Usenet 1994 January/usenetsourcesnewsgroupsinfomagicjanuary1994.iso/answers/lemur-faq/part2

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From: [e-mail] (Joel Furr)
Subject: alt.fan.lemurs: Frinkquently Asked Questions (Part 2 of 6, Lemur Humor Part Two)
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Summary: This posting contains a list of Frequently Asked Questions (and the best answers we got) about Lemurs.  It should be read by anyone who wishes to post to the alt.fan.lemurs newsgroup.
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Archive-name: lemur-faq/part2
Alt-fan-lemurs-archive-name: lemur-faq/part2
Last-modified: 1993/07/06
Version: 3.0

    Official USENET Alt.Fan.Lemurs Frinkquently Asked Questions
               Part 2 of 6  -- Lemur Humor Part Two

------------------------------

                           The Questions

(1) Would it be a good idea to give a Lemur a toolbox for his or
her birthday?  Are Lemurs vocationally skilled?
(2) What are Lemurs' tails used for?
(3) Are Robert O'Brien's local Lemurs up to something?
(4) Why do Lemurs spend so much time trying to get their mitts on
credit cards?
(5) What's this I hear about a 900 number for Lemurs?
(6) Can thinking about Lemurs have positive benefits?
(7) What did the late historian and humorist Will Cuppy have to
     say about lemurs?
(8) What does the USENET Oracle have to say about lemurs?
(9) Did Old McDonald have lemurs on his farm?
(10) How can you tell if you have a lemur problem?
(11) If a bunch of lemurs infested my dorm room, what would it be
     like?
(12) What if I _wanted_ lemurs around?  How would I arrange that?
(13) Has anyone actually sat down and talked with an actual lemur?
(14) What is the "Lemurata"?
(15) What is a Rufous Mouse Lemur?
(16) Do lemurs get along with other sorts of animals?  Pets, for
     example?
(17) Suppose you were a resident assistant in a college dormitory.
     And suppose you had lemurs living on your hall.  What would
     that be like?
(18) Are there lemurs in, say, Central Europe?
(19) What about in England?  Any lemurs there?
(20) Write a story about lemurs following the Edward Bulwer-Lytton
     "dark and stormy night" style for me, please?
(21) What did Nigel the Lemur do to Dick Depew of ARMM fame?
(22) Who is LEMORO?

------------------------------

                             The Answers


(1) Would it be a good idea to give a Lemur a toolbox for his or
her birthday?  Are Lemurs vocationally skilled?

No.  As Ryan Franklin notes:

      I do know that it's a bad idea to give a Lemur a
      toolbox for his or her birthday.  Oh yeah, they're
      really grateful and they thank you profusely for days
      (mainly by not soiling the carpet), but then one
      morning you'll wake up and find that same
      oh-so-grateful Lemur making "just a few improvements"
      on your car's engine, with about a dozen
      grease-stained parts of your transmission lying out on
      the driveway.  Wonderful species, nice opposable
      thumbs, but absolutely NO mechanical aptitude whatso-
      ever.  Definitely not the auto repairmen of the pri-
      mate world.

Alt.fan.lemurs has heard differing opinions on this question,
though.  One guy said his car got 100 miles to the gallon after
this happened to him and he never missed the leftover parts, but
for some reason the radio would only play Radio Antananarivo.
Another guy, cursing loudly, said that the car smelled of caramel-
ized sugar for weeks after the Lemurs had their way with it.
Finally he took it to a garage and found that the Lemurs had left
some half-eaten Twinkies inside the trans-mission case (said
Twinkies now being extremely inedible, as opposed to slightly
inedible).

On the other hand, well over 80% of the Lemur population can get a
job as a locksmith or as a window washer, according to a recent
article in Barron's.  This brings them up to #3 on the "Most in
Demand" list for the major primate families.  Unfortunately, few
Lemurs appear to want those jobs, perhaps because they can get all
the food they need from nearby vending machines and/or used record
stores.

Locksmithing would appeal to Lemurs if they stopped to _think_
about it since a locksmith-trained Lemur would be hell on wheels
in the vending machine world.  Who'd need being able to wriggle
into the machine if you could just pop it open and swipe _every-
thing_ in one swell foop?

Window washing, on the other hand, does not appeal to the Lemurs
of our acquaintance.  Neither Rudolpho nor Nigel expressed any
interest in washing windows.  They see windows as necessary evils,
shutting out the natural breezes but keeping in the warmth here in
countries that aren't warm year-round.

-----------

(2) What are Lemurs' tails used for?

An excellent question.

Ryan Franklin asked:

      Incidentally, can anyone tell me if a Lemur's tail is
      partially prehensile?  Able to hook on to a branch or
      ceiling lamp and help stabilize them while they climb
      and swing and cavort joyfully in the air?  I know they
      have to keep them up in the air while leeming (or else
      trip themselves), but I was wondering if there was
      some sort of purpose to their tail other than looking
      nice.

