2000 Mythsteries and Other Pithy Shorts #31
Once upon a time, before the Cyclops box, long skirts weary of daylight chores sought their sewing rockers to stitch evening entertainment while they rested up for bedtime.
One woman, most likely a poet, sewed her thoughts with stars and lines in colors of truth, purity and blood or so it is said.
Lo! Others took up this frame of hues and carried it round on a stick until it was well known and pedestaled. In time it became symbolous for patriotism, democracy and citizenship and was written in history books, rode stalwart in corners of public buildings, hung suspended from any number of shafts around the country and drooped despondently like a wayward prayer when a famous passed.
In time these fabric arts became mixed in the minds of the biggest little beings and became revered as real gods. And when rebels grew, some of the squares were purposely dropped in mud and burned to ash. These actions roused the ire of the legals who wrote and wrote and wrote while professing that if enough writing was done the rebels would see the error of their ways and would begin to identify the flags with the great uncle in the big hat who finger pointed and wanted them all.
There was talk of worshipping icons being sinful but it dissipated some during waving ceremonies and in the hardest of times it was found that some even prayed to this flag.
And that's how it was that a piece of sewing came to be a mythical mystical icon of power.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Monday, May 22, 2006
Peking Pieces
2000 Mythsteries and Other Pithy Shorts #25Once beyond the time when you and I were born, the boomings kept coming on and a crowded country named after dishes went into crazed crackdown.
The rulers, already born and before they knew what was waiting in the closet, in an effort to chink the breach passed decrees to the masses that a man and a woman could have but one name bearer.
Lo! Those otherbodies then began newly programmed breeding about the time the foreseers learned to tell the coming-parents which sex their parts had spawned.
Peoples at that age, before they olded and needed compassion, found femmes to be of little useage and with the bodies' ingrown wisdom they turned to deleting skirt wearers and thus produced merely brawn even though each unit could be three -- one man, one woman and a single moppet.
Forsooth! Time and tides didn't wait for them to sharp up. One day the rulers beheld a widespread overage of the three-leggeds. But by then it was sorely late.
And so it came to pass, the dish nation died out even though the three-leggeds did practice unproductive procreation among themselves.
And that's how it was when farseers became doomed by their own shortsight.
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Dei Vinci Code
2000 Mythsteries and Other Pithy Shorts #47
Once before any living remembers, a mystical marvel came about and once written found an ever enlarging readerhood.
As time went, many addenda and penned rewrites caused little consternation and none of the old timer eyes survived so conjecture withered under the rule of acceptables.
It came to pass that a smart man what-iffed the old tale and called it counterfeit but many could not accept the what-iffing and berserked over this rewriting.
Behold! The tiny cardinal country riled the world while claiming victimhood and stirred up a stumble over what-iffy and fostered fractious factions. Some knew what-iffy even though after all the centuries counted down the chute there couldn't have been what-was by probity of translation and rewetting quills so much of the what-iffy could have been true, but not for certain so.
Out of the muddle of the tussle over the rightest, one victor arose and he was the what-iffing scribe because, while such struggles ensued, his name became as well known as the main notable.
And that's how it was when what-iffy was deemed to be true and without real truthiness it was all one big moot because the message went lost in translation. And some stood back and laughed at the follies of the know-not-alls.
Once before any living remembers, a mystical marvel came about and once written found an ever enlarging readerhood.
As time went, many addenda and penned rewrites caused little consternation and none of the old timer eyes survived so conjecture withered under the rule of acceptables.
It came to pass that a smart man what-iffed the old tale and called it counterfeit but many could not accept the what-iffing and berserked over this rewriting.
Behold! The tiny cardinal country riled the world while claiming victimhood and stirred up a stumble over what-iffy and fostered fractious factions. Some knew what-iffy even though after all the centuries counted down the chute there couldn't have been what-was by probity of translation and rewetting quills so much of the what-iffy could have been true, but not for certain so.
Out of the muddle of the tussle over the rightest, one victor arose and he was the what-iffing scribe because, while such struggles ensued, his name became as well known as the main notable.
And that's how it was when what-iffy was deemed to be true and without real truthiness it was all one big moot because the message went lost in translation. And some stood back and laughed at the follies of the know-not-alls.
