Ben Bonnet

Ben Bonnet is a friend of mine. I have written about working with Ben Bonnet in the freezer.

Ben Bonnet also contributed to the newspaper I put together this Midwinter. The photo above is kind of what Ben Bonnet's article (I couldn't and didn't spend anytime to try and get the fonts to appear correctly as PDFs) looked like in The Shadow.

The way that Ben Bonnet describes how our brains are working down here is absolutely correct (story follows). Asking Winterovers to put together a Midwinter newspaper is kind of like asking a fox to guard the Green House--it just doesn't make sense.

What I said when the writers for the newspaper turned in their stories was that each one was worthy of winning the Pul-Ice-Er Prize is certainly true with Ben Bonnet.

I know the "Pul-Ice-Er Prize" joke is kind of lame, but let's see you live without sunshine for a few months.

In the Winter, we also laugh at fart jokes.

Recently my friend Mary said it would be interesting to see how people view me, Phil, in the McMurdo Community. Mary suggested that I should get someone to write a little op-ed on "Phil."

Ben Bonnet and I play cards together every Friday night, we work together on occasion and compete in most games like darts, shuffle board and pool. Ben Bonnet and his teammate Eric Brown recently won what was call "The Bar Triathlon." Fourteen teams played pool, shuffleboard and darts. Ben Bonnet and Eric Brown are #1 in McMurdo.

A couple of weeks ago Ben Bonnet said he'd like to write about one of the characters in town, but Ben Bonnet said he thinks he will only see the "negative" not the "positive" side of the person. Perfect, I said to Ben Bonnet, then write about me.

I've often said that if I was a cat, I would leave the "ow" out of my vocabulary and only say, "Me."

Plus, I would want my friends to call me, "Whiskers."

Ben Bonnet doesn't exactly have a deadline when it comes to writing this story about me. It will eventually appear. In the mean time, I've included the story Ben Bonnet wrote for The Shadow.

As you may see, Ben Bonnet may not have been the best guy for this project about me.

An Article Written by a Winter-over in June
By Ben Bonnet

When I first faced the task of writing an article for a mid-winter newspaper, I must admit that I was a bit nervous. After all, my vocabulary is weaker now than it was mere months ago and even if I were to come up with an interesting story, how would I be able to find the words to really give it that Bonnet-flair that people that regularly read my "stuff" have come to appreciate. My stories have gone from epic sagas that would entertain any and all that read them, to boring, mundane words that drives people to cheesy romance novels in order to elevate their literary intake. It's sad really.

The Mets are losing right now. Pedro Martinez can not get a victory to save his life. I'm a really big Mets fan, have been ever since 1986 and the thing that I love the most about them is...a telephone is ringing. Why is it ringing? Where is it ringing? Who is it? Why did it stop ringing? Now, back to my story. I was talking about...ah, hang on...

So, I think that our bowling team has a good shot at winning it all in the playoffs. Old man Teuscher is really starting to bowl and everyone on the team is picking up their games at the right time of season. Miller hasn't bowled well all season so I think that we can take him and.....I have email. Who is from? What do they want? How did they find me? What's a TCN?

Writing has always come pretty easily for me I suppose. I remember when I was a kid we had this writing assignment where we had to tell what would happen if strings came down from the sky. I wrote this story about how the strings would come down and take all of the women's purses. Well, I have always been pretty practical and fiscally responsible. So I got an A on the story and I went up to Melissa Briscoe and showed her my A and she hit me in the chest. I think she liked me, but I was never really into her that much. I thought she was mean. My first crush was on this girl with crimped hair and for a long time I thought that I would never marry a girl that didn't have crimped hair. I'm tired now. I think I might lay down for just a bit. Nothing like being dog-tired, lying in your bed wide awake, not able to sleep.

Well today I wanted to talk about the mental block that develops for the writer in the winter. You want to tall a story and you lack all the tools you need to craft it. Phone ringing...Do I answer it?...Where do I work again?

(Phil Here: When Ben Bonnet wrote this story the sentence, "You want to tall a story and you lack all the tools," was written as is. I thought Ben Bonnet was comically correct when he interchanged the word "tell" with "tall." As it turns out, that was just a fine example of our brains and how they interchange words during the Winter.

Another thing about Ben Bonnet is he is a "virtual nobody." When you type "Ben Bonnet" into Google you get pictures of kittens and misspellers who have "ben in Bonnets." Now that may have changed.)

Posted by phil at June 24, 2006 05:37 AM