With the holidays upon us and the joyful concomitant duty of finding the perfect gift and then, not finding the means to pay for the perfect gift, settling for something less than perfect (never mind the wrapping - I leave that to professionals), there has been little time and less mind-power to spare keeping up the counter-assault on the character of the good people of Ovoid.
The reveling gaiety and twinkling magic of the Ovoid Town Square and Pioneer Park, festooned in garland, wreaths and holly, populated with the whimsical, traditional characters of Christmas-time, one is induced to be more forgiving of transgressions. The rude woman dragging three squalling brats who cut ahead of us in line at the Piggly-Wiggly with far more than the maximum items for the express line is to be allowed her impropriety. The boorish, piggish little scrub of trailer-trash from over Olney way who roared his smoke-belching wreck into the last close parking space outside the Dry Goods after we had patiently waited for Mrs Tutwilliger to weigh anchor and un-berth her boat-like SUV might be forgiven his ill manners. The fact that we were given the wrong dinner order two evenings in a row at a local eatery because the waitress was too occupied with texting on her cellphone than to actually do her job properly might be pardoned her unprofessionalism.
'Tis the Season, after all.
The blackguardly character assassination of an entire community, a veritable genocide of communal pride and reputation, however, should not granted any such seasonal beneficence. We speak of the blighted writings within 'Ovoid, Illinois' and of the disgraceful perpetrator of slander and calumny, the author thereof.
It has been brought to my attention that the vile volume has acquired a second, superfluous subtitle; 'a Saga of Sorts'. Had I been consulted, I would have suggested 'a sordid saga out of sorts'.
With the holidays upon us, one holiday wish we would like to make is that 'Ovoid, Illinois' sink without a trace and, in so doing, save the sterling identity of our community. A second wish and hope is that many would share this wish with us.
Happy Holidays!
Ruminations, meditations, opinions and plain old cud chewing
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Cheryl-jean on Pot!? NOT!
As the book, 'Ovoid, Illinois' opens, a delirium image is recounted by Cheryl-jean Billingham, the pseudonym for a well-known Ovoidian around whom this cynical, facetious tale is woven with such crude boorishness. The image is of a radiant autumnal Midwestern sunset as seen through the eyes of one who is drug-addled from the consumption of a marijuana cigarette or 'splint' as it is known in the argot of the criminal drug underworld.
This should immediately put off any upstanding and law-abiding reader to desist in reading further. No personal familiarity with the young woman to whom this allusion is purportedly being alluded is necessary for one with any common sense or decency to know that a young teenage girl during this period of time in small town on the south-east central plains of Illinois most certainly would not have been doing up pot. One familiar with the young woman to whom this allusion is purportedly being alluded would know in their heart of hearts that such a diligent and filially pious young girl would never have been so corrupted by a family member to succumb to the noxious, pernicious temptation of smoking the Devil's Weed. That the character partakes of a controlled substance with such nonchalance doubles-down on the despicable character assassination that continues throughout the entire length of the book.
At least, so I've been told by very reputable sources on whom I have relied for insights. I have thus far not been able to read through to the end of this ignoble attempt at fiction. As with a ripe, piquant cheese, one must hold one's nose to sample it. Unlike the diary-based delectable, there is no rich flavor which awaits. This book is, in a word, tasteless.
It's tastelessness includes the subsequent vile scene around the family dining table where Cheryl-jean disrespects her caring parents by reducing both the mother and father to fatuous stereo-typification and deceiving them about her intoxicated state. As editor of the Ovoid Elyssium Herald, I have known the two individuals who form the basis of these cardboard characterizations. They are true and upright citizens of Ovoid, righteous church-going people who serve the community in a variety of ways. Neither of them deserve such foul misrepresentation. To wit: to characterize the man upon whom 'Bud' Billingham is based as a petty finagler when the 'True Life' person was a tireless civic servant who had held the post of Mayor, County Commissioner and a host of other positions of merit and honor is beneath contempt.
In a phrase, that is precisely what this book and its author are: beneath contempt.
This should immediately put off any upstanding and law-abiding reader to desist in reading further. No personal familiarity with the young woman to whom this allusion is purportedly being alluded is necessary for one with any common sense or decency to know that a young teenage girl during this period of time in small town on the south-east central plains of Illinois most certainly would not have been doing up pot. One familiar with the young woman to whom this allusion is purportedly being alluded would know in their heart of hearts that such a diligent and filially pious young girl would never have been so corrupted by a family member to succumb to the noxious, pernicious temptation of smoking the Devil's Weed. That the character partakes of a controlled substance with such nonchalance doubles-down on the despicable character assassination that continues throughout the entire length of the book.
At least, so I've been told by very reputable sources on whom I have relied for insights. I have thus far not been able to read through to the end of this ignoble attempt at fiction. As with a ripe, piquant cheese, one must hold one's nose to sample it. Unlike the diary-based delectable, there is no rich flavor which awaits. This book is, in a word, tasteless.
It's tastelessness includes the subsequent vile scene around the family dining table where Cheryl-jean disrespects her caring parents by reducing both the mother and father to fatuous stereo-typification and deceiving them about her intoxicated state. As editor of the Ovoid Elyssium Herald, I have known the two individuals who form the basis of these cardboard characterizations. They are true and upright citizens of Ovoid, righteous church-going people who serve the community in a variety of ways. Neither of them deserve such foul misrepresentation. To wit: to characterize the man upon whom 'Bud' Billingham is based as a petty finagler when the 'True Life' person was a tireless civic servant who had held the post of Mayor, County Commissioner and a host of other positions of merit and honor is beneath contempt.
