Hype is hard to justify with a growl

I walked over to the table where the shaddy sheeplegger had just sat down.
"What can I do you for, sir?"
Sheepleggers from the planet of Arce generally seem to react well to some sense of humor. Not this one:
"If I'z in the mood fer yokes, kitty, you'll knew it. To-die iz not wanna doze dies. Quet me some of yer hype, and makes it snoppy, will yer?"
With its huge amount of calories, artificial colorants and flavorings and transfatty acids, hype is one of the favorite slops on the menu of the Latter Day Survivors of the Universe Café, where I happen to work.
I could not suppress a growl, which is my natural feline reaction when rubbed the wrong way.
"Quet yer thin arce quoin, kitz, befer I grab ye by yer frilly tail."
"You try that, Mr. Sheep, and you'll have a few claws in your shaddy fur."
"Ye quet me that hype, or I'll choinge my moind and werk outta here unfad, and ye ken ferget my tipz."
I hissed, as it is our feline custom, and walked away to fill his order.
Unfortunately, customers are few and far between nowadays, ever since that terrible war between the Cats of the East, the Gnats of the West, the Rats of the North and the Bats of the South. It's gotten so bad that we now have to serve those we used to eat. It's gotten so bad that I'd probably have to justify my catty behavior towards this horn-shoed oaf from the planet of Arce to my boss, that big-balled ape from the planet of Farce.

– Leonard "Looking towards the Future" Blumfeld (© 2012)

Written around growl, hype and justify from 3WW.

Flowering

My inbox in white
exuberant bloom this spring
as never before.

– Leonard "Florescent" Blumfeld (© 2011)

Written for One Single Impression and inbox.

Note
The inbox is a variety of box distinguished by its small, fragrant white flowers.

Fragrant

For S.

Still,
after so many years,
that flowery perfume
encountered
on anyone
anywhere
will jostle up remnants
of a love
long buried.

Don't worry –
that love
has been resting in peace
and does not
compete with yours.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2012)

Written around fragrant, jostle, remnant from 3WW.

Proverbs from the Chinese VIII

True nurture will not be provided by even the most diligent amateur.

– Translated from the Chinese by Leonard Blumfeld

Notes
Fits in nicely with today's choice of words from 3WW: amateur, diligent, nurture.
I'm not sure whether I agree with the statement. There's love in the effort of amateurs (as the word implies), which may be lacking in professionals. Why should an amateur's love not nurture?

A what's around haiku

Keyboard, mouse, empty
coffee cup with spoon, spiral
agenda. Time stagnant.

– Leonard "Once Again Japan" Blumfeld (© 2012)

Genesis notes
You sit and look at what's around you, make a selection and a haiku out of it. That simple.

The miracle dichotomy

"What would you rather have as a miracle –
a world free of strife and war
or personal happiness?" Suzanna's guru asked

She brought the question home to her non-believer boyfriend

"Let me see any kind of miracle
before I decide on that one,"
said Jeff the sceptic

"That's typical you," she yowled,
"all you try and do is take the wind out of my sails."

"No wind, no sails that I see,"
said laconic Jeff

"Why have I been putting up with you

for so many years, Jeff? A man
with such a flat view of the world?"

"That is a miracle, I agree,"
said grinning Jeff

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2012)

The topic at One Single Impression was miracle.

Yolanda of the baffling glitter

Yolanda had a baffling glitter
around her big blue eyes.
She thought this made her fitter
than one would realize.

Most days she'd concentrate
on elegance of looks
and rather did negate
the importance of science books.

The teachers did not go for glitter,
so in her exams she fared not well.
This made Yolanda very bitter.
She told 'em they should go to hell.

– Felix Morgenstern (© 2012)

Written around baffle, elegant and negate from 3WW.

This is a modern poem

It is trendy and online,
knows what iPad and iPhone are
and was written
while eating an apple.

– Leonard "Modernist" Blumfeld (© 2012)

Written upon inspiration by Sunday Scribblings.

Haiku of the lost tribe

The tribe is lost. Not
enough magnetism. Outcast
searching for new tribe.

– Leonard "Tribal" Blumfeld (© 2012)

Sort of a continuation of Qasida of the lost tribe. Cryptic, I know.

Sometimes, due to tribal instinct, you search for love in the wrong tribe. In this case it happened to a dear friend.

Snowdrops / A. D. Miller

(Warning: This is a more or less polemic blurb without any claim to thoroughness or completeness.)

Finished reading Snowdrops this weekend, a novel about a British lawyer who becomes involved in fraud in his work for an investment bank, and, in private, in a case of apartment fraud as a consequence of falling in love with a mysterious Russian woman.

So what's true about the hype?
'Totally gripping' – more ho-hum than gripping. Took me numerous sessions to read and is certainly not one of the potboilers you cannot put down.
'Disturbing and dazzling' – draws a disturbing picture of Russia and Moscow. Greatly reduced my readiness to ever go there.
'Electrifying ... Leaves you stunned and addicted' – That opinion, pardon my bluntness, is a striking example of pure bullshit. Seems more appropriate to LSD, heroin or some other drug than anything written.

As it says on the back cover, there is some similarity to the writing of Graham Greene, but more along the lines of imitation. Neither the writing itself nor the plot are that good. There is that Greene-like feeling of guilt, but there's so much insistence on building it that it becomes annoying. The confessionality (the story is told as a confession to the hero's fiancée) is also reminiscent of Greene, except that it never comes alive, so to speak, because the person the story is told to remains nondescript, making the whole device seem irrelevant.

Then there's that constant puerile harping about how awful it is to be older than thirty. (I believe a lot of people have successfully moved on even into their forties or fifties.) And the annoying premonition building (along the lines of 'I should have known better then that ...', 'Had I not ...') that seems to come straight out of a fiction writing workshop manual. And then there are all the attempts to humanize inanimate objects with adjectives that mostly didn't do much for me. That's the literary touch, I suppose.

A third plot line – pretty much unrelated to the other two – is about the body of an old man found in a rusty orange Zhiguli (mentioned umpteen times in the course of the novel to make it absolutely clear that it has to have some significance).

You may rest in peace, Graham. This ain't no serious competition for The Third Man or The Quiet American.

– Leonard "Won't Write Reviews" Blumfeld