June 23, 2009
The Casual Reader: Seeing as there is no one home today and I have the keys, here’s a question for the wide public out there. If Apple made an application that periodically vomited all over itself, what would it be called?
ipuke
ivomit
ichunder
igag
iheave
ibarf
ipuke
isick
June 17, 2009
The Earnest Reader: Our Bloomsday reading yesterday provoked a flurry of activity from within the Academic “Community”. We had not thought dearth had undone so many. We are therefore delighted to announce the birth of Twiterary Cwiticism. (Note to public we have already claimed the term Twiterary Theory too.) We have reprinted some of the submissions below. Needless to say they are limited to 140 characters.
The Concerned Reader: Now there is an idea I can really get behind: literary criticism mangled down to 140 characters!
It was the erstwhile Earl of Rochester who, upon reading Canto VII of Il Purgatorio, remarked to his drinking companions: “A pox on the very
From Vico, Dante, The Story Untelling by Rudmose Boaterhat-Pubcrawl, D Litt, Asumpta College Cambridge
How can the non Thomist in posse become the harbinger of anti historicity while clinging to the Hegelian precepts gained in years of earnest
From Joyce and Post Modern Neo-Post-Structuralism, the Postquailist Tendencies by Prof Vicente Caligliari, International Joyce Summer School, Brindisi, Italy
When I was a boy old Ma Joyce once caught me robbing the milk bottles off their doorstep. Drumdondra Road in those days was a place of many
From I Knew Yr Aul Wan, A Memoir of My Acquaintance With James Joyce by Francis Xavier Pendergast, poet, veterinarian and critic.
June 16, 2009
The Earnest Reader: The Definitive Indefinite Article is proud to present its first annual Bloomsday reading of Ulysses by James Joyce.
The Concerned Reader: If brevity be the soul of it, read on. Do your worst.
The Earnest Reader: [Reads]
Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came across from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressing
The Concerned Reader: That’s it, right?
The Earnest Reader: Yep! Thats twiterature, 140 characters.
The Concerned Reader: You know there are readings that go on all day and night, with famous actors and the like.
The Earnest Reader: I know. And there is nothing to stop me doing this bit of twiterature over and over in different voices. [Reads in bad Ian McKellan impression]
Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came across from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressing
The Concerned Reader: Please stop now!
The Earnest Reader: Or this, one of those salt of the eeeearth Northside Dubbelin accents loike Misther Jice had:
Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came across from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressing
The Concerned Reader: Is this the fusebox?
The Earnest Reader: I think it is. Have you ever heard me do Al Pacino?
[Click. Darkness. Silence]
June 11, 2009
The Concerned Reader: What is this about
The Earnest Reader: He sent a press release from Donegal.
The Concerned Reader: He what?!?!?! Is this anything to do with that Albuquerque mystic? What does it say?
The Earnest Reader: It’s in Catalan so you’ll have to forgive me if my rendering is a little rough.
The Concerned Reader: You sepak Catalan?
The Earnest Reader: Not a word. [Reads]
Hedgeer Hemlien is delighted to announce that it has acquired Bourse Bigote de Barcelona in a business maneuver involving beehives, Treblikistani arms dealers and an orange tricycle. . Bourse Bigote is the world-renowned index of facial hair. This will make Hedgeer, Hemlien, Bigote the most powerful tool of economic prognostication since Alan Greenspan.
The combined Hedgeer Hemlien Bigote Index this morning stands at 1,798. 2,200 is presumed to signify planetary annihilation so 1,798 is not good. Since the merger yesterday, recorded sightings of waxed Dali-esque moustaches are up 4000% over last week, causing some analysts to flee cities with trucks filled with dog food and flares. Meanwhile Fedora’s are up 2/4% and hemlines of shorts down 1.7% over last June, promising a rocky summer, particularly for the spandex bikini community.
That’s it. I’m not so sure I got the gist of the last sentence but you get the picture.
The Concerned Reader: Do we have to publish it?
The Earnest Reader: I just read it out loud online, didn’t I?
The Concerned Reader: Yeah but beyond those exclusive Platinum TDIA members, do we need to tell anyone else.
The Earnest Reader: No, twelve people is enough. Those initiated into TDIA are like the illuminati -a select, secretive and powerful group and no one really knows who they are or how they function as a group.
The Concerned Reader: True enough. Can I borrow some fishing line?
The Earnest Reader: No problem. I think he keeps it up there behind the vinegar.
June 3, 2009
The Earnest Reader: I am afraid I have some bad news to share about our proprietor
The Concerned Reader: He’s not…
The Earnest Reader: No. As you know he recently disappeared up a mountain in Donegal to become a monk of some sort.
The Concerned Reader: That was somewhat surprising but not entirely shocking.
The Earnest Reader: Well, it gets worse. He has shaved his head.
The Concerned Reader: [Gasp of horror] But those tresses! Nonetheless, hardly tragic.
The Earnest Reader: And has taken to writing poetry.
The Concerned Reader: Oh dear.
The Earnest Reader: And sending it to us demanding it be posted.
The Concerned Reader: Oh dear oh dear. Is there a lot of it?
