David Pogue finally gets with the Tuscan Milk literary phenomenon

Yesterday's Pogue's Posts proves that sometimes you have to forgo the latest in technology for a proven, if years old, winner. The comments section on Amazon.com's Tuscan Milk has become an unintentional literary community, playing host to thousands of writers inspired by this "one gallon paperweight" that makes a "baby’s new face burst into flames."

Over four years, the comments for the Tuscan milk has filled up with astonishingly well-written parodies in different literary styles: romance novels, military escapades, poetry parodies. Right at the top, for example, you can find a parody of Edgar Allen Poe’s “Nevermore,” beginning like this:

“Once upon a mid-day sunny, while I savored Nuts ‘N Honey,
With my Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 gal, 128 fl. oz., I swore
As I went on with my lapping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at the icebox door.
‘Bad condensor, that,’ I muttered, ‘vibrating the icebox door –
Only this, and nothing more.’”

Even actual books (well, okay, not actual books) are getting the Tuscan Milk treatment these days.

Maybe the best one, though, is the listing for what’s obviously an erroneous Amazon listing, a book called “Hgiyiyi (hgjhjh, hjhk) [Paperback].” The author/translator is listed as “jjjj,” and the narrator is credited as “jjjjj” (). Ohhhh, baby, the people had fun with this one!

“I enjoyed ‘Hgiyiyi,’ but the pacing is a bit slow. It doesn’t compare to Jjjj’s earlier works, like ‘Kquxiuqx,’ or ‘Oooeiaiai,’ or even ‘Nyah-Nyah Ptang.’ I think her recent successes have dulled her edge.”

“When I first read ‘Hgiyiyi (hgjhjh, hjhk)’ I told myself that I was too much of a man to cry. Not to spoil anything, but the part about wwyzwthg is the saddest thing I’ve ever read in fiction or non-fiction. A must read for all fans off Jjjj or sppliyu.”