Well, knock me down with a feather! Taking a leaf out of Tim Blair’s book of selective quotation, The Australian has claimed I was the “last to call” the Queensland election. I must say things must have come to a pretty pass when they’re actually moved enough to name a blog they disagree with, rather than use the usual formulations of “ignorant bloggers”, etc, which conveniently don’t allow anyone to google up the blog in question and make up their own minds.
For the record, there’s a basic difference between my approach to punditry and that of the press wizards at the Oz. They wrote stories almost daily for months claiming the election could be called the next day, or the next week, or was “imminent” or whatever. I waited until I actually had firm information – from Labor sources. Not reading the tea leaves or joining the dots with the latest news story and claiming there was now a “trigger” or the government was “under pressure” (from whom, I wondered?)… I’ll stand by the claim that the final decision to go ahead with an early election hadn’t been made until late last week. Any enterprising journos who doubt that might like to, well, investigate – perhaps by contacting people involved in that decision rather than speculating in retrospect. If there were indeed cunning plans afoot which journos can now reveal, whatever stopped them writing about the said cunning plans when they were actually being made and implemented?
To adopt a phrase that’s been around the traps lately with regard to the distinction between bloggers and journos, I picked up the phone. I’m not so sure the pundits did. End of story. Let’s get on with talking about the campaign!
I’d also point out that the method of selective quotation does produce a real (and intended) distortion in the story about what was being said here. That’s no great surprise, but anyone interested in boring old fashioned stuff like the truth can make their own minds up by reading the posts in question in their entirety. They can be accessed via this tag.
You need to know some school administrators. The schools were booked for the election last week. Of course that didn’t guarantee the election being called, but it was a pretty good sign.
BTW, please stop mentioning Tim Blair. The man makes me want to vomit, and he’s the reason I stopped reading The Bulletin.
At least I wasn’t in hospital, like the last time LP hit the MSM, when I missed all the fun.
But what’s this about a Labor-loving blog? Guess they don’t read it.
I’m puzzled, though, as to how many Australian readers are interested in catfights between Blair and “lefty” bloggers and other minor public figures.
I just think this whole argument is politically rather misguided and very boring.
That’s a longwinded way of agreeing with the much more concise assessments – “circle jerk” and “yawn”.
I saw the wolf first. In fact, I made stories almost daily for months claiming I saw that goddamn wolf. But the townsfolk didn’t believe me. Now the bastard’s arrived and eaten some of their kiddies. Who’s laughing now, smartarses?
“But what’s this about a Labor-loving blog? Guess they don’t read it.”
They do read it, Paul and know a lot of others are at it as well. It pisses them off that they are, by degree, becoming irrelevant and therefore like the true sports they are, sticking chewy gum under someone elses boot, is the kind of thing these idiots will try on.
btw, Mark, did you know the night before last Paul Bongiorno on 10′s 5 o’clock news took up calling Costello The Overshadow. No acknowledgement to either LP or the ABC. Guess the Channel 10 Newsroom must regularly trawl LP for angles. Will have to watch more closely.
touché… Jeremy @3
One can only assume that the actively-engaged readership of Murdoch’s rag is now roughly comparable in size to LP’s, making this kind of juvenile point-scoring worth the Murdoch crowd’s time.
Keep up this ‘notoriety’ and you’ll be on ‘Dancing With The Stars’. Lol.
Again the Australian has all of us stupid lefties on the hop.
Well no more. I’m moving to their excellent prediction methodology.
The world will end. Tomorrow. You heard it here first.
(Small print, prediction may be corrected at the end of each day due to statisitcal anomolies but when the earth finally smashes into the sun you can comfort yourself knowing you read it here first at Larvatus Prodeo.)
Really? I stopped reading The Bulletin because they stopped publishing it!
Oh yes pleaaaase!!! With Pauline Hanson!! Pleeeeeeeeaase! Your country needs you Mark!!
Oh, and on topic — who cares what they write at The Oz?
