Tag: Humour

Some may know that I occasionally receive scholarly papers from the 39th century.  Unfortunately it is impossible for me to reply, and consequently I see some curious errors made about 20th century America because of the limited survival of evidence to that period.

Scholars at that period write in a stylised and archaic form of English, which they understand is used in our day by the most important political and ecclesiastical figures.  This they learn from the remains of a Guide to plain English which reached them.  It is a little unfortunate that they misunderstood the thrust of some of the statements.  They call this awkward style “Gibberish”, as they understand from the Guide that this is what every politician tends to speak in public.

The paper that has come before me is incomplete, but discusses a curious feature of 20th century US society, from impeccable references. 

At this period every American citizen seems to have owned a donkey, and it seems to be understood that the animal is kept close by at all times.  There are copious references in the literature to this. 

In a ballad entitled Stone Sun, listing various pleasures, the line occurs: “I’m gonna dress my ass in the latest fashion.”  From this we learn that the donkeys were dressed in some manner, and that the status of the owner would depend on the degree to which the donkey was kept attired in the latest fashions. 

In the fragmentary play “Total Recall” by Arnold Blackegg, the line “Get your ass to Mars” appears; the hero must take the animal even in his space-craft.  It must be admitted that it is unclear how this could have been practical in the supposed space-missions of the period, and is one argument for considering all these to be fictional.

The animal was clearly very important.  In another play, the hero invites the villain scornfully to “kiss his ass”.  It must be presumed that this reflects some ceremony not otherwise known to us.  Later one of the players states his intention to “kick the ass” of someone else.  A similar idea appears in “I am going to  get medieval on his ass,” presumably indicating harmful intentions.

People of low status might sell their donkey.  Studies of the term “sell your ass” have tended to suggest that in fact outright sale was not involved, even then; but rather a rental agreement.  Only the most degraded would do this, it seems, but that it did occur is agreed by all who have written on the subject.

However archaeological examinations of American tenement blocks reveal a total lack of facilities to keep this essential animal.  Despite the lack of literary evidence, therefore, we must presume that only those who had already sold their ass could work for major corporations and live in large cities.  Whether they recovered their donkey on retirement is unknown.

BISHOP WILLIAM WARBURTON (1698-1779)

[James Quin, Garrick’s chief rival and a noted wit, retired from the stage at the close of the 1752 season. Warburton, whose marriage to the favourite niece of Ralph Allen (the original of Fielding’s Squire Allworthy) had accelerated his rise in the Church, and who managed to combine arrogance, self-approval, and a belief in his own omniscience with an eye to the main chance, was one of the least liked ecclesiastics of the eighteenth century.]

Mr. Warburton, about the year 1750 or 1752, being in company with Quin the player at Mr. Allen’s, near Bath, took several opportunities of being sharp upon him on the subject of his love of eating and his voluptuous life. However, in the course of the evening, he said he should be obliged to Quin for ‘a touch of his quality’, as he could never again see him on the stage. Quin said that plays were then quite out of his head; however, he believed he remembered a few lines of Pierre;1 on which he got up, and looking directly at Mr. Allen, repeated ore rotunda—

                                                                Honest men
Are the soft easy cushions on which knaves
Repose and fatten.

Warburton gave him no further trouble for the rest of the evening.

1 In Otway’s Venice Preserved, Act I, lines 126-8.  Anecdote from Sir James Prior, Life of Edmond Malone . . . with Selections from his MSS. Anecdotes (1860), via J. Sutherland, The Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes (1975), #102, p.71.  The preceding anecdote of Lord Chesterfield is from the same source, #101.

Enough serious stuff.  Courtesy of Small Dead Animals, I have just discovered that Tom Lehrer’s rag-time classic, The Vatican Rag, is online here.

I came in just now, out of the burning heat, and there was a leaflet on my doorstep.  It was from the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and titled “How will you deal with the end of the world?” or something like that.

Sad person that I am, the only thought that entered my heat-addled brain was “get better air-conditioning.”

No sleep for two days now.  It’s been 27C in my hotel room the last two nights; no air-con, no ventilation.  No refunds either.

In Hellsdump House, the office in which I attempt to work while awaiting the chop at the end of the month, the only portion that is air-conditioned is the director’s offices.  Temperatures in the office reached 27.2C.  People collapsed, fainted, wore beach wear or ran up and down with their underpants on their heads, shrieking.  Actually I made the last bit up.  Most people just slumped at their terminals.  I just sat there, giggling (not from the heat, but because I had found this site), and being avoided by everyone else.

Hope I’m more coherent than I feel.  Sleep-deprivation is weird.  Cooler this morning. Who knows, I may get some sleep tonight.

We all hate going to work on Mondays, but in a way most of us are fortunate.  For example, on the way in to work today, I passed a van labelled “Sparkles mobile dog wash.” 

Just imagine what that job must involve.  It’s a job which means driving all over the place to wash dirty dogs.  Imagine leaning over the tub, bog-brush in hand, trying to clean the backside of some unfamiliar poodle, while the vicious little bugger tries to bite you.  “Look, he likes you!” squeals the silly owner, as you wrestle with her rottweiler, trying not to lose any fingers.

It makes you wonder what kind of alternatives the school careers advice were suggesting to him.

On the positive side, he must be the only man for whom an armoured cod-piece is a legitimate tax-deductible expense.