[lit-ideas] Re: Morlocks

  • From: wokshevs@xxxxxx
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2008 19:34:33 -0230

Replying to David Ritchie's posting below:

Having traversed this beautiful land of Scotland on river, sea and loch - but
concentrating mainly on the Highlands, as I'm sure you can appreciate - I can
only say in response to the M. Python skit what Italians are wont to say in
similar contexts: "Miserabile! Scandalose!" 

What travesty and heresy against an honorable people! Verily, I say that be
thou as pure as snow, as chaste as ice, and a Scotsman, then thou hast a
snowball's hope in hell of escaping calumny. My heart finds solace only in the
hope that if Scottishness were able to survive the Romans, Eddy I of England
and Jimmy the Sixth (or was he the First?), then surely it can transcend the
ravages and plagues brought about by likes of a Monty Python.

I wish to go down on record as averring that it is absolutely shameless,
shameless and shameful, that the metaphysical qualia and quality of
Scottishness is permitted to be portrayed on public television in such a
grossly demeaning light. Why, not even the rural members of the Partsi
Quebecois - yes, you have to say the "tsi" - in la belle province de Quebec are
subjected to such abject mockery and degradation. Governments of democratic
states, possessing by divine right the power to exhume compliance through the
use of coercion, must act collectively, and immediately if not sooner, and at a
concert, to end what is actually the perpretation of a gross defumation of a
proud and surly culture, famous for its castles, banks, closes that lead
nowhere
and leave you ripe for the mugging, sentimentalist philosophy and
literature. 

What other people, perhaps with the exception of Russians from the
Volograd area, are capable of constructing literary characters of the likes of
Elizabeth Dalhousie and Harold Potter?  Or penning novels of the likes of *Old
Mortlach* and *The Heart of Milburn* And poetry so painful in its beauty that
the very rocks on the seashores are split by its radiance? Does not all this
suffice to establish the purity and nobility of the character of Scottishness?

Should we wish to reply to the radical sceptics amongst us - there are always a
few Brits, Bosnians  and denizens of North Bay who refuse to recognize the
epistemic force of performative self-contradictions - then we need only refer
them to the Glens of the culture.  Through these Glens we are able to feel
that, in the words of the great Scot Goethe himself, one has
walked into a brightly lit room. To wit, Mr. Glen Albyn, Professor Glen
Breton, Dr. Glen Catrine, Herr Doktor Professor Glen Deveron, Mr. Glen Douglas
(yes, son of Michael Douglas), Lady Glen Elgin, Ms. Glen Flagler, Princess Glen
Garioch, Queen Glen Keith, Queen Mother Glen Moray, and I assure you the Glen's
go on and on ... 

Respectfully,

Sir Walter of Lochside,
presently residing at:
Montrose, Angus DD10 9AD



Quoting David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

> 
> On Sep 11, 2008, at 1:52 PM, wokshevs@xxxxxx wrote:
> 
> > Tennis possesses its own moral and aesthetic order. Minor  
> > "ethical" (cultural)
> > considerations bear no import in the necessary march of Tennis to its
> > preordained fulfillment.
> >
> > (But the Scots excel in other areas of life - like philosophy and  
> > divine
> > libations. How do you think Hume or Smith ever managed to write a  
> > word?)
> 
> John Cleese: M'lud, I call the attention of the bench to exhibit M
> 
> http://www.ibras.dk/montypython/episode07.htm
> 
> which lit'ry morsel of discourse 'n' so on, contains many a slur upon  
> that fine group of people who have to endure Scottish weather and  
> midges, to wit, the Scots--Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore, riding through  
> the glen--and their tennis playing abilities, which are normally nil,  
> nada, nothing, void, completely crap, on account of the weather and  
> the midges.  This Murray fellow is clearly a bit of a mint.  He has  
> the stuff.  So what if he didn't manage to win?  At least he beat the  
> Spaniard.  Don't mention the Armada.  I just did, but I think I got  
> away with it.
> >
> > What is a "morlock"? I'm not sure I've ever seen one at Harvard Sq.  
> > or anywhere
> > else.
> 
> A morlock is a figment of the imagination of Wells comma Herbert  
> George, who was born in Bromley, which is near Beckenham, where David  
> Bowie once lived.  This is not at all near Cardiff, where people are  
> said to be selling off their library's special collections, possibly  
> hoping to buy off the morlocks with danegeld and thus avoiding  
> fundraising sales of burned baked goods.  By Alfred.  I hope this  
> clears matters up.
> 
> > http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_east/7593883.stm
> >
> 
> Back to the Artists' Rifles, Paul Nash and so on.
> 
> David Ritchie,
> Portland, Oregon
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