Mickey's Christmas Carol

Last time I posted one of these ("Mickey and the Beanstalk" -- scroll to the end of the post if you want to watch the movie), my motives were literary.  This time, just nostalgia.  Please enjoy:

(As much as anything, the snow this morning and the end of finals finally kicked me into the Christmas spirit -- that and Angie read the kids the Disney storybook of this last night.)

Google CAPTCHA, List #3

ackso | aeser | alead | allymsmu | alyze | andowswe | aspharh | auzzlent | becie | besigi | buledu | bulgaul | burst | cabro | carlar | catiz | cenor | cesedanf | chells | chitsma | clocker | coarcisp | codsbon | comazin | conste | corbuse | cratemer | dularli | extort | flunwal | gablewor | goont | hentsac | herying | hopul | huloork | hysion | imings | immen | indiffur | iners | kourathi | litar | litida | malursi | marmili | matsked | minermar | mistlyc | monspo | noodic | nuroa | ocksh | ophesse | ouricut | paddlife | pareld | peare | pirratin | polyt | ponitrot | porer | porshpl | previ | pridi | procapt | quest | redlyr | remen | rersp | saludged | scetr | serfl |sesore | sessedu | sessmot | skstede | smelabl‏ | sonno | speridi | sterm | stswei | sulion | sumbleth | sunticst | suppec | surtis | symican | tactiver | twindoc | unall | undeh | ursedi | valsicks | vdmissio | vinowerb | vitymett | wholoo | woramp | xsant |

my favorites: smelabl, wholoo, and gablewor

Rudyard Kipling -- Our Next Author: PLEASE CAST YOUR VOTE

Rudyard Kipling

While I can't say I've read tons of Kipling, I've made it through a fair amount of his verses and many of his stories.  For better or worse (likely the latter), I have not read The Jungle Book, and the Disney version, like the original or not (likely the latter), is on my short list of all time favorite movies.  That said, of his poetry/verse stuff I've read, this is my favorite:

I have eaten your bread and salt.
I have drunk your water and wine.
In deaths ye died I have watched beside,
And the lives ye led were mine.

Was there aught that I did not share
In vigil or toil or ease, –

One joy or woe that I did not know,
Dear hearts across the seas?

I have written the tale of our life
For a sheltered people's mirth,
In jesting guise – but ye are wise,
And ye know what the jest is worth.

It is the prelude poem, brief and surprisingly elegant, to his "Departmental Ditties."


SO HERE IT IS (because of the hope for short/fun):  I suggest that Kipling be our next author, and hope, therefore, to narrow our search down to one from the following three (please read a little about each and indicate your preference below in comment):

• Kim
• Just So Stories (with original illustrations here)
• The Jungle Book (all three novels here in various forms, thanks to the treasure of Gutenberg.org)

* added later, because, well, who doesn't need friends:

Wednesday's for Kids XXI -- FIELD TRIPS

Sorry I didn't post this yesterday.  We were on a field trip.

Forget the books for a day.  Take your kids (or yourself) on a field trip.

Yesterday, my family went up to Temple Square in Salt Lake City and spent the better part of the entire day in and out of museums, historical sites, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' spectacular gardens.  My kids seemed most "in to" (yes, this is true) the Church's historical museum, and went from display to display eager to hear my wife or me read them the curated descriptions.  My favorite was the tour we got the Conference Center (the largest "single-point" auditorium in the world, with apparently gravity-defying feats of structural engineering), the artworks (paintings, sculptures--all originals) throughout the lobbies and waiting areas, and the rooftop gardens and waterfall (and this aside from the organ and auditorium acoustics, which, unfortunately, were not on demonstration).

As a family, we take field trips quite frequently (and generally less religiously oriented than yesterday, despite, and contrary to, what many may otherwise think as we are indeed Mormons in Utah).  They're great for building family (optimistically) ties and (jadedly) tolerance.  We listen to music and audio books in the car.  We pack picnics.  We walk and giggle and explore.

