I got caught in a sudden, umbrella-destroying downpour this afternoon. Water got in my eyes, and now they’re horribly bloodshot. What the hell is in the rain these days, Ebola? Pig AIDs? Dutch Elm Disease?
It was excruciatingly painful, but I have read the transcripts of Sarah Palin’s resignation speeches, trying to figure out what the hell she was talking about. I thought perhaps words on a page would make more sense than listening to her talk, but I was wrong. Her word salads are truly magnificent; they tantalize with a hint of possible continuity of thought that leads one to believe that there might be some actual meaning lurking beneath the surface, but in the end, she simply doesn’t make any sense.
However, I did figure out one thing; I have discovered a simple method by which an intelligent person hobbled by logic and grammar can easily write in Palinese.
First, write something normally. For this demonstration, I will borrow the first paragraph from a Wikipedia article, out of sheer laziness. (Don’t read too much into my choice of article – I can’t help having satire on my mind when I contemplate the antics of political figures.)
Satire is often strictly defined as a literary genre or form; although, in practice, it is also found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, or other methods, ideally with the intent to bring about improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be funny, the purpose of satire is not primarily humour in itself so much as an attack on something of which the author strongly disapproves, using the weapon of wit.
Use Babelfish to translate it from English to French. Translate the French version to German, then translate the German back to English. You will end up with a load of strangely punctuated and capitalized gibberish that bears little or no resemblance to the original beyond a vague concept. Add “you betcha!” and “also” and “!!!” to the ends of sentences, and it becomes a Palinese masterpiece. Observe:
The satire is defined often strictly as literary kind or forms; although in practice one likewise finds it in the arts of the diagram and the play, you betcha! In the satire, human or other errors, will censor, which retards weak abuses or the points, around assistance of ridiculous, mockery, more funnily, irony or other methods ideally with the Intention, around to cause, Improvement, also. Although the satire usually is, in order to be strange, the goal of the Satire; mainly mood is in it so much as attack on something, under it the Author disapproves strongly, the used weapon; Spirit!!!
Note: Running genuine Sarah Palin word salad through Babelfish in the opposite order will not produce coherent English text, also.
I love William Shatner, and I love William Shatner reading Sarah Palin’s second bewildering resignation speech like beat poetry even more.
I’m not sure whether to be elated or disturbed by this unexpected turn of events, but I bought a bra at a dollar store today and it fits.
Am I fortunate to be able to wear such a thing, or does this mean I have bargain-basement boobage?
I bought it partly for giggles, because I had never seen a brassiere for $1.09 before. I figured if I couldn’t wear it, I could wire it up to a flowerpot and cover it with concrete, to make an amusing garden planter. (I’m a fan of incongruous body parts as decorative design elements.)
But it fits. I’ll go back and get more, since I need an entire new wardrobe after losing weight. I have next to no money, so cheap bras that fit are like an unexpected gift from the normally unkind universe, but I’m almost disappointed about the flowerpot thing.
But hey, for $1.09 apeice, I suppose even I can afford an extra one to use for a weird craft project, right?
UPDATE:
The cheap bra popped a strap today, while I was wiggling around and acting very silly, but it heroically stayed put. Upon close examination, it turned out the straps are completely removable and pretty much superfluous, anyway. I think the strap came loose because the garment was not designed to withstand the contortions of a goddamn lunatic.
This is what you might have seen if you shone a flashlight in my ear this morning.
I completely forgot to renew my domain name. I knew it expired soon… I just didn’t realize it was TODAY until I went to write a post and discovered that my site was no longer accessible. So I had to scramble around, find ten dollars and renew it. By the time I did that, I forgot what the hell I originally intended to write about.
Oh, well, at least this gave me an actual use for this nifty photo I took of a fluffy dead flower.
I’ve just recently seen, in person, these dear dear people for the first time in FOR EVER, and I’ve been doing a damnable lot of little-girlish squealing the last few days. The MILF on the left is Nichole, and the handsome fellow in the middle is my brother Gabriel. (Technically, we’re more like shirt-tail cousins, but I’m not going to get into the tortuous morass of Southern relationships right now.) Obviously, I must be the escaped mental patient on the right. We used to call ourselves the Deadbeat Club, after the B-52s song.
I was good, I could talk
A mile a minute,
On this caffeine buzz I was on
We were really hummin’
We would talk every day for hours
We belong to the deadbeat club…
And so on. We shared an apartment long, long ago, and seemed to spend most of our spare time in loitering in cafes, lurching around in clubs, or running all over town on bizarre, hilarious expeditions orchestrated by Nichole’s brother Stephen, the ringleader/criminal mastermind of the household. He’s not in the above photo because (a) he took it, and (b) wasn’t really quite in the Deadbeat Club because despite consuming truly heroic amounts of coffee, he never spiked it with liquor first thing in the morning, and generally spent FAR too much of his time sober to qualify for full membership.
Be that as it may, the whole gang of four got together today, naturally in a coffee shop, and no doubt annoyed the other patrons with our (loud) incessant laughing, teasing each other mercilessly, and telling each other stories complete with appalling sound effects. We had a wonderful time; when we weren’t reminiscing (meaning: reminding each other of tomfoolery that one or more of us didn’t remember due to being extremely drunk at the time it occurred), we discussed current events and our own present lives, and it almost felt like we were picking up a conversation right where it left off twenty years ago.
I’m failing to come up with a closing paragraph that isn’t sappy, so I’ll leave you with what happens when somebody points a camera at Nichole before she assures herself that her hair and makeup is acceptable:
This post was brought to you by the burn unit at Shands Hospital.
I was wandering around in Springfield historic district in my city when I saw this lilac house with lavender trim, and it occurred to me that now that I live alone, I can paint MY house any damn color I want.
I don’t have to concern myself with the tastes or opinions of anybody else when choosing paint, furniture, dishes, or anything else.
Not that I can actually afford to redecorate the house right now; I’m scrambling to pay the light bill at the moment, but when I finally DO have some extra money, just wait and see what happens! I can paint the bathroom bubblegum pink and buy a purple living room sofa, and there’s not a damn thing anybody can do about it. So THERE.
Yes, yes, I know it’s dreadfully lazy of me to post a photo instead of writing an actual article, but at least it’s not a YouTube video, like far too many of my so-called recent posts. I figure as long as I’m walking around compulsively taking pictures of anything that catches my eye (and stays put long enough for me to get my camera out of my purse), I might as well use the photos for something. I believe this is called “original content”.
Anyway, this is a dwarf lily blooming in the garden in front of a little beauty shop around the corner from my house. I was walking past on my way to buy my accursed cigarettes, and paused to take a picture, because I thought it was pretty. How’s that for an exciting story?
These people are KILLING me. This stuff is so funny on its own there’s no point in even joking about it.
I love the little caption on the screen that says “Teabag Mouthpieces”.