Another Cliff Conversation no one will read
But it's kind of nice to have these here.
plainsgirl17: how's yours?
Cliffy: ...
Cliffy: Waiting for the muse
Cliffy: Finishing the Pratchett book before I get started
plainsgirl17: LoL
plainsgirl17: she is saucy, that muse
Cliffy: Indeed, she is
Cliffy: I'm having trouble deciding between which one to listen to
plainsgirl17: there's listening involved?
plainsgirl17: I'm glad that's not my muse
Cliffy: Thalia or Melpomene
plainsgirl17: what do they say?
Cliffy: What direction do I want to take with this
Cliffy: Should I skewer people with wit or mourn the loss of paper money
Cliffy: O, Muses! What dost thou decree? What fate must I travel?
plainsgirl17: ...
plainsgirl17: how are you planning to "skewer people with wit," if i may ask?
Cliffy: Not sure...just liked the phrase
plainsgirl17: and could you be any more melo-dramatic?
Cliffy: Yes, I could
plainsgirl17: what do you mean by skewer people with wit?
plainsgirl17: you're going to skewer witty people?
plainsgirl17: or use your wit to skewer people?
Cliffy: use wit to skewer people...What are you, the dangling modifier police?
plainsgirl17: well, it was unclear
Cliffy: I'm Officer Gordon of the MDP
plainsgirl17: why can't you skewer non-paper-money-users with your wit?
plainsgirl17: oh, now we're mocking
plainsgirl17: what happened to that wit?
Cliffy: Mocking is more adaptable to IM form
plainsgirl17: Modifier Dangling Police?
plainsgirl17: First of all, that makes no sense
plainsgirl17: Second of all ... that makes no sense
Cliffy: Wit takes time to craft and hone...Mocking is easier
Cliffy: MDP looked better than DMP
plainsgirl17: Oh, well, then
plainsgirl17: It makes perfect sense
Cliffy: You have to agree that's true
plainsgirl17: Especially in content
plainsgirl17: Ah yes, especially when you state what the words mean and you sound like a slighty slow twelve year old
Cliffy: DMP looks like some sort of red-headed stepchild economics term
plainsgirl17: MDP looks like an STD
Cliffy: That bastard gave me the MDP
Cliffy: lol
plainsgirl17: Precisely
plainsgirl17: use your wit to skewer, Cliff
plainsgirl17: use the kabob sticks of wit to skewer the meat morsels of humanity
Cliffy: Well, I could watch CNBC and hear "Well, the general decline in the Dow average today was due to a decrease in the general DMP, according to Treasury Sec. John Snow"
plainsgirl17: you're definitely taking it a bit far here
Cliffy: Demonstrating absurdity by being absurd, I think
plainsgirl17: Well, that's usually how people do it
Cliffy: Not always
plainsgirl17: How else can they do it?
Cliffy: Giving off a rather odd air of anti-absurdity...Think Alan Greenspan
Cliffy: The man is a fount of anti-absurdity
Cliffy: This is an absurd world, so the anti-absurd become absurd to the general public
Cliffy: Greenspan is a comic figure...Boy George, just another guy in a dress
Cliffy: I'm in a mood, I think
plainsgirl17: Write!
Cliffy: I'm not finished with the book yet
Cliffy: I blame Pratchett...His books do weird things to my head
plainsgirl17: They make you witty
plainsgirl17: They sharpen that which is already prevalent in you
Cliffy: But is it truly wit? Shouldn't wit come from within...it shouldn't need an external catalyst
Cliffy: Dorothy Parker didn't need catalysts...Neither did Bennett Cerf
plainsgirl17: Erma Bombeck used her family
plainsgirl17: Dave Barry uses politics
Cliffy: Your heroes
plainsgirl17: Sure, wit needs a catalyst
plainsgirl17: We cannot be witty without anything to be witty about
Cliffy: Mayhaps Parker and Cerf are exceptions rather than rule
plainsgirl17: I would imagine so.
plainsgirl17: If nothing else, life is a catalyst
plainsgirl17: Perhaps the only one
Cliffy: You can't have wit for wit's sake?
plainsgirl17: What would you be witty about -- wit? That'd just end up being pretentious.
