The Best Lore in Canandia

Dear Friends,

     

The Hard Taco song for May is called, "Blankety Blank." Don't be afraid to listen to it at double speed. 

MYTHS AND FOLK TALES OF CANADA

In my travels, I found myself deeply moved by the rich folklore tradition of our neighbors to the North.  For the digest this month, I am reprinting excerpts from my favorite compendium of Canadian folk legends ("Grandma, Where Do Igloos Come From?") and my favorite book of Canadian ghost stories ("The Bloody Puck").

The Newfoudland Bull Moose: Twenty miles west of St. John's, there is sinkhole that is believed to be the home of a spectral bull moose named San Yarnford. Once every hundred years, San Yarnford emerges from the recesses of his dank basin to let children stroke his antlers and to warn them of the perils of playing too close to sinkholes. 

The Leaning Trapper: There once was a trapper who roamed the vasty wilds of Labrador. He was a simple man, and he believed that iron snares were an indulgence. Instead, he would sleep at a 45 degree angle, propping his shoulders with a stick. Inevitably, a beaver would brush against the stick and knock it over, causing the sleeping trapper to fall on the animal. The more the beaver struggled, the sleepier and heavier the trapper would become. In honor of this legendary trapper, it is now customary for every trading post to be guarded by two sleeping men propped on sticks. 

The Silent Howls: A wealthy French furrier offered a woman nine pure white huskies for her hand in marriage. When she accepted, the huskies immediately set upon her, and tore fissures in her trunk and limbs. She slowly regained her constitution over many months, during which time her only companions were the wretched ice chiggers who spoon-fed her a slurry of nutrient plaster. When she was finally strong enough to lift her head, she slew the nine huskies and fashioned a fanny pack from their nine snow white dewlaps. If you walk the shores of Port Alice on a still night, you can still hear the spirits of the nine huskies, trying in vain to howl without their dewlaps.

The Wendigo: The Algonquian Indians believe that there are feral people with unnatural size who live in wooded areas and eat other people. It is believed that this is based loosely on the Winnebago Legend, in which the feral people park recreational vehicles in wooded areas and eat other people. 

The Purloined Skull: In the early days of McGill University, a heady young chess enthusiast wrote in the margins of his journal, "I have discovered a rook that can travel diagonally as well as linearly. I must share this with the scientific community at once before they com..." The last word trailed off at an angle, almost as if the author's skull had been taken mid-sentence. Nobody knows who purloined his skull. Was it an anatomy professor?  A spurned lover? A Fraternal Order of Ivy League Chess Reactionaries? Could I convince you that the true answer is... all three, working in cahoots?

The Golden Chin: A Micmac warrior lost his chin in battle, and replaced it with a chin of gold. His four younger brothers were envious of the golden chin and used guile to wrest it from him. The warrior saw through their deceit, however, and never removed his chin. One day, the youngest brother handed the warrior a piece of parchment enumerating the deeds of their ancestors. So afraid was the warrior that the document would blow away that he placed his golden chin on top of it as a paperweight. At once, the younger brother seized the chin, and ran off into the gulches. To commemorate his own folly, the humbled warrior commissioned a replacement chin made of Atlantic cod.

The Fox and the Magic Clasp: It is said that Glorious Jim the Prospector was tracking an elusive ingot through the marshes of Fort George when he came upon an axe wedged in a tree trunk. He knew that if he removed the axe, he would be crowned King of the Loggers, but he was not strong enough to do so. He stayed with the axe through the winter's night, neglecting shelter, neglecting food, and forgetting the precious ingot he had been following for so many days. When his fellow prospectors found his frozen body the next morning they gave him a traditional prospector burial, which consisted of sifting his remains through a pan. To this day, nobody knows why this legend is called "The Fox and the Magic Clasp."

