Earworm of the Day: Wynken, Blynken and Nod

Jeopardy! had a clue, recently, whose question was "who are…" the Eugene Field creations turned into  a  memorable song or two or three. Naturally, this started a song in my head, which started the whole world – wait a minute. Let's not go down the Bee Gees highway, today.

Anyway, Field had ties to my home region (he attended my alma mater's rival college for a year), so it pleases me when local-boy-does-good gets a mention in international entertainment media. It also means earworms normal people generally don't have to suffer.

But if you grew up hearing any one of the many versions of the Dutch Lullaby in song, maybe it'll put you to sleep tonight.

Are you sure you want that system?

Your -ism or -archy may seem very nice

If you think you'll sit at the top of the -arch.

Will you be so pleased with your new world order

When some total stranger tells you how to march?

-rk

Plus ça change

Yesterday, auction day, I brought home a handful of old paperback cookbooks to add to Mom's collection. Tucked inside the front cover of one of these booklets was a newspaper clipping, dated "...ER 1908", from the Peoria Herald-[cut away, don't know what the rest of the paper was called]. The little yellowed rectangle speaks across a century rather pointedly, I think.

From the section of the paper titled "Transcripts"

MESSAGE TO CONGRESS
By the People
Once more you're all at Washington
at work with might and main ;
It's cost this land a pretty sum to
send you there again.
Your salaries are counting up you're
quite a luxury ;
We hope that you'll be worth it,
though on this we don't agree.

You're there, of course, to do some
work ; we've outlined it to you ;
Some delicate repairing on the tariff
you must do.
It's a tremendous ticklish task – it
must be done just so ;
Just put your mind upon it and let
all the small jobs go.

We want this done and done just
right ; we choose you for the work
Don't sit around and let it slip ; don't
dally and don't shirk.
For if you let the year go by and
don't get through this chore,
You know just what we'll do to you
when you come home once more.

A "poet" and his influence

When I was small (it so happens that I was, once), my parents would read to me from a number of different sources, from the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to Moby-Dick to the Old Testament. I confess, though, to a weakness for doggerel, especially the less-than-syrupy sort. My passion came early, before I was able to understand Robert Service or Edgar Guest or James Whitcombe Riley.

It so happens that my favorite book was The Barnes Book of Nursery Verse, largely due to one particular poem. Those who know me, know already that I have been able to recite this particular poet and his one particular bit of verse. Those who don't know me so well will, I suspect, be able to figure out why...

Rebecca, Who slammed Doors for Fun and Perished Miserably

A Trick that everyone abhors
In Little Girls is slamming Doors
A Wealthy Banker’s
Little Daughter
Who lived in Palace Green, Bayswater
(By name Rebecca Offendort),
Was given to the Furious Sport.

She would deliberately go
And Slam the door like Billy-Ho!
To make her Uncle Jacob start.
She was not really bad at heart,
But only rather rude and wild:
She was an aggravating child. . . .

It happened that a Marble Bust
Of Abraham was standing just
Above the Door the little Lamb
Had carefully prepared to Slam,
And Down it came! It knocked her flat!

It laid her out! She looked
like that.
* * * *
Her funeral Sermon (which was long
And followed by a Sacred Song)
Mentioned her Virtues, it is true,
But dwelt upon her Vices too,
And showed the Dreadful End of One
Who goes and slams the door for Fun.

The verse was written by Hilaire Belloc. Today is the 138th anniversary of his birth. I slam the door once more, in honor of the occasion (having first confirmed that there is no statue standing just above).

Remind you of anyone?

Atticus, you speak charmingly,
plead cases charmingly,
write charming stories and verses.
You're a charming grammarian
and astrologer, and you sing
and dance charmingly, Atticus, charmingly.
You play the harp charmingly
and charmingly toss the ball.
Since you do nothing really well,
but everything charmingly,
what shall I call you, Atticus?
A magnificent busybody.

-Martial


from Barriss Mills' Epigrams from Martial ; A Verse Translation, copyright 1969 Purdue Research Foundation.

Kipling answers modern pacifists, too

With all the "get out now" folks -- like Keith Olbermann, in particular -- ranting and raving for peace, I thought it might be time to bring out something from 89 years ago, by one of my favorite doggerel authors, Rudyard Kipling*, from Russia to the Pacifists:

God rest you, thoughtful gentlemen, and send your sleep is light!
Remains of this dominion no shadow, sound, or sight,
Except the sound of weeping and the sight of burning fire,
And the shadow of a people that is trampled into mire.
Singing:--Break bread for a starving folk
That perish in the field.
Give them their food as they take the yoke . . .
And who shall be next to yield, good sirs,
For such a bribe to yield?


