Spinnng out of last week’s contest, we’re echoing writer Daniel Ausema and calling on you all to help SF move beyond its knee-jerk tendency to describe literary trends by merely adding the word “punk” as a suffix to them! That is, enough with the steampunk and the mythpunk and the whateverpunk — we want you to either suggest or actually show off new or latent subgenres of the fantastic that claim kinship with other musical traditions. As Daniel put it: “Where’s my Iron Age reggae? How about ray-gun prog-rock? Bronze Age bluegrass? Agrarian techno? I want a fantasy with the intricate acapella harmonies of Ladysmith Black Mambazo.”
So tell us what you got! At the end of the day, we’ll choose a winner and PayPal them $10. Have a refreshing weekend beer on us — preferably at a venue where there’s live music playing! (Minors, keep your melodies in a minor key and get a birch beer.)
1 • Stephen H. Segal said:
February 22nd, 2008 at 12:16 pm, permalink
I propose the new dark-weird poetry subgenre of etherchant. Think Clark Ashton Smith meets Rasputina while downloading digital ghosts from iTunes.
2 • Andrew said:
February 22nd, 2008 at 1:05 pm, permalink
I write traditional fantasy, and I’d say it is similar to classical music.
3 • Steve Nagy said:
February 22nd, 2008 at 1:05 pm, permalink
I think the wealth of choices nowadays supports the idea that we’re well into a new pulp era. Readers can find anything they want. Romance, adventure, classic sf, gothic–even Cyberpunk and Steampunk. You name it and there’s a publisher somewhere putting out quality fiction in that category.
Since we’ve already used Golden Age to describe the first go-round, how about Quantum Pulp as a description?
4 • Michael Gordon said:
February 22nd, 2008 at 1:28 pm, permalink
I love to use music as writing inspiration, though I usually don’t think of either in terms of genres. I write almost exclusively in contemporary/urban fantasy, but my stories range in tone and subject from supernatural medical mystery to faerie family drama to mythic romance. I’m not sure what music would fit with any of those.
What I like to do is apply a specific song to a character, couple or scene.
For example, I think the Korn song “Make Me Bad” is perfect for someone’s transformation into a werewolf/monster.
5 • Dennis T. said:
February 22nd, 2008 at 2:10 pm, permalink
I was listening to Dick Dale’s “My Secret Surfin’ Spot” on satellite radio earlier. How about Slipstream Surf Guitar?
6 • Michael Gordon said:
February 22nd, 2008 at 2:22 pm, permalink
Anyone considered cybercrunk? Everything is written in caps and repeated continuously, interspersed with random beeps and blips.
7 • Stacy said:
February 22nd, 2008 at 2:31 pm, permalink
How about Post-Grunge Pedestrian?
Stories filled with faux-angst, set in worlds where everything and everyone sounds exactly the same. Maybe something like…
McKenna ran his fingers through his half-dead hair, feeling the oil slick on his shaky palms. He dug his steel toes into the sand and stared out over the cliff, watching below as the second generation automatons lined up at the flannel fabrication facility, waiting for their chance to be assimilated. He could almost see the drool; little droplets foaming at the corners of their chapped lips. They were begging to be like the others – the alternative.
Hm. Or maybe not.
8 • charles thiesen said:
February 22nd, 2008 at 3:07 pm, permalink
I stubbed my toe, the pinky on the middle foot. Hurt like hell, but it’ll feel okay soon.
It better, I’m going dancing tonight. The Third Avenue Hammered Dulcimer Band is playing for a contra dance at the Old Spacefarers Hall. I promised my honeys dinner and dancing, a little anniversary celebration (500 temporal units! Can you believe it?) You know I don’t dare use a stubbed toe to get out of that.
As soon as my skin is dry and my feathers combed and oiled, I’ll be ready to go. I wish they’d stop hovering, at least not that far off the floor. We’re not late. We don’t have to be there until 25:70 and traffic is always light this time of the month.
But the damned toe is aching even worse now. AND my right nose itches like crazy, I think I’m going to gratz! AND my middle finger–my MIDDLE middle finger is developing scales.
One good thing: they say dinner at Chez Glurg costs an arm and a leg. I won’t have any trouble deciding which arm or leg to spend. God those scales are gnarly.
9 • Texhot said:
February 22nd, 2008 at 3:19 pm, permalink
I didn’t know what she had in the mp3 player, but I was sure it was the usual stuff—what else would it be? I was just so glad the house was finally clean…Why would I care what she was listening to 24/7? She was happy. When your wife is happy, life is good.