Joel Furr responded:

      As far as I can tell from this book I checked out called
      "Lemurs And You," Lemur tails are not prehensile.  Instead
      they use their little paws to cling to things that need
      clinging to... ceiling lamps, Cindy Crawford, Twinkies,
      etc...

Ryan responded:

      Hm.  Then, apart from looking really nice, what purpose do
      their tails serve?  They seem to be rather inconvenient
      whilst leeming, as I mentioned before, and even something as
      simple as being able to use it as a way of stabilizing
      themselves when climbing or clinging would go a long way
      towards explaining this prosimian puzzle.

David A. Boulton provided the answer:

      I don't know about Joey, Rudolpho, and other urban,
      twinkie-addicted Lemurs, but in the wild Lemur tails have at
      least two purposes that I am aware of.

      As you guessed, one use is for keeping their balance, sort
      of like a high-wire walker using a pole. Lemurs (even with
      those nice opposable thumbs) aren't very good at construct-
      ing balance poles, so they use their tails to swish around,
      maintain balance, and prevent their crashing to the ground.
      Most Lemurs greatly appreciate not crashing to the ground,
      (not to mention its Darwinian survival value) and over time
      they evolved large, bushy tails with extra good swishing
      capability.

      The other reason to have a very long tail is for inter-Lemur
      communications while leeming across the ground. Lemurs
      generally live in social groups. They watch out for one
      another, and have an advantage against predators if the
      group stays together. Some act as look-outs while others
      feed, and so on. When feeding on the ground, especially
      while moving through tall grass, it's easy to get lost from
      the group. A long tail acts as a sort of flagpole. You stick
      your tail in the air, and silently say "Yo! I'm a Lemur, I'm
      over here, stay with me, and everything will be cool". The
      absence of Lemur tails in your general vicinity would tell
      you that you had better leem your butt back to the rest of
      the troop.

      This is why ringtails have rings on their tails. It makes
      them more visible. There is also a theory that the black and
      white coloration works on the same principle as zebra
      stripes. Dazzle whatever is chasing you with a sea of bounc-
      ing/leeming Lemur tails, and maybe he'll miss -- or at least
      maybe he will miss *you*.

      Also, and most important of all, Lemur tails look *really*
      nice.

-----------

(3) Are Robert O'Brien's local Lemurs up to something?

Robert O'Brien states:

      I'm really not very good at interpreting what little commu-
      nication they (the ones that hang out on my patio some
      nights while I'm logged in) deign to give me, but the way I
      understand it, the Lemurs are really the natives, *we* are
      the aliens (rejects, left here by the dominant species on
      our home-world who were tired of all the *whining*) and the
      Lemurs have been trying all this time to reactivate the
      cows' ship and program it to send *us* back, or just about
      anywhere.  But the cover story will be at least as good as
      the Douglas Adams "B Ark" story, so most of us will be very
      happy to go...

      Hmm, I thought they were gone, and it'd be safe to
      type this, but they're back now, and clearly doing
      what passes for a Lemur laugh, so I guess I've been
      taken in again...  one born every minute ...

You be the judge.

-----------

(4) Why do Lemurs spend so much time trying to get their mitts on
credit cards?

Never give a Lemur a credit card.  A checkbook is bad enough, to
be honest, but they go seriously wild with credit cards.  Not only
do baby Lemurs covet them (they open cages like magic if you know
how to use them), but they allow you to buy brand-new Burl Ives
records in quantity off of late-night TV commercials.

-----------

(5) What's this I hear about a 900 number for Lemurs?

An ad posted by Daniel Pawtowski reads, "To listen to the exciting
call of the wild Lemur, simply call 1-900-465-3687 (that's
1-900-GO-Lemur) for only $4.95 for the first minute, 15.95 each
additional minute.  Major credit cards accepted.  Adults only, no
chimpanzees, please."

Alt.fan.lemurs does not vouch for the veracity of this ad.

-----------

(6) Can thinking about Lemurs have positive benefits?

A quote from Douglas Adams' work _So Long and Thanks For All The
Fish_ gives us some hints:
      [Arthur Dent] tried not to think about the ground,
      what an extraordinarily big thing it was and how much
      it would hurt him if it decided to stop hanging there
      and suddenly fell on him.  He tried to think nice
      thoughts about Lemurs instead, which was exactly the
      right thing to do because he couldn't at that moment
      remember precisely what a Lemur was, if it was one of
      those things that sweep in great majestic herds across
      the plains of wherever it was or if that was wilde-
      beests, so it was a tricky kind of thing to think nice
      thoughts about without simply resorting to an icky
      sort of general well-disposedness toward things, and
      all this kept his mind well occupied while his body
      tried to adjust to the fact that it wasn't touching
      anything.

