BS: The Mother of all BS threads

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 May 04 - 08:48 AM

at any moment...

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 May 04 - 08:47 AM

because...

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 May 04 - 08:45 AM

Hold your breath...

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 May 04 - 08:43 AM

Gee, RR, I don't remember you on any of my Boy Scout campouts. How did you know? Only it wasn't Brad Pitt. At my age and time it was more likely to be Annette Funicello.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 20 May 04 - 02:24 AM

Oh, RR, I yam all undone. Nicely turned!! :>))

A

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 May 04 - 12:35 AM

Snort! Gottcha!

Touché!

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 20 May 04 - 12:18 AM

Ya know, there is a certain mystique to the tender, dedicated, visionary, newly-formed, uniformed Boy Scout bravely going forth into the mystic passages of manhood to face the trials of mankind and so on, all the while neatly turned out in green felt, neatly trimmed, creased, the tie done just so, swept up in the horrors of Bacchanalia and reeling into unconsciousness and alcoholic stupor in the gutter, his face a disfiguring plastered array of bits of Brad Pit and Cocoanut Twirls, and his blood on fire with Bacardi... what a confluence, a collision of worlds, a titanic battle!! What could such a boy scout possibly be dreaming??

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 19 May 04 - 11:13 PM

Ya know, there is a certain mystique to the tender, dedicated, visionary, newly-formed, uniformed Girl Scout bravely going forth into the mystic passages of womanhood to face the trials of womankind and so on, all the while neatly turned out in green felt, neatly trimmed, creased, the tie done just so, swept up in the horrors of Bacchanalia and reeling into unconsciousness and alcoholic stupor in the gutter, her face a disfiguring plastered array of bits of Lorna Doones and Cocoanut Twirls, and her blood on fire with Bacardi... what a confluence, a collision of worlds, a titanic battle!! What could such a girl scout possibly be dreaming??

A

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 19 May 04 - 10:54 PM

I refuse to have anything to do with either soap operas, Girl Scouts, or clothed female accordionists. In fact, the worst thing I can imagine is a soap opera featuring an accordionist wearing a Girl Scout uniform.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 May 04 - 10:38 PM

I thought it was a drunken Girl Scout. "We never eat cookies because they have yeast/And one little bite turns a man to a beast/Can you imagine a sadder disgrace/Than a man in the gutter with crumbs on his face?" (As the song so rightly says.)

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 May 04 - 10:27 PM

Q: What is green, covered with crumbs, and lying in the gutter?


A: A dead Girl Scout.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 May 04 - 10:20 PM

Dear God forgive me, for I have stumbled into sense.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 19 May 04 - 07:39 PM

Rapaire:

After bales and bales of BS, finally a small kernel of sense. Thanks!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 May 04 - 07:24 PM

Well, yes, I am. I've said that all along. And since I created all of you, you am too.

Girl Scouts go feral when they are abandoned. When I was a Boy Scout I met some abandoned Girl Scouts. Suffice to say that it's a very personal matter and I'm not one to kiss (and more!) and tell.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 19 May 04 - 01:17 PM

What drives a Girl Scout to go feral, anyway? This is the question that is really underneath an awful lot of Michael Moore's work in the last few years, and I think it deserves and answer.

A

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: beardedbruce
Date: 19 May 04 - 12:29 PM

MMArio: so, more about these feral GirlScouts..... packs plural?

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 May 04 - 12:07 PM

darn. ascii didn't work right. Let's see what Word can do:

être

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 May 04 - 12:05 PM

ˆtre

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 19 May 04 - 11:44 AM

Rapaire - your sentence basically boils down to "I am"

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 May 04 - 11:28 AM

I generally borrow plumes (poems) because I figure there's enough bad poetry in the world already, why generate more? I recycle!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Tweed
Date: 18 May 04 - 10:58 PM

Well, I am captivated by the mental image obv CarolC playing the accordian wif her clothes on. Not by her puking in a tuke at all though, but somefing about a full dressed gal and a accordiyam....yazyazyaz...

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: GUEST,soap addict
Date: 18 May 04 - 05:43 PM

I think the poetry's sunk. However, I'm still captivated by CarolC's soap suggestion.

Just think - freds, Bubba Bubba, Bee-dubya-ell, labradors, brucie, Little Hawk's goat and Ms. Penelope Rutledge.

What a combination!

