The Litany Against Fun
David Cowie
Fun is the time-waster
...
...
Damn I'm good!"
It's from a Dune parody published in the mid 1980's, and is a parody
of the Bene Gesserit litany against fear. Can anyone remember how the
whole thing went?
To help you look it up, it may have been from "National Lampoon's
Doon", and had cover art in the style of the official issues of that
time. (Possibly even the same artist).
--
David Cowie
There is no _spam in my address.
"You had to do WHAT with your seat?"
Dr. Fidelius
>"I will not have fun
>Fun is the time-waster
>...
>...
>Damn I'm good!"
>
>It's from a Dune parody published in the mid 1980's, and is a parody
>of the Bene Gesserit litany against fear. Can anyone remember how the
>whole thing went?
>To help you look it up, it may have been from "National Lampoon's
>Doon", and had cover art in the style of the official issues of that
>time. (Possibly even the same artist).
I picked up a copy of _DOON_ just last week. It is in my cube at work right
now. Remind me to look it up for you tomorrow.
Dr. Fidelius, Charlatan
Curator of Anomalous Paleontology, Miskatonic University
You cannot reason a man out of a position he did not reach through reason.
Theresa Ann Wymer
: "I will not have fun
: Fun is the time-waster
: ...
: ...
: Damn I'm good!"
: It's from a Dune parody published in the mid 1980's, and is a parody
: of the Bene Gesserit litany against fear. Can anyone remember how the
: whole thing went?
Ask, and ye shall receive.
_National Lampoon's Doon_, pp 161-62:
Then, invoking his mother's Boni Maroni discipline, he repeated the Litany
Against Fun: "I must not have fun. Fun is the time-killer. Fun is for
children, customers, and the help. I will forget fun. I will take a pass
on it. And while it is going, I will turn a blind eye toward it. When
fun is gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain--I, and my will to
win. Damn, I'm good."
Pall felt calmness return, noted with approval his re-heightened awareness
of himself and his ambitions.
Damn, I'm God, he thought.
--
Theresa Ann Wymer twy...@efn.org
Elf Sternberg
David Cowie <david_co...@lineone.net> writes:
Then, invoking his mother's Boni Maroni discipline, he repeated the Litany
Against Fun: "I must not have fun. Fun is the time-killer. Fun is for
children, customers, and the help. I will forget fun. I will take a pass on
it. And while it is going, I will turn a blind eye toward it. Where fun is
gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain--I, and my will to win. Damn,
I'm good."
(DOON, The Dessert Planet)
Elf
--
Elf M. Sternberg, Immanentizing the Eschaton since 1988
http://www.drizzle.com/~elf/ (under construction)
Your rage is useless. Your rage will be packaged, branded
and sold back to you as entertainment. Get used to it.
David Cowie
> "I will not have fun
> Fun is the time-waster
> ...
> ...
> Damn I'm good!"
Thanks to everyone for completing it.
Adrian 'Dagurashibanipal' von Bidder
> In article <9r79sr$s207p$1...@ID-105025.news.dfncis.de>
> David Cowie <david_co...@lineone.net> writes:
>
> Then, invoking his mother's Boni Maroni discipline, he repeated the
> Litany Against Fun: "I must not have fun. Fun is the time-killer.
> Fun is for children, customers, and the help. I will forget fun. I
> will take a pass on it. And while it is going, I will turn a blind
> eye toward it. Where fun is gone there will be nothing. Only I will
> remain--I, and my will to win. Damn, I'm good."
> (DOON, The Dessert Planet)
That's really fun. Hanging now on the wall in the office.
Is the book any good? I really liked Dune (and we talk about books
written by Himself, here!), and I like parodies, so probably I'll have to
buy it now.
-- vbi
Ross TenEyck
[_Doon_]
>Is the book any good? I really liked Dune (and we talk about books
>written by Himself, here!), and I like parodies, so probably I'll have to
>buy it now.