Today I come downstairs–and she’s blonde! “Guten morgen,” she says, and goes back to making breakfast, humming something I suddenly realize is NOT Chet Atkins. And I see that I have a problem. A big problem.
How am I going to eat all this sausage?
10 • Michael Gordon said:
February 22nd, 2008 at 3:41 pm, permalink
I was just thinking that it would be interesting to do a story where someone’s playlist somehow had control over their personality.
What if the Earth has a playlist? Different songs for different weather/natural phenomena. I hope it never switches to Shuffle mode.
11 • webwriter said:
February 22nd, 2008 at 3:43 pm, permalink
As his eyes adjusted to the dim light filtering through the rough opening, he saw a faint glimmer in the corner by the broken stair. Could it be? Yes! Miracle of miracles, it even appeared to be intact. Hope tried to rise in Morgan’s tired, crumpled heart. He smashed it down and quickly bent to check the yellowed, cracking finger holds.
His breath, coming in short gasps, despite his effort at control, came out in puffed clouds of vapor in the chilly morning air. With wonder and no little trepidation, Morgan flexed his fingers and rubbed his hands together in an attempt to get them warm them enough to be of use to him.
He steadied his nerves, said a silent prayer and splayed his hands across the holds according to nearly forgotten custom. Pressing each, in quick succession, according to the pattern of the ancient runes, Morgan held his breath, not knowing quite what to expect.
Tinkling sounds, like raindrops on the twisted metal roofs all around him, began to emit from somewhere inside. With the strange noise, the scene began to melt before him, reshaping, reforming. Hope and promise soared within him unchecked. Morgan knew at last that the legends were true.
12 • webwriter said:
February 22nd, 2008 at 3:46 pm, permalink
Oops! Sorry for the typos! Danged ‘ole proofreader anyway!
13 • Michael Gordon said:
February 22nd, 2008 at 3:54 pm, permalink
Here’s a snippet that’s not fantasy (or at least not yet), but a piece inspired by The Fray’s How to Save a Life (Not sure how to combine Piano Rock with Fantasy):
The sliding glass hospital doors reminded Tommy of Angel, his last glance back into the living room, the slamming screen door, footsteps down the front walk. Tommy had sat staring blankly out the porch window for an hour after that. The weak street lamps covered the road with orange light, every car casting blue shadows. Now he walked through the stark white hospital corridor. The squeak of wheelchairs and carts sounded like the screech of Angel’s tires.
Tommy inhaled deeply as he approached the front desk. He spoke without hearing his own words; he listened to the nurse’s moving lips; he followed the doctor through a silent dream. His last words to Angel were all that he heard, echoing through his mind. You can’t keep doing this, he’d said. You’re going to get killed.
The curtain parted and Tommy walked to the bed. He sat next to Angel’s unmoving body. The constant hum of machines was almost soothing in the terrible silence. He wrapped his fingers around Angel’s limp right hand and prayed until dawn.
My top fantasy/music fusions:
Wicked–Defying Gravity made me fall in love with magic all over again
The Buffy The Vampire Slayer musical episode–every show should have one
Anything sung by a hobbit in Lord of the Rings–I am such a dork, but Billy Boyd singing “Home is behind the world ahead” gets me every time
14 • Scout said:
February 22nd, 2008 at 3:54 pm, permalink
Weekend Away
Sherry tumbled to the floor next to her bed, immediately realizing that it had happened again. This was the third time she knew of but she suspected that there had been more times of which she was unaware. The music was loud. It was still in her head, like a hangover. Sherry was beginning to realize that it was the music that sent her backward. Last time it had been when the Rollingstones came on the radio. This time it was the Beatles…”one way ticket yeah…”. How was she going to avoid it? You just cannot get by a single day without hearing these classic oldies. The music was still there. It was fading… “got a good reason for taking the easy way out…”.
What had happened this time? She got up and looked in the mirror, searching for evidence to help her figure out what had happened. She was wearing a simple wreath of daisies in her hair and what appeared to be a tattoo of a peace sign on her cheek. Sherry rubbed at it and realized that it was just drawn on. Whew! She was relieved.
