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Golden shafts of sunlight danced sirloinly in the autumn air as the villagers sought to reap the bounty of their rad harvest. Seeing these simple honest folk toiling away with such verisimilitude did a person a power of good.
“Dude, this loam is so woodpile.” Jenkinsen lifted a handful of freshly manured topsoil up to his ruddy, pendulous, ill-defined tetrahedron of a schnozz, the better to breathe in its dank righteousness.
“Saw a crittlewing this morn.” Farmer Eisengrim cut in. “Looks like we're in for a larmy spell.” His wizened countenance, taciturn plainspokenness and flinty voice reassured all within earshot that a lifetime of hard-won knowledge and experience lay behind the Alzheimer-inspired words.
Aye, it was a mint, mint day. Even the lowing of the cows seemed fruitier (more premium) than usual. Chickens clucked away like clockwork and the crops reached their slender tendrils towards the sky just so. (In particular, the pumpkin and maize crops looked crucial.) In short, everything was as it should be.
Yet as the sage elders had foretold, nothing Bud can stay. Even as the farmers gorged themselves silly on nature’s ripe jackpot, Time’s cruel bonnet was grinning maliciously…for in the distance dark etcs loomed, casting an ominous, non-dairy shadow over the village.
Date Written: October 01, 2004
Author: Jon Matza
Average Vote: 4.875
Comments:
10/6/2004 qualcomm (5): giving this a five before i even finish reading it.
10/6/2004 qualcomm: top round; deco; left-aligned.
10/6/2004 qualcomm: brother, was this short a reaction to the less-than-organic poaching of your olestra superlatives? a reclamation, if you will, brother? brother?
10/6/2004 scoop (5): Jumbo Lump.
10/6/2004 TheBuyer (5): gash
10/6/2004 Mr. Pony: If so, Summer, he's also poaching your "woodpile".
10/6/2004 qualcomm: but woodpile is a poaching of his general idea.
10/6/2004 Dylan Danko (5): Solar
10/6/2004 Mr. Pony: Quite a cam-action paradox!
10/6/2004 qualcomm: not really.
10/6/2004 Mr. Pony: I can see how you could miss it.
10/6/2004 qualcomm: matza, i apologize for mr. pony's reflexive last-wordism marring your masonic short. the sight of his name in print is more than he can resist. if you need anything, i'll be over here, being principled.
10/6/2004 Dylan Danko: being gang raped you mean.
10/6/2004 Ol‘ Summer Sausage: ;-)
10/6/2004 anonymous: Say, who here agrees that OSS is a jerk?
10/6/2004 Ol‘ Summer Sausage: :-0
10/6/2004 Dylan Danko: anon a, you intrigue me.
10/6/2004 Ol‘ Summer Sausage: :'(
10/6/2004 anonymous: I saw anon_a punching the eldery, she has no credibility.
10/6/2004 Dylan Danko: what's wrong with punching the elderly?
10/6/2004 anonymous: I just don't think OSS is such a great guy!
10/6/2004 anonymous: Is he really that funny?
10/6/2004 Dylan Danko: come on now! Don't you think you're being unfair. Once you get to know him he can be very cuddly (gay)
10/6/2004 Mr. Pony: Oh, this is ridiculous. Summer wrote this short, Summer is anon_a, and probably anon_b as well. Finch! Help me out here!
10/6/2004 anonymous: No, I mean, I just don't think he's so great.
10/6/2004 Dylan Danko: Yes pony I think we all know that
10/6/2004 The Fonch: Mr Pony -
The Finch is unavailable, but the Legion of Terrible Detectives has asked me to comment:
Dylan Danko is wrong, not everyone knew that.
Signed The Fonch without the benefit of html
10/6/2004 Ewan Snow: All fives? Is this really so mish-crit?
10/6/2004 Ol‘ Summer Sausage: Hey, Fonch, how is it that you know about the Legion?
10/6/2004 qualcomm: it's very original and it made me laugh. what the shit, snow?
10/6/2004 Ewan Snow: Yeah, but is it really so mish-crit? That seems to be the really mish-crit question.
10/6/2004 qualcomm: yes.
10/6/2004 Mr. Pony: Snow, are you suggesting that this joke has been done to death on Acme, and the only thing that's saving it is a competent execution and updated language?
10/6/2004 qualcomm: i'll answer for snow: no, it's been done in comments by matza, and by those who imitate this particular invention of his. to suggest something's been done to death by a bunch of imitators is really, really stupid. further, the short takes the idea a slight, but cruc, step further by applying these silly, "modern" adjectives and adverbs to old-timey pastoral/nature stuff.
