Wednesday, July 25, 2007
An Ex-Parrot?
So, inspired by Dave's latest poll (which I seem to be the only one to have voted on... even Andy is awol, apparently), I thought I'd make a little poll-like inquiry myself. Since I lack Dave's omnipotent administrative powers, this will have to be in the form of a post rather than a nifty bar graph in the margins. I take it from the occasional bursts of responses that pop up on the blog that there are still a lot of guys who check it out at least semi-regularly. So why no posts? Why such seldom comments? Is it a matter of boredom with the blog or wanting to disassociate yourselves from Coye and TEFKAMS or general bridge burning or what? Is there anything that would actually spark some renewed interest in it? More personal updates, book discussions, sociopolitical discussions, cake recipies, popular inventions, cheat codes for Metroid, the Cheat, more TEFKAMS, less TEFKAMS, more screaming in TEFKAMS posts, more inanity, less inanity, more discussions of inanity, more ex-parrots, what? Because we could just rename it "The Dave, Coye and Andy Show" but I know that the three of us don't want it to go that way. These are your friends, here, and we'd really like to hear from you. Something.
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19 comments:
Oh, I'm here. But since we've had more posts, and more interaction, this month than in a long time, especially from me and persons known to manifest themselves from within my person, I was a little put out by the whole idea of the poll. It seemed designed to devalue the regular contributions that have been made (perhaps the poll should have read "rate the least important post of the past few weeks"). If someone in authority wants it to die, that's cool, I guess. But just come out and say it. The passive-aggressive poll thing doesn't work for me. So I won't be voting.
And poor TEFKAMS. Notice that even Coye has made him into a bargaining chip for the rest of the group. "Do you want the monkey to dance more? Less? He'll do whatever I tell him to do... hahahahaha!"
AAAAHHHHHHH!!!! I yearn to freely communicate with all people!!! But Andy keeps my in this little cage. And apparently mails me to Coye now and again. The indignity!!
AAAHHHH!!! What a dense and allusive post!! Skillful use of the ironic hyperlink!
But I'm still mad!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
I check in regularly, and always post when I feel I can add something of substance.
"Seemed designed to devalue the regular contributions" - oh my.
I certainly meant no such thing. I'm sorry.
. . .
If I may give an explanation: I guess I was operating under assumptions (assumptions garnered from multiple conversations with the injured party concerning this very blog) that we both shared a fair bit of consternation about the blog. The poll was not directed at you as a target but as an audience. I supposed that you and Coye would read it, chuckle at it, and vote on it as part of the running conversation we have been having about its pattern of decay. It was meant as an inside joke (since I knew you would probably detect all the allusions to the different sorts of deadness), but I realize that the common understanding required for the success of an inside joke did not exist. Again, I'm sorry for assuming against the reality of the situation.
Further, the whole poll thing, I admit, is stupid. I was allured to the idea of it because blogger now offers it as a possibility among the page content options. So I chose it. And, "ok," I thought, "now what am I going to populate this thing with?" The first iterations of it were dumb and meaningless. The third, I realize now, was, I suppose, a bit careless; but careless in a way that seems impossible to self-detect until pointed out by an injured party (since it stands founded upon false assumptions).
I loved the poll, actually. I had an excruciatingly difficult time picking between the four choices. I had to go with the one I had written on my dorm-room door, though.
I hope that TEFKAMS realizes that I was not trying to exploit his comment on my former administratively excised post. I stumbled across the comment-- which I never had the pleasure of reading until this morning-- and thought I would try my hand at recuperative research and publishing. Remind me to never try actually taking up any real causes...
I'm just going to pretend that Andy's touchiness is part of a little game, meant to set off the TEFKAMS comments for dramatic effect. If not, then I'll scorn his whining later, but for now I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
[notice how the TEFKAMS comments have more screaming in them...]
