Open Thread Posted by christian h., 22 Jun 2007 10:33 am
Open Thread (#14)
The United States, and the individual states, have their poet laureates. The United Kingdom, however, also has Children’s Laureate. This year, it’s Michael Rosen, author of such immortal works as No breathing in class and Uncle Billy being silly. And lots and lots of poetry for children. Here’s the beginning of one poem, entitled The Balloon:
They’ve invented a balloon that stays on the ceiling.
They’ve invented a balloon that stays on the ceiling.Nevermore will I have that morning bring-down feeling:
waking up and seeing
balloons I bought the day before
lying on the floor.
No feeling bad.
No feeling sad.
Now it stays
for days and days
and nights and nights
hanging out by my bedroom light.
If you feel like it, share your favorite nonsense poems - or share your own! I’ll leave you with a gratuitous Family Guy excerpt:
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Responses to “Open Thread (#14)”
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on 22 Jun 2007 at 5:15 pm 1. Oaktown Girl said …
I remember enjoying this poem (below) very much as a kid. Thanks to Google, I was able to recover it even when I couldn’t remember the title for the life of me.
Interesting that it was one of my childhood favorites because it is by AA Milne, and neither me nor my brother were very big fans of the Pooh series. I think it was because it was just too White (Caucasian), and Christopher Robin was such a wimp to the extreme. Our first house out of the ghetto we had very Anglophile neighbors across the street who insisted my brother and I have the entire series. And so we did.
The King’s Breakfast
The King asked
The Queen, and
The Queen asked
The Dairymaid:
“Could we have some butter for
The Royal slice of bread?”
The Queen asked the Dairymaid,
The Dairymaid
Said, “Certainly,
I’ll go and tell the cow
Now
Before she goes to bed.”The Dairymaid
She curtsied,
And went and told the Alderney:
“Don’t forget the butter for
The Royal slice of bread.”The Alderney said sleepily:
“You’d better tell
His Majesty
That many people nowadays
Like marmalade
Instead.”The Dairymaid
Said “Fancy!”
And went to
Her Majesty.
She curtsied to the Queen, and
She turned a little red:
“Excuse me,
Your Majesty,
For taking of
The liberty,
But marmalade is tasty, if
It’s very
Thickly
Spread.”The Queen said
“Oh!”
And went to his Majesty:
“Talking of the butter for
The royal slice of bread,
Many people
Think that
Marmalade
Is nicer.
Would you like to try a little
Marmalade
Instead?”The King said,
“Bother!”
And then he said,
“Oh, deary me!”
The King sobbed, “Oh, deary me!”
And went back to bed.
“Nobody,”
He whimpered,
“Could call me
A fussy man;
I only want
A little bit
Of butter for
My bread!”The Queen said,
“There, there!”
And went to
The Dairymaid.
The Dairymaid
Said, “There, there!”
And went to the shed.
The cow said,
“There, there!
I didn’t really
Mean it;
Here’s milk for his porringer
And butter for his bread.”The queen took the butter
And brought it to
His Majesty.
The King said
“Butter, eh?”
And bounced out of bed.
“Nobody,” he said,
As he kissed her
Tenderly,
“Nobody,” he said,
As he slid down
The banisters,
“Nobody,
My darling,
Could call me
A fussy man -
BUT
I do like a little bit of butter to my bread!”– A. A. Milne
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on 22 Jun 2007 at 6:12 pm 2. JP Stormcrow said …
In our white bread house in our white bread neighborhood, Winnie the Pooh was huge…
And I think my favorite Milne was:
James James Morrison Morrison Weatherby George Dupree
took good care of his mother though he was only three…But my favorite book of nonsense poems was John Ciardi’s The Man Who Sang the Sillies. complete with wonderful Edward Gorey illustrations.
Do not have a copy but my fave started:
Evan Kirk is looking for work,
Work? What can he do?
For a dollar a day
He can hammer away
…
[litany of destructive carpentry described]
…
The little dear
Has been working here
For a year,
No, almost two.
And you couldn’t foresee
How glad we’d be
To send him to work on you. -
on 22 Jun 2007 at 11:39 pm 3. alphie said …
Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon,
The little dog laughed to see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon. -
on 23 Jun 2007 at 7:22 am 4. christian h. said …
Kings and Queens are usually getting it in those poems, aren’t they? I didn’t grow up with English language ones, of course; the first bunch I became acquainted with were from Alice in Wonderland and Through the looking glass.
Since this is an open thread, here’s something the MoJ might like
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on 23 Jun 2007 at 8:05 am 5. black dog barking said …
Of course nonsense means, in this sense, at least some sense, or, as in The Balloon at the top of the page, a whole lotta sense bound up and presented as maybe a little. Sense, that is.
