April 08, 2004

• Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Welcome back! Jim Loy left here for you 50 crates filled with pot-tarts. And they are starting to smell funky...
• Once during the Carter administration when Jim Loy was over to chicken supper and visiting with my Daddy, he noticed me fidgeting in my starched collar and "Sunday Best" suit. "Go get me a deck of cards, boy', said ol' Jim in that Powers Booth sort of growl (this is before Powers Booth had The Operation which as everyone knows turned him into a girl flight attendant for Delta Airlines named Kimby Ferber, when she had that pictorial in Trans-Sexy Transport magazine, but that is more a story for some other time but a friend of mine did see an issue on e-Bay for seven-hundred US dollars!) and my legs moved faster than my tongue and I was back with a proper box of Red Bicycle before you couldsay "lickety-split!". "Your Daddy sez you enjoy magic tricks?" whispered the man who once ate more pancakes than two other firefighters on a bet in a kitchen in a brothel in New Orleans just because he was bored and the Greyhound Station was Closed for Maintenance. Every fiber of my twelve-year old body shook up and down in affirmation, a tiny earthquake of "Yes" followed by the aftershock of "Sir'. "I call this one 'Fifty-two pick-Up'". Jim Loy started to smile; it was more of a horizontal rictus flattening across his face than what you'd properly call a grin, but this is what every citizen in Butte, Montana, passed for pleasure on a Loy. Faster than Flipper doing a barrel-roll on Friday night TV, Jim Loy threw the entire pack of cards up into the air, way up, over our heads, higher than the transoms that fed us cool air into our stuffy house, higher than the cobwebs living out their little secrets on top of the picture rails, almost touching the plaster medallion so squarely placed by one of the Macchiatto boys when they helped build this house two generations before, when England had a king and the bridges were all built in Philadelphia so they'd started to build Big Houses for families like us. A rainbow of Jacks and Spades mostly, a bridge of black shiny paper. Hung in the air for a second. My Dad's eyes on his hands in his lap. My Mommy not in the room, thank you Jesus. Hot ashes in my cheeks, as they fall to the floor. "Pick 'em up, son! Fifty-Tew Pick-up!!" Then he laughed like one of those pirates in The Pirates of the Carribean ride. I will find you Jim Loy I will laugh one day at your dread I will I swear were the words in my head as I slunk towards the lake, mosquitos like flak and me without a jacket.
• *wipes tears from eyes, then head explodes* Great googily moogily we've missed you. Welcome back.
• That story reminds me of this one time at band camp (really, band camp). Four of us had just finished a game of (probably) gin rummy. The guy getting the cards together at the end of the game asked me if I wanted to see a card trick. I said "sure", or "you bet!", or was silent, or something. Anyway, he said the name of the trick was ... 52 pickup. This sounded suspicious to me, partly because of the name of the trick and partly because the kid was an asshole, but I continued to feign interest. He shuffled the deck a little and then said "here it goes." He squeezed the deck in one hand, slowly relaxing his fingers from the tips to unleash a constant spray of cards around the cabin. After the last card hit the floor he looked and me and smiled, "Pick 'em up!" I replied, "You pick 'em up, jackass." and went outside to play frisbee or something. The magician also fled the scene. I think the mess was eventually cleaned up by kid that spend most of his time playing by himself in a dirt pit by the dining hall. I don't know who this Dizzy guy is, but I like his style.
• tracicle, the order of the comments is getting all goofy again. I think it's Dizzy's fault.
• 'As I entered the clearing, I saw at first what my eyes took to be a dark-skinned child scurrying through the undergrowth. But then, as my vision adjusted to the unnatural, wine-red light filtering through the trees, I saw that it was not a child, but one of the lower primates, of a species I could not identify. Behind me, I heard Challenger mutter "That was a Papio ursinus, as I live and breathe." To which the Count Gablody riposted, in a cutting whisper, "It was one of Warzicek's Macaccas, nothing more. I have shot a thousand in my time, Challenger, do you think I do not know my game?" "Keep your damnable voices down," muttered Jenkinson from the back, and I understood at once the fear in his voice. For as soon as I had lost track of the simian scampering into the bush, I saw another movement over to my left. Another! And then another! Slowly, my eyes rose up the trunk of the great tree which stood opposing us across the glade, and there, in the midst of the hanging lianas and foul creepers, were hundreds upon hundreds of tiny, glowing points of light. With a start, I realized they were eyes - from every tree around the clearing, eyes were staring down at us. "My god," said Gablody, his thick accent slurring his words, "there must be nearly nine hundred of them. And what is that infernal noise?..." For the creatures had started up an insane chuckling, a high-pitched squealing that sounded unnervingly like laughter, delighted laughter. And gradually the intensity of the noise increased, and it was joined by a repetitive thumping, as of myriad paws and feet being banged against hollow tree trunks, and the chuckling noise became something else, something that almost seemed to be words. "Diz-zie! Diz-zie!Diz-zie!" came the sounds, and we looked around in fear as all about us the beasts of the jungle jumped and screamed and kept up that unearthly chant - "Diz-zie! Diz-zie! Diz-zie! Diz-zie!"...' - The Worst. Jungle. Ever. by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1914
• Though I do not know you Dizzy, my head is spinning like a whirlpool. It never ends. And its you, Dizzy, making it spin. Welcome back to the Monkey House.
