Part One of Two

Colonel Gumjob’s World of Art series has always had the pungency of week-old rooster bile, and this latest Medieval edition is no exception. These seminal volumes surely make up some of the best art history books ever published. The past comes alive in the author’s capable hands, his recent trip to Paraguay which informs this work gloriously fruitful. It was there, deep in the South African goldmines that the legendary Horn of Christ was found, still brandishing His fingerprints. The D.H.S. is currently running them against Interpol and the Miami DMV but so far no hits. This discovery lead to a breakthrough in the interpretation of many of the artworks in this latest volume, “The Middle Ages, Pt. 3.”

The validity of this series of books is not in doubt; no fault has ever been found with either their research or presentation.
But hereinmost lies the very crux of what this reader feels cannot be left unaddressed.
Several grievous omissions (as well as some ominous grievances) have raised fair and reasonable questions surrounding the rotundity of Turnslob’s research for this latest edition.

To wit:

The Rotifer of Bolgna, or The Queen’s Harelippe was handled smoothly, but the usual de rigeur of the period was starkly absent, rendering a sort of word pâté which went down decidedly unsmoothly. However, the reader appreciated the attention given to the lippe, especially the cataloging of its hairs by girth and fragrance.

Herr Friar’s Mincemeates glossed over the entirety of Lord Bornfat and his westward expansions, barely even touching on his contemporaries or their effects on the Russian mob. Brownfat’s grand daughter, Iyls, led a power-grab to overthrow the King’s cockle, making him run too far toward the edge of the forest to retrieve it where he was devoured by wild insurance salesmen.

The Wretching of Frontius was most bungleous in that it misidentified the nephew’s burly neighbor as Sal instead of Skaal. Also his famous singsong, popular in parts of Asia in the 1970’s and reprinted below, was oddly omitted: the author is said to be fond of claiming he’s a paleogastroenterologist, making the exclusion of such dietary details all the more puzzling.

sung to the tune of “Bubby’s Bloofs” (traditional)
“with a stinkman’s muhrg
and a fine cat’s tooth of yink,
found in his hand
a pinch of horsegum left un-nibbled,
which, when dollop’d upon
biskit plumps,
made for a nice johnsnack.”

and this gleen from his diary, found trapped in the gourd of a hog in a bog and fjord, its pages undoubtedly analyzed by scientific apparatuses, surely a dietary historian’s dream:
“...lard greased the dingle of the portch whose bald harp and rooted mandible, like a blonk in a bloose, did with mitten-down upon ‘e crack snapchewes and besmoke of herring rots, with reeks of square-leaf mush. Squeered cod cheeks and dried flapsy-flops were…”

Spoor Ploughing, masterwork that it is, is most certainly not a “basic retelling of the Book of Bob, but in decaphonic gouache,” nor is it a “nonsensical amalgamation of topical neuroses.” What it is is, is the remarkable life story of Jilgjgh the Juste as told in fablic form but in reality was probably non-fictional. Known to be both a wanted Sumo on the run (from both King Curly and the loathsome Grimshaw) and a wandering menstruel, Jilgjgh was a man of the cloth (cotton) and a man of the broth (split pea) as well as a fan of the sloth (Pilosa), keeping several as ladle warmers. The many varying tableux represented (axe fishing, doork-nobbing, worstlappes, bellykik etc) do a fair job of depicting Jilgjgh the Juste’s robust life, though of course ignoring the coarser parts. For an eye-ripping examination of those roughs, see Dr. T. Reesap’s splendid “Good Ladd: A Life of Vengeance,” offered as a possible solution to Ladd’s 1987 “Just Just? Jilgjgh Explored.”

Drayke’s Woodness, or The Squig of Hedyarb left out the enlightening passage from Harny Panson’s 1950 exposé “Marke Mye Wordes” presented here:

“The Dundee Humbersyde of Dublyn dyddeth declare yn hys yawntyme that of the beseaqueous deathe of the most onerous ocean wretche Bryl’shrop, a beaste wette wythe the bloodes of many menne, be theye ynnocente or notte. Thryce-fyve-headede, wythe sharpe scaley tene-yarde armes, feete double clawed and wyngges afyre, blasted Bryl’shrop rayned deathe and dyd farte flaymes. Tenne hundrede menne dyd be slaughtered by the creaturre before he was slaynne; fellede by the ogreous Faldlap wythe butte hys owne bare handes, hys gnarly teethe and hys fyve-stone legges. Faldlap the pyttylesse dyd gryppe the hellye beaste betwyxt hys nethers and twysted, maykynge howles and terryble screames from Bryl’shrop, butte goode stronge Faldlap was notte dunne. Wythe teethe ‘pon the wretchedde danglyes dydde he loppe offe the beastesacke, maykynge the monster weepe moste womanly. Thenne, swyfte as the wynde, fayre Faldlap dyd mayke to punche and pounde rotten Bryl’shrop ynto a sorrye pyle of lubbr; nexte, boulderlyke feete dyd kyck and stompe the horryde creature. Those aweful leatherne bootes dyd trampe on steamye guttes and beaste braynes, leavynge unsyghtely foote pryntes upon hys majesty the Kynge’s lynoleum floores, butte so engladdenedde was hys majesty that he cared notte.”

Obviously, Faldlap is not a lesser known industrial age artist “currently working in thatch and polluted rainwater” as Burnbog asserts, and so whose inclusion here is, at most, irrelevant.

Lady Vagisil’s Nightcrappes was rendered quite well excepting the glaring mistranslation of “bk’lp jd, w’rky ‘j rp p’lkl i’i gg’ky” into “if you are hungry, learn to fish,” when it is obvious to even a rank linguist with only a cursory knowledge of Ekwar’s Keys which synthesize the old Bromance languages and their anarchaic syllablism that what it actually says is “better not, I just ate tuna.”

Roponowini, while mostly unproblematic, makes no mention of Duke Agillyis’s carved ivory left leg and buttock, a curious omission from the former lower body doctor the author purports to be. In factuality, his dukeness Agillyis was dying from a hot, new form of virus called “aggh” that was making the rounds from pub to market that winter. His days were numbered but his nights weren’t entirely slumbered: he was known for his landish parties and rageous spectacles, often hiring ept and bred locals, trodden starts all, to serve eous overs.

In addition, Cornblob excluded the following images and their captions from chapters six and seven, chapters which were otherwise lifted in their entirety from Slake’s eighteenth century treatise on Medieval pop culture entitled “I Sat Me Down.” Why a self-described obscure Medieval art completist like Pornblog would deliberately leave out four of the period’s most controversial and beloved images is beyond the Pope or his prodigals.

(to be continued)