Not sure where to begin?  Get on your city and state websites and hunt around a bit.  Though I'd be lying if I claimed that all places were created [on the potential-for-field-trip-scale] equal, every place everywhere (and I mean every place everywhere) has stuff to see, visit, and do.  There's no place without a history, or, well, near someplace that is.

WHAT RHYMES WITH ORANGE?

Nothing (and this doesn't count), right?  Oxford says no, anyway.  And they're the authorities, right?

Maybe not.

Try this out (say it out loud if you need to): what sound does the letter R make?  Based on everything you know about consonants and vowels, wouldn't you call "rrrr" a vowel?  After all, it acts just like a vowel.  Doubt me?  Compare the relative positioning your mouth assumes for R against A, E, I, O, or U.  Bearing this in mind, as well as the subtle dialectical shifting of the "schwa" (especially that of my 3-year-old, which, in this case, more closely resembles the "soft" I; and what, really, defines the "perfect" (referring again to the Oxford from above) pronunciation of any vowel, vowels being, after all, the first phonemes to change in any living language?), I have now found a word, in English, that rhymes with ORANGE, at least if we presume that in order to rhyme with orange, the final consonant, as well as the previous two vowel sounds, must echo precisely that of the next word, then ...

(drum roll) 

... the word SYRINGE rhymes with ORANGE.

Sunday Poetry XXIV -- NO MORE A TEACHER & John Keats' "THIS LIVING HAND"

It hit me this past week--for some reason with particular vigor while monitoring the cafeteria at lunch, of all things or places--how terribly I am going to miss being a teacher.  Not preparing lessons and "molding young minds" and grading papers, but being a part--and integral part--of the lives of children and teenagers.  If I'm any good at teaching, it's not because of my subject or my love for it, but because I know and love and "get" kids.  They are my kids, and this living hand, no matter how I try--successful or not--to extend my own to them, is rather theirs, whether they're aware or no, to me:

This living hand, now warm and capable

Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold

And in the icy silence of the tomb,

So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights

That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood

So in my veins red life might scream again,

And thou be conscience-calmed—see here it is—

I hold it toward you.

This is one of my very favorite Keats' poems, and so it is for its depth and how it keeps hidden down there its immense beauty and, despite the inelegance of the word, its personableness.  Maybe you'll "get" it right away.  Not me.  It took me several reads--I had to work at it--before it hit home.  Even now, I have to read it twice.

Another Creative Writing Challenge -- 1.618...

if not the GR exactly, try Fibonacci

The Golden Ratio has fascinated me for quite some time (and though I'm not proud to admit it, I would be remiss if I did not:  It was Dan  Brown, via The Da Vinci Code, who introduced it me).  About the same time I read The DVC, I was learning about the Oulipo.  My thought then and still--simple enough in concept but in practice perhaps, at worst, impossible, and at best, monstrously impractical and inartistic--is to use this ratio as an Oulipian restriction for some type/piece of creative writing.  Maybe write a poem where each stanza increases its letter count by increments of the ratio and maybe that poem could be about a conch shell (okay, that's stupid) or the dimensions of someone's beautiful face (cheesy to the extreme of bad Shakespeare imitations) or the evidence of God in nature (or lack thereof, depending on how you see things--as potentially good as bad) by its exquisite design.  I don't know.  I've tried many times and failed, miserably, on each attempt.  Maybe I just need a good idea to build from.

What do you think?

Got an idea?

Can you do it?

Care to share?

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana XII -- chapter 11: PHILATELY

I'm tempted to call this chapter a little self-indulgent on the part of Eco, except that I enjoy this chapter.  It's quiet, pensive, and offers an effect of the Calm Before the Storm, and all the little pieces collected might be assembled, somehow, later to make some more complete picture.  Maybe.  Whatever.  As far as I'm concerned, there are only really three questions here:

1. What parallel can you draw between Yambo and the purportedly poorly-told tale of Queen Loana and her Mysterious Flame, despite Yambo's claim that he must have moved past the lamentable narrative in favor of the exotic and suggestive--mellifluous--names?
2. What connection is there (indeed identified, at least simply, if no more than skatingly, by Yambo) between philatery and all those comic books, another kind of philately in itself, though with a sort of (this is stretching, I know) tax exemption all its own?
3. Will the memory return if he jumps into the fog filling the gorge?

