I’ll be your Georgia peach if you’ll be my Tennessee snark

I must confess that this panel, the frontispiece to Fit the Second, is one of my favorites in the entire comix, for the simple reason that it utterly disproves Thomas Aquinas’ mean-spirited assertion that dogs have no souls.

They do indeed and here is the proof positive. This dog is plainly the sole dog of Snark Island and as such, blessed with the same homophonic dispensation as his master’s speech whose fruity tones entrance him so.

Attention Manhattanites — A Snarkian Call!
The Manhattan Repertory Theatre is putting on a production of the Snark this fall and has put out a casting call, details here. This sounds like a rare opportunity to put your Snark-jones to a proper thespian use. Of course, we all know about that quaint British actors' tradition which forbids the mention of the word Snark off-stage, but Manhattanites are a resourceful tribe and will pooh-pooh any heavy vibes emanating from the Sottish Play.

It's Official — this is the Summer of Snark!
The semi-mysterious McNeff film of the Snark seems to be surfacing, laboriously yet assuredly, from its bathing machine into the light of day … the poster is here and it looks good! Thanks to Goetz for bringing our attention to this, MacNeff himself seems hard to reach.

Fit Two, Page 9

The Bellman's speech is of that particular British provenance yclept "fruity". Not so much "plummy" but rather … "peachy". If one removes the fuzzy skin thereof (the burr, so to speak) one is left with a nectarine. This fruit (spelled n-e-c-t-a-r-i-n-e but pronounced "stuffed cabbage") was the preferred nutrition of most cavemen and it was they who first domesticated the dog.

We see here a sample of that species, a young pup named Laelaps, who attends upon his master's fruity voice. And what does he hear? A sonorous mussitation which leaves no impression upon him at all, for, as Thomas Aquinas noted, dogs have no souls. Hence their proverbial high fidelity is but a marketing ploy.

A dog, a peach, a gramophone — after all these years, my own 3-piece jazz combo! At last, I can take a bath. And just in time too, my gin-driven ink-pen's almost run dry.