This is Crazy

You know how some video is making the rounds, and all your friends are laughing at it, but you don't watch it because you don't have time, and anyway, some annoying people thought it was funny, and you're just too cool to indulge in all the hysteria?

Well, that's how I felt about this. But I was wrong. A song championing Women's Ordination In Our Time, to the tune of Call Me Maybe. Just... watch it.



The group that made this is serious. Unfortunately for them, their arguments aren't. The tipoff: the baby in the "Mommy for Pope!" onesie, the college girls in Catholic school uniforms making sloppy signs of the cross, and the post-song cheering, as if they'd completed some great feat equal to Pheidippides' run from Marathon.

You may not find yourself a convert to the women's priesthood lobby, but you may acquire a strange new respect for Carly Rae Jepsen's artistry.

Went With The Wind

Perhaps some of you are tired of Gone With The Wind parodies, but for those who aren't, I present Went With The Wind from the Carol Burnett show:

Tsao-rry about That

I spent yesterday salivating over a recipe for pho from the weekend section of the Wall Street Journal, and by way too late in the evening I had descended the craving ladder from hand-crafted Vietnamese soup to just anything vaguely Asian and chopstick-y. So far had I sunk, I told Darwin, that I was fully prepared to chow down on General Tsao's Chicken, though it has little to do with any of the General Tsaos, or with actual food from China, or, sometimes, with chicken.

"Well, you know," Darwin said, "that General Tsao was captured once, and the opposing forces cut off his ear and sent it to his wife with a demand for ransom. She inspected it and said, "I certainly can't make a silk purse out of a Tsao's ear."

"No, no," I objected. "She was a frugal woman. She used it to make Tsao-ear dough bread."

"But a German doctor sewed it back on, and he was known ever after as the Tsao-ear kraut."

"When he came home," Darwin continued, "he told her, 'You ruined my life, you fat Tsao.' Then when he retired he tried to run a vineyard, but all he could raise were Tsao-er grapes." 

"When he got drunk," I wheezed, "she yelled, 'Tsao-ced again.'"

"But she was his lawfully wedded Tsao-ce."

 "The neighbors heard the General screaming at his angry wife, but they didn't call the police because it was only the Tsaound and the Fury."

"His wife had several children from a previous marriage," said Darwin, "and people asked him why they had a different last name, he said, 'I have reaped what I did not Tsao.'"

"She said, 'Tsao be it.'"

"While he was still in the army, his maneuvers brought him within a few miles of his house, but he couldn't get away to go visit home. When his wife heard about it, she said, 'Tsao close and yet Tsao far.'"

We had devolved to that disgraceful point where we were nearly choked with mirth at our own cleverness, but whatever crowning witticism might have capped Tsao's saga was lost because at that moment Baby gave a mournful wail for Ma-ma, and for our sins we spent the rest of the night with a feverish child between us, and occasionally throwing up on us. The bug seemed to be a 24-hour thing, but we suspect it might have been a case of General Tsao's Revenge.

Fish Heads, for fun and mental profit

I know that there are philosophical songs and then there are philosophical songs, but around here few pieces of music have occasioned as much discussion as Fish Heads, by Barnes and Barnes.


The list of conditions for what is or is not a fish head have led to great speculation as to which of our acquaintance may actually be a fish head in disguise.

For example, here are some of the conditions of fish headery:
a) they don't wear sweaters;
b) they don't play baseball;
c) they're not good dancers;
d) they don't play drums.

Some of the youngsters were a bit worried that Daddy might be a fish head, then, until it was pointed out that he does, occasionally, wear sweaters. In fact, most of us make the non-fish head category by virtue of our positive association with sweaters, although Julia is a good dancer, Jack has played the drums, and I have played baseball. Any one of these is sufficient to establish non-fish head status, but we like to be doubly protected.

What are the positive conditions of being a fish head?
a) roly-poly;
b) in the morning, happy and laughing;
c) in the evening, floating in the stew;
d) get into movies free;
e) can't talk.

Fortunately, c) bars Baby from being a fish head, although her dinnertime habits make one question.

But now, examine this statement: "Roly-poly fish heads are never seen drinking cappuccino in Italian restaurants with Oriental women (yeah)." There's a lot to unpack here. Do fish heads never drink cappuccino, or is the cappuccino ban only in effect when they are at Italian restaurants? What if they're at an Italian restaurant with Polish women? Or Oriental men? We're not given enough information to make broader statements, but with the help of Graph Jam, we put the statement into the form of a Venn diagram.

Let me anticipate correction by pointing out for myself that yes, I misspelled "cappuccino".