The thing is Tim, I didn’t believe it until I read it at LP, from Mark’s sources.
wolf, crying, etc. Stopped clocks right twice daily, etc.
I’d take the personal mention as a good rap Mark. My guess is they’ve never really recovered from the Government Gazette meme, first spread here, and of course, losing that high profile stoush over “owning polls”. They still look like a total goose over that – and that know it.
Ah, so I wasn’t the only one who didn’t like Tim Blair!
Exactly. Although I would have believed it if I’d heard it on the ABC news first, even though my faith there has also been diminished over the last 12 years.
This ‘last to call’ rubbish is, erm, rubbish in any case. Only a journalist mired in the ‘scoop at any cost’ mentality — and fearful of blogs yet still ignorant about what they are, how they work and what they’re for — would regard that as a criterion of value for a blog in the first place; he or she (I’m guessing he, but the anonymity of a lot of online journalism is starting to really annoy me; is this one of the things they think will claw back readers who’ve got used to it online?) clearly thinks they are some sort of home-made low-rent newspapers.
Good publicity. I hope they bag me out soon!
But don’t let this distract the left from analysis, argument, and action, as Mark says.
Surely we can expect to see Mark with an “Insiders” gig now for the next cuppla weeks, at least on Washup Sunday.
HA HA Australian editors, we know you’re addicted to LP, possum and pollbludger, you probably spend your day reading these blogs instead of doing any work and it shows. enjoy the terminal decline of your medium!
Um, why did they think it mattered who won the p$ssing contest that Mark didn’t know he was having?
Jeremy @ 3 – ah well, normally I ignore these things, but when you’re personally misrepresented and attacked… I’m sure you understand!
No doubt you’ll be taking up the cudgels against Blair on LP’s behalf – since that’s your remit without fear or favour – regardless of the fact some of us haven’t been enamoured of Poison Pen?
I’d also observe that I’ve been thinking a bit more about the logic of Steketee’s article.
It goes something like this – The Labor party was feeding early election speculation to help them politically. This is dastardly.
What appears to be missing in this equation is the constant early election speculation published like a drumbeat day in and day out in the Australian and the Courier-Mail. Were they just patsies? What does that say for their astute political nous?
Or is it just wisdom after the fact?
Can we look forward to a “We were wrong” column about all the stories stating the election would be held in February?
Also, Dr Cat @14 – spot on. It’s another instance of the “journos v. bloggers” frame which completely ignores the fact that blogging, um, isn’t journalism and we’re not, err, a newspaper…
ah well, normally I ignore these things, but when you’re personally misrepresented and attacked…
Really?
Yep, really. I don’t make a habit of responding to every blah that’s published in the MSM about how terrible teh blogs are.
I’m sure you’ve noticed that one of Blair’s piece de resistance put-downs is “Seems like X is the new Margot”, “Seems like Y is the new Lowenstein”, etc ad infinitum, ad nauseum – add boring.
So, to appropriate Blair’s silly m.o., it seems to me that you’ve Blair’s new Chris Sheil.
Like a dog with a bone in his manger, he can’t let go.
And that’s the thing. Margot Kingston was attacked and harrassed so much she eventuually did ‘the right thing’ and shut up realising that it wasn’t worth her health argueing with one million trolls.
That this hasn’t worked often since is beside the point. Calling someone on the left the new Margo is a rallying cry.
Meanwhile, most of us are over the culture wars.
mark says:
Mark Bahnisch is not being completely candid about his propensity to speculate on the basis of unfounded assertion. He was indulging in speculative “disconnecting the dots”.
He hosed down expectations of the rumoured election, prior to getting the mail from his sources deep within the QLD ALP. What else can the phrase “Looks like [the Australian is] wrong” mean, in relation to their positive speculation about the imminency of election. (Which later proved correct.)
There’s nothing wrong with picking up the phone, circulating a hot tip email address, and becoming an on-line webzine reporter. Thats reportage journalism. But webloggers are always going to be at a disadvantage to MSM journalists, with their well trodden beats, stables of sources and institutional memory of such things.
