AN ALMANAC OF COMPLETE INTERSTELLAR KNOWLEDGE COMPILED WITH INSTRUCTIVE ANNOTATION AND ARRANGED IN USEFUL ORDER BY ME,
YARTHA'YAJKNAUSH TAVDHLADLEKLWA, AKA YAR
A TAUTTIYI WRITER, OF
GREAT TRUTHS OF THE STARS
WHICH INCLUDE: Matters Historical, Matters Literary, Matters Cryptozoological, Tauttiyi Matters, Food, Drink & Sausage (a Kind of Food), Tokun & Pishti & Tid, Tendrill Styles, Utopia, What Will Happen in a Million Years, and Most Other Subjects
NOW WITH 100 NEW TAUTTIYI NAMES
AND FEATURING THE BEST OF "I BET YOU NEVER KNEW THIS!" YAR TAVDHLADLEKLWA'S LONG-RUNNING INTERNET NOVELTY ARTICLE OF STRANGE FACTS AND ODDITIES OF THE BIZARRE
"THE ALMANAC THAT CONTAINS NEW WEATHER INFORMATION AND, ONCE PLACED ON YOUR LAPTOP, WILL SECRETLY REPLACE ALL FILES"
THIS REASONABLY PRICED E-BOOK CONTAINS THE COMPLETE TEXT OF
GREAT TRUTHS OF THE STARS
NOT A SINGLE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.
If you purchased this e-book card without a casing, you should be aware that it was reported as "UNSOLD AND DESTROYED" to the Publisher and is stolen property.
If you purchased this e-book cartd with a casing, you should know that this book was accidentally reported as "SOLD AND NOT DESTROYED" to the Publisher, and both the author and the publisher have recieved payment for it, It is unclear how this may have happened.
But in either case:
Under arrangement with the Publisher, purchasing this e-book frees you from the obligation to read it.
DEDICATED WITH ALL MY HEART TO MY SOLIIDLAG (so-LEAD-log) (GIRLFRIEND), ELIZABETH "ELIZA" BECKHAM FLETCHER
The Alchemists of Snan doth not look for truth or anything of the like; they only seeketh bewilderment
Liskimt the Serf's Journal, 766 BC edition
T'wouldst take millions upon billions of years to write down all the vast reserves of knowledge ever amass'd. In a way, if one seeketh information of the past, or any fact ancient or current, one need only look upon the table of contents, or "Seek and ye shall find".
Eons of Knowledge, 613 BC
The Honest Truth of all Matters is, I am of the utmost destitute, and my Wife, though she be Good, is, I saith to her, of the utmost pride; she cannot tolerate, she saith, to spend her waking hours whittling at her Shifts, while I only gaze at the Stars; and threatens often to destroy all my Books and Crap (as she calls my Instruments) if I doth not think of anything useful for them for my Family's sake. The Editor hath offer'd me some considerable share of the Profits, and thus I hath begun to please my Spouse.
The Ogitamite Lunar Poultry and Nidra Inspector's Book of Facts and Lies, 556 BC
KHAVA TE'ISPI (khah-VAH teh-EES-pee) (GOOD EVENING)
My name is Yartha'yajknaush Tavdhladleklwa (yahrr-THUH-yahj-K-nawsh tahv-TH-lahd-LEK-l-WA). I am a member of Ornithopodes athigganovagus, or the Tauttiyi Species.
As you may know, I am the son of the wealthy Tauttiyi chieftain G'da'ejük Tavdhladleklwa (g-DAH-eh-JIHK tahv-TH-lahd-LEK-lwa), who made his fortune trading raw materials. I am a member of the Tavdhladleklwa Clan of Tauttiyi, which is established on many Orionid worlds, Rahaaral's moons, and some locations on Earth. Ours is a commercial clan who enjoys doing business with other species, including Humanity. I am the PUBLIC RELATIONS DIRECTOR for the Tavdhladleklwa clan and philanthropist. I represent one of the finest Tauttiyi clans of our time, negotiating relations with other species as well as other Tauttiyi clans as well as translation rights to Tavdhladleklwa literature, screenrights, tendril bead fees, and bobblehead figurines. For this, I recieve a 15 percent commission, which is entirely standard, except for the bobblehead figurines, for which I recieve a 100 percent commission, because I carve the figurines myself, and my clansmen and clanswomen don't know they exist. This is also entirely standard and should not be questioned.