-----------

(7) What did the late historian and humorist Will Cuppy have to say
about lemurs?

      "The Lemur is one worse than the Monkey.  He is often mistaken for
      a squirrel, a rabbit, an Agouti, or anything but a Lemur.  He has
      been described as a state of mind or ectoplasm.  The Lemur is a
      primate because people say so.  The Lemur sleeps all day and
      nobody tells him that he is a tramp.  When disturbed he sort of
      squeaks.  Most Lemurs live in Madagascar, but they are never quite
      warm enough. ... Lemurs comb their hair with their lower front
      teeth. They mature almost instantaneously.  In a way we came from
      lemurs because they are also descended from an extinct Tree Shrew
      something like a large Rat.  From the Tree Shrew to the Dogfish is
      but a step, which practically brings us to the amoeba.  So perhaps
      the lemur is to blame for it all."

-----------

(8) What does the USENET Oracle have to say about lemurs?

The USENET Oracle, an omnipotent being located at [e-mail],
has answered a few questions on the subject of lemurs.  Here are some of
the more interesting questions and replies:

Question #1:
> Oh most powerful and omniscient Oracle, please tell me:
>
> Do lemurs bang on your bedroom windows at night?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

}      The Oracle considers your question in all possible contexts,
}      languages interpretations and reaches this conclusion:
}
}      'Not if your bedroom is off the ground floor of a building and
}      there are no trees around'
}
}      You owe the Oracle some cut price lemur proof double glazing.


Question #2:
> Oh most powerful and omniscient Oracle, please tell me,
>
> Do you ever have trouble with lemurs swinging on your kitchen lights
> or staying up all night to watch movies on your VCR?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Well, they certainly DO this, but I don't perceive it as a problem.
} However, since you do, it is time we took a good look at this bigotry
} you harbor towards lemurs.  When did this start?  Were you once bested
} by a lemur when trying out for team sports?  Did a lemur get the edge
} in that job interview because of Affirmative Action?  Are you feeling
} disaffected, like the entire country has forgotten about YOU and YOUR
} rights?  Did you sister threaten to marry a lemur? Are you xenophobic
} because they come from Madagascar?
}
} Tsk, tsk, tsk.  You seem to lack understanding and tolerance.  I
} recommend that you enter a program so that you can get help.  You
} harbor resentment and hatred for things you don't understand.  The
} next thing you know you'll be committing hate crimes against innocent
} lemurs who have never done a thing to harm you.  Get help quickly,
} before it is too late.
}
} You owe the Oracle a case of bananas.


Question #3:
> Oh mighty and omniscient Oracle, please tell me:
>
> Do you let lemurs use your credit cards?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Sure, but only to scrape the ice off of their windshields.
}
} You owe the Oracle 15.28%, compounded quarterly.


Question #4:
> Oh mighty and omnipotent Oracle, please tell me:
>
> What should I do if I'm out driving and I come to a roadblock where
> lemurs are shaking people down for money and Chex Mix?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Frightened commuter,  the solution to your question depends on whether
} the lemurs at the roadblock are Microcebus, ruffed lemurs or
} ringtails.  The Microcebus, being very, very small, are merely
} bluffing.  Simply drive through the roadblock, ignore their squeaks of
} indignation, and keep going.  The ruffed lemurs, who are extremely
} vain, will let you go through without a shakedown if you simply hand
} them some extravagant compliments on their thick, glossy, fur.
} However, the  ringtails are the terrorists of the lemur world. If the
} roadblock is run by ringtails I strongly suggest you hand over the
} money and cereal,  your first-born child, any pornographic National
} Geographics you happen to have in the car, and whatever else you can
} think of.  There are reputable reports of motorists on the I-5 being
} robbed, dismembered, and eaten by ringtails.
}
} You owe the Oracle a year's membership to the Cincinnati zoo.


Question #5:

> Oh mighty and omniscient Oracle, please tell me,
>
> How much wood could a Lemur chuck if a Lemur could chuck wood?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} That depends on how much you're willing to pay them.  If you pay
} peanuts, you get monkeys.  It's as simple as that.
}
} You owe the Oracle a half cord of firewood, neatly chucked.


Question #6:

> Help, O savior of prosimians!
>
> I accidentally let a lemur log onto my computer account.  Now, every
> time I type a command, the only response I get is "frink".  Except
> when I try to crash the machine, in which case I get "core frinked".
> What do I do?
>
> (I'm writing to you on a friend's account.)

