Thank you, Lords and Ladies, for inviting me here this evening to speak of Everything2. (gets out 18 pages of single spaced text.) I am going to speak to you this evening of ... er....

Fishes for his reading half-glasses, places them on his nose and peers over the tops at his audience in a leaderly sort of way.)

Lord Borgo apparently wrote something that invited us E2 members to talk about E2. So I'm going to take this opportunity to discuss a few ideas.

(What's that? Brawl? Oh.)

Lord Brawl, pardon me.

First off, the favorite three or four noders that are meaningful to us. Well, there's ToasterLeavings, and JohnnyGoodyear, of course. And then there's heppigirl for comic relief. (another tug at the sleeve.)

(Eh? Noders, right,that's what I said. Nodes? NODES? Oh ah. Righto.)

Nodes, yes. My favorite nodes. Harrummm, let me clear my throat. Nodes. Quite right. Well, of course, you have anything by Interstellar Scrotum or Moloch36. For the Scrote lad, try Taking Down Large Larry. Then, you should read all of Moloch 36's nodes in the order in which they were written, since the stories all flow together. Ideally, you should print them and read them at home in chronological order when you have a spare half hour. Bloody good read. Halspal did Why the Willow Seeps. Weeps? Weeps. Whatever. A guaranteed four-hankie affair. Then, there's almost any of riverrun's nodes. Try Libber and I go to war, or How to brush your teeth in a combat zone. JohnnyGoodyear wrote so many good ones it's almost impossible to choose one, but let's go with How the heart really works. He'd written hundreds of nodes and kept less than 60 now. He's written and thrown away more brilliant stuff than you could ever imagine. DoubleD wrote the incredibly good Riding Esperanza. arcanamundi's Your grace under pressure. Your face under water. Brilliant woman, simply brilliant, and a looker too, if you know what I mean. (winks at audience.) sam512's Standing on a mountaintop in northern Siberia under the rapidly descending bulk of asteroid McAlmont, with a calculating expression and a baseball bat. AllSeeingEye's Everything2 Civil War II: Electric Boogaloo. ToasterLeavings- anything by him. Lord Brawl, dannye and he did a brilliant Shakespeare parody entitled Two Gentlemen on Veronica. (Even the title makes me giggle, not that - harrumph! - I am much given to giggling. Certainly not.)

Coruscating language is what I seek; words that astound. ToasterLeavings' and JohnnyGoodyear's pieces never fail to astonish me. I read them, and I think to myself, never in a million years could I have placed these words together the way they did. By this metric, these are the two best writers on the site.

(long, Alzheimer's Syndrome-induced pause.)

Now, what else did Borgo want? Er, Brawl. That's what I said. He wanted some understanding of my philosophy on E2. That's a simple one: to build up our army! our navy! Our airforce! Our code warriors! Until we are able to defend ourselves against the outRAgeous indiscretions of neighboring web sites. Look around you! Nothing but hostile faces! Wikipedia to our north, MySpace to the south, facebook somewhere east or west -- I'm not quite clear where, but my advisors take a stern vew of this site -- we must shore up our defenses against the implacable enemies who mean to crush us right out of existence! We must remain firm, we must remain vigilant! We must be true to our guiding vision! Whatever that is!

(microphone goes dead.)

Thank you, and good night.

(Sits down to polite but uncertain applause.)

Eh? Well the rest of what he wants has been amply covered by the others, I'm bloody well not going to repeat what's already been said. The rest can be done in subcommittee by lesser men. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a very important flight to catch.