With warmest regards,

Zach

Hot New Additions for Your Girl Scout Trophy Sash

Dear Friends,

   Assuming that you keep your iTunes playlist arranged alphabetically, and assuming that you're tired of ABBA, this may be the happiest day of your short life. Seconds from now, you will have access to the exhausting new jam from your favorite group, Aardtaco. Oh yes, little readers, this is not some puzzling brand of April Foolery. We are, in truth, creating new music under the moniker Aardtaco in an effort to appeal to our base. (I believe that our base consists mostly of pirates.)

   If you're thinking, "Toooooo cool!" I certainly can't stop you. To do so I would need to take mind control lessons and who has the time?

  So here you have it, the first Aardtaco song, "A Life of Crime." Again, this is a topic that is of interest to our base.

   As you may remember, The Hard Taco Digest usually focused on topics of broad interest such as Disney Sequels and Germs, but the new Aardtaco MyGest is personalized, using cookies from your computer to identify your areas of interest. Based on your search history, your custom Aardtaco MyGest this month is:

"Most Desirable Girl Scout Badges"

WEBESOS - Not to be confused with WEBELOS, this badge is worn by Girl Scouts who are not yet potty-trained. It is short for "We Be Soiled Scouts." By convention, these girls are typically referred to as "Brownies."

Purple Heart - To qualify for this badge, you must sustain an injury that results in the loss of your right arm and shoulder, such that you cannot wear your sash without it slipping off. 

Sew Simple - Earn points towards the Sew Simple badge by fixing a Purple Heart-wearer's sash to her shoulder-stump. You need to fix 3 sashes to 3 different shoulder stumps to qualify.

The Red Badge of Storage - Similar to the Purple Heart, but the injury must occur while stocking Tagalongs into their plastic cookie cozies.

Volunteer Dog-Sitting  - To dog-sit without being paid is the most selfless thing a girl scout can do.

Alarmist - Have your parents take you to try 1-Alarm Chili.

Advanced Alarmist - Have your parents take you to try 2-Alarm Chili.

Trenchie - For accumulating over 20 hours of experience in trench warfare. As all trenchies know, it is crucial that you never open more than one box of Thin Mints, to hide your numbers.

Money wise - Use your knowledge and your self-esteem to open a bank account.

Moderation - While the teller is looking down to type in your information, grab a hostage and demand a backpack filled almost half-way with unmarked FIVE DOLLAR BILLS. 

Eco-Action - Take a step toward saving the planet by unrolling the cardboard in your Dum-Dum stick, folding it twice, and gently placing it in a recycling bin. 

Influence - Use your powers of persuasion to coax a fish out of your brother's sandbox.

Chicken Sexing - Large industrial egg-producing facilities are only interested in raising female chickens. To earn this badge, you must master the skill of squeezing a baby chick in such a way that you can identify its gender. If it is an unwanted male, your troopmaster will immediately "cull," (which means "kill") the chick. Learn about the various methods for "killing" a male chick (which means "culling" a male chick), including burying it alive or macerating it in a wood chipper.

Hen Rights - Learn about gender equality. Chicken sexing is downright chicken sexist! All the female chicks can do is gaze enviously up through that glass ceiling and see their male counterparts liquefied in a high-speed grinder, suffocated in a plastic bag, or simply have their necks broken. Write to your senator and insist that female chicks are equally qualified for decapitation and asphyxiation with carbon dioxide.

Brash - Whatever it is you are thinking about doing impulsively, just go right ahead and do it without considering the consequences.

The Juliette - Named for Juliette Gordon Lowe, the founder of Girl Scouts of America and a notorious cross-dresser. To earn this badge, put on a Boy Scout neckerchief and shoulder loops, stand in front of the mirror and repeat the phrase, "I'm going to win the Pinewood Derby..."  

With Warmest Regards,

Zach

Praise They Ever Cherished Name, Dear Hapless Crapalope

Hey College Kids,

   Put down Wii Tetherball for a minute and pay attention. The Hard Taco song for March is called "Excelsior," and I'm not going to lie to you: It's pretty swell. But look, I'm not going to beat around the bush: good grades are pretty swell, too. You can listen to the song, but I'm not going to sugar-coat the truth: you really need to study harder, starting right now. You're never going to win a lifetime achievement award at this rate.