So we can say with certainty that if one meets all three of these conditions, one is definitely not a fish head. But wait! What happens if one meets all these conditions invisibly? After all, non-fish headery is contingent on being seen doing all these things.

Obviously, there are layers of richness here that we have yet to unpack.

Easy Listening

As we headed off on the first evening leg of last week's ten-hour trip to Wisconsin, we anticipated a ride eased by the dulcet tones of a British narrator reading about mayhem and bloodshed in rabbit warrens. Yes, Watership Down was on the menu: eleven cassettes promising enough listening hours to keep the back seat pacified for most of the drive.

And then I put in the first tape. The player whirred, clicked, and spit it out. I tried again. Same routine. I tried a different tape. I tried several different tapes. It was of no avail -- the tape player had gone on strike, perhaps permanently.  I rummaged around, but I'd cleaned the van so thoroughly before my brother's wedding that there were no random CDs on the floor or shoved into various compartments. The back seat was getting restive, waiting for their promised book. Faced with the onrushing prospect of the long haul with no trusty audio to soothe the riotous masses, I almost went tharn.

So we tracked radio stations all across the midwest. The oldies station has become very popular with the ladies, so we followed the Columbus station as long as we could follow the signal. Then we said the rosary, and no one went to sleep. Then we threatened. Then we got to Toledo and people were quiet, but we had to drive the beltway around the whole city because we missed our exit because I was reading to Darwin. We knew we were going the wrong way when we saw that the highway was headed to Detroit.

Day two was harder. We listened to The Globe across Northern Indiana, which was the sort of awesome eclectic station I wish I could find at home. My listening pleasure was impeded, however, by a certain someone attempting to hold the car hostage by throwing a huge screaming tantrum in which she repeatedly demanded that she be allowed to sit in the middle seat on the second half of the trip. You think someone would get bored yelling, "I want to sit in the middle seat of the car on the second half of the trip!" for an hour at a time, but the young have an intensity and staying power that eludes their elders.

Digression: I tell you what, my dad is a mild-mannered guy, but if he had ever had occasion to pull this car over and tell me that if I didn't stop it, there would be serious consequences, I would have listened and piped the heck down. All I can say is that it really is better to be feared than loved sometimes, and on this trip it felt like we the adults were neither.

It was time to take measures on the trip back. We stopped at Barnes and Noble in Madison, WI and fortified ourselves for the journey with 4.5 hours of dramatized Sherlock Holmes stories (Sir John Gielgud as Holmes and Sir Ralph Richardson as Watson), 2 hours of Aesop's Fables, and the two-disc collection of Dr. Demento's Greatest Hits.

Dr. Demento, host of the novelty hit radio show! You all know his signature song: They're Coming To Take Me Away, by Napoleon XIV.



This very same Dr. Demento collection, which I listened to (on tape) fifteen years ago, features a song I first heard on a carefully preserved 45 lp of my dad's: Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah, by Allan Sherman. The tantrummer listened, laughed, and pronounced it good.



One song which amused my children but was fairly inexplicable to them was Star Trekking (Across the Universe) by The Firm. I saw a lot of Star Trek in my time, but since we don't have broadcast TV, they've never had occasion to see old episodes while flipping through channels. Star Trek is rather a dying cultural phenomenon anyway, mostly remembered through parody.



One of the most weirdly catchy tunes on the album was Fish Heads by Barnes and Barnes, featured here in their own music video as seen on the Dr. Demento show on MTV. It's pretty delightfully demented.



Eat them up, yum!

And we rode peacefully all the way home. Thank you, Dr. Demento.

Swan's Way

When Darwin and I were first dating, my younger sister (then 7 or 8) asked me, "Does Darwin love you because you're beautiful or because you're smart?"

"Because I'm smart," I said.

She considered for a moment and then said, "No, that's not it."

A Long Tyme Agoon in a Shire Far Away

Ich bryng tydings of grete joy: Geoffrey Chaucer, though dismayed yn hys mynd by the acclaim of the twitter, hath turned again to the makinge of verses:

And yet, a tetchy kinge notwithstandinge, finallye Ich have hadde a litel space of myn owene for to maken of verses, thogh Ich feare nowe nobody doth lyke verses eny moore. Helas, for Ich am super psyched to maken severale lynes followe oon anothir for hundreds of pages, and yet it semeth everichoon thes dayes loveth oonly to twit and tweete and maken up a gret swarme of quippes and linkes. A blog semeth about as cuttinge edge as a sworde buryed in a mounde. Thogh Ich have made an accompte of twitter, Ich knowe but litel how to maken of a fyne and retweetable tweete. Litel Lowys doth mock me dailye with a fiers mockinge, sayinge “watching yow trye to tweet, Dad, ys lyk watchinge Archbishop Arundel trye to keepe hys cool a a Lollard support groupe. Helle of awkward!” The tweet so short, the crafte so longe to lerne!

