More Opportunities

Annie seizes an opportunity to stare longingly at Pooh.

made it much easier for Annie to invite Pooh over.

Annie's Pretending

Doll Baby playing with little O.

Pretending that she wanted the children to play together . . .

For Her Brother-in-Law

The loving family circle.
Originally uploaded by weirsdo

when she realized how well her baby and Pooh’s child, O, got along.

A Mother's Love . . .

From left: Pooh, Doll Baby, little O, Annie, Hobbes Jr., and Anastasia.

Annie began to like the doll baby much more . . .

Captists to Come Back

Diamonelle is JUST MODELING. But if she ever got married, she would be a lot more careful than the principal characters in "Gone with the Captists"!

"Gone with the Captists" begins in April, 2007 on the blog and continues off and on through the July, 2008 archives, again from the Sept., 2008-March, 2009 archives, and from the Aug.-Sept., '09 archives. Resuming toward the end of Oct., 2009, our chronicle runs through Nov. and the early part of Dec. with only brief interruption.

Frustrated in her love for Pooh, who married his cousin Anastasia, Annie (Anastasia's sister) married Percy, a flyer in the Captist Air Force, just before the war. During the war, in which Percy was killed, Annie helped deliver Anastasia's sickly baby, little O, in Petesville, and, with the help of the daring but intensely irritating Hobbes Junior, retreated during the Fall of Petesville to her mother's estate.
Annie's father, Hobbes, had been kidnapped by UnCaptists and was being held in Ork, and her mother Julia, a Litteral Captist fanatic, had gone a bit funny, or funnier, so Annie, Anastasia, and the few Captist servants who stuck with the family were left to keep the wolf from the door. Anastasia was sickly and busy with her sickly baby and any needy Captist who came around begging for a handout, so it was Annie who cared for the beehives and planted the estate's football field with crops so they could eat. Her only helper was Ginny, an orphan Anastasia took in, who proved a useful farmhand.
Pooh came home, but he was clumsy and not much help. He also rejected Annie's advances. On top of this, Julia's former steward, Red Baboon, came by with his jumped up Captist trash wife, Tawdry Cattery, and told Annie she'd have to come up with three hundred Stuffed Animal Planet dollars in taxes or Julia's estate would be his.
Receiving a letter telling of Percy's fall into a volcano in Ork, Annie journeyed to Petesville, where she offered to be Hobbes Junior's mistress in return for the 300 $APs needed to save the estate. Stuck in an UnCaptist prison after his questionable career as war privateer turned Captist officer, Hobbes Junior heard the humiliating request but refused on the grounds that any attempt to access his money would lead the UnCaptists to it. On the way home Annie met Percy's brother Frederick, who had an understanding with her cousin Elizabeth. Frederick had a store and some money, so Annie told him Elizabeth didn't love him and got him to marry her instead.
Annie ran the store ruthlessly, to the male chauvinist Frederick's surprise and dismay. One day, Hobbes Junior stopped by and after teasing her, revealed that he had lots of money and had come to make sure she was all right. She borrowed money from him to buy a honeyworks for herself (Frederick had no part in it). She then hired Pooh, who had been on the point of moving his family to Ork, to manage it.
Anastasia loved being back in Petesville and was grateful to Annie for all her "kindness" to her and Pooh. Pooh was a hopeless manager, but Annie really did everything anyway.
The corrupt UnCaptist government allowed or even encouraged all kinds of crimes against Captists, the worst of which were assaults on unprotected Captist ladies. The Captist males formed the Cat Claw Clan to defend themselves and the purity of Captist femalehood against these threats.* Annie made Frederick promise not to join, but she worried about him.
On the evening after Annie herself was attacked on her way past the rundown Pansitown and only saved by the timely intervention of Mrs. Arshmol/Ugluk, the Captist bear-menfolk mysteriously did not come home until late, and an UnCaptist patrol headed by Captain Tom the Lone Shark surrounded the house. At last Hobbes Junior, Pooh and Big Pooh returned, all, seemingly, very drunk. This ruse and Hobbes Jr.'s story that they had been visiting Belle Catley's house of ill repute caused Tom the Lone Shark and his troops to leave, but really Pooh was wounded and Frederick killed in their attack on Pansitown.
At first, Annie hardly noticed her widowhood, she was so concerned about Pooh. But when it was clear he would recover, she realized what a bad bear she had been and took to drinking alone in her room, fearing everlasting torments such as attending NG4J rehearsals for all eternity, until one day Hobbes Jr. kissed her into marrying him.
In the beginning she was very happy with him. He spent a lot of money on her and showed her a good time. But there were a few bees in the honeycomb. Annie was annoyed, for instance, when Hobbes Jr. burned her ENTIRE collection of Franc's latest line. And he was high-pawed in other respects as well. For instance, he tricked her into renaming Frederick's General Store the "Caveat Emptorium," and only Pooh's kindly telling her what it meant as the sign was being installed put a stop to this embarrassment.
Then there was the baby. Horrified when she discovered she was pregnant, Annie liked her little doll more than she had expected, but she was astonished and even a little bothered by the almost unbear-manly way Hobbes Jr. loved and indulged the child.
Will their marriage last? And what of Annie's undying love for Anastasia's husband, Pooh? Stay tuned for more of "Gone with the Captists," and find out (eventually).

