Referential overload

I have to admit it. This week's episode (in the ear / in the eye) has got too many subtextual references for its own good. Making it worse, the Nostrumite is in a state of permanent depression over all the time he spent in preparation finding a decent rendition of "When the foeman bares his steel" on YouTube. "Subtitles?" he complained. "Who needs subtitles for Gilbert and Sullivan? Who's on this YouTube thing anyhow? Damned furriners?" He got so upset he was seriously thinking of moving to Arizona, where they know how to handle damned furriners, but his wife and kids looked at him with that look that they save for whenever he starts ranting about stuff like subtitles for Gilbert and Sullivan on YouTube, and that was the end of that.

Meanwhile, don't forget to follow us on Twitter via @NostrumNation. Going over the old correspondence, I'm now in the part where the Mite was working at the meatpacking plant, where the volume of sausages coming out was 10% higher than the volume of mystery meat going in. Those were good times back then. Good times...

Cue the circus music!

Episode 12: Deep in the Liver of Texas, is posted (ears version / eyes version).

I have to admit that I'm enjoying digging up the old Nostrumiana and posting it all on Twitter @NostrumNation. This may be because the Nostrumite has been no help whatsoever lately with N2. He's in a state of permanent depression over the whole Icelandic earthquake business and its effect on international air traffic. The thing is, he has never trusted Icelanders, not a single one of them. "Devious little worms" is the expression he's usually used to describe them. According to him, it's just like those SOBs to send a cloud of schmutz into the air to screw everybody up. When the country went bankrupt, he was the only person I know clapping his hands in glee, but then they banned what he calls exotic dancers, which perplexed him because he didn't know whether he was for or against.

He's a tough guy to read, let me tell you.

La Nostalgie

Quelle une drag, as the Frenchies say, or not, as the case may be. I seriously wanted to get down to Lakeland last weekend to judge a few rounds and meet up with Menick and Cruz and set them straight on some Nostrum business (for instance, Menick needs to work on his voices because everybody sounds alike, and Cruz needs to understand that nothing, not nohow, no part of Nostrum, is about him, the Bronx or, in many ways, the state of New York, except, maybe, for one or two things that are not the things you think they are). But I couldn't get away because at the last minute the Nostrumite went into a state of permanent depression over the existence of Justin Bieber, a condition (realizing Justin Bieber's existence, not the permanent depression) for which there is no known cure. I had to make him go cold turkey on the internet completely, so we went into the Nostrumian attic and did some spring cleaning and, lo and behold, we uncovered the old archive of epistles from St. Jules to the Forensicians. These are the letters I used to send to the LD-listserver announcing that week's Nostrum episode. For the next couple of hours, over the odd pousse-cafe, we reminisced about the good old days (there were Debaters back then, with a capital D), and then we decided to start the @NostrumNation feed on Twitter. I'm not quite sure how we got to here from there, but you know how the Mite is when he gets wound up. We decided to mix all manner of N1 and N2 trivia on the site, so it's for serious fans, not just the occasional piker. Check it out.

Oh, and yeah, we do have a new episode this week (audio visual), beginning the trek down to the Monteverdi in Texas. I, for one, swear that Obomash and Rand-Walsh sound alike, but Menick swears that one is a British accent and the other one isn't. Yeah, right. You can judge it for yourself. (By the way, if you read the pdf, you probably won't hear the different accents. I just thought I'd point that out.)

If you can't get enough of Nostrum...

...then there's something seriously wrong with you.

Nevertheless, we are now tweeting. Follow us: @NostrumNation. We expect to talk about things there that would never make it to the episodes. Or maybe stuff that does make it to the episodes. Or maybe neither. Or both.

We'll see.

Welcome to the Bahamas

This afternoon the Mite and I met with some so-called fans of Nostrum, and I have to admit that, as a result, the Lad is now in a state of permanent depression. First of all, they raved about all these stories from E1 that, to be honest, neither of us remembered. All right. We're getting old. We could deal with that. But as the session wore on, then they started complaining about the episodes they didn't like. It seems as if the Don's funeral, which went on for about twenty episodes, was beyond the pale. And also they hated whenever we'd discuss something like the Social Contract.

Jeesh.

The thing is, we wrote this stuff keeping in mind the person who wasn't already a part of the debate universe. There's this thing called exposition: maybe you've heard of it?

Anyhow, new rule. No more meeting with the fans. It turns out they aren't fans at all, but vipers lying in wait. I'm almost reluctant to let them have the episode 10 (audio pdf), the ingratess!