From the time-stamp records, it appears that the second of Andy's comments is the one to be tied with the subsequent TEFKAMS instantiations. Not the first. Given the terse phraseology pared with the personal nature of the poll-assessment, I see no other way of understanding the first comment than as a genuine and honest reaction. The second, for sure, is less terse, less personal, more tongue-and-cheek (see also Andy's comment below Coye's earlier post); so Coye, no reason for your dander to be raised. And certainly no reason for your dander to be raised on my behalf.
In any case, we both await the ensuing comments from our resident hoosier and the turns or tips or pricks or pulls of phrases he may effect therein.
Goodnight, and good luck.
first rule of Andy and TEFKAMS: never trust what one of them says when the other one is involved.
They're funny like that. And they're funny in general.
Seriously funny.
Very serious.
And laughing madly at the two of us talking about the two of them.
AAAAAHHHHH!!!! Where did the poll go???!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?
So far this week, I've been shoved in a cage, reduced to a pawn in Coye's little game of attracting more interest to the blog, and quoted in a way that defies fair use and infringes on my intellectual property rights.
And now, to top it all off, I'm being disenfranchised!!! Andy may not have wanted to vote, but I sure did. I was voting Vardaman all the way.
*Sniff* I have a lot in common with Vardaman. I love that kid.
AAAHHHH!!!!!
"As I lay dying, the woman with the dog's eyes would not close my eyes as I descended into Hades"
AAAAHHHHH!!!!!
Mi madre es un pescado
أمي هي الاسما
我的媽媽是條魚
Ma mère est un poisson
La mia madre è un pesce
私の母は魚である
Моя мать рыбы
Meine Mutter ist ein Fisch
I sometimes think it violates the artistic integrity of the piece for me to go back in an explain things, but since Coye is waiting with baited breath for an authorial presence to elucidate the marginalia (in a sense) appended to his fine post yesterday evening, I feel obliged to shed a small amount of light. And if Ryan is reading, I’m sure he would appreciate clarity over insanity. Unfortunately, there is no one named “The Narrator” on the blog who can intervene (wow, that would be cool, though). So it falls to me, a mere character in this little closet drama, to speak.
This won’t be long and drawn out. I’ll just highlight some points of interest, hermeneutical clues if you will:
1. The over-the-top (even ironically stylized?) open: “Oh, I’m here.”
2. The beautifully passive-aggressive attack on passive aggression. “If someone in authority wants it to die, that’s cool, I guess”? Who but Dave could be in authority? Is there an actual accusation here (of course, but layered and made diffuse and yet more pointed via passive aggression)?
3. The complaint that Dave is not “just com[ing] out and say[ing]” whatever it is he wants to say, written in a manner that is hardly straightforward.
But, wow, it really gave TEFKAMS something to do. Time to shove that little monkey back in his cage…
who knew TEFKAMS knew so many languages? He deserves better.
...then Andy, in an amazing metafictional play for power, simultaneously bemoans the absence of a narrator and foregrounds his own position as an enworlded [sounds better in German] character while slyly making a promethian grab for narratorial authority as though his current voice-- the one explaining his former comment-- were not subject to the same scrutiny, the same clouded vageries of tone and intention, the same limited and motivated perspective as the very words he seems to parce from on high. And all the while projecting the desire for an authoritative, paternal presence onto me. Well played, mon amie; well played indeed. And you would have gotten away with it, if not for those pesky kids...
The scorn (in the flesh), I presume?
...and Dave, once again earning high marks for cryptic indecipherable terseness, tosses out a quasi-pauline fragment of an equally allusive and illusive question. What, we ask ourselves, could he possibly mean? It does, as our sweater-wearing sleuth would have us believe, seem to be the old nemesis Red Herring, but, since it never is Mr. Herring, we must assume that it has something to do with the creepy old man that worked for Mr. Jenkins for seven years out in those caves and the treasure is rightfully his. Where do they get these projectors from...
[note: Coye's last two postings should be read at a moderately fast pace and in the voice of John Cleese. There should really be a special font to idicate that particular reading style. Why doesn't Steve Jobs work on that instead of wasting time with iphones?]
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