Jibley was one of seven people in the entire world, and the only American, who completely understood existentialism. Each Michaelmas, he and the other six would congregate at a cozy auberge in the Pyrenees to discuss ethics, principles, ramifications, the Other, the Not-Self and sundry ineluctables.
It was just about Suppermas at the inn (which is what auberge means), and a spitted family of Andalusian colobuses turned over the fire, dripping savory monkey fat onto the embers below with a gratifying hiss. The seven scholars reclined around the gargantuan hearth in deep leather loungers.
"The air is sweetly redolent this Monkeymas," Jibley intoned. "I daresay our good innkeeper primed these primates with felchberries."
"Felchberries!" blurted Tunuktut, an Inuit who had found an okay translation of Nausea trapped in the ice while stalking a deformed walrus. "In time before elders, Wolf try to imitate Sky Father-- make snow. Wolf think snow come from anus. Sky Father laugh, turn Wolf poop into felchberries."
"There is a felchberry bush not one hundred yards from the outhouse," observed Hansel Bubos, a graduate of Treblinka U. and, at 43, the youngest of the group. "It would be not unrefreshing to gather some ice cold felchberries now, to whet our appetites."
Silent, though unmistakably strong, assent greeted this last. Several moments, each of indeterminate length, passed. The fire crackled cheerily.
"Man must act," declaimed Negotiable Flaherty, that Oxford Fellow who favored oxblood, igniting the contents of his meerschaum with a hurricane match, and not a little self-satisfaction.
"No duh," Jibley fired back, airquoting only his comma, and delineating each word with a thin film of nothingness.
Date Written: January 28, 2004 Author:qualcomm Average Vote: 3.2
Comments:
02/6/2004anonymous (3): The plural of colobus is colobus. Andalusian colbus do not exist.
02/6/2004anonymous: those are excellent points
02/6/2004Texxx (3): Hmmm. Historical fiction is hot right now. Timely. But - it sort of peters out towards the end.
02/6/2004anonymous: cuz, you know, when i thought up a species called andalusian colobus, i just assumed they probably do exist.
02/6/2004anonymous: i don't see how this is historical fiction, texxx.
02/6/2004Texxx: That was sort of a joke.
02/6/2004anonymous: Well the short had a patina of accuracy - suppermas, felchberries etc. - so I offered up the previous comment simply for your own edification.
02/6/2004anonymous: texxx, i understand it was meant as a joke, but usually those contain some connection to the subject at hand... am i missing that connection?? or is it one of those random jokes? anonymous, come out from behind your anonymity, you coward.
02/6/2004anonymous: I am as God made me.
02/6/2004anonymous: Jesus is a fucking cunt.
02/6/2004scoop: Five stars, each of indeterminate weight. By the way are we talking Eskisehir meerschaum, right?
02/6/2004anonymous: holy shit. some cunt gave this thing 1 star, if scoop is to be believed that he rated it 5. i'm retiring from this crooked racket.
02/6/2004Texxx: Oh - so this is the future? Flaherty's a jerk.
02/6/2004anonymous: texxx, you ignorant cunt, historical fiction is not any story in the past tense. this takes place in an undetermined time.
02/6/2004Texxx: I thought these were real people! Crap.
02/6/2004scoop: ...
02/6/2004anonymous: i'm retiring. i can't take it anymore.
02/6/2004Mr. Pony (5): While this short might not be "funny" per se, but I do find it "extremely amusing". In a good way. It is sublime in its complexity, while still containing a butthole joke. Hooray!
02/6/2004anonymous: Scoop, whether or not the meerschaum was from Eskisehir would depend on the age of the pipe. Perhaps the author could enlighten us. Also the Oxford Fellow was using Swan matches asshole.
02/6/2004anonymous: i fucking knew it was ewan.
02/6/2004Ewan Snow (4): I think this is very well done, and has a number of funny jokes, including the felchberry myth, "Negotiable Flaherty", "(which is what auberge means)", etc. Not enough big laughs to earn 5, though...
02/6/2004anonymous: and not that it's relevant, but incidentally, re the plural of colobus.
02/6/2004Ewan Snow: Huh, what am I being accused of now?
02/6/2004anonymous: Yes, the BEEB got it wrong. Many people do. Keep investigating.