Monday, May 15, 2006
Saved by a Dime
2000 Mythsteries and Other Pithy Shorts #23
Once upon a time, a hippocritic oath was taken by witch doctors when it was determined that any number of them couldn't do the right spell. This vow compared their work to magic and allowed they should always do everything within their power to save lives of any who sought help.
In time, the kings and rulers sought longer life in order to spend the gold woven into their parachutes. Those wielding knives, leeches and needles practiced stewing long life remedies away from plants and herbs.
It came to pass they saved so many lives from birth onward that the populace took on a high number. And those who came to call themselves saviors became accustomed to hiring bean counters to oversee their waxing wealth and to provide means to sew up their own parachute stringing.
Lo! Witch doctors became in such demand they were able to charge exorbitant fees and to support little kingdoms of others until they resembled a great deal those very rulers who set them to finding the secret of eternal life.
Then, because of tontines, insurings and such, those who provided salves and balms grew so busy they no longer had time to stir the pots. They claimed to want to go back to the old days of healing ills.
Soon, they discovered a way to stay not so busy and to make even more wampum. Sick were turned away at the door because the docs picked a few healthiest rich and charged them the same beads as they had charged whole groups the other years. So one wealthy man could pay a huge sum of cash for a practically personal witch instead of the old style of many people having one.
And that's how survival of the richest was launched. Alas, this survival method is little different from the other supremes who tout survival of the whitest.
Once upon a time, a hippocritic oath was taken by witch doctors when it was determined that any number of them couldn't do the right spell. This vow compared their work to magic and allowed they should always do everything within their power to save lives of any who sought help.
In time, the kings and rulers sought longer life in order to spend the gold woven into their parachutes. Those wielding knives, leeches and needles practiced stewing long life remedies away from plants and herbs.
It came to pass they saved so many lives from birth onward that the populace took on a high number. And those who came to call themselves saviors became accustomed to hiring bean counters to oversee their waxing wealth and to provide means to sew up their own parachute stringing.
Lo! Witch doctors became in such demand they were able to charge exorbitant fees and to support little kingdoms of others until they resembled a great deal those very rulers who set them to finding the secret of eternal life.
Then, because of tontines, insurings and such, those who provided salves and balms grew so busy they no longer had time to stir the pots. They claimed to want to go back to the old days of healing ills.
Soon, they discovered a way to stay not so busy and to make even more wampum. Sick were turned away at the door because the docs picked a few healthiest rich and charged them the same beads as they had charged whole groups the other years. So one wealthy man could pay a huge sum of cash for a practically personal witch instead of the old style of many people having one.
And that's how survival of the richest was launched. Alas, this survival method is little different from the other supremes who tout survival of the whitest.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Crack Slippage
2000 Mythsteries and Other Pithy Shorts #21
Once upon a long ago, a new country came into being when criminals, sinners and remittance men lammed out from a monoreligic monarchy.
With sudden foresight these men founded a mockracy, as they called it, in which the majority ruled and every fowl had a pot. In time, they began to insure for failure of otherbodies to reach full dream potential by creating a tontine-like plot whereby earnings would be lifted from each worker and placed in one big bucket not to be mixed with other buckets' contents. When onebody began slipping through a crack, or became olden aged, it could then cry out and retrieve some of the bucketed boons.
This plan worked for some time until a shrub man pricked a hole in the biggest bucket and the goods began trickling out which meant that when you began to fall through the crack, you better find anotherbody to help.
There came a great uproar and this shrub person was put off the throne. Life went on until, in an unlikely deja vu, a thorn off that old shrub gained the throne and poked another bucket hole.
When the multitudinous oldenagers discovered the fraud they outraged and a foreign war was launched to get their minds switched and to provide a gathering front to shore up the flagging buckets. Now the savings of all the crack-faller-throughs drained into a desert across the sea.
While these folks watched the war, the bucket brigade added a sniff and scratch watermark to the final pail funds just before delivery to the recipients.
Without much thinking, the oldsters and the faller-throughs scratched and sniffed their terminal monies and were snuffed before they could grump about the empty bucket
And that's how the one for all and all for one theory was out cast and the mockracy devolved.