On the Subject of Imaginary States, Their Universities, and Their State Birds

Ohio State... Florida State... Michigan State....

Their names evoke images of storied university campuses nestled somewhere within the boundaries of a geographic territory that has attained political statehood. But what about the thousands of undergraduate students who attend imaginary state schools? Wayne State, Kent State, Ball State, Wright State, Appalachian State... the colleges are very real, of course, but they are all located in fictitious land masses.

Students at these institutions face a number of challenges. Foremost, it is rather impossible to visit an imaginary state, which means that the U.S. Postal service cannot deliver care packages to students. If your daughter is a freshman, you have to wait until she is home on break to give her microwave popcorn and Easy Mac. If you're truly intent on getting to campus for Parents Weekend, your only chance is to ride a plane (destination irrelevant), and turn on your cellphone just before landing.  Most of the time, the navigation system will go so haywire that the pilot will lose track of the ground and send the plane careening into the sun. Occasionally, though, the plane may wind up delivering you to your daughter's school in time for convocation.

   But let me answer the question you're really curious about... can an imaginary state have a real state animal? Unfortunately, the answer is no. By convention, most imaginary state schools retain the jackalope as their sports mascot. A handful of teams have taken exception to this precedent, but none have completely abandoned the tradition of mongrelizing antelopes. Examples follow:

The Morehead State Crabalopes

The Grambling State Imapalarangutans

The Ferris State Kangazelles

The Bowling Green State Springboxen (Oxen with the antlers of springboks)

The Empire State Boxsprings (Springboks that offer your mattress the comfort and support of oxen)

The Alcorn State Hapless Crapalopes*

With warmest regards,

Zach

*This is pronounced cra-PAH-loh-pees. However, their mascot is still a piece of crap with antlers.

How to Save Sharper Image

Dear Friends,

   I was saddened to learn that The Sharper Image shut down all of its retail stores last year. Perhaps their product line was simply too innovative. Or perhaps the customers that could benefit most from the Sleeve Lengthener or the GPS-ready Water Wings are already dead.

   The Hard Taco song for February, "Let's Play Pretend," is only a little innovative, so it might be just thing that The Sharper Image needs to reconnect with consumers.

   Okay, Sharper Image, now that we’ve entered into this partnership, let's take a look at your competition. There used to be a catalog called Hammacher Schlemmer that sold a lot of similar gadgets. Well, when Hammacher Schlemmer came to America, its name was offhandedly changed by an anglophile Ellis Island immigration official. On paper, the company must now go by "Hamburglar.”

    The real giant in the innovative products industry is Sky Mall. They have identified a willing niche: airborne consumers with at least one hand. Their only competition for the attention of these consumers is a half-finished crossword puzzle in the in-flight magazine. I suggest that The Sharper Image change their name to "Mallwings" or “Shopping While High” to help capture a share of this market, and kick off their new product line with the following moderately innovative offerings:

Lawn Sodoku - A delightful square 20' x 20' Soduku board, easy to install. One use, medium difficulty. $39

Thiesman Fracture Replica - Have your own 1:1 scale replica of Joe Thiesman's gruesome compound tibial fracture. $119.

  

Meter-Aid Parking Alarm - The Meter-Aid uses smart technology to predict when your meter is about to expire. It then drops additional quarters directly onto your windshield. When the parking cops arrive to ticket you, they will be safely bribed while you continue your errands. $279

Shoeprint Stencils - Wouldn't it be great to do the Shim-Sham-Shimmy in your own kitchen? But who can remember the moves?! With our new shoeprint stencils and some black spray paint, you can commemorate your favorite dance moves wherever you want. These stencils are also helpful for more mature customers who don’t remember how to get to their own bathrooms. $49

  

Chinese Burr Garden - Ancient Chinese horticulturalists knew that burrs could be arranged in a bed of sand to channel positive energy. While wild burrs are very difficult to capture and dangerous to handle, modern Chinese horticulturists believe that the same affect can be attained by arranging small pieces of Velcro. $69

