minutia press.

Members of Washington University's Emergency Medical Response Team were summoned to Graham Chapel this morning when a student was discovered unconscious about 50 yards from the Chapel. Emergency personnel were successful in reviving the individual, whose identity in this account will be represented as "X" -- not the student's true name -- so as to protect his or her privacy in this sensitive matter.

Once Student X's vital signs were ascertained as stable, X gave the following summary of what transpired. At or around noon, the student was walking near Graham Chapel when the building's carillon began first to sound the time of day and then to play some music.

Just prior to the carillon's actions, the student was marveling at the Chapel itself. The chapel is famous for being nearly a replica of a chapel-like structure that might have been constructed in the spirit of Christ Church at Oxford University. The Chapel sports window-ish aperatures featuring stained-like glass depicting pseudo-religious scenes. The Moeller organ has impressive facade pipes surrounding the stage, and is voiced in a manner that faithfully imitates organs of both the Baroque and Romatic eras. The walls are graced with sconce-like fixtures treated to look centuries old while providing modern levels of lumenosity.

The carillon recently underwent a renovation during which it was almost replaced with a real, mechanical carillon. Thankfully, clearer heads prevailed and the carillon remains a device that simulates almost authentic, carillon-like sounds.

The student, admiring the almost-Gothic architecture, knew that something was amiss when the carillon began to sound. Feeling slightly disoriented, the sensation worsened with each digitally controlled, pitch-accurate note. Confronted with the utter falseness of it all, nausea set in when the carillon began to play "We've Only Just Begun" as popularized by the Carpenters. The student lapsed into a psuedocoma, feignting [sic] on the spot.

EMS personnel advise staying clear of the carillon if you have any aesthetic sensibilities, or if you have a family history of pseudophobia---fear of false things. "We see this all the time around here", remarked one EMS attendant, "so it's good that we are trained to respond to pseudophobics". Such training is rigorous, as the EMS personnel must themselves become desensitized to substances and sounds that induce pseudocoma. "We listen to Barry Manilow records until we can stay in the sound room for 3 minute without passing out."

So here's to our University's EMS team, making our University a psafer place for pseudoarchitecture, pseudocarillons, and pseudomusic.

I thought I should post this for the general viewing public....

Prof. Genin in the Mechanical Engineering Dept has promised not only to give any student to successfully silence the pseudo bells an A in his class but also to post bail.

Is it just me, or does Metallica's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" pop into your head more than 1/2 the time when the chapel bells are tolling off the hour? Perhaps I need to get out more.