The Tiny Shriner Goes to Kalamazoo

by J J Cohen

The space on my office tchoke shelf ordinarily occupied by the Befezzed One is vacant. Examine the photograph at left and you'll see how forlorn the Lascivious Antelope has become. No one lingers to play with the mini boomerang, or the tiny tea plate imprinted with the Queen Mum's head. No one rolls the Ganesha Disc of Doom around the shelf. The gargoyles are melancholic in their solitiude, while the champagne-stained mug that Tiny uses as his jacuzzi stands so empty that its utter vacancy has become a kind of black hole of existential gravity.

This disappearance from his perch surveying Pennsylavnia Avenue can mean only one thing: the Shriner has left the building. Like thousands of medievalists from around the globe, Tiny is headed to Kalamazoo.

If you can't come this year, don't worry: the Shrinester has informed me that he is going to be sending constant tweets of his whereabouts and observations. If you are on Twitter, follow him. If you aren't, you can subscribe to his Twitter account's RSS feed, or you can read his musings in the box we added to the righthand side of the blog, or you can patiently await our posting of his musings here at ITM as a blog post.

Safe travels to those headed to Michigan. See you soon!