I’ve got bits of anyones in pretty how towns, Mare-Z D’oats and little lambs masticating ivy, a young Bob Dylan standing in a Victorian alley with a deck of cue cards tossing off Chaucer’s spring as Maggie’s—
Face full of black soot
Talkin’ that the heat put
Plants in the bed but
The phone’s tapped anyway
Maggie says that many say
They must bust in early May
Orders from the D. A.But what makes less frontal lobe sense (more nonsense) than Baseball?
Costello: That’s what I want to find out.
or
Quench this!
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on 23 Jun 2007 at 8:35 am 6. JP Stormcrow said …
An outing tip for Bay Area WAAGNFNP’ers. Was reminded of it by MB’s Long Day’s Journey into Night title for his Soprano’s post (I still like my Journey Into the Black - ‘cuz there’s more to the picture than meets the eye …) and my recent sojourn to the Land O’ Quakes. One of the least known National “parks” is surely the Eugene O’Neill National Historic Site (just outside of Danville and adjoining Las Trampas Regional Wilderness Park). Worth a trip, nice place in a nice setting - though the hours are a bit restrictive, you have to park somewhere else and get shuttled up.
Public visitation by advance reservation, Wednesdays through Sundays, with guided tours at 10:00 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. (allow 2½ hours).
Tao House
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on 23 Jun 2007 at 9:48 am 7. Oaktown Girl said …
Thanks for the Du Pre clip, Christian, that was very thoughtful. I extra-appreciate “thoughtful” because I have to spend this beautiful day working at my second job thanks to the lovely living wage (not) at my full time job. The bosses took off early yesterday (Friday, surprise), and I mentioned to some of my coworkers that if wages had kept up with the cost of living, minimum wage would be over $17.00 hour. First, the mouths dropped to the floor, then the light bulbs went off over the heads and they all said, “Well, hell yeah, esp. here in the Bay Area”. Then the “casual” mentions of “union” started, and the immediate “we can’t because we’ll all get fired”. I didn’t have the opportunity to get into a long educational discussion about why it’s so easy to get fired for union organizing and the Employee Free Choice Act.
But back to that Du Pre clip…I sure wish Christopher Nupen would release the entire video of Du Pre’s Saint-Saens concerto performance - he teases us with short clips in several of his other films, but won’t give us the whole damn thing. I should write him a nice hate letter before the old man kicks it.
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on 23 Jun 2007 at 10:22 am 8. christian h. said …
Jacqueline du Pre was one of the great ones, wasn’t she? As a child, I just loved reading about the lives of great musical performers (and listening to them, which I still do) - mostly violinists, ’cause that’s what I learned to play, but others, too. I guess it’s actually very hard work to be a professional musician, and not quite as romantic as I imagined then. A friend’s aunt is a concert pianist (won the Tchaikovsky competition at some point), and my friend says she has basically no social life. 10 hours of practice a day, pretty much.
As for the living wage problem, that’s the kind of thing why I appreciated malcontent’s post. Economic hardship is the number one mechanism of control in our society, and it’s intimately connected with other issues. Take “freedom of speech” for example. Supposedly, it’s under attack. And I agree, it’s an important topic. Nevertheless, “freedom of speech” is a joke if so many people have to work numerous jobs just to stay afloat, and will never have the time it takes to actually have their speech heard. What it amounts to is that public speech has been delegated to an elite, and access to that elite is quite tightly controlled to ensure expression largely stays within accepted boundaries. In fact, the freedom of speech - absolutism is now used as cudgel against those who want to give the majority their say (see the attacks on Hugo Chavez over non-renewal of a TV license, for example).
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on 23 Jun 2007 at 10:31 am 9. black dog barking said …
Okay, all nonsense is not poetry etc, but there are vectors of nonsense that resolve to regions like-Poetry. This email somehow got past my Postini $1-a-month spam blocker—
Too lazy to do the penis enlargement exercises. Try Penis Enlarge Patch.
[link redacted]
Some things are famous today and forgotten tomorrow. But big dicks will be always in. Be fashionable with Penis Enlarge Patch.
How does Postini know I’m too lazy to do the penis enlargement exercises?
(Will James’ Spam Filter trap this message? Should it?)
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on 23 Jun 2007 at 10:43 am 10. black dog barking said …
FYI, James’ Spam Filter is okay with penis enlargement. It’s a free speech issue. Or maybe he’s sitting outside a motel by the airport, waiting for his wife to finish up her second job. The day is young.