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} The party of medical students grew excited as they followed Doctor
} Hartmann down the final sterilised, white-walled corridor that led
} to the high security wing of Indiana State Mental Asylum. "This is
} gonna be the chance of a lifetime!" said Julia Kovic, psychiatry
} student prodigy and part-time model.  "You bet!" said her friend
} David, "The most bizarre case of paranoid delusion and psychotic
} insanity in medical history, enough to write volumes on, and we're
} about to see it!"  Doctor Hartmann tapped in the security code
} and the steel doors hummed open.  "I must caution you now, be very
} careful how you speak to this man.  If you wish to ask him a
} question, make sure it's very inoffensive.  If provoked he is
} likely to enter a fit of rage which, believe me, you won't have
} seen the like of before."  The group walked in uninterested fashion
} past the cells of Gruesome Gripper Graham, strangler of over one
} hundred young virgins, and Marcus MacCallum, who ate his bank
} manager's brain infront of a whole queue of account holders (some
} of whom wanted to thank him afterwards).
}
} "Here we are" said Dr Hartmann.  "Patient Bob, as we call him.
} We never managed to get his real name out of him."
}
} "He was admitted in 1993, wan't he?" asked Julia.
}
} "That's right.  After going on a killing rampage through several
} zoos and national parks all over America.  It took the FBI weeks
} to track him down, and he somehow managed to wipe out half the
} lemur and woodchuck population of America.  He also incinerated a
} large number of police officers with his bizarre home made gun
} before he was finally caught."  The group peered in awe through
} the wide toughened glass window of the cell.  A figure was sitting
} with his back to them, both arms tied behind him in a restraint
} jacket.
}
} "How are you, Bob ?" said Dr Hartmann.  The figure snapped his head
} around to reveal sharp, crazed eyes and a handsome face contorted
} into a furious expression.  "Shut thy mouth, O worm.  I am called
} the Oracle, THE USENET ORACLE, damn it!"  "I'm sorry, Bob, but
} there is no such person in the birth records."  said the Doctor.
}
} "That" said the Oracle "is because I was born when the genes of
} your ancestors were still floating around in primordial SOUP!!".
}
} Dr Hartmann turned back to his students.  "It's OK, we've caught
} him in a pretty good mood.  Who wants to ask him a question ?"
} Julia raised her hand first.  "What makes you hate woodchucks and
} lemurs, Oracle ?"  The Oracle's eyes flared. He boomed : "They are
} the servants of Satan, malicious imps placed here by the Dark One
} to destroy the work of the Oracle."
}
} "Why do you think Satan is victimising you ?" quizzed Julia.
}
} "Because God gave Me the cushy job, while Satan has to spend
} eternity in a sulphurous pit listening to politicians screaming in
} torment and begging for another chance."
}
} "But woodchucks and lemurs are harmless, friendly little creatures!"
}
} The Oracle smiled grimly.  "My child, do not meddle in the affairs
} of the Omniscient and Omnipotent, for you would make a fine kebab
} and wash down well with a Diet Coke."
}
} Julia would not give up with her rational probing.
} "If you are omnipotent, how come you don't just break out of here?"
}
} "Break out ?!  I came here DELIBERATELY!!!  This place is a HOLIDAY
} compared to the questions I was starting to get from alt.fan.lemurs
} and the Cult of Woodchuck."
}
} Julia smiled.  She was beginning to *like* the Oracle in a strange
} sort of way, although she still thought he was insane.
}
} One of the students behind her was whispering to a colleague.
} "How much would you think it costs to run this place ?"
}
} "What ?" asked the other, who was hard of hearing.
}
} "I SAID HOW MUCH WOULD -"
}
} At that moment Julia saw the Oracle's worse side.  Only for a
} split second, that is, before the she and the whole Asylum were
} obliterated and sent flying in small chunks over a thirty mile
} radius.  The Oracle's blissful holiday was over;  he emerged from
} the ruins of the Asylum and trudged off in the direction of
} Indiana University.

---------------

(9) Did Old McDonald have lemurs on his farm?

Apparently so.

>News Flash!
>
>FARMERSVILLE, Nebraska: Wilga Hansworth never imagined the treasure
>hidden in the attic of her farm house in rural Nebraska.  After moving
>an old chest of drawers, she discovered a set of yellowed and hand-
>written sheets of music.  Upon examination, the music was found to be
>the original and complete source of the song "Old MacDonald".  More
>significant was the existence of a new verse, long forgotten and
>possibly never published:
>
>     Old MacDonald had a farm, ee-aye-ee-aye-o,
>     and on that farm he had a lemur, ee-aye-ee-aye-o,
>     with a cheep-cheep here and a frink frink there,
>     here a cheep, there a frink, everywhere a cheep, frink,
>     Old MacDonald had a farm, ee-aye-ee-aye-o.
>
>She is quoted as saying, "I'll be danged if I know what a lemur is."

This news clipping comes to us from Jim Kuiper ([e-mail]).

---------------

(10) How can you tell if you have a lemur problem?