Once upon a long ago, a new country came into being when criminals, sinners and remittance men lammed out from a monoreligic monarchy.
With sudden foresight these men founded a mockracy, as they called it, in which the majority ruled and every fowl had a pot. In time, they began to insure for failure of otherbodies to reach full dream potential by creating a tontine-like plot whereby earnings would be lifted from each worker and placed in one big bucket not to be mixed with other buckets' contents. When onebody began slipping through a crack, or became olden aged, it could then cry out and retrieve some of the bucketed boons.
This plan worked for some time until a shrub man pricked a hole in the biggest bucket and the goods began trickling out which meant that when you began to fall through the crack, you better find anotherbody to help.
There came a great uproar and this shrub person was put off the throne. Life went on until, in an unlikely deja vu, a thorn off that old shrub gained the throne and poked another bucket hole.
When the multitudinous oldenagers discovered the fraud they outraged and a foreign war was launched to get their minds switched and to provide a gathering front to shore up the flagging buckets. Now the savings of all the crack-faller-throughs drained into a desert across the sea.
While these folks watched the war, the bucket brigade added a sniff and scratch watermark to the final pail funds just before delivery to the recipients.
Without much thinking, the oldsters and the faller-throughs scratched and sniffed their terminal monies and were snuffed before they could grump about the empty bucket
And that's how the one for all and all for one theory was out cast and the mockracy devolved.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Under the Shrub
2000 Mythsteries & Other Pithy Shorts #46
Once upon a near passe time the wanna-be king couldn't reckon the simplest tasks. He hugged and held hands with distant robes while he tugged the rug from locals.
When the country came full of illicits, he lawed to licit them in order to have little wages paid by big pocket sponsors.
His singing shifted from the sandland bombing to keep on keepin on the illicits so plum picking didn't earn overmuch.
His reluctant subjects fussed when he said the aliens were doing sweat the voters wouldn't do.
Lo! The mostly indigenous dust, mop, mow, prune, pick, grow, roof, frame and do all their own toil right up til they drop off even as the lily-right-handeds hire the illicits to chore for them while they skim from the treetops and every otherbody.
Behold! It came to pass the silly country did fight 'em here instead of there.
Once upon a near passe time the wanna-be king couldn't reckon the simplest tasks. He hugged and held hands with distant robes while he tugged the rug from locals.
When the country came full of illicits, he lawed to licit them in order to have little wages paid by big pocket sponsors.
His singing shifted from the sandland bombing to keep on keepin on the illicits so plum picking didn't earn overmuch.
His reluctant subjects fussed when he said the aliens were doing sweat the voters wouldn't do.
Lo! The mostly indigenous dust, mop, mow, prune, pick, grow, roof, frame and do all their own toil right up til they drop off even as the lily-right-handeds hire the illicits to chore for them while they skim from the treetops and every otherbody.
Behold! It came to pass the silly country did fight 'em here instead of there.
Monday, May 08, 2006
Downfall du Jour
2000 Mythstery #22
Once upon another time, in a societal experiment created by remittance men, released sinners, regular escapees, religious zealots and runaway adventurers, a new country was grounded on a land far beyond their shore and founded right on top of those who already lived there.
Lo! This righteous group fell so in love with themselves, they began to send out, as well as take out, messages inviting those from other countries to come admire what they had wrought.
Indeed the country did begin to fill with mobs who spoke so many dialects it became necessary to hire multitudes to teach tongues to speak alike but some rebelled and the land did become a babble. Few understood otherbodies and many fights did erupt.
When generations passed, the newbies looked into murky waters and reflected themselves to be good and kind. They fell in love all over again. This continued even while their neighbors fell deadly silent from lack or from invasion by freed offensives who were too shiftless to find new countries to populate.
Denizens from other spaces began to clamor and request remedial retribution for any number of perceived wrongs from the descendants of the initial settlers and each wanted better equality than their next door dwellers.
Myriad folks took this seriously and gained certificates to foist these and many other frivolosities upon the overly burdened taxpayers and the overly tired robes who no longer had time to read the voluminous tomes and began, willy-nilly, to dispense freakish judgments.
