Saturday, July 28, 2012

Paradise on Earth, 2-sided Tea Party edition

I'm bummed that I found this yesterday--it looks like we all missed the perfect opportunity to "form circles" with the author of the Paradise on Earth series on July 7th, brainstorming solutions to America's woes under the self-appointed flag of a "State Tea Party Convention."

The message at the end of recent flyers includes the phrase, "Put white crosses on entryways, head of bed, and top of page." It looks like this flyer is taking that to heart! I guess I can save some money and stop taping truck-stop amphetamines all over my house ;-)

This is also the first 2-sided flyer I've come across (though it was still taped to a lamp post, with the bullet point side facing out). I imagine that makes sense considering that it must have been intended for use as a handout or mailing or something. Anyway, here are both sides of this unusual flyer:



Paradise on Earth, Consequences


Paradise on Earth, Dr Phil comes to 9th grade


Paradise on Earth, Lasers for Health


Paradise on Earth 516, Love of country


Paradise on Earth, Path to happiness


Paradise on Earth, Russians not needed in Mediterranean


Monday, July 23, 2012

Paradise on Earth, 696, Before leaving the hospital

Another flyer that references "Compassion Over Passion" already! Touched by an angel, indeed.




Paradise on Earth, 698, Kindly made products


Paradise on Earth, Temperature is ten degrees warmer

Again with the lightning-fast turnaround! This one is talking about the temperature yesterday (which was around 101, 102). I hope none of the elderly and vulnerable the author is concerned about take her advice from another recent flyer to pull their air conditioners out of their windows and use them in the center of rooms...




Paradise on Earth 699, Where do we do now?

I love the title. It reminds me of those Bushism collections. Note how quickly the turnaround on these can be, too--I'm posting this on the 23rd, and it makes reference to news from the 21st.

Another found copy indicates this one is # 699.




Compassion Over Passion: the book.



Ultimately, I want to keep the focus of the blog on the flyers, so let's take care of any interest in reading "the book" in one swoop. I scanned it and made it into a .pdf file. You can find it here. As mentioned previously, I'm almost positive the book was authored by the same person responsible for the series of flyers, which frequently make reference to materials in the book as well as its folk-hero author. If you read it, please do use the comments section of this post to leave your impressions--does it seem like the same author to you?

It's a fairly large file, around 160 MB, so apologies for the five minutes it'll take most folks to grab it. Enjoy, everyone, and we'll get back to more flyers as they appear. To the lampposts!




Sunday, July 22, 2012

Compassion Over Passion: the infamous hundred questions

Since this chapter in the "Compassion Over Passion" book is mentioned in so many of the flyers, it's time that we all have a look at it for ourselves:





Paradise on Earth, A child can go to a kinder area

Not too subtle in this round of counselor theatre: "Mommy's a whore!"

We have yet another mention of the "100 questions" for dating in this flyer again, too. The actual questions are in THE BOOK mentioned a few days ago--perhaps I'll scan that chapter of the book, at least, since it directly relates to these flyers...


Paradise on Earth, Allow leaflets in parking lots

I'm guessing the author of the flyers must have attempted to distribute them by putting them on windshields and gotten shut down...

This flyer also seems to contain a response to the Supreme Court ruling on "Obamacare." I was looking forward to seeing how that would get addressed in these flyers, since they do tend to track current events. For having an author so fixated on health-related issues, though, I was a little underwhelmed.


Paradise on Earth, 132 (edited), America's newscasters are communists

Apparently the editing can reach back several years to this flyer, which has a few interesting differences in its 3rd column compared to the original flyer that dates back to late 2010. Apparently, the "Before reading, throw away your cell phone, TV, and computer" message is also no longer relevant and has been removed. That will sure save a lot of money producing this blog!


Paradise on Earth, A cute transformation


Paradise on Earth, 688, A mistake


Paradise on Earth, 693 (697?), Alarming events when away from home

Another copy found indicates this one is # 697.

Paradise on Earth, Complain of arsenic in water


Paradise on Earth, another edit of "Dear Parent" letter

Here's a third variation on the "Dear Parent" letter flyer, with a new section toward the end about "brown and tough skin."