And yet Ich have had comfort in myn art. For Ich am composinge a narratif about folke who are togedir ythrowne by the windes of fate and goon on a journeye.

Read ye of hys character notes for the epic celestial: THE PILGRIMS IN THE STERRES!

Ther was a SMUGGELERE, and he the beste,Wyth gowne of whit and snazzye litel veste.He hadde a shippe that was a noble vesselFor in twelf parsekkes it had yronne the Qessel;At customes houses nevir did he pause –For resoned he ther was but litel cause:To paye a tax or impost made hym wood,And I seyde his opinioun was good:Why sholde hys labour fatten up the paunchesOf bureaucrates that sitte upon their haunchesAnd tak their paye from honest merchauntes werke?This good man kepte the officiales in the derkeAnd oft he wolde in his shippes floore hyde. From oon ende of the sterres to the other syde,He hadde yflowne, and seene many a wondere,And yet he hadde no feare of Goddes thondere.He seyde hys destinee was hys to makeWyth blastere or wyth sleight or wyth wisecrake.Of goold and eek of love he had a thirste, In altercaciouns he ay shot firste. 

...A WHINY YOUTHE cam nexte, barleye a man,With yelwe haire, tunique, and farmeres tan.But aquaculture litel did he love,He wolde been a pilot al above And bullseye oump-rattes yn a nimble craft.Saye, have ye evir been upon a rafteAnd herde the wynde blowe fast over the waveSo that the winde did seme to sighe and rave?Wyth just swich fierceness sigheth thys yonge man,And whineth eek, and whingeth whan he kan,For he ne lovede nat his occupaciounAnd he wolde rathir go to Tashi stacioun. 

Take and read.

Phrases from the Russian Textbook

Come in, please. Take a seat.
I'm sorry I'm late. It was difficult to find your house.
I spoke to Vladimir Smirnov yesterday. He said that I should telephone you.
It is cold in my room. It's also very noisy. The window doesn't close.
There is no toilet paper. Please do not say that I should buy Pravda.
I have reread the letter. I cannot understand it.

We went to Russia last year.
Life will be better in the twenty-first century.
Next week we'll go to Siberia.

She loves only herself.
They are in their hotel room.
We have come to Russia in order to speak Russian.
I want him to apologize.

The students who studied Russian found interesting work.
There are very few businessmen who have mastered Russian.
All the girls who studied Russian married Russians.

And speaking of translations, this transcription of Carmina Burana tastes like chicken:

Friday Viewage

Aw, it's Friday, and I don't need any more excuse than that. I present Sir Mix-a-Lot's Baby Got Back, as interpreted in a Gilbert and Sullivan style.



"Well I do say, when it comes to the fairer sex, the publication Cosmopolitan has little to do with my selection."

The Californians

I just don't have that much to say this week that doesn't relate to painting my bathroom, but here: I think I will never stop laughing at this:

 

A) People who live in California DO talk about driving like this.
B) "You have cancer. But don't even worry about it!"
C) Bill Hader totally cracks up in this sketch, which makes it so much funnier.

Something Completely Different

I never thought I'd say this, but I'm kind of over all the discussion of marriage, sex, men, and women. So I went looking for some Mitchell and Webb to post, but these were the only ones I could find that were clean enough to post.

And don't comment to me about marriage, sex, men, or women.

Your Friday Fix: Existential Edition

About to wrap up my work week, I feel for Henri The Existential Cat

Don't Know Much About History: War of 1812

It's the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812! Contra the poor bewildered soldier here, Wikipedia actually does have a longish article on the subject.

[Hat Tip: Donald]

Reference that Sacrifice

I've never cared much for O. Henry's story The Gift of the Magi, so if Darwin and I were ever to make absurdly grandiose and mutually canceling sacrifices for each other, this is probably how it would shake out.

Friday Viewage

It's Friday, which means everyone wants to kick back and watch videos. Here at DarwinCatholic, we're always happy to provide some mind-numbing entertainment to go with the economic analysis and interminable posts about sex.

So first up, for Brandon and Matthew Lickona, the future of internet advertising is: CATS!



Pass me the Doritos.

Whenever I get a chance to catch up with my brother Will, we waste our valuable sibling time in syncing up on Saturday Night Live videos. Here's what we were laughing at the entire last week of December.

