Mixed Marriage: n. A marriage between two or more people belonging to different
sexes.
Nonsense: n. Human-made sounds, syllables, or punctuation marks that have no
meaning, or real words put together in such a way that they are self-
contradictory or don't signify anything of any importance.
Plagiarize: v.t. What incompetent blitherers do when they can't think up
blither of their own.
Prattle: n. Gibberish.
Rigamarole: n. Prattle.
Word: n. A visual or aural symbol that refers to a concept.
-----
Note that Krill's post where he threw together an agglomeration of words
chosen randomly from the dictionary was not blither, but gibberish. His
"Rotifer Song", however, was blither because it was quite coherent
(monotonously coherent, I should say), and was definitely nonsense. Most of
what THX-1138 has posted are not blither, but non-blitheracious jokes, as was
the above entry defining "Mixed Marriage". The poem "Jabberwocky" is a fine
example of blither by an old master, but when Anders Wallgren posted the
French version he copied out of a book, that was plagiarism.
Note also that all rational discourse on the subject of blither is blither.
After all, what could be more nonsensical than doing serious thinking and
speaking about "rational, coherent nonsense"?
It is easy to tell the difference between blither and gibberish. For example,
"Lokum Blokum Blikkum Blee", due to its incredible coherence and strong feeling
of progression from "Lokum" to "Blee" is blither, while "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh
Cthulhu [or Kutulu, take your pick] R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" is not, due in
part to the fact that you can't pronounce it, but mainly because it is
completely unmemorable. Say "Lokum Blokum Blikkum Blee" once or twice, and it
is ingrained in your mind forever. Try it. It's fun.
--Kiwi
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1. Introduction to Blither
The messages in this collection, the first edition of "classic blither", were
posted on two computerized bulletin board systems ("BBSes") in Columbus, Ohio:
mainly C.O.M.P.U.T.E. (614/239-7621), with a few from Today's Computers
(614/436-0637). [Today's Computers has since gone down, and been revived
under a new name and phone number: CABB (Columbus Access Bulletin Board), at
614/771-1144.]
Hopefully the above message gave you some idea of what blither is; for
those who are interested, here is how blither started:
Most BBSes are subdivided into several sub-boards (usually just called
"boards"), and almost every BBS has some sort of debate board, where the users
may argue about current events, movies, the meaning of life, who is the user
furthest back on the evolutionary scale, or whatever they want. During June
to July of 1985, I became involved in a very interesting debate on
C.O.M.P.U.T.E.'s debate board (called the "Argument Arena"); the topic was
every single last aspect of philosophy, from epistemology all the way up to
politics. Believers in all sorts of philosophies, from Zen Buddhism to
Fundamentalist Christianity to Ayn Rand's Objectivism, logged on and put forth
the reasons they chose their philosophies, in a grand intellectual melee.
Unfortunately, the majority of BBS users are teenagers who were given
computers and modems for their birthdays, and who are not capable of having a
worthwhile thought about philosophy, much less putting it in the form of a
coherent message; rather than discuss the origins of knowledge, they screamed
(and let me tell you, screaming via BBS is not easy) they would get a lot more
pleasure debating the best way to kill Smurfs, which of them are sexual
deviates, which is the worst movie, which of them possesses the least
intelligence, which of them is the biggest yahoo, which high school is the
worst, which teacher at a certain high school is the worst, which of them are
sexual deviates, which of them possesses the least intelligence, etc., etc.,
etc. Needless to say, the more intelligent messages were posted by the
philosophy debaters, the more unintelligent (and less intelligent) messages
were posted by the teenagers. (I am not putting down ALL teenagers; in fact,
I was a teenager at the time.)
Occasionally, though, one of their alternate topics would be very humorous,
including at one time, the alcoholic content of hamburgers cooked by one of
the users. I thought it might be amusing to participate in one of these mock
debates, but decided against it because it was already getting very confusing
simultaneously debating every aspect of philosophy; there were already
far more than enough distractions. Finally in response to one especially
non-constructive piece of travesty, I replied, suggesting that the user
responsible should have posted it on the "Blither Board", not the "Argument
Arena".
While this was intended to be a joke, it occurred to me that maybe a blither
board wouldn't be such a bad idea; it could function as a sort of "trash can"
for the system, a place for users to get nonsensical messages out of their
systems without polluting the other boards. I put up a message to this
effect for the sysop on the "Suggestion Box" board. And then it occurred to
me that in fact, I loved to blither. I'd been doing it for years among
friends, coming up with nonsensical rhymes like "Lokum Blokum Blikkum Blee\ If
you lose your mittens, you'll have to pay a fee", and also for the benefit of
my cats. Cats don't really care what you say, as long as you say it, and so
rather than just saying boring things like "Nice kitty", or talking to them
seriously, it's much more fun to be creative and say things like "Don't
compress any wooden nickels!".
Yes, I, the person who suggested a blither board as a "trash can" for the
system, would contribute to it more than any of the users it was intended to
satirize! And sure enough, when the sysop of C.O.M.P.U.T.E. ("The
Computist") created the first blither board, the one user who had consistently
been on my side in the philosophy debates, Krill, contributed about the same
quantity--and quality--of blither as me. He too had been a closet blither for
years, among other things, singing silly songs about rotifers to his Siamese
cat.
Since then, the concept of a blither board has caught on and spread to more
local BBSes than I've been able to keep track of, and possibly will one day be
as standard as a debate board on BBSes across the country.
-----
In these files, I have assembled what I consider to be the finest blither
I have seen posted up to April 18, 1986. I have divided this "Classic
Blither" collection into eight files:
1. Introduction to Blither: The file you are reading now.
2. Miscellaneous Blither: "Blitherations" that were good enough
to go into this collection, but couldn't be fit into any of
the other categories.
3. Cat Blither: Blither based on things to say and do to your cats.
4. Religion Blither: Arguments over whether God is an apteryx or
a rotifer, other quasi-religious blither, blither that
grew out of those arguments, and of course, blither about
Coca-Cola.
5. Dick and Jane: The not yet complete story of Dick and Jane's
highly blitheracious marriage.
6. NOT a Pizza: A short series of short blitherations, posted
over the course of about a week, about some certain thing
that is definitely NOT a pizza. (Inspired by the slogan used
by Pizza Hut to advertise their pizza variant, "Priazzo".)
7. Zimbob: Blither-slander about a certain user who posts and
logs on infrequently, but possesses a certain attribute in
startling intensity.
8. The Mexican/Asarian War: The best sixty-six messages of the
approximately two-hundred that were posted, chronicling the
complete story of why the Mexicans came to Ohio, what they
did, and what the users of C.O.M.P.U.T.E. and Today's
Computers did in retaliation. All the sub-plots, including
Krill's burrowing into the depths of the hard disk and where
it lead him, are included.
Since not all the blitherations posted could be included (and not all of them
SHOULD be included), occasionally there will be a blitheration that refers to
something else that is not present anywhere in the files. I have tried to
keep this to a minimum, and in cases where it does happen, the message being
referred to is not necessary to "get" the blither.
This is the first edition of "Classic Blither". Possibly in the future, I
will release updated versions, which will hopefully include the conclusion to
the Dick and Jane stories, and many things undreamt of now. However, the
Mexican/Asarian War is OVER. It will never be continued or extended.
--The Kiwi who saved Mesopatamia from the Second Siege of the Duck-Men
Columbus Ohio, April 1986