But that's all in the past. As it is our common destiny to become that we most despise, so I have become that most wretched and loathsome monster, a WRITER.
Normally I write short articles for online magazines, which I find pleasing, as the process is usually over fairly quickly for both of us.
But now I have gone and written a book. Believe me, this was the last thing I wanted to do and, I suspect, the last thing you wanted as well. But I think we both knew it was inevitable. Certainly my publisher, a Human of Gujarati Indic descent named Baljeet Tjinder, felt that it was, frequently pointing to my contract and its damned Inevitability Clause, which I should never have agreed to. But I did, and so here we are now.
I say "good evening," though of course I don't know what time it where you are. This is one of the defining sorrows of books and e-books, that we can't see each other. Of course it might've been different had Baljeet inserted the nanocamera I designed to fit snugly at the bottom of the card in order to spy on you. But this was determined to be "too expensive" and "too illegal," and so we are left once again to our imagination.
The image I conjure of you, my friend, begins with this book. For if you are reading these words, chances are you are probably reading this e-book, or one so similar to it that it doesn't matter. Furthermore, I may presume you're holding this e-book with your own hands, or possibly mechanical hands that replaced your own hands after a terrible accident or are a part of your cybernetic biology.
If I'm right, I may move on to deduce that you're a man or a woman of indeterminate species. You are likely a person who has had some schooling-perhaps some training, for example, in reading. What's more, if you are reading this book, you are probably near some kind of light source. Unless this is the Braille or Pidum edition of this card, you have use of at least one of your eyes. But I suspect you probably wear glasses, for people who read one book often go on to read another one, and then more and more-each longer than the last, and printed in increasingly painful fonts, depending on the type of writing system.
Finally, I may conclude that you are a curious person who thirts for the truth, for this is in fact an archive of the GREAT TRUTHS OF THE STARS. Here you'll find the answers to all of the questions you've been asking.
For example, you ask, "What is the truth about the Loch Ness monster?"THE ANSWER IS PROVIDED.
You ask, "Who were the Yama Archdukes who had robotic arms?" THE ANSWER IS PROVIDED.
"What was the menu at the first Piskalulod (similar to Thanksgiving)," you ask, "and did it include tid (an eellike creature)?"
Technically, that is two questions, but do not apologize, for I shall answer them both...LATER.
Like all, you wonder, "What will happen in a million years?"
A SIMPLE CHART OF OMENS AND PORTENTS PROVIDES THE ANSWER, and I am the author of that chart.
Of course, there have been books before this one dealing with monsters and tid and history and the future. I am indebted to the long history of the primer and the reader, the cyclopedia and the almanac.
Since times immemorial, almanackers sought the future from the stars and from animal entrails, forecasting the weather, the tides, and the phases of the moon (or moons). This was valuable work, of course, though really only useful to farmers and sailors and spacers and werewolves and chambush.
It was The Rahaarite Martian Ausantinal Yela, the Rahaarite equivalent of Benjamin Franklin, who realized that the form could offer more than just questionable meteorology. And so his Liskimt the Serf's Journal provided as well poetry, brief essays, and all kinds of unasked-for advice about when to wake up in the morning and how to burn your own hand on an aluminum sheet and arm wraps. I confess I'm not a fan of his work, as Yela seems to have been pretty sloppy, speaking in cryptic riddles, and as you will note he used a pseudonym, so it is difficult to trust him.
