The Tebel & Neuroses Issue

It was back when we first hired our mail editor. Second day at the job. A shroud of slience spread over our cubicles, editors scoured the web looking for plagiarisable bits for an upcoming issue of SELEDA. Then, out of the silence, with the shrill of a fishka, came the cry, "ERRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEE... !!!" Squinting cavemen crawled out of cubicles and rushed down the hall, following the trail of shattered glass. The trail lead right to the mail editor's cubicle. No one knew what to expect, but prepared for the worst. As a stacked wall of faces peered into his cubicle, the mail editor, nonchallantly, went on reading the web, one hand playing furiously with a ball of silly-puddy. He sat on a low stool shaped like a portable toilet bowl. The staff had looked askance as he hauled the darned thing into the office that same morning. It helped him concentrate, he explained.

"ERRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEE...!!!" became a daily ocurrence, and the initial alarm died down to a complete disregard. Every week, we would congregate and hold scream sessions. We'd march up to the rooftop and, in a high-octaved harmony, let out, "ERRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEE....!" It quickly ate into the SELEDA psyche. That was the beginning of the end for sanity as ( little as ) we knew it at SELEDA. Soon after that, a staff member would greet another in the hallway, and add, "Hey T, what's wrong, you look normal today!" And the other would respond, "Oh, J, min ebakih, i had another episode of levitation last night, and i popped in a couple of those pink devils this morning."

Even as metewaweQ brought mennannaQ and then gave way to merrarraQ, one thing emerged as the only bond that welded us together, the only force that held in place the fac¸ade of harmony amongst our motley crew...

... Neurosis. Tasteful ibdet. Ocassional instances of "melQeQ".

We think it's weird not to be weird. We think it's strange not to be strange. And we think that this shouldn't prompt our sefer sewoch to chase after us with a barrage of rocks and "belew-belew! belew-belew!"s as though we were some rabid dog that strayed into their mender.

Now, we want YOU to share in the madness. We want you to tell us about those moments when the mind's needle skips the groove and it feels sooooo good to run unconstrained. We want you to tell us about the demons that haunt you, and about the Tebel that you exorcise them with. Tell us about your recurring fits of madness. Tell us about why you think it is that the Gudu Kassa's amongst our community, who transgress the boundaries of conformity, are condemned to be stoned? Tell us about the many disorders that afflict us in the diaspora, and which figurative Tebel we turn to for a cure. Tell us everything... but, please, fer chrissake, don't tell us that you believe the crap from the psychic network... and don't tell us that you believe you can transmute medab into gold... Otherwise, esti monCHer monCHer your articles and then werwer our way.

Indebted to you as always...

Food and Drinks.

You could never figure out the recipe behind your great-grandmother's second cousin's notorious gubet-be'ambazza short-cake? Or was it the atela-infested Tela at Emmama Kuribachew's ceremonial irkuss-menfes eradication dinners that insisted on giving your lanQa inflammatory rashes? Maybe you were confused the first time you saw that molQaQa poking the injera with a fork. Better yet, remember that time you were elevated to knee-wobbling levels of g'lete-fenTezia after your run-in with what you later found out was an oriental delicacy derived from monkey brain?

Anyway, June is the month to let your gastric and creative juices flow: The Food and Drinks Issue. Esti, bemotE, humor us ... your adventures and misadventures with our most primal needs. Two beets or not two beets, that is the question. To eat, to chew, perchance to bloat ... *ahem* yeah, ok, our insides are itching for a little meQuadesha with buTiCHa and mooQ.

Ere contribute, be'hodachin amlak!