Quince (Peter)

"Drags its long slow length like a wounded snake along." (Not necessarily in that. And is anything?) Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold! This truth is true... And what about your strange and divers ways, Peter Quince?

"Not I!"

"Disqualified — statement."

"Not I — except when I am."

"Qualified — disqualified," persisted Arthur. Peter Quince was the stupid one, but Peter Pears is dead.

"So have we started, then?" asked Quince, still confused, thus human, all too human.

"How should I know?" asked Arthur.

"Does that mean I should?" Quince (Peter) had begun to understand.

Dire critics and nested brackets

Meanwhile, back three spaces and miss a turn — bishop to king's third, gentleman's fourth — do not collect two hundred pounds. How often? Never! Really?

    "No..." Arthur doubted. "All seven? With olives? Seriously? Oval? Good Lord!" And that was just before tea.

    Afterwards, the city was empty. Windy windy. Those ubiquitous leaves and big papery detritus. Diacritics scurried villainously from drains. Dire critics collapsed in the streets. Those that were left trumpeted. Jean was alone, the speaker dumb, the writer dead, chairs chairs. Isn't it time for our lesson?

(because they lessened...)

And it was true, every last fact of it (Liverpool, no thank you, I don't disagree with mud in my pudding — pud! (in my mudding, through a long-winded (and largely tautologous set of rhyming couplets (of the Alexandrine style, as popularised so jibely by that (four-legget bandicoot of a pobble (nây, này, and quice náy (I speak of Mr(s) A.M. (F (S ((poobl(glun(k))))))))))))atishoo). Merci.

Herring and Crisp

"Stop making sense" isn't a very good film. Or is it? "Great, smashing, super." "Where's the plot? The romance? The agony? The thrills? The spills?" "They're over there in the corner," Arthur responded laconically. Mordred cast Arthur a baleful look. "Well caught." "But now take this," proffering him a piece of smoked trout. "There's not enough fish in this," the spokesmen for Fish In Social Hexagons or Yeovil (FISHY) shouted. "Or are there," Eric the herring replied.

Έρικ δα χαφ α χέρριγγ. (Ar, NE 218b-c)

Professor Crisp smiled in disgust, yawned, sneezed, yawned again, gained a yawn, smelt like an old goat for half an hour and then
    (continued in 4 pages time)

Interim

Uncle Maria says — "Five ways to go BANG!"
Hunting of the quark. Quark of the covenant. Fish!

    Arthur surfaced for a moment — the island had disappeared in the interim, which was square and deep and full of letters. "W!" he said, clearing his throat. An acrobat swam by, in Nietzsche's umbrella.

Careless bastard.

He's been talking to it for ears.

Four-ears.

Five-eyes.

Five yes. (odd!³).

Six noses, all told. Odd, odd, odder.

Still completely

THAT, TOO, OF COURSE,
BUT STILL COMPLETELY {In a triangle, with a picture of an ostrich} OSTRICH.

THAT, TOO, OF COURSE,
BUT STILL COMPLETELY {In a triangle, with a picture of steaming dung} DUNG.

{In a triangle, with a picture of a mother holding a baby saying "waaah"}
THAT TOO OF COURSE,
BUT STILL COMPLETELY MOTHER.

{In a triangle, with a swastika and the letters "P de M"}
THAT, TOO (OF COURSE)
BUT STILL COMPLETELY DECONSTRUCTIONIST.

That three, and totally unjust. I thought we had got beyond such cheap ideological categories. De Man is dead and de text is innocent though always already fallen.

He will not (therefore) have been implicated.

ET TU, GOLF COURSE,
GUT-SPILL (REPLETELY) άλλωс

{In a triangle, with the word "Help!" and a picture of a top-hatted gentleman who has a huge bow tie protruding from his ears}
(man with bow-tie through his head)

ANKAŬ TIO, KREDEBLE,
SED ANKORAŬ TUTE ALIEL

8 out of 10 Wombles

I always knew the Wombles were a bunch of proto-ecologists and, as you know, the green is either. {Tick}

But, as we all know, the Wombles are grue not green, while others do contend that they are bleen. Who knows? 8 out of 10 Wombles said they preferred bulldozers to pianos. But then, they would say that, wouldn't they? {Tick}

What more can one expect of those who prefer pseudo-real demolition to the possibility of artistic creation?

Ray Vin Ma'd

THAT, TOO, OF COURSE,
BUT STILL COMPLETELY {In a triangle, with a picture of something that has just disappeared} NOTHING.

No thing O thing othing othering boo
And a complete absence and almost antithesis of derring-do.

The Wombles shifted in nervously. "What are we here for anyway?" one of them asked querulously. "Well, there was to have been a plot," Phil began, before being interrupted by a drum solo, "but it was intercepted on the way by a posse of hermeneutical mafiosi, who headed it off at the pass."

And yet, and yet, Arthur mused. Somwhere, there must be a plot. "Yes, we want a structure, give us some logic," the Wombles cried. But their efforts were resisted by the Ma'd tribe. Ray Vin Ma'd, their leader, looked up from his copy of "A pseud's guide to Derrida; or Derrida's guide to pseuds; a.k.a. how to gibber in 5 easy lessons (vol. 2 free with vol. 1)". {Tick}

What no allusions?! No — originality stands on its own merits. Soon, soon, we shall move up into the broad, sunlit uplands, where plots exist. There is no alternative — other than the rantings of the Ma'd — "I have nothing to offer you, but gibber, text and words."