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Image(s) from the Internet.
The opening poem contains all the words (or variations of them) from today's Jumble.
Comments are welcomed! And couching them in Poetry is definitely NOT required.
Do not explicitly reveal any of the actual answer words until after closing time, but embedding them surreptitiously in comment sentences is encouraged.
14 comments:
Boy, that was obvious.
"Herm's Hit Stop*"
"The batter can tell you're afraid, Herman."
"It ain't fear, ow!--Ah gotta stitch in ma hide."
"Then pitch through the cramp," said Coach Sherman.
Herm's curve broke, er, left, & retired the side.
~ OMK
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* Pronounced with Herm's Down East accent, to sound like "Stab."
Fln,
Misty, the first four line stanza was to whet prurient interests, as if…
Then the last two reveal that it's only a pre-pubescent, 5yr old boy hitting a baseball square for "his first time"
It's a true story of the joy I felt hitting that ball with my dearest friend, my little bat.
Shortly after we moved and an older boy grabbed my little bat, flung it in the air and it broke. I started to cry and he told me, "That's a baby's bat. You have to grow up to survive[in these hard, city streets]"
WC
I see OMK has continued the baseball theme. Isn't that stich in the pitcher's side?
Yes, he's throwing the old horsehide
If the curve broke left , Herm's not a southpaw like Lefty Sprockett
WC
Ya got me, WC.
Yep, the stitch was originally in Ol' Herm's "side," as that's how the cliché normally runs.
But I had to go back and change it to "hide" in order to set up a proper rhyme for my later use of the "side" to be retired.
Ah, the pangs of prosody!
As for your clever surprise, your revelation that your baseball narrator was a child, I believe you'll ee that I acknowledged it, albeit indirectly, in my post FLN sandwiched between my notes to Owen & Misty.
It was indeed a neat surprise coming at the end of your piece.
It gives the reader a pleasant "jolt" (the term I used for my students, preferring it to Brecht's more elaborate but off-putting "Verfremdungseffekt") and you slipped it in at the end where I wished Owen had placed his "Tampa" reveal.
The literary device has a nice history. I won't go into it, except to point out that Tolstoy's narrator was famously a horse!
You give it a sweet American home with a boy and his baseball bat. Thanks again for it.
~ OMK
"Boss Cause"
Robert was a real crab
who liked to blab and jab
at employees in his lab.
This made him a bit of a hermit
whose workers wanted to quit.
But they needed to be paid
and this made them feel afraid,
so no protests were ever made
until a fellow named Mitch
came up with a promising pitch.
He offered to be a broker
who would use his gift as a joker
to get Robert to play some poker.
It was a game Mitch easily won
and the results his friends did stun.
Robert had to respect the champ
and so his habits had to cramp
and adapt more to his camp.
Now as a result of Mitt's good cause
the lab has a friendlier boss.
Wilbur, I had to go back and look up the verse you posted yesterday. Thank you so much for your explanation today--it explained your poem perfectly--a lovely production.
Quite an interesting ploy, Misty, and certainly an unusual one.
In the long history of labor/management relations, we have seen a number of different negotiating tactics, including work slowdowns and strikes, legal and third-party arbitration, etc.
But how beating the boss at the poker table works, I'm not sure.
Maybe it just "humanizes" him, is that it? The way Japanese workers and bosses get snockered together?
~ OMK
I don't know, Ol' Man Keith--you'll have to ask Robert.
I don't know much about baseball, but really enjoyed your verse, OMK.
Especially the play on names: Herm, Herman, and Sherman--all inspired by our HERMIT, I'm guessing. Very clever.
Thanks, Misty. Herm's name was originally "Jackson," then "Ted" so it could rhyme with "the Coach said."
Only later did I consider it would solve my search for something to go with today's solution.
My own favorite breakthrough was in my footnote. Only by changing the pronunciation of "Stop" could I find a rhyme to go with "Crab"!
By then the name "Herman" actually helped me--because it reminded me of the character, "Lt. Hermann," on Chicago Fire. His Chicago accent uses some of the same vowel sounds as the "down east" accent.
I had to use the latter accent myself when I was the Stage Manager in a production of Our Town. It uses a number of quaint sounds, especially turning "stop" into "stab."
~ OMK
What a fascinating career you had as an actor, OMK--what a great past!
If you noticed a change in format yesterday, that was a bit of serendipity. I set that up around 6pm just as an experiment, but just as well I did, because by 11, when the regular display came available, I was out of it. Night chills (which I get sometimes) combined with these horrible headaches left me sick as a dog! The chills have gone, but I'm living on Excedrin. I've got tommorow's page up, but don't know how long I can keep doing this. I'm worried these headaches may be signs of someting worse.
Owen, what has your doctor said?
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