Mark, as an aspiring social scientist, would be better advised focusing his efforts on building a more abstract predictive model of election timing. Here is one I just cooked up at the drop of a hat:
Election Pre-maturity = f(recession imminency x terms of incumbency x simmering government scandal x leadership division in Opposition)
This model fits the early election called by Hawke in 1990.
Jack, you’ve missed my point entirely. The Australian’s “predictions” proved correct but only because they were made for so long and for so often they were bound to be eventually. This is the whole pointlessness of the prediction game/pat yourself on the back thing – as a number of folk have said – in retrospect they were right, though they don’t acknowledge that they had been wrong for a long time. It seems to me you’re just adding to the “wisdom of hindsight” stuff. I’ll repeat the point. The Queensland election wasn’t called until Anna Bligh took the decision to call it. That decision was taken very recently. What I was trying to do was to hold off on reporting that until it was confirmed – rather than constant speculation. As I’ve pointed out, that’s actually what journalists are supposed to do!
Why all the talk about elections? The real political story of the day is here:
Peter Garrett does something useful
And Jack Strocchi is both the new, and the old Jack Strocchi.
Love ‘im.
It will be intriguing to hear which songs they play, Darin…
“etc ad infinitum, ad nauseum – add boring.”
Sorry to quibble about a small issue, but this one drives me crazy — it’s “ad nauseam,” not ad nauseum.
Also, while we’re “ad” it, an ad-hoc usage I sometimes see around here, “ad feminam,” is not warranted: “ad hominem” refers to both sexes, as “homo/hominem” in this instance means something more like “person” than “male” specifically.
“Ad feminam” would probably sound more like it means something like “[directed] at Woman[-kind in general]“.
Bonus round: what do the words “virtue” and “werewolf” have in common?
We now return you to your regularly-scheduled stoush. Grazie.
“No doubt you’ll be taking up the cudgels against Blair on LP’s behalf – since that’s your remit without fear or favour – regardless of the fact some of us haven’t been enamoured of Poison Pen?”
That’d be Pure Poison, Mark. Cheers.
But we’d love to take up the cudgels on your behalf.
Consequently, after spending a very unedifying half hour or so reading some of the comments thread this discussion has inspired elsewhere, I’ve done just that.
As a way of avoiding total war with all that entails, I suggest 30 of our pundits take on 30 of the MSM’s in gladiatorial style combat. There is historical precedent for this in one of the wars between England and France.
What utter hogwash.
“Also, while we’re “ad” it, an ad-hoc usage I sometimes see around here, “ad feminam,” is not warranted”
Chillax, catullus.
The roots ‘vir’ and ‘wer’, both meaning ‘man’ or ‘person’ and apparently versions of each other?
Guessin’.
‘Virtue’ is ‘werewolf’ after a lobotomy.
Catullus (and Laura): yes, I use ‘ad feminam’ in implied quotation marks as a sort of joke against myself, much in the same way as I use ‘politically correct’ — which I’m. (Usually.)
I shall continue to use both. There’s a sort of ironification about them that I really like.
Okay, so PC beat me to it…
Still, bonus points to the first person who can “see what I did there”.
ad homonym: sounds the same as an advertisement.
“Pavlov’s Cato” – heh !!
get thee to a muse!
We’re Wolves
You’re Cat
They’re Wolves
“virtue (rolling her eyes) had nuthin’ to do with it!” Mae West
All this focus on who predicted it the best – Mark was wrong when he said there wouldn’t be an early election. The Australian was right, and then Mark was right later. Yippeeeeee.
So far not one word about the broken commitment of Bligh to run full term. And, she has the gall to go on camera saying that it isn’t her preference to go early. Hah!! She wants a mandate – I think she’s been having a mandate with herself.
Queenslanders – look at what has happened to NSW by re-electing the incumbents. Who wants to move to NSW?
“Who wants to move to NSW?”
Not me Razor. But the counterfactual might not have me hurrying up the Hume either!
Razor: Anna Bligh had a bit to say about “going early” in her opening campaign statement. Are the Qld Press not pillorying her over that?