Paradise on Earth, Dear Parent letter, edited

Over time, I notice slight changes in the formatting of these flyers--a few appear sideways, they transition from handwritten numbers to computer-printed numbers, and occasionally they have whiteout marks and changes written in. But in this new batch of flyers, three of them feature the first internal editing I've seen. This flyer is almost identical to the earlier Dear Parent flyer except for some small edits right toward the bottom: that "Dai-Ichi leaks" section at the bottom has been changed, and there's another change toward the middle as well...


Paradise on Earth, 690, Kinder games


Paradise on Earth, Kindness schools for elementary and middle schoolers


Paradise on Earth, Linoderm patch


Paradise on Earth, 699, Miracles upon miracles

It's been a while since the Chinese paranoia got this interesting...also, another copy indicates that this one is an almost unbelievable #699!

Paradise on Earth 694, No American will vote for Nobama

Another copy indicates this one is # 694.

Paradise on Earth, Quit NASA


Paradise on Earth, Sex education and overpopulation


Paradise on Earth, Soft laser for pain

There are a few new lists of alternative healing gear...


Paradise on Earth, Star spangled banner

This one has lots of fun stuff, but the slight rewrite of our national anthem is a great introduction.


Paradise on Earth, 60, Tornadoes are never E3 or E4


Paradise on Earth, 695 (698?), Vote by voice here

I'm thinking the numbering system isn't worth worrying about any more--another copy indicates that this one is # 698, both with printed numbering. Oh well.

Paradise on Earth, We want nothing nuclear

Much earlier in the flyer series, a few were made with just a phrase or two in a large font. It appears the concept has returned. This one was found a substantial distance off the normal route for posting flyers on light posts.


Paradise on Earth, 697, When to talk about a former mate

A numbered copy has also been found--this one is #697.

Saturday, July 21, 2012

A book related to the flyers?

I have another 20 or so new flyers that I'll try to get scanned and added this weekend, but I think this news is even more exciting than new flyers...

I mentioned a while back that I was doing some research related to material found in the flyers--remember this post? Long story short, after six months of trying to find a copy of the "Compassion Over Passion" book referenced in this flyer as well as many others, I finally managed to snag a used copy. Here it is:


This book is purported to be written by Mike Milken, a fellow whose name appears repeatedly in the series of flyers, most prominently in the "Mike Milken for Congress" flyer. Having now read through this mysterious book of his, I'm about 99 percent sure that Milken is a folk hero composite made of some "kindness schools" ideas from the flyers and the real Milken, the junk bond fellow from the 80s who is now a philanthropist focused on medical research. And I'm about 99 percent sure that the author of the flyers is the author of this very strange book. Check out these pull quotes on the back of the book:


As the "Dignity of Humans" flyer mentions, this book is available from Amazon--or at least it used to be available. It was self-published, and the self-publishing company that put it out was bought by Amazon. Presumably when that happened, the authors whose work was printed there had to sign new contracts, and the contract for this book was never renegotiated, so it's functionally out of print, save for very rare and occasional copies of it that come up for sale, not counting that $2000 specimen on the Amazon page for the book.

I ordered a copy several months ago which never arrived--it must have gotten lost in the mail. I must admit that I became suspicious that it didn't really exist when the package never came, but then another came up for sale!

I was hoping for a bit of biographical information on the book's author, but the title page is virtually blank other than it's attribution to Milken. The publishing company's info isn't actually printed in the book, either:


Ostensibly, the book offers dating advice, but as you might imagine, it veers off into many surrealist twists and turns, talking about all kinds of weird things. It's also written with the same kind of idiosyncratic language/syntax as the flyers. And though it tries to be gender-neutral, it's ultimately written from a female perspective. All of this points to "Mike Milken" as a pen name--and the author is almost certainly the same author as the Paradise on Earth flyer series.

The "Dignity of Humans" flyer indicates that there are two more books, Parts 2 and 3, to accompany this volume. Unfortunately, I've contacted the hospital referenced in that flyer, and they don't have them. So for now, just this one book seems to actually exist. But hey, it's another 171 pages of this stuff!

Faithful readers, I'm tempted to scan the book and include it on the blog. It's certainly a related object. I hesitate because of the copyright assertion in the book, but on the other hand, it's out of print, and if a cease & desist ever arrived, it would clarify the author...

For now, though, even though it's out of print, you can use Amazon's "search inside this book" feature to look at a few pages of the text. It'll block you from reading the whole thing in sequence, but you can at least get a general feel for the writing style and content. Am I right here?

Thursday, July 19, 2012