Looking down at her clothes she noticed the clothes she had seen in photographs. Her denim pants, patched as they were, appeared to be very wide bell-bottomed pants. She was wearing a halter top made from a multicolored tie dyed bandana. Sherry had beads around her neck and on her wrists. Bringing her wrist near her eyes to look at the colorful beads, she got a whiff of a strong scent she couldn’t place. It was musky and made her feel dizzy. She didn’t know what the scent was but she was certain it wasn’t anything that belonged in her time.
What had she missed? She rushed to her desktop computer and turned it on. The date said it was February 18, 2008. Wow! The last thing she remembered was Friday morning when she had left for school. Friday had been the 15th. She had lost four days! Had anyone noticed? What would she say? Her mother would be frantic, then she’d be mad as hell when she realized Sherry was fine. Then Sherry remembered with relief!. Her mother wasn’t home. She had gone away with her boyfriend, Chuck. They had left on Thursday after work, for a Valentine’s weekend. With Monday being a holiday, they were staying away and coming home late Monday night. Tonight! What time was it? Were they home? No. The house was quiet and one look out the window told her that her mother’s Prius wasn’t in the driveway.
Safe! She was safe. Or relatively. Now she just had to figure out what she had done for the four days and if there would be any lingering manifestations to deal with. She’d have to figure out what to say about why she hadn’t gone to school. That is IF she hadn’t gone. She had some checking to do. Sherry remembered the last time she had lost time. She had come to with a horrible hangover. She didn’t even drink but wherever she had gone and whomever she had become had quite a lot to drink and Sherry had to pay the price!
The car driving into the driveway sent Sherry running into the bathroom. She would lock herself in there and run the shower. That would give her some time to collect herself. And she had to wash that pungent smell off of her, too!
15 • Robyn Fleming said:
February 22nd, 2008 at 4:05 pm, permalink
I’ve tried my hand at Cyber-Ballad:
The Ballad of Cyber Eyes
She grew up on the city streets
Witty and quick and wise
Now capable of stunning feats
Thanks to her cyber eyes
Her cyber eyes, her cyber eyes
Shining with slick wiring
Should you meet her, I would advise
Quietly admiring
Drop your gun, don’t think of firing
When you see Cyber Eyes
Run away, or face expiring:
He who fights her soon dies
She’s still witty and quick and wise
And something else, as well –
Machine in a human disguise –
She’s the gateway to Hell
She’s refitted every cell
To match her cyber eyes
Now she’s Death in a person-shell
Thanks to those cyber eyes
16 • Clint Harris said:
February 22nd, 2008 at 4:05 pm, permalink
In the vein of “singer-songwriter” music they could have a grassroots form of writing called “reader-writer” where one person writes one story, standalone, and expects people to read it!
There wouldn’t be many copies of the books printed, in fact, they may never make it to hardcover. Writers would have to be really basic looking folks, old shirts, glasses, maybe a beaten up typewriter where the E sticks sometimes. They would carry these typewriters around in beat up cases and when they weren’t working on novels, they would sit on the streetcorners, pecking away short stories for spare change passersby would throw.
Once in a while, they would appear at coffee shop open mic nights where they would click-clack a story while sitting on a stool.
Their scripts could be used for Wes Anderson movies and other indie-type films.
Eventually their writing would be absorbed by “hair-writer” subgenres where writers dress in spandex, fluff their hair up like LA prostitutes and fill in their stories with hooks and 50 page soliloquies.
17 • Daniel Ausema said:
February 22nd, 2008 at 4:48 pm, permalink
Hair-writer–I’m looking forward to that one. Alas, my closet is lacking in spandex at the moment.
18 • John O said:
February 22nd, 2008 at 4:54 pm, permalink
The siren finished yhe final glassy note of the set to wild applause. “Thank you! My name is Maple, we are The Leaves, and we’ll be right back!” She jumped down from the stage and made her way to the bar, ordered a beer and almost got arrested.
When she returned to the stage the elves in the band were snickering. “Funny, guys,” she said. “But take us back to ‘37.” I’m a jazz girl. No more ragtime.”
19 • Aniko said:
February 22nd, 2008 at 4:57 pm, permalink
Report #7 13:56 22208 Local Time
Topic: Abort Mission!
Consider all previous reports overridden. We are not making any progress, despite our early success, and I fear even the sections we initially conquered might have been abandoned. I’m sorry to report that most of our troops are currently incapacitated.
