Tetherd Cow Ahead

Calloo callay, oh frabjous day! Or perhaps ‘Callow callay’ might be a more appropriate salute in this particular case, for next week sees the release of Julian Doyle’s Chemical Wedding, a film starring the wonderful Simon Callow, that has some misguided university types using ‘the world’s biggest super-conductive (sic) computer’ to resurrect the spirit of the redoubtable (if arguably substantially unhinged) Aleister Crowley to possess the body of a classical history professor.

Of course it all goes horribly wrong (as things necessarily must if one attempts to strike up a rapport with the self-proclaimed greatest Satanist of our time) when the reborn Crowley embarks on an effort to call up the Power of the Abyss to unite the Biblical Beast of Revelations with the Whore of Babylon in the Ultimate Satanic Rite – The Chemical Wedding. A showdown between the forces of magic and technology, and other jolly antics, thence ensue.

Oh how I look forward to this film! No-one can do this kind of high camp techno-occultism with anywhere near as much panache as the British, and when the director is the guy who edited Brazil and the writer is the lead singer of Iron Maiden how can it possibly fail to be worth the price of the ticket?!

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Props to Sean for the heads-up!

…and RaJ – how can I possibly have failed to miss the Number of the Post? And I call myself a Reverend. I’m definitely losing my touch.

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Atlas Cerise draws my attention to the release of the Teo MP-301, an mp3 player in the shape of a crucifix. Unlike the iBelieve (which was really just an alternate lanyard for an iPod Shuffle), this is a fully featured mp3 player, with voice recording and FM radio functions. And in the shape of a cross! Take that Steve Jobs. And you thought you were God!

Now I dunno about you, but I have an overwhelming desire to own one of these so I can fill it up with all my old Black Sabbath CDs and Aleister Crowley spoken-word recordings. Then I’d wear it upside-down.

According to iceTech, who make the Teo:

… it comes with the conversion software that would allow you to transfer music of various formats from your CDs and files to this device.

Notice the sneaky ‘would’ in there. Not ‘will’, but ‘would’. As in: The software on the Teo ‘would’ allow you to transfer music from your CDs if that was, like, actually legal in the country you lived in. Like it isn’t in, oh, er Australia, for instance.

Which raises an interesting question: If you commit a sin, and you don’t actually know it’s a sin, will God really strike you off the register? I can only imagine the disbelief on the faces in the queue at the Pearly Gates when people realize they turned down all that sex only to be sent Hellward by a few meagre Britney Spears music-pirating offenses.

But fear not, favoured Acowlytes! If this is the kind of tricksy dilemma you find yourself contemplating, TCA Laboratories in association with PWB are proud to bring you an astounding alternative to the Teo.

Announcing: The Tetherd Cow Ahead MooO™!

Yes my friends, the MooO offers everything the Teo boasts but with the added advantage of the revolutionary new Tetherd Cow Ahead Absolution Engine™! Here at TCA Laboratories, we’ve developed technology that actually allows you to pilfer your music from anywhere you like and digitally cleanse it of any sin! 100% Money Back Guaranteed*

The new CowSound-enabled MooO! Holy Cow that Sounds Good™!

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*We’re talking exclusively metaphysics here. TCA Industries guarantees that the Absolution Engine removes sinfulness, but legal obligations under the law of your country are your own affair…

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Well, Faithful Acowlytes, the season is upon us, and as the Herald Angels sing and the chestnuts smoulder away on open fires from here* to Chocowinity, it behooves† me to wish you all a very Merry Christmas, a Cool Yule and the finest things for the season. I’d like to thank you all for your companionship, zest and humour over the last year, and I look forward to you joining me in continued moosings in 2008.

But enough of that! I know why you’re really hanging around, so on to the winner of the Christmas Competition!

I have to say at the outset that it wasn’t as well contested as I’d hoped, especially when I promised a very special prize… But having said that, the four contenders who did participate didn’t hold back, and all showed the kind of plucky spirit that makes the Cow Comments the kind of feisty tête-à-tête that we all know and love. I am certain that RadioShack will be plagiarizing us for ideas next year. Maybe they’ll even pay us to come smarten up their dumb asses.‡

All the entries showed verve and flair, and disconcertingly high levels of technical competence. Casey’s Destruct-O-Matic Shock Tank was so terrifying that I think it might be better served up at Halloween, and Jedimacfan’s Virtual Sled is a promise to fat kids everywhere that their position in front of the XBox is eternally safe & warm. The Colonel’s aerial Christmas lights were an inspiration to Book Elves of all nations (perhaps to the detriment of some) and hewhohears‘ Aussie Snow Shredder was as fine an example of innovative uselessness as I’ve ever encountered. A generous piece of Christmas Cake for you all!

