For Miss July, or ‘Tabubu’
who may have once betwitched me in Het-Ptah-ka.

MISS JULY — A MIDSUMMER’S (wet) DREAM
(Hey, you know they wanted to say it, but just didn’t have the balls,
but as Dryden once said, "none but the brave deserve the fair")

"… Kindled for thee is a fire in the hands of the goddess…"

"Miss July! She’s gotta be hot."
- Camella Grace

"Ya think?"
BMB

"Funny, I was too busy checking out her boobs to read her bio and find out that she’s a Tool fan. But who reads the bios anyway?"
- Someone on the Tool Collective (TA) message board

"Sure she’s beautiful… like a blue lotus of the Nile opening at dawn. I feel I’ve just been taken to the bounds of sublimity…quite fetching they might say in some parts of Texas" I told Joe, looking at a photograph of Miss July in a copy of Playboy that I had just purchased at a local Vendome liquor store. "But, let’s have a look at that playmate data sheet." Let’s see… Bust 34D… Waist 24… Hips 33… Bust 34D… Height 5’7…Weight 117… Turn-ons: "Muscles and a Texas accent. Navy Seals." Turn-offs: "Stalkers" (how odd!)… "Men who can’t take a hint and bald guys. Musicians I admire: "Tori Amos and… TOOL."

As I carefully turned the glossy pages of Miss July’s pictorial, I was suddenly overcome by intense emotions for reasons I couldn’t fathom. "There’s something about those eyes" I told Joe. "Her eyes… I know those eyes… They’re very… why do I want to say… Memphitic?

"But what about that a**!", my friend commented while pointing to a photo of the playmate standing on a staircase holding a glass of the luminous green Chartreuse favored by Goths, or even worse, one of those trendy distillations that require a martini shaker. "You’d have to say that a** is —

"Manniferous" I replied, but still it was her eyes that fascinated me. Something about them just seemed so familiar.

Standing there in the parking lot, I continued to read: "Born in Memphis, Tennessee"… (NOTE: That didn’t explain it — I’ve never been to Memphis, Tennessee).

She likes "clean-cut, muscular guys who don’t have a brick head…"

"Huh, I guess there’s a few out there."

"They could be in her sudsy bathtub and she wouldn’t even know it", I told Joe… "Or at least have an eye in the drain." "Navy Seals… they make excellent stalkers… Waving the stars and stripes… I wonder if she’s read the interview with Michael Moore in the same issue. Well, at least Playboy has gone for balance. She’s as beautiful as he isn’t. Of course PhotoShop was probably used at some point (and I’m talking about on Michael Moore, not the Playmate — who would, as was said of Scheherazade, cause the sun to see her light and then be shamed…")

"You should ask her out. Take her to the Velvet Margarita, or maybe
make her one of your chocolate margaritas?

"Really? This isn’t some sandy-toed chick toting Buffalo wings and mugs of Coors lite at the Virginia Beach Hooters. This woman has her real estate agent’s license. She probably has an antique harpsichord in her living room. Look, she’s parked that manniferous a** of hers on F sharp." (NOTE: I didn’t realize it at the time but this was a clear signal, F sharp being a very Egyptain key).

"You’ve got all your hair, no tattoos and you can lift two six-packs of Shiner Bock. Lose that unicursal hexigram and maybe sport some cotton Dockers…"

What about loavers, Joe? Don’t Navy Seals wear a certain type of loavers?"

"How about In N Out?"

"In N Out! Jesus Criminal Christ on a Popcicle stick, I haven’t even…
Oh, you mean burgers… No, let’s go to ******’s.
The Calimari Veneto is delicioso this time of day.

Back inside the 575 Maranello (a rental, as my car was in the shop), a vision of the Ljoska once-Glopetra appeared in the rear view mirror. She whispered in a husky, infinitely refined voice: "IF YOU’RE GOING TO LIGHT YOUR LITTLE FINGER, BE SURE YOU’RE STANDING NEAR A WATERFALL…"

What does that mean, Joe asked?

"Wow, you heard that, too?"

