I. Who's Who

Many people pass through the sacred halls of the GABOOMBA. Here are a few of our most devoted correspondents:

II. Useful Words and Phrases

CALO ANOR NA VEN—"May the sun shine upon your road," i.e., farewell. The words are Sindarin, one of the Elvish languages J. R. R. Tolkien invented for his Lord of the Rings books. (See Muse, November/December 2003.)

CATHASSUS—Chaos. Inspired by a Flanders and Swann monologue called "Los Olividados" in At the Drop of Another Hat, available somewhere. Juliette unleashed the word upon the world and named her Web site "Total Cathassus and the Mystery of Everything." Not to be confused with catharsis.

FLAMABLAMABLOUS—See the definition in the Muse Glossary.

FLANDERS AND SWANN—Michael Flanders and Donald Swann, gently kooky British singer-songwriter-comedians who performed in the early 1960s. (See "People and Things We Like.")

GABOOMBA/GaBooMBa/Gaboomba—This general region of the Fan Page, the GAllery + guest BOOk + Message BoArd, a word we made up because we needed it.

MAE GOVANNEN—"Well met" (i.e., hello) in Sindarin (see "Calo anor na ven").

MOLESWORTH, NIGEL—Spelling-challenged schoolboy hero of books by Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle. (See "People and Things We Like" and Muse, September 2002.)

"MOSTLY HARMLESS"—(1) In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the Guide's entire description of Earth. (2) The deviously misleading secret code name of Muse readers' plan for world domination.

MUSE—THE MUSICAL—Top-secret project that Juliette swears she's working on (maybe when summer vacation rolls around).

III. People and Things We Like

(May be either real or fictional.)