PERSIFLAGE

November 20th, 2008

Is it ever possible for a professional writer to be liked by people? I have no idea. Maybe somewhere in the world it is. It's hard to generalize.

Haruki Murakami

PERSIFLAGE is updated on Thursdays.

Classifieds

For sale: a set of keys made entirely out of plastic. They are red green and blue. I am assuming they are valuable as I have never seen such a thing before. Box 13. Make me an offer!
Free videos of my cat Mr. Tinkles peeing on the Saturday funnies are now available on my website mycatpeeing.com. Check it out he scores a perfect hit on Beetle Bailey! Also my copy of Procopius's Secret History is for sale. $6. Box 35.
Don't forget this weekend marks Annual Buy a Genius a Lunch Day. Buy your local genius a lunch and contribute to the intellectual health of your community! They like Club sandwiches!

Tips For Winter Living

Number Two:
It's easier to get sick in the winter time. Make sure you take advantage of every available opportunity.

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Comments? Questions? Vitriol? Flattery? persiflagemag@hotmail.com

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It's All about Us:

PERSIFLAGE is run by a co-operative that comes to joint informed decisions through debate and spirited discussions at weekly editorial meetings. Not! In actual fact PERSIFLAGE, the website, is run exactly like PERSIFLAGE, the magazine, which is to say it is the personal fiefdom of Hugh Briss. Briss, a genius, who runs roughshod (and how else should he?) over a staff of writers and hangers-on who, left to their own devices, would be engaged in some sort of email scam or writing reviews of high school productions of "The Wind in the Willows: The Musical", for one of the more poorly written community newspapers.
This gang of misfits includes:

Sally Kind Ms. Kind is the sort of woman who writes for online magazines. She enjoys speaking in a loud voice when angered and has been known to badmouth Opra Winfrey.

Elrose Watermuldar Watermuldar is second-in-command at PERSIFLAGE. He is one of Briss's oldest friends but even he doesn't like him much. Barred from travel in the US due to his ?alleged? attempt to harm Bil Keane.

C.F.Maynard a serious literary presence in our office. Author of the justifiably little known book of poems - ?Gooseflesh on the Goose?.

Frank Speeking a recent graduate of the university Frank hopes to someday do better. Don't hold your breath.

Leonard Derwerthy nobody knows more about how to put the fun back into grammer than Leonard Derwerthy. If he ever chooses to act on that knowledge we'll let you know.

Parker Fysche what can one say about Parker Fysche that hasn't already been anonymously posted on somebody's blog?

Three Poems
of Sally Kind

A Watchful Eye

   You called
   again
   and I watched
   the phone ring.
   I have
   call display
   you see.

The Warning

   Outside your work
   the sidewalk's
   frozen
   and the concrete
   hard
   underneath
   that slippery ice,
   remember.

Memories

   I thought
   of you
   today
   as I washed
   my sheets,
   and that time
   you worked
   in a laundry.

Derrick Tries to Get Laid

by C.F.Maynard

Once upon a time there was a floor tile named Derrick and he wanted to get laid badly. That is to say, he wanted badly to get laid.

Everyday, stuck in the box high up on the shelf of an undisclosed home renovation products store whose name begins with an "H", he pondered his problem. To make matters worse he was sandwiched between two very attractive floor tiles who ignored him. It was very frustrating.

One day he worked up the nerve to sidle his way out of the pile, work his way to the top of the box and then jump off onto the shelf. There he sat for a day and a half alone and isolated. Separated from the other tiles, he hoped that he would be noticed and that someone, anyone, would want to lay him. But no one did.

Then, Saturday morning a small man with dirty pants came in to the store. He sauntered around for a bit and picked up an exacto knife. Then he saw Derrick sitting alone on the shelf. The man took him down and looking quickly to his left and to his right he slid Derrick into the front of his pants. Then he casually sauntered out of the store.

Derrick was very excited. As he rode along in the front of the man's pants he was thinking that soon he would be laid. When the small man got back to his room he took out Derrick and threw him roughly to the floor.

The man went to the cupboard and got out some sheets of a pasteboard like material. He threw that down on top of Derrick. Then he knelt down beside him and pulled out the exacto knife which he had also hidden in his pants. The small man then began to drag the knife back and forth over the pasteboard driving it deeply into Derrick's smooth and unmarked surface.

The small man made odd and alarming shapes out of the pasteboard. He made many of them. He hung these all about the room. Derrick thought they were very ugly and he hated them. He couldn't understand why he hadn't gotten laid. He couldn't understand why he lay on the floor all day having a knife dragged over him and he really couldn't understand what the small man with the dirty pants was doing.

But you see the small man with the dirty pants was an artist. And not a very good one.

The End