Cliffy: We're entering the realm of Rabelais and Honore de Balzac now
plainsgirl17: Are we?
plainsgirl17: I thought I was just sitting here and you there
Cliffy: Pretentious self-serving wit? Definitely Balzac and Rabelais
Cliffy: No, we are journeying now
Cliffy: Did you remember to pack?
Cliffy: Balzac blazed on for pages with self-serving wit, for no other person's enjoyment but his own
Cliffy: Rabelais' wit was dull and he overused it
Cliffy: Horrid characters are they
plainsgirl17: ...
plainsgirl17: I was eating a Reese's
plainsgirl17: I missed it
Cliffy: Sad
Cliffy: We just got back
plainsgirl17: Well, then, self-serving wit is bad
plainsgirl17: We seem to have made this deducement
Cliffy: Yes, but it does exist
Cliffy: Did you deny its existance or did I just read wrong? Both are equally possible
plainsgirl17: What?
plainsgirl17: Let me read back
plainsgirl17: Okay, I sort of insinuated that it doesn't exist. What I should have said is that no good wit exists that is self-serving.
Cliffy: I agree entirely with that statement
plainsgirl17: All right, good.
plainsgirl17: Finish your book. Write. When the muse comes, she will demand all of you
Cliffy: Indeed, whichever she may be
Cliffy: Thalia, lithe, airy goddess of comedy, or proud, regal Melpomene, mistress of tragedy
Cliffy: Who will visit me and tender their services unto me?
plainsgirl17: ...
plainsgirl17: you make it sound like they're whores
Cliffy: Well, in a way, they are
plainsgirl17: I don't want to get into this conversation
plainsgirl17: They're your muses
plainsgirl17: Do what you will with them, I suppose
Cliffy: They sell their ideas to whomever will take them
plainsgirl17: ...
plainsgirl17: Except for Home Alone
Cliffy: Lik Salma Hayek in Dogma
Cliffy: like
plainsgirl17: Somebody sold their soul to the devil to get the grosses up on that piece of shit
plainsgirl17: We had the same thought
plainsgirl17: how scary
Cliffy: You hear Muse, you think Salma Hayek
plainsgirl17: How sad
Cliffy: This has to be in the Top 3 of All-Time best IM conversations
plainsgirl17: It's really good
plainsgirl17: I noticed that too
plainsgirl17: We're both really snappy tonight
plainsgirl17: Just cranking it out
Cliffy: I have Pratchett to blame...What's your excuse?
plainsgirl17: I'm always like this, I just have to tap into it?
Cliffy: You need something to spur you into it
plainsgirl17: Especially when I'm working on an essay
plainsgirl17: I feel the muses at my back
Cliffy: Usually, it's me making a less than stellar comment and you calling me on it
plainsgirl17: it's Brokeback all over again
plainsgirl17: Nice
Cliffy: Forces me into a defense and the dance has begun
plainsgirl17: The mazurkah!
Cliffy: So, really, we're just suppliants to Terpsichore right now
plainsgirl17: Which one is she?
Cliffy: Dance
Cliffy: And maybe Clio, should me care to remember this conversation
plainsgirl17: Naturally
plainsgirl17: How do you remember them all?
Cliffy: Dr. Hannah
plainsgirl17: Well, of course
Cliffy: Although, memory is the domain of their mother, Mnemosyne
plainsgirl17: I'm waning
Cliffy: As am I...I was about to list my affairs with all of them over my life, but...it seems futile
plainsgirl17: In the essay, I'm getting to a point where I am perhaps getting a bit too...
plainsgirl17: wordy?
Cliffy: Can I be of help?
plainsgirl17: LoL
Cliffy: Mayhaps Calliope is hovering too close to you
plainsgirl17: nah, I enjoy the wordiness. It gives me a chance to be creative
plainsgirl17: that's a pretty name
Cliffy: epic poetry
Cliffy: She's long-winded
plainsgirl17: I can show you this paragraph if you like
Cliffy: By all means
plainsgirl17: Is Calliope your personal muse?
Cliffy: She and Clio tag team
Cliffy: It's how I can go on forever about historical events with fairly liquid vocabulary
plainsgirl17: Clio is who now?