Within some short period of time, as time goes, unpunished cheating and greed escalated right into the open. Indeed, corruption infected companies, governments, sports and other factions of this great experiment.
Alas, it did come to pass when the few owned the money and power, they called off the experiment and declared war on the remnants.
And that's how it was in the days when even the straightest fell crooked.
Once upon another time, in a societal experiment created by remittance men, released sinners, regular escapees, religious zealots and runaway adventurers, a new country was grounded on a land far beyond their shore and founded right on top of those who already lived there.
Lo! This righteous group fell so in love with themselves, they began to send out, as well as take out, messages inviting those from other countries to come admire what they had wrought.
Indeed the country did begin to fill with mobs who spoke so many dialects it became necessary to hire multitudes to teach tongues to speak alike but some rebelled and the land did become a babble. Few understood otherbodies and many fights did erupt.
When generations passed, the newbies looked into murky waters and reflected themselves to be good and kind. They fell in love all over again. This continued even while their neighbors fell deadly silent from lack or from invasion by freed offensives who were too shiftless to find new countries to populate.
Denizens from other spaces began to clamor and request remedial retribution for any number of perceived wrongs from the descendants of the initial settlers and each wanted better equality than their next door dwellers.
Myriad folks took this seriously and gained certificates to foist these and many other frivolosities upon the overly burdened taxpayers and the overly tired robes who no longer had time to read the voluminous tomes and began, willy-nilly, to dispense freakish judgments.
Within some short period of time, as time goes, unpunished cheating and greed escalated right into the open. Indeed, corruption infected companies, governments, sports and other factions of this great experiment.
Alas, it did come to pass when the few owned the money and power, they called off the experiment and declared war on the remnants.
And that's how it was in the days when even the straightest fell crooked.
Saturday, May 06, 2006
Bad Beef, Maybe
Sat May 6
Ground beef products possibly containing E. coli bacteria have been recalled by a Midwest company. We have a hard time getting it right.
My pantry boasts fish, beans, and fowl,
why do I have a mad craving for cow?
why do I have a mad craving for cow?
WhiteHouse, Ink.
2000 Mythsteries #43
And in the age when schooling mostly went home to read animé and such there came out of the Big House some bad books that took on legs.
One scooter penned a piece revering bestiality even as canons were being passed by playing bigs who seemed not to know there were some pressing problems afoot.
And the big Dick's wife, mother of his strange daughter, wrote a tale of girly/girly in the old west and philandering in the next wing. In her tale, the roving guy died astride his paramour from a bad heart and she wrote as if these things were fiction.
And in another part, a sinner quilled a million squibs of non-fiction when it mostly was fiction and a flap went on about that for some time until it was found that truth and lies are doppelgangers.
And the O'man from FauxNews who had been flailed for heavy breathing about a faloofa into some skirt's link wrote a tome about an old man his age who noodled little misses and called it fiction when it surely wasn't.
And the man who ran home insecurity did webcam and sicking speak with a little girl who turned out to be the law in disguise so he went to the front of the low class, temporarily distracting from the other fouls.
One cyber store named after strong women of another age posted pages of these tatty tales so one could peruse a page or two before squandering coins for these soiled nightmares.
And so it was when the land was ruled by the fictitious proper who weren't and weren't afraid to flaunt it.
And in the age when schooling mostly went home to read animé and such there came out of the Big House some bad books that took on legs.
One scooter penned a piece revering bestiality even as canons were being passed by playing bigs who seemed not to know there were some pressing problems afoot.
And the big Dick's wife, mother of his strange daughter, wrote a tale of girly/girly in the old west and philandering in the next wing. In her tale, the roving guy died astride his paramour from a bad heart and she wrote as if these things were fiction.
And in another part, a sinner quilled a million squibs of non-fiction when it mostly was fiction and a flap went on about that for some time until it was found that truth and lies are doppelgangers.
And the O'man from FauxNews who had been flailed for heavy breathing about a faloofa into some skirt's link wrote a tome about an old man his age who noodled little misses and called it fiction when it surely wasn't.
