black humour

My feminist cousin Pauline and her friend Abbie the heiress were posited in the back row of the grand Salon Des Beaux Parvenus, a theatre which overlooks the sea near Dublin.
Around them the finery and flummery of Irish artistic life was disporting.
The auditorium was packed.
For this was the Dunlaoghaire International Festival of Art and Poetry. (Accept no immitations.)
Pauline and Abbie were enjoying the great panoplay of recitals, homages, kow tows and hem touching.
"James would hate this," grinned Abbie. "I asked him to come. Do you know what he said? He said he'd rather go beneath the earth wretching blood, than listen to another soul dead conformist in a three piece suit proclaiming the vitality of art."
"He's just about the only poet in Ireland who isn't here," observed Pauline. "What else did he say?"
"Nothing really," replied Abbie. "Except he asked me to give him a hundred thousand dollars for some vampire film he thinks he's making."
The two laughed agreeably.
They find me most amusing.
Particularly when I ask them for money.
A thought struck Pauline.
"Imagine if we had put some explosives under the stage," quoth she. "If we blew up this place we could kill every single poet in Ireland. All except one. Then James really would be Ireland's greatest living poet."
"There's no point," shot back her friend. "He's a film maker now."