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Underground > Creation >

Urban Legends (for fun and profit) Mk. II

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Less searchable M0rd4nt

08:04 / 28.02.02

Help me out here, eh? I need a convincing urban legend, spells, for the embedding off.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

08:21 / 28.02.02

[insert name here] had a twin but they ate them in the womb.

If you align the James Bond DVD Collection in alphabetically, the spines show a [insert image here].

Turkish Delight can be fatal - it re-solidifies in your stomach if you drink [insert beverage] and this can cause [insert medical condition].

08:43 / 28.02.02

Slipknot were created as an experiment and the truth is the members are actually The Backstreet boys, after the next album they will come clean and to see how many fans stick by them.....its true its Damn true

08:43 / 28.02.02

No, Slipknot are just bored, middleaged studio assistants who made a crap metal album in 2 hours for a laugh and decided to see how many kids they could con if they dressed up like wallys and said 'shit' a lot.

(Either that or they're closet white supremacists - I'm not letting it lie 'till one or the other is confirmed.)

I assume you all remember the remarkable truth about rabbits? good.

And I also assume you all know that people from Siberia are so hard that if their thumb gets cut off, a new one will grow in it's place?

Or that - due to a certain additive - drinking about eight cartons of Del Monte orange juice will create a similar effect to a small dose of LSD?

10:01 / 28.02.02

Oh yes - and did you know that Jim Davison - Big Break host and appalling working men's club style comedian - also has a parallel career as a successful academic?

His primary interest is in the search for new information about, and interpretation's of, the classical Greek philosophers.

He's published numerous articles on the subject in journals, some of which have proved quite controversial, provoking lengthy refutation's and responses. But, of course, no one believes that he's that Jim Davison..

He's using some of the money gained from his TV career to set up his own publishing house, which will be putting out a volume of his collected essays some time later this year.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

10:27 / 28.02.02

The apostrophe was invented by a Turkish confectioner named Said, whose other works include the bi-axial waterwheel and the goat-powered loom.

10:44 / 28.02.02

what a guy.

11:11 / 28.02.02

[dad, from behind newspaper]Oi, this is turning into the Fantastic Lies thread; aren't they meant to be vaguely believable?[/dad, from behind newspaper]

How about "The government/CIA/Vatican have been concocting and broadcasting urban legends via email in an attempt to discredit [stereotype X] / create an atmosphere of distrust / subtly influence the web-using public (insert specific goal, recent news item etc)

[ 28-02-2002: Message edited by: Saveloy ]

12:17 / 28.02.02

Snorting cocoa powder will give you an erection that lasts for 6 hours.

23,000 children die a year from eating the supposedly non-toxic Play-Dough.

The Gap is owned by the Nation of Islam, in a plot to make all white people look alike.

Lazlo Woodbine [some call me Laz]

13:40 / 28.02.02

1 in 5 concrete bridge supports on the M25 contain a dead body.

If you spread chiken tikka on the back of a cat, then drop that cat over a white shagpile carpet, you can create an anti gravity unit.

13:55 / 28.02.02

If you eat beetroot and marzipan at the same time, they will turn poisonous and you will die. Immediately and painfully.

13:59 / 28.02.02

There's actually a two part column about "consumer rumors at Slate.

They point out that the most effective and enduring ones are about companies being racist or controlled by racists. Like the "Liz Claiborne doesn't want black women to wear her clothes" or "Snapple is owened by the KKK" myths.

14:00 / 28.02.02

With that in mind:

The Nike "swoosh" was used as an emblem of the Luftwaffe during WW2.

14:22 / 28.02.02

Th US govt’ is lacing aid packages with heroin to get Afghan refugees hooked on American consumer products.

Marijuana is being spiked with Viagra, so, uh, watch your blood pressure, man.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

15:29 / 28.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Butter my crumpets:
If you spread chiken tikka on the back of a cat, then drop that cat over a white shagpile carpet, you can create an anti gravity unit.

I think that one's already an established Discordian ritual.

