Some fruity language...

Hi, Karl here.

Today I have a small poem that I have prepared for you.  Ready?  Here it comes:

The reputation to be delicious

Is easily said of fruits,

And refutation that they’re nutritious

Is quite simple to dispute

This predilection is not fictitious,

Across the spectrum it fits.

My prediction is not ambitious

Though, that peach stones are the pits.

There now.  That was painless, eh?  Oh don't give me that look.  Alright, I'll make it up to you with a little joke:

Did you hear about the caveman who was making flint tools when he was attacked by a bear?  The bear caught him knapping.

Honestly, some people are never satisfied.

I am Karl Fogsen.  Thanks for reading

Writer's block...

My muse and I stood by the Well of Creativity.  I peered into the well searching for inspiration but saw nothing but darkness there.  Solemnly I grasped the well’s crank and lowered the bucket of my thoughts.  The rope played out to its end and there was a faint clunk from within the well.  I began to reel in the slackened cord.  Shortly, the bucket had returned to us but was filled with nothing but dust. 

  I looked to my muse.  She shrugged at me and grinned a sheepish grin.  She turned to go.  A mad impulse over took me.  I grabbed her, throttled her, and threw her into the well.  As she disappeared into the blackness I heard her cry;

“You’re welcoooooooooome!”

And there was a splash from the well.

I am Karl Fogsen.  Thanks for reading.

Nothing much to say about this one...

Adventurers Club

            In the gloom the old man had stopped talking.  His head nodded forward and I knew he had drifted off to sleep again.  I looked around me.  We were seated on an island of warm firelight in an old unlit library.  A dark sea of mahogany and leather surrounded us.  Hanging above us in the still air was a pall of smoke from the old man’s cigar, its scent not quite overpowering the smell of years of dust on the aged books lining the shelves in the darkened corners of the room.

            My eyes were drawn back to the old man.  His lined face told a long story.  A lifetime of heart-breaks and sorrows creased his brow.  Times of anger were etched there.  Yet the wrinkles round his eyes bespoke of smiles unnumbered.  Laughter had made its mark too.  He was a handsome man even now.  His frame was withered and frail, but he had been tall and strong in his youth.  I repositioned myself in my chair and the sudden creak of its leather roused him.

            He cleared his throat and asked, “What was I saying, now?”

            “You were telling me of the temple in Burma.  And the girl,” I answered.

            “Ah yes, the girl,” he said quietly and his voice trailed off as his memory recalled scenes from far away and long ago.  He chuckled and sipped from a brandy snifter that sat at hand.

            “You don’t want to hear that story,” he said, “Let me tell you of a real adventure.”

             He was wrong.  I did want to hear of the girl.  And the temple.  And Burma.  I grumbled under my breath but not too loudly and settled back into my chair.  He took another drink of his brandy and began…

“I remember the time when I rescued Princess Nayploo Sultra, the most beautiful woman in history from a ruthless tribe of bandits.  I was a young man then, just twenty-three, dashing and adventurous.  I had become separated from my battalion in North Africa doing battle with Rommel and I was wandering the desert dunes.  In my search for water I came across an oasis filled with tents.  A veritable bandit city stretched before me.  Well, I couldn’t just go back out into that desert without water so I waited till nightfall in the shade of a date palm…”

I closed my eyes and dreamt as the old man continued his tale.  His words conjured images in my head.  I was swept off to the Sahara where I could feel the desert wind on my face and see the moon dancing in the waters of the oasis.  I imagined myself sneaking to the chieftain’s tent and doing battle with his guards.  And finally, when the old man’s story ended, and he once more dropped off to sleep it was I who rode off on a stolen horse, Princess Nayploo clinging to my back and a horde of howling bandits chasing us across the dunes.

The End

I am Karl Fogsen.  Thanks for reading.           

          

           

Indignation...

Lately I have been accused of being silly.

Well.  The nerve of people.  I mean, here I am trying hard to be relevant and thought provoking and I'm accused of being frivolous.  Was Herman Melville being “silly” when he wrote “Moby Dick”?  (Interesting note:  The original title was “Moby Richard” and Ishmael was initially named “Lou”)  Certainly not.  Mr. Melville was a serious, serious man who wrote one of the great American novels (The character of Queequeg was initially an elderly Mrs. Tigglesbury who ran a tea shop called the Piquant Pequod)   In his novel Mr. Melville examines the existential questions of what it means to be human (Ahab was a bean farmer from Hoboken), what is obsession (The whale began as a tuna salad sandwich), and the over arching theme of good versus evil (The first draft of the story ended in a Busby Berkley-esque musical number topped by a brace of romantic haikus)

So, the next time you think to yourself, “Hmm.  Karl’s being a little fatuous.  Even asinine.”  Think of Mr. Herman Melville and his fantastic book.  And throw away your “word-for-the-day” calendar.  “Fatuous” and “Asinine”?  Sheesh.