In a phrase, that is precisely what this book and its author are: beneath contempt.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Beginning at the Beginning
As was promised in the first editorial of this serial attempt to debunk the falsehoods and misinformation put forth by the purported 'novel', 'Ovoid, Illinois', the editorial staff of the Ovoid Elyssium Herald, south-east- central Illinois' last remaining family-owned newspaper, has determined the best and most appropriate place to begin this project is at the beginning. As is logical, this determination of process will inevitably lead to the middle and then onward to the end.
By the time the end is reached, it is hoped that the wicked and banal calumny shall be o'erturned by the gleaning of the fact from the facetious fiction and thusly redeem the reputation of the Ovoid community as a whole and with judicious use of truth cleanse and absolve the besmirched character of Ovoidian personages historic and contemporary much as the ancient Apelles was redeemed by the revelation of a friend who cited the slander as odious thus saving the noble Apelles from Ptolomy's lethal condemnation.
Such a friend to the citizens of Ovoid are the staff of the Elyssium Herald.
It has further been determined by the editorial staff that this series will not critique the ignoble scribblings as literature as they most assuredly are not and should not be accredited with such a high-flown and undeserved designation.
Furthermore, as the 'devil is in the details' it has been determined that at the risk of being decried as petty, niggling and obsessed with piddling trivialities, the small errors of this slanderous, erroneous narration shall be pointed out at every opportunity of which there are a plethora given the slap-dashed, slipshod, higgledy-piggledy mishmash that the author has tried to foist upon the reading public.
Having more clearly and thoughtfully stated the intentions of our staff vis-a-vis the published opprobrium regretfully entitled 'Ovoid, Illinois', the series will tackle the text of the aforementioned work of slander and, beginning at the beginning will bring to an end this offensive affront to Ovoid residents past and present.
A. Babbage II
editor
By the time the end is reached, it is hoped that the wicked and banal calumny shall be o'erturned by the gleaning of the fact from the facetious fiction and thusly redeem the reputation of the Ovoid community as a whole and with judicious use of truth cleanse and absolve the besmirched character of Ovoidian personages historic and contemporary much as the ancient Apelles was redeemed by the revelation of a friend who cited the slander as odious thus saving the noble Apelles from Ptolomy's lethal condemnation.
Such a friend to the citizens of Ovoid are the staff of the Elyssium Herald.
It has further been determined by the editorial staff that this series will not critique the ignoble scribblings as literature as they most assuredly are not and should not be accredited with such a high-flown and undeserved designation.
Furthermore, as the 'devil is in the details' it has been determined that at the risk of being decried as petty, niggling and obsessed with piddling trivialities, the small errors of this slanderous, erroneous narration shall be pointed out at every opportunity of which there are a plethora given the slap-dashed, slipshod, higgledy-piggledy mishmash that the author has tried to foist upon the reading public.
Having more clearly and thoughtfully stated the intentions of our staff vis-a-vis the published opprobrium regretfully entitled 'Ovoid, Illinois', the series will tackle the text of the aforementioned work of slander and, beginning at the beginning will bring to an end this offensive affront to Ovoid residents past and present.
A. Babbage II
editor
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Setting the Record Right
One can only ponder how one might begin.
As the managing editor and publisher of the Ovoid Elyssium Herald, one of the last family-owed newspapers in the great state of Illinois, the duty to dispel rumor and set the record right falls to your faithful servant of the fourth estate, Aeneas 'Nye' Babbage II.
As the managing editor and publisher of the Ovoid Elyssium Herald, one of the last family-owed newspapers in the great state of Illinois, the duty to dispel rumor and set the record right falls to your faithful servant of the fourth estate, Aeneas 'Nye' Babbage II.
Seems that someone (who shall remain nameless - at least for the time being) has written a novel with the blandly pedestrian title of 'Ovoid, Illinois' which the 'writer' (to label him - or her - with a distinction undeserved) has, with bald-faced audacity and wholesale condescension, sub-titled 'Fictionalized Accounts of Inconsequential People' in an effort, one might only assume, to denigrate further the the community on which this hapless fabrication is purportedly based. One might also assume that the person who penned this loosely intertwined collection of stories had hoped, by the use of what might first appear to be a self-deprecating subtitle, to deflect harsh and rightfully expected criticism of the 'novelist's' style or what passes for it.
Lest one be intrigued by the title or the promise of tawdry gossip regarding the righteous and up-standing folks, past and present, of the REAL Ovoid, Illinois, it must be stated forthwith that the tales told are naught but specious moonshine and preposterous poppycock and a load of old-fashioned baloney. This is calumny, pure and simple; tommyrot, balderdash and hooey meant only to titillate an ignorant readership with a salacious and bowdlerized misrepresentation of actual events both contemporary and historic!
This series of editorials will endeavor to debunk the defamation, deconstruct the dissemblance and dismiss the disparagement which this libelous bit of scribblement has introduced under the thin veil of fiction.
A. Babbage II
editor
A. Babbage II
editor
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