The Earnest Reader: Thankfully at the moment his monkishness is taking the form of simplicity and bareness so his output is sparse and minimalist.
The Concerned Reader: There is at least that to be thankful for.
The Earnest Reader: There is
The Concerned Reader: Are you going to publish it?
The Earnest Reader: I suppose so. Those of you of a refined aesthetic sensibility are cautioned to stop reading now [Reads reluctantly]
i have given away my nothing
so my hands may now applaud
their own renewed emptiness
The Concerned Reader: Jaysus! do you think he’s handed this blog over to his spiritual guide?
The Earnest Reader: I don’t know.
May 26, 2009
The Earnest Reader: As part of our Interactive Educational Portal I am delighted to announce the first in our series of what we are calling “Classics of World Twiterature” wherein we twitter the great works of literature. But first we have decided to adopt “harrow” as the collective noun for clusterfucks. and now here is our first twitterature offering:
About thirty years ago, Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram,
The Casual Reader: That’s it?
The Earnest Reader: It is indeed. isn’t the concision just wonderful?
The Casual Reader: But that’s just the first 140 charcaers of Mansfield Park.
The Earnest Reader: Well spotted! And what more did you expect on a free blog being run by readers like me? A 140-character Marxist critique?
The Casual Reader: Point taken. You will be discontinuing the misleading references to spandex bikinis that were such a blight on this site when the proprietor was in chanrge?
The Earnest Reader: I had not given it much thought. I will ponder this.
May 17, 2009
The Casual Reader: What the hell happened here?
The Earnest Reader: You mean the wall paper?
The Casual Reader: I mean the whole set-up! The tiny font; the un lugar de La Mancha picture.
The Earnest Reader: Well, some consultants came to the door yesterday…
The Casual Reader: You mean marketing consultants?
The Earnest Reader: [Defensively]Ehm, yeah.
The Casual Reader: And they told you you needed to rebrand and reposition while himself was up a mountan trying to be a monk?
The Earnest Reader: Uhm, yeah.
The Casual Reader: It’s really none of my business but, have your EVER heard of a marketing/ branding/positioning consultant, come to a place, look at it and say: “You know what? Your last consultant really got it right. You don’t need to change anything. I’d just be taking your money for nothing.”
The Earnest Reader: Eh, no I haven’t actually.
The Casual Reader: THAT’S BECAUSE IT NEVER HAPPENS! It’s like someone saying a “ballet of clusterfucks” – it simply doesn’t work that way!
The Earnest Reader: Ah, I see your point. So I should….
The Casual Reader: Nah, leave it alone. Who’s going to notice? Certainly not himself, all pissed out of his head on Spanish brandy way up a mountain. Maybe it’s good to change things once in a while. Just think- wouldn’t it be nice to see the Eurovision Song Contest without a single spandex biniki once in a while?
The Earnest Reader: I have no idea what you are talking about.
The Casual Reader: Enjoy the new wall paper.
May 15, 2009
The Earnest Reader: For those of you out there wondering: “Whyfore the long silence on this site?” I am here to tell you that the Proprietor has taken himself up a mountain in Donegal and is trying to be a Monk under the tutelage of a mystic from Albuquerque. So it falls to me to keep this blog going.
The Apostate Reader: What about me?
The Curious Reader: And me?
The Earnest Reader: You will all get your turn but for now I am launching The Definitive Indefinite Article’s Interactive Educational Portal. To wit: we all know the collective nouns, gaggle of geese, herd of antelope, murder of crows, but what, dear public, is the collective noun for clusterfucks? Answers below please.
May 1, 2009
The Definitive Indefinite Article has agreed sale of the giant silver letters “A” “I” and “G” to Jai-Alai 3Card Monty LLC. The letters will be used for the headquarters of Jai-Alai’s new Private Public Partnership, IGA, Insatiable Global Acquisitiveness.
The Concerned Reader: And what, may we ask will IGA be doing? Exporting spandex bikinis to Patagonia?
TDIA: They will be buying legacy assets for Jai-Alai in a…
The Concerned Reader: …Legacy Assets! Legacy my arse! You mean toxic worthless securitized mortgages that no one would touch with a 40-foot pole, don’t you?
TDIA: Let’s not quibble over semantics. Anyway, IGA will purchase legacy assets from Jai Alai to render jai-Alai once again an exemplar of solvent investing and a pillar of the financial industry.
The Concerned Reader: With what will IGA be buying these worthless “legacy” assets?
TDIA: With loans from the government and the FDIC.
The Concerned Reader: And then…?
TDIA: It they turn out to be worth something GIA can sell them and pay the government back and if they turn out to be worthless then GIA never pays back the loan.
The Concerned Reader: Are you making this crap up?
TDIA: Sadly not. This is what the grown ups are saying.
The Concerned Reader: You just made my May Day. [Sings]
Arise ye starvelings from your slumbers
Arise ye criminals of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
and at last ends the age of cant.
Now away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise!
We’ll change forthwith the old conditions
And spurn the dust to win the prize.
Then come comrades rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale
Unites the human race.
