Tag Archives: satire

The Devil’s Dictionary: “Absurdity, Adherent, Administration, Admiration, and Admonition”

In our continuing quest to revisit a classic, or even a curiosity from the past and see how relevant it is, we continue with The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce. Originally published in newspaper installments from 1881 until 1906. You might be surprised how current many of the entries are.

For example, here are definitions for Absurdity, Adherent, Administration, Admiration, and Admonition. The Old definitions are Bierce’s. The New definitions are mine or somebody else contemporary. The new definitions can also be simply examples of The Devil’s Dictionary definitions. From time to time, just as it was originally published, we will come back to The Devil’s Dictionary, for a look at it then and how it applies today. Click on Devil’s Dictionary in the tags below to bring up the other entries.

OLD DEFINITIONS:

Absurdity, n. A statement of belief manifestly inconsistent with one’s own opinion.

Adherent, n. A follower who has no yet obtained all that he expects to get.

Administration, n. An ingenious abstraction in politics, designed to receive the kicks and cuffs due to the premier or president. A man of straw, proof against bad-egging and dead-catting.

Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another’s resemblance to ourselves.

Admonition, n. Gentle reproof, as with a meat-axe. Friendly warning:
Consigned by way of admonition,
His soul forever to perdition.
Judibras

NEW DEFINITIONS:

Absurdity, n. A statement of belief manifestly inconsistent with one’s own, but accepted none-the-less as truth because it has been spoken of often enough by enough commentators and talking heads so as to make it real.

Adherent, n. A follower of an absurdity (or several) who has not yet obtained all that he expects to get from his or her absurdities. For example: Those who say they want less federal government involvement in their lives while living in a state that gets more in federal money than it pays in.

Administration, n. An ingenious abstraction in politics, designed to receive the kicks and cuffs due to the premier or president.
Example: In the news: On December 7th of last year, the Administration hung a banner on an air craft carrier announcing that the war was over. “Mission Accomplished,” it read. When asked about this today, the straw man said, “I never said that.”

Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another’s resemblance to ourselves, up to and including our own adherence to the same absurdity. “He’s a man I’d like to have a beer with,” one voter said in remarking why he voted for the teetotaler running for office.

Admonition, n. Gentle reproof, as with a meat-axe. Friendly warning.
Damned by Fox news admonition,
His liberal soul forever to perdition.

The Adherent was advised of the absurdity in believing everything the administration was saying. But the adherent's admiration knew no bounds, and then he became an abomination and received the highest compliment: an admonition from those he admired.

The Adherent was advised of the absurdity in believing everything the Administration said. But the Adherent’s admiration knew no bounds, and then he became an abomination and received the highest compliment: an admonition from those he admired.

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The blathering idiot writes his memoir

The blathering idiot stood in line at a writer’s convention. He had written his memoir about his campaign adventures and he was here to pitch it to agents and editors.

It was a long line. Seems everybody had a book of some sort to pitch: mystery, memoir, science fiction, military history. There was even a woman who came to pitch her book on breeding your own breed of dog. The working title was: The Bitches’ Guide to Breading Your Own. The woman herself looked like she might become one if she had to wait another minute in line. The small dog she held in her arm grew more snarly. The woman almost made it up to speak with an agent when her little bundle of fur leapt out of her grasp, onto the agents table, then the carpeted floor, pausing long enough to pee copiously, before darting off into the convention crowd.

The woman hesitated, looked at the agent, threw down the manuscript, said her book was an Idiot’s-like guide to breeding your own species, just like her little Yorkuaua. She then darted after her dog.

“Next,” the agent barked.

The blathering idiot swallowed and then sat down across the small table from the tall, imposing woman with short hair.

“Hi,” he said.

“And what’s your pitch?”

The blathering idiot stumbled through his pitch. He was sweating so hard, it looked like tears sliding down his face. No matter what she decided, he was glad it was about over.

She held up a hand. “And so this Pro-Accordion Party found you in a store front?”

“Not exactly. It was more like I found them.”

“But they picked you to be their candidate for the highest office in the land.”

“Not exactly. They had a candidate, but he backed out, citing an inability to campaign and maintain his music career.”

“Playing an accordion.”

“Yes.”

“Do you play?” she asked.

“Not exactly.”

