Listen child and heed my words: beware the Devil Pencil. Ignore its inviting rictal grin and resist the temptation to wrap its phallic body in your sweet, innocent embrace; for while the pleasures to be had are many, the price to be paid is high. The Devil Pencil loves you not. No! No, the Devil Pencil sees you as nothing more than delectable pabulum. Leering, its eyes glide over you, salivating at the thought of your delicious soul, its gaze leaving a glistening trail upon your lily-white, alabaster skin.
So flee, flee my darling from its perfidious promises, ignore its deceitful chicanery — for that is what it is, sorcery of the most vile sort; a false Elysium of cake and kites. Run fast and run far. Run until you can no longer see the Devil Pencil. Run until you forget.
Update: as jont vociferously points out in the comments a high quality version can be viewed here at the Savannah College of Art and Design’s website. Thanks!
They dont ask me questions
They dont want to scold me
They dont look for answers
They just want to hold me
Isnt this fun
Isnt this what lifes all about
Isnt this a dream come true
Isnt this a nightmare too
Oingo Boingo echoes the very same sentiments expressed by Monsieur Humbert. With his Lo there would be no unwanted, saccharine sentiment, nor transparent attempts at marital trickery. The precocious seductress and her vicious ilk want nothing but to embrace their respective Humberts. For a time, anyway.
The empty husks that once were men — wandering in search of lost loves — stand as a testament to the searing adoration of the nymphet. Like so many moths to flame they flock to their darling dears. Armed with the knowledge of their inevitable immolation a long line of Humberts gleefully hurl themselves into the flame, knowing too that all things come with a price. Isn’t this a nightmare too indeed.
Before Sting went off on his own to create adult contemporary music for bored suburban housewives, he and his band The Police created pop music for the girls who would grow up to be those bored suburban housewives, releasing classics like “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da” and “Roxanne”, which is possibly one of the more annoying songs ever recorded. “Don’t Stand So Close To Me” does, however, perfectly fit in with this week’s theme. Not only does it chronicle the tale of a schoolgirl’s crush on her teacher, who in turn is tormented by his feelings of lust — which I believe is why Sting strips off his suit towards the end, although it could merely be some kinky, Tantric thing — but it also mentions Lolita with the verse:
It’s no use, he sees her
He starts to shake and cough
Just like the old man in
That book by Nabakov
Self-righteous literary snob that I am I can’t help but cringe at the mispronunciation of “Nabakov”; and as for good old Humbert Humbert being an “old man” well, I suppose someone eight years older than you would seem ancient as well if your were the one wearing a graduation gown and angel wings.
Although Marilyn Monroe’s version of “My Heart Belongs To Daddy” is certainly not the most artfully wrought rendition of the song, nor even my personal favorite (Count Basie’s Decca recording of the tune holds that honor), it is elevated to sublimity by Marilyn’s ditzy vivaciousness and boom-boom curves, an opening monologue forcefully tying the song to Nabokov’s immortal nymphet and the insinuating leers of the perverts ogling her from the back row.
Lolita is Ectomo’s favorite novel. We are smugly convinced, Brownlee and I, that we understand the sweetness, the despair, and the adoration that ebbed and flowed between Humbert Humbert and his ward better than the average prole.
Lest we forget what we’re dealing with here, Humbert reminds us:
Now I wish to introduce the following idea. Between the age limits of nine and fourteen there occur maidens who, to certain bewitched travelers, twice or many times older than they, reveal their true nature which is not human, but nymphic (that is, demoniac); and these chosen creatures I propose to designate as “nymphets”.
I flatter myself by supposing I was such a creature, and that the now-subsumed demonlet crashes around inside my grown-up body still.
Intoner alerted me to this unreleased Sneaker Pimps song, which exists only as an acoustic performance from a radio program. There are dozens of songs about, by, and for nymphets of all stripes. I’ve challenged John and the New Scum to grace Ectomo’s days with them, all this week.
She was soft
She was unbroken
Dressed in the pink
That she wore as a token
To the summer
To the summer
In sheer defiance of the World Wide Web Consortium's will, Ectomo was designed using a non-web-standard font. Luckily, it is included in the excellent font pack released by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, which can be freely downloaded in Mac and PC formats here. Ectomo should still look fine without it, though.
