The Asse Festival [aka A-Fest, debuted 9-13-90] is to Guelah Papyrus as Landlady is to PYITE [... sort of]. In other words, it is the instrumental bit in the middle of the song [that isn't always there]. [but Landlady is a song of its own, and A-Fest has rarely (eg 4-27-91) been outside Guelah since it's 9-13-90 debut, five months before it became part of Guelah btw.] Unlike Landlady, though, Asse Festival, was debuted before Guelah. Oddly enough, A.F and Landlady both were Fall '90 songs [while Guelah and PYITE were both written years earlier; coincidentally, two netters report a summer '90 effort to dredge new directions from old songs.] Drove everyone crazy for a while because no one could remember which one was which. Having Magilla also coming out this tour didn't help much. The way I remembered it was that Landlady, which Trey called by name the first time I saw it, was the PYITE jam. So get a Fall 90 tape (or Port Chester 4/27/91, the first, and I believe only, naked Asse Festival after Guelah was introduced) to catch on... {From an rmp post by David "ZZYZX" Steinberg, with bracketed additions by Lemuria}

The Ass Festival is one of the last chapters in Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Nietzsche (Phish plays a song by this name aka "2001 Theme). After comming down from the mountain, proclaiming "God is Dead," etc., Zarathustra strives to create a select group of "supermen" and he recognizes this group has convolesenced into a more highly evolved state when he finds them adoring an ass in a cave. {posted to rmp by SuzzyGrnbr}

"Science, unlike philosophy, is wrapped up in its own way of making things intelligible to the exclusion of all others."
-- Peter Winch