As I have indicated before, the breathing units are working properly, and our suits are adequate to protect us from the heat and radiation on this wretched planet. But there is something else here that we haven’t counted with. We’re not sure if it’s a weapon, or something the natives engage in spontaneously, but it has a terrible effect on our kind, while they seem to be oblivious to it. It is of a sonic nature—a terrible, whining, swelling, nauseating noise that fills literally every public space. I am writing this from a sealed basement that protects those of us lucky to be in here (five altogether), but we cannot reach our soldiers outside.
A native informant says the terrible thing is called—I will spell this phonetically, hoping the linguists back at Command Center can figure it out—kand muzik. We are tying to improvise ear plugs from the materials available here, but they’re not likely to be sufficient. Please sent relief troops with adequate protection.
20 • Daniel Ausema said:
February 22nd, 2008 at 5:05 pm, permalink
I was going to come up with something singer-songwriter-influenced as well, something that draws on issues of social justice and the lives of average folk, people worn down by…whatever. It could even look to Ursula LeGuin as a proto-Folk Fantasy writer. But how can I compete with Reader-writer? Maybe we can combine them.
So instead…back in college my favorite CD was Dream Theater’s Images and Words, so they’ll be the inspiration for ProgSF, a loud and elaborate subgenre that celebrates virtuosity in prose (preferably to excess), cerebral thematic considerations and lots of big explosions. Works will draw from classic poetic forms, the more challenging to get right the better, and insert such interludes into a swamp of baroque prose, at times even occupying more space than the prose itself. The poetic sequences will, of course, be just as full of explosions and splashy adventure as the rest.
21 • Daniel Ausema said:
February 22nd, 2008 at 5:14 pm, permalink
And then there’s Mundo-SF (named to confuse the mundanistas), which draws its inspiration from world music. Yes, as a musical genre that term has problems–especially the fact that there are so many different styles of music mashed together as if they were the same; and also the danger of it simply being about the exotic-ness of it all, which doesn’t really engage the listener in the other culture. But taking those dangers into consideration with the fiction, Mundo-SF rises from the stories, folk tales, and cultures around the world. It might marry them to a more typical western lit story structure (as, in music, Paul Simon’s Graceland) or break such expectations completely in favor of whatever standard approaches exist in the culture in question. Certainly such works already exist within speculative fiction, including here at Fantasy, but they are simply waiting for the unifying label so they can band together, create manifestos and anthologies, bully other subgenres that don’t share their preferences, etc.
22 • Stephen H. Segal said:
February 22nd, 2008 at 5:35 pm, permalink
You know what I could really be in the mood for right now? Some groovetopia. You know — SF that doesn’t really care that much about the plot, which is just a convenient excuse anyway to paint lots of engaging little scenes that all eventually make up the colorful picture of a world that doesn’t exist. Like Arthur C. Clarke’s Imperial Earth, which just sort wanders around, real mellow, looking at how pretty everything is, from future politics to personal technology to the recovered Titanic, and eventually resolves the massively understated “conflict,” which I think has somethng to do about wistfully remembering an adolescent bisexual crush. Just like a neohippie jam band that can’t really follow a melody for more than a few bars at a time, but keeps going off on those groovy tangents while the audience gets relaxingly stimulated…
23 • Tigereye said:
February 22nd, 2008 at 5:49 pm, permalink
It clicks and spins, pulling you along like an old wooden roller coaster climbing a hill: tentatively at first, then gaining confidence and momentum as it starts downhill, faster and faster, flying. The music sweeps your feet from beneath you — faster, faster — and then you’re jerked to a stop, with maybe a last tickticktick, tick, tick… Then it begins, some song appropriate to the motion — rap, funk, occasionally disco, or good solid rock, Tom Petty or the Stones. Something befitting a carnival ride.
The newer coasters are almost synesthetic. You don’t click, you slide, images slipping above and behind and around you, a blur of silent speed. Sometimes it moves back and forth, indecisive, a set of swinging doors. It’s a smoother ride but a more dizzying one. When the music starts, it’s likely to be trance or techno, slipping over and past you, coming at you from all directions. Fatboy Slim. Thievery Corporation. This ride goes down fast and smooth, a shot of something cold that rockets right to the top of your head.
When it’s over you’re a little dazed, disjointed, coming back into the real world, limited to what everyone else can hear, plodding along instead of climbing back on the ride. But you keep the earbuds on, just in case you see something else you want to ride, and you reach for the click wheel in your left pocket and the touch screen in your right, considering your options, thinking ahead to what you’ll plug in next.
