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The Morning Scan
Random Notes From Far Arcturus





Penko Power - What We Know So Far

Our first intuition that something was wrong with the electricity came on the night we arrived in Philadelphia. Those who have been following the tour closely will note that we did not in fact play in Philadelphia, but we spent the night there after we played in .....can't remember now. This blurring of memory is a well-understood Penko side effect.

In any case, here are the facts as currently known to us:

1. The entire city of Philadelphia is now using Penko Power instead of electricity.

2. Penko Power is not real electricity, it is something else entirely.

3. Penko Power is able to run ordinary electrical appliances, at least for a while.

4. Ordinary appliances will run better, faster, more efficiently on Penko than on A.C. After a while they will break down and never run again.

5. During the startup period, the Penko Power company was replacing appliances that had failed on Penko. Once they got going, they stopped doing this.

6. The presence of the Penko grid will cause various sorts of distortions and disruptions in the mental functioning of the local residents. We have seen all kinds of bizarre ideations and behaviors on our travels so far and no doubt many of these are caused by the Penko effect.

7. Penko is spreading. Since we first noticed it in Philadelphia, we have seen Penko lines and Penko power in use in all sorts of places.

8. People seem to have no idea what's going on.

9. Various strange Penko appliances are beginning to show up all over the country, particularly in the backstage areas of the venues where our concerts have taken place. Nobody is quite sure what these appliances are for, where they come from, or where to put them.

Here are a couple of recent snafus in which Penko effects are the suspected causes:

- every night our light show is different in some strange way. The most annoying recurring problem is that the various spotlights and lighting cues will on certain nights be much brighter than on other nights, causing us to squint and make mistakes on our instruments.

- last night when we arrived at the airport in Minneapolis, our limo was not waiting for us on the runway because it had suffered a complete and utterly inexplicable failure of its electrical system. hmmm.

- after the soundcheck, there was a serious screaming shitfit thrown by a certain tour employee, over what turned out to be the flimsiest provocation imaginable. This employee has been wearing his walkie talkie microphone on his shoulder continuously since the tour began - could this be the cause of his erratic behavior?

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8/5/96