Wednesdays for Kids XVIII

East of Eden BONUS -- Mumford and Sons: "TIMSHEL"

I am new to Mumford and Sons.  I have an old friend to thank for posting this on FB.  I put it here for it's poignant pertinence to the book, East of Eden.  Thanks, Allen.

THE MACHINE STOPS, by E.M. Forster

E.M. Forster is another of the dozens of important authors whom I know very little about.  By recommendation of a Facebook "friend," I clicked a link to one of Forster's short stories, "The Machine Stops," and read it.  Perhaps dramatic irony, perhaps just fitting placement (by posting it on FB), the story is another science fiction allegory cautioning against mankind's growing dependence upon technology.

I don't think you can really call what I'm about to say a review, but here it goes:

The story is very well written, and possessed of some nice nuance and human insight, but I liked WALL-E better.

Through the Looking Glass IX -- chapter 7: THE ALICE MONSTER

1. 2 games: 1, the characters Nobody and Somebody; and 2, what's so clever about the Anglo-Saxon messengers' inclusion in Alice's impromptu "I Love My Love" beginning now with the typical A by an H?
2. We've seen before how Alice's words or wishes affect her surroundings.  Here the ham sandwich and hay; before the cakes and cordials.
3. The Lion and the Unicorn
4. The attitude of the Unicorn upon seeing and meeting the twice-as-natural-as-life Alice reminds me of a rather unfortunate trend I first noticed while living in Italy, but have since observed quite more than I'd like in the United States: that is parents having children (well, the impetus of the having is debatable, but the subsequent treating of them is not) not, in the Darwinian attitude, to carry on their line, but to flout as a fashion accessory, like taking a fancy dog for a walk, but only after tricking it out in fancy collar and gilt clothes.  The child becomes no more than a purse or a cell-phone, and is quite forgotten for being sentient and independently mobile.  Poor Alice!
5. The drums fail to drum out of town the two fighting monsters, but succeed in drumming out Alice.
6. (There is political repartee here in chapter 7, and you're welcome to bring it up if you like.)

Wednesday's for Kids XV -- SEUSSIAN CAPTCHA

Happy Birthday, Good Doctor!

The Fraters Welosi and the Azablu Foush'ni

by Mr. Center with Captcha by Google

Old Zorlag and Jubat funcied in Welosi

wipling aboge’ more zyzafil ungly.

“If only, if only, weren’t Pento so mograble,”

said they, “then the pyrris would steshu inectable!”

But terrible Firlect, a construct of Flaticut

depotied the fraters and mingoed their crion up

a great ougue, with Paccateu the ceileable Azablu,

vesesurping their loger by blisting a proscu!

But Zorlag and Jubat weren’t so easy to blist,

and “Untroff!” they called to more fraters in Brabst,

who came bibling on dancles to speaf all the skarrems

of Pento the Mograble, now depotied to Foushens!

“Shulashu!” pierped Zorlag, the old frater of Jubat.

“For Pento’s old pyrris is grint up in Flaticut!

“Our aboge’ is zyzafil,” said Jubat, “and ungly,

and we can all mingo in ragit, Welosi.”

*  I certainly don't intend to flatter myself or harbor dishonor, because this pathetically pales alongside both the great authors; but this terrible "poem" bears elements (though certainly weakly) both Seussian and Carrollian.  Of course, Carroll never wrote, that I'm aware, in anapests (and Seuss did them clearly much better), and Seuss's inventions, like Carroll's, make sense.  Besides, I had to meet my own challenge.  Regardless, I wish Dr. Seuss a good birthday, wherever he is; his stories have shaped my life!

Google CAPTCHA, List #2

WRITING EXERCISE:

EASY -- Use ten of these words in a short story, poem, or other comment.

HARD -- Use all of these words in a short story or essay.  