24 • Polenth said:
February 22nd, 2008 at 7:35 pm, permalink
Fairytale Line Dance is inspired by the music and the dancing it provokes. It’s the kind of music no one admits to owning. The rhythmic tones aren’t breaking new ground. Everything plods along at a predictable pace. But it’s when it comes to the dancing that it stands out from normal fairytale fantasy.
You go to a line dance to take part, not to watch in the sidelines (if you admit to going at all). The characters all line up – the evil dragon, the princess in danger, the knight in shining armour – but then the usual happens when you let a bunch of amateurs dance. The knight trips over his own feet, the princess gets drunk and the dragon leaves for therapy for his obsessive hoarding habits.
Fairytale Line Dance is the genre of stories that looks traditional on the outside, but once you get into them, there are unexpected twists and turns. And probably a fair bit of giggling at their expense.
25 • Chuck said:
February 22nd, 2008 at 7:52 pm, permalink
I’m writing to express my concerns about the College of Music’s Automatic Halftime Show Generator and Rehearsal Simulator.
I know the University had high ambitions and maybe even some good intentions constructing this experimental system for the marching band. And I’m well aware that the College of Music, the College of Engineering, and a few experts in cognitive science put a lot of effort into their partnership producing an impressive system …
In concept.
But I think it’s rather obvious some glaring technical glitches and security issues are being ignored.
First priority: we have to remove the computers chips from from the band members’ head before we have another incident. Immediately.
Obviously, as you know very well, the most public spectacle involving the Automatic Halftime Show Generator and Rehearsal Simulator occurred at our last home game when hackers broke into the system and uploaded two weeks worth of virtual rehearsal time into the band members’ heads, resulting in the marching band’s impromptu halftime performance of Bolero … with nudity.
There have been smaller incidents, especially with the subsystem that automatically triggers the band members to play our fight song — no matter where the band members happen to be at the time — whenever the University is featured prominently in the press. (Also, the requirement for the band’s members to always carry their instruments is another matter we need to discuss. The bass drummers are especially complaining.) As you may recall, Professor Stevens was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics a couple days ago; and, as you might expect, the marching band’s system automatically triggered at this announcement, and the marching band members played the fight song (no matter where they were on campus or around town — shopping malls, coffee shops, movie theaters, restrooms, in bed with significant others, etc.).
Unfortunately, this mini celebration demonstrated what kind of range the system has, because one of the band’s trombone players found himself in a humiliating situation 800 miles away at his grandmother’s funeral. He’d actually left his trombone at his parents’ house, but the chip in his brain forced him to make buzzing noises with his lips, plus he accidentally punched two family members while operating a trombone slide that wasn’t there.
(continued on page 2)
26 • Berry Henderson said:
February 22nd, 2008 at 9:42 pm, permalink
GangstaFic, biatches!!!
In response to wendigomountain’s ( http://wendigomountain.livejournal.com/ ) post about HairFic–a nice mashup of things writerly and things hair-bandish–I give to you the artistic rebuttal . . .
See, I’d be slingin’ some GangstaFic as a sub-sub-writerly/musi-rary genre.
Right now, I’m talkin’ audiobooks on vinyl. That way I could have my two turntables and a microphone and wiki-wiki-scratch my way to stardom. I’d remix Shakespeare and Homer, Donne and Wordsworth, and Chaucer and Faulkner, just to name a few. There’d be need to start small, foundational-like by selling self-published chapbooks out tha back a my trunk ’til I built my street cred with editors. Then I would straight get paid mad bank by the word.
Representin’ and perpetratin’ . . .
My signature accessory would be a blinged out pocket protector with plantinum-and-ice pens that write with gold dust infused ink. All my first readers would default to posse status, and, yes, my nizzles, we’d roll thirty deep up in Barnes & Noble when it’s time for me to sign books.
In my videos, honeys would be pouring ice mocha-choca lattes over their nubile bodies whilst making come-hither eyes to all tha homeslices in tha manga aisles.
Books will be delivered by lowridin’ delivery trucks.
Local libraries would be recognized only by their new colors, and improper interlibrary book loans would constitute a straight up, mahfuhing turf war, yo.
In my hood, lil homeys would engage in sonnet battles to represent and recognize, and if you ain’t down with heroic couplets, you ain’t nuthin but a punkass mark.
Never get no rest ‘til ya got Carpe diem written cross ya chest.
PAYCE!