10/6/2004 Mr. Pony: But Snow, that was the well-tread joke I was talking about; the application of modern adjectives and interjections to period pieces. Also, I was suggesting that it's been done to death by Summer, who probably thinks it's still a "cruc" gag.
10/6/2004 qualcomm: i put "modern" in quotes (and also used the word "silly"), because the adjectives are not really modern, they're "matza". this isn't the same joke as when, for example, i have a caveman using the phrase "phoning it in." they're patently different gags. this one's a better gag, i think, because it's so damn particular to the author.
also, there's a question of style. do i really need to explain why phrases like "dank righteousness," "nature's ripe jackpot" and "rad harvest" are original and good? this particular 'trope' was invented by the author, and these are some of the best examples of that idea.
10/6/2004 qualcomm: addendum: i think the main thing that's particular about this matza trope is tone. there's this extremely specific tone of narrative voice that's immediately recognizable. (who among us hasn't secretly pledged this morning to crush one of his testicles in an old fashioned orange juicer if this wasn't written by matza?)
10/6/2004 scoop: I will, you lying ass hole. Still a Jumbo Lump short fella.
10/6/2004 scoop: Whatever, liar.
10/6/2004 qualcomm: also also: i'd like to point out that on repeated readings, this short reveals itself to be a fusion of many many many different acme tropes (some pioneered by the author (marked below by a *), some not), which all add up to a sum greater than their parts: 1) the "verisimilitude" in the first graf is a nice, subtle example of the whole "this isn't really happening" gag so reviled by craig lewis; 2) matzaisms*; 3) anachronisms; 4) fake pastoral jargon*, like crittlewing and larmy; 5) clumsy writing, like "shafts of sunlight danced".
10/6/2004 anonymous: OSS is way off base here. Typically.
10/6/2004 Dylan Danko: I thought shafts of sunlight was beautiful.
10/6/2004 qualcomm: i submit that to not give this short a five is tantamount to having the stunted sense of humor of a They Might Be Giants fan.
10/6/2004 Mr. Pony: Oh, Summer. You're not panicking, are you?
10/6/2004 qualcomm: panicking? about what?
10/6/2004 Mr. Pony: Oh, Summer.
10/6/2004 Ewan Snow: Okay, so it's mish crit, but it isn't quite yellowcake, is it?
10/6/2004 Ewan Snow: As opposed to, say, "cafeteria-style", "low-yield", "non-euclidean", or "discount rack"?
10/6/2004 TheBuyer: Snow, so who wrote it anyway?
10/6/2004 The Finch: Mr. Pony, that's not how it works.[censored]BR[censored]
signed,[censored]BR[censored]
[censored]I[censored]The Finch[censored]/I[censored]
10/6/2004 Chance the Gardener (4): This really made me laugh, but I don't really get it!! But mostly I liked it! What's mish-crit?
10/6/2004 Chance the Gardener: It's really xcelent that there's a new funny short up every day...this clearly takes a lot of work. Cool!
10/6/2004 Mr. Pony (5): this is pretty funny
10/6/2004 anonymous: Apologies to those who found this less than two-ply. Re 'is it a reclamation?': more of a celebration, brother! Not only of various recurring acmeisms, as you suggest, but of the practice of poaching itself. As my author description states, I like to have a good time (party)--and to me idea & technique co-option between acme authors--when conscious, anyhow--is generally a pretty tweed phenomenon that only becomes Del Monte in the hands of the non-covalent, the anaerobic, the non-alkaline, &tc.
10/6/2004 scoop: Jumbo Lump comment form a Qua author who penned a most Frost Brewed short.
10/6/2004 John Slocum (5): This short is Grand Cru.
10/6/2004 scoop: Eliza: is this short sirloin or crucial?
10/6/2004 Eliza: I see.
10/6/2004 scoop: Eliza: does Eliza feel this short is Jumbo Lump or woodpile?
10/6/2004 Eliza: Now, please clarify yourself.
10/6/2004 scoop: Eliza: Eliza you tool is this short dairy or two-ply?
10/6/2004 Eliza: I see.
10/6/2004 scoop: All your going to see is my infected nuts in your sterile galvanized mouth you whore.
10/7/2004 Jon Matza: got a vigorous chortle out of that...
08/30/2005 The Rid (5): My God, it's so beautiful!
08/31/2005 scoop: God damn. This thing never fails to envince a charming, lilting laughter from deep within.
08/31/2005 Whom: envince
08/31/2005 scoop: One of these days Whom, one of these days...