• There was a time, long ago, before the small-souled ones came and took away the gods and the names of everything, when the Great Ones told stories that wove a web of meaning around our lives, connecting them to the landscape and the ancestors and the flow of time. When the Great Ones told their stories, we did not fear death, for we knew we were but one link in the endless chain of story, and it would go on forever. One by one, the Great Ones went away. Perhaps we failed them, or perhaps they felt the call of something beyond our knowledge. Finally, there was only one, who seemed to enjoy our company in some way he never deigned to explain. I imagine we amused him. He kept telling us stories, and it gave us respite from the growing grayness of the rest of the world. Then one day we went to the clearing and he was not there. We milled around, waited, murmured uneasily. Eventually we tried telling each other stories, but it was not the same. We went back to our homes, dispirited, and lay in our beds at night trying to seize the last wisps of story from our memories and imaginations. But the ceilings were too low, the cobwebs too impervious. We slept the fitful sleep of the bereft. But a voice came from afar, saying "Go to the clearing..." We gathered in small groups, unwilling to believe but less willing to forego even the faintest, most gossamer-like possibility, and converged on the clearing. And he was there, the Great One, as though nothing had changed, and he told us of magic tricks and brothels and Macchiatto boys, and all was well again. Welcome back, Diz!
• oh. wow. holy crap. now i see why since my arrival here people have been clamoring for the return of dizzy. please, go on sir - your mad babbling intrigues me. and mexican? interlochen? one of my good friends kept going back there every summer as a counsellor. of course one time while driving to band camp he arrived late because he put diesel in his gas tank (had to work damn hard to do so, but he managed it). he's a nice guy, but when it comes to cars my friend isn't so clever at times. and finally tracked back on this jim loy thing. wow, what a nut. why do all the crazies seem to live in the same states that i live / have lived? i was a montana boy for a while, my uncle lived in bozeman, maybe he knows mr. loy... (and languagehat - from that thread - butter on a peanut butter sammich? eeeeew. it's gross but oh-so-good, 'specially when the butter and peanut butter layers are each at least 1/4 inch thick. save room for me in hell.)
• Can I have some too, please, Dizzy? Please, please share!
• Well, if no one else is going to... MonkeyFilter: Your mad babbling intrigues me. Seriously, though, can nobody else muster a few paragraphs of vague literary parody to welcome Dizzy back?
• Its the day before Easter, flashboy, I'm too fucking pissed to write anything literary. I'm struggling even to fucking type. Instead of parody, I give you quotations, if thats alright. Cut and paste is possible, at least. Feel free to finish this exciting tale. In life there are certain sores that, like a canker, gnaw at the soul in solitude and diminish it. Since generally it is the custom to relegate these incredible sufferings to the realm of rare and singular accidents and happenings, it is not possible to reveal them to anyone. If one does talk or write about them, people pretend to accept them with sarcastic remarks and dubious smiles, while adhering either to prevalent beliefs or to their own ideas about them. The reason is that as yet man has not found a remedy for these sores; the only remedy now is forgetfulness induced by wine or, artificial sleep induced by opium and other narcotics. It is a pity, however, that the effect of these drugs is transitory and that after a while, instead of soothing, they add to the pain. Will it come to pass one day that someone will penetrate the secrets of these supernatural happenings and recognize this reflection of the shadow of the soul which manifests itself in a coma-like limbo between sleep and wakefulness? I shall only describe one such incident which happened to me and which has shocked me so much that I shall never forget it; its ominous scar will poison my life throughout-from the beginning to the end of eternity where no man's understanding can fathom. Did I say poisoned? Well, I meant to say that I am scathed by it and will remain so for the rest of my mortal life. _____________________________________________ It was three months, no, it was two months and four days since I had lost him, but the memory of his enchanting eyes, no, the attractive malice of his eyes, remained in my life forever. How can I forget one who is so pertinent to my life? No, I will not call his by name, because he, with that ethereal body, slim and misty, with those two large, wonder stricken, sparkling eyes behind which my life was gradually and painfully burning and melting away, he no longer belongs to this base, fierce world. No, I should not disgrace him name with earthly things. After seeing him I withdrew from the circle of people. I withdrew completely from the circle of the fools and the fortunate; and, for forgetfulness, I took refuge in wine and opium. I passed, and still pass, my life daily within the four walls of my room. My whole life has passed within the confines of four walls.
• That'll do nicely, sir. My typing's a problem too right now, which is why I made sure I got in nice and early with my nonsensical babble... :-) ...does it end with "then I woke up, and it was all a dream"?
• I was there when it happened. Even today, I can look back and see the shock on that poor bastard's face as the axe came down. What did he expect? He left us no choice. When my back's to the wall, damn straight I'm going to do what's needed. He was going to the Feds, and that would have had us all in jail. What we were doing, well you have to understand it was a different time then. Nobody knew about Dizzy. All we knew was that the food had run out, well not so much ran out as been priced away. Ten dollars for a loaf of bread, and the water was full of wrigglies. So, we started planning. We? College students mostly, who had no way of getting home, and once the Uni cut the meal plans we had no choice. A few people got on board later, but at first it was just us. Hungry, full of booze(which we'd saved, at first in hopes of celebrating when it ended, and finally drank when the wrigglies got into the water), and out of cash. Glad you're back.
• ...does it end with "then I woke up, and it was all a dream"? Basically. All the best tales do.
• "...then, I logged off"
• I remember a small tale that goes by this:

  I woke up, and the elephant was still there...

  Yes, that's the full tale. Anyone has any idea of who might wrote it?