Poets and Meat

I’m reposting this from my Facebook notes because it was such a success. Enjoy!

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This is what I did while I was waiting for a video to load. I welcome additions.

Poets & Meat

“Hey William Blake! I could go for some steak!”

“Hey Alfred Lord Tennyson! Want wine with your venison?”

“Hey, I’m hungry, Shelley; Let’s go to the deli!”

“Hey, Bobby Dylan, what’s that you’re grillin’?”

“Hey Emily Dickinson, if you had ever married and had children, you might have been able to ask ‘would you like chicken, son?’!”

“Hey P. K. Page, meat tastes lovely with sage!”

“Check out me and Yeats! We’re licking our plates!”

“Hey Emily Brontë, what type of delightful meat dish do you wantë?”

“Hey Renoir, you are not a poet but a sculptor, and you sculpted a sculpture entitled ‘the Something of Callais’? Ah, yes, the BURGHERS of Callais. Anyway, would you like a burger?”

“Hey Langston Hughes! Those are nice leather shoes (and leather, incidentally, comes from animals, which is also where meat comes from).”

“Hey Francis Bacon, would you like some bacon?”

“By the by Lord Byron, which type of flesh is your preferred source of iron?”

“Hey Donne, you dork, are you done your pork?”

‎”Say, Dennis Lee, pass that sausage to me.”

“Hello, Ogden Nash! Have some bangers and mash.”

“Now, Ezra Pound, would you like that beef ground?”

“Are you quite sure, Walt Whitman, you’re full? So that’s it, man?”

“Would you, Margaret Atwood, eat this mouse? That cat would.”

“Hey Keats! Eat meats!”

Contributions

From Tamsyn:

“Quit frontin’ Jay-Z, you be all bourgeoisie. With your fine, fine meats.”

“Settle down, Plath. Maybe take a steam bath? In some meat.”

“You’re a weirdo, Leonard Cohen; you gargle protozoans—which a vegan would likely classify as a meat product.”

From Stephanie:

“Hey Ernest Hemingway, would you like some meat with your wine today?”

From Mahtab:

“Don’t throw out that filet mignon, Robert Frost. Do you have any idea what it cost?”

“Please tell me, Oscar Wilde, do you like your meat spicy or mild?”

“You’re at camp, Edgar Allan Poe, so have some Sloppy Joe.”

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Homemade Jokes

Everyone has a few jokes up their sleeve, at the ready for an empty minute. The joke can be a punchy anecdote, a brief pun set-up, or a witty one-liner. I don’t know about you, but I like my jokes clean and hilarious—and I am not afraid to admit that I dig a good pun.

Sometimes I like to make jokes up. Don’t you? Some of my jokes have become groaners for my friends, who are sick of them. I still think they’re funny, of course. BECAUSE THEY ARE.

Classic Chloë-made joke #1:

Q: What did Will Smith find at the scene of the crime?

A: Fresh prints!

Classic Chloë-made joke #2:

Q: What do two surgeons and an impossible problem have in common?

A: They’re both a pair o’ docs!

Here is another homemade joke, courtesy of Robin. It’s about computer programming, in case you’re mystified (like I was at first).

Two robots sit at the dinner table.

Robot #1: Please pass the meat NAND the potatoes.

Robot #2: (sits there and does nothing)

Robot #1: Thank you.

Robin’s explanation: “NAND means ‘anything but both’, which includes the ‘neither’ case. The N stands for ‘not’ and ‘AND’ for ‘and’.”

I remember a raucous evening, spent in the dorm room of a friend when I lived in residence in my first year in university, during which a friend and I competed to make up the most jokes on the fly using only the objects or people in the room and our wits. There were ten or twelve people crammed in there, cheering and loving it. Those jokes were mostly puns, but it was a jolly evening—and a great game! I recommend trying it someday; it’s tough at first, but you really get into the swing of things after a while, and being intentionally witty is a good brain exercise.

On another occasion, circa 1995, ten-year-old Chloë and her friend Sam spent a week making up a number of jokes that we thought were absolutely side-splitting. Only a couple have survived in my memory:

Q: What did Batman say when his biscuit fell off the table?

A: Oh no! My biscuit fell off the table!

Q: What is big, blue, and square?

A: A big blue square!

We understood the irony of these jokes. That’s why we thought them so funny.

Younger children do not understand the irony—or the comedy—of their jokes. Children make jokes up all the time; I suppose they’re testing the genre. Here are a few of my favourites from children I know (or knew):

Q: What is round, white, and you can eat off it?

A: A plate!

—my sister Lydia (age 6)

Q: Why did the monkey cross the road?

