PERSIFLAGE

March 26th, 2009

Fee Fi Fo Fum

Thunderdell

Fiddle dee dee

Scarlet O'Hara

Hi-diddle-dee-dee

Pinocchio

Hot diggity dog ziggity

Perry Como

Classifieds

Now Available: large sized bags filled with water. Fantastic for water balloon fights if you are very, very careful. Inquire about prices. Box 19.
For sale: two perfectly matched M's. Very small. Ideal for stamping on candy. Individually $4. As a set $235. Box 9.
I will be travelling back in time to last month's Dollar Days sale at IGA if anyone would like cheap croissants or Milk To Go milk-based drinks, or a bag of that pre-cut salad lettuce or juice boxes, let me know before Saturday as after that it will be too late. Box 1999.
Are you a woman between the ages of 30 and 40? Do you have an interest in salves and ointments? Are you remarkably tolerant of irritating noises? If so you could earn easy money testing greased pigs for Greased Pig Catching competitions in the American Mid-West this summer. For a full colour brochure write to:
The National Center for Greased Pig Sporting Events,
Box 1776 Marshalltown, IA.

Tip For Spring Living #1:

Spring is the time for romance. Practice leering provocatively in the mirror for ten minutes each morning.

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If you wrote to us we would write back.

RIMBAUD versus GAUGUIN

Which Method is Better?

As you no doubt remember, Arthur Rimbaud, the French poet, gave up writing poetry and all incumbent artistic pretention at the tender age of twenty and went on to become a moderately successful businessman.

Paul Gauguin, on the other hand, was a reasonably successful business man who, at the age of thirty-seven, gave up his financial career (along with his wife and children) in order to become an artist.

The question is, which one of these is the better plan? Is it better to spend one's youth as an artist and then wise up and get a real job? Or is it better to be a stolid citizen for as long as you can stand it and then throw it all up to pursue your passion?

Both schemes have their merits. By starting early, like Rimbaud did, you can do your bohemian carousing whilst your energy levels are still relatively high and your body is still fairly resilient.

Rimbaud was a drunken, long-haired, bohemian, communist into sexual experimentation whilst still in his teens, when this sort of thing is more or less acceptable not to mention, manageable. And remember, he was shot by his lover (the much older Verlaine) when he was just 18. Imagine how much harder it would have been to bounce back from that at say 40? I have trouble recovering when I have coffee after ten o'clock at night.

Gauguin, on the other hand, was a more seasoned mature man when he became a full time artist and, because of his experience working in a bank and as a stockbroker, and because of the years spent in what appears to have been a fairly loveless marriage, he was better able to appreciate the perks of the freewheeling artist's life. He really took to living the large life enjoying the myriad pleasures of a life lived fully in the distant South Seas. Mind you, he did die of syphilis.

The question I guess you must ask yourself is this: Am I the kind of person who wants to get work out of the way first or the kind of person who wants to screw around in the hopes that I don't end up having to do any work?

Well, which is it?

Elrose Watermuldar

Public Service Announcement

Don't forget: March 30th is National Spiral Bound Notebook Day. Make sure you write or draw something in a spiral bound notebook!

Melanie the Sparrow

Melanie was a sparrow. She lived alone in a clogged drainspout behind an older strip mall in a suburb of a medium sized city in Western Canada.

The young sparrow had decided some years ago that she wasn't interested in having chicks. For one thing there was her photography. Melanie thought she wouldn't be able to devote herself to it if she had a bunch of little mouths she had to throw up in.

Recently Melanie had won a prize from the local newspaper for her photo of a woman purchasing a child's car seat.

This had not been an easy picture to get. Melanie had been repeatedly shooed out of Walmart by a greeter armed with a broom. Eventually though her persistence had paid off.

With the hundred dollars she had won, Melanie bought a seed bell and an enlarger as not only did she like to develop her own photos but she also liked a nice snack while she was doing it.

One day Melanie was working in her dark room in the very back of her nest when she heard her doorbell. Somewhat irritated at the interruption, she stopped what she was doing and, still wearing her apron, went to the door.

There was a handsome young male sparrow that Melanie had never seen before. She immediately caught herself wondering if her feathers were all in place.

The male sparrow, who was quite tall (for a sparrow) and well- groomed, smiled and looked down at her apron.

"Oh, I've caught you baking I see!" he laughed.

Melanie closed the door and went back to the darkroom, hoping that her picture of two men taking a dust bath wasn't ruined.

Sally Kind

Can't Read? Press the big ear to hear an audio version of the above story.