By Their Fruits Shall Ye Condole Them
Condole means to comfort someone, so like when you send someone your condolences:
“I recently heard someone took your cold and delicious plums from the icebox, I am so sorry this had to happen to you”
You are condoling them.
And that’s what the scoundrel does second best — condole people for what the scoundrel does best, which is stealing people’s fruit.
Fruit in this context is a metaphor, what the scoundrel actually does best is take people’s parodies of poems and wordcloud them (the easiest and least impressive form of visualization there is) and then leave passive aggressive apologies while posting the visualizations on the internet.
Ain’t I a stinker?
LET THE CONDOLING COMMENCE!
Jim MacDonald was a regular on Making Light, the old-timey Internet blog, and a well-known Science Fiction writer with a less well known kink of writing extensive “This is Just To Say” parodies, well The Scoundrel knows, and The Scoundrel has taken those parodies and wordclouded them, and The Scoundrel who steals fruit and apologizes insincerely would like condole Mr. MacDonald with total empathetic soulfulness in his eyes and say “oops”
As is the case with the comments links on Making Like the original link no longer works
But Archive.org comes to the rescue as usual
And the poems found
This is just to say
I have gone for
the fruit
that was in
your main post
and that
you were probably
saving
for someone wittier.
Forgive me,
it was hanging there,
so smart
and so true.
2 — ooh, This is just to say very patriotic, Scoundrels love patriotism!
This is just to say
I have watched
the flag
that was o’er
the ramparts
and which
you were probably
seeing
through peril
Forgive me
it was the rockets
so red
and glaring.
3 — More Patriotism!
…And the light-bulb in there, in your own Frigidaire,
Gave proof in the dawn that the plums were not there!
O say, can the fruit bowl in icebox not save
Your breakfast-bound plums from the teeth of a knave?
4— pseudo self-aware parody
Hi, Fred. Welcome to Making Light.
Both of your recent posts were caught in the spam filters due to grammar, spelling, and punctuation issues.
Sorry about that, but the filters stay.
Is there any chance that you write poetry?
5 — Potential Unicode Issues?
While poets in the parlor
Were chantin’ odes an’ lays
The plums were in the icebox
(That’s what it’s called these days)
An’ it’s wha’ll slash ye next time
Wha’ll slash ye noo?
The lass who slashed ye last, lad,
She no will slash ye noo.
6 — On the theme of plums but not their theft, this wandering too far afield
The valley plums are sweeter
But the mountain plums are colder;
We therefore thought it meeter
To plant them in our poulder.
The catalogs of gardners
Wherein the plums are listed,
Said in zones three through seven
At night plums should be misted.
7 — within a longer parody of the cat Geoffrey section of Jubilate Agno
For fourthly he checks in the refrigerator to see if there be plums.
For fifthly if he finds plums he eats them.
For sixthly when the plums are gone he feels sorrow.
Mr. MacDonald also shared a text that made the Scoundrel’s transistors hum cold, it seemed someone whose plums had been stolen hired a Private Eye to find them.
Samuel Spade’s jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth. His nostrils curved back to make another smaller v. His yellow-grey eyes were horizontal. The v motif was picked up again by thickish brows rising outward from twin creases above a hooked nose, and his pale brown hair grew down — from high flat temples — in a point on his forehead. He looked rather pleasantly like a blond satan.
He said to Effie Perine: “Yes, sweetheart?”
She was a lanky sunburned girl whose tan dress of thin woollen stuff clung to her with an effect of dampness. Her eyes were brown and playful in a shiny boyish face. She finished shutting the door behind her, leaned against it, and said: “There’s a girl wants to see you. Her name’s Wonderly.”
“A customer?”
“I guess so. You’ll want to see her anyway: she’s a knockout.”
“Shoo her in, darling,” said Spade. “Shoo her in.”
Effie Perine opened the door again, following it back into the outer office, standing with a hand on the knob while saying: “Will you come in, Miss Wonderly?”
A voice said, “Thank you,” so softly that only the purest articulation made the words intelligible, and a young woman came through the doorway. She advanced slowly with tentative steps, looking at Spade with cobalt-blue eyes that were both shy and probing.
