persiflage

where the free lunch is only $2.75    

July 1st, 2010

I have nothing against people but interacting with them is usually a mistake.

Hugh Briss



Classifieds

For Sale: complete set of Louis XIV corn holders. Authenticated by the guy who lives downstairs from me. $42 OBO. Reply to Kenny, 32 - 46 Hike Ave., Malebocks, MB.
For Sale: Vintage canned meat. Ole Doc Leonard's Chicken Sweepin's; Ye Olde Albacore; Veal in a Can; etc. Best prices anywhere. Box 33.
Will trade my badly misused wool socks for pretty much anything. Any offers welcome. Really. Reply to Box 44.
Why not subscribe to Badger Fancier's Monthly? Only $37.95 per year (9 issues). Write to BFM, Box 908, Fuzzy Thing, Wyoming 09876.
Take out an ad in PERSIFLAGE! Increase your market by 3 or 4 not very discerning individuals! Only $10! Maximum 40 words.



The Mystery
of the
Lost Lenore

Listen to Part Sixty-Three

Click on the picture. (2:37)

Or start from the beginning.



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The Magical Dude

David had no clear idea of how he came to have magical powers. He simply couldn't remember a time when he didn't have them. Even as a small child he had possessed these remarkable abilities. He assumed that he had been born with them. But David didn't really care how he had acquired them or even why. He just knew they were awesome.

No matter what he did, David never had to clean up after himself. For instance, if he made himself a sandwich, he could leave the peanut butter AND the jelly out on the counter WITH their lids off, he could leave the milk out of the fridge, the bread bag open without its little clip or its little tie and yet, when he came back into his kitchen, it was as if he had never been there. And that wasn't all.

Without ever having set foot in a grocery store or a supermarket, David managed to always have a fully stocked fridge and cupboards that were filled to bursting with all his favorite foods.

His garbage and his recycling miraculously disappeared each week.

The dirty clothes he left lying on his floor he later found cleaned and pressed in his dresser drawers. When David got up in the morning his bed was a rumpled mess but when he came back into the room after his shower it was neatly made up.

His small house was always spic and span without his ever lifting a finger to clean it.

David was pretty impressed with his magical powers. Often he would just stand and smile at himself in the bathroom mirror, revelling in his awesomeness.

But David wished he had at least one more power. He wished that he had super peripheral vision because every once in a while he would just catch a blurry glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye. He didn't know what it was but it looked a lot like a tiny, older woman scurrying down his hall.

E. Watermuldar

The Virtues of the City

I live in a city whose ostensible motto (that is the one that appears on the official crest) UNUM CUM VIRTUTE MULTORUM is usually translated as "One with the Strength of Many". But my old Latin teacher used to emphasise that VIRTUS meant "manly" virtue. I guess because its etymological root was the word VIR or "man" in Latin.

I was never sure what he meant by "manly" virtue. Perhaps the ability to take the lids off stubborn jars? To kill a bug with a shoe? To lift heavy things? Hard to say, but these are odd "virtues" to ascribe to a city.

Why would a city brag about its ability to open a jar of pickles? And whose pickles are we opening? Regina's? REGINA is, of course, the Latin word for queen so I guess we could open jars for them and they could maybe darn our socks.

Does anybody even darn socks anymore? I don't think so. I think once they get a hole in them they just get chucked or perhaps made into a snappy little iPhone or camera cover.

It's very silly to think of cities as having masculine or feminine qualities. Surely one can't make these kinds of assumptions about large groups of disparate individuals.

One must be scientific about these things. What exactly is the ratio of men to women in these cities? Only through a rigourous investigation of Canada's metropolitan demographics can we come to any definitive conclusions about which citites would be best for helping us move and which could provide the best cookie recipes.

In order to answer these difficult questions we herewith present a list of Canada's Five Butchest Cities in order. Number One would be the butchest and Number Five, while still pretty dang butch, would be considerably less butch than Number One. Five could be up for some pick-up football but it might be an idea to make it "Touch".

Here they are:

1) Red Deer

2) Cold Lake

3) Whitehorse

4) Calgary

5) Edmonton

Sorry Winnipeg, you didn't make the list.

Hugh Briss