Wednesday, August 16, 2006

If man is five...

[No animals were harmed during the creation of the following blog entry. Harmed? Have you seen the state of my lower intestine after that last seven-course meal? All that rich food, heavy on the dairy? No soluble fibre unless it was swimming in cream? And the toilet roll's like sandpaper, dammit. They were coddled and treated like a delegation of visiting royalty. And this is the thanks I get.]

This is not a review. This is a question of justice. For too long we have bourne bjorn put up with the slings and arrows of unkind man's ingratitude. You're mixing your playful metaphors again. For too long intelligent, highly-evolved non-human primates have been undervalued and disgracefully exploited while rascally homo sapiens-types grab all the glory.

Take the treatment meted out on one primate (species unspecified) only identified as "Pal", in this book about detectives from Houston. The cover goes all blurry when you wave it about like that. Slow down, will you? Besides, don't that writer's Texans normally grow up to be cowboys?. In this case, as everyone knows, there are no species of ape native to Texas What about Bigfoot? so the action mainly takes place in Washington. Not the rainy state, the D.C. one.

As the story opens, the very innocent anthropologist heroine with soft brown hair has come under suspicion of stealing a 5000-year-old cuneiform vase. The embittered detective hero with darker, springier hair arrives to clear her name, and is told about three potentially shifty faculty members with boring hair as well as the highly-intelligent and well-groomed primate used for research in social development. The detective immediately finds a mysterious hair at the scene of the crime and takes it the FBI lab for analysis. But it's too coarse to be human... Should have used conditioner

To give the hero and heroine credit, they struggle in truly heroic fashion against the blatant pro-human bias of the plot. They promptly dismiss the hair as unimportant. They attempt to remove focus on the primate's history as an escape artist by discussing melon balls and the decline of civilization. They try to divert attention from the ape's lock-picking skills with big dramatic misunderstandings, thund'rous passion, sweet, savage misunderstandings, nefarious-friend-provoked passion, more violent, hungry mis-. Hang on. I think I'm getting a bit confused here.

But despite their noble efforts, the tail… That's not funny tale rolls inexorably along its predetermined course. And guess who gets caught bare-pawed in a thrilling denoument four chapters from the end and then ignominiously shipped back to the zoo, to be replaced in the research lab by an iguana? AN IGUANA!

That's right, blaaaame the monkey. Blame the friggin' monkey. Sorry, ape. At least the heroine is able to make that distinction. Make him the scAPE-goat so that the story can end with the humans free of false accusations and happy as gumivores in a sweet shop, while the more intelligent biped is sent to rot behind the bars of a cage. Don't ask the obvious questions, like WHY any self-respecting primate would want to steal 5000-year old dried mud…

*bing!lightbulb* …hang on… the primate's name was Pal… That sounds a bit like…Hal, doesn't it? And the species is never properly identified. The writer even throws out terms like "australopithecus insidious" and "missing link" seemingly in jest. She knew! SHE KNEW! It's all so clear… This is horrifying... Wait! What are you doing, D-?

*brooding silence*

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh sweet lord, are you trying to kill me with the funny?

Whatever this book is, I think it needs to be made into a movie so it can be MST3k'd. I'm guessing the bots would be particularly behind this point of view: For too long intelligent, highly-evolved non-human primates have been undervalued and disgracefully exploited while rascally homo sapiens-types grab all the glory.

But whether or not Oliver Stone goes calling (it's gotta be a conspiracy how humans have kept the ape down all these years), I need this on my next t-shirt:

That's right, blaaaame the monkey. Blame the friggin' monkey.

EvilAuntiePeril said...

Thanks fiveandfour. Never seen MST3k (shameless ignorance, I know), but will definitely look out for it now. Always appreciate a good rec like that.

Although the monkey shirt? It vill be mine. Oh yeesssss.... Oops. Wrong film.

Anonymous said...

Jebus. I think I broke something laughing.

So...any clews as to the title of the book? Words that rhyme work, the way you did with the CHURNING.

If I give you this sliver of green apple, can I pet your shiny, shiny golden hair?

EvilAuntiePeril said...

Titles are too long for rhyming. But it's from quite an old (case)book (1992) from the same agency. But there's a big clew in the text, since the title does what it says on the tin...