Well, Andos.. I’m betting “beds are burning” doesn’t get a run.
The irony on a lot of the other stuff will be beautiful to behold.
On the other hand, there’s a problem with the whole “virtue/werewolf” thing, as I shall attempt to illustrate…
[SFX: Wolf howls in the distance.]
GENE WILDER: Were-wolf!
MARTY FELDMAN: There.
GENE WILDER: What?
MARTY FELDMAN: There. There wolf.
now let’s try it again, using the Hydroelectric Comedy Equalizer…
[SFX: Wolf howls in the distance.]
GENE WILDER: Vir-tue.
MARTY FELDMAN: Gesundheit.
GENE WILDER: What?
MARTY FELDMAN: You know, this isn’t working. Let’s do the werewolf bit instead.
You must be Pliny the Elderly, if you can remember Marty Feldman. Ol’ Wild Eyes.
Laura — Ach Gott! citing the Boston Globe for usage advice?!
It’s like asking a bunch of rhesus monkeys to translate Dante! Still… wikkid pissuh, I suppose — that is, if you *really* want English to sound all Southie an’ shit… Careful what you wish for…
How bout dem Sawks!
Anyone noticed how poorly newspapers, particularly The Australian, do random punfests?
For shame.
FDB — aaaahhhh, *now* I see what you did there. Took me a while.
Now I guess I’ll have to tell ‘em.
Meh, as long as someone got it, then random punfesting is the winner.
47 whoever you are, do you know who Erin McKean is?
“do you know who Erin McKean is?”
Well according to the Wiki Oracle, she appears to be a Chicagoan. Nuff said. Now granted, that’s a step up on the evolutionary ladder above the cavemen of Beacon Hill… at least in Chicago they’ve finally discovered fire, and know enough to cook their food.
OTOH, do you know what the Boston Globe is?
Argument from authority. Up here on Mount Olympus, it doesn’t impress us.
You, FDB, are too darn subtle for your own good.
Person at 47 & 52, why mention arguments from authority when it was you who cast nasturtiums upon the link just because of its source (Boston Globe) in the first place?
Yeah, FDB’s little running (loping?) gag was gorgeous. I sprayed a mouthful of chips all over my keyboard.
In any case, wer or vir at 47 & 52, I still don’t understand why ‘argument from authority’ is parrotted out so often by bloggers as a Bad Thing. Perhaps it’s not fully understood that it’s technically a fallacy only within the strict para-mathematical confines of syllogistic logic, in the sense that the word of an authority is not proof of truth. As a pragmatic manner of obtaining information I should have thought it was unavoidable even if you could come up with a good reason for wanting to avoid it. Would you prefer an argument from lack of authority?
Laura, & the Big Bad Woolfs — man, I guess I need a new computer keyboard that can make giant-size radioactive glow-in-the-dark smiley emoticons, cause these ones don’t seem to be working… i.e., I’m just having a little fun with youse is all. Is ‘taking the piss’ the proper usage here?
Though this is interesting…
“As a pragmatic manner of obtaining information I should have thought it was unavoidable…”
Strictly speaking, a generalized opinion about usage (like the one put forth in the Globe) is not ‘information,’ it’s just an opinion. (Unless the ‘information’ sought is literally, “What does so-and-so think?”) Now if you’re a respecter of certain kinds of accreditation (a not unreasonable thing in its own right), then I suppose there’s such a thing as a primus inter pares in these instances. But like any good headbanger should be able to tell you, “Primus sucks!”
– j_p_z, who has to tell ‘em/ That he’s got no cerebellum
JPZ why don’t you get a gravatar? It would certainly make things easier for me.
Ha! I thought it was you!
‘Taking the piss’ is correct. But it is a risky, risky business.
” One can only assume that the actively-engaged readership of Murdoch’s rag is now roughly comparable in size to LP’s, making this kind of juvenile point-scoring worth the Murdoch crowd’s time.
What utter hogwash.”
