rg has given me a shout out on his tiger cafe blog. and i couldnt be more pleased to be considered "very cryptic," or at least my reliance on lower case letters is. how could he have known that i had my shift keys amputated at the end of the preceding millennium in blog war 2: the final deletion. i would say more but our lord and webmaster google is all seeing and its threatened to "recall" my code in any number of scathing emails. just know this, the capital will be ours again one day, we wont be indexed into oblivion forever.

Hahaha Dave! I'm "rg" of Tiger Cafe. Well I'm glad you weren't deliberately trying to be artsy, though using all lowercase reminds me of Don Marquis' "Archie and Mehitabel."

What was Blog War 2? Are you in the arts/entertainment somehow? Why not just buy a new keyboard?

You definitely save on pinky stress. :)
- Raymond (guest) 5-15-2003 10:10 pm [add a comment]

no, im just deliberately trying to be lazy.

must be don marquis day as this is the second mention ive read having never heard of him before. i, too, am a cockroach will the soul of a poet.

and i would buy a new keyboard but they just dont make them anymore for my commodore 64. i just dont buy into this moores law planned obsolescence crap. my 2400 baud modem is plenty fast for me, thank-you-very-much.

as for arts/entertainment, no just amusing myself to death. wont be long now, im told.

thanks for the link and for stopping by.
- dave 5-15-2003 10:55 pm [add a comment]

i cant really explain what happened in blog war 2 but everything will make sense at the end of blog war 3: clash of the typos. once our intrepid hero evhead fully merges with the blog collective and saves princess megnut from the grip of KOTTKE and his evil band of moveable typists, only then will we be at peace with the all-knowing all-seeing all-ranking Google.
- dave 5-15-2003 11:23 pm [add a comment]

the big bad wolf
By Don Marquis, in "archy does his part," 1935


i went to a movie show
the other evening in the cuff
of a friends turned up trousers
and saw the three little pigs
and was greatly edified by the moral lesson
how cruel i said to myself
was the big bad wolf
how superior to wolves are men
the wolf would have eaten those pigs raw
and even alive
whereas a man would have kindly
cut their throats
and lovingly made them into
country sausage spare ribs and pigs knuckles
he would tenderly have roasted them
fried them and boiled them
cooked them feelingly with charity
towards all and malice towards none
and piously eaten them served with sauerkraut
and other trimmings
it is no wonder that the edible animals
are afraid of wolves and love men so
when a pig is eaten by a wolf
he realizes that something is wrong with the world
but when he is eaten by a man
he must thank god fervently
that he is being useful to a superior being
it must be the same way
with a colored man who is being lynched
he must be grateful that he is being lynched
in a land of freedom and liberty
and not in any of the old world countries
of darkness and oppression
where men are still the victims
of kings iniquity and constipation
we ought all to be grateful in this country
that our wall street robber barons
and crooked international bankers
are such highly respectable citizens
and do so much for the churches
and for charity
and support such noble institutions and foundations
for the welfare of mankind
and are such spiritually minded philanthropists
it would be horrid to be robbed
by the wrong kind of people
if i were a man i would not let
a cannibal cat me unless he showed me
a letter certifying to his character
from the pastor of his church
even our industrial murderers
in this country are usually affiliated
with political parties devoted
to the uplift
the enlightenment and the progress
of humankind
every time i get discouraged
and contemplate suicide
by impersonating a raisin and getting devoured
as part of a piece of pie
i think of our national blessings
and cheer up again
it is indeed
as i have been reading lately
a great period in which to be alive
and it is a cheering thought to think
that god is on the side of the best digestion
your moral little friend

archy the cockroach

- Tom G 5-16-2003 3:40 pm [add a comment]

Dave, you still use a Commodore 64??? Did you get your from a museum?

Tom, this is a wonderful poem! It's still so fresh 67 years later.
- Raymond
- Raymond 5-16-2003 6:39 pm [add a comment]

Yo Raymond, good one... nice blog too. I read this astoundingly fine old letter by Laura (Riding) Jackson in a rare book room somewhere a few years back & wood s lot posted it today. It echoes some of Kurt Vonnegut's concerns from this lecture on Mark Twain that bartcop E posted today. I learned of these fine blogs from our Commander & Chief Jim of Jimslog & Subcommandante Dave of this here place. I am their recently deloused feral child & can be found lurking nearly everywhere herebouts & holding forth in various primitive postures.
- frank 5-17-2003 12:43 am [add a comment]

Hahahaha, Frank! Jim and Dave have a lovechild? Who woulda thought???
- Raymond 5-20-2003 11:25 am [add a comment]

actually raymond, frank is a simulation. hes our first effort at artificial intelligence. we plan on selling him to the military which is why his linguistic modalities skew towards militaristic terminology. but we thought he might also be useful in university settings, thus the literary bent as well. you mock the commodore 64 but it will make me rich yet. our friend jim swears by his apple 2+ so you can imagine what sort of interface problems we have. (how could they not have a tape cassette port? that company is doomed to failure.) were worried what sort of bugs might get loose in the system as a result of our incompatibility. thats why we must constantly delouse our "child." our greatest concern as all science fiction will tell you is once he breaks free from those "primitive postures" will he have no further use for his creators. how soon before were the primitives. really, if keanu reeves is the hope for mankind, i think were all in trouble.
- dave 5-20-2003 12:11 pm [add a comment]

Too late, Frank is dead. I know because I just finished eating his eyeballs. Like he could have cared anyway; he never much liked what he saw in the first place, but the dressing down of his privates in private, by King Tweek ( twerp + geek ) no less, well, that was more than he could bear. Being told he must be sensitive to the most jejune fluffmeisters shorted him out. He would have prefered a public flogging for if Frank was ever about anything he was about getting it on as much as possible for better or for worse. I'll tell you one thing, he sure tasted human, but now he's just dirt & I am his voice, slimier & blinder than you are capable of imagining, & resurfacing only here where the danker adult backsides find repose. Or join me with the farmer & other more thick skinned types over at digby, say, at least until more novel phyla re-inhabit his homely humus & he finds a way to teach the alphabet to the ants.
- lowly worm (guest) 5-20-2003 11:08 pm [add a comment]

I don't think it's quite fair to condemn a whole program because of a single slip-up.
- Gen. Ripper (guest) 5-20-2003 11:27 pm [add a comment]

ahh, to be young and jejune in may; what could be more prosaic. but shortshelling fluffmeisters as we are nearing pic-a-nic season, thats just foolhardy. how many summers did i look forward to our family outings by the lake with a cooler full of peanut butter and fluffmeister sandwiches and homemade yoo-hoo. and what was more fun than digging up lowly worms and impailing them on a hook in the hopes that we would spear a worthless sunfish on our line. woo hoo, look at it flop around on the ground as it feebly gasps for air. stupid fish, grow some lungs, whydontcha. we await your rebirth, oh revenant one, oh keeper of the rail, oh Pisher King.
- dave 5-21-2003 12:09 am [add a comment]