15:56 / 28.02.02

That reminds me of this design I saw in a magazine once. It was a cat with a piece of buttered toast strapped butter-side-up on the cat's back. Since cats always land on their feet, and buttered toast always lands butter-side down, this device would create an anti-gravity unit that could be used in hovercraft, etc.

pointless and uncalled for

15:58 / 28.02.02

Not really that good with stuff like this but you could always rehash something from Snopes

pointless and uncalled for

16:20 / 28.02.02

In 1989 Coca-Cola applied to the FDA for a licence to reintroduce cocaine into it's product after it was determined by scientists that cocaine could actually reverse a slight form of synaptic degredation caused by Pepsi. They even planned a full-scale advertising campaign that would tout Coca-Cola as the cure for Pepsi.

The licence was denied.

12:12 / 01.03.02

quote:Originally posted by Persephone:
That reminds me of this design I saw in a magazine once. It was a cat with a piece of buttered toast strapped butter-side-up on the cat's back. Since cats always land on their feet, and buttered toast always lands butter-side down, this device would create an anti-gravity unit that could be used in hovercraft, etc.

That's absolutely fantastic. I wish I had my own cat, so as try it out.

12:52 / 01.03.02

Persephone:
"...a cat with a piece of buttered toast strapped butter-side-up on the cat's back."

All that would happen is the cat would land on its feet and run off with the toast. The toast wouldn't be impelled to flip over because it would never get close enough to the ground - one flip and it's a cat's distance away.

No, you'd have to attach the toast to the cat's feet (so that butter and foot connect). This would ensure that neither cat's feet nor buttery toast side had any chance of connecting with the floor. I knew those buttered toast cat boots would come in handy one day!

[ 01-03-2002: Message edited by: Saveloy ]

13:08 / 01.03.02

Oh. I sort of pictured that you throw the cat off the countertop, say, and both the cat's feet and the butter-side strain for the ground, but the opposite forces equalize so that the cat sort of floats on its side.... I can see how your way works, too.

I think the difference is that your cats are slightly less disgruntled-looking.

16:54 / 01.03.02

have you heard about the homeless shelter under the White House?

apparently any time a US citizen writes the president for aid and assistance one of the president's secretaries always writes back to explain where they can go.

the US government loves and cares for its people.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

08:57 / 10.03.02

quote:Originally posted by Ria:
the US government loves and cares for its people.

Sorry, but I think we've already specified "credibility" as a necessary story componant.

12:46 / 10.03.02

Originally posted by grant:

quote: Marijuana is being spiked with Viagra, so, uh, watch your blood pressure, man.

Now see, I got quite high last night at my brother's place and, well, let's just say I couldn't stand up and walk around the apartment for about an hour. I kid you not. So maybe not so legendary after all.

My turn:

There was this girl at a party in an apartment and she drank too much. She went out onto the balcony to vomit and a gust of wind caught her and swept her over. The only thing that saved her was her hair products. See, it was winter and the gel she used had started to chill. Her hair hit the metal railng and immediately stuck, keeping the girl from falling. She suffered some severe damage to her neck and shoulders, but hung there until someone inside the party noticed. It's true. It happened to a friend of my sister-in-law.

Zoom.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

14:28 / 10.03.02

Impending gross-out warning. Contains yecchy medical stuff and a deformed fetus- don't read this if you're feeling fragile.

quote:Originally posted by Nick:
[insert name here] had a twin but they ate them in the womb.

Yeah. Actually it was Anne Rice. A few years back she started suffering severe chest pains and was whisked into hospital for a chest x-ray, which revealed a shadow on her lung. Because it was right near her heart, they decided to give her a CAT scan to get a good look at it so that they could operate. At first they thought it was a teratoma, but when they opened her up they found the malformed remains of a fetus which had somehow implanted itself inside her ribcage. The lack of space in the chest cavity meant that the fetus had become curled in on itself so as to be unrecognizable at first. The legs were missing- it was just a head, torso and one arm. Apparently what had happened was that she'd partially absorbed the twin whilst in utero, and somehow it had started growing again. (This was put down to Rice's use of a dangerous and unproven anti-ageing treatment, a hormone supplement derived from monkey-glands.)

And this all happened right after she published "The Tale of the Body Thief"!!!

[ 11-03-2002: Message edited by: Mordant C@rnival ]

15:00 / 11.03.02

Ooo! I like that Anne Rice one!

Less searchable M0rd4nt

16:19 / 11.03.02

Now I just need the magick content. I have to say, I rather like the idea of nicking some of Rice's pop-culture power for my own purposes. Poetic justice.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

22:23 / 17.03.02

Okay, here's the revised edition:

The Anne Rice Lung Fetus

"I heard this from my cousin Josh. At the time it happened he was over in the states, working as a hospital porter. He got freindly with one of the anaesthetists there, and this guy told Josh the whole story.

