The Secret · American Version

Illustration: ELF ALPHA — Plate, American edition Zoom Full-size scan

ELF ALPHA

Diacteticus insanias

RANGE Health food stores, juice bars, guru ranches, Buddah camps, slimnasiums, vegetariums, macrobiotic discount outlets, mucus-free dinner theaters, high-fiber swap meets, organic tofu hatcheries, biodegradable potthrowing encounter groups, human potential nude rug-hooking bees, holistic urinary retention seminars, and homeopathic open-air write-your-ownceremony closed-bag funerals.

HABITS Elf Alpha is the nagging voice which tells you that if it tastes this good, it must be bad for you—and that if it tastes this bad, it must be good for you. Frequently, he enters your home—and your life—hidden away in a harmless looking bottle of Flintstones One-A-Day Vitamins. Before you know it, you are scouring the beach for iron-rich seaweed, browsing on cottage cheese mold, and sipping clotted ewes’ milk, in the naive and blasphemous belief that such a vile and wretched diet will enable you to live forever. He promises to improve, restore or initiate your love life, if you will only quit smoking, eat ditch weed salads, and learn to wiggle your ears. He suggests applications of yak excrement for receding hair, bat guano as a breath freshener, and daily total immersion in a tub of parsnip juice, after which you can throw those unnecessary eyeglasses away!

HISTORY Elf Alpha is descended from that legendary American folk hero, Johnny Appleseed. But while his famous ancestor planted a delicious, nourishing, and natural food source across the continent, Elf Alpha has arranged for the nationwide importation, distribution, and ingestion of viletasting “organic” vittles scorned and despised even by the third-worlders who cultivate them. His closest living (if you can call it living) relative is the odious Mung Goblin. Elf Alpha has most recently been living (and working) in Southern California, in harmony with the Sweat-sylphs, Passing Fancies, and (intermittently) the West Ghost. SPOTTER’S

TIPS A victim of Elf Alpha’s malpractice exhibits such ghastly and glaring symptoms that he is as hard to miss as a leper on the swim team: eyeballs the color of saffron, complexion like stale tofu, blackstrap molasses breath, a body hairless as a tortoise egg, and limbs as thick and sturdy as dandelion shoots. Look to the victim’s withered shoulder, a frequent perch of the Elf Alpha, where the latter squats in a full lotus position and whispers, “Eat it raw!”

Two editions, one page

The American and Japanese printings side by side. Click either page to zoom in.

Japanese edition page: ELF ALPHA — 日本語版 · Japanese edition

日本語版の本文

The Health Food Sprite · Elf Alpha

The Japanese text with an English back-translation.

Japanese text

棲息地健康食品店, サラダ・バーのお店, 自然食レストラン、天然果汁入りジュースのなか、玄米ご飯, 麦トロなどのなかにいる。この妖精たちは、人間の耳もとで, 「そんなにおいしいのなら身体に悪いにちがいない」とささやく。またその逆の場合は,「そんなにまずいのなら身体によいはずだ」ともささやく。そしてビタミン剤などにまぎれこんで各家庭を訪問し, 長生き幻想を与えながら美食家あるいは過食家の人間たちに護摩札を売って歩いてもいる。最近、この妖精たちのささやき声にまどわされた若い女性たちが拒食症におちいって、命を落としているケースが多発している。「イエスタディ・ワンス・モア」などを歌っていたカレンカーペンターズさんは, 太り過ぎを気にして減量をはじめ, ついには拒食症になり, 56キロあった体重が30キロにまでなってこの世を去ってしまった。

習性この妖精たちのいたずらは、まず太り過ぎを気にさせるところからはじまる。エアロビクスの精などとおなじ手口だが、健康食品の妖精たちは、自分のからだを動かさずにやせたいという横着な人間たちにとりつき, 神さまから人間にさずけられた大欲望のひとつ, 食べる楽しみという欲望を奪ってしまい、毎日、味気ない天然・自然食品ばかりを食べさせ, 最後には食べることがいやになり、死にいたらしめる。この妖精たちは, じつは,ソ連が第3次世界大戦用に開発した, とっておきの秘密兵器ではないかという情報がNATOをはじめ, 西側諸国の首脳部のあいだでうわさされている。つまり、健康食品ばかり食べている人間は、ものの考えかたが変わり、性格がおだやかになり、闘争心がなくなるからである。もしこれが事実だとすれば,この妖精たちの威力は,現在アメリカが開発中の下痢を起こさせる細菌を入れたビフィダス菌爆弾よりも強力なものになるだろう。歴史もともと人間は自然を克服するところから文明の第一歩をしるしてきたのはずなのに,この妖精たちは1960年代の初めごろから「自然に帰れ!」をあいことばに登場してきた。そして, 横着なインテリたちの支持をえ, きょうの流行につながっている。

私立探偵の情報あなたのそばに近づいてきて「なまで食え!!」とささやく人物がそうである。

English back-translation

Habitat Health food stores, salad bars, natural food restaurants, natural fruit juices, brown rice, barley porridge. These sprites whisper in human ears: “If it tastes that good, it must be bad for you.” And conversely: “If it tastes that awful, it must be good for you.” They also slip into vitamin bottles and visit homes, selling protective charms to gourmets and overeaters while peddling the illusion of longevity. Recently there have been frequent cases of young women led astray by these sprites’ whispers falling into anorexia and losing their lives. Karen Carpenter, who sang “Yesterday Once More,” became concerned about her weight and began dieting — eventually developing anorexia, dropping from 56 kilos to 30, and leaving this world.

Behavior The sprites’ mischief begins by making people worry about being overweight — the same approach as the aerobics sprites. But the health food sprites target lazy people who want to lose weight without moving their bodies, stealing one of the great desires bestowed upon humans by God — the pleasure of eating — forcing them to eat nothing but bland natural and health foods every day, until eventually they come to hate eating entirely and are led to death. There are rumors circulating among NATO and other Western leadership that these sprites may actually be a secret weapon developed by the Soviet Union for World War III. The reasoning: people who eat nothing but health food undergo a change in thinking, their personalities become gentle, and they lose their fighting spirit. If this is true, the sprites’ power would be more formidable than the bifidus bacteria bomb currently being developed by America — the one designed to cause diarrhea.

History Human civilization was supposed to have taken its first steps by overcoming nature — and yet from around the early 1960s, these sprites appeared with the rallying cry of “Back to Nature!” They won the support of lazy intellectuals and connected to today’s trends.

Field Intelligence The person who sidles up close and whispers “Eat it raw!!” — that’s them.

ELF ALPHA

Two editions, one page

日本語版の本文

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