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 18 May 04 - 09:01 AM

Perhaps the internal insaneness of my own Being (and since I am using the term "Being" to mean the innermost, deepest "me" it is, in mathematical terms, irreducible and absolute I should correctly say "my own absolute Being" or, to be concise, my "MOAB") is, after so many years and so many experiences (both actual and virtual -- and in that I include literary) so intertwined, so fused, or, as my grandmother used to say about constipation caused by eating too much cheese, so "bound up," that any attempt to disengage one thread (such as poesy from sources outside the Self) from the others (experiences, readings and other sources external to the Self) would effectively destroy the MOAB, although certainly not MOAB.

Okay, sucker, diagram that!

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 18 May 04 - 12:00 AM

Poetry from another source
proves to me me have lost our poetic streaming.
Stop this insane receiting and create from yourself
the insaneness of your own being.


Or not.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: 42
Date: 17 May 04 - 11:53 PM

when I was a kid a bunch of the girls on the street had a backyard theatre group - no grown ups allowed (except to make cookies and lemonade for the performances) and we did a play called Dogs and Daffodils in which the "Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" poem featured prominently.

I really hate that poem.

loved the cookies and lemonade and the applause

j

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 May 04 - 11:05 PM

What timing to be poking around old old email and come across this bit of silliness:

Dances With Daffodils
A fanciful form of wordplay known as "N plus 7" can be surprisingly effective at exposing literary pretense

by Phyllis Rose

W ordsworth's best-known and arguably most ridiculous poem is "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud," the one about the daffodils. When daffodils are blooming, it is impossible not to think of this poem—although, at the same time, it is impossible to think of it. The language, with a few exceptions, is forgettable. Students from countries with no daffodils and a history of British rule have come to resent the daffodil poem as an artifact of cultural imperialism. Imagine never having seen daffodils and having to sit in school and mimic enthusiasm about their "fluttering and dancing in the breeze."

My favorite recent commentary on this poem is a version of it presented by the writer Harry Mathews at a lecture on the Oulipo in 1999, in Key West, Florida. The Oulipo, or OuLiPo, which stands for Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle (Workshop of Potential Literature), is a French-based group interested in formally generated literature and relatively uninterested in literature that purports to describe the "real" world or that even pretends to be the product of sincere feeling. Oulipians set themselves rules—writing a novel without once using the letter e, for example—and pride themselves on the depth and interest produced despite (an Oulipian would probably say produced because of) the restrictions.

Harry Mathews performed an Oulipian exercise called "N plus 7" on the Wordsworth poem. "N" stands for "noun." To use the method on prose, one locates in the dictionary a noun found in the subject text, counts to the seventh noun from it, and substitutes that for the original. With poetry, especially classical poetry, one may choose to respect the meter and rhyme of the poem being transformed, in which case one would examine every noun (excluding proper nouns) after the seventh one until finding a match. The alphabetical gap between the original and the substitution, therefore, can be quite large. Mathews, who respected Wordsworth's meter and rhyme in his N-plus-7 version of "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud," had to traverse many dictionary entries before finding a noun that rhymed with "daffodil" and was, like "daffodil," a dactyl—three syllables with the accent on the first syllable. The word he came upon was "imbecile."

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden imbeciles;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the imbeciles.

Some people in the audience, including me, found this so funny that we bent over with laughter even as Mathews, a tall, handsome man with a very grand stage presence, proceeded straight-faced and stately through the poem.


Follow the link for the rest.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 May 04 - 01:12 PM

I simply KNEW you'd like it! So here's another:

    To the Moon
   
    "O, thou."
    --CLAUD HALCRO.

    BLESS thy bright face! though often blessed before
    By raving maniac and by pensive fool;
    One would say something more-- but who as yet,
    When looking at thee in the deep blue sky,
    Could tell the poorest thought that struck his heart?
    Yet all have tried, and all have tried in vain.
    At thee, poor planet, is the first attempt
    That the young rhymster ventures. And the sigh
    The boyish lover heaves, is at the Moon.
    Bards, who -- ere Milton sung or Shakspeare played
    The dirge of sorrow, or the song of love,
    Bards, who had higher soared than Fesole,
    Knew better of the Moon. 'T was there they found
    Vain thoughts, lost hopes, and fancy's happy dreams,
    And all sweet sounds, such as have fled afar
    From waking discords, and from daylight jars.
    There Ariosto puts the widow's weeds
    When she, new wedded, smiles abroad again,
    And there the sad maid's innocence -- 't is there

    That broken vows and empty promises,
    All good intentions, with no answering deed
    To anchor them on the substantial earth,
    Are shrewdly packed. -- And could he think that thou,
    So bright, so pure of aspect, so serene,
    Art the mere storehouse of our faults and crimes?
    I'd rather think as puling rhymsters think,
    O; love-sick maidens fancy -- Yea, prefer
    The dairy notion that thou art but cheese,
    Green cheese --than thus misdoubt thy honest face.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 May 04 - 12:25 PM

Very nice.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 May 04 - 12:16 PM

This is for Little Hawk, who appreciates Great Poetry. Others,of course, may read it as well.

