Dear Readers,
Just a quick update before Tati kills Tony for his phenomenal forgetfulness!
The answer for our last RIDDLE ME THIS post was ‘shadows’, and we congratulate… erm, no one? No one got this! We’re as shocked as you are!
However, we are also very happy because it seems that you all enjoyed this feature as much as we did! That’s why… guess what? Yup! We promise to do it again soon!
by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020
Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas everyone!
Oh… Too soon?
Well, usually we’re two bums looking at the tail lights of Santa’s sleigh while we desperately turn out our pockets to find a pen and a sheet of paper for the letter we forgot to write him.
That’s why this year we have decided to be prepared. Like they say: “If you want to be happy, be so.” (Who actually said this by the way?)
So…
We have been a very good girl and boy during this unfestive pandemic and would subsequently like a nice gift* from you (but not a lump of coal like you gave us last Christmas, please).
Tati & Tony
*(Please make it a tiny, uninhabited island and a rad new PS5!)’
Hmmm… no. This sounds rather egoistical. And we’re pretty sure that you, Dear Reader, have also been a very good girl (or boy) this year and thus deserve a nice gift. Tell you what… how about we write a letter to Santa together? And we promise we’ll send it to the addressee when it’s done!
Oh, and what if we write the letter in the form of a lovely, rousing poem? That ought to soften Santa’s glacial heart, don’t you think? Here, we’ll begin…
Dear Mr Santypoos, how do you do?
Hope you don’t have COVID and the deer are healthy too.
So, if you want Santa to put something especially cool in your stocking this year then it’s easy! Just follow these simple, festive steps:
1) Close your eyes and recall your deepest wish.
2) Open your eyes, read the above lines of our poem in progress then submit one or two more lines of your own (even if you have a list of 1,918,223 items or somesuch try to pack this into only two lines).
3) We pick the lines we like most (especially if you’ve left us some milk and cookies with them) and we write some more lines to follow those.
4) When the letter is done, we seal it, put all your names in the envelope, and send it to Santa with the next express snowy owl.
By the way, as of this posting there are only 82 shopping days left until Christmas, so we need to hurry the eff up! Get crackin’, hoes! Ho ho ho!
by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020
Wrinklies patients may arrange forgotten the operation, and machiavellian scars are undoubtedly overlooked in the shadowy examination room.
— MitchCheduby
Sure, darkened rooms are the current worldwide trend in the beauty industry. Not only wrinkles and scars can be fixed, but also unwanted birthmarks, crossed eyes, overbites and underbites. Nothing’s impossible. Just one flick of a switch and anyone will look young and beautiful!
— Tati & Tony (Advocates of Natural Beauty and Looking for Black Cats in a Dark Room)
by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020
they walk around the room cuddling a dead hare
smearing the floor with stale syrupy gold
they cry out loud that awakening is here
exactly as beuys has foretold
i lie on the floor trying not to sleep
but the damned gold flashes before my eyes
here i balance over the greasy steep
falling through the creaky rickety skies
and i see in my dream how a huge dead hare
cuddles me to its soft warm belly
runs its paws over my messy hair
treats me to marmite and orange jelly
the hare whispers of shoes and sealing wax
of shooting stars over the seashore
that a worldview’s a matter of parallax
…i wake up to the sound of a slammed door
TONY: You have the most fascinating brain I’ve ever had the privilege to encounter.
TATI: Nice start, Tony. Go on.
TONY: Erm…
TATI: How’s your head, by the way? It wasn’t a concussion, I hope?
TONY: The doctor said you hadn’t hit me that hard after all, and that I should stop being a whimpersome girly-boy.
TATI: Good boy. All you need to do is wise up and don’t repeat that painful experience from our previous discussion. There is a reason we discarded it, after all.
TONY: So now we’re having an entirely new discussion for the purposes of this post. Oh yeah, I totally get it now.
TATI: Let’s go then.
TONY: Erm. Well. I wanted to discuss a particular poem with you.
TATI: What poem?
TONY: It’s called ‘how to explain life to a live girl’.
TATI: I remember this one. Do you hesitate to call it ‘poetry’?
TONY: Oh, no, I definitely think it’s poetry. It’s just that… well, a dead hare?
TATI: Yes, hares die sometimes. Sad, but true.
TONY: Well, sure, but what is the poem about? It seems to be about a dead hare, some strange yellow substance that could be honey or gold paint, and some dude called Beuys.
TATI: Do you know who this is, Tony?
TONY: Is it a ‘Harry Potter’ character?
TATI: Are you serious?!
TONY: No? From ‘Hunger Games’ then.
TATI: I don’t think the poet should have to explain to the reader each and every reference.
TONY: ’50 Shades of Grey’?
TATI: Yuck! If you, the reader, really cared then you could have dived into the poem to understand what the author wanted to say here or there. You could have educated yourself.
TONY: There are too many books in those series. You expect me to read all of them?
TATI: If you don’t understand something, you need to google it or at the very least try to think of your own interpretation. Don’t you have an imagination?
TONY: Maybe It’s a recipe for honey-roasted bunnies. Maybe that’s what you wrote.
TATI: That is one interpretation, I suppose. It isn’t necessary for it to be the same as what the author implied.
TONY: So, I’m wrong?
TATI: Don’t you know anything about the magic of poetry?! You are not meant to make a school book report from it, and you don’t ask the author to explain each and every detail to you!
TONY: Why not?
TATI: If James Joyce had tried to explain ‘Ulysses’ to each and every idiot, would the novel have been listed in the Bokklubben World Library amongst its one hundred best books ever? I bet no. They would have dismissed him as another graphomaniac who wastes valuable paper instead of increasing the GDP of Ireland!
TONY: But nobody understands that book! Are you saying that in order to write greatness that whatever one writes must be completely incomprehensible? I expect you’ll be awarded the Booker Prize any day then!
TATI: Seriously, Tony, I am not going to sit here and explain to you who Beuys is. Nor will I explain about his performance ‘How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare’ and other shit. And you should be saying thank you to me because I am doing you a huge favour! I’m giving you a chance to grow and educate yourself!
TONY: True. Sounds like it was boring and pretentious.
TATI: Cool. Then I propose to go back to what we were doing before you started this discussion. You can nap and play video games, and I will sit here and continue to read this idiotic book.
TONY: ‘Ulysses’?!
by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020
Talking about chestnut cramp is obstinate, whether with forebears, friends, co-workers, or physicians.
— LukjanAmece
We agree. No one cares about chestnut cramps, birch dyspepsia and spruce anarthria. More compassion is needed in such a cruel, heartless world!
— Tati & Tony (Two Newbie Arborists with PhDs in Advanced Banter)
by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020
unbolt me 