PERSIFLAGE

February 8th, 2007

For various reasons, it is very far from my intention to express any opinion concerning the value of human civilization.
                  --------- Sigmund Freud

Classifieds

For sale: one 45rpm recording of the Mini-Pops rendition of "Enter Sandman". B-side is their take on Orff's "O Fortuna". $4OBO Box99.
For sale: toothbrush that previously belonged to Einstein. Still loaded with brainiac material. Make you smart. $7 OBO. Box 160.
For sale; one pair of pants previously owned by Donald Trump. Still chock full of entrepreneurial spirit (or some thing like it). Make you rich. May also make you dislike lesbians and turn your hair funny. $7 OBO. Box # same as above (surprisingly).

Personal Ads:
Recently Separated Egg seeks a fun loving thirtish professional yolk with own whisk. Object:scrambling. Box 0.
Good-looking Single White Anglican Man (19) seeks woman who is not hung up on appearance or age. Must be open-minded and believe the teachings of Gustav Landauer to be completely crazy. Box 218.
Tallish sequoia seeks chainsaw willing to cut me down to size. Rowrrr! Box770.

Links

Gallery 803
aceartinc
Platform Gallery
P:son Oneline Persiflages

Tips For Winter Living

Tip#17:   87% of your body heat is lost through the top of your head. Cut a small piece from an oven mitt and tape it to your crown and you will always be warm (Remember to remove it March 22).

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Archives

Excerpts from the work of Ford Johnson, Male Novelist

Every once in a while we come across a new writer who is worthy of our interest. This, as you may have already guessed, is not one of those times but we did find snippets in this work that were worth using to fill a blank space in this issue, so here are some:

I never liked you

"I never liked you" she said.
You could see she was trying to mean it. I knew what it was though. She wasn't fooling me. I showed her. I laughed.
Considering how much ice she liked in her drinks it felt warm. Room temperature. It had been sitting too long. The ice had melted long ago. It was no longer cooling anything. It had just watered down the booze. There wasn't a hint of alcohol in the drip that ran down across my lips. I stared at her as I licked it up. She didn't notice. She was already walking away.
I turned back to the bar and picked up my beer. I didn't wipe my face. I just let it be sticky.

I wasn't impressed.

He pushed his face right up into mine. He had what he thought was a threatening look on it. He closed one eye when he spoke. The words came out slowly. It was meant to be menacing. He was drunk.
"You don't know what the fuck you're talking about." He stared hard. The other eye even opened. He didn't add anything else. He just stared in silence.
I wasn't impressed.

He needed shoving.

He had his hand on one of my beers. Well, not really my beers but one of the beers I'd been drinking. I knew whose they were. He sure didn't.
He was already drunk. Even though my blurred vision I could see that.
He'd been leering at that girl by the bar. The one with the great ass.
He needed shoving.

I kissed her.

I kissed her and you could tell she'd never been kissed like that. You could see it in her eyes which were wide open. She was shocked. I let go and took a step back. She was staring at me in amazement. I picked up my groceries and left. Candy. At least that's what her name tag said.

Trade Secrets

Or how do you get your shirts so clean Mr. Lee?

A lot of people write in to this site and ask how it is that we are able to be so consistently funny. "How are you so consistently funny?" they write (often they mispell consistently - most often they write it with an 'a' like this - consistantly - which, you have to admit, makes a lot of sense given the way most people pronounce it. But, nonetheless it is wrong. Look it up). Well now we feel like we can reveal the secret of how PERSIFLAGE stays so funny week after week. The trick is really fairly easy and once you've learned it you can be consistently funny too.

The key to being funny is to do the unexpected.

Perhaps I should clarify. The key to being funny is to do the funny unxpected thing. If I ask you for the time and you poke me in the eye with your finger, that may be unexpected but it isn't funny. It's not funny to poke someone (especially me) in the eye with your finger. If you were to ask me for the time and I were to poke you in the eye with a stick, that would be funny. Is that clear? Part of what makes that funny is the stick. The other part is that it is you getting poked and everyone knows you've been asking for it for years.
I guess your next question is going to be: "How does this apply to a website?" You really need to be walked all the way through things don't you? Okay here it is.

When you write an essay or a story write one or possibly two serious sentences and then make the next one unexpected AND funny.

Clear enough? For instance I might write the sentence: Friday was cold. I might follow that with: Bill didn't have a coat. And then I would follow that with: Because he was a tiger. This is a funny sentence because it begins with a conjunction and because it contains the word "tiger" which everyone knows is funny.
So you see it is a relatively easy matter to be consistantly funny. You just have to do and/or say/write/sing/intone unexpected funny things. Got it? Now go out there and be funny!

Scary huh?