This answer comes to us from Ben Ostrowsky ([e-mail]):

>TOP TEN WAYS OF TELLING YOU HAVE A LEMUR PROBLEM
>================================================
>
>10. Anonymous notes scrawled on napkins, in crayon, and left on the
>   kitchen table, demand two-liter bottles of Big K grape soda.
>9. You wake up every morning only to find your National Geographic
>   collection scattered all over the floor.
>8. Hanging light fixtures begin malfunctioning more often than usual.
>   Small cracks may appear in the ceiling.
>7. All the Twinkies coupons have been torn out of the newspaper and
>   attached to the refrigerator with magnets.
>6. Crude maps of Madagascar are drawn on the bathroom mirror with
>   deodorant.
>5. You wake up in the middle of the night, feeling something hairy
>   brush across your lips -- and you're single.
>4. Lemur-B-Gon billboards in your city or town are often defaced.
>3. A fine powder on the floor turns out to be Kool-Aid mix.  (Note:
>   if it's Purplesaurus Rex, don't assume that lemurs are causing
>   this problem -- it COULD be other small prosimians.  Purplesaurus
>   Rex is a very popular flavor among prosimians.)
>2. A resurgence of early 1980's music on your local radio stations.
>
>And the number one way of telling you have a lemur problem...
>
>1. Neighbors complain that you yell "frink!" during sex and ask you
>   to please be more quiet in the future.


---------------


(11) If a bunch of lemurs infested my dorm room, what would it be like?

Joel Baxter had to suffer through precisely this circumstance:

"Since I moved here to California, I've begun to be plagued by in-
explicable phenomena.  I regularly come back to my room after
class to find the door ajar and the television on, tuned to a National
Geographic special.  Often the refrigerator door is open as well; I
think that my stock of Coca-Cola is slowly diminishing, but, oddly, the
V-8 seems to be untouched.  This has been going on for about a month,
which is disturbing enough in itself, but recently, the strangeness has
begun to escalate.  About a week ago, I began to notice that my Macin-
tosh was also turned on, when I was sure that I had shut it off before
leaving.  Some of my arcade games now have new high scores that I can't
account for, signed only with the letters "CHP".  Two days ago,
to top it all off, I got some angry email claiming that I had made lewd
postings to alt.ptang.

Naturally, I had an angry confrontation with my roommates, who deny
everything. One of them said that it was probably "the lemurs" that did
it, as if that explanation cleared everything up.  I'm wondering if I
should give some credence to this theory, or if I need to immediately
start looking for new roommates.

Besides the obvious worry that at least one of my roommates is playing
sociopathic mind games with me, I'm beginning to be severely frustrated
by the occurrences themselves.  If I find out that all my stamps and
envelopes have been thoroughly pre-licked ^one^ ^more^ ^time^, I think
I'll scream.  So, what do you think?  Are lemurs that prevalent on
Stanford's campus (we do have a lot of vending machines), or in Califor-
nia in general?  Could they be responsible for the things I've been
discovering?  Could a lemur crack my account and post to the usenet
under my name?  And, what might be most incriminating, can a lemur, as
Apple claims, actually learn how to use the Macintosh GUI?


---------------

(12) What if I _wanted_ lemurs around?  How would I arrange that?

Joel Baxter again has some helpful input:

If you actually <want> a lemur presence in your abode, I don't think
that it would be necessary to shell out any cash.  Jugs of Big K Grape
Soda on the doorstep will do nicely.  Or, you might try provoking their
lovable primate curiosity, by posting large signs on your door reading
"ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY NO MADAGASCARIAN PROSIMIANS ALLOWED", or "Note to
Twinkie Deliveryperson: Leave the fourteen Twinkie Econo-Paks (tm) that
I ordered in the kitchen.  Thank you.".


---------------

(13) Has anyone actually sat down and talked with an actual lemur?

Our interviewing staff had occasion to interview a bona fide lemur, one
"Diana," late one night on the Yale campus:

     Q: How did you first discover that you were a lemur?

     A: Well, to start with, I was a net addict. I read alt.geek for a
     long time, because it seemed to be for me. But there was a furry
     bristling of discomfort once in a while; I shiverred at the
     thought of any of these people actually meeting me and discovering
     that I frink and stuff like that. I discovered alt.fan.lemurs by
     accident. I fell from the ceiling late
     one night and hit just the right combination of keys.

     Q: Do you agree with the way in which lemurs are represented in
     a.f.l.?

     A: For now, yes, I find it flattering. I haven't had the luxury of
     a long-term sense of identity which would allow me to criticize my
     own community. Right now I am enjoying this sense of fellowship
     and popularity.

     Q: You talk very much like a human.

     A: Yes, this is a skill I acquired out of necessity. You may
     notice that the language is formal, stilted. I do not find the
     words I need in human language. I stutter in person. People lose
     patience because I take so long to say what I mean. They don't
     understand that there are things I want to say and just can't.
     I've heard humans say stuff like, "I'm speechless," or, "I can't
     find the words to express..." but then they go right on talking,
     apparently undisturbed by this supposed lack of words.

     Q: But you are quite verbose.