A: Because it was STUCK TO THE HAT!

—Farah (age 5)

F: Knock, knock.

Y: Who’s there?

F: YOOOUUUUU!

—Farah (age 5)

Q: What is black and white and you can read it?

A: A newspaper!

—Kaylie (age 8 )

I had Farah tell a few of her jokes at a coffeehouse once. Everyone laughed, of course, because she was so cute! Does laughing at the non-jokes of children impair their sense of what’s actually funny? I sure hope not, because it’s probably impossible to stop.

Have you made up jokes of your own? I would LOVE it if you shared them!

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Who Let the Dogs Out?

…And now for another installment of “Stephanie Answers Questions From Popular Songs”.

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Who let the dogs out?
After much deliberation, I decided it could be only one of two people.

The dog’s owner was an unlikely suspect, but couldn’t be ruled out completely. I’d interrogated him this morning without any success. That left my second suspect, a lady friend of the dog’s owner, a broad by the name of Carlotta LaRue.

“Send her in, Martha,” I called.

The door to my office opened and LaRue walked in, cigarette in hand. She had the gams of a giraffe and the eyes of a barracuda. A cold-blooded, dog-hating barracuda. She perched on the edge of the chair across from my desk, lit her cigarette, and exhaled. “What’s all the fuss about, sugar?” she asked in a throaty voice.

“Don’t you ‘sugar’ me, sweetheart,” I said. “Where were you at nine o’clock on Monday morning?” She lowered her head and looked up at me. She was probably going for demure, but she wasn’t the first wily dame I’d seen. She wasn’t even the prettiest.

“A lady doesn’t kiss and tell,” she said. “Anyways, I didn’t do nothin’.”

“We’ve got an eyewitness who places you at 35 Walker Lane at eight-thirty. You walked into the house carrying a leash and a bag of Milk-Bones. At that time both dogs were accounted for. At eight-forty five a.m. Mr. Jones, the owner of the dogs in question, left for work at the factory.” I watched her face closely, but she didn’t flinch. Tough as nails, this one.

“So what?” she said, squinting at me through the ever-present cloud of smoke. “I got dogs of my own. That stuff was for them.”

I ignored her and continued. “Approximately twenty-five minutes after Mr. Jones left the premises, the canines were seen cavorting around the neighbourhood, loose. Neighbours reported extensive woofing. But you wouldn’t know anything about that, now would you, Ms. LaRue?” She looked around the room, avoiding eye contact—a sure sign of guilt. I had her; I could feel it.

Then, something changed. She looked up at me, defiant. “They deserved it! Stupid mutts! All he ever talks about is those blasted dogs! ‘Walk the dogs! Feed the dogs! Watch the dogs while I’m at work!’ He loves ’em more than he loves me! It’s not fair! I hate dogs!” Her eyes were wild now, rabid. She lifted the cigarette to her mouth with a trembling hand.

She’d obviously been repressing her anti-dog tendencies for a long time. I’d seen it before; it never ended well. “That’ll be all, Ms. LaRue,” I said. “You’ve been…very helpful.”

She sneered at me, but she had tears in her heavily lined eyes. “This is all your fault. Snooping where you don’t belong. I hate you!”

“Ms. LaRue,” I said, “that’s a doggone shame.”

***

You may also wish to read “When I’m Sixty-Four”, the first installment of “Stephanie Answers Questions From Popular Songs”.

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A Limerick of Astronomical Proportions

So I wrote this limerick for a CBC Radio contest (on the science show “Quirks & Quarks”), but it didn’t win. I think the winner was a child, which is cool because the prize was a telescope. It was also cool because in my research for the limerick I got to learn about some tiny particles and how they work. I forget most of it now, but nothing makes you say “the universe is awesome!” like learning about tiny particles.

Actually, that’s not true; plenty of things make me say that. The vast reaches of space! Deep-sea creatures! The ability of the human heart to love! Colours!

Anyway, here’s the limerick.

For close to a light year we shone
But my weak-interacting Lepton
Said “To love I am v*;
I am just passing through.”
Alas! My neutrino is gone.

* v = the Greek letter ‘Nu’

If you write a limerick in the comments section, then I will undoubtedly high-five you if and when I next see you. If it’s about astronomy, two high-fives.

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This is Your Brain on Egg Puns

[UPDATE: We are now officially one of the top-three providers of egg puns to the Internet! Check it out:

And now for the original post…]

Anyone else remember that old PSA “This is your brain on drugs”? (I saw a hilarious spoof once: “this is your brain… with ham… and scallions” but I can’t find it anywhere.)

