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Hello, I must be going

Thursday, 17 June 2004 11:04 PM

I apologize for posting so little this week. Workload and other life demands have occupied me, and will continue to do so for a few days more.

May I suggest a bit of diverting reading while I'm away? The winners of Bonny Doon Vineyard's parody contest are available online. Here's the beginning of the winning entry, by Bret McFarlin:

“Ululu”
For Allen Ginsberg (Howl)
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by botrytis, addled hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the terroir at dawn looking for a screwcap Chateauneuf-du-Pape,

tippleheaded hipsters howling for the ancient heavenly connection to the oxidative dynamo in the machinery of malolactic fermentation,

who cork-tainted and hollow-eyed and high toking Cohibas, launched flying saucers,

who with radiant lysergic eyes tripped UC Davis realizing infinite oenologic universes disdaining the musty scholars of vin,

who were expelled from Parker’s academy for crazy & publishing salacious odes on the labels of their cuvee,

who vanished into nowhere Zen Santa Cruz leaving a trail of ambiguous Steadman postcards of Doon messiah, Heart of Darkness,

with dreams, with dregs, with waking nightmares of merlot, zin, and endless cabs,

who thought they were only mad when Le Cigare Volant ‘84 gleamed in supernatural clare ecstasy,

who drank Muscat faux de glacier from Riedel night after night...

(A note of explanation: Winning entries had to mention as many Bonny Doon wines as possible, as well as airships and cigars, and possibly one or two other items I've forgotten. And they had to parody well-known works of literature. The winners span the spectrum of literature -- I particularly enjoyed the new versions of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and of David Foster Wallace's "A Supposedly Fun Thing I Will Never Do Again.")

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