| || power, droll, grumpy, shrink, groundwork.
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.
13 comments:
I was feeling grumpy so I went to see a shrink,
Not that I thought it mattered what he'd think.
The whole world was so stupid now-a-days,
What other attitude could rule a sane man's ways?
The doc just listened to me spout my woes.
Didn't say a lot, mostly just my own echoes.
Did I feel any better? Well, maybe just a bit.
Maybe that was groundwork for deeper analysis.
Would my droll outlook on this wacky world
Be too sadly altered if pills my brain uncurled?
Or is it my psychosis that gives power to Erato
To pulp my brain to poems to fit her fashionato?
Long, long story behind today's poem. I stopped seeing a shrink a few years ago when my mobility problems made it too difficult to visit his office, but still kept taking happy pills until a couple months ago. The current depression is the result, but no new happy pill ꝶ is in the offering, so I need to learn to function better without them.
I really liked today's poem, Owen. I understand the predicament you describe--from personal experience. I commiserate with your withdrawal depression. I have been on painkillers for several years--by choice--following two failed spinal procedures. All was well and good until local pharmacies were out of one (of a 3-pill cocktail) that I was on. Even the short wait while they re-stocked was hellish. Because of that, I voluntarily weaned myself of that medication. It was far from easy, and the tapering dominated my concentration for over a year.
My best wishes to you for your good health in body & soul.
~ OMK
Hank ran for mayor six times. At first, he received respectable numbers. His popularity waned between the second and third campaigns, but he still persisted. Press accounts of his career always mentioned the good schools he attended, his military service, his loyalty to his party, and a word or two of his plans to fill all the potholes and cut taxes.
Why was Hank never elected? Could it be because all & sundry considered him to be the town jerk?
~ OMK
Re. The J. The four went very quickly. I used the back of an envelope and quickly jotted the last four letters of the riddle-solution. What was left fell fast when I inked the G.
I identify with poetry for an aid to depression. Mine is not clinical it's gross procrastination or as Mr Wilson put it:"A five syllable word for sloth".
Speaking of.. My malady, indirectly connected to my Vietnam experience, before, during and after was alcoholism, a six syllable word for six deadly sins.
12 Step Recovery got me sober. I haven't had a drink in over 40 years so that road to Hadestown* has not been taken.
On a happier note, I have some material to work with for Bilbo today. Since I reveal the J's too openly (Owen's true gift is surreptitious clueing) I'll continue the tale of the testy dragon and the humorous Hobbit later.
WC
*OMK, I'm sure you're familiar with this musical. _____ Michell was clued in the Sunday Wa-Post (Evan Birnholz). ANAIS as in Nin.
Misty, re. LEIPZIG. Do know that I joke a lot - it's a Bostonian's way of showing esteem. Luvya xxoo
And as I recall you were pre-TEEN when you left Austria.
We had a board game when I was ",pre-TEEN" called Game of the States. I learned a lot of geography at that young age.
Feel free to call me on James Joyce trivia as in that Anon-T reference recently. I'd have to LIU but you might recall it.
And. For this type of post I prefer the J blog.
WC
I loved your poem, Owen, but so sorry to hear the difficulties behind it. Ol'Man Keith and Wilbur, also sorry to hear of the health and medical and depression problems you too have struggled with over time, with much progress to be thankful for in the end. And Owen, what a brave soul you are to give us so much joy, even in hard times. Thank you for that.
Today's Jumble was a pleasure, wasn't it? All four words popped right up, and then it took only a moment to see the fun and easy solution in that long list of letters. I love having us get the cartoons in color--and today's colors are especially bright and cheerful and a delight. Hope it gives all of us a wonderful day--even Hank, the town jerk.
Wilbur, your comment came on, while I was working on my own comment, so I just saw it. I think I already told my story of being born in Austria while my father was off in the war, and became missing in action until he was declared dead when I was seven. My mother then fell in love with an American GI who worked as a Catholic chaplain's assistant at the American air force base near our village. Two years later, they were married, and my new "dad" then brought us to the United States when I was 10. Dad, who was younger than my mother, who was 20 when I was born, is still alive in Pennsylvania at age 91. I just talked to him on the phone yesterday. Sorry for the long story, but thank you for mentioning my past.
Thanks Misty, great story of a tragedy becoming a happy ending. Did you notice Anon-T's comment? Let me find it.
Here it is:
"//Misty - I picked Afternoons & Coffespoons 'cuz I know you'll get the ref."
Methinks it's a Joyce ref.
WC
Smaug was no longer grumpy, he was raging abound
His powerful wings were shaking the very ground
Bilbo's droll raillery had stoked Smaug's ferocity
The beast knew all. His revenge would not be pretty.
Anything above ground was piecework for the serpent's ire
The ponies dashed off, could they outrun the beastly fire?
Inside the mountain's back door the party snuck and crept
Shrinking, cowering Bilbo thought of Laketown and wept
I am beginning to feel for Bilbo, Wilbur. The thought of him weeping for his Laketown stirs my sympathy. It may be that I am easily moved by anyone's longing for a lost Edenic home.
Perhaps even for Hadestown. No, not the one your sobriety is evading (Congratulations on that!), but maybe for the one celebrated in that musical.
I haven't seen it, but I know of it through video clips.
Singin' Way down,
Hadestown,
Way down under the ground...
Somehow a Gospel/Blues score can make even the nastiest of perditions seem attractive.
~ OMK
Wilbur ~
I forgot to add, regarding "afternoons and coffee spoons."
I don't know if it is also Joyce (Misty?), but it is certainly Eliot.
Here you go,
from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock:
For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
~ OMK
Thank you for a delightful poem, Wilbur, with all the Jumble words and a neat gloss on the solution. Clever and fun. And thank you both, Wilbur and Ol'Man Keith, for resolving the "afternoon and coffee spoon" conundrum. I just knew it couldn't be Joyce, Wilbur, and there it is, in Ol'Man Keith's T.S. Eliot rhyme from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." The things we learn, and learn to remember on Jumble are just wonderful. Thank you, both.
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