She was tall and pliantly slender, without angularity anywhere. Her body was erect and high-breasted, her legs long, her hands and feet narrow. She wore two shades of blue that had been selected because of her eyes. The hair curling from under her blue hat was darkly red, her full lips more brightly red. White teeth glistened in the crescent her timid smile made.
Spade rose bowing and indicating with a thick-fingered hand the oaken armchair beside his desk. He was quite six feet tall. The steep rounded slope of his shoulders made his body seem almost conical — no broader than it was thick — and kept his freshly pressed grey coat from fitting very well.
Spade sank into his swivel-chair, made a quarter-turn to face her, smiled politely. He smiled without separating his lips. All the v’s in his face grew longer. Spade rocked back in his chair and asked: “Now what can I do for you, Miss Wonderly?”
She caught her breath and looked at him. She swallowed and said hurriedly: “Could you — ? I thought — I — that is — do you find lost things?” Then she tortured her lower lip with glistening teeth and said nothing. Only her dark eyes spoke now, pleading.
Spade smiled and nodded as if he understood her, but pleasantly, as if nothing serious were involved. He said: “Suppose you tell me about it, from the beginning, and then we’ll know what needs doing. Better begin as far back as you can.”
“That would have been when I bought the mechanical icebox.”
“Yes,” he said.
“I thought it would be perfect for storing my plums”
“Yes.”
“I eat them — for breakfast. Every morning. And would have this morning, too. But — when I opened the icebox they — they were gone.” She turned her eyes to Spade’s. “Someone — stole the plums. Could you — do you think you — could find them?”
However it does sound like whoever stole Ms. Wonderley’s plums did not leave an obviously insincere but extremely polite note of apology, that’s just bad form.
I hope the person who showed such poor form will rot in hell with those plums
Another poem from the internet of the past, and still available
The Road Not Taken (By the Undead)
By Robert Frost and Dennis Finocchiaro
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, zombies on my trail,
And sorry I could not travel both not knowing which was safe,
And be one traveler, long I stood worried I would fail,
And looked down one as far as I could looking for detail
To where it bent in the undergrowth; I must avoid the zombie strafe.Then took the other, as just as fair, because I had to choose,
And having perhaps the better claim, of safety and deliverance,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear; no mark of dragging feet or shoes,
Though as for that the passing there seemed safe as I could muse,
Had worn them really about the same, I hoped I had a chance.And both that morning equally lay two bodies long decaying,
In leaves no step had trodden black. But trails of blood there lay,
Oh, I kept the first for another day! In hope there’d be no slaying,
Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I found one creature buffeting,
I doubted if I should ever come back, to try the other way.I shall be telling this with a sigh that my knife did seep into it’s brain,
Somewhere ages and ages hence: it’s former soul did feel my blade,
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — much in vain,
I took the one less traveled by, and a zombie I have slain,
And that has made all the difference in this, my long crusade.
Nice trick, not really a parody in the conventional sense, Frost was the kind of Poet you could more easily do this to. Funny enough Williams too. Not so much someone like Yeats.
Another site of yesteryear, gone
http://pleasurenotes.com/just-say/
And unfortunately not saved in the Internet Archive, a sad day for this is just to say parodies, now all that remains of this valuable resource are the words of the scoundrel which are “Sorry I took your fruit, bro”
Another Making Light Post — and this one dereferences just fine!
Only one parody found, but it’s a meaty one!
This Is Just To Say
I have eaten
the hamster
that was in
the tankand which
you were probably
keeping
as a petForgive me
he was delicious
so meaty
and so slow
Parodies found at OhNoRobot?
Oh No, Not Found, Robot
But Archive.org knows where it is
The first url gives a list of urls which actually were supposed to show the images, maybe they were in iframes I don’t know — but there were a bunch of them
A softer world is one of those web comics built out of photographs.Must be nice to have a steady gig like that, all I got is breaking into people’s houses, stealing their fruit and leaving them notes. Must be nice.
Another day, another fine collection of fruit picked by your favorite Scoundrel
if anyone was hurt by all this I would like to extend my sincerest folded up little note with apologies on it
The gang at the Hitmagist have, as per the usual, produced a nice little playlist to listen to for this excursion.