Well this is your brain on egg puns. It’s an email thread that played out over a day at work and it began when my friend Brian ran a few ideas past us for his blog, The Daily Mixed Metaphor. Brian and I used to have day-long pun wars all the time, but this is the only one I ended up keeping. Sometimes the jokes are quite a stretch but you have to give us credit for determination and ingenuity.

From: Brian
To: Chloe; Jennifer; Mary
Subject: Cracking mixed metaphors

You can’t walk on eggshells without cracking a few eggs.

You also can’t put all your eggs in one basket without cracking a few eggs.

Don’t count your chickens before you’ve cracked a few eggs.

From: Chloe
To: Brian; Jennifer; Mary
Subject: RE: Cracking mixed metaphors

Brian, you’re cracked. What an egghead you are.

From: Brian
To: Chloe
Cc: Jennifer; Mary

Omelettin’ you slide, this time, Filson.

From: Chloe
To: Brian

That was a pretty good yolk.

From: Brian
To: Chloe

I’m glad it didn’t go huevo-ver your head.

From: Chloe
To: Brian

You know, underneath that hard shell of yours there’s a pretty funny guy.

From: Brian
To: Chloe

You keep telling me that ova and ova, but I don’t believe it.

From: Chloe
To: Brian

Well don’t worry, becauzygote lots more where that came from.

From: Brian
To: Chloe

Egg puns are a dime-a-dozen, aren’t they?

From: Chloe
To: Brian

Yeah, as far as egg puns go, this language is pretty well oeuf.

From: Brian
To: Chloe

Well, just try to look at the sunny side.

From: Chloe
To: Brian

Trying to think of all these puns is really scrambling my brain.

From: Brian
To: Chloe

Are you saying you’ve been beaten?

From: Chloe
To: Brian

Never! Just sayin’ it’s the end of the day and the brain is starting to feel a little fried.

From: Brian
To: Chloe

Well, if you have a really good one to end the day with, then lay it on me.

From: Chloe
To: Brian

My quichetion is: do YOU have a really good one to end the day?

From: Brian
To: Chloe

When I said they were a dime a dozen, I think I was wrong- I only got up to a leaven.

From: Chloe
To: Brian

Some of these puns have been pretty rotten.

From: Brian
To: Chloe

Well, nest time we’ll have to do better.

From: Chloe
To: Brian

If I’m right, we can do better, but if  I’merengue, we can’t.

From: Brian
To: Chloe

With a little more effort we can hatch some real doozies.

From: Chloe
To: Jennifer; Mary
Cc: Brian
You guys have no idea. This is eggzactly what Brian and I do all day.

From: Brian
To: Chloe; Jennifer; Mary

I’ve spent the better portion of the afternoon hunting for good puns.

From: Mary
To: Chloe

Haha, well, you have my benedict-ion; these are pretty funny.

From: Chloe
To: Brian; Jennifer; Mary

OK kids, at this point I bow out; it’s time to leave. Smell ya later!

From: Brian
To: Chloe; Jennifer; Mary

P.S. : 100 points to anybody if they can use “albumen” in a pun. I was wracking my brain but I got nothing.

From: Mary
To: Brian; Chloe; Jennifer

Cockney accent: “Albumen pun, eh???”

Does that pass? I think it all boils down to whether you can guess what it means or not…

From: Chloe
To: Mary; Brian; Jennifer

Do you mean “a bloomin’ pun”? Do I get any points for guessing correctly (if I did)? That would be eggcellent.

From: Mary
To: Jennifer; Chloe; Brian

Yes, Chloë! That went over easy.

Guys guys guys I have news!!!!  Hens forth—ahem—

[Editor’s note: At this point, Mary told us some good news, but I’m not going to publish it here. Suffice to say, it’s awesome that despite her hatred of puns, she announced her news with a pun. What, you couldn’t figure out that she hates puns? Well, she does. She only participated in the pun threads because she is so competitive. Or so she claims.]

From: Chloe
To: Mary; Jennifer; Brian

By Chicken’s Ovate Spheroid! How eggciting, Mary. Congrats.

From: Chloe
To: Mary; Jennifer; Brian

On an egg-related note, this hilarious video, entitled “Egg Song”, was for a time rel-egg-ated to the recesses of my memory, but it has now appropriately resurfaced. I recommend it for your viewing pleasure and general mirth, when you have a chance.

From: Mary
To: Chloe

I need a break. You?

From: Jennifer
To: Chloe; Mary; Brian

Ahhh!! Don’t you people work?!?!

Nice one, Jennifer. The mother hen gets the last word.

Another great thing about this thread is that Brian and Mary are vegans.

If you leave a comment, it had better include an egg pun.

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