Tu BShevat and Sonnets

My daughter asked me if I knew any words that rhymed with "lost." Other than using a rhyming dictionary, the most obvious method is to go through the alphabet: bossed, cost, dossed. Is dossed a word? I think it is, and an online dictionary says that it means going to bed. Which is perfect for poetry where the subject might want to bunk down, perchance to dream. And what about "dost?" The Internet says it is an archaic form of "does," I do, he dost. OK, yes, that sounds familiar, very "Prince and the Pauper." It turns out that she was writing a sonnet.

The main thing that I remembered about sonnets was that Sylvia Plath had science class anxiety, and she got her counselor to excuse her from having to enroll. But she found the atmosphere in study hall to be something like Mark Twain`s description of a Lacrosse game: two armies beating each other with sticks, with a hard missile occasionally denting someone`s head. So she asked the chemistry teacher if she could audit his class, and spent the sessions looking up to smile sweetly at him while writing sonnets and villanelles.

There are roughly three styles of sonnet, with the Shakespearean form being the favorite of ninth-graders. Maddy showed me a few well-known examples, all of which I recognized. I tried reading one out loud, and she said that I was not following the soft/hard pattern of iambic pentameter. Her English teacher recommends "head banging" to get the rhythm right. This rhythm can also be achieved by channeling Bela Lugosi, or the Sesame Street Count, or any Italian speaker. Also, each line must have ten syllables.

Your teacher said that you should bang your head
But I prefer to wave my arm instead

Yes, incorporating movement really did allow me to get into the sonnet groove. And as I shall be going to a service tomorrow where everyone has been asked to bring a rock or a feather or a quotation
OR A POEM
It seems only fitting to appear with my first ever Sonnetic effort.


today we mark the new year of the trees
wet sap awakens, hidden within bark
in two months the stubborn leaf buds it frees
shall burst knifelike and pallid in the park

soon greenish fronds seek sun to synthesize
added mass of stems, that bloom and set seed
winter shards cover up in springtime guise
avian creatures weave a house of reed

plantlike, sometimes emotion hibernates
when weather harsh restricts love`s easy flow
until hormonal heat initiates
capillary action`s flowery show

red rose hips in a scape barren of sprigs
a lone preserve: fall`s fruit upon stark twigs

THE LOLCAT CONVENTION

(Sing this to the tune of Rainbow Connection by Paul Williams)

Why would I write a second
Song about LOLCATS
And places that they like to hide?
LOLCATS are characters
That live on the Internet
We try to take them in stride
Sneaky and saccharine
yet somehow alluring
With them we identify

Soon they will mass for
A LOLCAT convention
In a hotel of one mile high

LOLCATS are on your couch
Shedding on your cushions
They say it enhances decor
Now at your computer desk
One opens your browser
www.worldorfur
Soon they have altered your
Co-op shopping list
Pasting in cream over soy

LOLCATS just may achieve
Concatenation
Perhaps I should send an envoy

It`s easy to see that they
Are primal and clever
Feral, ferocious and sweet
LOLCATS are not afraid
To face adversaries
LOLCATS don`t shirk to compete
Daily I tune into news of disaster
Will major countries collide?

Somewhere the LOLCATs plot world domination
Let`s go along for the ride!

Oz Eggmore? I know Ozymandius! He's Lady Eggmore's grandson.

So there was no interpretive dancing.

There wasn't even any circle dancing.

But there were cookies and latkes and stories and songs

Including one surprising new song. The lyrics were about flickering candles.

Our song leader played a few bars on the electric keyboard. The tune was strangely familiar. It had a shrill syncopated honky-tonk feel to it. I started to laugh. A few people looked at me oddly. How could notes without words be funny? I looked over at my daughter. She was laughing too.

Maddy said: do you know what this is?

 I replied: Peter Cottontail!

She said: I know!

The vamp bars concluded. As we launched into the words, we both applied that slight southwestern rasp to our vowel sounds best befitting the style of the music.

Happy Holidays from Priss Prisstofferson 21314 to Blogshares and to all of my readers near and far!




