Archives of the McGuffin Institute

The McGuffin Institute for the Recovery and Restoration
Of Historical Artifacts
400 Seaconck Avenue
Byllmelater, PA 92416



Dear Subscribers and Friends of the Institute:

December comes but once a year, unless you go by the 13 month calendrical cycle observed by the Peyote Indians of colorful south central Ecuador! We are racing against Santa’s inexorable clock (yes, the name does derive from Satan, the place from which all funky things come) to bring you our promised monograph containing a long-lost Encyclical or Bull of Pope Pius XII, recently discovered—coincidence has been quite a hallmark of this holiday season, if you have a sense of irony!—under strangely similar circumstances, albeit within the ultrasecret bowels of the Vatican Archives, as the previous discovery of Edward VIII of England’s first draft Abdication Decree.

We have our own holiday angel to thank for rescuing the Institute’s parking fees from default yet again, and for funding the replacement of our computers, which were seized in an illegal manner for supposed back taxes owed to the IRS—from which, incidentally, despite the superficial illegibility of the almost total crossings-out of “sensitive” material, we obtained through the Freedom of Information Act shortly before it was rescinded, several documents with which the Institute hopes to provide its members an even greater surprise than the forthcoming Encyclical, if that is even possible.

Meanwhile, Dr. McGuffin continues to hover between this world and the nothingness that follows, sad to tell. As you know, our Institute’s founder and honorary president has literally given his life to the precious work we hope, with your help, to continue in his honor and for the betterment of humanity. For those who have recently joined our subscription list, Dr. McGuffin’s penultimate study concerned the extent of mercury poisoning suffered by hatmakers in the 19th century, resulting in what our nation’s president might call “a catastrophic success.” Were he not comatose, and perhaps though he continues to be, we feel certain that the great doctor would want his work to continue despite the enormous challenges we face in the coming months of reaching peak oil production.

A subscriber writes:

Look what I found in the preface to Goebbels's diaries by Louis P. Lochner, whose actual reason for knowing Goebbels and being regarded by him as an enemy I haven't yet gone back to discover, I just opened to this at random--Lochner hated Goebbels, Goebbels hated him, and he found himself having to ask Goebbels for a favor--namely that a friend's Jewish wife not be sent to a concentration camp in Latvia or something, but allowed to join her husband in Spain. Her husband had fought a good war in the first war:

"On more than one occasion I have been baffled by the unpredictable workings of the Nazi mind. To my surprise Goebbels sent me word through Dr. Rudolf Semler of this matter, that he would see to it that Frau B was taken off the ghetto train and allowed to proceed to Spain. He attached no conditions. He did not try to make a deal with me. Dr. Semler told me privately, however, that I had 'shamed' him into taking favorable action by my reference to Herr B.'s war record."

Huh.

These interesting differences in the mores of the past from our own day are, of course, the very objects of our studies here—and we will continue sharing them with you as often as we can.

Merry Xmas,


Velma Darwin
Acting Director