02/6/2004Ewan Snow: What the fuck are you guys talking about?
02/6/2004anonymous: What I meant about the age of the pipe was how old it is. in years. and as for the author enlightening us i mean the writur. La la la!
02/6/2004anonymous: f u, anonymous. i got 97 google hits for colobuses. ewan, figured the swan reference was you. appy polly logs.
02/6/2004anonymous: NO F U!!!!!!!!!!!!!
02/6/2004anonymous: I have boogers
02/6/2004Dylan Danko: For what it's worth, the last 3 anonymous comments were not mine.
02/6/2004Ewan Snow: Anonymous is clearly Danko, no?
02/6/2004Ewan Snow: He beat me to it...
02/6/2004anonymous: yeah, he's the only other one who'd know swan. and he told me on the phone it was he.
02/6/2004anonymous: i propose an anonymous feature where if more than one fella submits as anonymous in any given short's comment area, the site identifies them as anonymousA and anonymousB, or some such.
02/6/2004anonymous: Not a bad idea, that.
02/6/2004Dylan Danko: Nor was that last comment.
02/6/2004Jimson S. Sorghum: The swan matches were planted to make it seem to be Ewan. Very cagey, Danko.
02/6/2004Ewan Snow: Yes, I was just about to post to the message board with the same idea. I think this should happen automatically with the first anonymous post. Also, I think it should be numbers, not letters. anonymous-1
02/6/2004Jimson S. Sorghum (3): I'm unabashedly giving this cunt a 3. It's well written, but kind of a sweat act, no? Maybe that's just me.
02/6/2004anonymous: well i think it should be letters, and all the same letters, but in different fonts.
02/6/2004Ewan Snow: No, Jimson, Dylan's also a long time fan of Swans. That's what made me realize who it was.
02/6/2004anonymous: The confusion is kind of amusing, though.
02/6/2004Ewan Snow: Yeah, I agree with Jimson. Can I take a star back?
02/6/2004Jimson S. Sorghum: Okay, so you're not cagey, Danko. Not cagey. Sheesh. I stand corrected.
02/6/2004anonymous: Is this the latest controversy? Letters vs. numbers?
02/6/2004anonymous: jimson. you are a fucking idiot. every joke in there's a keeper. you too ewan. and danko. and texxx. and the one star guy. f all of u.
02/6/2004Ewan Snow: Mulp.
02/6/2004Dylan Danko: Just in case someone isn't reading closely, Ewan KNEW I was the initial anonymous AND he was JUST about to post the comment about Swan matches, having thought of it at the same time I did or, more likely, long before me.
02/6/2004Jimson S. Sorghum: Even "airquoting his only comma"?
02/6/2004anonymous: What are you looking at, Swan?
02/6/2004Dylan Danko: The author's defensiveness is Frankenlexxy like.
02/6/2004Jimson S. Sorghum: Pardon me that's: "only his comma." You're right, that's pure gold.
02/6/2004anonymous: it IS gold, you twat.
02/6/2004Joe Frankenstone: I hate this short. What do you care?
02/6/2004anonymous: as for my defensiveness, you moribund limey, give me a well-argued critique before you point that finger.
02/6/2004anonymous: from you, frankenstone? i don't really. this is expected. go back to that other area. and stop writing.
02/6/2004Texxx: This is madness!
02/6/2004anonymous: yeah
02/6/2004anonymous: i hereby renounce all objectivity in my voting. henceforth, it will mainly be about revenge and cronyism.
02/6/2004anonymous: Republican.
02/6/2004Ewan Snow: Disney, what the F? Why isn't this the latest controversy?
02/6/2004Texxx: Yeah, wake up!
02/6/2004Jimson S. Sorghum: Author, author! Take a couple of deep breaths. I said it was well-written, it just didn't make me laugh. It's, like, too heady for my earthy sensibilities or something. I do like the Tunuktut paragraph.
02/6/2004anonymous: The author's defensiveness isn't Frankenlexxxy-like, because he hasn't gone on long rants, posted stupid and poorly written diatribes, or co-opted trite played out hip-hop-isms.
02/6/2004Dylan Danko: The author's hypocrisy consumes him like many of his past skin rashes.
02/6/2004Dylan Danko: If self-surgery is not an option, I'd be happy to offer my services.
