The tale of the three matchsticks and the improvident beagle
The wily little shamrock artisan and the case of the missing bodily organ
When the seven graces met up with the twelve virtues, and not to discuss the merits of the Biblical injunctions, either
The loquacious canary and the gobsmacked wallaby
The problem with beards
When the voracious piano player, the whimsical kitten and the two-headed demigorgon went for a holiday
How the turkey, elephant, wombat, viral infection, oligopololist, and cat lost their gobble, nose, ability to burrow, host, will to live, and bowl of milk, and how they got them back again
Why oligopolists shouldn't live in burrows
The horse that could clip and clap, but couldn't clop
The audience member that could clop and clip, but couldn't clap
The staple that felt vaguely sad
The case of the honest politician
Town anarcho-syndicalist, country anarcho-syndicalist
The tale of the lackadaisical goblin and the statistical improbability
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Tim, your links stink, you fink!
- John Bangsund's Threepenny Planet
- Broken Biro
- Poetry 24
- Superlative scribbles
- Kirstyn McD!
- Rorrim a tsomla almost a mirror
- More Sterne
- Sterne
- Cam the man from the Dan.
- Too hot to Raaaaaaandallllllll!
- Erin's Excellently Everlasting Effervescements!
- Slammy Infamy
- Hail Paco!
- Baron Blandwagon, purveyor of cyberbunnies, hawker of Roger Corman, and Misruler of the Multiverse
- The Bolta. Aiyeeeeee!!!!!
- Bad Apple Audrey
- The cartoon church
- Sir Martinkus
- A Zemblanian abroad and at home
- A hodge podge of hotzeplotz
- THE SLAMMA!
- Jottlesby's nottings, or should that be Nottlesby's jottings?
- The Snarking of the Hunt
- Jazzy Hands
- David of Metal City
- David the Barista
- The Blogger on the Cast Iron Balcony
- Be an Opinion Dominion Minion!
- Mel...
- ... and Fel
- His brilliant career - from whale sushi to crumbed prawn
- Jo Blogs
- Yet another Tim
- Croucherisms...
- Was two peas, now three peas
- Desciopolous!
- ... Still Life - now with extra rotating cats!
- Erin...
- An Amazingly Awesome Australian Ampersand!
- Blink and you'll miss 'er
- Red in the land of the tigers!
- Wire of Vibe
- Chase him, ladies, he's in the cavalry!
- The Non-palindromical Editrix in Germanium
- Old Sterne
- Gempiricalisations
- TonyT
- The briefs...
- ... and the brieflets
- The Purple Blog
- Blairville, lair of all that is wicked and perfidious
- The enticingly acronymical CSH
- EXTREEEEEEEME WYNTER!
- Mark of California
- Jellyfish
- Silent Speaking
- Lexicon the Mexican
Email: timhtrain - at - yahoo.com.au
Blog Archive
-
▼
2008
(316)
-
▼
April
(27)
- The mangler with the plan
- Summat summit about nowt
- In which the author surveys the cutlery, and proph...
- More pressing questions of intergalactic import
- Fully-grown bunny likes to look at pictures of oth...
- Woof! Woof!
- A country town is like picking your nose: discuss
- Efficient time-management skills
- I have no idea what this means
- Our parapraxis will make you send for the paramedic
- Plumbing the depths
- Arghhhh! I'm dying, man! I'm dying!
- Et in Nostalgia ego
- Kids today!
- Should homosexuality be compulsory for Anglican cl...
- Some recent Freudian slippers
- I am absolutely thrilled, 26 hours from now!
- Vote the bastards back!
- It's freaking me out, man!
- Mere earthly dogs
- An encounter with a disorganisation
- The Kingsley and I
- The out of context game!
- Freudian traumas about wimples
- Possible names for future fables
- Driving, it's a hit and hit affair
- Move along here, nothing to see
-
▼
April
(27)
6 comments:
"The staple that felt vaguely sad"
There was a staple that felt very good about it itself. It sat upright in its box with all the other staples.
"One day, son, you shall make something of yourself. You don't know what it shall be, but something!" his Dad had told him.
His uncle had the distinction of tightly binding together seven leaves of an important subpoena.
His cousin had had the career of fixing together ten pages of an essay which a student had received an A+ in.
"You son, could do all that and more!" said his Father.
I am from a distinguished family, thought the staple. That means I too shall be distinguished.
One day it was his mother's turn to be used in the stapler. The staple watched as his mother was to be fixed to a document, but the careless stapler-user moved the stapler sideways and his mother was crushed, mangled, and did not even staple properly!
The person muttered, "Dumb stapler!" and pulled out his mother and threw her in the bin.
