Tag: Todd Emerson

“Hello, Beanie here. Ever since I learned the difference between a square and a circle, I have been hooked. Circles are very round, and round is very interesting. Round things are particularly eye-catching when the light bounces sharply off of them, and lands like spit in your eye. I have studied such objects ad nauseum. You might say that I am a connoisseur of shiny round things.

ROUND THINGS

 Lets get back to the basics. There are two simple qualities that make up the world: Straight, and Curved. Any idea or thing has its origins in the principals of straightliness and curvliness. In MY latin terms these are called “curvaceous” and “straightliness”

Every letter of the alphabet is made up of a distinct combination of “curvaceous” and “straighliness” strokes, which, in their special combination, form a complete letter.

One can fairly say that the entire written language is dependent upon the contrast between straightly and curvly lines, as is the physical makeup of the world around you, the wave-forms of sounds that you hear, even the binary laws on which computers are founded. Ones and Zeros. 1 or 0. Black or white. On or Off. Curvaceous or Straighliness. Good or Evil.

It is nice to know that the world is so simple.

It is important to pick sides in the war between the straight line and the curve.

Me? I’m batting for the curvy team. If you dare to doubt me, look at my hair. One perfectly round ball of perfect little curves.

Go, Circles, Go!!!!
The most perfect straight line is an endless line. No chance of return, just a line moving progressively further, reaching futilely for infinity, for a final moment of rest. But there is never any rest for the straight line. It spans forever, reaching endlessly for infinity. Who would support an un-ending line when you could stand for an un-beginning circle?

The circle, if you didn’t know it, is the perfect form of the curved line. It is a uniform curve which manages to seamlessly double back on itself. It is not so mushy and indefinite as a line, which you are forced to imagine spanning indefinitely. A circle is contained.

Do you remember that one time on TV when Scully got that tattoo? Well, I couldn’t see the entire tattoo, because my round TV crops out the corners of the picture, but I’m pretty sure that I know what it was. An ouroboros. The snake that feeds on its own tale. The end is the beginning is the end. From its own death springs the snake’s life.

Circles are neat!

Because, you see, they have no beginning, and they have no end. Like the line, they go on indefinitely if you choose to see them as such, but they manage to have boundaries. A circle is an enclosure, a constricted area, a sphincter. What’s really cool is that, since the circle goes around and around, it is the perfect symbol of eternity, infinity. But it is also the shape of the number zero. The secret symbol that means, precisely, nothing.

Oh, circle, how I love thee. If the government would only sanctify inter-shape marriage, I would marry thee. And when I wedded thee, I would encircle thee with the yanic shape of a shiny, Cuvaceous wedding ring. Bound to you, in an endless, circular love.

As the lay-man is often unfamiliar with the divinity of the circle, I have decided to introduce you to a number of deliciously round, maliciously shiny objects.

As I mentioned, Agent Scully sports, a lovely ouroboros tattoo, which, covered in the sweat of an exhausting day out tanning on the beach, might shimmer and glisten in a manner that makes my stomach churn with desire.

So I threw away my beedly boppers and tried to forget about them and about what the Rev.Hill had said.
After a few years people stopped calling the military when I walked about town and just went back to pointing at my ears and calling me weirdo. That was okay with me.

After a few more years I found something that made me dance again so I was happy. Eating mashed potato makes it hard to dance but man, when you feel the rhythm you just can’t stop those happy feet tapping away!

Well, my life changed when the Great Potato Famine hit Sunset Cove and I had to go on rations. My happy feet had to be put away again when all potatoes had been eaten and there were no more left for anyone, not even the Montana family who could pretty much buy anything they wanted.

I was out shopping one afternoon to try to find something else that got my rhythms going and something caught my eye. Something spangly, something sparkly, something zoingy…BEEDLY BOPPERS!!!!

I waltzed my way down aisle 7 past the custard powder and the gravy granules and I tangoed past the TV dinner freezers and salsa’d my way outside and my legs just carried me faster and faster (one step together two step together) towards that beautiful sight of …

Mrs Miggins and the Rev.Hill. Wearing beedly boppers on their heads. Purple and yellow zebras. And giant sunflowers.

What was going on? Nobody screamed, nobody shouted to dive for cover as the aliens attacked, nobody shoved cotton wool in their ears so their brains wouldn’t get sucked out.

People turned and pointed and admired those beedly boppers!

Soon the whole of Sunset Cove was alive with the sparkles of the beedly boppers and everyone was wearing them!

Soon the craze spread to the rest of the world and kids, adults and grannies were wearing their favourite pair of beedly boppers whenever they could!

I held back as long as I could in case it was some crazy joke they were playing on me but then I got the shakes and the shivers and I couldn’t stop myself and I went home to my cupboard and made myself the biggest, spangliest pair of beedly boppers anyone had ever seen.

I was the local celebrity after that. Everyone wanted to be my friend and everyone wanted me to make them a pair as amazing as mine. I was on the news and I was guest of honour at the greyhound races – they got me to tango round the track as the dogs tried to get my bunny beedly boppers – good thing I’m so tall, those dogs never stood a chance.

After a while the craze died down and people moved on to other things. Leg warmers and pixie boots, rara skirts and lace gloves. I went back to my normal life and stopped being given free enchiladas at the Princess Diner. But I still wore my beedly boppers with pride and I still danced when the rhythm hit me.

Well, the years have passed and I am in love. I always liked the look of Jet but you know when I knew for the first time that I loved her, really loved her? When I saw her at Octavia’s party – she was wearing beedly boppers!

“Hi, Beanie Weanie here. This weird planet has some weird people living on it and none are weirder than the guys here in Sunset Cove. First they laugh and stare and then they start a craze… Let me tell you all about my story of the beedly boppers.”.