Meldersen

Meldersen (a pseudonym) is best known in the scholarly community for his role as the second president of the Bureau of Forgotten Knowledge, a post which he held from -77 to -56 EC, the Bureau's foundational period in the specialized fields of hermeneutics and the history of currency, and founder of its annually-increased subsidiary the Bureau of Regained Knowledge, on both of which he has since relentlessly turned his back; most notorious among the general public for his work in the practical applications of Awal shrinkage, leading to the extremely unstable but also highly stealthy weapon he has dubbed "Awal sleeps" in allusion to his predecessor's inability to foresee it, but also to the development of that most paradoxical but quite useful product, non-luminous lume; and in addition the author, in his youth, of an échec d'estime, the much-loved novel or romance Jemima and the Square Do-Gooders, as well as other gargarational works.

But his place in popular culture has been forever secured by his coining of the axiom "It's downside up!" which, though it was originally pronounced merely to support his hypothesis that the fundamental element of Awal shrinkage is the bizarre suction of noise that accompanies and accelerates the process of re-obith (or some such technical mumbo-jumbo), has since become a near-daily ritual among the leaders of the youth phenomenon commonly and journalistically known as the Great Awakening, under cover of which the rising generation in Folktown and even Iganefta (despite, or because of, the fact that it is Meldersen's weapons that are used to make their parents' lives exceptionally difficult in the Conflict That Is Not Happening) justify themselves for their chronic overindulgence in sex, drugs, and the curious form or genre of music known to them as quiver'n'bend.

Citations: Bureau of Forgotten Knowledge, Great Awakening, quiver'n'bend.

--John Cowan 15:58, 5 Jan 2005 (EST)