| || coach, house, stench, fatten, "fee-asco".
Image from the Internet.
The opening poem contains all the words (or variations of them) from today's Jumble.
Comments are welcomed!
Do not explicitly reveal any of the actual answer words until after closing time, but embedding them surreptitiously in comment sentences is encouraged.
23 comments:
Touring Scotland, the Twiddler family had an awful row in Edinburgh--bad enough that they weren't sure whether to go on and see Glasgow or give up and head for home.
~ OMK
"Meet me in the coach house when your father's not around!
We can pitch some woo, and never will be found!"
"But they keep the horses there, there really is a stench!
Better by the swimming pool, there is a lovely bench!"
"A bench? But what if we want to get, uh, more relaxed?
That would not be wide enough to spread out on our backs."
"Why ever would we want to lay? Lazy, we'd fatten up.
But there's the garden gazebo, among the buttercups."
"That sounds like the place to have a private tryst."
"Sure, and to make more fun, I can bring my baby sis!
My mother pays a sitting fee when I take her out."
"Oh, this will be a fiasco, of that I have no doubt!"
Owen, though I can't really share its eminently male point of view, I loved your poem; I laughed out loud!
The jumble was easy, and I laughed out loud at the solution too. It must be a good day.
Hot here in SoCal already.
I agree with Sandy: Owen--your poem was a hoot! I had trouble with both the third word and the solution of this Jumble, even with such a brief answer, so came to the blog for help. Owen gave me the third word, but that still didn't help, and neither did Ol'Man Keith's Twiddler family. So I took a deep breath, and looked carefully at all seven letters and TA DA! I got it. Hope those poor drivers stuck on that bridge weren't going off to see a show.
I had Owen's couple as She in the italics eg feminine assertiveness.
Without the newspaper that I solved earlier I only needed Owen's poem for #3.
I posted more about Wilfred late last night. Then I read a half dozen chapters. Poor Fangs, such a loyal , loving dog and he takes such a beating. But he keeps on woofing.
WC
Ah, yes, Sandy, the heat, the the lovely, healing heat!
The older I get, the more I appreciate & respect the gentle (generally) power of the sun. How remarkable that we should take such comfort from this magnificent alien body.
It is intrusive at times, unspeakably dangerous, but usually the extra terrestrial with which we are on the most familiar terms.
There is a line in Georg Büchner's Woyzeck that I recall every summer. It translates as, "My mother feels nothing now--but the sun on the back of her hands."
Owen ~ Gotta real kick outta yr poem!
It reminded me of Mahler's art sing, Failed Attempt.
It's what we used to call "risquée"--flirting on the edge of smut but maintaining "good taste." Heheheh.
~ OMK
And OMK, as Sandy and I interpreted it differently, it's got a little if our friend GODOT in it. eg, which one is She? Italics? Or. . ?
Wilbur ~ FLN: Sorry, I thought I'd already posted this last night, but apparently not.
I really, really liked your two stanzas, for clear sense, meter & rhyme. I know you don't mind a change-up in the meter (as in the first couplet, 2nd stanza) but I still don't get why. It seems (to me) a distraction from your otherwise exemplary technique. Just my opinion, of course, but I think you want to know how we read you.
In all other ways, I am envious of your output.
~ OMK
That's partly why it reminded me of the Mahler Lied. In it, it's the girl who's non-traditionally coming onto the guy.
With Owen's voices, you just can't tell.
I loved the ref to the gazebo, as it has a personal resonance for me.
~ OMK
Wilbur, I'm quite sure that the remarks in a regular font are the male speaking, while the italics are the female response. Clearly this male is becoming quite frustrated.
OMK, are you referring to this?
Though the pouty Prince John liked to have his way
How about this?
Though the spoiled son of Henry liked to have his way
These one syllable kings are a problem.
WC
how about this instead:
No, I mean the first two lines of the 2nd stanza, .i.e.,
"Isaac from acute despair now let out a sigh of relief
For it was he who'd rashly put horse and armor in fief."
These lines match each other, but they stick out an extra foot apiece from the rest of yesterday's entry. Your basic count is pentameter, but these have six beats.
Note that I am not counting syllables. That's a very French thing to do. English verse is always based on accents.
Viz.:
I-saac from a-CUTE des-PAIR now LET out a SIGH of re-LIEF,
for IT was HE who'd RASH-ly put HORSE and AR-mor in FIEF.
Not at all bad as a couplet. It just juts out from the rest.
Sandy ~ Isn't it interesting that both Wilbur and I see ambiguity in the genders, while you do not?
~ OMK
Wilbur ~ This too is for you:
You aver advice, and advance a cautious critique,
Praying you don’t plunge your poet into a pique.
~ OMK
Let's ask Owen; it's his poem, after all
Of course, but once it left his hands, or pen, it stands on its own. Truly.
We call it the "intentional fallacy," the belief that what an artist MEANS is all that matters.
It's the same principle lawyers use when reading a will.
~ OMK
True, I suppose, but I would still like to know What Owen intended.
Of course.
BTW, one of my favorite quotations comes from a theater director whose shows I grew up on. This is Herb Blau of the San Francisco Actors Workshop. Herb directed the best King Lear I ever saw (starring the long deceased Michael O'Sullivan) and he went on to serve a spell as director of Lincoln Center's Beaumont Theater.
Herb was a master of language, but known to be verbose. During a note session at a rehearsal he once answered an actor's demand for clarity by exclaiming,
"How the *#@! do I know what I mean until I hear what I'm saying?!"
~ OMK
Also BTW, Wilbur ~
The reason I thought of the Mahler song in connection w/ Owen's poem is that it reverses the usual role expectations.
It's a duet in which a peasant girl, apparently in estrus, comes on to a fellow who is ultra prim & proper--and rejects every offer she makes.
~ OMK
Sandy, I re-read and now agree. Quite often it's the guy who's naive. The *bench" threw me. And...
A lot went on at King* John's banquet but this is a brief synopsis.
Athelstane and Cedric were naive enough to attend
the final banquet where royalty were prone to condescend
To those of the Saxon lower house. Athelstane was content
To fatten on Norman victuals but Cedric just had to vent
His rage at supercilious banter: "We may not be coached
In the fine arts of Norman dining and formal dress
But it was Saxon might that prevailed in this days press.
Come, Athelstane, I've enough of the stench of this place
They may hold power but we must never lose pride of race."
Fitzhurse, John's right hand man, had lost control of the show.
"The Prince has done it again turned all my plans into a fiasco."
WC
I'm enjoying the progress of the story, Wilbur, and it occurs to me that it could keep going and entertaining us for months.
I imagined the erect words as from the male, and the curvy ones from the naive female, but I see, after your discussion, that horny vs. clueless doesn't really need to be gendered. Makes me glad I resisted the urge to prefix the lines with He: & She: !
The bench makes a difference--how?
Because only the man would want to get "more relaxed"?
C'mon, Wilbur, set me straight. It can't be something as stereotyped as that.
~ OMK
Thanks for weighing in, Owen.
Artists and authors are often delighted to discover what they've wrought --after it's set free in the world.
~ OMK
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