Dear Dr. Bones,
_¡Feliz paleosábado!_
¿Did you know, _Señor Doctor_, that the ‘narrative’ of "The Sorcerer’s Apprentice" goes back as far as Lucian, encomiast of Great Alexander? So says Big LEW, the Learnèd Elders of Wiki, [1] and ¿who is Yoo or Eye to say different?
Though she’ll thus be celebrating her two thousandath a week from next Wednesday, Freedame Narratio is still goin’ strong. In fact, her freeladyship has just _aufgeschnappt_, ‘_shnuqqered_’, [1a] a certain Party Neocomrade (seventh grade) M. X. Gurfinklel of Pajama Junction NJ an’ Common Terror magazine.
That feat does rather resemble dynamitin’ fish in a barrel, admittedly. ¿What more natural consequence of wombschoolery an’ freedumbin’ down than that every Tom, Dick an’ Harriet of a kiddie selfservative sees no reason she herself should not set up as a Kiddiemistress whight away? On strictly _a priori_ grounds, then, the student of Neocomradology would expect the woods of Foxcuckooland to be full of Little Miss Gurfunkels. And so they are, theory and practice well met at least for once. It is rather the tippy-top oif the Whight Guard iceberg that eludes computation from antecedent probabilities. A zillion M. X. Garfunkels are just what one expected, or damnwell shoulda, but ¿who could have forseen Don Neutrino de Gangrina, the _Zauberlehrling_ blown up six orders of magnitude an’ solemnly projected on the face of the Moon? ¡Poor long-suffering Cynthia!
But one can’t begin to point out the need for charity that far from home, so, back at Pajama Junction, I assume you see that Eye am picking on Master Mikey because it thinks it can be Standard & Poor’s all by its neoself. Even with this week’s Standard in one hand an’ the bran’-newtest of Criterions in the other to help Mikey through the spells an’ pentacles an’ whatnot, the poor laddie’s chances of success are not such as anybooby sane would care to specuvest in.
On his way to the deluge, Mikey pulls a little _shtykele_ Eye would like you to make a memorandumb of, Dr. Bones, for future use agaianst. Never before just now have I seen wombscholar or ziocomrade try to establish that this-or-that is "an open secret" by quotin’ -- ta-DAAH! -- her ownneoself.
Evidently the Spectre of Narcissus Dexter now haunts Foxcuckooland.to the max. I say "to the max," for I cannot see collective omphaloscopy goin’ beyond *that* high drool mark.
There was once a joke on Airstrip One that ran (IQFM)
I am the Master of this College,
If I don’t know it, it ain’t Knowledge
but Little Mikey Gurfinkel has just discovered a _plus ultra_. Turnin’ it around into the positive, an’ without the faintest hint of a grin, the yungkher lays it down that whatever Master Narky supposes himself to know a little about--say, the financial unhappiness of Frogs--is eo ipso common knowledge, "an open secret."
From there to Psolipsism in the strictest clinical sense is not more than two minute’s walkat an easy pace. With a stroller.
Accordingly, I betcha it won’t be long before the goodvolks up the slippery slope to Castle Podhòretz are sendin’ out to fizzydog.com to have one of the dungeon labóratories drained.
Yoo will join with Eye in hoping, sir, that Little Mikey Gee successfully breasts the self-inflicted flood, charity being mandatory by our own palæostandards and Old Criteria if not necessarily by those of Mikey’s masters. And in hoping, further, that it learns its lesson an’ desists from tryin’ to emulate its famous grown-up cousin Victor, Freelord Frankingsteen, in the dungeon-labóratory arts until it has acquired a really firm grip on what the _Qabbálâ_ [1b] it is doin’.[2]
Happy days.
--JHM
(( Though I did not get that far, this particular sweet puppy of Redarkenment is cutest when it gets started barkin’ _modo fucuyamico_.
(( For example, ¿Did Yoo know, O Bones, that the poor unlucky Frogs are "a predominantly continental, military, Statist nation," whereas Wunnerful US are to be numbered rather with "the oceanic [3] nations (and [Our] late 20th century converts, the Germans)? That game could, in principle, be lots more fun than signing up with the Jumblies for yet another cruise in that same old Western Sieve of theirs.