Engraved Gummi Worm – Have your initials (or favorite three letter word) commemorated forever on a gummi worm. Maximum order: 1. $25

Showers of the World – What would it feel like to shower at the bottom of Lake Ontario or the shores of the Panama Canal? The Showers of the World satellite system continuously updates your shower experience to match the real time temperature and turbidity of any body of water in the world. $499

AccentID - Accents are caused by subtle changes in the shape of someone's palate and tongue. Now you can identify even the most obscure accents. Simply take a plastic/plaster mold of the foreign person saying "em," "voo," unh," and "beef." AccentID will analyze the molds and tell you the origin of the accent from its library of >10000 languages and dialects.

iPod Popcorn Adapter - iPods are great for watching small movies, but it's not truly a miniature theater experience without a single kernel of freshly popped buttered popcorn. Includes 20 individually wrapped kernels with adapter wiring. $49

Handsie Pajamas - We all remember pajamas with hands, but until now they were not available in adult sizes. Hurry, because this fad won’t last long. $69

Baby Jesus Monitor - Now parents can keep close tabs on Baby Jesus, even when they are up to 100 feet outside of the manger. $50

With warmest regards,

Zach

Down with Fruit Bruises

Dear Friends,

   Happy New Year, Sweetie. The first Hard Taco song for 2009, "Never Shake a Baby," is not only a great song, but a great idea for your next New Year's resolution. I'm not going to beat around the bush: 2009 is not going to be a ridiculously great year, whether you stick to this resolution or not.

   There is one resolution I hope we all keep, however. We must resolve to buy more American fruit. This is crucial because, for one, many people aren't buying enough American fruit. Tomorrow, when the supermarkets re-open, you can go scope out the produce aisle and see for yourself. The problem is fruit bruises. If there is one infallible truth about groceries, it is that nobody (Nobody) wants bruised fruit. 

   At this point, you are undoubtedly printing out Mapquest directions to the nearest megaphone rental so you can scream "I agree!" Relax... I can already hear you. If you feel the need to prove it, take this simple quiz about fruit bruise attitudes:

You accidentally pick up a bosc pear with an unsightly brown cavity. You immediately:
A) Avert your eyes. Remember that you were supposed to pick up some yogurt. Announce this aloud to everyone within 20 feet of you, and make it sound urgent. Run like hell.
B) Hold your arms over the broccoli, praying that one of those mist-machines on a timer will activate and cleanse the wicked bruise ichor from your fingers. Afterwards, run like hell.
C) Put the bruised pear in a bag. Use your iPhone to look up the mailing address of that insufferable prick you went to high school with. Think about mailing him the blemished pear as retribution for being so unforgivably loathsome. Realize that this would require you to handle the pear. Proceed, instead, to take a picture of the fruit bruise with your iPhone and email it to him. Run like hell.

   Now that we are, as they say, tethered to the same psychological zip-line, let's talk through a solution to the problem by examining the facts.

Fact: Nobody (Nobody) would intentionally purchase bruised fruit.
Fact: Every piece of fruit has a little sticker on it. This is called a fruit sticker.
Fact: The location of a fruit sticker on a given piece of fruit is entirely arbitrary.
Fact: If a piece of fruit is 95% healthy and 5% bruised, a sticker placed over a healthy area will drop the percentage of visibly delicious fruit to 90%. The likelihood that the fruit will be sold will plummet!

   Now imagine, if it pleases you, a device* that identifies the largest bruise on each piece of fruit and puts the sticker directly over it. Now the fruit from our example looks 95% healthy, 0% bruised, and 5% mysterious!  Folks, we just increased the chance of that fruit being sold (using math.)

   When people buy more American fruit, you guessed it: everyone wins. Suddenly, grocery stores will find themselves with a budget surplus, which they can spend on more fruit stickers. Soon, every fruit bruise in America will be concealed. With no more smashed, rotted fruit to camouflage, grocers will be forced to meet burgeoning demands by pulling handfuls of whatever out of the dumpster and covering it with a monolayer of fruit stickers.