Cliffy: history
Cliffy: Shall I list them for you?
plainsgirl17: loL
plainsgirl17: sure, why not -- let's figure out who mine is
Cliffy: Calliope- epic poetry; Euterpe- music; Clio- history; Melpomene- tragedy; Thalia- comedy; Urania- astronomy; Polyhymnia- sacred poetry; Terpsichore- dancing...And, the muse I have no dealings with, Erato- love poetry and lyrics
plainsgirl17: Lovely -- I suppose I deal with Thalia more often than most
Cliffy: I see a streak of Polyhymnia in your writing...You seem to have a higher calling
plainsgirl17: We'll hope so
Cliffy: And, of course, you are a devoted suppliant to Terpsichore
plainsgirl17: She rewards me for my effort, not my talent
Cliffy: She is a kind mistress
plainsgirl17: Get ready: here it comes
plainsgirl17: Okay, so I must admit that I am, to an extent, one of these pathetic people. I consider my cell phone a necessity. Indeed, I’m not sure how I would live without it. It is my way of telling time, my only database of phone numbers, my calculator when I balance my checkbook. Of course, I do own a watch. I have notebooks which I could use to keep track of phone numbers, and a calculator I could use to crunch numbers. So, although it’d be hard, I suppose I could live a life without my cell phone. I could toss it out the window in the never-ending direction of the clear blue sky, turning my back so as not to see where it fell. I could wander through life without the easy hand of the portable phone to fall back on, without the siren call of human sound just a finger touch away. Will I? Probably not. But the day I hide my life under a desk, living in the pregnant pauses between call and response, is the day I join the ranks of the
plainsgirl17: and I'm wondering what ranks I'll join
Cliffy: Siren call? Born of our Greek musings?
plainsgirl17: Perhaps o
plainsgirl17: *so
plainsgirl17: and I really wanted to use the phrase pregnant pauses
Cliffy: I liked the imagery
plainsgirl17: I love imagery
Cliffy: and the alliteration
plainsgirl17: I like that too
plainsgirl17: Part of why I love academic essays -- a chance to make them your own
Cliffy: You know what, I'm calling it...Best IM Conversation Ever
plainsgirl17: I second that emotion
Cliffy: And we didn't even have to mention James Lipton
plainsgirl17: But now we have
plainsgirl17: Official Best IM Conversation Ever
Cliffy: *Claps*
plainsgirl17: how's yours?
Cliffy: ...
Cliffy: Waiting for the muse
Cliffy: Finishing the Pratchett book before I get started
plainsgirl17: LoL
plainsgirl17: she is saucy, that muse
Cliffy: Indeed, she is
Cliffy: I'm having trouble deciding between which one to listen to
plainsgirl17: there's listening involved?
plainsgirl17: I'm glad that's not my muse
Cliffy: Thalia or Melpomene
plainsgirl17: what do they say?
Cliffy: What direction do I want to take with this
Cliffy: Should I skewer people with wit or mourn the loss of paper money
Cliffy: O, Muses! What dost thou decree? What fate must I travel?
plainsgirl17: ...
plainsgirl17: how are you planning to "skewer people with wit," if i may ask?
Cliffy: Not sure...just liked the phrase
plainsgirl17: and could you be any more melo-dramatic?
Cliffy: Yes, I could
plainsgirl17: what do you mean by skewer people with wit?
plainsgirl17: you're going to skewer witty people?
plainsgirl17: or use your wit to skewer people?
Cliffy: use wit to skewer people...What are you, the dangling modifier police?
plainsgirl17: well, it was unclear
Cliffy: I'm Officer Gordon of the MDP
plainsgirl17: why can't you skewer non-paper-money-users with your wit?
plainsgirl17: oh, now we're mocking
plainsgirl17: what happened to that wit?
Cliffy: Mocking is more adaptable to IM form
plainsgirl17: Modifier Dangling Police?
plainsgirl17: First of all, that makes no sense
plainsgirl17: Second of all ... that makes no sense
Cliffy: Wit takes time to craft and hone...Mocking is easier
Cliffy: MDP looked better than DMP
plainsgirl17: Oh, well, then
plainsgirl17: It makes perfect sense
Cliffy: You have to agree that's true
plainsgirl17: Especially in content
plainsgirl17: Ah yes, especially when you state what the words mean and you sound like a slighty slow twelve year old
Cliffy: DMP looks like some sort of red-headed stepchild economics term
plainsgirl17: MDP looks like an STD
Cliffy: That bastard gave me the MDP
Cliffy: lol
plainsgirl17: Precisely
plainsgirl17: use your wit to skewer, Cliff
plainsgirl17: use the kabob sticks of wit to skewer the meat morsels of humanity
Cliffy: Well, I could watch CNBC and hear "Well, the general decline in the Dow average today was due to a decrease in the general DMP, according to Treasury Sec. John Snow"
plainsgirl17: you're definitely taking it a bit far here
Cliffy: Demonstrating absurdity by being absurd, I think
plainsgirl17: Well, that's usually how people do it
Cliffy: Not always
plainsgirl17: How else can they do it?