Like its spiritual brother, _Bored of the Rings,_ it has some very
good bits -- the Litany Against Fun, and many of the chapter-heading
quotes, are my favorites -- but taken as a whole, it seems kind of
forced.
What sort of man was Duke Lotto Agamemnides? We may say
he was a brave man, yet a man who knew the value of caution.
We may say he was possessed of a highly refined sense of
honor -- yet, like all leaders, was he no less capable of
acts duplicitous and sleazy. We may say this, we may say
that -- indeed, we may say anything we want. We may say,
for example, that he was not a man at all, but rather a
highly evolved bicycle. See? We may say just about anything.
-- from "House Agamemnides: Historical Perspectives and
Worthless Digressions," by the Princess Serutan
--
================== http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~teneyck ==================
Ross TenEyck Seattle, WA \ Light, kindled in the furnace of hydrogen;
ten...@alumni.caltech.edu \ like smoke, sunlight carries the hot-metal
Are wa yume? Soretomo maboroshi? \ tang of Creation's forge.
Elf Sternberg
>Behold! For Elf Sternberg declaimed:
>Is the book any good? I really liked Dune (and we talk about books
>written by Himself, here!), and I like parodies, so probably I'll have to
>buy it now.
It's kinda flat and unmemorable. I don't remember being as
impressed with it as I was with _Bored of the Rings_. There are a few
good spots-- Reverend Mothers become Revved-up Mothers. "Yes, your
revved-upppedness!" The Gom-Jabbar becomes the AbdulKareem-Jabbar, the
"Long-Legged Enemy." And Paul becomes "The Kumquat Hagen-Daaz, He whose
soul is of a soft, fruit-like consistency."
Unfortunately, the gags are all in the name-changes and the
parodying of Herbet's prentension. The plot is just not up to the snuff
of what was in _Bored_, where I still think the guardian of the Dwarven
Caves ("Eatable, edible, succulent; see /munch/" "Aieee! A Thesaurus!")
was one of the high points.
lal_truckee
> Adrian 'Dagurashibanipal' von Bidder <gl...@fortytwo.ch> writes:
>
> [_Doon_]
>
>
>>Is the book any good? I really liked Dune (and we talk about books
>>written by Himself, here!), and I like parodies, so probably I'll have to
>>buy it now.
>>
>
> Like its spiritual brother, _Bored of the Rings,_ it has some very
> good bits -- the Litany Against Fun, and many of the chapter-heading
> quotes, are my favorites -- but taken as a whole, it seems kind of
> forced.
It's hard to parody a parody.
Dune itself is a parody of Seven Pillars of Wisdom with additional bits
from the history of Chinese Gordon and the Mahdi and bits from the Quo'ran.
Like I said, IMO it's hard to parody a parody.
Kevin J. Maroney
wrote:
> Unfortunately, the gags are all in the name-changes and the
"Paul had two eyes, a nose, a mouth. 'He's much like his father that
way,' Jessica thought."
--
Kevin J. Maroney | k...@panix.com
Games are my entire waking life.
David Johnston
>
> On Mon, 29 Oct 2001 18:35:10 -0000, e...@drizzle.com (Elf Sternberg)
> wrote:
> > Unfortunately, the gags are all in the name-changes and the
> >parodying of Herbet's pretension.
>
> "Paul had two eyes, a nose, a mouth. 'He's much like his father that
> way,' Jessica thought."
The scene where the two people try to talk about their plans without ever
directly spelling them out and get confused was very funny to me.
Charles R Martin
I haven't read Doon in a coon's age, but I actually thought _Bored of
the Rings_ was hilarious.
Of course, I watch CSPAN, too.
--
Our enemies are never villains in their own eyes, but that does not make them
less dangerous. Appeasement, however, nearly always makes them more so.
-- Don Dixon
______________________________________________________________________________
Charles R (Charlie) Martin Broomfield, CO 40N 105W
Jordan S. Bassior
I've often thought that a Kimball Kinnison or Dominic Flandry type hero could
cut through that universe like a hot knife through butter, for precisely that
reason -- the characters in the Dune universe are into over-elaborate and often
self-destructive conspiracies, while they ignore "cut the Gordian Knot" type
actions. Paul Atriedes essentially won because he was willing to threaten an
obvious, violent action _which nobody had ever made contingency plans against_.