She nodded. “Do you have an interest in playing?”

“Maybe.”

“So you don’t play the accordion. You stumbled across the Pro-Accordion Party and they were desperate for a candidate and they took you in. You had a ten-year-old as a running mate. The highlight of your campaign was speaking to a fourth-grade class, and you didn’t win a single state and weren’t even on the ballot in most of them. Is that correct?”

The blathering idiot swallowed and nodded. ‘But I enjoyed it.”

“And who do you see as the market for this book?”

“Uhh, my girlfriend.”

“My dear, naïve, child, unless you have at least one girlfriend in every city, town, and hamlet in this country, that’s not going to be many sales.”

The blathering idiot nodded, then got up from the table, stammered out a thank you, and left.

When he was outside the convention hall, Lydia, his former campaign manager, stepped up to him. “How did it go?”

“No hi, how are you?”

“So, how did it go?”

The blathering idiot shrugged. “I need more girlfriends.”

Sale sign

Without more girlfriends, he was probably not going to sell many copies of his memoir.

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The blathering idiot and Santa’s lap

The blathering idiot stood in line to sit on Santa’s lap.

“Do you really think this is a good idea?” the young mother asked of the man standing with her as they tried to control three squirming kids dressed in wise men outfits.

The man grunted.

“We can always stop.”

The young woman was very pregnant.

The man grunted again.

Santa hats

For some wishes there isn’t enough magic in Santa’s cap … or lap.

The blathering idiot had never sat in Santa’s lap when he was a kid. Since losing the election for the highest office in he land, he decided he would do some of the other things in life he had never done before. Sitting in Santa’s lad was the first thing on his list.

He did not tell anybody: not Zoey, not Xenia, not Lydia, not anybody.

One of the kids in front of him squirmed away from her parents and was toddling away. The mother ran after her. The mother had to pick the daughter up and bring her back, kicking and screaming all the way. It was then that the blathering idiot realized all three of the kids were girls. Still, they looked as if they had been dressed to be miniature wise men.

“Are you sure?” she asked again.

She was staring hard at her husband.

He stared back. He did nothing to help control the kids.

The blathering idiot could detect a cold silence between them as the line crept forward.

As they neared the head of the line, the kids increased their antsiness.

Then they were next in line. It had been almost thirty minutes.

The boy on Santa’s lap burst into tears. After two attempts to calm the young man down, Santa looked at the mom, who, slightly red in the face, stepped up from the other side of Santa’s thrown and retrieved her son.

An elf in a pea green costume with bells on the ends of his up curled show tips and a five o’clock shadow across his downturned chin, stepped up to the red velvet rope and unhooked it from one of the poles.

“Last chance,” the woman said.

“Next,” the elf said, stepping back, clearing the way up the two steps to the dais on which Santa sat.

The man hesitated, then surged forward.

The mother and the three girls followed. They walked up to Santa, the squirmy one still in her mother’s arms, and the other two fidgeting as they moved. Then, they walked past Santa as the man, the husband, the father sat in Santa’s lap.

Seeing the man plop himself into Santa’s lap and Santa struggling to handle the size and the weight, the blathering idiot no longer had a desire to sit in Santa’s lap.

“Santa,” the man said, “I want you to bring me a baby son for Christmas.”

Then the blathering idiot suddenly felt antsy. He couldn’t remember what he wanted to ask Santa for.

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The Devil’s Dictionary: Abstainer, Adage, Age

In our continuing quest to revisit a classic, or even a curiosity from the past and see how relevant it is, we continue with The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce. Originally published in newspaper installments from 1881 until 1906. You might be surprised how current many of the entries are.

For example, here are definitions for Abstainer, Adage, and Age. The Old definitions are Bierce’s. The New definitions are mine or somebody else contemporary. The new definitions can also be simply examples of The Devil’s Dictionary definitions. From time to time, just as it was originally published, we will come back to The Devil’s Dictionary, for a look at it then and how it applies today. Click on Devil’s Dictionary in the tags below to bring up the other entries.

Old Definition

Abstainer, n. A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.

Adage, n. Boned wisdom from weak teeth.

Age, n. That period of life in which we compound for the vices that we still cherish by reviling those that we have no longer the enterprise to commit.

