From the Audio Archives of the League of Whimsical Mirth:
TRANSCRIPT
[Tape starts]
I know I will die soon. I've known it since I was young, but soon keeps shrinking smaller, small enough to fit inside my mouth. I think before that happens, I must empty my mouth of words, to make room for soon. If you'll be so kind as to allow me, I may discuss my long life as it relates to the future of this League.
[Tape stops]
HARRIET: Do you understand what we are listening to?
[REDACTED]: Yes.
HARRIET: Do you understand why we are listening to it?
[REDACTED]: No.
HARRIET: You've strayed from the path, [REDACTED]. Perhaps a clearer understanding of our goals as whimsy artists from the mouth of the founder himself will save you from disgrace. It would do you well to listen.
[Tape resumes]
I dreamt once of a future in which a wide hole opened in the earth through which all joy and whimsy drained. In this future, half of art was made to appeal to all and thus appealed to none, becoming stagnant and corporate, whilst the other half in its attempt to avoid this fate became so high-brow and pretentious that it could not be enjoyed by the common man. Blood-sucking businessmen had bricked up the doorways of every creative thinker with cinder blocks. Friendly collaboration was impossible, only auteurs and boardrooms remained. I feared it was possible I had some presentiment of my future, and in response to this vision, I created the League, for which my legacy is best known-
[Tape stops]
HARRIET: You know about us well already.
HARRIET: But perhaps you should watch the video one more time.
[VHS loading sound.]
[Stranger on the shore starts playing, plays in background throughout]
Welcome, new member, to the League of Whimsical Mirth; home of the waggish and capricious artist who seeks like minded freaks. From the shadows, we have sought to keep art a fun and accessible medium, and to create a network of similar thinking artists. Our Joculites. Together we will make the world a more a more interesting place to live through our own creeping infamy. Together we will banish the banal with the virus of comical clownish antics. Together we will thrust art upon the unsuspecting public, and those who are inspired by that art will join our cause. And you've just joined that cause too! We are just giggling and kicking our little feet to have you!
[Tape stops]
[REDACTED]: I've heard enough.
HARRIET: You know our mission, then?
[REDACTED]: I have always known our mission.
[Recording ends.]
In the interest of saving your time, these are the relevant details:
on Thursday, March 26, at 1pm, we will be gathering in the Great Hall of 100 McCaul.
We will be in suits or other business-like attire, and we will all walk around the school and other nearby locations, holding meetings and discussing "Real and Serious Business". It is recommended you arrive early and mingle with the other business-ites, as we leave at 1pm sharp. Business cards will be provided, suits will not. #BYOS
In the interest of preserving the League's long winded reputation, these are the irrelevant details:
Welcome, japers and joculites, to the first ever edition of The League of Whimsical Mirth's mailing list! If you had told our founder Smüthe Nytmair in January that after just two months of having a website, we would have twenty-two members, he would have said nothing, because he died in 1932. But if he was alive, he would have surely said "Yes, that is fairly achievable."
It is with great excitement that we enter this new chapter of Mirth with you all. Our sincerest thanks to you. Our sincerest thanks to your family. Our sincerest thanks to Tom Thanks. Suffice to say we have much, much more planned, and these business meetings are only the tip of the sufficeburg. Not to mention that Business Meetings is an event we'd like to run several times, so if you can't make it, fret not. One of you has already been kind enough to reach out with an idea of their own, and we've been working closely to determine a date. We hope this encourages the rest of you to contact us with your crafty concoctions. Please, don't hoard away all your beautiful ideas. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Your Nothing.
In the meantime however, we have been working hard on making flyers, hiding secrets in trapdoors, learning more about the history of this organization, planning future endeavours, and occasionally, even our schoolwork. More is to come. Much more. If you ever have questions, comments, concerns, concepts, confusion, cauliflower, or cysts, please do not hesitate to reach out.
Yours in jest,
Japery Expert / League of Whimsical mirth
Jasper Japer
I am incredibly happy serious to announce the successful completion of the League's first event! On Thursday March 26th, a gaggle, nay, a swarm of business-ers and business-ees took to the surrounding streets of OCAD to partake in impractically-dressed joking. Nine, count them, NINE whole businesspersons. That is more than seven. And more than eight as well. Please, everyone, give a ham to our willing participants. After your little stunt last week, the league's website saw 33 new users. Which, needless to say, is nearly half the population of Toronto sewers. Fantastic. Et Cetera. Attached is a PDF with most of the photos that were able to be scrounged up. I tried my best, but I (Jasper Japer) am Only Ten Years Old.
