Page Two
        “THE NOOZ MAKES
            A DEFINITE STATEMENT!
       Many of you have wondered, as I have wondered, as indeed we all have wondered, just what is this thing called primate plummeting.  Is it an aberrant behavior that hangs like a black cloud over our rubbery, high-canopy forests, or is it the wave of the future?  Do any other orders engage in plummeting, and is their injury rate any better?  Will primate plummeting still be around two hundred months from now when prosthetic prehensile tails and dominance hierarchies are things of the past?
      Just before he disappeared the last time, Professor Mitsuo Ohhohoho had firm plans to investi-gate this mysterious tropical phenomenon with Mr. Christopher Shaw, West Coast Correspondent and Really Scientific Letters Editor for Primate Nooz.  But then the professor disappeared, and those plans had to be shelved.  Even now that he has reappeared, he doesn't seem all that interested in primate plummeting any more, and has mainly been trying to avoid Mr. Shaw, who has promised to wring his neck.  It has therefore been left to us to illuminate this oft-obscured subject, and we refer you in turn to the 'Recommended Reading' sections of the last few issues of the Nooz for some relevant material.  The truth is that we here do not know what primate plummeting is exactly.  You hear more and more about it every day, but happily ensconced as we are here in our plush editorial offices in the beautiful Baxter-Burnham Inflatable Building which has served as our temporary home since last October, this behavior has swept over us like a B-2 bomber leaving us in its distant, fume-filled wake and trying to figure out just the what the hell that was.
      We have no doubt that in the weeks and months to come, we will be able to tell you something about primate plummeting.  There probably will come a time when we will have articles and sponsor symposia and establish websites, but that time is not now, so don't ask.
 
 
 
  SPECKLED LEMUR MAKES
  WORLD RECORD PLUMMET
 
 

    Rumors about the soon-to-be-completed Nooz building
have been flying like crazed bats around Hellmouth for
weeks.  Ever since the 4th and most recent Nooz building
collapsed last October and the whole operation had to be
shifted over to the Baxter-Burnham Inflatable Building,
everyone on the staff from publisher Arnett Putney, III
and executive editor Widen Lundale, Jr. to the most
meager paper flattener has been anxiously awaiting the
day when the new offices would be ready.  Now, that day
seems to be at least, if not on the distant horizon, perhaps
just beyond it, and moans of anticipation can quite often
be heard from one corridor to another.

      “News Behind the News” has just learned that some-
one in the Accounting Department has apparently been
entirely responsible for all the financial problems that the
Nooz has been experiencing lately.  Evidence has turned
up that a massive and evil fraud has been perpetrated by
an unspeakably vile and traitorous individual whose hein-
ous acts and depraved deeds have corrupted the integrity
of the Nooz, and whose utterly loathsome and gangrenous
activities have upset us all.  We are not making any direct
accusations here against this person, but somehow he was
able to make it appear as though publisher Arnett Putney,
III and executive editor Widen Lundale, Jr. were to blame.
The individual's name is being withheld pending the
outcome of the preliminary investigation, but we can tell
you that it was Ramsey Pinkbutton.

      It is becoming clear that West Coast Correspondent
and Really Scientific Letters Editor Mr. Christopher Shaw
may have had more than was originally believed to do with
the new format that was unsuccessfully tried out in the
Nooz a few issues back.  “Just about the whole thing was
his idea,” said apprentice ink stainer Bill Murk, “he just
didn't want anyone to know it unless it turned out to be a
big hit.”  Shaw had been pushing for a new format for
several months and seems to have won over publisher
Arnett Putney, III and executive editor Widen Lundale, Jr.
The experiment was a dismal failure however, and was
scrapped after overwhelmingly negative reader response
and not a few vicious threats.

(Reuters)  Ashanti, Togobogo.  Despite pleas
for decorum from presidents and prelates alike,
the 7th International Primate Plummeting
Awards Banquet was disrupted for the seventh
year in a row by a group of detractors who claim
that primate plummeting is nothing more than a
bunch of hooey.  The Sergeant-at-Arms was
forced to evict several protestors after two
white-cheeked muscatels and a giant mouse
lemur were injured by flying objects.
      During the awards portion of the banquet,
primates from five continents were recognized
for plummeting achievements, and the surviving
ones accepted plaques and trophies.  The
evening's crowning moment was the handing
out of the World Record Award to a southern
brown speckled lemur from the Nosy-Varinda
Nature Reserve on Madagsacar, who late last
month shattered the previous world record of 52
meters by leaping from the crown of a green
pepper-thistle tree and falling an astonishing 68-
1/2 meters into a peat swamp.

RAMPAGING GALAGOS Cont. from page 1.

sentiments of their current President, Mr. Uhuru
Sawanda, who said a week ago, “Mad monkeys
or mad cows, what's the difference?”  A plane
left Hellmouth last night bound for Jujube, and
the prayers of at least several local residents are
going with it.  West Coast Correspondent and
Really Scientific Letters Editor for Primate Nooz
Mr. Christopher Shaw released the following
statement today:  “I am very concerned about
the situation in Jujube, and I will be going there
as early as next week when I finish digging the
hole for my new barbecue pit.”
      The eastern desert galagos at the Hellmouth
Municipal Zoo and Exotic Animal Crematorium
are being monitored closely for signs that they
might be infected too, inasmuch as three of the
four animals there were imported from Jujube in
1989, and they appear to their keepers to have
been more irritable than usual lately.

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