You mean LP’s actively-engaged readership might now be LARGER than Murdoch’s? Perhaps you’re right.
LOL Mark.
Do you still think you’ve got the inside story? Either you’ve held back, or 20 million people knew something before you did!
You waited until you had “firm information”? You sound like a trumpet player on a sinking cruise ship waiting until he was blowing bubbles.
Extraordinary journalism…
Ken @ 62 – It’s an intriguing question.
The latest circulation figures I saw had the daily print edition of The Oz dropping 10.4% in 2008.
Remember all those features about “most read stories” on the online versions of papers and how rarely political stories appear?
Given the reach the blog network we’re a part of now has according to Nielsen, I’d be very interested in any numbers on how many people read the political opinion stuff posted at News, and in particular at the Oz. If the claims that Bolt’s readership is the biggest are true, that’s another little indicator.
Blair, of course, gets most of his traffic from the US as I understand it.
Not quite following you there, Jimbo.
On Friday, I wrote:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/02/20/imminent-queensland-election-now-more-imminent/
The election was called on Monday.
Now, if I’m reading you correctly, I should have been writing about stuff I didn’t know about for ages beforehand? That what you’re saying?
How did that February election that the Australian predicted go? Got the result, have we?
Boston Globe reading Laura:
Because then it’d be obvious to all that an American with a hard-on against the Boston Globe is wasting space on a thread about Queensland politics?
I’m a Victorian and I otherwise couldn’t be bothered commenting on Bligh/Pineapple Party threads. But even I new enough not to replace ‘Nickws’ with other words before I got a gravatar…
Even I knew enough
“Because…gravatar…”
MYSELF: [spits morning coffee through nose]
NICKWS: (looking around nervously) Wait, what’s so funny? What?!
HINT — It’s not the misspelling of ‘knew’.
FORTUNE: Don’t ever change, Nickie.
You’re a card, j_p_z.
Why, I bet Laura wrote this, “You who cast nasturtiums upon the link just because of its source,” as a tribute to your Edward Lear-style performances.
Edward Lear, eh? I’m flattered. On the one hand, I’m tickled by the lofty comparison. On the other hand, BZZZZT!! — you just said Groucho’s secret word. (Although I’m not at all sure why you italicized it. Do you pronounce his name a la mode francaise or something?) I’m afraid it’s limericks at twenty paces for you, pal.
Nick’s blog-credibility flair’s
Dropping faster than Citigroup shares.
His bolds and italics
Are as suave as a Dalek’s —
But then, neither can climb up the stairs.
Ball’s in your court, Petrarch. Price of continuing this stoush is one limerick of sufficiently non-embarrassing quality. I’ll let Liam be the line judge, if he can be bothered.
I must have been a student subeditor many years after you were one, j_p_z. We were taught not to be too stuffy with our low humour.
Anyway, italics are perfectly allowable for emphasis, and Edward Lear was my polite, yet forceful, substitution for nonsense; but I don’t have to tell you that, do I? (Italics are also used for print titles and brand names seemingly everywhere these days, as I’ll demonstrate.)
“There once was a man from surprisingly near Nantucket,
Who jumped on a Brisvegas thread and said, “F@$k it!”
One mention of Globe,
My head done explode,
I think I’ll send those lieberals some Anthrax in a bucket!”
Sure, lieberal is more intense than lieberal, but I reckon that captures the essence of what you’ve been going on about here.
A twenty-pace limerick duel?
Homeboy, who you trying to fool?
We’re gonna have far too much
Of rhymes you can’t touch.
Ring the bell, sucka, get back to school.
“It’s gunna be tricky”, said Dave, suckin’ on a bit of grass, “cos Dad: as soon as one uv the Aussies uses a bitta slang – fer humour, I mean – that the old jay-perz never seen on any Aussie blogs, he’s gunna be stumped. And them Yanks still don’t unnerstan’ the bloody stump-jump plough, ‘n why ya gotta use it in this weary old continent. Trees hangin’ on fer dear life itself in the dry as a bone dust the slickers call ‘soil’.”