 

Another Day, another candidate

Fred Thompson seems to be slightly brain-damaged. Not to a degree of vegetable-itude, but there are clues in his speaking style that suggest permanent effects of a few solid knocks to the head. Oh look, the Google tells me that his spin organizations are bragging about his High
School football experience, and specifically that he wasn’t concerned when he got knocked down. Well, commendations on a non-whiny demeanor, but consolations on the attendant loss of emotional expression and the reduction in sharpness of enunciation. Has any capacity for compassion, conservative or otherwise, been retained? This year many of the Republican hopefuls exude an air of physical frailty. The one exception is Giuliani, with his cardio-fitness and irritating perkiness. Last week I saw several magazine covers with illustrations of Giuliani along with Clinton and Obama. It was interesting that they didn't include Romney. Was Romney omitted from the spotlight out of predjudice, or are publishers trying to sell Giuliani as a psuedo-Democrat, as the perfect middle of the road-er, simply because he is from the east coast? If he were elected, he would support whatever the republicans in Congress asked him to. The press may try to assign him the perception of having good intentions, but he would sign the same bills that any other Republican would.

But I've ventured into policy and I wanted to talk about style. Thompson is seen as the one hope to draw in those non-denominational fundamentalist family values voters who the regressive tax policy, anti-health care, anti-school proponents can't win without. His religious affiliation is one they share, and the halting speech adds folksiness to his image. Primary voters don't make their choices based on who they think will do well across the country, they look at the issues and at how candidates talk about them. If Romney should become the nominee, it is going to be fun to watch the right regroup to embrace him, and float third-party candidates, and even vote for church-going Democrats who value their families.

Total Eclipse

Climactic vagaries and inattention have generally combined to hide the Lunar Eclipses from me. This time they failed to hand off duties in any theoretical or coincidental alliance. I pitched the viewing idea to the PrissKids; our own driveway, or perhaps a park? Staying up all night appealed, but the celestial event garnered no underage excitement. What about if I brought coffee? No. Snacks? Maybe. My daughter asked if she could invite a friend or two. I said OK, and decided to try the Junior High football field. While surrounded by trees, it is large enough that we might be able to find a spot central enough to see well. One of its parking lots is un-gated.

Inviting others threatened to get out of hand when friend number two said she would be asking a bunch of people to join us. I told my daughter that if more than a few kids were coming I wasn't comfortable being the only parent present. We packed blankets and pillows, and tucked a box of pretzels into the backpack. One of her pals showed up, and the girls baked lemon cupcakes to take along.

We set out just before just 1:00 AM, to pick up the other bud on our way. But there are always complications. Zbig weaseled out of coming with us, because the Maddy posse is too hyper for him. And as we rounded the first corner, my daughter casually mentioned that we were also picking up the friend`s twin brother.

Harrumph. If her scheme had not been concealed, I could have leveraged the the presence of an awkward non-blabby guy to get Zbig to accompany us. Or barring that, have have made it into a girls-only evening. So there I was with my kid and her emo-Goth-Wiccan-Protestant pals, one of whom disappeared with the Y-Chromosome twin for more than two hours. (Both sets of parents have been appraised of this potential unseemliness.)

The moon show was profound. It didn't need the embellishment of those auto-hypnotic rituals used to impart intensity into programmed celebrations. The full disk of the moon was painfully bright to look at. Unfiltered binoculars were overkill. The first twenty minutes were: Is anything happening? Which side? Yes, they are dancing in the moonlight. That is what girls do. A constellation that may have been Cetus was brilliant overhead.

A shadow arrived, beginning in the upper left quadrant. Time for pretzels and mooncake! We had the field completely to ourselves, and the kidlets launched into a series of Eagles and Beatles vocalizations. Were these people 14, or 54? That was when one of them, feeling ignored, sulked away to write in her diary by flashlight. She gradually increased her distance from us. Our non-female moon-viewer vanished as well.

The moon`s disk went through half, and was down to crescent when the dark area became visible in gray, turning toward lavender. As the shadow approached full coverage, swirls of orange showed, and then it darkened to a mottled reddish brown. More stars could be seen now. The familiar Dippers popped out overhead and Orion had risen.

Air temperature had dropped. I poured coffee into my 1950s turquoise plastic cups. The remaining occupants on my blanket demonstrated that they were not of the Javanese faith: Mmm, smells good. It`s so warm! This needs sugar, way more sugar! I cant drink this. The child conversation morphed into a discussion of llamas, Eventually substituting the cameloid term for most nouns and many verbs.

