PERSIFLAGE

November 29, 2007

How fortunate I am not to be able to see in myself anything worth respecting and watching! To be small and to stay small.

Jacob von Gunten

PERSIFLAGE is updated on Thursdays.

Classifieds

I am a tall man with a very tall hat and I would like to go to parties and have people ask me "How's the weather up there?" If you are having a party why not ask me? Reasonable rates. Box 22.
For Sale: one set of novelty dishes featuring annoying TV neighbours. 8 Complete settings: Steve Urkel, Gladys Kravitz, Cosmo Kramer, Ed Norton, Larry Dallas, Harry Bentley, Vivian Harmon and Howard Borden. $1000 OBO. Box 345.
Wanted: a television script featuring me as some kind of professional guy who wears a suit and drives a nice car and dates supermodels of actresses or something. Should also have a role for my ferret where he is my hilarious sidekick. But not too hilarious. He shouldn't have all the good lines. Box 229.

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Sally Kind Presents:

The New Adventures of Hide A Bed Girl

As you no doubt remember Sandy Wolnicki, a grad student in Organic Chemistry, was badly irradiated during a sleep experiment and part of her DNA became fused with that of a fold out bed thereby granting her many of the properties of a hide-a-bed. She immediately decided to use her new powers to fight crime.

This Week: Hide A Bed Girl breaks up a ring of Burglars

The burglars that struck the home of Edwin and Ethel Murtah at 1609 Watercress Lane were swift and professional. They were experienced and worked well together. Their little outfits matched and so did their masks. And they almost made off with Edwin and Ethel's valuable stock of crayfish. They probably would have except that something made them stop and wash them all individually and this took a lot of time. Time enough for Hide A Bed Girl to enter the house and lodge herself in the stairwell. There she stayed, half open, effectively blocking the burglars' escape route and ensuring that they would still be in the house when the police arrived. Then quietly and without fuss she folded herself back up and slipped out into the night to provide someone with a not very restful sleep.

Next Time: Hide A Bed Girl Clashes With the New Furniture

Briefly Noted

I Ain't Frayed: An Illustrated History of Aglets in American Life (1963-1988) John C. Holynsky

This volume is a follow up to Holynsky's previous work, Straight Into the Hole: The Aglet, Conformity in America, which covered the first half of the 20th Century up to the Kennedy assassination. I Ain't Frayed covers not only Haight-Ashbury and the Summer of Love, but Vietnam and the loafer craze of the 70s. Unfortunately the full colour illustrations, although beautiful, have none of the wit or charm of the black and white renderings in the earlier work. Holynsky does manage to show how the evolution of the aglet undermined American Society. The chapter on the Iran-Contra affair should be required reading for anyone interested in footwear.

Are You Self-Sufficient?

Most people, or a lot of people, or, at any rate, some people like to think of themselves as self-sufficient. They like to think that although they may get help from others from time to time, they don't really need it.
Many of us like to think that we are capable of providing for ourselves without all the fancy trappings of Western Civilisation like Saran Wrap, coin rollers and Dust Busters. But how many of us, abandoned on a deserted island with only a basketball to sustain us, could survive for longer than a few days (or possibly hours)?

The following quiz may give you an idea of well you would fare.

Pick one of the following:
1. When I have to move my bowels I...
a) announce it to all present.
b) return to my apartment no matter where I am.
c) go in my pants.
d) force myself not to in order to build character.

2. Tuna cans can be opened by...
a) a tuna.
b) a hammer, a nail and a supply of band-aids.
c) my mum.
d) 50 grams of a good plastic explosive.

3. A fire can be started by
a) shoving a fork into a toaster.
b) piling oily rags in a poorly ventilated garage for a number of months.
c) rubbing a match against a matchbook.
d) pulling a fire alarm.

4. Cocoanuts can be used to make...
a) bras.
b) Cocoa Puffs.
c) radio recievers.
d) very little.

5. Moss grows on the ______ side of the tree.
a) other
b) North
c) wet
d) fuzzy