Illustrious

ILLUSTRIOUS, adj. Suitably placed for the shafts of malice, envy and detraction.

2007 Update: Prosaic in the popular imagination.

Idler

IDLER, n. A model farm where the devil experiments with seeds of new sins and promote the growth of staple vices.

2007 Update: A delegatee.

Happy birthday to Mo'a!

A Friend in Pursuit

Episode 29 of The Meditations of Diogenes The Cynic. Thanks to this week's reader.

Greek children are to not be heard as well.




This week, the Prattler was struck with a momentary good mood and there will be no post until it passes.






Read the story in Sinope.

Wrath

WRATH, n. Anger of a superior quality and degree, appropriate to exalted characters and momentous occasions; as, "the wrath of God," "the day of wrath," etc. Amongst the ancients the wrath of kings was deemed sacred, for it could usually command the agency of some god for its fit manifestation, as could also that of a priest. The Greeks before Troy were so harried by Apollo that they jumped out of the frying-pan of the wrath of Cryses into the fire of the wrath of Achilles, though Agamemnon, the sole offender, was neither fried nor roasted. A similar noted immunity was that of David when he incurred the wrath of Yahveh by numbering his people, seventy thousand of whom paid the penalty with their lives. God is now Love, and a director of the census performs his work without apprehension of disaster.

2007 Update: A "hissy" before it has passed.

Wit

WIT, n. The salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.

2007 Update: The whiplike, agile and fast-moving feature of the well-developed mind connected to the hubris. The wit is prominent in dogs who call it wag and prehensile in tree-monkeys who call it grasp.

Happy birthday to Pia. You're still much too far North.

A Fable

The Poet and the Praying Mantis

Once upon a time, an old poet called Pancho sat at his desk in a small hotel room in Havana, the sole window of which that looked out across a street and upon the sea. He was trying to think of something worthy of inscribing an ode to. Everywhere he cast his mind, to the half-empty bottle of bourbon on his desk or the spry, beautiful and careless young Cuban women who dashed and trilled together like magpies below his window to the political movements that called for peace and sensibility- everything seemed so trite and obvious and temporary. An ode is love that lasts as long as language and needs an object whose beauty is permanent and whose merit is above controversy. The poet deplored to his muse her infidelity, "Oh, send me something to love!"

Just then, a long-bodied bug hopped through the open window and on to the desk. The insect was gold, rather than green, and glowed with a soft light that made the objects on which her light shone suddenly beautiful whether a blank sheet of paper or an unfinished cigarette.

"My mother, Euterpe, to me has commanded
A flight through your window tonight
To answer your prayer, for, as you demanded
A love made from reflections of light,
My heart is immortal, o, write me a poem!
I care for the sick and the felon
My beauty's as fertile as the softest loam
And amusement grows sweet as a melon."

The poet, inspired by the beaming bug, picked up his pen and used it to flick the cricket back through the window. "What the hell rhymes with praying mantis?" he growled into the musky, swirling, tropical night.

Moral: Inspiration is the reflection of consent, beheld in a mirror.

ODE, n. An appreciation of any vessel strong enough to constrain a tortured metaphor, large enough to hold a poet's delusion, and conveniently named.
PRAYING MANTIS, n. One who worships herself in the morning, the grass in the afternoon and the sphinx in the evening. Semi-homophone of graying Francis.

Witch

WITCH, n. (1) Any ugly and repulsive old woman, in a wicked league with the devil. (2) A beautiful and attractive young woman, in wickedness a league beyond the devil.

2007 Update: A sorceress responsible for, among other things, men turning into apes; enchantments that cause obsession, indifference or distraction in the victim; the levitation of owls; the nocturnal rituals of cats; and, in many cases, profligate drinking, foolish voting and debt.

Merry Christmas in July to The Ice Queen. Alles gut zum geburstag!

Werewolf

WEREWOLF, n. A wolf that was once, or is sometimes, a man. All werewolves are of evil disposition, having assumed a bestial form to gratify a beastial appetite, but some, transformed by sorcery, are as humane and is consistent with an acquired taste for human flesh.

Some Bavarian peasants having caught a wolf one evening, tied it to a post by the tail and went to bed. The next morning nothing was there! Greatly perplexed, they consulted the local priest, who told them that their captive was undoubtedly a werewolf and had resumed its human form during the night. "The next time that you take a wolf," the good man said, "see that you chain it by the leg, and in the morning you will find a Lutheran."

2007 Update: A creature divided between two natures, fictional and toothy, and of the unelected sort.

A Friend in Need

Episode 28 of The Meditations of Diogenes The Cynic.

To hear the story, maybe try a different approach.

This week in The Prattler, "Standards and Measures."







To read the story, check under Diogenes' tub for the the transcript.

Hash

HASH, x. There is no definition for this word--nobody knows what hash is.

2007 Update: n. A petit melange, but with an Arabic etymology and an Irish aesthetic. The name shares its root with HASHISH and ASSASSIN which explains the dish entirely.