27 • Scott M. Sandridge said:
February 22nd, 2008 at 10:47 pm, permalink
Epic Fantasy Metal! It’s actually a real subgenre, believe it or not. Go to YouTube and type “Battlelore” in the search engine.
28 • Stephen said:
February 23rd, 2008 at 5:53 pm, permalink
Wow. Just wow all around. Apples and oranges and rhomboids.
We’re going to have to give top props to Barry and his GangstaFic movement, for the simple reason that we really want to see what it looks like when the remix generation takes over — replacing live readings with the likes of, say, MC Dr. O spinning a 12-inch vinyl of Atlas Shrugged through an effortless segue into a digital sample of The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.
Drop us a line at primebooks@gmail.com, Barry, to claim your prize.
29 • JestMe said:
February 24th, 2008 at 9:41 pm, permalink
“…At 4 p.m., we’ll choose the day’s most entertaining writer…”
Very interesting that you’d toss your rules out/or change them after starting the game.
Perhaps you should do away with them all together so you don’t have to bend them.
My students always want me to change the deadline after they’re off and running but I never do. Deadlines need to be observed, even in the writing world (virtual or otherwise).
30 • Stephen said:
February 24th, 2008 at 10:32 pm, permalink
JestMe: My apologies to anyone who might be distressed — the discrepancy is my fault.
A few weeks after we began the Fantasy Friday contests, we realized that our original deadline of 4pm EST was excluding our West Coast readers from participating throughout their full day, so we began specifying instead a 5pm PST deadline in each week’s post. This week, we made a double goof: first, we only said “at the end of the day” and neglected to specify the hour; then, it was my turn to declare the contest closed, and I was late doing so — and felt it would therefore be unfair to exclude anyone who entered before a winner was named.
Worse, we foolishly never realized, until you just drew our attention to it, that the original 4pm time has continued to be referenced in the page’s permanent sidebar, even at the same time that we’ve been giving the 5pm PST deadline in the weekly posts for a couple months now.
We’re going to leave the sidebar as is for a day or two, so anyone who reads this exchange understands what we’re talking about — and then before next week’s contests, we’ll update it to correspond to the correct deadline.
Again, my apologies to any who may have been confused or confounded by my twofold error.
31 • JestMe said:
February 24th, 2008 at 10:58 pm, permalink
Thank you for the response, Stephen. It is confusing. And you’re right about the early (on the west coast) deadline being unfair to those of us on the left side of the country.
What is the new deadline time? Are is it not yet set?
32 • Yeesh said:
February 25th, 2008 at 6:21 pm, permalink
The GangstaFic entry would be a lot funnier if it didn’t, in a very tired and familiar way, collapse everything vaguely hip-hop and rap-ish (cultural forms every bit as diverse as ‘rock’) into one basically racist heap.
The poorly executed ‘rap’ dialect is corny. Bronx slang from twenty years ago combined with west coast cholo culture from fifteen years ago combined with agrammatical idiocy (”I be slingin’ some”) that has never existed anywhere except perhaps the minds of white mockers-of-rap.
Lesson number one on satire, even gentle satire: you need to know something about the object of your goofing. Try again, please.
33 • Berry Henderson said:
February 25th, 2008 at 7:30 pm, permalink
Yeesh,
Sheesh.
Can’t we all just get along?
Now, please exit toward the Uptight Door that opens into Pseudo-Intellectual Hall.
Meet me by the flag pole for a dance off!
Berry
34 • Yeesh said:
February 25th, 2008 at 8:02 pm, permalink
Berry
I’m not uptight. I just didn’t think the post was funny. Rap Geek humor *can* be. Herbert Kornfeld was funny. Larry Bud Melman being in RUN-DMC videos was funny. This wasn’t. Sorry.
35 • Berry Henderson said:
February 25th, 2008 at 9:57 pm, permalink
Yeesh,
Thanks for the input, nevertheless. Wasn’t trying to convince you.
Just the editors.
Berry
P.S. Could we still be friends, and maybe, er, I could buy you a virtual beer or something? We could pour some out for Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift. Your call.
36 • Yeesh said:
February 25th, 2008 at 10:26 pm, permalink
>P.S. Could we still be friends
Sure. And in that spirit:
Not hate, but glory, made these chiefs contend/And each brave foe was in his soul a friend.
-Pope
37 • Berry Henderson said:
February 26th, 2008 at 11:36 am, permalink
I like.
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled:/The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!
–An Essay on Man
Later, peace, and all other such civilities.