Cliffy: Giving off a rather odd air of anti-absurdity...Think Alan Greenspan
Cliffy: The man is a fount of anti-absurdity
Cliffy: This is an absurd world, so the anti-absurd become absurd to the general public
Cliffy: Greenspan is a comic figure...Boy George, just another guy in a dress
Cliffy: I'm in a mood, I think
plainsgirl17: Write!
Cliffy: I'm not finished with the book yet
Cliffy: I blame Pratchett...His books do weird things to my head
plainsgirl17: They make you witty
plainsgirl17: They sharpen that which is already prevalent in you
Cliffy: But is it truly wit? Shouldn't wit come from within...it shouldn't need an external catalyst
Cliffy: Dorothy Parker didn't need catalysts...Neither did Bennett Cerf
plainsgirl17: Erma Bombeck used her family
plainsgirl17: Dave Barry uses politics
Cliffy: Your heroes
plainsgirl17: Sure, wit needs a catalyst
plainsgirl17: We cannot be witty without anything to be witty about
Cliffy: Mayhaps Parker and Cerf are exceptions rather than rule
plainsgirl17: I would imagine so.
plainsgirl17: If nothing else, life is a catalyst
plainsgirl17: Perhaps the only one
Cliffy: You can't have wit for wit's sake?
plainsgirl17: What would you be witty about -- wit? That'd just end up being pretentious.
Cliffy: We're entering the realm of Rabelais and Honore de Balzac now
plainsgirl17: Are we?
plainsgirl17: I thought I was just sitting here and you there
Cliffy: Pretentious self-serving wit? Definitely Balzac and Rabelais
Cliffy: No, we are journeying now
Cliffy: Did you remember to pack?
Cliffy: Balzac blazed on for pages with self-serving wit, for no other person's enjoyment but his own
Cliffy: Rabelais' wit was dull and he overused it
Cliffy: Horrid characters are they
plainsgirl17: ...
plainsgirl17: I was eating a Reese's
plainsgirl17: I missed it
Cliffy: Sad
Cliffy: We just got back
plainsgirl17: Well, then, self-serving wit is bad
plainsgirl17: We seem to have made this deducement
Cliffy: Yes, but it does exist
Cliffy: Did you deny its existance or did I just read wrong? Both are equally possible
plainsgirl17: What?
plainsgirl17: Let me read back
plainsgirl17: Okay, I sort of insinuated that it doesn't exist. What I should have said is that no good wit exists that is self-serving.
Cliffy: I agree entirely with that statement
plainsgirl17: All right, good.
plainsgirl17: Finish your book. Write. When the muse comes, she will demand all of you
Cliffy: Indeed, whichever she may be
Cliffy: Thalia, lithe, airy goddess of comedy, or proud, regal Melpomene, mistress of tragedy
Cliffy: Who will visit me and tender their services unto me?
plainsgirl17: ...
plainsgirl17: you make it sound like they're whores
Cliffy: Well, in a way, they are
plainsgirl17: I don't want to get into this conversation
plainsgirl17: They're your muses
plainsgirl17: Do what you will with them, I suppose
Cliffy: They sell their ideas to whomever will take them
plainsgirl17: ...
plainsgirl17: Except for Home Alone
Cliffy: Lik Salma Hayek in Dogma
Cliffy: like
plainsgirl17: Somebody sold their soul to the devil to get the grosses up on that piece of shit
plainsgirl17: We had the same thought
plainsgirl17: how scary
Cliffy: You hear Muse, you think Salma Hayek
plainsgirl17: How sad
Cliffy: This has to be in the Top 3 of All-Time best IM conversations
plainsgirl17: It's really good
plainsgirl17: I noticed that too
plainsgirl17: We're both really snappy tonight
plainsgirl17: Just cranking it out
Cliffy: I have Pratchett to blame...What's your excuse?
plainsgirl17: I'm always like this, I just have to tap into it?
