Don’t tell me I don’t know the horrors of Vietnam.  You’re waging your own diabolical war, and I’m the lone victim. Congratulations, General, the target has been obliterated.  Go ahead and plant the flagpole of victory straight through my heart.  You’ve won.

I dreamed there was nothing in the house to eat but an amoeba.  I remembered from science class that amoebas can make one sick.  So I tried frying my amoeba.  All the while, I fantasized about having a different single-celled plant/animal to eat: the euglena, my all-time favorite when it comes to green scum.

Decoys

I dreamed that, like a colon, I stood between parts of a numerical expression of time (in hours, minutes, and seconds).  On digital clocks, I got to blink.

Later that night, I dreamed about that gorgeous passage in the novel MIDDLESEX by Jeffrey Eugenides, about the teacher who "spoke in complete paragraphs.  If you listened closely it was possible to hear the dashes and commas in his speech, even the colons and semicolons."

Saint Cartello
Patron of Planned Obsolescence.

Originally a friend to poor workmen (then, over time, associated with "poor workmanship"), Saint Cartello was an expounder of the philosophy of "Divine Second Thoughts."  Shrines to Saint Cartello, manufactured on assembly lines, are traditionally replaced annually.  Cartello oversees self-defeating obsessions, American-made appliances, disposable razors, and unpredictable hemlines.

"Is it just me?"  On a technicality, no.  One should say, "Is it just I?"  But then the answer would still be no, and you can prove it by looking in a phone book.

I dreamed that rabbits communicate via eye blinks.

New Summer Course Offerings at the "Real World University"


Hmmm... I'd love to learn how to slander a celebrity and balance my checking account, but if I take Spanish Cognates then I won't have to buy a textbook!

Did you hear the one I just made up about the horticulturist who got stranded on a tropical island?  He wasn't lonely—he had a lot of fronds.

Cut

This puzzle grid contains an 8-letter word meaning "deadbeats, layabouts, delinquents." Can you find it? All letters in the word must touch (in any direction), and no square may be reused.

The following hints are in black text on a black background. Highlight to view.

Hint regarding word's location: The word begins in the fourth row.

Hint regarding first letter: The word begins with a D.

Answer: Dropouts.

There is also an 8-letter adjective describing certain types of maps and furniture.

Answer: Foldouts.

SONG: Heartaches For a Dime
ARTIST: Wynn Stewart

ORIGINAL LYRIC:

I only know I've held you close and kissed you my last time
And that's a lot of heartaches for a dime

ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION:

I only know I've held you close and obeyed your every order
And that's a lot of heartaches for a quarter

I dreamed that auroras were caused by bats.

Split Personalities:


so much depends
upon
a course in
miracles

—William Carlos Williamson, author of
"The Red Wheelbarrow" and A Return to Love.

Counting Sheep

I dreamed about a face.  There was "a tiny scar above [the] right eyebrow shaped just like a semicolon," exactly as in TAKE A CHANCE ON ME by Susan Donovan.

Then I dreamed that I fell in love with a woman who "spoke with the kind of fluency where you could SEE the semicolons in her speech," just as in BLACK FRIDAY by James Patterson.

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:


Thanks for inspiration: Gordon Meyer and the Bureau of Land Management.

Selected Wisdom of Jonathan Caws-Elwitt:


Literary humorist Jonathan Caws-Elwitt's plays, stories, essays, letters, parodies, wordplay, witticisms and miscellaneous tomfoolery can be found at Monkeys 1, Typewriters 0. Here you'll encounter frivolous, urbane writings about symbolic yams, pigs in bikinis, donut costumes, vacationing pikas, nonexistent movies, cross-continental peppermills, and other compelling subjects.

This puzzle grid contains a 9-letter word meaning "containing air." Can you find it?  All letters in the word must touch (in any direction), and no square may be reused.

The following hints are in black text on a black background. Highlight to view.

Hint regarding word's location: The word begins in the fourth row.

Hint regarding first letter: The word begins with a P.

Answer: Pneumatic.

There is also an 8-letter adjective describing a person who insists on absolute adherence to traditoinal rules.