02/6/2004anonymous: the author will momentarily post a list of shorts written by his detractors that, while having better ratings, aren't anywhere near as good as this.
02/6/2004Dylan Danko: The author needs a clean nappy.
02/6/2004Ewan Snow: You keep saying that, Dylan.
02/6/2004Jimson S. Sorghum: Great...I can't wait. Alright, already. You are a fricken genius and I'm not worthy. Change my rating to a five. I want out of this mess.
02/6/2004Texxx: I object to the appropriation of my xxx's whenever poor form is cited.
02/6/2004Ewan Snow: We're waiting, asswipe. Where are the links? 3.43 isn't even that bad of a rating, so I don't see why you're so pissed anyway.
02/6/2004anonymous: Dylan Danko -- diary -- oh, the girl fell from innocence, what an amusing surprise!!
Jimson Sorghum -- tinkerbell -- has a "trying to get in on it" quality that rankles.
Texxx & Frankenstone-- come on, do i really need to?
02/6/2004Ewan Snow: I like the diary one, though it was a little too long. Does it deserve a higher ranking than this one, maybe not, but that just depends on who's voting on any given day. I think the tinkerbell one is much funnier than this, if significantly less complex and clever. It's short and sweet. It made me laugh out loud. This didn't. Besides, your score on this one just reflects a couple of people giving you low marks for revenge. Happens to me all the time. Get used to it.
02/6/2004anonymous: mulp.
02/6/2004Dylan Danko: I know, Snow. What are you going to do about it?
02/6/2004Ewan Snow: Mulp doesn't cut it, buddy. I agree with Dylan, at least on the point that you're acting like a baby, if not exactly like a Franklenslappy...
02/6/2004anonymous: Danko's Diary short is funnier than this though not as self-aggrandizingly dense.
02/6/2004anonymous: the short's good, snow. end of story. anyone who gives it less than four doesn't know what they're talking about. does that "cut it," fartfuck?
02/6/2004anonymous: mark this moment, acmeshorts. this is like the time in Atlas Shrugged when the company holds a meeting to communize all profits and John Galt stands up and says, "No."
02/6/2004anonymous: Galt was a sellout.
02/6/2004Mr. Pony: Is the word "bastards" being censored?
02/6/2004Mr. Pony: I guess not.
02/6/2004scoop: Speech! Speech!
02/6/2004Texxx: Self-policing.
02/6/2004Mr. Pony: That's so polite!
02/6/2004Dylan Danko: The author has no reason to whine. But in case you missed a couple of posts from a few days ago, I certainly do
02/6/2004Texxx: For the lizzadies.
02/6/2004Mr. Pony: Speech! Yes, give us what for, you BASTARD!
02/6/2004scoop: Who is John Galt?
"He said he would stop the motor of the world... and he did. But who is John Galt? A destroyer or a liberator? Why does he fight his battle, not against his enemies, but against those who need him most? Why does he fight his hardest battle against the woman he loves?"
Speak the words! Yes! That's it - all 87 pages of 'em!
02/6/2004anonymous: for the record danko, i believe i gave that okay piece a 4... only disney could say...
02/6/2004Mr. Pony: Let no stone be left unturn'd! Let no bridge be left unburn'd!
02/6/2004anonymous: no speech. i will only reiterate my comments from several weeks back. to wit: you are all a seething, disgusting rabble. I loathe each of you the way any civilized person of substance does the barbarian. Go back to your fucking creeds outworn and suckle at the shapeless dugs of your mewling, stinking mothers. you're like those fucking yangs from the star trek episode, with their "ee-planeesta". i, conversely, am like james tiberius kirk.
02/6/2004anonymous: You are a walking caricature of your former self?
02/6/2004Dylan Danko: Disney, there's no way this is the latest controversy. Just because the author's thin skin lends itself to baiting doesn't make any of this controversial.
02/6/2004anonymous: T.J. Hooker was pretty good, though.
02/6/2004anonymous: i made it the latest controversy.
02/6/2004anonymous: well, make scoop's short the controversy again. that poor bastard didn't have anything else going for him.
02/6/2004Will Disney: yeah, i didn't make this the latest conversy.
02/6/2004scoop: Why did that ass hole Kirk let Edith Keeler die?