Though difficult, really, this list provides everything from character names, locations, vices, nouns, atmosphere, slang....  I am yet amazed at the variety and potential inherent meaning to so many of these "words."

admanica  |  alshedba  |  anded  |  azablu  |  beedr  |  bilingan  |  blytomet  |  boolino  |  brabsts  |  brons  |  canna  |  ceileable  |  coaketr  |  cochee  |  colem  |  comaspri  |  comba  |  conis  |  crion  |  dakeel  |  dancle  |  deteri  |  diaglyce  |  dited  |  ecooscer  |  elogie  |  enerow  |  ensfulas  |  entip  |  firlect  |  forree  |  fospenud  |  foushen  |  funci  |  galince  |  grabywo  |  gratinge  |  grint  |  haddism  |  heent  |  hinche  |  houroup  |  huyok  |  idofig  |  ilionglo  |  inalk  |  ionglym  |  iroitypt  |  irtsinio  |  isemceme  |  joliphea  |  jubat  |  kingly  |  kryisgra  |  lessess  |  logyr  |  machen  |  menring  |  mingo  |  misib  |  mistanes  |  modat  |  mograble  |  momete  |  mothrock  |  nicadmis  |  nisma  |  nubcati  |  pandes  |  patsi  |  patte  |  phout  |  prelvel  |  pyrris  |  quinat  |  ragit  |  rebrai  |  redia  |  reptor  |  resse  |  restrall  |  retse  |  ropsij  |  shulasho  |  soccesse  |  solloste  |  speaf  |  spepeket  |  sproppia  |  sudazpa  |  torli  |  unnisbeh  |  untroff  |  vesesurp  |  wasubbef  |  welosi  |  whiolv  |  wilunni  |  wipli  |  zormag

MORE ACCIDENTAL "POETRY"

I had an extra half-hour of prep-time available today, and so thought I'd try the random poetry thing again, only this time with just one book: my The Annotated Alice, the Definitive Edition.  Using only Carroll's words, and randomly generating page, line, and word numbers from which to start my word count for each "phrase."

Here are the parameters and their results, all randomly selected by the generator at random.org:

number of phrases (10-20):               12

words per phrase (3-5):                       5

Wonderland (1&3/5); page (7-127); line (1-38); word (1-10)

Looking-Glass (2&4/5); page (133-274); line (1-38); word (1-10)

"Wasp in a Wig" (5/5); page (293-298); line (1-38); word (1-10)

	book	page	line	word	phrase
1	4: LG	175	4	5	body is a crust, and
2	2: LG	229	33	6	a fabulous monster! the Unicorn
3	4: LG	158	14	3	you! cried the Tiger-lily, waving
4	5: WW	297	29	10	Wasp went on: but the
5	1: WL	62	5	8	be listening, so she went
6	5: WW	294	28	8	spread out the paper on
7	2: LG	198	10	1	What is the matter? she said
8	4: LG	188	8	2	he ate as many as
9	3: WL	9	24	1	rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket
10	1: WL	113	27	3	at the Hatter, who turned
11	3: WL	23	3	7	the great puzzle!  And she
12	5: WW	283	23	3	only shook his shoulders, and

What are you able to come up with if we allow that these phrases be organized in any order, so long as the 5 words for each remain contiguous?

"NOSTALGIA FOR THE NIGHT"

Go here and watch the trailer:

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/nostalgiaforthelight/

This is real.  Of it I'd love to learn more, and hope to see the movie; but this isn't the point:

O, how reality is so infinitely more 
creative than our imaginations!

The Atacama, by virtue of its simple geography, juxtaposes--generating a reciprocal, implicit allegory between them--the efforts of scientists gazing upward to space to find the origins of life to those searching the sand, digging downward toward their lost family, which task and object become their locus of self-identity.

I challenge you to find a fictional metaphor as poignant and original.