     A: To compensate. What have I said so far? Not much, but I come
     across as very talkative, right?

     Q: Do you spy on people at night?

     A: Yes, I love window-peering. I have spied on nearly everyone who
     posts in this group. My observations are quite interesting, but
     again, you don't have the vocabulary for them. Anything I could
     say in your vocabulary is rather dull, something you know already.

     Q: Have you ever wanted to go to Madagascar?

     A: The travel agencies won't sell me a ticket. I'd love to go, but
     I have to wait for the next lemur tour. My first step is to visit
     my North Carolina kin. I'm scared, though.

     Q: Do you see hope for the lemur community in the future?

     A: Why all these questions? I'm not the interviewing type. I'm not
     typical of all lemurs, and you can't see me right now. You have no
     idea what I'm doing. I'm laughing my head off and bouncing up and
     down! And you took all
     this seriously! Ha!

     Q: I think I'm missing the joke.

     A: That's cause the joke's on you! Ha ha ha!!!


     ---------------

(14) What is the "Lemurata"?

Susanna Richardson <[e-mail]> shared "Lemurata" with
us, after finding it typed into her computer late one night when no one
else was around (that she knew of).  Doubtless the "Lemurata" is Wisdom
of the Ages if you're a lemur.

LEMURATA

Swing silently amid the fans & light fixtures, & remember what pleasure
there may be in not having to replace broken bulbs.  Avoid Silent
Lemurs, unless you are in need of skin grafts. Rotate your Twinkie (tm)
supplies, putting the stale ones on top. * Frink warmly of those who
have more Big K than yourself and heed well their nap times: know what
to *ptang* and when. * Consider that two cows never make a lemur, but
that three can kill (if they ever get inside the ship again).  Whenever
possible, dial Madagascar and leave the phone off the hook. * Be
comforted that in the face of all idiotic behaviour by lemmings and
despite the inability of humans to pronounce *ptang* properly, their
credit cards are easy to steal. * Remember the Mooser. * Strive at all
times to Frink, Ptang and WhoooOOOOoooo. * Know yourself.  If you need
help, call the DUPC.  Exercise caution in your nightly 7-11 break-ins,
especially if you use a human look-out. * Be assured that a swing
through the jungles of most humans souls would be a major risk to life
and limb, the tangled undergrowth is unbelievable.  Particularly, stay
away from the id. * Frink therefore with only the lemur with the most
Twinkies (tm).  Accept no Little Debbies (tm). * Gracefully surrender
the things of youth, leeming, little raisins with chocolate, expired
phone cards and Internet access for Nigel.  Let not inferior soda drinks
be served. * Annoy people nightly, screens are for banging. * For a good
time call 555-1212, ask for Hillary. * Take heart amid the deepening
gloom that the hyenas are finally getting enough Cheetos to justify
helping kill the Command Cow: and reflect that whatever misfortune may
be your lot, it could only be worse in Aachen. * You are a leemling of
the Universe; you have no keys to the CowShip, and whether you can hear
it or not, there's a big dark shape in the alley RIGHT BEHIND YOU!!!
with glowing eyes and milky breath. * Aieee! * Therefore, make plane
reservations for Annatanarivo right now.  * With all its hopes, dreams,
promises and slash & burn economy the world continues to be a place
where lemurs can get a Twinkie (tm) at 3am.


---------------


(15) What is a Rufous Mouse Lemur?

Joel Baxter points out:

I believe that we should pay more attention to the Rufous Mouse Lemur.
Besides the fact that it's irresistably cute, it seems to me that it has
potential for mischief that its larger brethren may lack.  One Rufous
Mouse Lemur could fit quite nicely through a mail slot, allowing it to
then open the door for the dozen Ringtailed Lemurs, slightly boffoed
after one too many Big K's, that had the sudden urge to set up a
Slip-`n-Slide (tm) in your master bedroom and take turns riding the
carousel of your CD changer.  While a baby lemur could serve this
purpose as well, they tend to be more easily distracted.  A full-grown
Rufous Mouse Lemur is quite a bit brighter, and, (so I've heard) will do
just about anything for a half-ounce hit of Big K.


---------------


(16) Do lemurs get along with other sorts of animals?  Pets, for
example?

Joel Kent Baxter says:

My local lemurs seem to display a contempt, if not downright hostility,
toward domesticated animals.  While we like to think of the lemurs as
cuddly fun-loving creatures, there may be a darker side...  the notes on
my monitor, for instance, seem to indicate a certain condescending
attitude toward dogs.  I've noticed that while the local lemurs get
along quite affably with the campus raccoons, the dogs and cats tend to
give my place (and other infested buildings such as the workstation lab
and the laundry room) a wide berth.  I'm not sure what's going on, but
the noises that I sometimes hear at night (barking intermixed with the
sounds of pruning shears, an outboard motor, and what I believe is a
tennis ball machine) make me think that perhaps I don't really want to
know.

