A hypertextual saga of unending miseries
We meet Janet in her penthouse flat. Pricey: yes, but you can’t put a price on space, can you? As she sits on the sofa, entranced by the TV spectacular THROW YOUR MONEY AT THE SCREEN, a soft dread rumbles up through her sphincter. It’s March, she muses. Debt time.
We know you’re in there, Janet Gormley.
Oh Christ! It’s those people from the BANK GOVERNMENT STUDENT LOANS OR LANDLORD! She locates a knife with the intention of slicing a vein. But hold your horses, Janet! You haven’t explained what happened last night yet.
“It’s simple,” Janet says, “I was about to enter the Seán Ó Faoláin Short Story Competition with a tale about a man in a V-neck vest who makes a phone call to a squid when it occurred to me – I was approaching fifty and I hadn’t finished High School yet!”
Oh, what a dozy artichoke! But before we can explore that plot strand, we have the pressing business of the debtors. They’re a-banging.
Open up. We don’t want to hurt you. We only want your money.
Janet freezes. She thinks about her options. She might visit Tania Hershman’s blog. She might sleep with an Albanian peasant. She might go online to this disgusting pornographic website. She might also choose, as so often we do in our lives, to do nothing.
In the end, she opts to listen to a German rendition of Puff the Magic Dragon:
We meet Janet in her penthouse flat. Pricey: yes, but you can’t put a price on space, can you? As she sits on the sofa, entranced by the TV spectacular THROW YOUR MONEY AT THE SCREEN, a soft dread rumbles up through her sphincter. It’s March, she muses. Debt time.
We know you’re in there, Janet Gormley.
Oh Christ! It’s those people from the BANK GOVERNMENT STUDENT LOANS OR LANDLORD! She locates a knife with the intention of slicing a vein. But hold your horses, Janet! You haven’t explained what happened last night yet.
“It’s simple,” Janet says, “I was about to enter the Seán Ó Faoláin Short Story Competition with a tale about a man in a V-neck vest who makes a phone call to a squid when it occurred to me – I was approaching fifty and I hadn’t finished High School yet!”
Oh, what a dozy artichoke! But before we can explore that plot strand, we have the pressing business of the debtors. They’re a-banging.
Open up. We don’t want to hurt you. We only want your money.
Janet freezes. She thinks about her options. She might visit Tania Hershman’s blog. She might sleep with an Albanian peasant. She might go online to this disgusting pornographic website. She might also choose, as so often we do in our lives, to do nothing.
In the end, she opts to listen to a German rendition of Puff the Magic Dragon:
There's something about the Mediteranean languages that makes women lose the ability to reason and, instead, dream of men climbing towards their balcony with roses between their teeth.
ReplyDeleteThere's something about the German language that makes men lose the ability to reason and think of warfare.
Whoever divided up the results of Babel was grossly unfair I think.
I agree. Take this poem I read, for instance:
ReplyDeleteMike ist ein Faschist.
Mike verbreitet Lügen.
Mike ist hässlich.
Mike ist homosexuell.
Mike ist fett.
Mike ist taub.
Mike ist dumm.
Mike ist ein Idiot.
So much better in Italiano. :)
Mark et une silly bugere, pourqui put detergent su la cabbage?
ReplyDeleteI don't know many German men who think of warfare. Almost all of them are passivists now.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, I don't know any German men who would think of glorifying war.
ReplyDeleteYes, forgive my choice of link. I'll replace it with a more relevant symbol for modern Germany. :)
ReplyDeleteDC:
ReplyDeleteI was commenting more on other races that hear the German language (and no - not because of 'the war). It's just something about gutteral languages. Be fair, sentences in German DO seem to sound like they involve a lot of spitting. A bit like Japanese always sounding bad tempered actually.....