BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say

Subject: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: GUEST,Gadaffi
Date: 19 Apr 06 - 09:31 AM

I have been asked to pose as a soothsayer/alchemist character at the forthcoming Guildford Summerpole day organised by the Pilgrim Morris Men. The vision I have is some kind of random Gandalf the Grey-type figure uttering mad vaguely-humorous oaths/words of wisdom upon demand between the gaps between the dancing. Ideas so far include The Weather Forecast monologue by Marty Feldman, Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll, Stop All the Clocks by W.H. Auden, Our Revels Now are Ended by Shakespeare, and lines from Is This the End of the World as we Know It by REM. Any more ideas?

The result, as said, needs to be brief, loud, humourous (punch line an advantage), not too embarassing, and suitable for an audience of mixed shoppers, bystanders and morris people, and made before I retire betweentimes to the Summer King's court to taste the King's beer lest it should be poisoned!

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: MMario
Date: 19 Apr 06 - 09:38 AM

Ladles and jellyspoons - I stand in front of you to stand in back of you and tell you something of which I know nothing about.

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Apr 06 - 09:42 AM

A bit of Edgar Allen Poe? The Raven?

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: DMcG
Date: 19 Apr 06 - 09:57 AM

Get hold of a copy of "The History of the Kings of Britain" by Geoffrey of Monmouth and quote some of Merlin's. Some of them are available online.

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: Paul Burke
Date: 19 Apr 06 - 10:14 AM

Stanley Unwin's your man. Or anything by Intelligent Design supporters.

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: jeffp
Date: 19 Apr 06 - 10:38 AM

Professor Irwin Corey might also be fun.

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Apr 06 - 10:58 AM

ONE SMALL SCORE FOR TWO BROWN EYES

(Quick, my love, fetch the torch,
there is no longer dark.)

"Evening is dawn;
And night unknown.
But here in the morn
The mists are grown;
And only the loon
Will laugh alone;
And only the lone
Are lorn."

    Porkypine 1955




from "The Pogo Peek-A-Book", Walt Kelly

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 19 Apr 06 - 01:38 PM

I was dressed as a soothsayer for Halloween once, and was going around with my kids making ramdom predictions, but I really upset a grown-up who was working on his car... I predicted in a doomsday voice, It Will Never Start Again! and he freaked out. So be careful...

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: fat B****rd
Date: 19 Apr 06 - 01:50 PM

I've always liked Elisha's prediction from Moby Dick. Er....land when there is no land etcetc.
I'll get me harpoon.

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: beardedbruce
Date: 19 Apr 06 - 05:29 PM

soothe, soothe...

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: Alice
Date: 19 Apr 06 - 06:41 PM

Anything from the Marx Brothers, W.C. Fields, Monty Python.

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Apr 06 - 06:45 PM

soothe, soothe? Are you a sooth soother?

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: Amos
Date: 19 Apr 06 - 07:44 PM

The sooth needs no soothing, nor truth smoothing, Bill. LOVE your Porkypine poem!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: Joybell
Date: 19 Apr 06 - 11:46 PM

The Two Ronnies had some good ones:

No matter how hot the day -- in the night it will be dark.

Many a true word is spoken through false teeth.

Also anything by "Kosma Prytkov", the creation of Alexei Tolstoi, found at a number of websites. Example: Which is more important, the sun or the moon? the moon, of course, because it shines at night, while the sun shines during the day, when it is light already.

Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: autolycus
Date: 20 Apr 06 - 06:15 AM

"Forsoote, suit, suit,suit,suit,suit and suit."

"What manner of idiot is this that keeps saying 'suit'?"

"Little does he know that I'm a suitsayer."

from The Goon Show, "Robin of Sherwood". I spelt it that way for the pronunciation.



   One of my favourite bits of soothsaying,"Read my lips,...." Rest of the quote so familiar. George Bush snr, in case.


   Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: GUEST,Gadaffi
Date: 20 Apr 06 - 08:06 AM

Greetings, Joybell!

This lead sounds promising. Have you any URLs for Kosma Prytkov and/or Alexei Tolstoi. The usual Google searches revealed nothing, even for a possible misspelling.

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: Mo the caller
Date: 20 Apr 06 - 08:52 AM

The snippets of wisdom in the Les Barker monologue that ( i think) start "Go quietly"
The bits that stick in the mind are
Do not walk in front, I may not follow, do not walk behind, I may not lead .... go over there somewhere
Never stand between a dog and a lamppost

(Sorry if I've got them wrong, or breached copyright)

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Apr 06 - 11:07 AM

It will either rain or go dark before morning.

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: Flash Company
Date: 20 Apr 06 - 11:15 AM

The Crazy Gang did a good one with Bud Flanagan in eastern costume with a peculiar sort of wand.

Bud; I'm a mystic.
Ches; What have you got in your hand?
Bud; Me stick!
Ches; No, what have you got in your other hand? (Bud's other hand was kept behind his back.)
Bud;(ignoring question) Would you like your palm read?
Ches; (holding out hand) Yes please!
Bud produces large paint brush full of red paint from behind his back and applies it to Ches's hand.

I remember Bernie Winters pulling that one on Michael Parkinson. The expression on Parkie's face was almost as outraged as when Rod Hull's Emu had a go at him.

FC

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: Kaleea
Date: 20 Apr 06 - 01:06 PM

Anybody remember the "incantation" used by the the Wizard of Id? Something about Frammin on the jim jam . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 20 Apr 06 - 01:46 PM

Frammin on the jimjam, frippen at the krotz, is what I recall...