Don't just stop at this, though. The whole poem is worth reading.



*which brings to mind one of my favorite old cartoons, which was featured in a collection my folks have owned, where a man asks a woman "Miss, do you like Kipling?" She responds, "I don't know, you naughty boy, I've never kippled!"

Weekend fun with Mullah Goose

Along with is very nice follow-up to Joe Lieberman's WSJ piece on Iraq, Jules Crittenden has forwarded the torch to his readers on another, related issue: children's verse with a jihadi twist. He's asking for contributions to the list of Mullah Goose rhymes, as initiated by Theo Spark.

Here is my first stab at the genre:

I will explode thee, infidel
The reason why I cannot tell
But the Quran we know full well
Will grant me passage straight to hell.

I hope to add more, later.

Gratuitous postcard: isn't this a week or so late?

Postkarte "Flüewasserfall Davos." ca 1910 Switzerland

I mentioned in my pre-Thanksgiving column that, when I was growing up, we used to drive to Grandma's house every year in time for the holiday, singing "Over the River and Through the Woods" most of the journey. Usually, about the time we got onto the main highway, it was already beginning to sleet and snow. This year, Thanksgiving Day brought us sunshine and 65º F.

Winter weather was not on the agenda for my holiday, it seemed.

In fact, on Monday and Tuesday of this week, we hit record high temps for the dates (Monday, we matched the old record, Tuesday, we topped it by a couple of degrees). This is not supposed to happen in the last week of November -- or so I'm told.

Yesterday we were hit with pretty heavy rains around here... one estimate is, we got a little over 2.5 inches between noon and nine p.m. I don't know how accurate that was, but I'd say it couldn't be too far off. Unfortunately, following the rains, the temperature dropped, and I had to close the last of the open windows in my house. The forecast is for snows in our region -- as little as an inch, as much as ten inches between lunch and tomorrow's sunrise are anticipated for a little finger of real estate in which my house is situated.

To quote Ezra Pound (as I have already done to a few of my friends via e-mail):

Winter is icumen in,

Lhude sing Goddamm,

Raineth drop and staineth slop,

And how the wind doth ramm!

Sing: Goddamm.

Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,

An ague hath my ham.

Freezeth river, turneth liver,

Damm you; Sing: Goddamm.

Goddamm, Goddamm, 'tis why I am, Goddamm,

So 'gainst the winter's balm.

Sing goddamm, damm, sing goddamm,

Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM.

Ancient Music, 1913-1915

Sigh.

More fun, though, than the thought of snow, is getting into and then safely driving my car. After the rains, there was insufficient time for evaporation before the freeze. It took me five minutes to open my car doors, and then the better part of a half hour to warm the doors up enough to get them to latch shut again, what with all the ice in the cracks and crevices. I suppose I should have done the hot water or ethyl alcohol trick my friends kept telling me about, but hot water requires carrying, and alcohol requires cash... of which I have scarce supply. (Mom buys the gas for the car I drive.) I ran the engine until the vents blew warm air instead of chilling my ankles, then I drove out to my favorite boutique, to fantasize over their holiday sales and, more, to run my engine until the doors thawed enough to operate correctly. The darned things shut, but only partly (left a gap) and only held partly shut when I locked them -- otherwise, they flapped open like my jaw does when I find actual news in the local paper.

There's nothing like driving a car five miles with the driver's side door flapping slightly in the breeze. My left nether cheek is still numb.

Ah, the joys of the rising chill!

More Don Marquis poetry -- for the OCC student

In honor of the charming and delightful young geeeeeniuses at Orange Coast College who boldly spoke out against American oppression, I have found another Don Marquis poem (not from archy and mehitabel, but nonetheless worthy of posting) for the day. I hope he accepts it in the spirit intended.


FOTHERGIL FINCH, THE POET OF REVOLT

Isn't it odd how some of the most radical and
advanced and virile of the leaders in the New
Art and the New Thought don't look it at all?

There's Fothergil Finch, for instance. Nobody
could be more virile than Fothy is in his Soul.
Fothy's Inner Ego, if you get what I mean, is a
Giant in Revolt all the time.

