pepe_le_pew
cooper rasha Usually when I see a skunk I get scared because I don’t want to get sprayed and end up smelling bad. If I were less hygienic, skunks wouldn’t bother me. I consider it a shortcoming that I let myself be ruled by harmless animals.

The only skunk who doesn’t frighten me is Pepé Le Pew. Partially, this is because he is a cartoon, and cartoons can’t come through the TV screen. Mostly, however, I feel only sadness when I see him.

On the surface, he is charismatic, confident, endlessly romantic, persistent, and has a very fancy accent. As skunks go he’s probably one of the more attractive ones. But beyond all that, there is an undeniable desperation to Pepé.

Skunks only release their noxious odor when they are scared. It’s a defense mechanism. Pepé releases his all the time, which makes me think he must be in a perpetual state of fear. What is it he’s so scared of? My guess is intimacy.

He may pretend to be vying for the affections of a female but his odor keeps her far away, preventing the two from ever truly becoming close. I’m not sure what loss he suffered but it was undoubtedly traumatic. Maybe a former lover was hit by a car.

And what about the fact that he’s chasing a cat? I know she recently had a painting accident and ended up looking like a skunk, but his his radar that far off? Can he really not tell? I think on some level he knows she’s unattainable. Even if he could capture her and make love to her, they would never be able to breed.

I used to laugh when I watched Pepé. Now I feel sad and just want to help him. I want to find him a lady skunk who hates herself as much as Pepé hates himself. It’s the only chance for him.
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ovenbird When I was five years old I was given a stuffed skunk. The aunt who gave it to me sprayed its tail with perfume and the skunk, uncreatively named Stinky, reeked for the rest of his polyester fiber filled life. Some scents will linger forever like that: moth balls, cigarette smoke, plagiarism…

The actual author of the words in the above blathe, a man named Ted Wilson, spent eight years between 2009-2017 writing reviews of everything in the world, one weekly blog post at a time. Pepe_le_pew got 2 out of 5 stars. His work was hosted on therumpus.net until 2015 and then on electricliterature.com until his final post on July 28, 2017. His last cryptic message makes reference to his advancing age and the fact that Electric Literature cancelled his column and he says his goodbyes. He then pulls off an astounding vanishing act and disappears from the internet. I can’t find a single thing related to his whereabouts since. Is he alive? Is he dead? Is he still writing reviews of the sky (3 out of 5 stars) and paper cuts (4 out of 5 stars because he feared retribution) and puppy footprints (5 out of 5 stars)? I have no idea. What I do know is that I very much enjoyed the amusing rabbit hole I fell into while reading Ted’s writing and you can easily find a whole bunch of it for yourself by searching for “Ted Wilson Reviews the World.” (The air smells a little fresher now, I think).
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ancasa.reyn It appears that Ted Wilson is a pseudonym of John Ahoy.

https://www.hisportfolio.com/writing
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raze so the person this person was pretending to be was a person someone else was pretending to be, who was little more than a lie told in the name of art.

i think that just broke my brain.
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ovenbird The plot thickens! 250814
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ovenbird (and good sleuthing ancasa.reyn! I wasn't able to dig that up in my own searching!) 250814
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