New Toulouse

As the sun was setting Tuesday evening, the Big Cheese emerged from City Hall to deliver another Carnival proclamation. It clapped its hands twice, and a pig came out, floating in the air via some sort of extraordinary, dangerous-looking device. The flying pig emitted a series of squeals before accompanying the Big Cheese back into the building. As to the meaning of this proclamation, it is left as an exercise for the reader.

Jack Mondieu is right now hankering for some ham.

The Mayor’s Office once again reminds the people of New Toulouse that kraken do not exist, especially not air-kraken. Neither does the mayor’s new special task force have anything to do with the accidental release of air-kraken hatchlings all over the parish.

“It certainly has nothing at all to do with kraken,” Mayor Godenot said with a chuckle. “We all know they don’t even exist.”

Civic-minded persons who would like to be part of the task force (which we have been assured is completely unrelated to any nonexistent creature) should apply at the upper floor of City Hall, just outside the back room that doesn’t contain the municipal False Memory Generator.

Gigi Lapin is a member of New Toulouse’s Tiny Social Aid & Pleasure Club, #1 Red Drum Place.

Mr. Jack Mondieu suggested that I explain the visit of Dr. Augustus Boffin and his crates, and address the unfounded and foolish concerns of some of our more gullible citizens.

Dr. Boffin is a well-known purveyor of scientific supplies to the collector and educational communities. His microscopes and slide sets and mineral samples can be found in nearly every school in the country.

Dr. Boffin contacted me some time ago, and I have invited him to visit our fair lands and collect new samples to his heart’s delight. His “mysterious” boxes contain parts to fix the ice plant, except for the empty ones intended to help him transport his collected samples back to his laboratories—certainly not to deliver parts for any nefarious machinery in the upstairs back room of the New Toulouse City Hall That Has Always Been There.

If you should see Dr. Boffin about town, please extend to him the courtesy for which our fair city is known. If he asks to collect samples from your homes and farms, please allow him to do so. And if you have any scientific curiosities, show them to him—he may be interested in purchasing them!

Henri Godenot
Mayor
City of New Toulouse

Being connected directly to the pulsing heart of New Toulouse by virtue of my many contacts, of various states of learnedness, at the myriad delightful watering-holes throughout our fair city (where there is never so much as a slight overcast to the sky, and where beautiful birds untainted by feather-rot warble sweetly from every branch), there have come to me wild rumors, gossip, and outright fabrications of the most upsetting sort.

Dr. Augustus Boffin, recently arrived in this town, is a current subject of such spurious speculation. Some say he is the mayor’s “mind man,” here to assist City Hall in its efforts to keep the locals happy and uninformed. That is, of course, pure poppycock. Dr. Boffin is the Boffin of Boffin Scientific Inc. (BSI), a perfectly benign concern mainly involved in outfitting the amateur science enthusiast. Any bright eight-year-old with a healthy interest in beetle collection or wireless technology knows this.

But some local scandalmongers have even been painting poor Boffin as a sort of mad-scientist figure out of the fevered imagination of H. G. Wells, darkly muttering about the shipment of crates from BSI to City Hall, as though they held parts for some evil mind-control device and not the insect vivaria and radio parts they probably contain in actuality.

Clearly these whisperers and ranters could use a dose of cold, hard reality with a side order of common sense. To this end, I call upon the mayor to stand up and tell the people of New Toulouse why exactly he has been conferring with Dr. Boffin. Mr. Mayor, please find the time to speak and allay our concerns! I will be waiting, pencil in hand, ready to record for the Tattler the substance of your address.

Jack Mondieu, Ace Reporter, exhibits a love of chemistry. His favorite molecule is CH₃CH₂OH.

The Mayor and all of City Hall want to thank everyone who took advantage of the beautifully mild weather last week to participate in the City’s Grand Ménage (Big Cleaning). The City has rarely looked so clean, the streets amazingly so, they look like they’ve been soaked and scrubbed and polished!

So a very special thanks to everyone who participated, and especially Captain Alcide LeBlanc, who delivered an entire shipload of free coffee and bananas to all who volunteered.

Miss Nikita Weymann, freshly returned from her vacation in St. Mary Parish, delivered a box of parts to the Mayor in the City Hall That Has Always Been There and stood outside looking in amazement at how sparklingly clean and fresh and dry the City had become in her absence.

So thank you! The Mayor and City Hall hope that when you drink a cup of free coffee as you sit outside in our beautiful city, admiring the freshly polished streets and enveloped in the fragrant smells of citrus and ligustrum, that you enjoy your beautiful city, and thank your neighbors for their help and hard work that went into this year’s Grand Ménage.

From City Hall,

Henri Godenot,

The Mayor

Henri Godenot is the mayor of New Toulouse.

Citizens of New Toulouse, there has been a lot of rumor-mongering going on lately, and we would like to clear a few things up. There was no horrible cargo ship accident at the levee behind the Green-eyed Fairy. No “random screaming” or “squelching and eating noises” occurred. And certainly there was never an enormous “air-kraken” involved; neither were the eggs of this figment in the hold of the mythical cargo ship.

If any of the above had indeed happened, you can be certain that City Hall would have been on top of the situation, pronto, even though we don’t actually have a City Hall. That’s never stopped us before! Please ignore any glowing green balls, and have a nice day.

Henri Godenot is the mayor of New Toulouse.