Cliffy: You need something to spur you into it
plainsgirl17: Especially when I'm working on an essay
plainsgirl17: I feel the muses at my back
Cliffy: Usually, it's me making a less than stellar comment and you calling me on it
plainsgirl17: it's Brokeback all over again
plainsgirl17: Nice
Cliffy: Forces me into a defense and the dance has begun
plainsgirl17: The mazurkah!
Cliffy: So, really, we're just suppliants to Terpsichore right now
plainsgirl17: Which one is she?
Cliffy: Dance
Cliffy: And maybe Clio, should me care to remember this conversation
plainsgirl17: Naturally
plainsgirl17: How do you remember them all?
Cliffy: Dr. Hannah
plainsgirl17: Well, of course
Cliffy: Although, memory is the domain of their mother, Mnemosyne
plainsgirl17: I'm waning
Cliffy: As am I...I was about to list my affairs with all of them over my life, but...it seems futile
plainsgirl17: In the essay, I'm getting to a point where I am perhaps getting a bit too...
plainsgirl17: wordy?
Cliffy: Can I be of help?
plainsgirl17: LoL
Cliffy: Mayhaps Calliope is hovering too close to you
plainsgirl17: nah, I enjoy the wordiness. It gives me a chance to be creative
plainsgirl17: that's a pretty name
Cliffy: epic poetry
Cliffy: She's long-winded
plainsgirl17: I can show you this paragraph if you like
Cliffy: By all means
plainsgirl17: Is Calliope your personal muse?
Cliffy: She and Clio tag team
Cliffy: It's how I can go on forever about historical events with fairly liquid vocabulary
plainsgirl17: Clio is who now?
Cliffy: history
Cliffy: Shall I list them for you?
plainsgirl17: loL
plainsgirl17: sure, why not -- let's figure out who mine is
Cliffy: Calliope- epic poetry; Euterpe- music; Clio- history; Melpomene- tragedy; Thalia- comedy; Urania- astronomy; Polyhymnia- sacred poetry; Terpsichore- dancing...And, the muse I have no dealings with, Erato- love poetry and lyrics
plainsgirl17: Lovely -- I suppose I deal with Thalia more often than most
Cliffy: I see a streak of Polyhymnia in your writing...You seem to have a higher calling
plainsgirl17: We'll hope so
Cliffy: And, of course, you are a devoted suppliant to Terpsichore
plainsgirl17: She rewards me for my effort, not my talent
Cliffy: She is a kind mistress
plainsgirl17: Get ready: here it comes
plainsgirl17: Okay, so I must admit that I am, to an extent, one of these pathetic people. I consider my cell phone a necessity. Indeed, I’m not sure how I would live without it. It is my way of telling time, my only database of phone numbers, my calculator when I balance my checkbook. Of course, I do own a watch. I have notebooks which I could use to keep track of phone numbers, and a calculator I could use to crunch numbers. So, although it’d be hard, I suppose I could live a life without my cell phone. I could toss it out the window in the never-ending direction of the clear blue sky, turning my back so as not to see where it fell. I could wander through life without the easy hand of the portable phone to fall back on, without the siren call of human sound just a finger touch away. Will I? Probably not. But the day I hide my life under a desk, living in the pregnant pauses between call and response, is the day I join the ranks of the
plainsgirl17: and I'm wondering what ranks I'll join
Cliffy: Siren call? Born of our Greek musings?
plainsgirl17: Perhaps o
plainsgirl17: *so
plainsgirl17: and I really wanted to use the phrase pregnant pauses
Cliffy: I liked the imagery
plainsgirl17: I love imagery
Cliffy: and the alliteration
plainsgirl17: I like that too
plainsgirl17: Part of why I love academic essays -- a chance to make them your own
Cliffy: You know what, I'm calling it...Best IM Conversation Ever
plainsgirl17: I second that emotion
Cliffy: And we didn't even have to mention James Lipton
plainsgirl17: But now we have
plainsgirl17: Official Best IM Conversation Ever
Cliffy: *Claps*