And the man who ran home insecurity did webcam and sicking speak with a little girl who turned out to be the law in disguise so he went to the front of the low class, temporarily distracting from the other fouls.
One cyber store named after strong women of another age posted pages of these tatty tales so one could peruse a page or two before squandering coins for these soiled nightmares.
And so it was when the land was ruled by the fictitious proper who weren't and weren't afraid to flaunt it.
Friday, May 05, 2006
Poorboys, the Sandwich Generation
2000 Mythsteries and Other Pithy Shorts #18
Once upon a long ago, humanity stayed at little numbers because of sabre tooth tigers. Also the lions in the arenas wiped out quite a few as did ungodly and floral wars.
Powerbodies ran amok often enough to keep general groups of people to mini-numbers while keeping their own purses at the full and ready. In time, when the mini-wars were sharply curtailed, the peons made some headway as far as quantity was concerned.
It came to pass that some kings couldn't spend all their lootings and plunders in one short life so they encouraged witch doctors to invent longevity. The witching cauldrons picked up a heated glow while cooking concoctions of anti-passing potions and many people did begin living, living and living. While many good ones passed too soon, lots of bad ones and scores of other mediocres lived far into their century marks.
Well. All this continued for some great time.
Then the messengers began signaling smokes that sympathised the mid-agers who were being saddled with their offspring as well as with their forefolks. Anyway, the sandwich generation was what the messengers named the middles and this caused their parents to feel guilty for living so long even though the cauldron stirrers left not much outage. But the youngers used so much coinage that it took both generations to provide all their wantfuls.
In the meantime, the kettles did keep on cookin'. Then there became big places full of people shells, their real parts having gone on, and there were cells for the young who couldn't figure out what to do because everything was already done for them by the sandwich middles and the sandwich tops.
The youngers became known as the heels. The middles became depressed because it was a waste of good money to keep the shells going, and they were tired of working to make a living. They wanted mostly to track some dreams and become playful with their inner kids again but they were living so long they must keep working even as they frailed. And the heels became meaner and meaner and more threatening.
This went on for some time, until the chimer reversed and the sandwiches began to see that their olders and their youngers were really their bloods and began to join up to make family groups instead of letting the me-me's talk them into dispersal and poorboying.
And that's how the world became homely once again.
Note: By request, I produced Poorboys, the Sandwich Generation as an audio for presentation on BBC in 2000
Once upon a long ago, humanity stayed at little numbers because of sabre tooth tigers. Also the lions in the arenas wiped out quite a few as did ungodly and floral wars.
Powerbodies ran amok often enough to keep general groups of people to mini-numbers while keeping their own purses at the full and ready. In time, when the mini-wars were sharply curtailed, the peons made some headway as far as quantity was concerned.
It came to pass that some kings couldn't spend all their lootings and plunders in one short life so they encouraged witch doctors to invent longevity. The witching cauldrons picked up a heated glow while cooking concoctions of anti-passing potions and many people did begin living, living and living. While many good ones passed too soon, lots of bad ones and scores of other mediocres lived far into their century marks.
Well. All this continued for some great time.
Then the messengers began signaling smokes that sympathised the mid-agers who were being saddled with their offspring as well as with their forefolks. Anyway, the sandwich generation was what the messengers named the middles and this caused their parents to feel guilty for living so long even though the cauldron stirrers left not much outage. But the youngers used so much coinage that it took both generations to provide all their wantfuls.
In the meantime, the kettles did keep on cookin'. Then there became big places full of people shells, their real parts having gone on, and there were cells for the young who couldn't figure out what to do because everything was already done for them by the sandwich middles and the sandwich tops.
The youngers became known as the heels. The middles became depressed because it was a waste of good money to keep the shells going, and they were tired of working to make a living. They wanted mostly to track some dreams and become playful with their inner kids again but they were living so long they must keep working even as they frailed. And the heels became meaner and meaner and more threatening.
This went on for some time, until the chimer reversed and the sandwiches began to see that their olders and their youngers were really their bloods and began to join up to make family groups instead of letting the me-me's talk them into dispersal and poorboying.
And that's how the world became homely once again.
Note: By request, I produced Poorboys, the Sandwich Generation as an audio for presentation on BBC in 2000
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