Rocket: For a kid’s book this thing sure has a lot of boobs.

Dmitri: Squeezy, mushed-up boobs.

Skylark: (Giggling stupidly through his nose until cackling bursts through.) How in the hell can you say that with a straight face?

Dmitri: (Mock-crying but actually laughing out loud.) Fairies died a hideous crunchy death to bring us… I can’t. Bear… Gods-dammit where are my meds?

Rocket: Well, at least they have that one section with the weird paper thingy that help protect the innocent from becoming perverted. It did protect your innocence, right Laisandra?

Laisandra: It did not, it merely taunted it and stomped it to a pulp of nothing. I see nothing humorous about a book glorifying the death of fairies.

Dmitri: You see nothing humorous about anything.

Laisandra: So what if I don’t. Fairies are beautiful creatures of fantasy. Delicate and precious, like angels of G-d. But, this Lady Cottington just crushes them like the dreams of a thousand starving children living in the rotting corpse of what used to be a third world country. This book glorifies death, and the destruction of beauty. It is the face of humanity. That wicked disease, humanity is a festering boil upon the universe. Life is worthless. It makes me want to die.

Rocket: (Comforting) Honey, it’s just a funny book with disturbingly pretty watercolor paintings of crushed fairies and a cool fake journal by this one lady that doesn’t even exist. The older version of her is played by Terry Jones on the DVD that comes with the book.

Dmitri: (Laughing Maniacally) Terry Jones in drag is hilarious.

Skylark: (Flippant) In other words, it’s comedic fiction. Don’t take it too seriously, you teenage drama queen.

Rocket: Has anybody ever told you that you’re an asshole?

Skylark: Repeatedly.

Dmitri: (Laughing Obnoxiously) Have some vodka, you can be an asshole too.

Rocket: Dude, you drink way too much.

Skylark: Rocket, you drink bootleg Everclear straight until you puke blood.

Rocket: Yeah, but I’m not an obnoxious alcoholic like he is.

Dmitri: No, I’m just a friendly, horny alcoholic. (Gropes Rocket’s breast.)

Rocket: (Gives Dmitri a sharp left-hook.) That’s for my pressed-Russian collection. (He drops down cold.)

Laisandra: (Deadpan) Now that was funny.

Skylark: Um… whatever. I highly recommend Lady Cottington’s Pressed Fairy Book. It’s not really a kid’s book, but it’s highly enjoyable gallows humor with extremely adept artwork. This is Skylark signing off. Thank you for reading.

Skylark: It was hard to listen to! OY! What crack were these people smoking? The illustrations were interesting in a hideous graphic-design-student-obsessed-with-Mirrormask-taking-way-too-many-hits-of-bad-acid-while-listening-to-Technohead sort of way. I think I needed to be high to enjoy this crap. Hmmm… speaking of getting high, do you have some junk? I’m in so much pain. I hate these idiotic opportunistic infections.

Rocket: No for junk you! Junk is how you got AIDS to begin with! Only medicinal herbs for you, because needles are drugs, and drugs are for losers.

Skylark: I did not get AIDS from shooting up junk, and for your information marijuana IS a drug.

Rocket: Whatever! You’re so off-topic. Let’s get back to the review.

Skylark: (Rolls eyes.) Okay.

Rocket: The drawings are fun. They’re pretty original and different in a freaky way. I totally dig interesting art.

Skylark: Rasputin Catamite is kind of like that, but I don’t hear you heaping on praise.

Rocket: Dude, that comic is just fucking gross. It’s too obsessed with asses and smuttery. Whatever that means. Is “smuttery” even a word? The Stinky Cheese Man is a kid’s book.

Skylark: I think you need a doctorate in child psychology to comprehend this stinky book.

Rocket: Maybe you just need to be a child. This book is for kids and not for little lit snobs like you.

Skylark: I hated it, and so will anyone with taste.

Rocket: I’m not so sure about that, but I think warped children will totally dig it. If you are not a child, be sure to get intoxicated or something before reading. It’s too weird when you are sober.

Skylark: Kind of like me. Sober people hate me.

Rocket: Totally! (Rocket bounces.) Hey that gives me an idea! Instead of you doing dangerous hard drugs, let’s drink Everclear until we vomit blood. That’ll be fun.

Skylark: Um… yeah. Thank you for reading.