02/6/2004Dylan Danko: It appears the author is not to be trusted with key decision making powers.
02/6/2004Joe Frankenstone: Aren't the Yangs the good guys, with the Coms the bad guys? Or have the subtleties of Star Trek political commentary been lost on me?
02/6/2004Craig Lewis (2): This is not a very good piece, I daresay. It's a goddamn chore to get through all the verbiage, and it's too convoluted to be an effective satire of existentialism, or anything else. Are we supposed to laugh at "that Oxford Fellow who favored oxblood"? Is that, like, wordplay?
02/6/2004anonymous: It pains me to give this short this score because the author is being such a pussy. And at the same time, such a prick.
02/6/2004scoop: no, craig, dude its funny.
02/6/2004Texxx: Frankenstone, that's dorky.
02/6/2004Craig Lewis: Scoop, "dude": "it's" has an apostrophe. Listen, it is not funny. And I don't need "Scoop" (or any other dude) to tell me it is. Scoop: can you identify with any precision what is funny about this funny short? Can you cite a funny passage? Did the very concept of "felchberries" send you into hysterics?
02/6/2004Dylan Danko: Oh, snap!
02/6/2004Craig Lewis: Danko: word up.
02/6/2004Joe Frankenstone: This IS the least funny short I've ever read on acme shorts (yes, even including mine. I am the person (or one of the people) who gave it one star, so feel free to start bitching about how it's not valid. I didn't comment at the time because really, it is just too too tiresome.
02/6/2004Mr. Pony: Joe! There WERE no good guys, and no bad guys! "These...words..and the words that follow were not written only for the Yangs—but for the Kohms as well!—the Kohms? They must apply to everyone or they mean nothing!" Not that this has anything to do with anything.
02/6/2004Dylan Danko: Fucking Star Trek!
02/6/2004anonymous: lewis, i'll name you several jokes in here that will withstand the test of time:
-monkeymas
-an okay translation of Nausea trapped in the ice
-(which is what auberge means)
-Several moments, each of indeterminate length, passed
now, your russian short, on the other hand, had precisely one joke (albeit one good one) in there, hammered over and over and over. that must be the stuff of which "effective satire" is made -- repetition.
p.s. -- you sound like a stuffy cunt. are you?
02/6/2004scoop: yeah, craig the whole thing.
02/6/2004Mr. Pony: Hey, Craig, I think scoop spells his name with a lowercase "s".
02/6/2004Dylan Danko: DID SOMEONE SAY STUFFY CUNT! MMMM!
02/6/2004Jimson S. Sorghum: I have to hand it to you--ahem--"author," the "several moments of indeterminate length" is a pretty good one.
02/6/2004anonymous: "Indeterminate length" is basically a rip off of a Matza short.
02/6/2004anonymous: anonymous -- you're missing the point of the joke if you think so.
02/6/2004anonymous: anon_user_d, what score did you give?
02/6/2004Craig Lewis: Hi again. I've spent the last 90-plus minutes making love. Author: I don't disagree with your assessment of my Russian short. It is a one-trick pony. But I would argue that I carry off the conceit rather well: that both the inane Hollywood media-speak and (to a lesser extent) the Tolstoy/Dostoevsky pastiche are decently wrought, and that the juxtaposition of the two, while a somewhat obvious sub-Woody Allen type schtick, at least provides moments of amusement. It's not hilarious; nor was it intended to be. Please clarify (I'm a newcomer here): are belly laughs a prerequisite for acmeshorts glory? Personally, I prefer shorts that are extremely well-written, sustain a consistent mood and are, you know, mildly amusing, to, for example, middling retardo stuff. Which is why I enjoy shorts like this. (The ideal, of course, is to combine the broad, slapsticky/absurdist/"blue" material with excellent writing, as in this short -- which, unless I am mistaken, you, Author, wrote.) Anyhow, curiously, the very examples of enduring comedy genius that you cite ("monkeymas"; "an okay translation of Nausea trapped in the ice"; "which is what auberge means"; "Several moments, each of indeterminate length, passed") all struck me as strained and unfunny when I read the short -- I was even going to mention your Inuit Sartre reader in my original reply to scoop (with a lowercase "s"; thanks, Pony). The point is, I happen to think your ear failed you on this particular effort; the thing really isn't as funny as you think it is. And please bear in mind -- if you are who I think you are -- I have great respect for your prose and comedy chops. But what do I know? I've only published two shorts in my entire life.