A few years back, Anne Rice started suffering severe chest pains and was whisked into hospital for a chest x-ray, which revealed a shadow on her lung. Because it was right near her heart, they decided to give her a CAT scan to get a good look at it so that they could operate.

At first they thought the lump was a teratoma, but when they opened her up they found the malformed remains of a fetus- her twin- which had somehow implanted itself inside her ribcage.

The lack of space in the chest cavity meant that the twin had become curled in on itself so as to be unrecognizable at first. The legs were missing- it was just a head, torso and one arm. Apparently what had happened was that she'd partially absorbed the twin whilst in utero, a case of Fetus in Fetu. Somehow it had started growing again; this was put down to Rice's use of a dangerous and unproven anti-ageing treatment (a pituitarin/pinearin mixture derived from monkey-glands).

You know what the weirdest thing was? All this happened right after she published The Tale of the Body Thief!!!"

I'm going to go with this one. Is there a tabloid journalist in the house?

[ 18-03-2002: Message edited by: Mordant C@rnival ]

01:00 / 18.03.02

Check out Jan Harold Brunvand's books for loads of ULs. Too Good To Be True, The Vanishing Hitchhiker, The Truth Never Gets In The Way of A Good Stiry, and a couple of others. Stuff like the New Orleans kidney theft rings, Neiman Marcus' $250 recipe, hook-handed molesters, the woman who fried herself in sun beds, and the ever popular "Aren't you glad you didn't turn on the light", as popularised in the film Urban Legend.

ULs have several fascinating recurring features such as laughing paramedics at the close (laughing being a symbol in Medieval and Celtic myth of prophecy), ridiculous additions to the death tolls (and then the car drove through a bus queue...), and the same story being retold in a number of different ways thus showing that the heir to the great cultural stories of our time such as Arthur's court, Robin Hood's adventures, or Drake's Drum is "That woman who dries her dog in the microwave".

Less searchable M0rd4nt

08:37 / 18.03.02

Thanks, KM- I'll definately keep an eye open for that book.

Okay, as I said above, I'm going to go with this. I'll begin by posting it to a few urban legend message boards.

The Anne Rice Lung Fetus is copywronged. Please copy, reproduce, publish, fold, spindle, mutilate, write, paint, draw, chew, email, post, leave on the bus, or whatever your little heart desires. All I ask is that you credit my good friend Josh The Hospital Porter as the originator.

PS: I've already done Snopes.

[ 18-03-2002: Message edited by: Mordant C@rnival ]

14:03 / 18.03.02

I'll see what I can do. It sounds *fab*.

I may spread it to one or two chatterboxes... I'll try to include Josh, but it's easier for me, personally, to attribute it to the Enquirer or "one of the newswires... not sure which one."
The story was from this guy Josh something, see, who worked in a hospital in New Orleans.... Heheheh.

17:23 / 18.03.02

Sent it out to a few people this morning (and posted it on livejournal) - already gotten plenty of responses, like this exchange:

quote:
--- "Clarry, Stuart" wrote:
> I heard of this once before, but I cant find it
> listed as an urban legend or
> anything. What's your source on this?
> -Stu
>
It was something that I read in the newsroom - possibly one of the wire services. Not sure.
It's a pretty wild story, though, huh?

And Josh the hospital porter is up on the first line of the story I sent out....

18:08 / 18.03.02

A student taking a mythology class had a single question on his final exam: "What is an urban legend?" The student wrote "This is"., signed it, and turned it in.

I heard it from my ex-roomate's sister's boyfriend's brother-in-law, so I know it's true.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

18:28 / 18.03.02

Thanx, grant! I just love the fact that Lung Fetus is being greeted as something that's already a little familiar, when I only wrote it a few days ago.

(Y'know, I'm having far, far too much fun with this. I must surely pay.

)

18:56 / 18.03.02

Actually, I've read similar anecdotes in two different novels --one was Margaret Atwood, and I think the other was Louis B. Jones. They wasn't a lung fetuses, they were hairballs that had teeth and other features indicating that these were twin-type creatures.

In the Atwood story, the woman asks to keep her hairball & she dusts it all over with cocoa powder and mails it to her boss.

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