Skylark: That was absolutely entrancing and relaxing.
Rocket: Where do you get these weird boring-ass CDs. I still can’t that damn rooster song out of my head.
Skylark: “The Chauncer Songbook” is neither boring nor weird. It is a meticulously researched journey back into the medieval era where music is sublimely performed with authentic instruments and divine compositions. The vocalists have a pleasant…
Rocket: Whoa, wait! Maybe the chick has a good opera voice, but that fat-sounding dude is just weird.
Skylark: Fat-sounding dude?
Rocket: Not that opera is even cool to begin with.
Skylark: Where do you get opera from? There is not a single operatic performance in this CD. It is engrossingly unpretentious medieval folk music.
Rocket: What do you mean that there’s no opera in this CD? It’s all about the opera! (Trying to sound operatic.) “IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII haaaava geeeeeeeeeeentile COCK!” That sounds pretty damn operamatic to me.
Skylark: Do you even know what the hell an opera is?
Rocket: Hell yeah.
Skylark: Englighten me.
Rocket: It’s old music, sang by fat people with really loud voices about cocks, kings, religion, maidens with boobs, sex, death and stuff.
Skylark: (Dumbfounded.) I can’t really argue with that. What about modern operas like “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “Tommy,” or R. Kelly’s “TP.3″?
Rocket: Operative word is “modern”, which means, “better”. Except for R. Kelly, unless you are into rap and crap like Eryk.
Skylark: “Modern” is not a synonym for better, and Eryk would never listen to R. Kelly. He is more into old school and underground.
Rocket: Modern is too better. Buffalo turds for heating houses: Old. Solar energy: Modern. TV: Old. Internet: Modern. Opera: Old. Metal: Modern. Jolt: Old. Red Bull: Modern. Auntie: Old. Me: Modern. See, modern means better.
Skylark: What about old Metallica versus modern Metallica.
Rocket: (Looking quite distressed.) Dammit! That totally ruined my theory.
Skylark: Are you aware of that there is a difference between theory, hypothesis, and blatantly uneducated guess.
Rocket: I bet you believe in evolution too.
Skylark: Where the hell did that come from?
Rocket: You believe in science fiction, and not in intelligent design. That shows that you are stupider than me, because everybody knows that G-d created the universe. It’s right in the Torah.
Skylark: You are so meshuga today. What is your deal? Have you been talking to those American Messianic idiots again? I saw them doing their silly mission work earlier today. Like they’re ever going to convert Poland’s stubborn-ass Catholics.
Rocket: They’re not idiots, they’re nice and they believe in Jesus. Their way seems to be the best one in helping me reconcile my Catholic upbringing and my Jewish wannabeness.
Skylark: Rocket, I hate to break it to you, but, Messianic Jews aren’t really Jews. They’re Christians with identity issues.
Rocket: Oh yeah, well Auntie says that Reform Jews aren’t real Jews either. She told me that Reform Jews are the ones that are lazy atheists-in-denial who think that it’s cool to wear stars and play dreidel, but not cool to pay attention to high holidays or keeping a kosher kitchen.
Skylark: Rocket my love, this is the point in our conversation when YOU EAT SHIT AND DIE!
Rocket: Ooh.
Skylark: (Forlorn.) My mom was born Jewish.
Rocket: Weren’t we reviewing this one lame opera CD?
Skylark: No, we were reviewing “The Chaucer Songbook” from Carol Lloyd Wood, a beautifully reconstructed collection of Medieval classics using traditional and orginal compositions that evoke authentic aural experiences from a bygone era.
Rocket: In other words, it’s crap that only appeals to scholars and anal Renaissance Festies who scream about not being “in period” if you wear a latex corset with your foofy skirt.
Skylark: Sometimes, I think that those Messianics are actually zombies who are slowly nibbling on your brain, until it disappears into their digestive track.
Rocket: That would be cool.
Skylark: Meshuga. I’m telling you, she’s totally nuts today.
Rocket: “IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII haaaava geeeeeeeeeeeeeentile COCK!
Skylark: Sorry about this and thank you for reading. She’s totally insane.