1920s Party


Darwin is probably going to throttle me if I say "Don't make me sing!" one more time.

And here's the sequel: 1920s Holiday Party


I love Jimmy Fallon when he can keep a straight face during a sketch.

Let's add some culture to the diet. Darwin and I saw the operetta The Merry Widow in Vienna when we were schlepping around Europe with backpacks. (I remember that we misread our tickets and sat in the wrong seats, and then it turned out that the right seats were high up in the very first box to the left of the stage and some of the action was cut off by the proscenium arch.) The production we saw was in German and set in the 1920s, and some of the action included characters rolling across the stage on wooden office chairs. We understood no German and the comic plot wasn't quite intelligible to us (though I do remember several characters exclaiming "Zwanzig millionen!", which referred to the amount of the widow's fortune).

The most memorable moment of the opera for me was the Vilja-lied, in which the merry widow sings of a legend from her native land about a man who falls in love with a nymph named Vilja. Here is Beverly Sills performing this aria very slowly but beautifully.




And this is what I sing to Diana now that she's learned to walk and is padding all around the house in her soft leather slippers: O Mistress Mine, where are you roaming? from Twelfth Night.



O Mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O Mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O stay and hear! your true-love's coming
O stay and hear! your true-love's coming
That can sing both high and low;
Trip no further, pretty sweeting, 
Journeys end in lovers' meeting—
Every wise man's son doth know. 

What is love? 'tis not hereafter; 
What is love? 'tis not hereafter; 
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty,—
Then come kiss me, Sweet-and-twenty, 
Youth's a stuff will not endure.

A Poem of Pronunciation

This is the most awesome thing I've read in days -- if only because it allowed me to correct MrsDarwin's pronunciation twice. (Not out of greater knowledge, but because she was the one reading and so I didn't get caught on the read-but-not-heard ones that would have tripped me up.) [source]

English Pronunciation by G. Nolst Trenité

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

Weep for those who must learn our language as a second one -- which would be just about everyone who didn't grow up speaking it.

Vader, Did You Know?

I really don't know what I'd do if the internet disappeared. Between a nasty sinus headache and trying to read my novel on hardcopy, the internet is the only thing keeping me awake. It keeps me awake because it amuses me. Youtube amuses me. Here's what I mean.

 

 With apologies to anyone who likes the original song more than I do.

"Whatever would you DO if the internet were to disappear?"

Wondermark is reminding me of my complaints about the social effects of Youtube.

Beat it like a drum

Darwin and I are dissolved in hysterics... I mean, shaking our heads in serious reflection... over the latest travails to rock the Occupy Wall Street crew: the rogue drum circle. Via Megan McArdle, the cri de la rate of the frustrated OWS "organizers" who are discovering that in a world with no authority, no one respects authority.

Friends, mediation with the drummers has been called off. It has gone on for more than 2 weeks and it has reached a dead end. The drummers formed a working group called Pulse and agreed to 2 hrs/day at times during the mediation, and more recently that changed to 4 hrs/day. It's my feeling that we may have a fighting chance with the community board if we could indeed limit drumming and loud instrumentation to 12-2 PM and 4-6 PM, however that isn't what's happening.
Last night the drumming was near continuous until 10:30 PM at night. Today it began again at 11 AM. The drummers are fighting among themselves, there is no cohesive group. There is one assemblage called Pulse that organized most of the
drummers into a group and went to GA for formal recognition and with a proposal. Unfortunately there is one individual who is NOT a drummer but who claims to speak for the drummers who has been a deeply disruptive force, attacking the drumming rep during the GA and derailing his proposal, and disrupting the community board meeting, as well as the OWS community relations meeting. She has also created strife and divisions within the POC caucus, calling many members who are not 'on her side' "Uncle Tom", "the 1%", "Barbie" "not Palestinian enough" "Wall Street politicians" "not black enough" "sell-outs", etc. People have been documenting her disruptions, and her campaign of misinformation, and instigations. She also has a documented history online of defamatory, divisive and disruptive behavior within the LGBT (esp. transgender) communities. Her disruptions have made it hard to have constructive conversations and productive resolutions to conflicts in a variety of forums in the past several days.
At this point we have lost the support of allies in the Community Board and the state senator and city electeds who have been fighting the city to stave off our eviction, get us toilets, etc. On Tuesday there is a Community Board vote, which will be packed with media cameras and community members with real grievances. We have sadly demonstrated to them that we are unable to collectively 1) keep our space and surrounding areas clean and sanitary, 2) keep the park safe, 3) deal with internal conflict and enforce the Good Neighbor Policy that was passed by the General Assembly.

