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This is new and original.  But is it art?


	T'was the Night For Parodizing


	T'was the night before Christmas and all through the Net,
		The hackers took time out to try to play poet.
	Each one began with the same old refrain,
		Thinking their take-off would yield instant fame.
	The many Net readers were snug in their beds,
		While megabyte echoes flowed in their heads.
	When out in a newsgroup appeared yet another,
		Ridiculous rewrite -- not funny, why bother?
	Then what to your wandering eyes did appear,
		But a meta-rendition, its message quite clear.
	True humor is something that seems to be rare,
		And hackneyed variation is absent of flair.
	It's fun to play poet, but often quite lame,
		Even so, all the hackers keep playing this game.
	On VAXes!  And HPs!  And Commodores sweet!
		On IBMs!  PCs!  With fingers and feet!
	The many Net readers' eyes quickly glaze over,
		At every new posting that seems a leftover.
	A wink of their eye and a twitch of their finger,
		Your prose goes to /dev/null -- no reader does linger.
	Except of course newbies, who find it all novel,
		Quite funny, exciting, and not at all drivel.
	They save every nibble and exclaim to the sky,
		"Just wait till they see my ingenious reply!"


			-- embarrassed to admit I wrote this,
			   Alan Silverstein, 931221

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