Osler's Razor

Now that I have purchased the blog back from RRL, it falls to me to judge the haiku contest. My decision: It's a tie!

First, we have this dazzler from Neil Alan Willard:

Free gifts at Christmas
Blitzen always resented.
“They don’t deserve them.”

Also in first, this winner from the always-stellar Megan Willome:


No squib was Neville.
Augusta sent a howler--
unnecessary.

Coincidentally, I can do a bio on both... because their life stories are tragically intertwined.

It was the 90's at Wake Forest, a fine school deep in the piney woods of North Carolina. It is a school where football is a forgotten stepchild, basketball is an afterthought, but liturgical dance is king. And the king of liturgical dance was Neil Alan Willard. He swept the school championship with a triumphant performance based on the first stanza of Song of Solomon's second chapter, leaving the audience literally in tears before rising as one in full-throated roar.

Meanwhile, in Central Texas, liturgical dance was almost unknown, due to the fear of dancing. Yet one woman soldiered on, performing where she could-- Unitarian potlucks, stoner weddings, SXSW-- and honed her skills until she was the best liturgical dancer no one ever heard of.

It is inevitable that the two would meet, and they did: In the national finals, which were part of Liturgi-Con 1995 in Jeffersonville, Tennessee. The theme was "Noah after the flood," a challenging passage for any dancer. Too challenging, it turned out, as both were arrested for indecency for their separate performances and the grand prize was awarded to the third-place finisher, Box Head Guy.

Congratulations!