OK, you read it here first

We have been waiting for someone to describe President Obama's recent decision to start pumping up his market optimism as using the "bullish pulpit."

No one did, yet. Help yourselves and enjoy.

--The Nightquill Publishing Empire

nihil nisi bon-mot III

The shattered remnants of the once mighty nightquill publishing empire emitted their annual gasp of impeccable taste in the Style Invitational's annual poetry contest in memory of people who died in the previous year.

Fourth place:
Not for being greatly good --
Not because he knew he would --
Jerry Falwell's gone above,
Unto his Creator's love,
Spending every night and day
With angels black and angels gay.
God our Father knows us all well;
Knows what's Hell for Jerry Falwell.

Honorable Mention:
Enjoy a calm retirement, Dubya;
Molly's not around to "Shrub" ya.

Unpublished, and our last word (for now...)
Leona Helmsley went and died.
The best hotels? She used to own 'em.
All other comments lay aside --
De mortuis nil nisi bonum.

Anagrams of the week

We are nation-building = I argue Bin Laden won it
Blackwater Security = sack Beltway recruit

Build your own at: http://wordsmith.org/anagram/

Insufficient Postage

Once again, the nightquill staff contributed to the Washington Post's Style Invitational under our usual alias. The contest was to summarize a book or movie in a few lines of verse. Only one of these saw the light of day.

Mr. Hyde subdued his meek half;
Jekyll should have stuck with decaf.

Rhett was a handsome, dashing varlet;
His eyes were black, but his sin was Scarlett.

[a pet peeve] Aristotle's Poetics:

Aristotle said a play
Should have one place -- one theme -- one day;
So everybody had to write
Their Long Day's Journey Into Night.

Three Men and a Baby;
The title is eloquent.
All that's left is to wonder
Whither Tom Selleck went.

Signs of the last days

If anyone at anytime is going to annihilate us for hubris and decadence, it will surely come close on the heels of the two CONSECUTIVE ads I heard on the radio today:

One for frozen, ready-made peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches (it is now too much work to put peanut butter and jelly on bread), and

One for the 5-bladed safety razor, which, as if that wasn't enough, comes with an optional battery, even though it's not an electic razor. You can spend a long time at the website without figuring out what the battery's actually for. And, as everyone has pointed out long ago, 5 blades was so stupid that it was a gag in The Onion in 2004.

nihil nisi bon-mot II

At the prompting of the Style Invitational, we once again sing of those who passed away in the last year:

Urned an honorable mention:

The Celtics' Auerbach is dead;
The foes of Green no more see Red.

Cremated:

Lloyd Bentsen, Jr., praised of men,
Has met Jack Kennedy again.

And now we know what all the while
We thought: in Heaven, money's through.
How else could Milton Friedman smile,
And J. K. Galbraith, too?

Botha and Milosevic,
Pinochet, Hussein:
Would that we could say we'll never
See their like again.

Ads backwards

There will be a new political poem someday soon. In the meantime, please enjoy these advertisements:

1) For Kuleto's restaurant in San Francisco: a poster placed in the lobby of the American Conservatory Theater. "Dine at Kuleto's and be sure to make the curtain call." Making the curtain would probably do more to promote enjoyment of the play. If you would like to see another restaurant make the same mistake live and online, see the listing for Anjou here.

2) For Conoco gasoline and subsidiaries (nationally): "Life happens between empty and full." No, life happens between full and empty; fill-ups happen between empty and full.