Haddock official

A grouse once whose surname sumame? was haddock
Quite terrified by Fanny Craddock
Filled his shoes with cement and
Said "That's not what I meant", and
"There's kangaroos in the top paddock!"

There once was a chap who about
The referential admitted no doubt
His naive faith in history
Was rather a mystery too large a tail? tale?
Preposterous and inside-out!

A girl with the name Beaumont Bissell
Found an oil-covered eye made her whistle,
So in terrible fear,
She replaced that old see(e)r
With a haddock, which made it official.

To "explain":

         OIL or O{eye}L
                   |
                   V
    O"FISH"L or O{fish}L

Brainium

All signifiers are born free — yet everywhere they are in chains. drains?

Word word word word word. You have nothing to lose but your brains. drains?

An adventurous chap filled his cranium
With haddock, light ale and uranium
When asked for a reason
He said, "Grouse aren't in season,
And I don't know what became of my brainium. brumnmnm?

Brain-I-um. The brain is able to posit a specific/general subjectivity ("I") through forgetting ("um") the production of that subjectivity, which is in the context of the object ("U") and its contemplatin ("m[mm..]"). The "overall" context is poetico-rhetorical. You asked.

Popular Philosophy

{magazine cover, with a picture of a face wearing spectacles, and labelled "a popular philosopher"}

// POPULAR PHILOSOPHY
(if that isn't a contradiction in terms)
(bi-monthly or randomly, whichever happens first)

INSIDE

"Why I like infinite regresses"
"Vicious circles and how to avoid them"
"Nazism — what is it?" P de M
Top 10 conundrums
How to make your own ethical system to cut out and keep

OUTSIDE

The answer to the universe
Why trains are always late
Where is Lord Lucan
Who is the 5 o'clock hero
Deconstruction made easy

buy this issue & get a free signifier! //

But... the inside is the outside!

More pickaxes

Why can't we have more pickaxes?
And so you shall.

There once was a feminist writer
Who was also a pugnacious fighter
She wielded an ice axe
While having sex [?sax]
But she'd have been better off with a mitre.

Oh frabjous play!

Of water-clocks and printing-press, Oh Muses shriek your song! Of Walruses and Carpenters and what's the French for gong? The forty-seventh root of eight is difficult to smell, particularly (if like me) you've lost your nose as well. "And hast thou spain the Jelly-Knock? Come to my arms, my custard-cream? Oh frabjous play! Calloon! Belay (that order, Mr Dream!)" "I have large writing," spoke the Text, in incarnated letters; but Rory Bremner went insane and worshippéd his betters. 'Twas brilliant, but the tovey slimes did gibber gibber gibber wabe, all gibber were the gibber gibber

{End of the double-page spread}

WHY DID I WRITE THAT??

Pericles' Funeral Oration

My hat it has twelve fishes, Twelve yawnos has my song, And had it not twelve fishes, It would be rather long. But have I written yet enough To drive all readers sane? Or mad? Or green? Or curling-tongs? Do tell me, where's my brain? As Basil Fawlty once remarked, "I've only got one face" — well, actually, as you can tell, it was just a negative space. "To be or not to be", That is (dear friends) a quotation; and now we will upstanding be for Pericles' Funeral Oration. The scholars know not what it means or whether it means any—thing; they could have gone to Crossroads with a major hit for Benny. And so I write more rubbish down, not knowing where I'm going, And so I write more hsibbur up, not going where I'm knowing. I wonder if you've ever learnt to count to five hundred and five? I know I haven't, but then again, I'm dead whilst still alive.

Tom Lehrer scansion

My garden holds a thousand wells, my snail has died of maggots, I flew to Amsterdam tonight and lost a piece of baggage. Does baggage rhyme with cabbage? I don't think I would dare to be so bold and risk it here, instead beware his swirling hair! Once upon John Kettley's mum, A fish-hook I did spot, it felt like several plates of knives, A-smothered deep in snot. Oh childish childish sense of hu—mour and Tom Lehrer scansion; beware his hair, his mouldy stare, Industrial Expansion! Shall I compare thee to a gnat that flies straight up one's nose? I'd rather I didn't, thank you, good riddance! Does this make much sense? Who knows? "Many of these are bad for the hell, except for the literary few. Discuss. Disgust." So spake John Sta—pleton who was made of glue. I'm starting to gibber now (it's rather alarm—ing, I'm sure you'll without doubt agree) they're coming to take me to the new funny farm that they've built on the minor North Sea.