March 26, 2009
The Definitive Indefinite Article is proud to announce a special offer to its readers. We have for sale three large silver letters: an “A” an “I” and a “G” that up to recently adorned this building. These beautiful examples of 1990’s branding will provide a wonderful conversation piece in any home. Bidding will open at 12 noon.
The Interested Reader: Can I pre-bid?
TDIA: You can not.
The Interested Reader: Too bad. Mind you that reminds me of a story my father once told me. There was a fellah on the Titanic, a steerage passenger by the name of Michael McGettigan. Convinced that protestant shipbuilders in Belfast had cursed the Titanic, he leaned over the side ith a can of paint while the ship was sinking and painted over “TITANIC” and renamed it “VATICAN” in the hope that it would stop the flow of water.
TDIA: That is a fascinating anecdote and I am sure our readership are grateful to you. If you will excuse me I must now motivate our interns with the promise of spandex bikinis and have them ready for the bidding war for these wonderful letters.
March 18, 2009
The St. Patrick’s Day results are in! We sent our 200 interns from the Leonard Cohen ticket Procurement Project out into the streets on St. Patrick’s Day. Each had a thick wad to twenties (thanks to Jai-Alai 3Card Monty’s hand out from Bailout Bill and the Derivative Kid) and instructions to drink their heads off in honor of a Welshman who brought a Middle-Eastern Religion to Ireland and all the subsequent fun that caused.
Since midnight a second cadre of 200 hastily-recruited interns has been tabulating the results and there they are:
|
23% |
Went home with another of the interns. |
|
22% |
Went home alone and decided to fry eggs, fell asleep, burnt the eggs and set off the smoke alarm. |
|
18% |
Went home with a random stranger encountered in a public house. |
|
14.5% |
Fell asleep on various modes of public transport and awoke in hitherto unvisited pasts of the metropolis. |
|
12% |
Went home with two random strangers encountered in a public house. |
|
8% |
Got hired by drunken green-spandex-bikini-wearing executives of America’s Insolvent Giant and given enormous on-the-spot hiring bonuses. |
|
2% |
Put the money into savings bonds and spent the day at home tidying up |
|
0.5% |
Spent the night being ranted at by The Apostate Reader complaining about how hard it is to get excommunicated these days. |
March 9, 2009
We here at the Definitive Indefinite Article have been very busy since 10 am this morning. A cohort of 200 of interns, each with a dedicated computer has been tasked with getting me two tickets to Leonard Cohen at Radio City Music hall. Mysteriously none of these interns, the best and the brightest mouse clickers in the land, could find a single ticket for sale at Ticket Monster’s official website.
Fortunately one of the interns did find two seats for Leonard Cohan at Radius City Music Hell for the knockdown price of $1,151.26 each so I suppose that will have to do. Curiously enough the keywords the intern had to type in were “spandex bikini.” My intern also informs me that Ticket Monster tastefully played an unlicensed version of “Please Don’t Pass Me By” while the transaction was being processed.
Another of our interns offered this piece of allegedly consoling verse:
“I searched hard
On the whorled wide web
For entry to the house of song.
I will stand outside the golden door
And hum to myself
The expensive melodies
I will not hear.”
Needless to say, said intern was immediately sent packing.
March 2, 2009
TDIA: The DOW is down, The FTSE is down. America’s Insolvent Giant is in trouble again and the Hedgeer Hemlien Index just passed 1430 and THAT is not good. It is snowing outside and I think I just saw Rafaella Marconi ski down the street wearing nothing but a spandex bikini and a fur hat so I am taking the dog out for a walk! You can keep this racket going.
The Curious Reader: Are you coming back? [Door slams. Silence.]
Ok so, I suppose I can go on with the letters of Col. Trevelyan Makeshift-Bastion. [Puts kettle on. Reads]
Day 68
Snowed in at Camp 5. The chaps are getting very restless. We tried to play a few games of billiards to keep our spirits up which was when I discovered that the damned silly Sherpa had brought me a nineteen and a half ounce cue instead of my twenty-one and a quarter. Of course he had to be made an example of so we fed him to the dogs. Can’t allow that sort of slovenliness. It could easily jeopardize the entire mission.
Mulligan, the Irishman got a little obstreperous last night. We found that he had been concealing a quarter bottle of whisky in his kitbag and had had a little too much to drink. After conferring with Sergeant Burbage, we concluded that the best thing to do was to saw Mulligan’s hands off. Cruel to be kind, the chap could use a little discipline, help make a man of him. Tons of spirit of course but flighty and feckless which is, I suppose, not so much his fault as a man so much as an accident of origin. Can’t be helped.
February 20, 2009
In the light of recent fraud allegations against Sir Allen Stanford, Jai Alai 3Card Monty wishes to reassure our investors that our Cayman Islands-based auditors Bikini, Makepiece, Royalton LLC could and occasionally do detect the difference between their arses and elbows and have as of yet made no public statement regarding the solvency of Jai Alai’s Hedgeer Hemlein Index-linked Spandex Dandruff Tat Fund (formerly known as 18/46 CAKE Fund).
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