The passive-aggressive outrage here is precious. "Of course we'd all like to play nicely, but somebody just won't shut up. This place would be clean if some people weren't always leaving their junk around. Everything was under control until someone showed up with her bongos and her history of instability."

How is that later in life? Do these guys get blackballed at Democratic rallies and conventions for being the punks who had Occupy Wall Street shut down?  "Oh, we can't caucus with him, he brings his damn drums to everything." The arm of the internet is long, drumming friends. Believe it or not, many people use Google as a background checking mechanism: potential friends, potential dates, potential employers. And it's strange, I know, but not everyone views a stint as the Heartbeat of Occupy Wall Street as totally awesome.

True fact: 99% of women describe protest drum circles as "a turn-off". And by "true fact" I mean "something I just made up because it's funny, but you know I'm right".

The Explanacioun of The Chief Pardoner of Synneflix

Those who do not understand history are condemned to repeat it. Fresh from Medieval tymes, Geoffrey Chaucer digs up an auncient email in which the Chief Pardoner explains why his business has been forced to diversify into two companies in order to cater to both old and new technologies.

AN EMAIL FROM THE CHEEF PARDONER OF ST. MARY ROUNCESVALLES (i.e. SYNNEFLIX) 
FROM: CHIEF PARDONER OF ST. MARY ROUNCESVALLES, AND LEDERE OF SYNNEFLIXTO: OWER LOYALE BRETHREN AND SISTRENRE: TRADITIOUNAL PENAUNCE VERSUS INDULGENCES VIA SYNNEFLIX

Mea maxima culpa. Ich moste maken explanacioun unto yow alle. Ich do wryte thys emayle aftir Ich have walked twelve tymes the roade from London to Canterbury and back wearinge no shoon and IV hayre-shirtes.

It appeareth from the feed-backe over the laste fewe fortnightes that many feythful soules did thinke we at Synneflix lakked in dignitee and humbleness by cause of the maner in which we did announcen the separacioun of tradiciounal penaunce and ower newe sale of indulgences, and eek the chaunges of donacioun required for ech different mode of achievinge spiritual helthe. Swich a thing was nat ower entente, and Ich do praye yow all may me pardon. Nowe Ich shall telle yow of how this cam to pass....

For many a yeere, my gretest feere for the Hospital of St. Mary Rouncesval and ower compaye of Synneflix hath been that we wolde nat maken the chaunge from success in regular penaunce to success in indulgences. Moost hooly orderes that have a knakke at sum thinge – lyk Cluny at beinge verye solemn or the Cistercianes at clearinge forestes – do nat become grete at noveltees that the folke desyre as the yeeres do passe (for us, this thinge is indulgences), by cause thei have greete feere of harminge their initiale actes of devocioun, or, as Odo of Cluny seyde, "ruininge the brand." In the ende, thes orderes com upon the realisacioun too late that thei have nat yiven enough labour to the development of newe practises, and thei lose all donaciouns and patronage and then sum newe order taketh ovir and getteth all the glorye, lyk the Franciscans.  

...So we did come to the realisacioun that penaunce and indulgences are becominge two busynesses that have bitwene them a grete diversitee, wyth verye different cost structures, different benefits that need to be marketed in different wyse, and different theological, eschatological, and liturgical implicaciouns, and we need to let ech oon growe and function on its owene. Yt is a soore thynge for me to saye this unto yow aftir many yeeres of yiving esy tradiciounal penaunce wyth pryde, but we we thynk it is necessarye and beest: in yet a few weekes, we shal yiven a newe name unto ower tradiciounal penaunce servyse, and we shal clepen yt “Slothster.”  

We did choose the name “Slothster” for that it maketh reference to the sloth of which ye are guiltee if ye com nat to penaunce. We shall kepe the name Synneflix for indulgences aloon.

For me, the practys of traditional penaunce hath always been a thynge of joye, especiallye by cause our customers have putte their sylver into niftie red envelopes to signifien the payne of their sadnesse at their sinne. O, Ich do love thos red envelopes. How thei do tend to pyle up in the treasurie! Ower Slothster servys shal stille involve alle of thes steps, including the red envelopes.

Helas, at chez Darwin we mourn gretely the divicioun of Synneflix, and yet we finde that the variete of indulgences offered by Synneflix to be paltry and ful of le penaunces serial pour children, oor b-grade accioun movies . We go avec Slothster, though mayhap sloth shall overcoum us so that we sygn nat up and becoum consumers of Synneflix by default.