Of course, no one would believe that the lemurs get along with the
raccoons simply because they mistake them for portly ringtails.  I
believe that the lemurs simply don't have any patience for animals that
let themselves get pushed around by humans, and only the raccoons have
enough chutzpah to be on the lemurs' "in" list.  That may be why lemurs
seem to have a proclivity for cow-taunting; after all, the rank and file
of the cowsmonaut descendents are pretty much domesticated by now.  For
those that disagree, I have one word: McDonalds.

---------------

(17) Suppose you were a resident assistant in a college dormitory.  And
suppose you had lemurs living on your hall.  What would that be like?

Matt Rice ([e-mail]) shared his experiences with us:

     A few lemurs live on my floor, and a few more live throughout the
     building.  They aren't allowed to keep bazookas in the rooms.
     This has caused a small controversy in the past, but they've found
     a way around it.  The lemurs have started building catapults.
     They're very accurate with them, actually.  I've had to ask them
     to cool it more than once when they started bombing the residence
     halls on the other side of campus.  Who would have thought that
     stale twinkies could maim?

     And as far as tripping over them on my way to the shower, that
     doesn't happen.  BUT, when I'm doing my nightly rounds, I have had
     to tell them to stop swinging from the ceiling lights.  (I know
     they just get right back up there when I'm gone, but it's the
     principle).

     The biggest complaint they have is the student commisary doesn't
     sell Big K grape soda.  The shipping charges for two liter bottles
     is enormous, so mail order is out of the question.  They've been
     substituting Barq's root beer, but I can tell they don't like it
     very much.

     Also, I've noticed they won't use the nearest convenience store.
     It is called "Wa-wa," and is a fairly large chain in the north-
     east.  As far as I can tell, it's a rather nasty word in Lemurese,
     and they refuse to shop there.  They even refuse to talk about it.
     Everytime one of the human residents says "I'm making a Wa-wa run,
     anyone want anything?" when he/she is gone, the lemurs hack into
     their computer accounts and start a flame war in talk.abortion.
     It's not a pretty sight.

     Unfortunately, there is little respect for our furry residents.
     Some humans even deny their existence.  One even went so far as to
     blame her missing CD-ROM disc loader on elves, when any fool knows
     that the lemurs were using it to find out what happens when you
     load Peter Gabriel CDs into the NTIS CD database.  (It was return-
     ed, by the way.)

     Lemurs had to adapt to dorm life, since most rooms don't have
     lights in the ceilings, only floor lamps.  There are, however,
     sprinkler pipes that hang down a good foot and a half from the
     ceiling.  The human residents dry their laundry or hang their
     bikes on these (the laundry is ok, the bikes aren't).  The lemurs
     swing from them like nobody's business.  The most complaintes come
     from residents at 3:00 am when the lemurs start banging on them
     with spoons they 'liberated' from the dining hall.  Has something
     to do with what the home shopping network offers as a special...


---------------

(18) Are there lemurs in, say, Central Europe?

Frank McPherson went backpacking in Europe in 1992 and had the following
experience, which tends to answer "yes" to the above question:

     I had just spent a week in rural Hungary and was absolutely dying
     for a real live western candybar when I returned to Vienna,
     Austria.  I left the u-bahn station and headed towards the center
     of town, stopping in the first grocery store I came to.  I im-
     mediately became enamoured with and bought a package of six or
     eight Bounty candybars.  I'm pretty sure I only got to eat one of
     them.

     The theft happened later that evening.  I was walking down a small
     street, trying to remember where the hostel I had reserved a room
     in was located.  I kept hearing strange THUD sounds surrounded by
     a laughter I'd never heard before coming from a lighted, open
     window up ahead.  Every once in a while, I could swear it looked
     like a kitchen light with a small monkey would swing madly out the
     window, reach the top of its arc, and swing back through the
     window, accompanied by gales of the strange laughter.  When I
     approached the window to see what was going on, something furry
     jumped on my head and covered my eyes.  After it jumped off, I
     ran.  When I finally calmed down enough to realize I was not in
     any danger, I reached in my backpack to get a Bounty to further
     calm my nerves.  They were gone.

     It makes sense that the Lemurs like Vienna.  It's warm in the
     summer, with a booming tourist trade, and a LOT of junkfood.  Do
     you think they ever attend the Staatsoper?  The Wiener Philhar-
     moniker?  I bet they like Beethoven....

---------------

(19) What about in England?  Any lemurs there?

Mike Knell quoth:

     Lemurs are, as far as I can tell, rare in Britain. The lack of
     Twinkies is the exact same thing that keeps many Lemurs away.
     There are a few notable exceptions though - Arthur the City Lemur
     is a well-known sight amongst merchant bankers, with his unique
     pin-striped ringed tail. I can think of no credible British
     substitute for the Twinkie (although I've never had one, the
     descriptions are very graphic). Would a Lemur like a
     Crunchie?

