Navy-Soup
The Sarah Slean Mailing ListThe first Navy-Soup list contest was announced a few days before January 30, 1999, when Sarah was scheduled to play a show with Sarah Harmer and Oh susanna at the Rivoli. The contest was to try and make up a story using all of the words SARAH, SLEAN, ULTIMATE WRESTLING CHAMPION, KITTEN, GRISTLE, SCRUMPTIOUS, PASSIONATELY, DOOFUS, ONOMATOPOEIA, REVOLTING, FUSCHIA, and EEYORE.
Here are the submissions that Gian received. Julian's story was the winner.
ONOMATOPOEIA
By Jon Akers One day, a fine October morning when the sun was gleaming on the dew drops left on the turning leaves of the maple tree outside, Gian decided to go for a walk. He prepared himself as he always does in the morning, taking a shower, eating a small breakfast of curried lamb fajitas, and dousing himself in perfume made from the musk of seven week old KITTENs. Walking out the front door, Gian spotted a wood owl high up in the maple tree, getting ready to bed down for the day after a hard night's work hunting. This gave him a sense of fulfillment for the day, a feeling that it was going to be one of those days that goes so well that, when through, you feel like the ULTIMATE WRESTLING CHAMPION.
As he walked down the street, whistling a quiet song to himself that he had heard on the radio while eating breakfast earlier, he came across a salamander (OK, it was a lizard, but the word salamander is so much cooler) sunning itself on the sidewalk, rolling back and forth on it's back like a complete DOOFUS, not realizing that it was in the treacherous path of little boys named Bobby on their bicycles, or little girls named SARAH skipping rope. One of these girls happened along just as Gian was watching the hapless lizard, skipping her rope in the bright morning sunlight. Whoosh! Whoosh! And on the third Whoosh! of the rope, the poor salamander was swept up into the air, flying like one of those lizards you may have seen on a Simpson's episode that would eat birds eggs, then lay eggs of their own in the birds nest for the young to be hatched in. Through the air this poor defenseless salamander flew, only to land on a mailbox a couple of feet down the sidewalk with the family name of SLEAN written in bright blue pain on the side. The salamander flicked its' tongue and began to bake itself on the mailbox as if nothing had happened.
Gian was heartened by this small act of God, and he began to whistle the tune in his head a little louder. At the end of the block he turned into the path of his girlfriends' house, where beautiful FUCHSIA coloured flowers bloomed in the hedgerows. He knocked on the door, and heard a sultry voice call out PASSIONATELY to him. "Come in," it cried, "Come in and have a cup of tea with me, Gian."
Gian opened the door, only to behold his girlfriend sitting on the back of her donkey named EEYORE, holding a teapot in one hand and a basket of sconds in the other. "You know how much I dislike walking anywhere, Gian," she said.
"Yes, I know. I am glad that you wish to protect your dainty feet from the harsh surface of this three inch thick pile rug you have on the floor. Let me lick them for you so that they do not get too dry."
"No darling, that is quite all right. When you do that your saliva dries into a crust that takes me days to remove."
"All right, snookums. Shall we have that tea then?"
With that, Gian led Eeyore with his girlfriend on its back into the kitchen to get some cups for tea. As the two sat down, Gian commented: "My, those sconds look SCRUMPTIOUS. May I have one?"
"Yes you may," she said, and served Gian a scond on a white plate, along with a cup of tea.
As Gian opened his mouth to take his first bite of a scond, a lump of GRISTLE that had been lodged between his teeth popped out and flew from his mouth and across the room, only to land on his girlfriends' nose.
So here we have the ending scene: Gian sitting with a scond in one hand, a cup of tea in the other, and his mouth wide open, agape at the sight of his girlfriend staring cross eyed at a lump of gristle sitting atop her nose that had come from a curried lamb fajita earlier that morning. You might wonder if Gian maintained this relationship after this episode. You might wonder how the writer could write something so REVOLTING. These are all things that anyone would wonder, but that no one can actually answer, for Gian fainted very soon after this, and his girlfriend won't come out of the house because Eeyore is afraid of the open sky.
The End. Julian Dunn <jdunn@aquezada.com>
Slean's Scrumptious Kitten Makes Debut
by Spooky Apple (Toronto Sun)
Local singer-songwriter Sarah Slean's scrumptious fuschia kitten, Eeyore, makes headlines today after becoming Toronto's new ultimate wrestling champion. Reached at her home, Slean commented passionately on her kitten, using many an onomatopoeia in describing the transformation from kitty doofus to killer kitty. "It was revolting how Eeyore behaved before she went into training - I was afraid she might end up as kitten gristle if she didn't do something with her life," Slean said.
Sophie de Rouen <vampyrefemme@excite.com>
When I was a little girl a new kid moved in on my street. Her name was Sarah and I thought she was sort of a tomboy but we became instant best friends.
Very early one morning Sarah (who fancied herself the neighborhood's ultimate wrestling champion) was showing off her new kitten. Well, I have to say that she was showing herself off, too, bestowing upon us her knowledge of words like "onomotopoeia" and using "meow" as an example. My little brother, who didn't (and still doesn't) like show-offs, called Sarah a doofus and said he thought cats were revolting, too. This is where everything went bad.
All the neighborhood kids gathered 'round and called out excitedly, "Fight! Fight, fight!" while my brother and Sarah went at it. My mama had been making bacon-n-eggs and we could smell the scrumptious smells of mothers-and-kitchens-and-cooking so my brother socked Sarah passionately in the stomach and we started to leave to yard. And we left the yard and all the neighborhood kids still shouting.
The bacon that day was rather heavy with gristle and I didn't want to eat it. Also, I felt pretty bad about my brother beating up my best friend even though Sarah was eight and my brother was only six. We two decided that the only way to wipe the clate slean, I mean wipe the slate clean, was to give Sarah our prized possession, our stuffed donkey, Eeyore.
My mama approved. She told me we were acting like grown-up folks and that we were possessed of "generous natures", a very fine quality in human beings. Mama smiled but her smile looked pale and faded to me, I guess because she didn't have on her beautiful fuschia lipstick. (I played with it once only it didn't look pretty on me like it did on Mama.) I think now that Mama was a little bit sad to see us giving away our favorite toy.
When I gave Eeyore to Sarah I cried inwardly but not outside where others can see your sadness. I tried to act like grown-up folks so my mama would be proud. Well, Eeyore's tail fell off, as it often did, and as I bent to pick it up the sky turned orange - such a color I cannot describe! - and Sarah winked and sailed away on the sunrise!! My brother and I exchanged silent looks and my brother swears to this day that he received absolution, that he heard her voice say, "I don't blame you - I never have."
We never say Sarah, her family, or that kitten after that. It was a mystery that we didn't speak of. But Eeyore was there in my bed next morning. Oh yeah, and my brother never did hit a girl again, ever.
The End
Paul Schreiber <pjschrei@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca>
Eeyore was wandering through the forest when he saw a little kitten climbing up the underside of an insidious-looking dark green cactus named Sarah. "Baaaa," purred the kitten.
An associate dean of English from the University of Toronto sat a perch and passionately muttered, "that is the most revolting fuschia kitten I've ever seen." "And," he continued, "what a strange form of onomatopoeia eminating from its vocal chords." The doofus yet dapper dean picked up the kitten and read its name tag. "Ultimate wrestling champion?" he pondered aloud, "what a scrumptious name for the Slean cat."
w w w . a q u e z a d a . c o m