Strange smells/more posts for everyone/morals & authority

[Talisman]

--- In HPFGU-Catalogue at yahoogroups.com, Barry Arrowsmith 
<arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:
 
> With apt applicability it's entitled "The Vampire"
> > Good old Kipples!
> Kneasy sniffs the gin bottle and rolls another gasper.


Ah, The Vampire. Well, at least our Kippy has stopped
bellowing about his preference for sucking on turgid, weedy, lingams 
(something he apparently confused with a stingy assessment of women) 
and now he simply bemoans the fate common to all megalomaniacs--of 
whatever gender--gross under appreciation.

Okay, he was never properly appreciated.  I'll bet she had a
great set of "fangs," though, and that he got a good few
compensatory nibbles along the way.  Hey,when he needed to bask in 
paeans of praise, or at least some sort of shouting, he could always 
whip out his superlative cigar.

So, to your poor, misused Kipling, I'll play another Millay. 
Let's try "An Ancient Gesture." Not as fun as the prior offering,
but a tiresome little cautionary tale about what the "understanding  
woman, gets.  You know, the one who thinks he's some sort 
of...well...epic hero, while he's off shagging Circe.  And to
think she had a whole room packed with suitors just waiting for her 
whistle.


    I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
    Penelope did this too.
    And more than once: you can't keep weaving all day
    And undoing it all through the night;
    Your arms get tired, and the back of your neck gets tight;
    And along towards morning, when you think it will never be light,
    And your husband has been gone, and you don't know where, for    
    years.
    Suddenly you burst into tears;
    There is simply nothing else to do.

    And I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
    This is an ancient gesture, authentic, antique,
    In the very best tradition, classic, Greek;
    Ulysses did this too.
    But only as a gesture,
    -a gesture which implied
    To the assembled throng that he was much too moved to speak.
    He learned it from Penelope...
    Penelope, who really cried.


Sniff.

Still, we'll agree that--sprinkled here and there among the vasty 
throngs--there are some individuals of rare pressing; some 
delightfully sinister ambrosias requiring a peculiar palate to 
penetrate and enjoy the full bouquet of dusky spice and fetid 
backwash, sweetened by noble rot, that rounds the aging fruit.
I'll give Kipling that.  Just not his claim of masculine 
exclusivity. 

In any event, I have a nicely inappropriate theory to slap up 
against your TOC "Best of Enemies" series.  So, I'm off to
derogate whatever duties assail me in favor of another libelous 
attack.  
Current working Title: D.E.C.E.I.V.E. M.E. A.G.A.I.N., P.O.O.K.I.E., 
you do it so well.

Talisman, who has things she likes to sniff and roll, too.