Rocket: What the hell did I just read?
Skylark: An absolutely masterful piece of modern literature entitled Polish-Russian War under a White and Red Banner by the lovely and talented, Dorota Maslowska.
She wrote this serendipitous work of art at the tender age of 19 in a single month in between classes.
Rocket: And, it shows! This book makes no sense whatsoever and the title sucks. I mean really, Polish-Russian War under a White and Red Banner? That sounds like one of those lame-ass Komuchy school primers people had to read in the olden days.
Skylark: Olden days? Uff! Never mind. You underestimate the pervasive sense of irony and hopelessness that Maslowska conveys from beginning to end. She paints a bleakly accurate picture of our country’s disenfranchised youth in working class communities — much like our former home in Nowa Huta.
Rocket: Did you notice that Vas wrote “Huta Nowa” instead of “Nowa Huta” in the last comic? What a retard!
Skylark: I’m sure that had less to do with being mentally challenged and more with an honest editorial mistake.
Rocket: Dude! At least that Dorota chick spelled the name of our town right. She’s like from here, so she knows town names. Vas shouldn’t be writing comic books about Poland when she’s never been here.
Skylark: Using that logic, you shouldn’t be eating Mc Donald’s American burgers and getting fat off them because you have never been to the United States of America.
Rocket: You are a bastard!
Skylark: Second-generation. Possibly the spawn of a Japanese diplomat. A big, “so what?” pops out of my mouth.
Rocket: This book has the worst grammar ever. I can write a book with punctuation and sentences that actually make sense to someone other than some guy snorting more amfa than Wit on a binge when he has too much money.
Skylark: That style of writing is called “stream of consciousness.” The feeling you got from the book, actually is the exact drug-induced lunacy that Masloska is trying to convey. I also would add that from an auditory perspective, this book had quite the captivating candence, much like beat poetry. A nihilistic joyride into the world of our paranoid world of our protagonist, Nails. Visions of red and white colors invoke sense of fatalism, as well as righteously xenophobic nationalism that is at once patriotic and blasphemous. This is what Poland has become in the eyes of the young generation, and it is truly terrifying.
Rocket: Terrifying my left ovary! This book is nothing but a bunch of bad trips from too much speed, dogs dying from not taking a dump often enough and graphic descriptions of people vomiting. I mean, in one single book, people vomited white stuff, blood, coals, rocks and other stuff. I admit that the projectile vomiting scene with the one anorexic Satanist chick at that one apartment was pretty damn funny, but that’s only because I’ve seen Wit barf like that from doing too much speed.
Skylark: You vomit like that when you drink too much.
Rocket: Yeah, I know. That’s why I have this haircut. I got sick of asking people to hold my hair whenever I felt queasy. At least I don’t do drugs. Booze is good enough for me.
Skylark: Then people ask me why I quit drinking and doing drugs.
Rocket: Most of them. There’s tobacco and…
Skylark: Don’t start that. You know I only do that for medicinal purpose.
Rocket: That’s what they all say.
Skylark: I have AIDS and I can’t afford prescriptions. I need to eat, otherwise I lose weight.
Rocket: I wish I had your problem.
Skylark: That’s horribly insensitive.
Rocket: Anyway, was it just me, or was that Nails dude a little bit too obsessed with Ptasie Mleczko, and his ex-girlfriend.
Skylark: Well Magda represented a sense of stability for him, and being dumped by her pushed him over the edge of the precipice he was leaning over.
Rocket: Ptasie Mleczko are totally nasty. Wisnie on the other hand, are the bomb. They’re even kind of healthy because if you eat a whole box of them you’ll get your serving of fruits for the day.
Skylark: I would hardly call chocolate-covered cherries drowned in liquor, a health food.
Rocket: They’re healthier than plain liquor.
Skylark: Point. But I digress, I think what you are missing about Polish-Russian War under a White and Red Banner is the fact, that it is such a brilliantly captured slice of life, served upon a plateful of honesty pie and…
Rocket: Enough of this tarradiddle.
Skylark: Do you even know tarradiddle means? Because if you do, I find it offensive that you should say such a thing.
Rocket: You and I know very well that this book made no sense at all, and you’re just trying to look all smart because you don’t know how to read.
Skylark: I don’t need to read — that’s what you and audiobooks are for.
Rocket: I’m smarter than you because I know how to read and my opinion as a woman matters more than yours as a queer. Unlike Nails, when you look in the mirror you see all of the signs of faggotude and stupiditry.
Skylark: Stupidtry, eh? Well, on that droll note, we finish today’s review of Polish-Russian War under a White and Red Banner by Dorota Maslowska. Thank you for reading.