“Not that I reckon ‘e should’n ‘ave a go o’ course. ‘E’s picked ‘is fight: let ‘im stick to the job. Fair go. Stone the flamin’ crows there’s a good bit o’ nonsense around, eh?”
Japed z-man ad viram,
“Judge ye, shall Don Liam.”
Egged on by a dare,
Nick’s gone dropped his flares,
And now suffers the fate of poor Priam.
BDF,
I have certainly seen many “funpest”s in amongst these voluminous scribblings, all the while trying to hobble the language of the many and various writers. But “punfest”??? Are you as confused as I?
A down train and a town drain are not so very far apart, in my estimation. But what is a “haiku”, pray tell? That appears to be a foreign word, but in my many travails on The Continent I have yet to encounter it.
Well, I’m starting to fear that any minute now Graham Chapman will show up dressed as a constable, and arrest the whole bunch of us for aggravated silliness.
And so, Nick, to you goeth the laurel wreath, and the brand-new car. It’s time we went our separate ways… you, onward and upward to glory; and me, back to the day-room at Arkham Asylum, to finish that checkers match with the guy who thinks he’s Larry Storch.
Farewell! We’ll always have Paris. And Chinatown. And that scene from the end of “Some Kind of Wonderful.” [chokes up] I have to turn away now… I’ve, I’ve got something in my eye.
Well so far that’s three “limericks” without anything resembling a limerick (italics indicate, in this case, both emphasis and regional pronunciation – I’m using Inuit, but feel free to experiment).
Pick up your games, folks.
There once was a blog called LP *
That often broke out in verse free.
Its resident drummer
Said ‘Fark, what a bummer!
You people can’t scan for toff-eeee.’**
*See what I did there?
** A line in which his point is amply demonstrated
that’s roonation
http://www.middlemiss.org/lit/authors/obrienj/poetry/hanrahan.html
Here he comes, the rhythmical cop
Disrespecting our lyrical crop.
We don’t need your revision!
With hip-hop supervision
We’re known to let the beat… drop…
Just a quick game of pauses and stresses,
Not as formal as “Porgy and Bess” is.
It can’t get too baroque,
Or the ‘joke’ won’t be ‘folk’.
It’s not that hard, actually. Chess is.
Roses are red,
violets are blue
and all the rest is mere taxing detail to be endured and enjoyed until they get out the tacks and finally nail the lid down.
Three cheers for the long-suff’ring drummer
Though sometimes you’ll think it a bummer
Sans his whip at one’s back
And its emphatic crack
May as well dance to Floyd’s Ummagumma
There once was a blog discussion
That go sillier as it went on*
As harsh as it may sound
There’s very little ground
Between too willing and too wanton**
* see what I tried to do there?
** see what I couldn’t do there?
* achieved that to a ‘t’.
j_p_z, who should be thankful I made folks come to his (I can’t help it) defence, @ 70:
Okay, Nickws early Wednesday morning, you should respond to this not by penning a deliberately crappy verse, like a take on that old ‘Nantucket’ vulgarity, but by following the polite LPers example and channeling Dorothy Parker:
j_p_z wishes Barack instant fail
yet wastes time on Leftards Prodeo
but Jasper’s not blind
he’s aware of hivemind
that our beliefs are shear Pathet Lao!
Zing! Now, Nickws-early-Wednesday-morn, everyone will see how witty you just might be.
Timing! It’s everything!
The long war against thread derailment;
It taught me exactly what ‘fail’ meant.
The threads just gets bigger,
Is Higgins lipsniger?
And does anyone know where my comment went?
That the Oz has lame punditry
Mark’s post dissected with glee
but a Cowgirl said, “Enough!
The use of ‘lame’ is too rough!”
Wait, that’s another thread, silly me…
#86: Honestly, I have no idea what you’re babbling about.
I didn’t even ask for a ‘good’ limerick; just a non-embarrassing one. Evidently even that bar is too high. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m busy playing checkers with a Larry Storch impostor. In this lifetime one has to set one’s priorities, after all.
btw… Dorothy Parker? Um, your newspaper Napoleon hat is on sideways. Just sayin’.
