I make no apologies for the esoteric, not to say peculiar, nature of the posts on this site. To the extent that it’s funny to anyone at all, I expect that my old friends get the most out of it, though even they probably think I’m a few nerds short of a sci-fi convention, so to speak. To everyone else (especially the lurkers, who number in the millions I tell you!), I can only wish you a speedy recovery from whatever fugue state has induced you to return here.

Over the last little while, a variety of “guest posters” have infiltrated the site. Again, I don’t expect that readers get much of it; I write this stuff because it strikes me as funny, which is more of an indictment of my character than anything else. I’ve also introduced these characters without a word of explanation, and tend to cross-reference posts and go meta with wild abandon, which must be utterly befuddling to anyone who doesn’t read every post carefully (approximately 0 readers).

So, as a kind of ex post facto explanation, below the fold is a brief blurb on each of the guest posters and where they come. Read on if you dare care.

Lord Edmund Bryll, inventor of Brylcreem
Date of Birth: Circa 1991

Inspired by a history professor I had once and his oddly circumloquatious and distinctly British mannerisms. He had a tendency to ramble on about nothing in particular, and then the important information (the stuff that was going to be on the exam) would spill forth in a hasty, incomprehensible mumble at the end kindoflikethisyouseeandthiswillbeontheexamofcourserightarethereanyquestionsnolet’smoveon. He spent half a semester expounding on the British Lords of Trade, many of whom had particularly comical names like Earl Millicent Chesterfield Penisworth Farquhar or Sir Jonathon Venerealdiseasington (or at least, that’s what I wrote on the exam). Given the professor’s blustery demeanor, coupled with his apparent affection for applying hair jelly by the handful, Lord Edmund Bryll, inventor of Brylcreem, as born. Yes, well, hmm.

Oh yes, and the gentleman whose picture I chose to represent Lord Edmund is a British industrialist, Sir William George Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong. The real Lord Edmund, or rather the professor who inspired him, had a great shaggy white mustache to go with the extravagant sideburns, but I couldn’t find anyone better than the Baron.

Lady Edwina Bryll, wife of Lord Edmund Bryll
Date of Birth: 2008

Pretty simple, really: Lord Edmund Bryll frequently mentioned his spouse, so here she is. Now, as it happens, the real Lord Edmund Bryll was married to (and at the time, estranged from) another history professor who was, shall we say, slightly dippy. Charming, but just a bit kooky.

She is represented by a self-portrait of photographer Frances Benjamin Johnston.

Daniella A. Apple
Date of Birth: 2008

Inspired by the revelation that a passing acquaintance of mine, whom I consider to be crazier than a bagfull of rabid squirrels, was running in the Federal Election. No, I’m not going to provide any hints as to who it actually is, since this person is highly litigious and I have no desire to stick my hand back in the crazy. She’s also partly inspired by the crazy meth lady who wanders up and down 99th Street shouting at cars, and she is also reminiscent of a variety of Internet kooks, anti-capitalist weirdos, and conspiracy theorists out there.

She’s obsessed with Norwegians the way some nutjobs fixate on Jews or Arabs or whatever. Norwegians seemed pretty harmless and a more peculiar fixation.

Deershit Hills-Landfill Gultch is an both an obvious lowbrow joke and a more arcane satirization of some of the bizarre hybrid names used for ridings in Federal and Provincial elections.

Her picture is actually a random mugshot I found using Google Image Search.

Ingvar Jævel, foreign exchange student from Kongsvinger, Norway
Date of Birth: 2008

Proof that Daniella A. Apple isn’t just imagining the vast Norwegian conspiracy! He was pretty much supposed to be a throwaway character, to bolster Daniella’s paranoia. The reaction among readers was so harsh, however, that I had to bring him back and dial up the obnoxiousness even further. In broad strokes, he’s the arrogant European who looks down his nose on American (and Canadian) society, but who has absorbed much more of it than he realizes.

He’s also an almagam of several sources: an old friend from Germany who was an exchange student at our high school (great guy, and not at all like Ingvar, but nevertheless was often puzzled at our Canuck weirdness); Patrick Thoresen, former Oilers player and one of only a handful of Norwegians who ever played in the NHL; and, completely unintentionally, Borat. Seriously, I didn’t realize how Borat-like Ingvar was becoming until I re-read the Megachurch post, and any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

Kongsvinger is a real small city in Norway, which I know absolutely nothing about. “Jævel” may or may not mean “bastard” in Norwegian, depending on the accuracy of the Internet translation I used.

Ingvar hasn’t shown his face yet, but he does like to use exclamation marks! It’s more obnoxious that way!

.: Tags: daniella a. apple, ingvar, lady edwina bryll, lord edmund bryll, the fourth wall :.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 26th, 2008 at 12:26 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.