Lots Of Love,
Japery Expert / League of Whimsical mirth
Jasper Japer
IF ANY MERRY LITTLE JESTERS OR JESTETTES HAPPEN TO BE AT OCAD RIGHT NOW. IT IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED TO CHECK OUT THE BOTTOM OF THE orange STAIRCASE (runs between first and fourth floors, accessed from the back of the student lounge om the second floor). WHISPERS HAVE PASSED THROUGH THE VAULTS TODAY of a dream come true. The American Dream.
SEE YOU AROUND.
---who is this?
The League is Leaping for Joy to the world to announce our first Joculite Submitted Event (JSE). (Jamaican Stock Exchange). We have been asked to collaborate on a whimsical activity! coincidentally, this is our entire purpose. Delight is abundant in our head offices. I even did a jolly jig. My jolly japer jig.
Hopefully this will be the fist of many. Hopefully we can take this fist and punch a whole right through the whole boring earth. Bear in mind all I say is in jest and exaggeration. Now, keep that bear in your mind because it is relevant.
Tomorrow, we will play a game of Musical Bears. It will take place in the Great Hall, at 3:01pm. for further information... click this ordinary link? maybe? If you're not afraid. Bah, bah.
https://app.milanote.com/1Wa8AE1iA50e1S/musical-bears?p=3asE5LWA50B
The event is shrouded in mystery... Hopefully we will see you there.
Lots Of Love,
Japery Expert / League of Whimsical mirth
Jasper Japer
Greetings, my jocular friends. Many of you have expressed interest in league members Emmett Jones and Annabella Pepper's ongoing Acker Bilk project. Those of you patiently waiting will be pleased to know that the album has been finished. We're free from this whimsical curse! Free as birds! Those of you who are wretchedly unaware will be pleased to know that there is a concept album dedicated to 1950's smooth jazz clarinetist Acker Bilk, now ready for your listening pleasure.
https://gryotharian.bandcamp.com/album/enjoy-a-glass-of-freshly-squeezed-warm-bilk
Please enjoy. You may also expect an official album release party at a later date, with the full warm bilk experience (Beer Milk, Warm).
Your ilk in Bilk,
Acker's Angel and The Smooth Night Heir
Hail and well met to all of you, I hope you all have enjoyed this seasonal lack of hail as we draw closer to summer. Of course, now that school is over, many of us are back from whence we hail, and thus have no whimsical cure for the boredom that (h)ails us. I, myself, find that life p(h)ails in comparison without the joyous community in which the League thrives. Time... passing at a snhail's pace....
But it does not need to be this way! My comrades and I have compiled a list of activities to try with your own friends at home, to enrich our time spent apart. (Special thanks to Lord Ninja Kitty for many of these ideas)
When you complete one of them, please email your wacky event images to us, and next month The League will share them all, we may pat each other on the backs (and fronts), and bask (and fronst) in everyone's whimsical glory
Some of these ideas are not very smart. Do them at your own risk, use your better judgement, and as always, be very smart.
Trench warfare reenactment
Worst movie night
Avant-garde movie night i.e. bring popcorn to a train station, babbling brook, drying paint, or other non-movie things
Everyone brings the weirdest pack of instant noodles they can find, they try them all and rank them
Fill a fishbowl with glowsticks and when a car slows down to look at it, reveal yourself in an ape costume
Communal big soup night
Nerf gun war
Bring hammers to a field and gently hammer each other intermittently
Ghost hunting
Blindfolded dinner party
Hide and seek over a very large area
Run a 5k somewhere bad i.e. on a roundabout (use your judgement)
Make an amateur horror video in the style of this
Freeze blocks of ice to the bottom of your shoes and slide down a hill (not smart)
Pan for gold ("A prospector is like a businessman that you never see" - Sun Tzu, Art of War)
Stupid busking i.e. five bass guitars / only percussion / slide whistle
Good luck and go speed! And as usual,
Lots Of Love,
Japery Expert / League of Whimsical mirth
Jasper Japer
P.S. Just because many are out of town, it does not mean you can't organize and suggest events for those in Toronto or even in your own community! Grand gigglers are still giggling to spread the word on anything you want to spread. You are wow-butter, and we? The braggadocious butterknife. This email is but the toast of one nutritious breakfast. On sale NOW!@#!!!!
What could this mean? Where in OCAD is this? Will you please put this back nicely after you've found it?
Much love,
xx Smüthe Nytemaire