Answer: Puristic.

Spoken Word Correction Fluid:

"Scratch that."
"Forget it."
"I take that back."
"The jury is instructed to ignore that outburst."
"Can we start all over?"

Did you hear the one I just made up about the fortune teller who got stranded on a tropical island?  She wasn't bored—she could read palms.

Confidence

This puzzle grid contains a 9-letter word meaning "catching sight of." Can you find it?

The following hints are in black text on a black background. Highlight to view.

Hint regarding word's location: The word occurs in the bottom three rows.

Hint regarding first letter: The word begins with a G.

Answer: Glimpsing.

There is also an 8-letter word meaning "allowing."

Answer: Enabling.

The white cliffs of Dover, notable as a large natural chalk deposit, were originally connected by a land bridge to the Great Blackboards of northern France.
—Jonathan Caws-Elwitt, "What Passes for Science"

I accidentally scratched my left eye with my fingernail.  It wasn't a severe wound--there wasn't any blood or even tears, for that matter.  But the eye kept hurting, so I finally went to the eye doctor to have it checked out.  Luckily, the doctor said my eye was healing just fine, but the way he described the wound was intriguing.  Peering at my eye through his instruments, he said, "It's like I'm looking at a constellation of stars."  Apparently, there were some microscopic fragments of glass on my fingernail when I cut my eye (I can't imagine where they came from!), and they were twinkling at the doctor.  With my interest in astrology and the concept of the eyes being the "window of the soul," I found it fascinating that the doctor saw a star field in my eye.  Then he said something even more intriguing.  He described the tiny cut in my eye as a "comet trail," and he talked about how it was flying toward the corner of my eye.  I've been trying to analyze the symbolic significance of my diagnosis.  The left eye is traditionally associated with feminine insight.  A comet is traditionally considered a harbinger of some sort.  So does a comet trailing through my feminine insight toward my nose ("third eye" area) seem to announce a shift in my outlook?

Remember that dark era when ventriloquists were getting blacklisted?  I understand that type of Charlie McCarthyism is being voiced again in puppet governments.

I dreamed I had yet another name: HEMIcolon.  Hemi means "relating to or affecting a half."  I affected half the Library of Congress.

But my dream-visit to Washington turned into a nightmare.  I dreamed that Theodore Roosevelt "recruited two of the finest legal consultants in New York State to scrutinize every semicolon that came out of either House," just as documented in THE RISE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT by Edmund Morris.

Saint Dubium
Patron of Questionable Merits.

Saint Dubium rules over Gothic architecture, bohemian poetry, most lawsuits, innumerable gadgets, a host of guidebooks, grandiose claims, local bands, and non-prescription topical ointments.

Concealing One's Tracks

Did you hear the one I just made up about the guy who was addicted to home repair jobs?

He was in constant need of a fix.

You have made it abundantly clear what is important in your life.  Through body language, speech, gestures, facial expressions, postures, eye contact, and written words, you have effectively communicated your point.  Here’s your report card with a great big “A.”  It’s underlined, italicized, and in ALL CAPS!  Show and Tell is over for today.  So take your gold star and run back to Mommie.

Selected Wit by Jonathan Caws-Elwitt:


Literary humorist Jonathan Caws-Elwitt's plays, stories, essays, letters, parodies, wordplay, witticisms and miscellaneous tomfoolery can be found at Monkeys 1, Typewriters 0. Here you'll encounter frivolous, urbane writings about symbolic yams, pigs in bikinis, donut costumes, vacationing pikas, nonexistent movies, cross-continental peppermills, and other compelling subjects.

I dreamed I was in a tall, rectangular tower with two other people (unknown to me now, but I believe they were older than I, one perhaps my mother), and I knew that at the very top of the tower was a collection of gargoyles, grotesqueries, and occult books.   I assumed that we would float up to the top, but in the blink of an eye we were somehow already standing up there.  There were shelves on the walls, full of grotesque statuettes (some carved, some plush), and the very sight of them filled me with tremendous bliss.  I even remarked to my companions that I was experiencing total bliss just witnessing these shelves.  They were blissful as well.  It wasn't a kind of giddiness, because none of us were laughing, but I was certainly all smiles.  I was experiencing pure contentment and the feeling that all was perfect, and I wanted nothing more in the world than to keep gazing on these superficially ugly objects.