New Definition

There once was a man, an abstainer,
a four-square, by-the-book refrainer,
who couldn’t live up to the adage —
something wise and about cabbage.
He refused to believe it was a sustainer.

He did not believe he must dine
without a proper glass of red wine.
Upon such a stewed mess,
boiled and very plain no less:
the adage about cabbage, he declined.

He now hangs out in a ratty ol’ garden,
but eats only his own private slumgullion.
Yet, to all who pass by
and not wanting to know why,
he says cabbage has made him well again.

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Filed under Ambrose Bierce, Devil's Dictionary, poetry by author

Freeform Friday: “And they call the wind Oh-My-Oh”

Cartoon of Angry White Guy

Superstorm Sandy was not the only ill wind to blow ashore this recent election season.

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The blathering idiot and The Pro-Accordion Party, part 10, the image

The blathering idiot had not done well in the one debate held on a public access channel in North Dakota. It had gone so poorly that nobody, even among the few Pro-Accordion Party supports in North Dakota remembered seeing him on the stage. Even the green Party candidate received more recognition.

The most notable thing that anybody could remember about the blathering idiot’s performance was that he had vowed to have accordion jazz music played at his inauguration. But even the one reporter covering the debate could not remember that it was him, the blathering idiot, who had said it. Only that somebody had said it and that it was the funniest line of the entire debate.

The blathering idiot had not intended for it to be funny.

But even Lydia had said it sounded funny to her, at least the way he had said it. Xenia said she had laughed out loud, time and time again, when she watched that clip of the debate on YouTube. That part of the debated was about t go viral, she said.

The blathering idiot did not think viral sounded good. He was pretty sure that meant terrible, but he was too afraid to ask. He was afraid that it would mean that his off-again, on-again girlfriend, Zoey, was right – that he would never amount to much.

That thought was still running through his head when the consultant walked into his motel room. He walked right up to the blathering idiot and said, “I have the answer.”

Lydia looked excited. Even Xenia looked a little excited. The blathering idiot did not feel excited.

“We don’t have much time, so we have to strike out in a new direction so we can stand out. You have to have a whole new image. Something that says: rugged, ready, pro-gun, pro-self-defense, professional in everything you do, which will appeal to the men, but also something that says, ‘I’m a man’s man.’ Chiseled features, rugged good looks. Something that will appeal to the ladies. And after all, they are the ones you really need to impress to get elected to the highest office in the land.”

The blathering idiot glanced at Lydia who nodded slightly. He glanced at Xenia who shrugged her shoulders as if to say all this boy-girl stuff was boring her.

The blathering idiot swallowed and said, “Okay. What do you have in mind?”

“A complete makeover.”

“Complete?”

“Exactly.”

“What will I look like when you’re done?”

“We’re done,” the consultant said. “You have to believe in this, too, or it won’t work.”

“Okay. What will I look like?”

“Do you believe in this?”

“I guess.”

“Do you believe in this?” The consultant’s voice was louder.

“Yes.”

“Say it again.”

“Yes,” the blathering idiot said.

“Louder.”

“Yes.”

“Yes, I believe!” the consultant shouted.

“Yes, I believe!” the blathering idiot shouted.

“Here, then,” the consultant said, “is what you will look like as a candidate after I … I mean … we complete your makeover.”

He slapped a photo in the blathering idiot’s lad.

For a second, the blathering idiot was afraid to look, but then slowly he tilted his head down and looked at the photo. What he saw in his lap surprised him, shocked him, and then sent a shiver down his spine.

He closed his eyes and hoped he would awaken in Oz or even Kansas.

Sean Connery in Zardoz

The blathering idiot’s new image.

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Filed under blathering idiot, political humor, Pro-Accordion Party

Monday morning writing joke: “Smarts”

Writer, no respect

Getting less for more. Sometimes its hard to please any reader.

While at a book signing the other day, I overheard one person say to the other as they walked by my table: “He makes me wish I had a lower IQ so I could enjoy his book.”

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The blathering idiot and the Pro-Accordion Party, part 9, fund raising

The blathering idiot stood outside, behind a table with a few bumper stickers, buttons, and other items, including some holiday decorations. It was cool autumn morning. Leaves were falling. He could almost hear them. He turned toward Lydia at the table next to his. All three tables together formed a shallow U.

“Is this how it’s done?” he asked.