*This is, of course, the Captist side of the story. For our real view, click here.

Weirsdo Roundup: Emrald, Aubvey Dissed?

No one disses Diamonelle!

The Cheesemeister's animals at the Netherworld Hotel have been trying to contact the Meekmoks (Pansi claims Emrald is paying them for this), but to no avail. At the same time, Aubvey has reportedly been trying to contact Tiger Woods, but he won't take her calls, and may even have asked her to remove his name from her phone. Even Klaws Tiger met Aubvey's advances with a glassy-eyed stare at a recent photo shoot, though that could have been due to his advanced state of intoxication. Have the once irresistible divas of NG4J lost their appeal? Or is this just an inevitable dry spell? Concerned fans want to know, but sadly, a growing number could care less.

Ask Weirsdo: Movie News

The magic of Hobbesywood has had its usual effect. In response to our announcement about the impending production of Chemise Torn's screenplay of her tawdry novel, TAKING LIBERTIES, Tom & Icy write,

We hear rumors that Doug will play the part of the Justice, and Lammy is wanting the part of Kupublic's Lobbyist Lesbian lover. Will Cocaine Jesus play her husband congressman? We hope that Quinton Tarantino might direct it if he is finished promoting 'Inglorious Bastards' about the Jewish Nazi killing squad.

RBUD appears to demur from accepting the role of Supreme Court Justice, replying, "Just Us, Icy."

Finally, in a clumsy attempt at well-wishing, Karen writes, "I'm sure Diamonelle will excel in such a dramatic role. She is, after all, a Barbie doll."

As Angelon's authorized spokesperson, I can say that should RBUD desire the role of Justice he is certainly welcome to it. The buzz is that RBUD's eclat as Pansi's mysterious One that Got Away will be a big draw, especially if he wears his Rambeau outfit in his out-of-courtroom scenes (the ones where he is not naked and prostituting himself).
As an intergalactically famous bimbo, Lammy would also be a welcome addition to the cast, although she will probably not have many lines, since she can never understand what words mean and is frequently intoxicated.
The casting entities are happy to audition Mr. C. J. Duffy for a role, but their early take on him is that he has too much presence to be a mere philandering Congressman. They see him more as a sleazy captain of industry/international industrial mogul type. This would allow him to use his British accent to advantage.
Quentin Tarantino is welcome to throw his hat in the ring, but odds are on Kathryn to make a comeback with this one, T&I.
We are sure Diamonelle will do well, too, Karen. Her rap version of THE SOUND OF MUSIC, THE HOUSE IS ALIVE, was a hit, and although this role will require considerably more dramatic range, we believe she will rise to the occasion.
But please remember that she is a Bratz doll, not a Barbie. And proud of it! Ever since her time with NG4J, she can be a bit touchy about this.

Weirsdo Roundup: Diamonelle Offered Movie Role

When asked to state her opinion on the controversy over Tempist Le Troop that has Netherworld divas Pansi and Amanda McKittrick Ros on the boil, Stuffed Animal Planet's Chemise Torn dismissed the whole affair as beneath her notice.
Torn went on to reveal that her screenplay, "Taking Liberties," will be produced in Hobbesywood by Angelon himself, who has characterized it as a beautiful, powerful story, full of tumescent greed. The screenplay is based on Torn's novel of the same name which chronicles the torrid, triangulated love affair of a Supreme Court Justice, a lobbyist for a large corporation, and a Republican member of Congress. Rumor has it that Diamonelle has accepted the part of Joan Kupublic, the long-suffering wife of the Congressman, who hosts tea parties, endures bouts of amnesia and frequently shoots herself in the foot.

Weirsdo Roundup: NG4J Bargain Basement

NEVER discount Diamonelle!

If you missed this year's batch of NG4J Holiday Collectibles, rumor has it they are now available for a deep discount from Hal Itosis. Don't tell him we sent you if Pansi is within earshot, please.

Weirsdo Roundup: Christinanes Rally Round Pansi

Diamonelle goes easy on the candy, but is not religiously opposed to it.

