Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Voodoo Lily



They are back again. Sweet neighbour came and alerted us yesterday. Well, she has an interest because one of them grows near her garden. They smell of rotting corpses, you see - not that I have ever smelled one of those, but it is apparently an established fact that this is what they smell of and I can vouch that it is probably one of the worst smells ever. Flies love them, as you would expect. They are also known as Dracuncula Vulgaris - good name, lots of appropriate resonances.

It does make you wonder, I think, what kind of a god could have conceived of such a thing. It is both ugly and ridiculous with its ostentatious black penis surrounded by faux Hawaii shirt. It is something that was cobbled together as a bad joke, like sending a really vulgar stripogrammer, unnanounced, to someone's house :

Let us fashion something flamboyant and horrible that stinketh to high heaven, saith god. And this year, let us put it right back in Signs's garden in the place from which it was painstakingly dug up last year, by the roots.

Why have you done this, god?

Because I can, s/he saith, can't you take a joke?

So anyway, someone (not me) is going to have to dig them up again before they manifest their peculiar properties. Sorry god.

It being Shrove Tuesday, one of Mr. Signs's favourite religious festivals, I have prepared batter, fabulously caramelised stewed plums, got the creme fraiche, maple syrup, lemons and caster sugar. It is all we are having for supper tonight before Mr. S watches the Arsenal match tonight and I go back to choir. I have added an extra egg - turns out better that way.

12 comments:

Zhoen said...

"All things Dull and Ugly"
http://www.elyrics.net/read/m/monty-python-lyrics/all-things-dull-and-ugly-lyrics.html

As Eric Idle has observed, if god made everything Bright and Beautiful, he also made everything Dull and Ugly.

Reading the Signs said...

Fabulous, Zhoen - if I ever knew this, I had forgotten. I do love Eric!

I can't believe I'm putting the link here said...

Dear god. This - the picture, the post, and the blessed link provided by Zhoen (hello) - just hits my shameful laughter spot tonight, for some reason. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And to make matters worse, I found a totally horrible youtube video to go with the song (which for some unfathomable reason I hadn't known before. Why, god?). No, please, the video is terrible. Do not, repeat, not click on my link, please, I am ashamed to be including it here. It's vile and politically quite incorrect and appears to laugh at major suffering which should never be laughed at.

Strike me down, please…

(Scwesterlein? Hei. The word ver is prosesse.)

x

Reading the Signs said...

But Schwes, how could I not (forsooth, as Pandora opened the box) click on it? It is wonderful - awful - and now, this very instant I must hie me to choir practice to sing sacred music and this will be running through my mind. Politically incorrect? I should coco with knobs on! Wouldn't be surprised if both of us are woken in the dead of night with the P.I. Poleees breaking our doors down.

And that goes for anyone else who looks at the link.

Oh go on -

Cusp said...

Well maybe as it also International Wimmins Day she was saying 'I have the right to do as a I please....and here is proof'

Pancakes sound lovely. I presume you shall be giving up your hedinous, party lifestyle for Lent...you really do just need to stop all that wild living for a little while :O)

Shamefaced in the North Pole said...

No, I just simply couldn't live with myself, I went to the divine sauna and all I could think of was "I must go and explain myself over at Chez Signs, I've behaved most atrociously over there". So here I am. Attempting to make amends to the divine law of decency and karma, to emphasise the point that I do not not not laugh at suffering, or those who suffer (honestly, I do not), but that (very sadly) I find the humour value of the grotesque juxtaposition of the flat-effectedly faux-bright cliche of a hymn (which was, incidentally, sung at a very doomed affair otherwise known as My Second Wedding - no, don't ask) with the modified (some would say considerably more accurate and hence more deeply praising?) and awfully brilliant lyrics just vastly amusing in itself, and then, oh dear god, the whole piquant shebang combined with the most hideous array of things not only dull and ugly but dreadful and unfair (and I'm not just talking about parking in two squares here, although that is a hanging offence, surely).

The matter is made funnier still to a painful degree when then rejuxtaposed with my 1a) failure and b) deep and very genuine desire to have faith in a Supreme God Being - and preferably one who would 2a) not allow suffering and b) in particular, the suffering of children. Or anyone, really, but in particular, of children. Why? Because I'm ageist that way, that's why.

And I suppose a further layer of funny is added by 3) my express failure to be an atheist, either, as the aforementioned deep and very genuine desire seems to rub at my efforts at pure and clean scientific world-view-formation, like a grain of sand in my shoe; and finally 4) all these things combined, what if there really is a god who actually allows, let alone creates all these things cancerous, ulcerous, dull, ugly, short, squat, the lot?

This pitiful vomitorium of words here has been my effort at explaining that I really am not laughing at people with deformities, please.

(Deary me. I've spent today and yesterday ploughing through some seven hundred pages of developmental psychology, Signskins, that is my excuse for this excess. This seems to be what it does to one. Sorry.)

Wishing you a very piously choral eve - may none of this cross your mind just half-way through your lovely solo echoing in the ogives.

Oh and. Forgot something earlier - here it is:

h

x

Fire Bird said...

oh that lily is just evil... on the other hand your pancakes sound heavenly. Happy Women's Day!

Reading the Signs said...

Cusp blow me if I hadn't forgotten all about Lent. But I gave up smoking - again - this year and am still awarding myself plenty gold stars for that.
So the wild living will carry on as per :0)

Reading the Signs said...

h? - h! Hildy? Well anyway, Shamefaced in the North Pole, my understanding of Gawd is that He (excuse gender specificity but it's a pain always to put the s/ in front and I have no problem with the masculine representation) has a sense of humour and will have been ROFLHAO. Also that he has a pretty good understanding of all the elements that lend themselves to the humorous. I have it on good authority that he enjoyed watching Life of Brian. And that although he is the one supreme etc he kind of splitteth himself up into different personas just as we do - which accounts for the dracunculus vulgaris, I suppose. So all in all Gawd is someone we ought to keep a wary eye on, probably, a bit unpredictable.

When you have finished ploughing through all the pages of developmental psychology that you will ever plough through you might know almost as much as Gawd - and then you will never have to apologise for anything ever again! Blimey.

x

Reading the Signs said...

F B , I am ashamed to say that Women's Day almost (but not quite) passed me by. Awful to admit that pancakes occupied more headspace, but there it is. Hope it was a happy one for you also.

Montag said...

That's a big pistil you have there... or are you just glad to see us?

Sorry. Off-color humour gone awry

Reading the Signs said...

Yes, yes, Montag - very pleased to see you :)