02/6/2004anonymous: It was four stars, I don't know why they didn't show up.
02/6/2004anonymous: the vote might not have taken.
02/6/2004Craig Lewis: P.S. Forget to mention: yes, I am a stuffy cunt. Ok?
02/6/2004anonymous: nope, lewis, i'm feldspar, author of middling retardo material, not matza. still, i shan't respond angrily to your penultimate comment, since i'm all used up, and your sincerity moves me to same. i will say, however, that in general i find shorts that sustain a "consistent mood" to be boring. who cares about mood sustenance in a short-short? any jackoff can sustain a mood for 300 words. that's why i work like the dickens to do just the opposite, breaking tone and mood willy nilly in almost everything i write. cuz i think it's funny and shit. i wouldn't want to read 300 pages of it, but it's a style that's certainly sustainable in this short form of ours. i feel like a doucheweed explaining my own aesthetic here, but the thought of someone attributing my tone/mood 'lapses' to sloppiness or a dead ear inflicts a deep psychic wound on me.
finally, regarding your preference of "amusing," "well-written" shorts to those that are "middling," i quite agree. i too prefer that which is good to that which is bad. so it does stick in old feldy's craw when someone like yourself, who presents himself as a careful and thoughtful reader, maligns my brilliant jokes and in the next breath singles out the phrase "rear entrance" (from the subsequent, still anonymous, short) as worthy of special recognition.
02/6/2004Dylan Danko: Look again author. He praises your caveman short.
02/6/2004anonymous: yeah, i know. but my psyche was deeply wounded today.
02/6/2004anonymous: and since the first two 3-star ratings, i've resolved to respond angrily and defensively to all comers.
02/6/2004anonymous: you at work still, danko?
02/6/2004anonymous: oh i see, danko. he did know it was old feldy. ok, i retract the first sentence of my rebuttal, lewis.
02/6/2004anonymous: in fact, lewis, i'd like to add that your comments in my caveman short confirm the suspicions laid out in my previous rant at you. what you cited as "unnecessary exposition" (in the phrase "caveman wife") was actually a deliberate style-joke. read between the lines is all i'm saying. gimme a little credit for knowing what i'm doing over here is all, at least in the sense of being in control of my style. after that, we can argue till monkeymas over whether it's funny or not.
02/6/2004Texxx: What are you getting for Monkeymas?
02/6/2004Craig Lewis: Just for the record, Feldy: I have come to appreciate "caveman wife," I do recognize it as a deliberate style-joke, and (honestly) I regret my earlier criticism. (In fact, in the penultimate "graf" of my Ruskie-Oscar short I make a similar gesture: the deliberately inane phrase "Aboriginal girl who makes Aboriginal sex-love.") If I had it to do all over again, I would give your caveman lover a fifth star; you deserved it for the "phoned it in" alone. My bad. About "rear entrance." To me, this is quite funny: "entrance" sounds a bit formal and elevated, which is amusing given what is happening with the tomato and all. (When I hear entrance I think of, like, municipal buildings, not arses.) And while I'm certain that the author of 'Ol Ferguson is not a Feld-worthy master prose stylist, I did prefer "rear entrance" to "monkeymas." Sorry. Anyhow, you may think me a doucheweed for showing up at your site, writing a couple of shorts -- including one suck-ass short -- and suddenly busting all pedantic and close-readerly on you. Fair enough. You should know, however, that having read through many of your shorts, I actually buy your douchy, self-serious schpiel about your daring tonal shifts and absolute command of language, etc. In general, your shorts are pretty great. This one may be the best I've read on the whole site. I just happen to think that your last two aren't up to snuff. They're less than Feldtastic. But I know you will be back. The Feld will come back hard. Meanwhile, I look forward to your constructive criticism of my shorts. In my own judgment, the Lewis-shorts currently in the pending file range from the banal to the just pretty good. At least one outright sucks; another reads like an homage to a Feldspar short that I assure you I hadn't read at the time it was composed. But all of them contain flashes of the short-genius I am destined to become. And now, it's 9:30 PM on a Friday: time for The Lewis Man to head to Williamsburg for a night of serious fucking.
