Saturday, March 16, 2013

Cracked Cat meets the Pope

It was a rough night in bed. Ducky Duck couldn't sleep a wink: his friend Cracked Cat 
was going to see the new Pope tomorrow. Cracked Cat was timorous about getting a benediction so early on in the Pope's Papacy but Ducky Duck was irrefutable: "Do it" he said.



(Ducky Duck reflecting on what Cracked Cat should wear to meet the Pope) 11:06 am


Cracked Cat slept well. He had faith in Ducky Duck, after all she was her best friend. True she was "special". One didn't run into transexual ducks everyday. But Cracked Cat loved her. They were in it together and the proof was ice fishing. Ducky Duck hated ice but loved fish. Cracked Cat was cracked: she loved it all. But recently she was on a poor spate: last month she only caught 2 fish in one week. Two fish! Night after night she came home chilled to the bone; her nails could hardly retract.



Two fish in one week wasn't enough to eat and usually she would catch 10 times that much!


Off she went  in Ducky Duck's limousine  to see Francis the 1st.




The timing was tight. Francis was just getting off his coronation. He got word from Ducky Duck about Cracked Cat coming and since he "owed a few" to Ducky, he couldn't refuse. He would have to take the cat in his private Logia and give her an express benediction. All this without a word to the press, the pontificate insisted to his entourage.


Cracked Cat showed up just before midnight. "I don't want just any benediction your Hooliness" she said, "I need a special blessing for ice fishing. Don't just Ave Maria me" she hissed, her head proudly held up, revealing a few of her sharp teeth.

The Pope got on his knees and murmured some things in latin. He then crossed Cracked Cat and said: "Ora tu puoi pescare tanti pesci." (Cracked Cat didn't speak Italian but she knew the word pesci was fish.) She thanked Francis and swiftly took leave under the look of angels and a lot of golden suffering on the walls. 
The next day she was out ice fishing and she caught more fish than she could haul home. What a surprise for Ducky Duck!

Sunday, March 3, 2013

P.S. I Love You



I thought it would never happen
even after the Pope left his Post
after I wrote for more post-its and
received a box of post-hits
Let's not drop the subject:
everyone is posting, that's not the point!

I cometh here to address the
P.S.
Not the Picosecond that counts the paddle steamers progress
steered by a Palestinian Captain who is writing Psalms
to the French Parti Socialista
as his son plays on the Play Station
Indeed!


A real P.S.
When did the first P.S. appear?
Well before the Titanic when the navigator said:
"By the way, did someone forget the binoculars?"
Before Frankenstein said: "Should I have not also created a valium for Monsters?"
And even before Rubens quibbled "I could have painted Anne of                     Austria's dress yellow."



If these post scriptums seem opaque to you then surely you are         familiar with Qin Shi Huang, who in 221 BC ordered         the construction of the Great Wall of China.






Only centuries later have historians discovered in a post scriptum found near his gravesite,
"Maybe we should  build the wall North-South."  (Qin underlined the N and the S, a rare treatment in Chinese writing to show emphasis.)


And so, whether we follow the precepts of P.S.s or not, P.S.s have been with us and an integral part of our history. Nevertheless, it seems P.S.s are waning; lovers rather copy and paste than use a P.S. Rare the Romeo to P.S. Juliette. 



In l901 Victor Hugo wrote a Post-Scriptum and his poem you can listen to thanks to Bruno Lalonde in Quebec. Pay attention, Frenchies, to his P.S. before reading P.S.

Which brings us to the final question, can a P.S. appear at the beginning of a text, should not we be able to place them at the top of a letter's heading, call them "Pre-Scriptums", let's do something, or else, P.S.s will disappear from the face of this planet!






POST-SCUIPTUM DE MA VIE, Victor Hugo
La logique est la géométrie de l'intelligence. Il faut de la  logique dans la pensée. Mais on ne fait pas plus de la pensée avec de la logique qu'on ne fait un payasage avec de la géométrie.

P.S.S. By the way did anyone find my missing sock?