"Perhaps my family is not so assured of distinction after all," thought the staple.
He felt vaguely sad.
What about the hair-clip that could clop and clap, but couldn't clip, and was therefore undecided about how to rename itself?
I keep thinking loquacious canaries and gobsmacked wallabies. Which comes first, I ponder.
Is it a case of "One day there was a loquacious canary, chit-chatting along, and one day the loquacious canary met a wallaby.
"Hullo there," said the canary, "How d'ya do, how dya do again, and what about the weather today? I hear it's a lovely day, touch a cloud but not enough to dampen a bird's feelings, and don't ya thinks? And what about those berries over there, good enough to eat, wouldn't ya say? I saw a bunch of doves over yonder and they were pesky things - now what do you think of doves all getting togetehr and eating all them scraps of the ground - a bit unhygienic, wouldn't y'say. Anyhow, after that I went to my warbling class and ... (etc)"
After several hours the canary notices the wallaby hasn't spoken and says, "What's this, don't you speak?"
Silence.
"Hmmm, I can't understand such creatures, speak!"
Silence.
Canary smacks wallaby in gob.
Next possible scenario.
One day, there was a wallaby about who saw a scene so frightening that the wallaby was truly gobsmacked. The wallaby walked about with fright and awe in her eyes, but was so gobsmacked she could not speak.
A canary came by, a canary who saw the wallaby's frightened and awed eyes, and said, "What is it, wallaby?"
The wallaby could do nothing but point and run in annoying circles.
The canary asked many questions, and to this day does, trying to pry out of the wallaby what it is that the wallaby may be trying to convey, but fails utterly. The few times the canary takes a break from its questioning routine, the canary relays to others a long story about some psychotic mute wallaby.
Scenario 3
A gobsmacked wallaby meets a loquacious canary. perfect compatibility. A long and happy relationship ensues.
I'm sure there are many other scenarios. I toss out only a few of the many possibilities.
"Why oligopolists shouldn't live in burrows"
A certain industrious oligopolist, who was well known in the city in which he lived for his wealth and ugliness, had come into the inheritance of a wombat burrow through a series of coincidences too astounding and numerous to mention here. Here the oligopolist set up shop, for he was a somewhat whimsical oligopolist, with eccentric notions as to the effective running of an oligopoly.
The oligopolist immediately took to the burrow like a fish to water*, using this as the base for all the shady deals and backdoor handshakes for which his oligopoly was justly famous. Over the course of a week, he contrived to put a little old lady and potential competitor out of business (thus forcing her onto the pension), came to several convenient arrangements with representatives from the local and state and federal governments, sacked one hundred of his oldest and most trusted employees from a somewhat under-performing arm of his oligopoly, and donated two cents to a local charity.
One morning while he was in the process of sacking the representatives of the Oligopoly Workers Union (who were campaigning to have the wages of one of their members, who was currently suffering from a mild form of leprosy, raised), half of the burrow collapsed on him. Not only did this put him off for the rest of the day, it left him with the bad test of dirt in his mouth for a whole week. Not only that, but everywhere he went from then on, people looked at him as if he were dirt.
In despair at the harsh treatment meted out to him by members of the community he had done so little for, the oligopolist concluded that nevermore would he live in a burrow.
*If we may be indeed permitted to muddy the water, or perhaps water the burrow, with such a confusing metaphor.
It is indeed a mystery, the gobsmacked wallaby and the loquacious canary. Why not the other way around? Maybe the wallaby was from a family of gobsmacked wallabies, and this quality - of gobsmackedness - was in fact something of a survival trait amongst its community of wallabies. The canaries loquacity is equally mysterious, but with something more to say for itself (obviously). One imagine that the canary is just naturally friendly, struck with the urge to talk about certain matters in particular (although not necessarily particular matters for certain). But it's possible, too, that the canary has had to train itself to be loquacious, or has indeed had loquacity inflicted upon it.
Another point to consider: are the wallabies gobsmacked-ness and the canaries loquacity co-dependent on one another? (eg, the canary forcing itself to talk in place of its gobsmacked companion)? Do they take it in turns to be gobsmacked and loquacious? Or are their qualities, their gobsmackitude and loquacity, both inflicted upon by outer circumstances?
Indeed, it seems that just to state these fable titles is not enough. I thought this was just a jokey little post, but we could have stumbled across a mystery too Deep and Dark for just one blog post, Maria...
It is indeed a mystery. I'll have to sign up for Gob-smacked Wallabies 101 next semester, and take on an extra load of Canaries' Loquacity, just to even scratch the surface.
Post a Comment