She smiled at him. “We are a small party with only a small name recognition. Until we become more well known, we won’t get the big money donors like the other parties have.”

The blathering idiot turned and looked at Xenia, his young assistant and the daughter of his off again, on again girlfriend. She was standing at a shorter table to his right. This was the fourth such event they had both been a part of this week. At none of the events did they seem to have much success.

She smiled at him, and then shrugged her shoulders. There were a few things on her table. She was actually selling more than he was.

He looked back at Lydia. “How much money do we have to raise today?”

“More than yesterday.”

“And how much did we raise yesterday?”

“Not enough.”

“That’s what you said yesterday when I asked about the day before.”

“And it was true then and it’s true now. These days, with outside groups being able to buy and run all kinds of ads on their own, campaigns need a lot of money just to get going, and to keep them going requires even more.”

“Like a corporate sponsor?” the blathering idiot asked.

“Not quite,” Lydia said.

“Like maybe we could get a sponsor to put their logo on the side of the campaign truck? ‘This campaign sponsored by Deep Fried Fritters,’” Xenia said. “’Deep fried fritters, just the thing to warm you up on a cool fall morning.’”

Xenia did her best to put an announcer’s voice into her mock advertisement.

“I don’t think that would fit on the side of the truck,” the blathering idiot said.

“And that’s not what this is about.” Lydia scowled at Xenia.
“Then what is this about?” the blathering idiot asked.

“It’s about name recognition,” Lydia said

“Then maybe we should sponsor something.”

“But we don’t have the money.”

“And that’s why we’re out here.”

“Yes.”

“And that’s why we’ve been doing this for four days?”

“Yes.”

“And how many more days will we be outside like this?” Xenia asked.

“Until we raise enough money,” Lydia said.

“To sponsor something?” the blathering idiot asked.

Lydia scowled at him. “The Pro-Accordion Party is already sponsoring you. This yard sale and all the other ones is about raising money to get you elected to the highest office in the land. Pro-Accordion members donated all this junk so you might get elected!”

Just then two people came through the gate into the yard. They heard the word junk, looked disappointed and even a little angry (The blathering idiot thought he saw a scowl forming on the man’s face.), immediately turned around and left.

“I guess he won’t be sponsoring us,” Xenia said.

This time Lydia glared at her.

Sale sign

Sometimes it’s hard to get the people who are selling to buy into what you are selling.

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Freeform Friday: limerick. “The chairs”

There once was a man from Bengal
who met a woman through a business phone call.
They arranged to meet;
she was soon sitting on his seat
because his chairs had been part of her recall.

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The taming of the true

The other day a young man approached me. He said he had a sure-fire mathematical way of understanding Mitt Romney. And that it would prove he was the best man for the job.

At first I wanted nothing to do with this, but he seemed earnest and so since we both waiting for the rain to stop, I said, “Okay, tell me.”

He asked, “What number in the alphabet is the letter ‘R’?”

I hesitated while I did a quick counting in my head. “Eighteen?”

“Right. And 1 plus 8 is 9 and 9 is an upside down 6. And the ‘O’ in Obama is the fifteenth letter of the alphabet and 1 plus 5 is 6, which is the number of the beast in the Bible. See?”

I wasn’t sure I saw anything, but after a pause said, “But I thought the number of the beast is 6-6-6.”

He looked at me as if I were about to trick him. “So?”

“So, what’s 6 plus 6 plus 6?”

“Eighteen.” He said it slowly as if it was new math or old math brought back to torment him.

Romney Ryan sign

And maybe the R-R-R is just a 6-6-6 in disguise.

“And eighteen is 1 and 8, and 1 plus 8 is 9. The same number as the ‘R’ in Romney or Ryan. And there are three R’s is front of Romney’s name – a blue one, a white one, and a red one – in his yard sign, just like there are three six’s in the number of the beast. And what’s more, 18 plus 18 plus 18 equals 54 and 5 plus 4 is also 9. Freaky, don’t you think? Maybe it means Romney is secretly the beast in disguise and if elected it will be the beginning of the End Times.”

Even though the rain hadn’t stopped, the young man decided to walk out in it. A flash of lightning and a clap of thunder greeted him.

I never knew math could be so much fun. Maybe with the next one I can talk about science.

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