There are numerous speculations about the origins of Audeamus. Let me tell you, these are wrong. The story is much darker, and has much more profound implications for the future of humanity. Or, at the very least, a cult has a good shot of developing based solely on the shady beginnings of our fine Honors Interdisciplinary journal.
Let me clear up a few minor details, first:
No, we didn’t start three years ago. We started three billion years ago.
Contrary to popular belief, we have no official affiliations with pirates, cannibals, or children.
We are adamantly opposed to the nefarious schemings of all three of these groups.
And we don’t practice ritual sacrifice, except of board members we have no use for.
Anyway, we can start in one of two places, to trace the birth of the journal. One has to do with Mr. Bumbledeer, formally known as Cornelius Albert Bumbledeer, infamous failed oil baron of the Southern Province of China. Or we can go back to well before the Dinosaurs even had a clue, and the real dominate species were large predatory birds who invented, among other things, saddles and paper (made out of the crushed up bones of various baby mammals).
Where do these two time periods meet? The Inland Empire.
So, a truncated version: The birds invented time travel. Then everything went downhill, the most intelligent of the birds managed to escape through the Time Travel Device (which was a lot like a ten storey ipod), and ended up in the year 2005. Meanwhile, Mr. Bumbledeer, drunk on the intoxicating fumes of constant failure, hopped a whaling ship from Beijing to Long Beach, rode on the underbelly of a train further into the meat of California, and found himself sleeping at the doorstep of UC Riverside’s honors office.
Then he was arrested.
A hunting party was formed, and successfully downed the only time-traveling, literature-loving bird, who had been attacking private 4-seater airplanes across the IE’s skies.
Around its neck was found an envelope: “Deliver to C.A. Bumbledeer”.
What was contained was the first issue of Audeamus.
What happened to Mr. Bumbledeer? Sent to country. The truth is that he never wore a bowler, that was a filthy exaggeration. The monocle was really a permanent scar he had received from venturing a bit too close to the guy they called “the guy who brands you to make it look like you have a monocle”. He doesn’t even know that the eighteenth century existed— as far as he is concerned, Time is an erroneous conception of reality, and the only thing that exists is the moment, whereas the past is like steam and the future is like unformed clouds. His only suit is orange, and has the numbers 6730231 on the front.
And the mustache? Mr. Bumbledeer was forced to shave off his beard, but allowed to keep it. He doesn’t even like the way it looks.
So, we’re on our third issue of the journal now. We’ve recovered a bit from our rocky starts, managed to find some sort of system which we can rely on in the creation of the journal. And we have yearly banquets. We’ll probably be serving barbequed… bird… for a few more years yet. The honors office has a huge freezer in the back.