The full Eclipse phase seemed to last forever, the brown going back to purplish and remaining that way for nearly an hour. The moon arced across the sky and dipped into tree territory. I walked to the track and climbed into the 30-seat mini-bleachers. Then, as the shadow lessened, the moon took on a three-dimensional quality. The gradation between shadowed edges and glowing center made it feel like the true globe that it is. Our wandering couple reappeared and I asked them not to leave again.

A stark white patch showed before 5:00 AM, and grew quickly. My eyes had adjusted to darkness, so at first it seemed brighter than it had earlier. At 5:22 I was was ready to leave. (The official beginning and ending times were from 00:52 to 06:22 August 28, 2007.)

Blankets and pillows were repacked and we pulled out of the concealed parking lot.
I parked the Geminis with their parents and headed home. Looking west as we drove, the full moon was still high. It was bright enough to compete with traffic lights and shop windows.

Explain symbols in the map.

LOLCATS ARE EVERYWHERE

(Sing this to the tune of Love is In The Air. The unitalicized parts are spoken.)

IM ON UR BALCONY
PEEKIN' THROUGH UR WINDOWPANE

UNDERNEATH UR LINDEN TREE
WITH A SONGBIRD I HAVE SLAIN

and if you think that something is hidden
that you've got it safely tucked away
i assure you it won't stay forbidden
because seek and destroy's how we play!

IM CRUISIN' UR PANTRY
LOOKIN' FOR MY FAVORITE SNACKS

I TAKE DOWN NOTES FROM UR CORK BOARD
LINE UR COMPUTER CHAIR WITH TACKS

lolcats are always on missions
on a stealth undercover foray
we dont lolly-gag making decisions
we're the cats that have something to say

lolcats are everywhere oo--oo-oo woo--oo-oo
lolcats are everywhere oo--oo-oo woo--oo-oo

Waiter, there's LOLCAT in my soup!
It`s catching Albondigas!

Waiter, now the cat is in my salad, what's it doing there?
Stalking animal cracker croutons!

IM IN UR DRESSER DRAWER
TRYIN' ON UR UNDERWEAR

I BRING FIELD MICE TO UR DOOR
'CAUSE I ALWAYS LIKE TO SHARE

the pond in ur yard is inviting
it's more fun than a big ball of twine
got my eyes peeled for the next frog sighting
all ur base koi are gonna be mine

lolcats are everywhere oo--oo-oo woo--oo-oo
lolcats are everywhere oo--oo-oo woo--oo-oo

Why did the lolcat cross the road?
To look for a cheeseburger!

Give em Hell Helen

My local PBS (Channel 9) shows a BBC news report late at night. It generally takes a more critical look at US government policy than our namby pamby networks do. Last night they showed a clip from a presidential news conference where Helen Thomas, not decked out in her Reagan era shocking red dress, but clad modestly in a pale blue skirt and cardigan WAS LECTURING President Bush to the effect of:

You caused this war, and you could stop it!

Thomas is stooped over with age at nearly 87, but is still vigorous, loud, and dramatic. It was great to see.

I'd like to add link to a transcript of the news conference if it is online, and to get the exact quote. The references to it I've found so far don't seem to be accurate.

Bird Rescue

A starling fell down my chimney today. I was watching the ladies of the view when I heard a scuffling that was louder than the usual squirrel on the roof or woodpeckers trying a taste of the siding. I followed the noise to the living room fireplace where a small bird was trapped behind the steel mesh curtain. I wondered if it could fly out again, but after watching it try a few times and go crashing down, it was apparent that it couldn't do this on its own. With each attempt, more soot was stirred up into the air and cast out onto the hearth. The bird's lungs must have been taking in a heavy dose of ash particles. I didn't want to let it fly around indoors, and I didn't want to get pecked, but leaving it in place to die slowly of dehydration and black lung disease would be too cruel. In the garage, I found a huge plastic tote that was somewhat transparent and a board to cover it with. I parted the screen to the width of the plastic box, and used the board to cover the remaining gap at the top. Amazingly, after only a few minutes, the bird hopped right in. I lowered the board, mousetrap-style, and then was able to move it and close the lid of the tote. Out on the deck when I opened the tote, the bird wasn't able to get enough loft to escape. But as soon as I turned the container on its side, the bird flew away, lighting in the branches of a tall pine.