                   The Two Comets
                            by
                John Gardiner Calkins Brainard

      THERE once dwelt in Olympus some notable oddities,
      For their wild singularities call'd Gods and Goddesses.--
      But one in particular beat'em all hollow,
      Whose name, style, and title was Phoebus Apollo.
          Now Phoeb. was a genius--his hand he could turn
      To anything, everything genius can learn:
      Bright, sensible, graceful, cute, spirited, handy,
      Well bred, well behaved--a celestial Dandy!
      An eloquent god, though he didn't say much;
      But he drew a long bow, spoke Greek, Latin and Dutch;
      A doctor, a poet, a soarer, a diver,
      And of horses in harness an excellent driver.
          He would tackle his steeds to the wheels of the sun,
      And he drove up the east every morning, but one;
      When young Phaeton begg'd of his daddy at five,
      To stay with Aurora a day, and he'd drive.
      So good natured Phoebus gave Phaey the seat,
      With his mittens, change, waybill, and stage horn complete;
      To the breeze of the morning he shook his bright locks,
      Blew the lamps of the night out, and mounted the box.
      The crack of his whip, like the breaking of day,
      Warm'd the wax in the ears of the leaders, and they
      With a snort, like the fog of the morning, clear'd out
      For the west, as young Phaey meant to get there about
      Two hours before sunset. He look'd at his "turnip,"
      And to make the delay of the old line concern up,
      He gave'em the reins; and from Aries to Cancer,
      The style of his drive on the road seem'd to answer;
      But at Leo, the ears of the near wheel-horse prick'd.
      And at Virgo the heels of the off leader kick'd;
      Over Libra the whiffle-tree broke in the middle,
      And the traces snapp'd short, like the strings of a fiddle.
      One wheel stuck near Scorpio, who gave it a roll,
      And sent it to buzz, like a top, round the pole;
      While the other whizz'd back with its linchpin and hub,
      Or, more learnedly speaking, its nucleus or nub;
      And, whether in earnest, or whether in fun,
      He carried away a few locks of the sun.
          The state of poor Phaeton's coach was a blue one,
      And Jupiter order'd Apollo a new one;
      But our driver felt rather too proud to say "Whoa,"
      Letting horses, and harness, and everything go
      At their terrified pleasure abroad; and the muse
      Says, they cut to this day just what capers they choose;
      That the eyes of the chargers as meteors shine forth;
      That their manes stream along in the lights of the north;
      That the wheels which are missing are comets, that run
      As fast as they did when they carried the sun;
      And still pushing forward, though never arriving,
      Think the west is before them, and Phaeton driving.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: GUEST,The Spirit of MOAB future
Date: 17 May 04 - 11:49 AM

sorry. I have a life of my own. You can't stop me.

MWAH-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 May 04 - 10:40 AM

All right, that's enough. I want you to all just shut up and go home. This thread does not exist. It is an ex-thread. It is defunct, finished, kaput. Leave the building now.














What, you're still here?



GO HOME!!!

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 17 May 04 - 09:43 AM

after my weekend experience with packs of feral Girl Scouts - running afoul of Bubba-bubba sounds like a walk in the park! (And I don't mean Central!)

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 May 04 - 09:08 AM

It's okay, Mom. None of the others cared, did they? But I'm here to help you back up from your fall. Take my arm now....

Yes, yes, I know. Fie on all of them. You sit here and I'll make you a nice cuppa tea. Yes, I know where the whisky is. You just catch your breath.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 16 May 04 - 01:17 AM

I am speechless.
Although I have thought of many things that didn't mean a thing before, I can't seem to come up with a worthless thought right now.
Therefore I think I am thinking anything that either has something to do with a thought that could make sense or something to do with thought that doesn't even exist or else something with thought that should never had even been thunk before.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: 42
Date: 15 May 04 - 10:35 PM

twisted? Little Hawk?

j

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: CarolC
Date: 15 May 04 - 08:20 PM

Where's your magic crayon, beardedbruce? I don't see any invisible writing in your post.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: beardedbruce
Date: 15 May 04 - 06:42 PM

...