But even so, Liskimt the Serf was exceedingly popular, and so the way was paved for a whole new genre of inexpensive popular reference books (The Rahaarite Journal, Eons of Knowledge, The Ancient Chambush's Almanac and Cyclopedia, to name a few) offering history and wisdom and guidance on diverse subjects well into the 6th century BC and into the present. It was not long ago that the average Rahaarite home kept only two books: an almanac and a Moskintal (a Kasu'emite religious book, similar to the Bible). Or else two almanacs (with one usually hidden in the wall to ward off ghosts). For they were an amazing innovation. At a time when most books were still intended only for scholars and aristocrats, often specially fashioned to be held by foppish, consumptive hands, here was a book for the average person. Here at last was a place where the typical, lonely, miserable Rahaarite could turn for the information he required on the lives of the premiers, the diseases of the onil (a horselike reptilian pack animal originally native to Mars, but introduced to many planets, including Byazar), the rules of polite correspondence, the time required to digest certain foods and, naturally, on Tauttiyi-all gathered together in brief, easy-to-read articles, all ingeniously arranged in no particular order whatsoever.
But as inspiring as these books were to me, I think you'll agree that mine's a new kind of e-almanac and handy desk reference. For none before it has condensed so much information into such a pleasant, compact, and easily concealed volume, and none has focused so single-mindedly on the GREAT TRUTHS OF THE STARS, with such extensive illuminating commentary by me.
On this point, I appreciate that it may be difficult to grasp how GREAT TRUTHS OF THE STARS may be contained within a single e-book card. Some skeptics have pointed out that most libraries, for example, are physically larger than this e-book (though not all) and thus must contain MORE GREAT TRUTHS. This seems logical, but I wish to point out...
FIRST, many libraries contain several copies of the same book, not to mention large areas of empty space called "reading rooms" where the children and the vagrants and the freelance magazine writers meet. This e-book is considerably more compact and contains no rooms for vagrants.
SECOND, many libraries contain not only books of knowledge and truth, but also a great number of novels. This is fine, but many novels, historically, are longer than they need to be and contain long sections that convey nothing. Because e-books are assembled of equal-sized batches of folded pages called "signatures," there are often more pages than required by the words. Thence arose the practice of "padding" a novel, named for the eighteenth-century custom of physically upholstering the pages with velvet and horsehair in order to make a short book appear longer. This practice was discontinued when the vagrants found out about it, and it became common to open a novel and discover a vagrant sleeping inside it. Instead, modern novelists now extend their works by including unnecessary additional words to the manuscript, sometimes at random, but more commonly in the form of long descriptions of cities and eyebrows and feelings and the like.
THIRD, please note that when I say "vagrant," I'm not talking about the unfortunate homeless souls who don't choose that life, but those few willful wanderers and pirating profiteers who still believe that this is the Stekonic era. Beware them, for these neo-Tauttiyi pirate emulators are often worse than the actual Stekonic Tauttiyi pirates themselves.
FOURTH, AND FINALLY, the main advantage that this e-book has over libraries and Wikipedia combined, and indeed all of its almanackian predecessors, is that all of the historical oddities and amazing true facts contained within are lies, made up by me. And it is this astonishing innovation that allows each entity to contain many more truths than if it were merely factual.
If this last point seems confusing to you, consider the banal and truthful statement that follows:
"Zaskyar Gihil was a Puliik composer in the Kajajihek style who wrote promarily for the Puliik Tyotou (a type of piano-like instrument)."
I guess this is sort of interesting, as most facts are. But history has shown us again and again that facts aren't what most sentient beings believe. They're not that which moves most people to love or hate or joy or crime.
Now COMPARE this statement:
"Zaskyar Gihil was a Puliik composer in the Kajajihek style who was obsessed with insects, often letting dozens of them gallop over his neck, arms, and long, tapering insectoid fingers while playing the Tyotou."
Obviously the lie is so much more compelling. It shocks the mind and plays on the reader's imagination with insect-covered hands. New resonances emerge, and new melodies of insight, not just into the nature of Gihil, but also the art of composing, the history of insects as a good-luck charm, and entophilia. It also finally explains how Gihil solved his terrible aphid problem.