And yet to look at Fothy you wouldn't think he
was a Modern Cave Man. Not that he looks like
a weakling, you know. Butwell, if you get what
I mean -- you'd think Fothy might write about
violets instead of thunderbolts.

Dear Papa is ENTIRELY mistaken about him.

Only yesterday dear papa said to me, "Hermione,
if you don't keep that damned little vers libre run
away from here I'll put him to work, and he'll die
of it."

But you couldn't expect Papa to appreciate Fothy.
Papa is SO reactionary and conservative.

And Fothy's life is one long, grim, desperate
struggle against Conventionality, and Social
Injustice, and Smugness, and the Established Order, and
Complacence. He is forever being a martyr to the
New and True in Art and Life.

Last night he read me his latest poem -- one of his
greatest, he says -- in which he tries to tell just what
his Real Self is. It goes:

Look at me!
Behold, I am founding a New Movement!
Observe me. . . . I am in Revolt!
I revolt!
Now persecute me, persecute me, damn you,
persecute me, curse you, persecute me!
Philistine,
Bourgeois,
Slave,
Serf,
Capitalist,
Respectabilities that you are,
Persecute me!
Bah!
You ask me, do you, what am I in revolt against?
Against you, fool, dolt, idiot, against you, against
everything!
Against Heavy, Hell and punctuation . . . against
Life, Death, rhyme and rhythm . . .
Persecute me, now, persecute me, curse you,
persecute me!
Slave that you are . . . what do Marriage,
Tooth-brushes, Nail-files, the Decalogue,
Handkerchiefs, Newton's Law of Gravity, Capital,
Barbers, Property, Publishers, Courts, Rhyming
Dictionaries, Clothes, Dollars, mean to Me?

I am a Giant, I am a Titan, I am a Hercules of
Liberty, I am Prometheus, I am the Jess Willard
of the New Cerebral Pugilism, I am the Mod-
ern Cave Man, I am the Comrade of the Cosmic
Urge, I have kicked off the Boots of Superstition,
and I run wild along the Milky Way
without ingrowing toenails,
I am I!
Curse you, what are You?
You are only You!
Nothing more!
Ha!
Bah! . . . persecute me, now persecute me!

Fothy always gets excited and trembles and
chokes when he reads his own poetry, and while
he was reading it Papa came into the room and
disgraced himself by asking if there was
any MONEY in that kind of poetry, and Fothy
was so agitated that he fairly screamed when he
said:

"Money . . . money . . . curse money! Money
is one of the things I am in revolt against. . . .

Money is death and damnation to the free spirit!"

Papa said he was sorry to hear that; he said one
of his companies needed an ad writer, and he didn't
have any objection to hiring a free spirit with a
punch, but he couldn't consider getting anyone to
write ads that hated money, for there was a salary
attached to the job.

And Fothy said: "You are trying to bribe me!
Capitalism is casting its net over me! You are trying
to make me a serf: trying to silence a Free
Voice! But I will resist! I will not be enslaved!
I will not write ads. I will not have a job.

And then Papa said he was glad to hear Fothy's
sentiments. He had been afraid, he said, that Fothy
had matrimonial designs about me. And the
man who married HIS daughter would probably have
to stand for possessing a good deal of wealth, too,
for he had always intended doing something very
handsome for his son-in-law. So if Fothy didn't
want money, he wouldn't want me, for an enormous
amount of it would go to me.

Papa, you know, thinks he can be awfully sarcastic.

So many Earth Persons pride themselves on their
sarcasm, don't you think?

And Papa is an Earth Person entirely. I've got
his horoscope. He isn't AT ALL spiritual.

But you can image that the whole scene was
FRIGHTFULLY embarrassing to me -- I will NEVER forgive Papa!

And I haven't made up my mind AT ALL about
Fothy. But what I do know is this: once I get my
mind made up, I WILL NOT stand for opposition form
ANY source.

One must be an Individualist, or perish!



from Hermione's Little Group of Serious Thinkers, by Don Marquis, 1916

my copy is mutilated, but I tracked down the book, and it's available for free reading via the Gutenberg Project.