In response to Captist outrage over Pansi's suggestion that the Cheesemeister's cat Trinity was a dangerous and probably illegal alien, Christinanes have praised Pansi's zeal, citing her warning regarding demonic candy. As this very real danger shows, they claim, witchcraft is still alive and well, and it is timely advice to beware of alien cats. Numerous Christinane leaders are joining the former gymvangelist in urging people to put the Christ back in Halloween, and reminding them that if they want to live forever in bliss, they had better concentrate on belief in the Trinity (not the cat) and regular Christinane practices such as church-going and tithing. They should NOT adopt the deviant notion that people's lives can be influenced through Satanic evils like magic and witchcraft, whether delivered through demonic candy, alien cats, HARRY POTTER books, or any other means.

Weirsdo Roundup: Captists Urge Boycott

Diamonelle deplores prejudice of all kinds but refrains from making derogatory statements about her former colleagues.

From the HOBBESYWOOD TIMES
Litteral and traditional Captists joined forces to protest this statement by the aging adolescent entertainer, Pansi, saying it showed a disrespect that harked back to the time when Christinanes burned cats at the stake with their human servants, called "witches" by the Christinanes. In a joint statement issued earlier today, both General Ugluk/Arshmol, head of the traditional Captists, and High Priestess Julia, of the Litteral Captists, stopped short of endorsing the intergalactic outbreaks of looting and vandalism for which the Cat Claws Clan has claimed responsibility. But both pretales did call for a boycott of all Christinane goods. These include not only Pansi's shows and recorded videos, which currently enjoy only limited, retro appeal on Stuffed Animal Planet, but also the perennially popular Doo-Doo Pharmaceuticals, available 24/7 from his Holy Drug Warehouse.
It remains to be seen whether Captist zeal will remain firm in the face of temptation.

Weirsdo Fiddling Notes

Diamonelle has no comment on fiddling.

FOLLOW-UP
Last night at the concert, the conductor told the audience that because Shostakovich's 11th symphony was written around the time of the Hungarian uprising against the Soviets, many people do believe it has the double meaning I suggested in my response to C. J. Duffy: that it is against Stalin, not just the Czar of 1905.
Some time ago, when this same orchestra was rehearsing a different Shostakovich symphony, the same conductor went on at some length about Shostakovich's moving struggle to comply with the Soviet regime while maintaining artistic integrity. At the end of his lecture he said, "What I'm trying to say is, play softer."
A long time ago I saw a play in New York about Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Stalin. Because Stalin was a jumped-up, ignorant peasant, he could never be sure that when he approved a piece of music he wasn't undermining his own regime, and Prokofiev and Shostakovich seem to have been aware of and even teased his paranoid tendencies. The end of the first act of the play had Stalin breaking record after record in rage and frustration over his lack of control. Of course, you had to be careful, because if he got frustrated enough he could just send his goons after you, and that would be that.

SPEAKING OF DOUBLE MEANINGS . . .
Go here to see Pansi's take on Carrie Prejean.

Weirsdo Roundup: Herbicide News

Despite her humble origins, Diamonelle is an exotic flower--but never obnoxious.

Followers of "Growing Up Lammy" who were alarmed by this post may rest assured that since Lammy took her short cut much landscaping work has been done on the Weirsdo grounds, and the horny stump has been eradicated, along with other obnoxiously invasive plants.

Ask Weirsdo: The Lure of the Depths

From Franc's "Siren" line.

In regards to Captist confession, RBUD writes: "I like the thought that cats are confessing outside at night. A cat who confesses sin has truly undergone an essential religious conversion."
This reminded me of Peter (now recognized by Captists as St. Peter the Captist). I grew up in an old house. The cellar had a sandy dirt floor and a log ceiling--complete with bark on some of the logs. Our cats had no litter box; they went outside. But when the weather was bad, as it frequently is in Oberlin, the cats would naughtily go down in the cellar and use the floor. We could always tell they had done so because they would get cobwebs on their faces, but with Peter we knew right away because the whole time he was down there he hollered mournfully, as if to say, "I'm sinning, I'm sinning!"

Ask Weirsdo: Cold Days and Hell

Toyplayer, apprehensive.

In regards to the tobogganing, Ariel wrote "Looks like you had a good time in the snow, but I wonder what makes the toboggan run as fast as it looks in the picture(s), the slope doesn't look that steep."
The driveway was long, Ariel, and repeated slides made the track icier and longer. The combination of decreased friction and the options of stopping by running into a tree or running off a ledge onto a bed of snow-covered rockes some three feet below made it fairly exciting, as Toyplayer's expression demonstrates.

Apparently in return for my historical insights, such as they were, Buzzin and Buzzoff invited me and my family to a Death Cheese concert.
With all due respect, this could only occur in the Netherworld, or hell, as Pansi calls it, not only because that is primarily where Death Cheese "performs," but also because our attendance will be over our own dead bodies. I will not say that we will attend when hell freezes over, because I remember that's how Brittney was tricked into a verbal contract to perform at the Netherworld Ice Arena with Death Cheese, and besides in this weather one never knows.
But thank you for the kind (?) thought.