A PERFECT SIMILE

From The Riddle of the Traveling Skull (again -- I can't help myself -- Is there no end to Keeler's brilliance?):

Context:
A character, blackmailed for murder, seeks refuge without possibility of extradition in a fictional South American country by the name of San Do Mar, with possible plans to stop briefly in New Orleans along the way to await news from his friend.  He's worried about cold feet and comments that, "Yes, I--I am in a nervous state.  I know it.  And once I'm 900 miles or so from my home town, I'll--I'll be in a worse state than ever.  I'm even likely to head back to--to Canada--instead of giving the police a chance to pull me off of some United Fruit Company liner," to which the protagonist and the man's friend, not to mention employee, Clay Calthorpe brilliant remarks:

"No.  You're done for--if you do that.  

Canada is as much a refuge for you as--as a 

Wisconsin lumber camp is for a lost virgin."


*

Sunday Poetry XVI' -- THE EPIGRAM and an EPITAPH

Epitaph

Timothy Steele

Here lies Sir Tact, a diplomatic fellow

Whose silence was not golden, but just yellow.

Epigram Engraved on the Collar

of a Dog Which I Gave to His Royal

Highness

Alexander Pope

I am his Highness' dog at Kew;

Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?

Readers and Listeners Praise

My Books

Martial

Readers and listeners praise my books;

You swear they're worse than a beginners.

Who cares?  I always plan my dinners

To please the diners, not the cooks.

Of Treason

Sir John Harrington

Treason doth never prosper; what's the reason?

For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.

Moderation

Robert Herrick

In things a moderation keep,

Kings ought to shear, not skin their sheep.

Her Whole Life is an Epigram

William Blake

Her whole life is an epigram: smack smooth, and neatly penned,

Platted quite neat to catch applause, with a sliding noose at the end.

A Politician

E.E. Cummings

a politician is an arse upon

which everyone has sat except a man

Prayer

Langston Hughes

Oh, God of dust and rainbows, help us see

That without dust the rainbow would not be.

This Humanist Whom no Beliefs Constrained

J.V. Cunningham

This Humanist whom no beliefs constrained

Grew so broad-minded he was scatter-brained.

Jamesian

Thom Gunn

Their relationship consisted

In discussing if it existed.

A Venus Flytrap

Brad Leithauser

The humming fly is turned to carrion

This vegetable's no vegetarian.

Fatigue

Hilaire Beloc

I'm tired of Love: I'm still more tired of Rhyme.

But Money gives me pleasure all the time.

Variation of Belloc's "Fatigue"

Wendy Cope

I hardly ever tire of love or rhyme--

That's why I'm poor and have a rotten time.

Taken from Literature; An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama; Seventh Edition

SPARKS OF LIFE: HELP!

OPEN QUESTION:

What is the value of the "Spark of Life" in literature?  

This is weighing on me as I just finished my wholly-negative consideration of Joyce's flat "After the Race" from Dubliners, and amidst a casual reading the reputedly terrible The Riddle of the Traveling Skull (full review with photographs coming within a week or so) by the once-famous (quite some time ago and not for so very long) Harry Stephen Keeler.

I can only describe Keeler's book as ecstatically bad.  The writing and subject are ridiculous--ridiculous as in freaking absurd--so far over-the-top as to disappear into the stratospheric yellow glare of its own blinding, cloudless hyperbole.  Joyce, on the other hand--well, we all know about Joyce.

Keeler's book, as bad as it is, is impossible to put down and virtually trembling--crackling--with that spark of life.  I can hardly believe that I'm caring as I do about these absurd characters and their absurder plights.  Meanwhile--  Well, read my review of "After the Race."

My functioning definition of the "spark of life" comes from the preface of Yann Martel's Life of Pi.

Jane Eyre XXXVII -- chapter 36: BERTHA THE BANSHEE

1. "To prolong doubt was to prolong hope."
2. Jane leaves a place of peace and bright (relative both, and mostly physically) for this, which brings her such great hope and happiness: "At last the woods rose; the rookery clustered dark; a loud cawing broke the morning stillness. Strange delight inspired me; on I hastened" all of which hold fairly dark connotation.  Despite the destruction of the Hall, how is this imagery justly drawn for her history here?
3. Why is fire here so appropriate a means of destruction?
4. Appropriate, Jane's "illustration," where she describes the one approached as having a veil over her eyes.  I wonder why she switched the gender.

"Keening Banshee," by Robert Bliss