Friday Catblog: mehitabel meets her mate

I don't think they're actually going to produce any kittens this season (at least I hope not -- but then, Mom hasn't yet arranged to prevent the possibility). However, seeing rough-and-tumble Furfur and full-of-attitude Maus so cozy together on this little table made me think of this bit of classic verse:

mehitabel meets her mate

tis the right of a modern tabby to choose
the cats who shall father her kits
and its nice to be sure their pasts have been pure
and theyre free from fleas or fits

trial marriage i tried till i thoroughly tired
and i suffered somewhat from abduction
and my heart it was broken again and again
but twas excellent instruction

i always have been rather awesomely blest
with the instincts of a mother
and my life and my fate have been down to date
one kitten after another

triplets quadruplets quintuplets
in a most confusing succession
and it seems to keep up whether times are good
or wallowing in depression

and this is in spite of the terrible fact
i am not a real home body
but an artiste who views the domestic career
as damnably dull and shoddy

for i am a lady who has her whims
no tom cat holds my love
if i come to feel i have plighted my troth
to a little mauve turtle dove

but at last i have found my real romance
through the process of trial and error
and he is a ribald brute named bill
one eyed and a holy terror

his skull is ditched from a hundred fights
and he has little hair on his tail
but the son of a gun of a brindled hun
is indubitably male

over the fences we frolic and prance
under the blood red moon
and we sing to the stars we are venus and mars
as we caper and clutch and croon

his good eye gleams like a coal of hell
from the murk of alley or yard
and the heart that jumps in the cage of his ribs
is hot and black and hard

says he as we rocket over the roofs
can you follow your limber bill
says i to him my demon slim
theres a dance in the old dame still

you pussies that purr on a persian rug
or mew to some fool for cream
little you know of the wild delight
of the outlaws midnight dream

a fish head filched from a garbage can
or a milk bottle raided at dawn
is better than safety and slavery
you punks that cuddle and fawn

you can stuff your bellies with oysters and shrimp
you may have your ribbon and bell
for bill and me it is liberty
o wotthehell bill wotthehell

says he to me old battle axe
you never was raised a pet
says i to willie i aint any lily
but theres pep in the old dame yet

last night when a bull pup gave us chase
bill turned and ripped of his claw
completely unseaming that slavering mutt
from his chine to his bloody jaw

we dance with the breeze of the summer nights
we dance with the winter sleet
with velvet paws on the velvet shadows
or whirl with frozen feet

we riot over the roof of the world
mehitabel and bill
you son of a gun of a brindled hun
theres a dance in the old dame still


from: archy does his part, by don marquis
doubleday, doran & company, inc 1935


Don't forget to visit Modulator, for Friday Ark #112, and, come Sunday evening, please visit Whole Kitten Kaboodle for this week's Carnival of the Cats #137. Maybe you'll spot mehitabel and bill.

Friday Catblog: Rime of the ancient kitty

Usually-photogenic Furfur has acted toward the camera as if he were Alec Baldwin and I the paparazzi.
(Must be the normal reaction of a black cat to the approach of Halloween.)

Therefore, I have sought out offerings from before I was born; I raided Carolyn Wells' book, Such Nonsense! again, and found these works -- of a cat and kittens in disguise, and the torment and loss suffered by another poor feline:



ODE TO A BOB-TAILED CAT

Felis Infelix! Cat unfortunate,
With nary narrative!
Canst thou no tail relate
Of how
(Miaow!)
Thy tail end came to terminate so bluntly
Didst wear it off by
Sedentary habits
As do the rabbits?

Didst go a
Fishing with it,
Wishing with it
To "bob" for catfish,
And get bobbed thyself?
Curses on that fish!

Didst lose it in kittenhood,
Hungrily chawing it?
Or, gaily pursuing it,
Did make it tangent
From thy swift circuit?

Did some brother Greyback ––
Yowling
And howling
In nocturnal strife,
Spitting and staring
Cursing and swearing,
Ripping and tearing,
Calling thee "Sausagetail,"
Abbreviate thy suffix?

Or did thy jealous wife
Detect yer
In some sly flirtation,
And after caudal lecture,
Bite off thy termination?
And sarve yer right!

Did some mischievous boy,
Some barbarous boy,
Eliminate thy finis?
(Probably!)
The wretch!
The villain!
Cruelly spillin'
Thy innocent blood!

Furiously scratch him
Where'er yer may catch him!

Well, Bob, this course is now left,
Since thus of your tail you're bereft :
Tell your friend that by letter
From Paris
You have learned the style there is
To wear the tail short
And the briefer the better ;
Such is the passion,
That every Grimalkin will
Follow your fashion.

-ANON


Looking for more cats, with tails and all? Be sure to stop by Modulator for Friday Ark #110. On Sunday, don't forget the Halloween edition of the Carnival of the Cats at Watermark.