| || swift, rural, eighty, engulf, sure-fire way.
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.
9 comments:
In seventeen-twenty-nine "A Modest Proposal"
Seemed to come from Nineteen-eighty-four.
Johnathan Swift made his satiric supposal
Of how to deal with the children of the poor!
Penury had engulfed the nation of Ireland
Especially rural farms with British landlords.
So to keep children from getting out of hand,
They be sold as delicacies the rich could afford!
A sure-fire solution to two problems together:
Over-population, and funds to aid the poor!
But alas, no way a solution, even one so clever,
Could pass a bureaucracy, nor Parliament's door!
I believe The Celestine Prophecy is what I was looking for and synchronous experiences is the relative term.
Along with serendipity.
FLN of course
WC
FLN:
I liked your "codes" line, Owen. But I couldn't think of an end-stop rhyme either. So one thing led to another and...
"Who is it who writes these codes?"
Asks agent 3-B as he angrily goads
A-9 to name the quack who devised such cracks.
"I dunno," says 9, "but let's give him the axe."
~ OMK
I had to jot down letters for #3,4. I had FUNGLE and tried TIGTHE. A novel spelling of tithe.
Ireland had one export: mercenary soldiers.
Let's hope we see a healthy, chipper Misty this morning. I have no newspaper so no xword yet. Speaking of..
OMK, my CC reference was to "The Roar of the Greasepaint, the Smell of the Crowd".
WC
Well, I had a little trouble with clue four; had to reorganize the letters and stare at them for a bit, but once all the letters for the solution were available, the last word and then the first two, came easily. Clever pun, I thought.
I really like your poem, Owen. It laid out Swift's proposal pretty clearly in the first two stanzas, but I kind of gasped at the third's "alas". I assume that was your satirical twist at the end, to regret that it wouldn't pass?
Today's poem is a brilliant encapsulation of the nut of Mr. Swift's satire. In the last stanza, Owen catches the additional modern quandary of today's "Brexit" and "deep state" gov'tal paralyses.
Today is October 23, the date we set aside to celebrate those tall-tale tellers who swear never, ever to tell the truth. I mean our national Pure Liar Day.
That's what it says on my calendar. Isn't it on yours?
~ OMK
W.C. ~
Gotcha!
(in re. greasepaint & crowd)
I wonder if "Fortean serendipity" would be redundant. Maybe Owen can advise.
~ OMK
Thank you for caring, Wilbur--I feel a little better after a long nap, but not yet strong enough to walk poor Dusty. Your poem helped me get the second and fourth word of the Jumble--many thanks for that, Owen. And once I had that, the fun solution fell right into place. Delightful cartoon, with the faces on the pumpkins matching the faces and expressions of the couple. I love it, when the Jumble cartoons are posted in color.
Keith: Your ending with "goads" was better than mine!
Sandy: you are completely correct about the satire at the end. Really, could it have ended any other way?
Keith: Fortean events could be good, bad, or mostly just odd. A serendipitous Fortean event would always be good, so no redundancy is noted.
Misty: I hadn't even paid attention to the expressions on the pumpkins! Thank you for pointing that out!
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