July 15th, 2010
A cat could do better literature than this.
Samuel Clemens
Classifieds
For sale: gas powered lawn mower. Missing blades, wheels and motor. As is: $4. Box 3.
Willing to trade spectacular sunset over a lake for a nice double rainbow. Must act now! Oh, too late. Never mind. Box 3636.
Always wanted to learn a second language? At Larry's House of Languages we specialize in the 522 Bantu languages. Actually that's it. Maybe we should change our name? At any rate if you want to learn Shona or Zulu, c'mon in.
For rent: finger puppets of Enlightment Philosophers. Ideal for very small Fringe plays. $3/hour each. Box 30.
House for sale: beautiful two and a third story home with a pretty nice view of the house next door and also the street in front. Complete with kitchen, bathroom and living room. Bedrooms located in a hotel across town. Box 225.
Think your life is going nowhere? How about this guy? "Performance artist" Glen Johnson will be running circles around the inside of aceart inc (290 McDermot Avenue, Winnipeg) all afternoon July 28th. He'll also be writing "stories".
Take out an ad in PERSIFLAGE! Increase your market by 3 or 4 not very discerning individuals! Only $10! Maximum 29 1/2 words.
The Mystery of the Lost Lenore
Listen to Part Sixty-Five
Click on the picture. (3:13)
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The Hell with Stanford-Binet
The Offical PERSIFLAGE IQ Test
We're constantly running into people who are telling us their IQs and yet seem to be acting like donkey's asses (that is the hindquarters of donkeys - donkeys and their kin frown on slavery) and this has led us to the conclusion that the usual IQ tests obviously leave something to be desired when it comes to measuring true intelligence.
Therefore we here at PERSIFLAGE, as a sort of public service (but mostly to prove how clever we are) have devised our own IQ test to truly measure, once and for all, what constitutes real intelligence. Get a pencil.
PART ONE:
Select the letter that most closely represents what you would consider the answer to the individual questions that are listed below in the order that they are listed. Once you have selected the letter then place it in the blank space provided near the number.
1)Who is the leader of the club which was made for both you and me?
a) Max the Two Thousand Year Old Mouse
b) Dixie
c) Speedy Gonzales
d) some other rodent
2)Why do clouds suddenly appear when you are proximate?
a) It's a coincidence.
b) What clouds?
c) I have an orgone ray device in my undershorts.
d) Mickey Mouse
3)How is it possible for cold November rain to last forever when November itself doesn't last forever?
a) It's done with mirrors.
b) What's it to you, buddy?
c) Water, in the form of rain, is heavier than a calendar page and consequently runs downhill where the rules of time and space, while they still apply, are not strictly enforced.
d) It's a trick question. Nothing lasts forever not even cold November rain.
PART TWO:
Match the hat size with the famous historical figure.
Ivan Turgenev 6 3/4
Elizabeth I 7 1/8
Charlotte Bronte 7
Erland van Lidth de Jeude really big
Gaius Julius Caesar fairly small
Han Shan crown-sized
Joachim "von" Ribbentrop laurel-wreathish
Hammurabi Hat! Never!
Theodora Wednesday
PART THREE: Fill in the blanks
In this part of the exam you will fill in the blank spaces in each sentence. Not with one colour, or indeed, railroad ties (as worn by Via Rail staff) but with the word or words that best exemplify the kind of thing best exemplified. There are no right answers but there are answers that are quite a bit less wrong than any others. Best to choose those really.
1) My mother used to bake bread using ______ when the oven was broken.
2) My father's best friend was a hamster named Torvald but he (the hamster) preferred to be called ________.
3) All the peanuts in the world _____ the sandbox.
4) Nobody ever really ______ my left buttock cheek.
5) Oven mitts, oven mitts, _______, oven mitts and so forth.
6) _______, she screeched, "Where are the muffin tins?" ________ I replied. (Two points, three if you can actually lay your hands on the muffin tins).
Next week, if we are feeling particularly generous we will provide an answer key for marking this test. Then you'll really know how smart you are.
The Time Traveller
Once upon a time there was a man who was very very evil. Not just run of the mill evil, really evil. He was so evil that he just wanted to screw things up for everybody. He wanted everyone to be uncomfortable and unhappy. Evil's what I'm saying.
One day the evil man, whom I will call Mr. Evil, decided to build a time machine. He thought a time machine might be just the ticket for really screwing with people's lives and really, you can't argue with his logic.
Anyway Mr. Evil, as we decided to call him, went to the library to see if he could find a book with plans for building a time machine. This was before the Internet was really popular. If this happened now he would just Google it.
Luckily the library near Mr. Evil's house had a copy of the Compleat Illustrated Guide to Time Machine Plans so he didn't have to mess about with an inter-library loan.
A quick read through of the book, a few trips to Home Depot and Mr. Evil's time machine was completed. He took a quick trip back to the day before he went to the library just to see if it worked and then he set about hatching his master plan for really screwing up everybody's life.
Mr. Evil got into the time machine and set the date to February 14, 1960 and the place, it was one of those time machines that lets you change locations, to Los Angeles, California. Once there he went immediately to the studio where they filmed the Danny Thomas Show.
Using his power to cloud men's minds (he was less successful with women), which I may have failed to previously mention, Mr. Evil made his way past security and onto the set. Carefully he snuck up behind Andy Griffith and Sheldon Leonard who were preparing to shoot the episode where Danny Thomas ends up in Mayberry and meets Sheriff Andy Taylor.
They were discussing Sheriff Taylor's boy Opie. "You know" Mr. Evil said "Opie is an odd name. You'll confuse people. You should call him Petey."
There was no way to argue with Mr. Evil's logic and so they changed the kid's name thereby ruining millions of future crossword puzzles. And that's just evil.
Raymond Tresk