But after all was said and done, I kept coming back to Casey’s first offering – The Reindeer-Spooking Whirlygig Death Contraption. Casey promises that after the implementation of this device, you need never need worry again about clattering hooves and messy reindeer droppings all over your roof on Christmas Eve. Casey, the Very Special Christmas Prize is yours! Mail me at [reverend-at-tetherdcow.com] with a postal address and I’ll set Santa on a special delivery mission for the New Year.

Anyways, there’s tinsel to be hung and stockings to be filled so glad tidings of comfort and joy to one and all! Don’t eat too much holly, and remember that reindeer poop and raisins look fairly similar.

The Reverend

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*Seriously – I was in Melbourne CBD yesterday and there were guys roasting chestnuts. Thankfully the weather has been a mite cooler these last few days than the 35° (95°F) of last week, but even so, that’s just plain weird.

†Cow Joke…

‡Speaking in a Christmas manner, of course.

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Where they keep the Good Books.

(Spotted by jmf in his local book store.)

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Hey CowPokes!! Don’t Forget: the Christmas Competition is still running! Be sure to get yer entry in!

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WooWoo Beliefs – A TCA Educational Series: Episode #3

This is Raël. Raël believes* that he is the prophetic ambassador on Earth for The Elohim, a race of superhuman beings that created all life on our planet.

In 1973 Raël was a racing car driver called Claude Vorilhon. It so happened that while Claude was visiting a secluded area of the French countryside, a member of The Elohim appeared in a silvery saucer-shaped space-ship to give him a message to pass on to all humankind. After this, he evidently felt compelled to change his name (well, fair enough I guess – Claude is a somewhat underwhelming name for a cult leader†) and run up a huge account with Persil.

Now, see, this is where those aliens of superior intellect always seem to go tragically wrong. Out of all the effective methods they could conceivably adopt to get their message across, they invariably choose to use as their mouthpiece someone like a racing car driver with eccentric dress sense.

We can only speculate that the process that takes place in Elohim Central every time they turn their attention our way goes something like this:

Elohim Subordinate: Oh Noble and Thrice-Blesséd Grand Master Elohim! We desperately need to save Humankind! Despite all our efforts so far, they continue to ignore our message! What should we do?

Grand Master Elohim: Fellow Elohim! Land your Glorious Silvery Saucer in a hidden field in France! Wait, then, for a deceitful man of questionable intelligence to come by, and impart the Galactic Wisdom to him. Do this in a cryptic and abstruse manner, and refer frequently to scientifically dubious concepts such as anti-gravity and faster-than-light travel.

Elohim Subordinate: As you wish, Grand Master. Only, do you think that maybe this time we might have better success if we landed our Glorious Silvery Saucer in Times Square and delivered a PowerPoint presentation? There are a lot of people there at all times of the day, some of them with video cameras. Perhaps the humans would be more likely to believe us if we did that?

Grand Master Elohim: Are you crazy??!! We don’t want them to know that we are responsible for PowerPoint!

On one of his trips to an Elohim planet (an experience detailed in his imaginatively titled book Extraterrestrials Took Me to Their Planet) Raël was shown all kinds of genetic & molecular tinkering by the aliens and as a consequence introduced those concepts into his movement. He set up the controversial Clonaid in 1997 as a ‘stepping stone to the achievement of immortality’ promising as a sideline to help gay couples have cloned children and to allow people to resurrect identical duplicates of deceased pets (I mean, wtf?). Clonaid gained notoriety in 2002 when Brigitte Boisselier, a Raëlien member of ‘The Order of Angels’, claimed that she had successfully created a cloned baby girl named Eve. The contention was of course rubbish, but it gained the sect a lot of publicity.

Bafflingly, Raël continues to attract people to his beliefs and declares that he has 60,000+ followers. There is no doubt that a portion of the appeal to many is the Raëlian cult’s endorsement of sexual promiscuity among members. This is no surprise after all; sex and science fiction have gone hand-in-hand for decades.

So, is he really a deluded dingbat who thinks that he can communicate with aliens and bootstrap the human race into a new era of enlightenment? Or is he a cynical conman who’s found that starting a religion is a great way to get money, sex and plenty of time in the spotlight. He wouldn’t be the only one.

Maybe we should let his ex-wife, Marie-Paul have the last word. When asked in 2003 if she thought Raël was crazy she said he was ‘not mad, just devious, crafty, manipulative and very, very clever’.

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*Or, like Jasmuheen, says he believes…

†Not that Jim Jones cared much, I guess.

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