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: frogprince
Date: 20 Apr 06 - 02:30 PM

You might consider throwing in a little biblical wisdom: I Chronicles 26:18, King James version:
    "At parbar westward, four at the causeway and two at parbar".

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: Joybell
Date: 20 Apr 06 - 11:07 PM

hello, Gaddafi: Joybell's truluv here. try the spelling Kozma Prutkov. meanwhile, here are a few of my favorites (c1853-54):
Nobody can embrace the unembraceable.
If you have a fountain, shut it up. Let even a fountain have rest.
The reason death is put at the end of life is so we can prepare for it more comfortably.
Watch out!
Even turpentine is useful for something.
Looking into the distance, you will see the distance. Looking to the sky, you will see the sky. Looking into a small mirror, you will see only your own face.
Where is the beginning of the end that comes at the end of the
beginning?
Even an oyster has enemies.
If upon the cage of an elephant you see a sign reading "buffalo", do not believe your eyes.
Don't walk on a slope -- you will wear your boots down on one side.
Who prevents you from inventing waterproof gunpowder?
If all the past were present, and the present existed along with the future, who would be able to distinguish where are the causes and where are the consequences?
Without colors, all people would be dressed in grey.
Death and the sun cannot stare at each other.
Wisdom is like turtle soup, in that not everybody can get it.
Man's head was put on the top of his body, so that he would not walk with his feet in the air.

Prutkov was the creation of Alexei Tolstoi and a couple of other poets. Books were published in his name, and he was given a bio, which fooled masses of middleclass russians for years. they thought him terribly wise, and would quote him to each other. a sort of early Kahlil Gibran. enjoy.

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: Bert
Date: 20 Apr 06 - 11:19 PM

Beware the Ides of March!

Which you could change to the next nearest Roman calendar holiday such as "Beware the Calends of June" or "Beware the Nones of October"

"Caveat Emptor"

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Apr 06 - 03:04 AM

You could have fun with some excerpts from Les Barker's "Deja Vu."

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Apr 06 - 06:11 AM

If a man wants to argue with you, walk a mile in his shoes. Then you'll be a mile away, and you'll have his shoes....

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 25 Apr 06 - 06:21 AM

A few Bushifms throw in.

"You misunderestimate me!"

"Is our children learning?"

"Make the pie higher!"

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: HuwG
Date: 25 Apr 06 - 11:01 AM

Senna, the Soothsayer (Jeanne Mockford): "Woe ! Woe, and thrice woe !"
Lurcio (Frankie Howerd): "Oh dear. She's let her horse get away again."

From Up Pompeii.

Well, art is art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water! And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like apple sauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now, uh... Now you tell me what you know.

Here I am talking to parties. I came here for a party. What happens? Nothing. Not even ice cream. The gods look down and laugh. This would be a better world for children if the parents had to eat the spinach.

A moose is an animal with horns on the front of his head and a hunting lodge wall on the back of it.

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.

- all from Groucho Marx.

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: Bill D
Date: 25 Apr 06 - 11:31 AM

It's crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide.

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: Kaleea
Date: 25 Apr 06 - 02:19 PM

When I was a kid coming up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, there was a hometown kid named Gailard Sartain whose character, the wizard known as Dr. Mazeppa Pompazoidi, was on TV each Saturday night doing live comedy bits as he hosted some "horror" flick. As I recall, his favorite phrase was "Lawzee!" Perhaps if there is anyone out there who was in Oklahoma at the turn of the 70's, they can recall his humorous statements.
Gailard later was an actor on Hee Haw, & movies, & portrayed the sherrif in some movie--was it Smokey & the Bandit?

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: autolycus
Date: 25 Apr 06 - 03:24 PM

v You will meet a tall, dark stranger."

Wonder the origin of that?


   Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: GUEST,Le Citron Vert
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 06:12 AM

Anything by Derek & Clive.

Subject: RE: BS: Things (mad) soothsayers say
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 10:33 AM

Members of a New York City Islamist society who protested outside the Israeli consulate in Manhattan on Friday chanted threats about a second Holocaust and warned that Israel will be attacked with nuclear weapons. Video of the rally can now be downloaded from the NEFA Foundation website (http://www.nefafoundation.org) look for link at right to "Islamist Pro Suicide Bombing Rally in NYC."



Renowned terrorism expert Steven Emerson reports on his "Counterterrorism Blog" that protesters from the Queens-based Islamic Thinkers Society chanted in Arabic:

"Zionists, Zionists You will pay!
The Wrath of Allah is on its way!
Israeli Zionists You shall pay!
The Wrath of Allah is on its way!
The mushroom cloud is on its way!
The real Holocaust is on its way!"


In case anyone missed he message, the demonstrators repeated the Holocaust threat, shouting: "Israel won't last long . . . Indeed, Allah will repeat the Holocaust right on the soil of Israel . . . Another mushroom cloud, right in the midst of Israel!"



The same protesters also had some choice words for U.S. counterterrorism agencies:
"We know many government services are watching us.
Such as the FBI, CIA, Mossad, Homeland Security . . .
We know we are getting on their nerves.
And so are you . . .
So we say the hell with you!
May the FBI burn in Hell.
CIA burn in Hell.
Mossad burn in Hell.
Homeland Security burn in hell!!"


Emerson called the protesters a "small but loud group of men" and said he intends to post videotape of the demonstration on his website.