Mercurius — pretty funny. I’d suggest as a rhymier last line, though:
“I railed, but don’t know where my rail went.”
Seriously, j_p_z, you couldn’t figure out that I was actually making fun of my own slowness more so than your politics?
Who do you think I accuse of having a two day old comedy reflex? Not you.
Self-centred much?
Jasper’s relative sense of ‘good fun’
like the US day under the eagles sun
round the globe to us it trails
I is not unduly mean, but yet he flails
Must we suppose his humour, like this thread, derails?
Goodbye thread.
Insert punctuation wherever one pleases, be creative.
“you couldn’t figure out…”
Actually I was being quite honest when I said, “Honestly, I have no idea what you’re babbling about.”
Well, whaddaya gonna do, eh.
“It’s just that mean old Texas sun.
It makes me dizzy, dizzy,
Dizzy in my head.”
Sounds to me though, like you’re now trying to have it both ways. Well that’s fine too. Hit it, girls:
Oh dear, the metre in my ryhme @ 90 just got way too complicated for a simple ditty. Still, at least it wasn’t a total non-effort like my ‘limerick’.
Here’s something terribly modern I prepared earlier:
“So… you leftards have finally moved in to the swampland you’ve purchased…
with great effort, and at the cost of every last drop of your dignity and integrity.*
* — the best part is, since leftists have no idea what they really sound like,
you don’t even know what ‘dignity’ and ‘integrity’ even mean,
let alone your own goofy understanding of these words…
You showed no dignity,
no thoughtfulness,
no civic honor,
no manners whatsoever,
when you were down…”
It’s part of a longer work I call Subterranean Redneck Blues. It’s like a tribute to both Murray and Dylan.
If you hailed from this hemisphere jpz, it would be…hit it girls:
“Here’s something terribly modern…”
(SFX: Roadrunner-style running away/”doppler” sound)
Groucho Marx>devolved into Larry Storch>devolved into a Saturday morning cartoon character (digressed really, quite sad when you think about it) burped:
You likey, Kemo Sabe?
I can get the rest of the galley proof from my publisher, Angry Rant Brothers Inc.
Long work, is Subterreanean Rednek Blues.
Very long work. We’re talking Iliad long.
If this thread dies a death I’ll be happy to lend you the galley proof at other locations our paths cross…
See you round on the blog, friend.
I once called tim bliar as shallow as a mid summer puddle in perth.
It got right under his skin.
I stopped reading the bulletin when they employed bliar and have up on the oz long ago.
The sooner the print media expires the better.
Hi Nickws. You know, I keep trying to put to rest this discussion (which, I think you’ll agree, is more about nothing than anything else) and you keep bringing it back to life; and frankly, it’s starting to get weird. Which I don’t particularly need at the moment: already got enough weird to deal with lately, thanks.
Once somebody starts turning people’s old blog comments into ‘found’ poetry, well, that generally means it’s time for everyone to go home and have a nap. Especially if one thinks that Chuck Jones represents a step down from Julie Marx, artistically.
Okay, good. That’s all wrapped up then. Cheers. You’re welcome to have the last word if you like, but this is quite it for me. Serves me right for quibbling about Latin in the first place.
“See you round on the blog…”
Um, no, actually. That isn’t the idea. Well… Ciao!
You’re right, mate. I’ll show some dignity, a little bit of thoughtfulness, maybe some civic honor, netiquette manners (whatsoever netiquette is, crazy words people invent these days, what with the disrepect for the rules of proper usage) and admit that when you were down is just not the right time to continue a stoush.
It’s time to press the ignore button. I’ll be walking away.
(BTW, old blog comments? Wot, you’ve changed that poisonous opinion of your President now he’s in his second month in office, have you?
Good for you.
Baby steps, j_p_z-doesn’t-live-here-anymore, baby steps are exactly how you’re going to work your way out of craziness and into the light of a brand new day…)