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on 23 Jun 2007 at 3:49 pm 11. JP Stormcrow said …
This site consists of “Spam poems” which are composed from the subject lines of spam. An example that I like:
Canadian Pharmacies are standing by for you
I am so glad I discover
I am
Unhappy with the ratrace
before it is too late.
for happiness click here
for love, click here
for sex, click herenot going to work tomorrow?
me either;
i found the secret to happinessa pill
a pill
another pill
thank god, thank god, thank god
i am truly grateful for this knowledge. -
on 23 Jun 2007 at 7:38 pm 12. Oaktown Girl said …
Black Dog - your post got through because you temporarily disabled Spam Filter with this:
How does Postini know I’m too lazy to do the penis enlargement exercises?
Lesson: Spam Filter is quite ineffective when rolling on the floor laughing and gasping for air.
Christian - as I indicated in your Reader’s Anonymous post (too lazy to link after a hard day), most of my reading passion is non-fiction, and the little bit of that that’s not political, social or media analysis-related is about music - and mostly strings. Being a top level concert artist is certainly no walk in the park, but many professional musicians make a very nice living and have a very nice life to boot. They work on their own terms as private instructors. They set their own schedules, and then get paid to travel around the country doing various performances. And I know several of them personally who’ve never worked a “real” job in their lives (their word, not mine). I’m not resentful, I’m jealous.
And I am so down with your breakdown about keeping the masses so economically strapped they can’t be engaged in anything other than survival. I haven’t read it yet, but I understand that’s exactly what Thom Hartman’s book is all about.
OK, this comment is long enough, so in keeping with the Post topic, I’ll come back later my bit about “Fractured Fairy Tales” (someone else feel free to start that one first).
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on 24 Jun 2007 at 10:30 am 13. black dog barking said …
If I were a complete psychopath I’d go Tommy DeVito on Spam Filter’s ass. (YouTube, 4:05) But, easily distracted, I notice YouTube shows a big Sam Brownback banner ad over the GoodFellas selection. Are they implying a connection between aspiring mobsters and Kansas Creationists? Do they think I’m funny? Am I here to fuckin’ amuse them?
Under the doctrine of Thread Openness, I saw A Mighty Heart last night. Reminded me of last year’s United 93, another story documenting the steady steps toward a known bad end. Mighty Heart is more Hollywood Big Movie with the long lenses and charismatic actors doing meaningful things in a time-compressed always-on-point directness. Which makes it a bit easier to watch (and a bit less honest).
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on 24 Jun 2007 at 11:12 am 14. Oaktown Girl said …
Black Dog - very funny, once again. Please don’t go Tommy DeVito on my ass.
Either I never noticed or never gave much thought to advertising being linked up with specific videos on YouTube. But I guess that’s how they make all that money.
I had no interest, nor could I bring myself to go see United 93. I have not seen A Mighty Heart either, so I can’t comment on which movie is more “honest”. But I see Ebert gave A Mighty Heart a fairly positive review.(The link works, may take a while to load).
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on 24 Jun 2007 at 9:34 pm 15. James Killus said …
I can’t think of any children’s poetry at the moment, but I’ll offer this found free verse obtained by my wife from a subway rider (perhaps dweller) from the days when she lived in New York. I have given it a title found in another mass transit system at the other end of the continent:
Emergency Third Rail Power Trip
All you illiterate bums,
All you illiterate bums,
I killed Kennedy.
I shot the Pope.
All you illiterate bums… -
on 24 Jun 2007 at 9:35 pm 16. Oaktown Girl said …
Just to clarify from my comment up in #1, my brother and I were OK with Pooh and Company (Piglet was the clear favorite since he seemed to have the most spunk), it just wasn’t in the top tier.
For truly strong dislike bordering on hate, well that was reserved for Mickey Mouse. Did he even have a personality? Not that we could detect. But that didn’t mean we didn’t want to go to Disneyland. Hell, we’d stomach Mickey Mouse for days for a chance on those amusement park rides. Finally got to go in 1974 when the single-income working class dollar could still buy you a modest family vacation. (How long before references to “E-Ticket” rides disappear altogether?)
Dr. Seuss may not be recognized as a poet (or maybe he is, I don’t know), but that was my favorite “poetry” as a kid for sure. If I Ran the Circus was one of my dad’s favorite things to read out loud to us.
And I mentioned Fractured Fairy Tales before, since fairy tales seem to kind of go with the topic (lots of Royalty in kid’s poetry as christian has mentioned).
Superb. -
on 24 Jun 2007 at 10:14 pm 17. JP Stormcrow said …
OK, If we are going to go Dr. Seuss, I am going to go way back to his very first kid’s book And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street from 1937. My grandparents had it and I think it took me awhile to associate it with the later Dr, Seuss of Cat in the Hat et al. Drawings were a bit different.