A couple of weeks later I found myself at a L.A. Dodgers game with Adam, King Buzzo, and his friend Dan. Sitting there in the blinding July sunlight (right behind the dugout, I might add), Buzz remarked that, seeing how the bases are equidistant, if there is only one runner and he is on second base, he should be able to advance on a hit by heading to home plate via first base if he chooses to do so.

At the time I couldn’t think of any reason to argue against this proposed new rule. I was distracted, thinking once again about Miss July as I dipped my calamari into a firecracker Beurre Blanc sauce that they sell at the stadium along with the Dodger Dogs. It was later that night at a dinner party hosted by a lady model friend of mine that Danny Carey explained to me the obvious. I still don’t know if Buzz was just f**king with me or not, but the point is, those eyes of Miss July continued to haunt me, and I needed to find out why before I started combing my hair with a spoon or, worse still, shopping for cotton Dockers.

Although I knew of at least one natural clairvoyant, I decided to visit a rather bored looking psychic whose shop I often passed on Ventura Boulevard. This was a hole in the wall with the usual trappings in the window — a cheap golden Nefertiti bust, amethyst, crystals, and some colorful Tarot trumps arranged in a ‘meaningful’ pattern. The reason I chose this particular psychic was that the blue neon sign with the shop’s phone number was deemed significant at the time. Could the photographs of Miss July be psychometrized I asked the proprietor? Much to my surprise, it turned out that they could for $75.00. So, although I was initially quite skeptical, I decided to have a session (the first of my life) but after a half an hour, the strange story the psychic related to me seemed to explain everything.

According to the sensitive, I had known this lovely playmate in a past life. She was called Tabubu in Het-Ptah-ka (Men-nefert/Memphis, the ancient capitol of Egypt) possibly during the IV dynasty — the time period remains unclear to the psychic. Evidently, in a past life, as one Setnau Khaem-Uast I was seeking a particular magickal formula in a book written by Thoth himself. This I later obtained in the tomb of Ptah-nefer-ka at Memphis, having cut to pieces the guardian serpent coiled about it which supposedly could not be killed. Before I exited the tomb, Ptah-nefer-ka prophesized to his (dead) wife, Ahuru, that the book would soon be returned due to the wrath of Thoth. At this point, the psychic uttered something in an eerie masculine voice about "with a rod in his hand and a vessel of fire upon his head." She then told me that the prophecy of Ptah-nefer-ka was fulfilled after I (as Setnau) was bewitched by a beautiful woman (my Nymphaea coerulea of the Nile) whose name was Tabubu.

Having studied my fair share of Egyptian Magic, the gist of the story was somewhat familiar to me. That said, there was a dimension of the psychic’s past-life claptrap that was quite meaningful to me. This involved the working of an OTO-type Eighth Degree sex-magick ritual that I did many years ago with the desired object being the acquisition of the Master Therion’s (Aleister Crowley) 1944 1^st edition Book of Thoth.

On the very next day after performing the rite (with scepter in the hand of the king [ In manu Regis]) I was looking for ‘treasures’ in the used book section of the Bodhi Tree on Melrose when something caught my eye. There in a small glass case was (or so it appeared) a 1^st edition copy of the coveted "Thoth", considered by most bibliophiles/collectors to be the Holy Grail* of Crowleyana (books). I could feel my heart pounding knowing that the Bodhi Tree wasn’t an antiquarian book store per say, and that as the book was in the glass case (as opposed to a safe in the back office), the price wouldn’t be too expensive.

* I, however, disagree, and consider the three volumes of The Holy Books to be the Holy Grail, that or the even rarer erotica such as White Stains, Snowdrops from a Curate’s Garden or Bagh-I-Muatter.

In fact, at the time, I’d never seen a book in that case that was over $175.00. In short, I didn’t think they knew what it was, or, without consulting the Internet, somebody had made a mistake. (NOTE: to give an example of such a mistake or lack of knowledge, I once found an ultra-rare signed 1927 first edition of Austin Osman Spare’s Anathema of Zos complete with a sigil drawn by Spare on the light brown wrapper in a junk bin for the ridiculously low price of $5.00). Somewhat nervously, I walked up to the counter and asked the person working there if they would open the case so that I might have a look at a particular book. A few seconds later when I pulled it out, my heart sank. It wasn’t a 1944 1^st edition of "Thoth", but, instead a 1969 1^st thus "Book of Thoth" that somebody had re-bound in a poor imitation of the quarter leather-bound true first.