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: CarolC
Date: 15 May 04 - 06:12 PM

...or maybe I'm just twisted.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 May 04 - 05:09 PM

Damning with faint praise, eh, Carol? :-)

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: CarolC
Date: 15 May 04 - 05:03 PM

I donno, LH. If I were to ever consider watching a soap opera (which I'm sure I never would, but if I did... ), I think I would want freds and Bubba Bubba (and maybe Bee-dubya-ell) to be the main characters in it.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 May 04 - 01:16 PM

Fire ants are unpleasant little monsters. I met many of them in Trinidad.

There is something else I must say: Bubba Bubba and Freds must be in a life and death competition to secure the title of "most boring Internet character of all time". I long for the day when they both cease to occupy bandwidth on this forum.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: CarolC
Date: 15 May 04 - 10:41 AM

Huntsville Alabama.

The imported fire ants live in mounds. I'm not sure if the native species do or not. At any rate, an exploratory party of one of the native species of fire ants discovered that they like whatever sort of fat is in the (all natural, Bert's Bees) hand salve that I use and they were hanging around in my keyboard (here in my little office/shed). Then some of them discovered the fat in the coffee creamer I use (in my coffee) and they started hanging around in my coffee cup. I thought I had brushed all of them off before taking a sip, but apparently I missed one. I must have gotten it in my mouth when I took a sip, and it stung me on the tongue.

Domestic fire ants are much less aggressive than imported fire ants, and their stings aren't anywhere near as painful, from what I've read. I've wiped my computer desk and keyboard down with some natural insect repellant. It seems to be doing a good job. I can't see any ants right now.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: GUEST,freds
Date: 15 May 04 - 09:10 AM

We have learned that the entity known to you as "Bubba Bubba" was not destroyed, but still exists and is moving about. This has been confirmed by ither's xanphthic-phase slime trail as well as by damage reports.

Please let us know if you see himit. Except for that species known to you as "Labrador Retrievers," approach during this phase could be dangerous and/or fatal to the approacher. We do not suggest you do anything rash or hurtful to yourself. Resistance would be futile; himher will be very, very, very hungry and you do not yet have the mathematics necessary to exclamate the entity. Should you fall victim, we will not return you remains to your next of kin, because there will be none to return.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 May 04 - 12:42 AM

Huntsville, Texas? Where the prison is?

Fire ants, in my experience, live on the ground in mounds of dirt. They usually bite on the extremities (feet and hands) because people step on the mounds or reach too close when gardening. My imagination is agog at the possibilities when considering how you got a fire ant bite on your tongue.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: GUEST,lurker
Date: 14 May 04 - 05:27 PM

I feel I may embrace a change of direction in my career.

I will design pop-ups

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: CarolC
Date: 14 May 04 - 05:00 PM

I came home for the weekend. Last weekend I was in Huntsville where I played my accordion with my clothes on. Yesterday I got stung on the tongue by a fire ant. Not the imported kind, the domestic kind. I had to take an antihistamine because my throat started to swell up.

That's a good rhyme, stung on my tongue.

Here's another good one- puke in my toque.

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 May 04 - 12:28 PM

I'll also be in town, so if the painterly arts don't interest you, my "to do" list includes finishing cutting and placing tiles on the floor (several types across several rooms) and tiling the surround in the back bathroom. There is also some wood joinery awaiting attention.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: freda underhill
Date: 14 May 04 - 09:03 AM

Sona si latine loqueris -













Honk if you speak Latin

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 May 04 - 08:49 AM

I'll be in town this weekend. If you come by while I'm here, I need lots of help cutting the grass, painting, sponging on, and stuff like that. Feel free to eat whatever I serve you, and that goes for drinks as well. And don't take it amiss if I cuss, because I do that if, for example, I drop a paintbrush on my foot or in some dead leaves.

If you come by when I'm not here, remember that you have twenty seconds to enter the correct 19-digit code into the security system before the house is filled with VX gas. (I used to use flechette rounds, but it damaged the furniture.)

Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
From: Amos
Date: 14 May 04 - 07:31 AM

There was a sage in days of yore
And he a handsome pigtail wore
But wonderd much, and worried more
Because it hung behind him.

Thus with the Fount of Truth. You don't find it 'cuz You're It, Buster!

A