   At this point, the buyers are going to catch on, right? People won't actually purchase wood shavings and amputated ankles just because they are encapsulated in small adhesive ovals... WILL THEY? 

   I can't predict that, but I'll be prepared for any contingency, because my plan has a PHASE 2. Instead of smothering a decayed piece of produce* with unattractive identification labels, we use stickers that are stylin'. I'm talking about stickers everybody (Everybody) wants. Of course, the licensing fees for branded images like Princess Jasmine or the ReMax balloon would be prohibitive, but there is one sticker that is highly desirable and absolutely free…

   I will not lie to you about this: I don’t know anybody (Anybody) who can resist this sticker. I recently stood in line for over an hour just to get one. Now imagine a banana wrapped in fifteen "I Voted" stickers, each with a little American flag on it. Would you buy that banana? Would you campaign on that banana's behalf? Would you stand behind that banana, even if it turns out to be rotten? I believe you would.

   I believe you will.

With warmest regards,
Zach

* or migrant worker

Good Afternoon, Cruel World

Dear Friends,

   At only 37 seconds, the Hard Taco song for December, "Giant U-Shaped Magnet," is the shortest piece to ever qualify as a monthly offering. From now on, Hard Taco will get in, tell you what you need to hear, and get out.

   As you know, the most popular topic of conversation for several years now had been The Case of the Runaway Bride. For those of you who have been living underneath a particularly heavy sound-proof rock, there was a woman named Jennifer Wilbanks who disappeared shortly before her wedding in the Spring of 2005. She reappeared in New Mexico, where she told police that she had been kidnapped and molested by a rotten-toothed Hispanic man. Eventually she confessed that she had invented the whole story, and simply had pre-marital jitters. This story was so captivating that nobody I know has been able to talk about anything else for nearly four years. You see, cases like this never really close. Will Wilbanks remarry? Will she issue a written apology to the rotten-toothed Hispanic community? Have the dogs in her search party been rendered useless for future rape-victim sniffing? If so, should Wilbanks have to pay to train some new dogs?

   This month, all interest in the Runaway Bride was suddenly and inexplicably supplanted by a new conversational nugget. The topic that has been on everyone's minds these days is financial uncertainty, and in particular "Depression-era suicide rates."  Unless you've been living in a particularly air-tight collapsed mine hole, you've seen headlines such as, "How to Talk to Your Children About Depression-Era Suicide Rates," and "Will Depression-Era Suicide Rates Change in the Next Five Years?"

   Many media outlets have been displaying grainy black and white images of disheveled businessmen standing on high ledges. What they don't tell you is that these pictures were all taken at the end of the Great Depression. You see, there were not nearly enough high-rises in 1929 to serve as suicide perches for the large influx of destitute businesspeople. Most corporate establishments were "ranch style" and had only one story*. Despairing white collar workers who jumped from the ledges of their workplaces would occasionally twist their ankles or damage a flower bed, but they rarely ended up dead enough to keep them from returning to work the next day.

   It was soon recognized that crest-fallen industrial tycoons had become an underserved population. The Roosevelt administration restructured the New Deal to include generous government skyscraper-building contracts, hoping to fill a much-needed role for woebegone day-traders and large business owners. These costly office spaces were quickly snatched up by companies whose self-destructive business executives needed high windows. The construction of these skyscrapers greatly increased the suicide rate among people with suits, while creating thousands of new jobs. This provided the economic stimulus that heralded the end of Great Depression.