02/6/2004anonymous: ok lewis. i think this has been really great for our relationship.
02/6/2004Jon Matza: Quite, quite.
02/7/2004Dylan Danko: Let the record reflect that when commenting (see Lewis exchange below)unfavorably on a Felspar short, don't forget to use some honey. She likes it like that.
02/7/2004Phony Millions (4): Jumping in out of context here; sorry I've been away I know you've all missed me terribly. This gets four starts from me just because it's so Feldspar. Has anyone read 'Nausea'? It was a pretty cool book actually.
02/7/2004qualcomm: yeah all you have to do is rub my belly and i'll roll over like an old bitch.
02/7/2004qualcomm: incidentally, let the record also reflect that feldspar didn't say a word about several mediocre ratings he got for his previous (retard) short. ol' summer sausage just didn't believe in that one the way he did this destined-to-be-vindicated gem. so, in short, f u danko. you just made the list.
02/8/2004Ewan Snow: The way I see this short is that it is more or less perfectly executed. I don't see any lapses at all and knowing Feldspar’s writing have no doubt at all, as some have wondered, that it was entirely intentional. There are well over a dozen jokes in it, all of which are pretty smart and different. The main idea, for instance, is a parody of the obscure cliché which used to hold that there are only seven, or nine, or a dozen, or whatever, people who understand existentialism. This cliché is also sometimes associated with General Relativity. Like many other rather obscure jokes in this short, I think it was lost on most people. Am I wrong? Are people familiar with the “only seven people” thing? The only reason I didn't give it five stars was because I think that while it had many clever jokes, it didn't have a single guffaw.
02/8/2004Dylan Danko: I'm not familiar with the "only seven" thing. Please provide sources.
02/8/2004Ewan Snow: I don't think I've ever read it, but I've heard it a number of times. On Google, I only found it in reference to relativity (and attributed to Einstein), though I've heard it in reference to existentialism and relativity:
http://216.26.163.62/2003/lev12_05.html
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/12/5/034638.shtml
Feldspar, correct me if I’m wrong. This is the premise of the short, no?
02/8/2004qualcomm: yes my french teacher in high school used to say this all the time about existentialism. i wasn't sure if it was a widely held myth, but i figured even if you'd never heard this said about existentialism, still it's commonly considered a difficult philosophy to understand, so the first sentence would still resonate.
02/9/2004Will Disney: does this short really have 145 comments?
02/9/2004qualcomm: hooray! are over 100 of them mine?
02/11/2004Slappy White (1): Feldspar hates black people. It's freakin' amazing. Why aren't we banning these racists?!
02/11/2004anonymous: Slappy is a real scum bag for giving this one star, especially with such a bullshit comment.
02/11/2004anonymous: Let's be honest, it's pretty fucking close to the line Feldspar is getting there in that link. Not so good there, buddy. I feel like Forrest Whittaker in Smoke.
02/11/2004anonymous: Are you kidding? Feldspar was just making a joke because Slappy is always spelling ass "AZZ" and co-opting snoop-speak in a lame attempt to be funny/cool/black. Feldspar was just calling him a phony, which he is.
02/11/2004anonymous: Oh my God Anon, so now if someone says "azz" it means they are a white guy trying to be black??? What does black have to do with anything at all? You guys are picking the wrong argument here. It was a dumb comment by Feldspar and now you're digging yourself deeper
02/11/2004qualcomm: yes, slappy, i was in fact making fun of you, not the culture you aspire to be a part of. i don't expect you to understand this fine distinction, as i'm sure your attention is addled by that crazy jungle music you listen to.
02/11/2004qualcomm: look anon_i (and slappy), let's not split fucking hairs. "azz" is hip-hop. and hip-hop, as most black people will tell you, is essentially a product of black (excuse me, african-american) culture. connect the fucking dots.
02/11/2004anonymous: Feldspar logic - A) Hip Hop is "black" B) "Azz" is Hip Hop then C) All black people spell it "azz". I connected the dots. It's a stupid comment; essentially that only all black people listen to hip hop and spell "ass" wrong. So, Eminem couldn't tell someone "spell it 'azz'" because he's not black? I get the "joke" you were trying to make, but it doesn't work. I'd just stop trying to explain it, you make it worse.