     Big K is totally unobtainable, possibly some of the generic
     supermarket brand fizzy orange/blackcurrant drinks would suffice.
     Having said that, I've heard rumours of a corner shop in Solihull
     that sells Twinkies, so there may be a change to come. Britain may
     be on the verge of a major Lemur invasion if the correct food
     becomes available. Keep the ceiling lights though. Displaying your
     National Geographic collection prominently in your window should
     also encourage Lemurs, especially if you leave the ones with
     articles about Madagascar at the front.

     There are also disturbing numbers of Cows in Britain. The black-
     and-white ones are especially worth watching out for, but then to
     my knowledge the Terror Cow has never been sighted here, for-
     tunately.

     It's good to see that people in Britain are also taking Lemurs
     seriously. To be hit by a wave of Lemurs arriving through Heathrow
     without being prepared at all could be devastating for the coun-
     try's junk food supply. Watch out for those Hungarian piccolo
     players appearing at airports.


---------------


(20) Write a story about lemurs following the Edward Bulwer-Lytton "dark
and stormy night" style for me, please?

     It was a dark and stormy night.  Melanie and I walked slowly down
     the hill, picking our way among the boulders.  It was our first
     trip to this part of the country, and we were truly in awe of the
     vast natural beauty that surrounded us.  Huge pillars of stone
     towered above us, stretching up cliffs rising hundreds of feet
     into the air.  Wow.

     As the storm picked up, we stopped under an overhang and watched
     as Mother Nature battered the countryside with biting, driven rain
     and powerful blasts of lightning.  Slowly, I pulled a Twinkie from
     my jacket.

     Before I could offer it to Melanie, however, a small furry thing
     swung down from above and landed before me.  It was a lemur, and
     it wanted my Twinkie.  My worst nightmares were coming true.  As I
     was backed up against the cliff, there was no place to run.  I
     tried to lateral the Twinkie to Melanie, but the lemur was just
     too quick.  It snatched the snack from midair and leapt away.  It
     stared at me for a moment, said "Frink", and was gone forever.

     After a while of standing in silence, Melanie and I turned and
     continued our trek down the mountainside.  It was only then that I
     noticed the absence of my grape soda.

     Thanks be to Tob Wood for that Lemur Gothic story.


---------------

(21) What did Nigel the Lemur do to Dick Depew of ARMM fame?

     From: [e-mail] (Nigel the Lemur)
     Newsgroups: alt.fan.dick-depew,alt.fan.lemurs
     Subject: Re: fan??!!
     Date: 9 Apr 93 05:19:55 GMT
     Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA

     In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Richard M.
     Hartman) writes:
     >Nigel!  There's a bunch of TWINKIES stashed in Dick's hard
     drive....

     *TWINKIES*  mmmmmmmmm

     <sounds follow that _could_ be those made by a hungry lemur
     ripping the plastic and metal shell of Depew's computer open and
     discovering the Twinkies concealed within>

     snarf snarf snarf snarf snarf

     <sounds follow that _could_ be those made by a sated lemur stuff-
     ing the empty Twinkie wrappers neatly inside the ruined hard drive
     and leaving>


---------------

(22) Who is LEMORO?

LEMORO is the fictional creation of Jeffrey Klein ([e-mail]).

     Dr Dooley Banner, theorizing that the true potential of sponge
     cake could be unlocked by gamma radiation, exposes a Twinkie to
     the lethal rays!  Jeff Klein, shiftless layabout, unwittingly
     consumes the golden confection, causing his very CELLULAR PATTERN
     to be IRREVOCABLY ALTERED!  He is now --

     LEMORO, the LEMUR that WALKS like a MAN!!!!!

     With a purposeful grimace and a terrible 'frink'
       He chugs down a bottle of Big K grape drink -- LEMORO!

       Helpless cows in a big cow ship
       Scream as his bug-eyes look into it -- LEMORO!

       He picks up a Twinkie and he throws it over his shoulder
       As he wades through the aisles to the center of Kroger

       Oh no, they say he's got to go, go go LEMORO!
       Oh no, there goes a Ho-Ho, go go LEMORO!

       History shows, then and now
       How lemurs point up the folly of cows

     LEMORO has starred in a series of films, such as LEMORO VS KOW
     KONG, LEMORO LET DIE, IT'S A WONDERFUL LEMORO, and SHE'S GOTTA
     HAVE LEMORO.

-----------

The FAQ continues into Part 3, "Part 3 of 6 -- Lemur Poetry".

  ------------------------------------------------------------------
  Prepared January 31, 1993 by Joel Furr, [e-mail]
  Revised February 15, 1993 by Joel Furr, [e-mail]
    Revised April 5, 1993 by Joel Furr, [e-mail]
     Revised July 6, 1993 by Joel Furr, [e-mail]