As H.P. Blavatsky wrote, "According to the Gnostics, the two principles of Good and Evil are immutable Light and Shadow, good and evil being virtually one and having existed through all eternity, as they will ever continue to exist so long as there are manifested worlds.  Were it light alone, inactive and absolute, the human mind could not appreciate it nor even realize it.  Shadow is that which enables light to manifest itself, and gives it objective reality.  Therefore shadow is not evil, but is the necessary and indispensable corollary which completes light or good: it is its creator on Earth."

Compliments, Personal Observations, and Questions Designed to Make You Feel Interesting, Special

The Lazy Novelist's Rough Draft

Chapter One

"Where have you been?"
"Oh, you know."
"Did you meet..."
"What's-his-name?  Yep, and that friend of his, Miss Thing."
"So what happened?"
"Don't get me started."
"I can just imagine it!"
"You don't know the half of it.  Words can't begin to describe what I went through with those two."
"You don't mean..."
"You read my mind."
"Say no more."

I woke up in a panic, having dreamed about the rise of the short sentence phasing out semicolons.

Then I dreamed about a refrigerator.  On it was "an article called 'The Endangered Semicolon' (held there by a magnet shaped like the also-endangered red wolf)," just as in Julia Glass's THREE JUNES.

Earlier that night, I dreamt of Manderley.

Saint Lieblos
Patron of Involuntary Celibacy.

Watchful over many a loveless marriage, Saint Lieblos penned the well-known tract entitled "Divine Relief from Sleeplessness: A Missionary's Position."

Coat Change

What do Erasmus, this solitary English tower, and these colorful dancers have in common?

The answer: Each is in praise of folly. The tower is an example of "architectural folly," the dancers are from Ziegfield's Follies, and Erasmus wrote Praise of Folly.  (The answer is in black text on the black background.  Highlight it to view.)

Saint Pfennig
Patron of the Intrinsically Useless.

Saint Pfennig oversees things devoid of purpose, such as motor boat racing, camping, public works, and vandalism.  In some cultures, he is associated with the inexplicable and the totally misunderstood.  In others, he is patron of unaskable and unrelated questions.  Paintings of him (often sanctimoniously vandalized) usually depict him "hovering all too near the angelic pleroma of total meaninglessness," to quote Mac Wellman out of context.  Traditional offerings to Saint Pfennig include copper pennies, trinkets, ornaments, and governmental reports.

Reader Comments:

Jonathan wrote:
Saint Pfennig!  Perfect concept, perfect name.  And the Dadaesque paradigm of sanctimonious vandalization -- great!

"Who died and made you God?"  Buddha did, for example, teaching that anyone could do anything he could do.

Saint Futilis
Patron of Quiet Desperation.

Best known for his "Litany of a Thousand Muted Cries for Help," Saint Futilis' sermons were famously punctuated by angry silences.  Futilis eventually founded a  monastery, "The Brothers of Unspeakable Loneliness" (a.k.a. "Nothing Really Martyrs"), where the daily rounds of prayer were known as "Counting the Minutes."  Overcome with feelings of meaninglessness after Futilis' death, the monks never mustered the wherewithal to disband, though the Church officially renounced them after misinterpreting a manifesto entitled "Our Resignation."

SONG: Slow Motion
ARTIST: Blondie

ORIGINAL LYRIC:

Slow motion you can stop on a dime
Slow motion you ought to try it sometime

ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION:

Slow motion you sedately escort her
Slow motion you ought to lend her a quarter

I'm mad at my friend the cook. 

He only calls me when he's in a jam.

Cheating

I dreamed I had corrective surgery to turn my comma half into a period.  Now I was a colon.  I stood proudly before explanations, examples, definitions, restatements, recapitulations, quotations, appositives, and lists.

Then I dreamed about a bunch of "perplexing semicolons," as in THE LINE OF BEAUTY by Alan Hollinghurst.