I’m Karl Fogsen.  Thanks for reading.    

I "produce" a story...

Karl here.  Today I have prepared this for you…

Once upon a time there lived a young man named Rudy Bega.  He liked to play squash in the fields till one day he was almost gourd by a bull. 

“Beets me why you play in that field all day, Rudy,” his mother would say.  “You should find yourself some cute tomato and take her on a date.  Lettuce go out and look for one or don’t you carrot all?”

Rudy wouldn’t listen though.  He would just turnip the volume on his stereo and go on picking at the corn on his toe.  He couldn’t afford a girlfriend.  Not on his celery.  Besides he had just ended a relationship with a girl named Barbara but she treated him badly and he had come to rue Barb.

One day Rudy said to himself, “I have to pea.  I wonder if the pumpkin provide enough water to flush the commode.”  So he mustard his strength and rose out of his chair…

No, no, no.  I can’t go on.  It is too cruel to you, dear reader, to continue.  And so that I may make amends here is a sweet love poem…

Hearticulture

My spirits rose the day

I saw you on the beech.

I had searched fern wide

For a love like yew.

I kissed your tulips,

And caressed your palm.

I gazed into your irises for hours.

We rode in my two cedar sportscar.

Then I refused you a fir coat

And our love didn’t go as plant.

You decided to leaf.

And now I sadly pine.

Ok, I’ll stop.  I dare say you’ve been pun-ished enough. 

I’m Karl Fogsen.  Thanks for reading anyway.

Stories grow into the strangest things...

            Karl here.

            I was in a weird mood and just started typing.  This is what came out...

As crickets and tree frogs sang their summer songs to the night a lone traveler wended his way down a dusty country road.  The lane lay before him in the scant moonlight like a pale serpent writhing its way across darkened fields of corn.  Slightly bent under the weight of a rucksack he softly hummed to himself a half remembered tune.  Memories of long ago and far away played in his mind.

He had not always been a wanderer.  Once there was home.  Once there was family.  Once there was love.  But they were far away now.  Distance faded them from the view of the mind’s eye.  He wondered if they were still there, waiting.  He longed to return to them.

But there was something to do first.  There was a faint call that drew him forward along the road.  It was near now.  Soon the trek home could begin.

He mounted a small rise in the lay of the road and looked ahead.  There in the distance was a lake, the gibbous moon reflected in its placid waters.  More keenly now than ever he felt the pull of something, something that wanted him to approach the shore.  No, to go further than that.  To enter the lake itself?

He hesitated and shifted the rucksack.  There were clunks and rattles from the collection of objects inside.  He had brought them a long way.  He could not stop now.  He strode the remaining distance to the lakeshore and stood peering at the water.

“Well, I’m here,” he said quietly, “What now?”

Come, enter the water.

Again he paused.  Uncertainty filled him. “No,” he said, “This is as far as I go.”

Enter the water.

“No.  I will not,” he said firmly and quickly added, “But I have what you want.”

Enter the water and give it to us.

“Leave the water and come get it,” he countered and dropped the rucksack on the ground.  He was beginning to become frightened.

The air which had been moving off the lake like a breath became still.  The sounds of the summer night grew quiet.  The stars above him ceased their twinkling and sharpened.  A decision was being made.

Suddenly there was a swirl in the water just offshore.  In the dim moonlight something, no someone, was rising from the lake.  For a moment a cap, adorned with hooks and lures appeared to be floating on the surface of the water.  Then a skull rose grinning beneath it.  The traveler gave out a horrified whimper, and as a skeletal form stepped onto the bank he spun and ran.

Water cascaded from the undead sportsman’s vest as he took the rucksack from where it had fallen, unzipped it and removed two six packs from within.  Dropping the pack the skeleton returned to the dark waters.

Can’t fish without beer.

Kinda spooky, eh?  Well to shake off the eerieness here's a moment of humor...

Shouldn't the years listed as B.C. be known as the Antechrist period?

I am Karl Fogsen.  Thanks for reading.



Testing...1...2...3...

Karl here.  I hope you all have been paying close attention or have been taking good notes for it is time for a pop quiz.  Stop that whining.  No, you don’t get to study for it.  It’s a pop quiz and by definition you don’t get to study for pop quizzes.  So get your papers ready and here we go:

A Pop Quiz

1.      Define the following:  Marventure, Jupitulate, Spargling

2.      Draw a diagram showing the bits and pieces that are left out.

3.      Ask a friend to hold you six inches off the ground.  Shout “Zimble!”  Was it worth it?

4.      Figure the area of expansion of Zimble for the next three decades without using the marventure.  Spargle the jupitulate if you must.

This quiz will represent 73.149% of your grade.  The rest is lab work which we will get to later.  Just remember to have your wet suits ready.

I am Karl Fogsen.  Thanks for reading.