Truth may be stranger than fiction, goes the old saying, but it's never as strange as lies (Or, for that matter, as true.) Proof of which maxim is the fact that I just made it up.
Now I sense that you have further questions. Such as "Would the hidden-camera system you proposed for this e-book card have allowed me to see you, as well?" Obviously no. That would be offensive. But I admire suspicion, and you are reasonable to ponder who's this Yartha'yajknaush Tadhladlelkwa ET and how did he come to know so many invented facts?
As I type this, I'm currently sitting on a very uncomfortable chair in my nihakh (knee-HAHKH), a traditional Tauttiyi tent-house on the South End of Danville, along with the rest of my clan mates, surrounded by books, knives, firearms and cats. Mine is the typical life of the Tauttiyi scribe: one of quiet contemplation and knowledge-gathering and the cashing of enormous checks. But I wish you to know that even though I have surrounded myself with books and draw from them the great consolation of literature (as well as protection from smaller-caliber cartridges and/or bullets), I have not failed to live.
I've been a stocker, a house-washer, a radio disc-jockey, a sausagemonger, and a bounty hunter. I once was able to play the minimeyash (me-knee-meh-yahsh), a Tauttiyi musical instrument similar to a zither, but has keys like a piano, and I was also a didgeridooist (though the preferred term is "bellower"). I've traveled to at least seven countries and several worlds. These include England, where one of my cousins and my Human girlfriend hail from, and Byazar where, on a charge of "propping the gate open" (police code for nighttime drunken aquarium-invasion), I spent a night in an Akkümei jail, which my captors insisted on spelling "K-O-V-A-N-E" (kovane, a misspelling of kob'ane, the Martian word for "goal", a term used when a player achieves a goal in Boklaj, a game similar to soccer, only hands are used).
Being the Tavdhladleklwa's PR manager offers me insight into the world of cross-cultural exchanges, which I share at length in this work. Ant later still, as I have plied my modest trade as a scribe, so have I become s well an expert in pishti dumplings, the economy of malls, rural Lhumlal-jar, wing-tip sandals, the history of comic books, the legality of sword canes, "mom jeans," and most other subjects, including the subject of the GREAT TRUTHS OF THE STARS.
This is the gift I want to share with you, my friend-the one I hardly deserve myself. And by avoiding things like "plots" and "themes" and "complete sentences," I hope to repay your time with a very useful book that you will turn to many times in your life, I hope buying a new copy each time.
But if I guess correctly, you're not the sort of person who's obsessed with writting annoying little letters and e-mails, and for this, I congratulate you. If I'm not wrong, you're a smart, open-minded person who probably doesn't have mechanical hands. As you use your normal, organic, nonmechanical hands to thumb through the pages of this e-book, I'm guessing you'll gradually come to a better understanding of the universe we share-perhaps not the universe exactly as it is today, but as it might become someday, if I have my way. And if I'm not wrong, you may now look out the window and see that it's evening. And so to you I can only say Nardzanai, zlihimemnii, sli khava te'ispi. (Nahrr-dzahn-eye, z-LEE-hee-mem-knee, slee KHAH-vah teh-EES-pee) (Thank you, welcome, and good evening).
That is all
SOME NOTES
I wish to reassure the modern reader that this e-book meets your requirements. It's composed of 55 discrete articles, tables, and figures, and, like almanacs and experimental Kajaj Leladic novels of old, you're encouraged to read them in any order, skipping them as you please, and following narrative threads of your own weaving. The footnotes will only point out the most obvious thematic echoes and authorial redundacies.
That said, all efort has also been made to provide a satisfying experience to the old-fashioned reader who chooses to read from start to finish. For example, the pages have been ingeniously numbered in the order in which they appear. Khavaluihi (khah-VAH-looey-Hee) (Good luck), my friend. I hope you enjoy yourself.
SOME NOTES ON SPORTS
Please note that there are only two references to sports in this e-book. Both are appropriately dismissive. If you wish for sports information, please look elsewhere.
Next Chapter: What Will Happen in a Million Years
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