An introduction...

Editor’s Note:

           

I first met the author Karl Fogsen in May 2009.  From the start I was amazed by the quality of his work.  No other author known to me fit the term “hack” so well as Karl, and apparently I was not alone.  In every major periodical in which his work was reviewed the sentiment was the same…

“…Unfettered by talent…” The New York Times Sunday Book Review

“…Unhindered by ability…” The Chicago Tribune

“…Unencumbered by skill” The Branson Courier

Karl is blissfully unphased by this complete lack of competence and continues to produce some of modern civilization’s worst poetry and fiction.  You will also find through this blog that his world views are equally skewed.

So prepare yourself for the reading ahead.  Steel your mind.  Drink plenty of fluids.   And by all means, when your head begins to hurt, stop.  Enjoy. 

Thanks for coming to Karl Fogsen’s Wry-ting, Litter-ature and Unthoughts.  My name is Karl Fogsen and I’m not overly fond of the title of this blog.  My editor insists on it however.  He says that except for the “wry-ting” bit, which suggests actual wit, the title truly relays to the audience what awaits them on this site.  I will trust you, the reader, to make a final judgement for yourself.  To do that I must first present to you a sample of my authorship.  It is called… 

Buttertop

Through the green of the forest a sunlight dappled brook burbled its way to the greater waters of the sea.  On the bank of the brook stood a stately tree which dangled its roots into the water like a barefoot child might dip their toes on a lazy summer day.  Against the tree’s smooth bole, on a velvet mat of green moss, a gnome rested himself.

If you had come across this gnome while you were out walking in the forest one day, possibly mushroom hunting or blackberry picking, you’d think him no different than any other gnome you’d ever met.  Except, that is, for his hat, which was big and floppy and very, very yellow and from which he got the name, Buttertop.

He was presently reading a wonderful book he had found about treacle and its uses when a noise came to his over-large ears (they helped hold up his hat.)  A small panicked voice was coming from somewhere in or around the brook.  He followed the sound with his eyes until he saw a small beetle perched on a leaf floating on the swirling water.

“Oh!  Help me,” the beetle cried, “I am surely being swept out to sea!”

Quickly Buttertop took a long thin reed from the stream's bank.  "Latch onto this my lad," he said as he held the reed out to the beetle.  "Carefully now!"

As the leaf passed under the reed the beetle scrambled onto it and clung there.  Buttertop lifted him to the safety of the water’s edge.

“Thank you, thank you!” cried the beetle, “I was certain I was lost!”

“No, no.  None of that is necessary little one,” answered Buttertop, “but tell me how you came to be on that leaf in the first place?  Can’t beetles fly?”

“Beetles fly as well as flies beetle,” replied the beetle, a little mysteriously.

Unable to follow that logic Buttertop searched his mind for another topic of conversation.

“Do you like treacle?” he asked, thinking of his book.

“Oh yes,” said the beetle, “Why, every October thirty-first all my friends and I go round shouting ‘Treacle Treat!’”

Buttertop squashed him with his thumb.

The moral of the story is:  People will only put up with so much of that sort of thing.

The End

Now then, that wasn’t so bad was it?  I’ll leave you with this small unthought:  If Matthew Broderick had been cast to play Iron Man, would they then have called the movie Ferrous Bueller?

I am Karl Fogsen.  Thanks for reading.