--
Sincerely Yours,
Jordan
--
Captain Button
They have two or three scenes on this theme, which are my favorite parts
of the book. One where the Duke and his mentat are discussing two
completely different strategic plans without realizing it. Another
is when Pawl reveals his master plan to Jazzica. And when Jazzica
must answer to her mentor.
I particularly like this because I have always hated people who
won't say what they mean instead of playing social games with
language. I do not see why anyone can see this as a good thing
except for those who value deceiving people in order to use them
as things (ObPratchett). Granted, that may well be most of humanity....
As other have said there are a lot of very good bits but they aren't
strung together that well.
Another favorite bit is where they parody the quotes from Princess
Irulan's histories. I forget the text, but it ends with a great
citation:
SPOILER SPACE:
- _Aroogah! Aroogah! Arruckus Arising_ by Princess Serutan
--
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in
tolerance and free speech," - David Brin
Captain Button - but...@io.com
@hotmail.com.invalid Eric D. Berge
TenEyck) wrote:
>Adrian 'Dagurashibanipal' von Bidder <gl...@fortytwo.ch> writes:
>
>[_Doon_]
>
>>Is the book any good? I really liked Dune (and we talk about books
>>written by Himself, here!), and I like parodies, so probably I'll have to
>>buy it now.
>
>Like its spiritual brother, _Bored of the Rings,_ it has some very
>good bits -- the Litany Against Fun, and many of the chapter-heading
>quotes, are my favorites -- but taken as a whole, it seems kind of
>forced.
AOL. Bored of the Rings was both shorter and funnier, but they were
cut from the same piece of cloth.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------
Eric D. Berge
(remove spaces for valid address)
Clay lies still, but blood's a rover
Breath's a ware that will not keep
Up, lad! When the journey's over
There'll be time enough to sleep.
- A.E.Housman, "Reveille"
------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Sneddon
<eric_...@hotmail.com.invalid> writes
>
>AOL. Bored of the Rings was both shorter and funnier, but they were
>cut from the same piece of cloth.
I found the reprint of _Bored_ in the local bookshop today. Someone
else was looking at a copy quizzically. It turned out he remembered the
computer game with the same name, mentioning one of the characters was
called Spam. I informed him the book was not quite as polite in that
regard; he read a page or two and put it back down.
--
"The fewmets have hit the windmill."
Robert Sneddon nojay (at) nojay (dot) fsnet (dot) co (dot) uk
Miguel Farah F.
>Adrian 'Dagurashibanipal' von Bidder <gl...@fortytwo.ch> writes:
>[_Doon_]
>>Is the book any good? I really liked Dune (and we talk about books
>>written by Himself, here!), and I like parodies, so probably I'll have to
>>buy it now.
>Like its spiritual brother, _Bored of the Rings,_ it has some very
>good bits -- the Litany Against Fun, and many of the chapter-heading
>quotes, are my favorites -- but taken as a whole, it seems kind of
>forced.
OTOH, I *loved* it. I actually thought it better than BOTR.
--
MIGUEL FARAH // mig...@nn.cl
#include <disclaimer.h> // http://www.nn.cl/~miguel
<*>
"Just don't create a file called -rf."
- Larry Wall
Martin Soederstroem
wrote:
>I haven't read Doon in a coon's age, but I actually thought _Bored of
>the Rings_ was hilarious.
Speaking of _Doon_, TOR is apparently about to release a novel by
Piers Anthony called _DOOON MODE_.
--
Martin
This is not a sig.
The Great Gray Skwid
whispered:
Make that has released. I saw it in WaldenBooks on Saturday.
--
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| | | | | | | ) Evan "Skwid" Langlinais ) on the Net
"Vengeance may be God's...but we have F-16s." Mrs. Tina Langlinais