   70 years later, it appears that we may have learned nothing from history. Unless you've spent the last several months suspended in thick foam, you would know that new skyscraper construction projects, such as the Chicago Spire, have halted due to the subprime mortgage crisis.  Friends, we need to prevent this from happening. Today's despondent billionaires are not satisfied simply to jump 100 feet to their doom. Warren Buffet, Alice Walton, Michael Dell, and others have declared that they would be "better off dead" and demanded that the government build them a 200-story building from which to hurl themselves. (This request has often been referred to as the Forbes 200.) Microsoft's Bill Gates has reportedly stated, "I cannot consider suicide a legitimate option to end my [expletive] misery unless I can plummet at least 250 stories." Gates added, "I doubt anyone would miss me."

   Please join me in urging our new administration to continue building supertall buildings. We need our nation's richest men and women to end their own lives so we can go back to talking about the Runaway Bride some more.

With warmest regards,

Zach

* As opposed to "dude ranch style," a type of architecture in which weight-bearing walls were reinforced with belt buckles and buttressed with lassos.

Top Ten Sad Horse Stories

Dear Friends,

   The Hard Taco song for November is called, "The Night That Eight Belles Died." If you watched the 2008 Kentucky Derby, you may be familiar with the doleful tale of Eight Belles, the filly who inexplicably fell and both broke her front ankles immediately after passing the winning post.

   Sad horse songs have always been my emotional Achilles heel. I actually get a lump in my throat when I hear, "Old grey mare she ain't what she used to be." I mean, my God, that poor mare! That said, you can imagine what I was going through when I found out that the only filly in the Derby was put down mere seconds after running the race of her life. Honestly, it's got to be number one on the top ten list of sad things that could happen to a horse. Here are other scenarios that round out that list.

2. The roof of the barn is about to cave in, and everyone knows it. At the last minute, a brave horse volunteers to martyr himself so that the other animals can make the glue they need to fix the roof.

3. A horse falls in a well, and he is too heavy to be pulled out by conventional means. The whole town has to chip in to raise enough money to buy a 50 foot syringe so they can euthanize him from above.

4. A Clydesdale has to take chemotherapy, and it makes the glorious tassels of hair around his hooves start to fall out. The other Clydesdales all shave their hoof tassels, because of solidarity. Budweiser films an inspirational commercial with the shaved horses pulling a sleigh and pledges to donate $10,000 in the fight against horse cancer. Veterinary scientists are so inspired by this commercial, they spend all of the grant money on beer.

5. Mr. Porter has to take poor Cinnamon back to the ranch after he discovers that his daughter's recurring birthday wish was actually for a peony.

6. A gallant bay named War Criminal is going to retire from racing after the Belmont Stakes. Unfortunately, he ends up losing because the rule book enigmatically refers to "racing animals" rather than "horses," and as such does not specifically exclude dart frogs from the competition.

7. Two wild appaloosas are captured and put in a zoo. At first, they spurn their realistic plains-like environment. Eventually, they realize that they have an opportunity to showcase their proud appaloosa heritage. They make a pact to never look back, but yeah, right. The next day a famous zoo critic writes a review with the headline, "Crappy Local Zoo Fleeces Public with Boring Horse Exhibit." The horses get completely depressed and start sleeping in way too late.

8. Benjamin Katz has a Dungeons and Dragons character named Borthwain Golf-raven (also known as Borthwain the Vigorously Renowned.) Borthwain uses a bag of electrum pieces to purchase magical barding armour for his steed, Strifeheart. The horse is delighted to discover that the armour is made out of flax mail +1. This story is more pathetic than sad, but I thought it was worth including.

9. A miniature horse is sick of being typecast in comical roles. In his heart, he's just like every other horse, but he happens to be small. Tell me what's so goddamned funny about that.

10. Ole Myrtle has been proudly straining at the plow for over twenty years, but now Farmer Delmar has a tractor, and she isn't needed anymore. He pats her on the nose and puts her out to pasture with the other nags, Ole Mamie, Ole Beulah, Ole Jennie, and Ole Claribel. One day, the tractor's engine breaks. Farmer Delmar is out of his mind with not knowing what to do, but the horses look at each other and nod. They harness the tractor to their backs and pull it through the fields, tilling and tilling until the sun goes down. For one last day, they feel alive again.

With warmest regards,
Zach