Ask Weirsdo: Snow and Shostakovich

Mall Diva goes downhill fast.

In response to our defrost, C. J. Duffy writes,

It seems almost unbelievable that Tulsa . . . hasn't had snow for 70 years! That is three generations that have never seen snow.
Of course it isn't so unbelievable as loads of places never get snow. We have had snow, the worst for fifty years which, as with all things British, took us by surprise but we, as ever, get on with it. My son and I made ‘snow angels’ over the fields near where we live. My son is fast approaching twenty five and I am thirty years his senior so we must have looked a daft pair.

Tulsa gets plenty of snow, C. J. D. But it hasn't seen a BLIZZARD, that is, snow and very high winds at the same time, in 60 or 70 years. Also, the snow usually tends to melt away pretty fast, which is why they don't plow.
Regarding grown-up fun in the snow, RBUD writes, "Funny there's no mention of what Weirsdo herself did in the snow. Snow turns me seven years old with the first flake to fall."
I think I mentioned DRIVING, RBUD, which I did all of because Dr. Weirsdo gets very anxious in bad weather. But I also packed the original toboggan path down the driveway and went down a few times myself.
C. J. D. was also interested in the Shostakovich symphony: "Shostakovich’s 11th? That's the one the critics said he 'sold out' with isn't it but the Soviets loved as they thought it illustrated the Communist struggle?"
I don't think I know as much about this aspect of music history as I should, C. J. D. I am under the impression that although Shostakovich was accused of selling out, his music sort of deconstructs itself with its darkness and often has a doubleness of meaning. For instance, what if by evoking the people's struggle against the Czar he was actually also criticizing Stalin? When I was looking for recordings to listen to and watch on Youtube, I came across video of the 1953 East Berlin uprising set to the 2nd movement of the Shostakovich, which is about the 1905 Winter Palace rebellion. The setting was very effective.
Finally, C. J. D. writes rather romantically of Kansas City: "Kansas City! Another wonderful, almost mythological place. Probably doesn’t have spittoons any more and I bet Doris Day isn’t seen in buckskins. One of the places I would like to visit."
I know Kansas City mainly as a hopelessly confused nest of highway interchanges, C. J. D., but I have enjoyed the Nelson-Atkins Museum, the Plaza's shopping, and the ARABIA museum, which features a steamboat of that name that sank in the Missouri and was later unearthed, due to changes in the river's course, in a cornfield. In future trips I hope to visit the World War I museum, where I'd like to donate my grandfather's memorabilia and letters, and an authentic barbecue restaurant. In case you're wondering how I can go so often and see so little, my mother is not allowed out without her guardian or the supervision of some program approved by her home, so we mostly stay inside and play games or watch movies.

Weirsdo Defrost

Toyplayer tobogganing in Tulsa.

Happy New Year all!
We are back from a cold time, and I have just rinsed all the salt off the car.
On Christmas Eve Tulsa had their first blizzard in 60 or 70 years, so Toyplayer and Mall Diva had a great time throwing snow at each otherand tobogganing down the Grandparents Weirsdo's driveway.

Since Tulsa is usually pretty warm, they are not big on snow plows, so the roads in little neighborhoods like the Grandparents Weirsdo's became a sheet of ice. The unwinterized Weirsdomobile became lodged in snow on the side of the road, which prevented Dr. Weirsdo from attending the MLA in Philadelphia His original early flight had already been cancelled, so he would not have gotten to read his paper to the Dante Society anyway, but he was still disappointed at not being able to touch base with colleagues, be feted by Delaware University Press (whose consortium put out LEVINAS AND NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE), and generally escape from the Veryred State backwater.
We tried to cheer him up by seeing THE BLIND SIDE, which captured the wealthy Southern woman to a T but tended to pat her on the back too much, and IT'S COMPLICATED, which was very funny, though like THE BLIND SIDE it went on a bit long.
After soaking up the Grandparents Weirsdo's hospitality longer than they had expected, we went to visit Grandma Weirsdoer in Kansas City, which was enjoying more snow and single-digit temperatures. The driving was very interesting, but more because of blowing and drifting snow than ice, since they do plow up there.
Now we are back. Dr. Weirsdo is preparing for his next conference adventure (two in one weekend on opposite sides of the country), students are showing up for lessons, I am practicing Shostakovich's 11th Symphony and Mahler's 10th for my next concert, Toyplayer and Mall Diva are hoping for more snow, and Scarface is asleep on the piano.
I have missed all my blog friends. Hope your holidays were warm, bright, and merry, or at least bearable.