About Me
A Eulogy for Tillie TwosoxTillie Twosox has touched everyone gathered here today- some of you still feel a memorable tongue-lashing, while others suffer tooth marks gladly, but I want you to remember that Tillie rose like puff-pastry from very humble beginnings, to reach heights that only hot air can navigate.Poor, neurotic, Tillie felt she didn’t belong anywhere even after extensive travel, some say it’s because she was stateless for most of her formative years and as a result had been deported from several countries. Or indeed it may be that her parents (the Peeps as she fondly called them), after rescuing her from a giant garbage heap, kept Tillie wrapped in a large brown paper bag. Tillie had many theories regarding her mysterious origins, but by far her favourite, was that she was simply another one of those many disenfranchised aliens that inhabit planet Earth; Star Mama had accidentally deposited her newborn up a refuse shoot, while the garbage wriggled in a snug-capsule. By the time Star Mama had noticed the blunder; an inter-galactic, supersonic, dump-tanker was already hauling baby Tillie out to planet Earth- or the Junk sphere, as Star Bagmen know it. Lucky for Tillie, an obsessive-compulsive yet pragmatic middle-aged couple, Dr.K. & Dr.S.Twosox, was on holiday and had just finished strolling along Juhu Beach’s most prominent attraction; a magnificent mountain of shimmering compressed rubbish when they heard the shiny baby’s whimpering. The Peeps claimed Tillie joyously, as they hadn’t been blessed with children (they had issues with the mess procreation generated) and were determined to raise this gift from God. So they rolled her in brown paper to avoid anyone ever questioning her parentage and deflected any queries by hinting that the child was born hideously deformed. They were very considerate and didn’t want to compromise Tillie’s comfort, so they cut a hole in the bag through which she was fed and watered- they cut peepholes when Tillie began habitually swaying from side to side. Tillie blames her neurosis of sausages on the Peeps’ failure to replace the brown bags often enough.Ironically, Tillie’s loveliness stunned most people- that’s if she was comfortable enough to remove the head-size paper bag that she wore for most of her adult life. In fact, some said Tillie was one of the most beautiful women they had ever seen, to which I recall Tillie’s delightful responses “Do you have eyes or cauliflowers?†or “In star man terms I’m positively plainâ€. The Peeps had no clue that their possessive fear had contaminated the inventive young child, who forever felt monstrous and whose insecurities were fuelled by gawping strangers; if and when Tillie dared to remove the bag and expose her pale face.Tillie Twosox will not be forgotten- even those who never saw past the paper bag (of late Paisley) have been affected by her incredible break-throughs; Tillie invented the highly lauded, one-legged skipping rope, especially for juvenile land-mine victims, the Keyless piano for tone deaf singers, who now could simply sing, without dread of embarrassment, as the Keyless piano would automatically adjust to the right key. Not to mention, Tillie’s controversial torture mirror especially engineered to treat anorexia nervosa or bulimia patients, by distorting their images so vastly, that upon seeing their reflection, the patient would witness a monstrous image and would commit suicide forthwith, thereby relinquishing many years of useless suffering. However, most will agree that Tillie’s great name is synonymous with Prickly Feet Psy-Mags, her brain-child which most impacted the world through escapades of sheer joy.Tillie was the heart of charity and donated precious time every week to inspect infested dormitories within orphanages, boarding schools and motel chains. Tillie stumbled upon the inspiration for Psy-Mags while pursuing her favoured hobby- hunting bed bugs. Dressed like a miner, but armed with a mighty, slender steel spike, Tillie hunted those blood-sucking varmints with a mission of eradication. One night, as Tillie poised ready to strike, beaming halogen light between cracks of a bed-frame; a large toad, coated in bubbling warts, sprang out of the gap and landed SPLAT! Its suckers planted upon Tillie’s ultra magnifying spectacles! Tillie’s vision was obscured by psychedelic patterns of light and shadow, in the epicenter of toad suckers. Her eyes caught in a miniature cosmos of myriad swirling possibilities, induced a trance-like euphoric state and changed Tillie’s life forever, by adding a new addiction, in place of her recently discarded paisley bag. And thus, Prickly Feet Psy-Mags were born; goggles that deeply impressed many cults, to which it became a symbol of solidarity between those who shucked oysters with lime and those who would not!It would be true to say that Tillie faced her fare share of hardship, she fought a bitter campaign till the end against mustard flavoured ice cream, which she deemed a complete social faux pas. Further more, Tillie adamantly claimed, said ice-cream was a trigger for depression, which we all know was Tillie’s greatest adversary. But even when entrenched within its pits, Tillie struck back resourcefully, focusing her fluid mind into creative projects which brought home the light of day and showered fire-works of imagination into her besieged mind.
Tillie Twosox will be sadly missed, but her legacy lives on; every time I get a fresh loaf of bread, I am reminded of her innovative approach of serving sushi rolled in banana leaves- its great draw being the high risk of death, which official statistics rate the chance of choking on this fibrous leaf at 38:1. Bookies took bets at an avant-garde specialty restaurant, catering this sole delicacy, for those with a death fetish, who flocked in. Those who hedged bets or speculated at Sucker Snuff as the joint was so charmingly named, became contestants in a highly rated reality T.V show that was internationally syndicated with great success and sparked that infamous world debate on whether politicians are actually human beings or not. Tillie’s belief that they were tics by name and tics by nature, alienated many, but cemented a drifting ideology of perception and paranoia, into a unity of cognition, which birthed global anarchy movements, ultimately changing the status quo of many regimes.Our friend Tillie Twosox left a final request to all those present today to witness the scattering of her ashes over the M4, always brush your teeth before bed and scrape your tongue too, if possible.