So what went wrong? Had the rushing flame of will upon the determined object of the operation wavered ever so slightly? Had I relaxed my vigilance for an "eye-wink, allowing the Leprechaun to divert my attention", thus depriving me of a great treasure (i.e. the desired result)? No, this had little to do with involuntary movements of the mind. However efficacious be the Marrow of the Wand preserved within the pyramids of the letters, it is important to note that at the time I had only seen one copy of the true first edition of "Thoth", that being from the Frater Achad collection several years earlier, and I couldn’t remember exactly what the book looked like, only some of the more obvious details. Now that I know exactly what the 1^st edition "Thoth" looks like (we’ve a copy in the P.U.P archives — see www.dannycarey.org), I realize just how bad the imitation copy looked, lacking the gold-stamped OTO lamen, decorative Egyptian boards, etc. (although it did have the raised bands on the spine). I therefore determined that my half-ass ritual gave me a half-ass result, a cruel joke, perhaps, but one that made me realize just how efficacious OTO Eighth Degree sex-magick could be. Since I had only a poor "photograph" in my mind to focus on, that’s exactly what I got. To me this was better evidence that this type of magick really worked than if I had actually found the 1^st edition for a hundred dollars or so. After all, there are 200 copies of Thoth, and finding one a day after a ritual designed to find one could still be just a coincidence, but there is probably only one imitation like the one I ‘chanced’ upon.

So after listening to the psychic’s story, I began thinking about a trying to obtain a copy of a 1^st edition"Thoth." To answer your question, any external visual stimulation such as a Playboy centerfold is a no-no. In fact, the problem with even imagining such a thing is like the runner on second base with Buzz’s proposed new rule. He’s going to run into the batter. Here, it would be wise to heed Crowley’s warning about spilled "life-stuff.": "since naught can be lost on any plane but only changed in appearance." I can only imagine the sheer numbers of breeders who are inadvertently populating the astral with ‘monsters’ as a result of Playboy and its imitators, these things which others have to deal with sooner or later. Tangential Tantra, damn betcha!)

Without getting into the physical dynamics of the ritual, this time I think I would require the assistance of Babalon in the flesh, using instructions similar to the Ninth Degree given in TSROTOTO (as well as those in "Emblems and Modes of Use" — yeah, right!). Maybe start with a chocolate margarita. At any rate, you’d have to admit that the demarcation point of the more complex interaction would be rather nice.

The disc of the sun in the arms of Khephra…"

-from TSROTOTO

But getting back to Miss July, at the very least, I think my fellow Memphian should get comp tickets and a back stage pass the next time Tool plays a venue near where she lives (or, even better yet, a seat on the silver Coleman by the sound board). What do y’all think? I would want to do this because the psychic told me that it was the beautiful Tabubu, she with the taste of honeycakes and figs on lips richly bedecked, and plaited braids with perfumed unguents of bitter almond, who sold me my time-share pyramidium in Re-stau (the Other World in Men-nefert/Memphis), afterwards sending a sweet note on new papyrus and gift basket with the perfumes of silvery-green grapes and anise-flavored wine. So, Miss July, if you’re ever out here visiting as part of Hef’s party posse, etc, etc, etc, or filming a sit-com, I’m just a hop, skip and two hours sitting in traffic on the 405 from the manse with its pink flamingos and pomegranate cocktails (no lychee sticks please), and would like to introduce you to the good folks of the Tool family. Now, I’m fixin’ to head to the gym, and then to *******’s for the Calimari Veneto (yes, admittedly I’m more hat than cow).

- Miss July

EMAIL

"I read your news post from yesterday. Blair, you’re not really going to do this, are you?"

THE REPLY:

In that the musicians she admires the most include the members of Tool, in this day of Britney, Christina, and Pink… of Creed (oh, I forgot, they broke up), Linkin Park and (fill in the blank), I think Miss July deserves one newsletter (okay, maybe two).