"And the Jester sang
For a pair of Queens
With a coat that looked like Heinz Baked Beans
And a voice that came from Captain Bee-
-Fart, aka Don van Vliet
Who wrote songs like "Neon Meat
Dream of a Octafish"

Some think it's pish
Some think it's twaddle
But how I wish
All those progressive Orcs and Elves
They'd try to sing like that themselves.

It ain't a stroll
It ain't a doddle
It's Nimzo spliced with This Year's Model
And a voice that comes from Captain Bee

'f Art was easy
If Art was simple
We'd sit on Shirley Temple's Dimple

One day we'd have to choose
One day we'd have to lose

Making 72.25 in Toto. That kind of chess ain't in Kansas anymore. If it ever was.

<Murrican States Update> I heard a radio guy - talking politics - somehow confuse Ohio and Florida ... and so gave us the lowdown on the mysterious state of Ohorida.

(1) Kieslowski's <General Semantics>, 1930s (a wholly owned subsidiary of the small claims dept): words such as 'is' and 'the' are deeply misleading and must be avoided, as should all adjectives. Adverbs are uninsurable.

For instance, the sentence 'the theory is true' falsely asserts that there is only one theory, that truth is attainable, that its truth is more important than, say, its smile or its abdominal rumblings, that this state of affairs will continue, etc.

He influenced William S Burroughs who put these linguistic ideas to work in his writing, which is polyvalent and as senseless as an ordinary frying pan. And anyone who can pick up a frying pan owns death.

(2) Whorf: Linguistic Relativity and the Hartford Insurance Mafia.

Hartford ('Insurance Capital of the World') was the place of employment of Benjamin Lee Whorf (Insurance Investigator, Linguist) and Wallace Stevens (Hartford Accident & Indemnity Company, Poet.

During the first half of the 20th century the world was ruled by a cabal of businessmen-philosophers based in Hartford.

Seminal ideas include: the idea of order at Key West, year-on-year growth in automobile insurance, and the theory that Nahuatl is oligosynthetic.

After WW2 the cabal went underground to further its ends, although some conspiracy theorists assert that it went bust after insuring Europe against war damage in 1934, and losing more money than could ever exist in this time/universe.

Other observers agree but argue that this was a temporary setback: a flesh wound, in insurance terms. By 1950, quantum insurance allowed for other universes to make up the losses. By 2000, you could make one in a bottle using ingredients available on the internet.

According to current [secret] CEO, DG Domdaniel [no relation]: "You can bleed the universe dry if you've got others to take the slack. Just remember that the universe isn't expanding -- it's trying to escape. And somebody has to reel it in." ('The Idea of Order in the Oort Cloud' from *Insuring the Cosmological Constant*).

cf WS Burroughs: "The man opposite didn't look like much - he just happens to be the biggest operator in any time universe".

(3) Chomsky. Completely wrong about everything, and he isn't even insured. But his early work on quaternions in Yiddish is better than Woody Allen, with whom he is sometimes compared.

Pardon me for once more setting my tent in your crib.

With cap firmly doffed, it is my honour to finally announce, in the tradition of 'King's Knight Chess', a new game of light entertainment.

All curious parties are directed to < mack's page > for the dirty low-down.Book closes when we have a Baker's Dozen.Title to be chosen - with permission - by < JessicaFischerQueen >.

No he isn't!!

"You <put name here>!"

is from <The Sound and the Fury>.

That's how Dilsey addresses Luster all the time.

"You Luster! Bring Benjy in for lunch!"

Willy O"Day!!

Our <Minister in charge of Hedghogs> is named Will O' Thewisp.

pale fellow.

Because he's <Spanish>?

I thought the "Black Irish" were Spinnards who washed up after we bested the Frog Coalition at Trafalgar.

No?

I'm voting for <King Sadaam Hussein Barack Osama Bin Laden>.

No relation-- he's running for dogcatcher in Vancouver.

Mrs. got sunstroke playing chess for 5 hours today in the Prak.

That's, like, one of those Viet-Moldovan ethnic bars where the young folk of BC hang out?

'Eugene said that he'd be driving up last night, but the car's not there, now that's strange. Why don't we take these things around the back, maybe pop in later to see him -- you really should meet him.

Look...there's a window open.Look, there's a curtain blowing -- I wonder who left it like that...but wait a minute...

A Man and a Woman, a Woman and a Man, look at them lying there, sleeping in each other's arms.No don't wake them up, leave them, sleeping, no don't wake them up, don't let them know we've seen them, that's Sarah there, that's Eugene's wife..but that's not Eugene...

What is a <Muttonbird>?

come on you were all thinking the same thing and didn't have the guts to say out loud.

What the hell is a <Muttonbird>?

Should we be worried?

Mrs. Arne Sachnusem. AS

IT WAS A WORLD-- WITHIN A WORLD.....

<Memories of a life on earth go flashing past,

Of home, of Grauben,

Friends of whom he's seen his last..>

This was, of course, <Jules Verne's> finest hour, without shadow of doubt.

The genius: What an attractive name for the hero's girlfriend!! "Grauben"

HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA

Oh my sweet GRAUBEN

hahahahahashHhahahahhaa

hhhhahahahh

DANG CAPITAL S AND NOW THEY WON'T LET ME GO BACK.'

RIGHT HI <DOM, MICKMAK> AND I JUST WOKE UP HERE

Oops. Sorry, Jess. Been watching that old Stargate thing again. Human.

<mckmac> May I suggest the <ultimate Leonard Cohen aural experiment>?

(1) Listen to the sublime 'Alexandra Leaving' from his Ten New Songs album of a few years back.

(2) Listen to 'Alexander Beetle' by 1970s folkie type Melanie (Safka). Same name, same tune.

"We looked in all the places
That a beetle might be near
And we made the kind of noises
That a beetle likes to hear..."