(( ¡Infinite vistas of laughing from them open! Unfortunately, cross-dressin’ as S&P is not one of them. That is rather as if the Common Terror Cruise Line started sailin’ out of Boston, but had chosen Hoboken or Hackensack or Honduras--the Gulf of Mosquitoes--for the target of the maiden voyage.
(( Simply not doin' itself proper justice here, this little señorito isn't. If Yoo ask Eye. ))
___
[1] Die Stelle, die Goethe in der Übersetzung Wielands benutzte, lautet:
Endlich fand ich doch einmal Gelegenheit, mich in einem dunkeln Winkel verborgen zu halten und die Zauberformel, die er dazu gebrauchte, [1a] aufzuschnappen, indem sie nur [1b] aus drei Silben bestand. Er ging darauf, ohne mich gewahr zu werden, auf den Marktplatz, nachdem er dem Stößel (‘pestle’) befohlen hatte, was zu tun sei. Den folgenden Tag, da er geschäftehalber ausgegangen war, nehm’ ich den Stößel, kleide ihn an, spreche die besagten drei Silben und befehle ihm, Wasser zu holen. Sogleich bringt er mir einen großen Krug voll. Gut, sprach ich, ich brauche kein Wasser mehr, werde wieder zum Stößel! Aber er kehrte sich nicht an meine Reden, sondern fuhr fort, Wasser zu tragen, und trug so lange, daß endlich das ganze Haus damit angefüllt war. Mir fing an, bange zu werden, Pankrates, wenn er zurückkäme, möcht’ es übelnehmen — wie es dann auch geschah —, und weil ich mir nicht anders zu helfen wußte, nahm ich eine Axt und hieb den Stößel mitten entzwei. Aber da hatte ich es übel getroffen; denn nun packte jede Hälfte einen Krug an und holte Wasser, so daß ich für einen Wasserträger nun ihrer zwei hatte. Inmittelst kommt mein Pankrates zurück, und wie er sieht, was passiert war, gibt er ihnen ihre vorige Gestalt wieder; er selbst aber machte sich heimlich aus dem Staube, und ich habe ihn nie wieder gesehen. – Karl Moritz: _Deutsche Balladen_ |
___
[2] A *really* firm grip would include noticin’ that if Little Mikey (or indeed Big Vic) can constitute themselves as a financial ratin’ service with no more than a magic s*ll*ble or three [1b], why, ¡so can everybooby else!
The problem, of course, is that the Serene Demographic of Podhòretz does not recognize the principle I thus appealed to. Up at the Castle, the neogentry are bound (as I conjecture) to assume that impersonatin’ Standard & Poor’s is merely another one of those many things that are perfectly OK when done by virile ganders like themseselves, entirely out of the question for silly geese like Yoo and Eye further down the Slope.
Nevertheless, everybooby, an’ her brother-in-law too, can go through the external motions of doin’ it. Eye could go through the motions, Yoo could go throw the motions, why, ¡even an unscrupulous Native of Palæstina Inventata Gingrichensis could go through the external motions!
Everybooby doing it is but potentiality at this point, yet it would not take many trying to actualize to create such a Chinese fire drill in the labóratory that a clamorer would clamor in vain for the *real* Standard & Poors to please stand up. A clamor in which it would not always be possible to distinguish virile neoganders from silly geese, even. (Party Neocomrade M. R. Levin, Esq., for example, ofter sounds a lot like Party Neocomrade Dr. R. H. Limbaugh’s imaginary butt "Mister Newt Castrati" even when there is no circumambient clamor at all. But Ailes knows best.)
[3] "Selon Sigmund Freud, qui débattit de cette notion [du Sentiment océanique] dans son _Malaise dans la civilisation_, il n’est pas à l’origine du besoin religieux parce que celui-ci provient plutôt des sentiments de désaide infantile et de désirance pour le père, remplacés plus tard par l’angoisse devant la puissance du destin."
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