02/11/2004qualcomm: yeah, keep playing the race card, honkey.
02/11/2004qualcomm: and keep hiding behind the anonymous dealy, too.
02/12/2004anonymous: Feldspar, you don't even know that Slappy isn't black, do you? But let's say you're right, and he's a white guy co-opting black culture. Which is worse: him doing that honestly, or you telling him that he's not acting "white" enough. Jesus. Walk away from this.
02/12/2004Ewan Snow: What's honest about it? It's a pose, and a cliched one at that. Feldspar wasn't saying Slappy White wasn't white enough. He was saying that Slappy's an unoriginal phony, which he is. Why should Feldspar walk away from this? You're clearly trying to make this into something it's not.
02/12/2004Slappy White: Actually, let me say I wasn't really offended at all by the comment, I was merely out to show that those of you who say "don't take this personal" are hypocrites. Watching you all uncomfortably squirm was fun. Still, the contortions used to justify the comment were pretty weak and made you sound worse and worse. Don't join the debate club anytime soon.
02/12/2004Ewan Snow: Bullshit. You gave it one star for no good reason. This makes you as anon_e pointed out, a scum bag.
02/12/2004Slappy White: hahaha... calm down, Ewan. Why are you taking this so personally? I thought it's lame to get worked up over comments... And how do you know why I did what I did? Oh, that's right, you apprently are omniscient, as your comments as to what is uncategorically "good" and "not good" prove. Now apparently you know what people think too. Hey, Kreskin, what are the lottery numbers today?
02/12/2004anonymous: Agreed. And who ever said, "don't take this personal," (sic). I sure hope you take it "personal" when I tell you that you are an unfunny, unimaginative phony. And if you think that in any way you got the better of this argument, then your even stupider than I thought, and an all too typical example of self-satisfied mediocrity. You've made a fool of yourself again, Slappy. Are you the only one who doesn't see it?
02/12/2004qualcomm: you weren't offended slappy? phew, that's a load off my fucking mind. please, please, forgive me... your righteous black anger exposed me for the racist i am. (and since you seem to have a hard time understanding the subtext of sarcastic comments, let me offer this annotation: you're a cunt. (now call me a misogynist.))
02/18/2004Will Disney: Comment # 165 !
02/19/2004scoop: Comment #166!!
06/3/2004Jon Matza: Nowhere near as good as the original.
06/3/2004TheBuyer (5): I think I just cracked a tooth on a frozen chunk of bannok. mind over matter my ass, I need to do more research.
06/7/2004Will Disney (2): boring with a decent first and last paragraph - 2.5 stars
06/7/2004qualcomm: oh, now you're hitting below the belt
06/7/2004Mr. Pony:
06/8/2004John Slocum: Pony, those are gooseberries (shucked) and you know it!
04/6/2005Ewan Snow: "Ramifications", "primed these primates", "Negotiable Flaherty" (cuz it's a self-rip-off) are below feet. Also "man must act" as a tenet of "existentialism" is not widely known, and so I doubt people connected it, which I guess makes it "above head", though understandably so. Also, the Inuit’s just so story seems like an old joke (sort of like "two dogs fucking"). Finally, the Sillyname-Stinkbottom-in-a-leather-bound-drawing-room feel was already well worn at the time this was written.
Jimson Sorghum -- tinkerbell -- has a "trying to get in on it" quality that rankles.
Texxx & Frankenstone-- come on, do i really need to?
-monkeymas
-an okay translation of Nausea trapped in the ice
-(which is what auberge means)
-Several moments, each of indeterminate length, passed
now, your russian short, on the other hand, had precisely one joke (albeit one good one) in there, hammered over and over and over. that must be the stuff of which "effective satire" is made -- repetition.
p.s. -- you sound like a stuffy cunt. are you?
finally, regarding your preference of "amusing," "well-written" shorts to those that are "middling," i quite agree. i too prefer that which is good to that which is bad. so it does stick in old feldy's craw when someone like yourself, who presents himself as a careful and thoughtful reader, maligns my brilliant jokes and in the next breath singles out the phrase "rear entrance" (from the subsequent, still anonymous, short) as worthy of special recognition.