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on 24 Jun 2007 at 10:50 pm 18. The Constructivist said …
Some Stanislaw Lem poetry for math prodigies, a Vogon poetry generator for Adams’s many kid fans, and of course some just translated and released by U.S. military censors Guantanamo Bay poetry. Oh wait, one of those doesn’t match the others….
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on 27 Jun 2007 at 11:37 am 19. Bill Benzon said …
The GNF is spreading. Here’s an interview at Scientific American about what the earth would be if all humans just disappeared.
Chris Kelty over at Savage Minds has just reviewed Joseph Masco’s Nuclear Borderlands: The Manhattan Project in Post-Cold War New Mexico. The book is an ethnographic study centered on Los Alamos National Labs, but it’s more than that:
But Masco’s book is not really about the nuclear weapons industry, nor about LANL per se, nor is it only about the impact of the lab on the people who live around it. Nuclear Borderlands is a frankly cosmological book; it is about how the bomb makes us who we are today. The naive anthropology student might approach New Mexico as a place with many different populations: anglo scientists, pueblo indians, neuvomexicanos, hippie anti-nuke activists—each with their own distinctive lifeworld and worldview. But Masco is having none of that: for him, the bomb is the bomb. It has determined nearly every aspect of our lives (and “our” means basically everyone on the planet) for 50 years… to say nothing of our futures. Thus, in the chapters that explore the lives and thoughts of these different groups, the same cosmological questions about the impact of Nuclear Weapons and the Cold War keep coming up—and keep providing ways to connect these seemingly diverse groups to each other: through the lab, through secrecy and hypersecurity measures, and through politics of race and sovereignty.
All fireball, all the time, that’s the WAAGNFNP!
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on 27 Jun 2007 at 12:10 pm 20. Oaktown Girl said …
Bill, thanks for the Scientific American link. Looking forward to reading it at lunch, even though in this particular article, sadly, it appears the reason for no more humans on Earth is not that we all went on to our Glorious Union with Gojira after the GNF.
Pity, that.
But sometimes I do think about what would happen if all humans were suddenly gone. One of the first things that springs to mind is all the animals we have in captivity (pets in houses, zoos, shelters, marine exhibits, etc.), dying of thirst and starvation. And then I wonder how much toxic and nuclear stuff would still be pumped out by the suddenly unmanned facilities and the continuing damage that would cause. See, this is why we need the GNF to come and take care of EVERYTHING all at once.
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on 28 Jun 2007 at 1:08 am 21. Porlock Junior said …
Guess I really must be one of those sanguine Aquarius types. (Yes, the melancholy sorts may read that as sanguinary, as in bloody.) The sudden disappearance of humanity has always suggested to me the reoccupation of the Plains by bison. Things like that.
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on 28 Jun 2007 at 1:14 am 22. Porlock Junior said …
BTW Milne followed up with an essay on certain anomalies in the poem, such as the cow being about to go to bed at breakfast time. Also, he gave instructions for reading the poem, recommending against high dramatic expression. It should be read, in effect, on tiptoe, with every syllable distinct, the lines clearly separated, and no special emphasis given to anything: “he kissed her tenderly” and “he slid down the banister” are treated identically.
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on 28 Jun 2007 at 1:28 am 23. Porlock Junior said …
@ #19, Bill Benzon:
Nice interview. And speaking of what effects one’s settlements will have 1500 years later:
http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2007/06/archeology-infl.html
I see that Martin noted the possible effects of limestone leaching into the soil; sure enough, the long-term effects have been observed. -
on 28 Jun 2007 at 10:04 am 24. JP Stormcrow said …
[what if humans all just went away]
For a great fictional treatment of this scenario I really do recommend George Stewart’s Earth Abides. It is a kinder, gentler apocalypse novel (well if you ignore the offstage deaths of 99.9999% of humanity from disease in the chaotic, savage anarchy of a dying civilization while the protagonist is holed up in a cabin in the Sierra Nevada recovering from a snakebite.) Told from an ecologist’s point of view, it gives Stewart’s take on much of what is covered in the interview Bill linked to. (especially recommended for East Bay GNFers, as much of the action takes place in the hills above Berkeley.)
The Nuclear Borderlands book sounds quite interesting. To me northern New mexico, really is WAAGNFNP central, with Los Alamos and Sandia, the high desert in general, the ancient claderas and lava flows, the wildfires, the ruins of prior civilizations and the quesadillas at The Shed in Santa Fe.
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on 28 Jun 2007 at 10:08 am 25. Oaktown Girl said …
Porlock (#22) - Thanks, that’s interesting info on Milne.
As for the reading instructions on the “Breakfast” poem, I guess I was just naturally in tune with his thinking there. As a kid what I liked best about the poem was its cadence and rhythm, and that’s where my focus was when reciting it.
Of course now when reciting it, I focus on the tyranny of the monarchy and patriarchy.
