I was in the process of bidding a fond farewell to the few of you who have not urgently, or, at least, overtly urgently, desired it when someone described me in a PM as a "gadfly".

I have never been called a "gadfly" before so I consulted a dictionary.

"Any of various flies, especially of the family Tabanidae, that bite or annoy livestock and other animals."

And then it suddenly dawned on me!

"What better place for a gadfly to 'follow his bliss' than right here where he's already making a nuisance of himself?"

A gadfly is no more than a gnat
But at least he can be true to that.

I have finally come to my senses.

I am home where I belong.

"We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploration shall be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." T. S. Eliot. Animal Farm.

err, welcome back?

watch out for the flypaper...

a million years ago, back in the dark ages, i read a book, original written and published in italian, called The Gadfly--it was loaned to me by a friend, (and i dutifully returned it!) now i wish i was a bookkeeper!

does anyone know this book? it was a story of political civil disobience.. (set in modern european country--set in ? 1950's? early? (there were cars and highways.. so its at least last century!)

the book overwhelmed me at times.. i hardly remember a line, and yet as a whole, i remember it vividly.
(other books have effected me that way.. Steps-- and The painted Bird--horror stories.. that keep me mesmerized and under their spell--and repelled me, and frightened me with every word.)

The Gadfly was published in 1897 and was written by Ethel Lilian Voynich who was the wife of the owner of the exceedingly strange Voynich MS, which he donated to Harvard's Bieneke library.

http://www.voynich.nu/
http://members.aol.com/zetaomega/voypage.htm
http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/

Nobody has ever figured out what language this MS is written in, or indeed if it is written in a language. (Cf. the Codex Seraphinus.)

http://www.io.com/~iareth/codindx.html

The Gadfly is in the public domain and is available online:

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=3431

It was a big hit in the Soviet Union.

thanks!

thanks!

Gnats never get any fan mail, de Troy.

Re: "A gnat is a slugger's biggest fan."

If you want to swing at a gnat
You're gonna need more than a bat.

Folklore has it that you can catch more gadflies with honey ... but they actually prefer carrots.

Egad, Fly!
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

Little Gidding V
Four Quartets
T.S. Eliot (1943)

Who knows what "Little Gidding V" means?
Edit: I found it:
Little Gidding is a village in Cambridgeshire visited by Eliot in 1936. It was the home of a religious community established in 1626. In 1633 Charles I visited the community; in 1646 he returned, fleeing Parliamentary troops who broke up the community

Full of sound and fury, a tale told by an Eliot.

Who knows what "Little Gidding V" means?

He's the great-grandson of "Little Gidding Two-shoes".

Whose name derived from a Florida Island.

Two-shoes Cay, Archie, Two-shoes Cay.

Does that make me hittable???

Does that make me hittable???

No, but it might make you biteable.

Truth is, you just hit one outta the park.

I only chase fly balls.

I only chase fly balls

must.. resist.. temptation...

Dear etaoin: You just flunked entomology 101. But the subject of male fly genitalia reminds me of the seventh grade. The son of the proprietor of the Chinese laundry taught us an amusing prank. He could catch a fly with a
sweep of the hand, open his hand cautiously, and from
the color of the eyes tell the males from the females.
If he had a male fly, he would change his hold carefully,
until the posterior tip of the abdomen was in view, with a
little yellow protuberance, the male sex organ. Using his
fingernail as tweezers, he would pluck the end off this, and
attach a two inch long narrow triangle of cigarette paper to
the sticky goo exposed, and release the fly, which would zoom off trailing the cigarette paper behind it. The teacher was very nearsighted, and would see the paper when the fly lit on the window, and try to pick it up. The fly would zoom away, leaving the teacher with a comically bewildered look on her face.
But finally she found a dead one,and got a good look at it.
After that just a sweep of the hand could get you detention.

Saint PETA is gonna git you!

just a sweep of the hand could get you detention

It got the fly penissection. [In fact, it turned him into a "flapper".]

A gnat's life is not all it seems
He can land in a mess or in cream
What gives others displeasure
Is how he takes measure
Of his only claim to esteem.

I have finally come to my senses.

Someone condemned my postings as "so dreary" and it sent me into a bit of a tailspin. I almost gave up on myself.

Then I discovered my true nature as a "gadfly", and I recognize that the criticism was perfectly valid. A gadfly can suffer anything but a torpid review.

From now on, I'm going to focus on doing what comes gnaturally.

No more social graces and those "dreary" thoughtful airs!

Dear grapho: You remind me of a weekend my wife and I camped out close to Moosehead Lake. On the bulletin board
of the first campsite we stopped at was a message that the
blackflies were gone. But when my wife went "to admire Nature" I heard her scream. Noseeums by the millions,
hitting below the belt. We had forgotten to bring insect
repellent. We drove almost forty miles before we found a
small store open late where we could get repellent. Those
damned noseeums are so tiny they can fly in formation through mosquito netting. Don't provoke members to apply
repellent to you.

Don't provoke members to apply repellent to you.

Good advice, wwh. But I never bite unless bitten.

That makes me a lot less pugnatious than those noseeums of yours.

Just for the record, noseeums are not members of the Tabanidae family.

Gnats of our lineage are far more discriminating than noseeums in choosing our targets.

For instance, we would never target either you or your wife, wwh, your Carpal Tunnel status notwithstanding.

Besides that, what is "repellent" to a noseeum is salivation to a gnat.

what is repellent to a noseeum is salivation to a gnat

A gnat is nobody's fool
He is subject to nobody's rule
You can swing
You can swat
But it's all for naught
'Cause a gnat is nobody's fool.

A gnat has his place in the sun
You can live with a gnat, or run
If you run, he's beside you
Or even astride you
'Cause a gnat has his place in the sun.

The next worse gnats were those at Monument Beach at low
tide. I'd have outboard motor in one hand, fishing tackle
in other hand, and no way to defend myself.

no way to defend myself

Let this be a lesson to all
However your station so tall
A gnat can outpace you
And even outgrace you
Precisely because he's so small.