HILDE: What was it like when you were there, in San Francisco?

MARSHALL: Great, but didn't appreciate it at the time. Times change, things pass.
Don't appreciate it til it's gone.

HILDE: Are you familiar with the new or neo-Discordians? Steve Jackson,
Reverend Loveshade, Rev. DrJon, Professor Mu-Chao, Professor Cramulus, High
Priestess Elestria, Rev. St. Syn, St. Verthaine the Goth, St. Mae?

MARSHALL: Not really. But that doesn't mean anything as I haven't kept up. I
recognize some of those names from that
Intermittens magazine you showed me;
more professional than anything we did. Nice new jakes and classic mindfucks,
Thornley's and Quinn's. And I liked the story about the sheep. (
The magazine
issue was
number 7 and has my first interview with Richard Marshall. "Mutton
Chops" is by Nigel.--P.H.
)

HILDE: Quinn's mindfuck?

MARSHALL: The Midget; his group, Terrorists for Truth, did the water jake. The
original one.

HILDE: I remember in our first interview you said Mike Quinn was the real-life
model for The Midget aka Hagbard Celine aka Howard Crane of
The Illuminatus!
Trilogy and the Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy.

MARSHALL: Michael Arthur Quinn. I remember now; that was his full name. He
called himself The Game Master.

HILDE: And also The Game Master of Florin. After the interview, I noticed that
when Wilson and Shea described Hagbard Celine in
The Illuminatus! Trilogy, they
said he resembled the actor Anthony Quinn.

MARSHALL: The real kid, who was black, looked nothing like the movie star; but
yes, another inside joke.

HILDE: You said in our first interview that the way he acted reminded you of Danny
Partridge of
The Partridge Family. I found that in the show the band manager often
referred to the precocious young Danny as a midget in a kid suit. Could that have
been an inspiration for calling Quinn "The Midget?"

MARSHALL: It's possible; I don't remember.

HILDE: Back to neo-Discordians. Are you familiar with Miley Cyrus who plays
Hannah Montana?

MARSHALL: The teenybopper pop singer? She's Discordian?

HILDE: She's been named a Discordian American Princess.

MARSHALL: Then things have changed.

HILDE: Most people say she added the middle name "Ray" because it's her
father's middle name, but some say she changed her name to Miley Ray because
it sounds like
Minnie Rae. She often flashes the Discordian peace sign even
though she's Christian and works for Disney.

MARSHALL: I was an Erisian, peace-sign flashing Jesus Freak. And didn't she do
a pole dance? Maybe things haven't changed as much as I thought.

HILDE: You said in the early days Discordians were more activity oriented, doing
Jakes and handing out fliers, whereas Erisians were more philosophical.

MARSHALL: That's right. Guess they don't make that distinction anymore.

HILDE: Would you say Thornley was more Discordian or Erisian?

MARSHALL: He and Hill were both. But if I did define them, Hill was more Erisian
and Thornley more Discordian. No, maybe the reverse.

HILDE: Did Discordians really invent the peace sign?

MARSHALL: The hand sign or the symbol?

HILDE: The hand, the V-sign.

MARSHALL: No; they just took the victory sign and turned it backwards. The way
Churchill did it with V for victory was an insult, only he didn't know it, like the
American flipping the middle finger. Meant "Fuck you;" excuse my French. But it
was Discordians who first did the V-sign as it's done now, backwards; V for peace
and the number 5. It means "Fuck me." Hippies got it from us.

HILDE: I remember an Austin Powers movie played with the double meaning.

MARSHALL. The peace symbol, the one in a circle? That's also a Discordian
joke--I bet you didn't know that.

HILDE: Please tell me about it.

MARSHALL: Supposedly the upside down V is the symaphore for "N" and the
verticle line that splits it in two is "D" in symaphore code. The "N. D." stands for
"Nuclear Disarmament" or "peace," but that's another Discordian joke. The
inverted V is the Roman numeral 5 turned upside down, and D is for Discordia and
is the symbol for 500. And it was first published in
Peace News in London--don't
remember the name of the street, but their address is number 5. Never went there,
but got their mail. You should check out
Peace News; great. The early Discordians
knew them, and they knew the Discordians.

Want more synchronicity? Here's something; just thought of it. The current editor
of
Peace News, one of them, is named Milan Rai. Sound like Minnie Rae? It all
connects.

HILDE: So the peace symbol refers to the Discordian number 5.

MARSHALL: Or the Discordian 5 refers to them. They both started the same time
in the late 50s. The 50s? Another five. But here's the joke. Turn the peace symbol
upside down and what have you got? A V with a verticle line going through the
middle of it. A split? You don't get it, do you?

HILDE: I'm afraid not.

MARSHALL: Let me draw you a picture. (Draws). Now what do you see? Don't be
shy.

HILDE: A hairless vagina?

MARSHALL: Right! (Laughs) Technically, it's a vulva. Turn the victory sign
backwards and it's the peace sign; turn the peace symbol upside down and it's the
"piece" symbol. It's an old joke nobody remembers anymore. Except for a company
that uses almost the same symbol--Volvo? Uses a symbol that looks like an upside
down vulva. Except there's doesn't have the split--represents a virgin, I guess.

HILDE: On a more serious note, I'd like to get back to Jim Garrison and Kennedy.
In the last interview we ran out of time. Did you know Thornley when District
Attorney Jim Garrison investigated him as a suspect in the assassination of
President
John F. Kennedy?

MARSHALL: Garrison drove Thornley mad. Literally. It took years to build, but it
happened. Thornley always made fun of paranoia--he got a kick out of Shea and
Wilson's
Illuminati, but never took it all seriously. He didn't believe in real life
organizations, certainly not in mysterious, secret ones.
An Interview with Richard Marshall
November 23, 2009

by Pope Hilde
This is part D of the second of a series of three interviews with
original Erisian Richard Marshall conducted by Pope Hilde.
We have them all.
PART D
This is kerry thornley dot com, a site about kerry wendell thornley aka lord omar khayyam ravenhurst, co-conspirator with gregory hill aka greg hill aka
malaclypse the younger, contributor to principia discordia, worker on operation mindfuck, investigated by im garrison, friend of robert anton wilson and
robert shea, supposed co-assassin of president john f. kennedy, and fnord
Marshall's description of the peace
sign, the peace symbol, and
Peace
News
agree with independent
sources.  However, the car
company that uses a symbol
similar to a peace symbol is not
Volvo but Mercedes-Benz.
search KerryThornley.com
Discordian American Princesses

S23 Wiki
Uncyclopedia
Urban Dictionary
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
flashing the V-sign. In
this photo he's doing it
correctly.