Not sure exactly when it happened as you guys have been unusually chatty as of late, but some time over the weekend we broke the 40,000 comment mark. A not insignificant milestone if I do say so myself. We’re also close to topping 4,000 entries and for awhile I thought we’d pass that milestone first, but then rampant thread drift broke out and the comment milestone took the lead.
Give yourselves a pat on the back. A lot of it is due to your participation. I’m still amazed folks read what I write as it is let alone actually comment on it. Thanks for taking part.
Thank you, posting numerous comments in every blog I can find is a great way to get new members signed up with my webcam subscription service.
Les, this is actually the only blog I read regularly (besides blogs of friends on myspace, but those don’t really count
), so I guess yours just appeals to the stupid evil bastard in all of us.
Keep the entries coming,
-B
Good work. This is the only blog I can stand to read on a daily basis.
Fascinating!
Congratulation! Can’t get enough of you, my sexy SEB!
Hey, you two get a room. Wait, you already have one…
I read this mostly because it’s entertaining and it helps shape a perspective without having to scour newsfeeds for news.
If I’m going to be reading news with a personal/political twist on it (and all too often, I can’t avoid it), I’d rather read into the mind of someone who shares my sympathies.
Keep at it!
Our Seb, who art in blogosphere,
Googled be thy site.
Thy comments come.
Thy will be posted,
In Europe as it is in America.
Give us this day our daily thread.
And forgive us our trolls,
As we forgive those who troll against us.
And lead us not into creationism,
But deliver us to Stupid Evil Bastard.
For thine is the Weblog,
The Server,
And the url,
for a few more years.
Ramen.
And for those who can’t remember this in the original, here it is in English
Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum;
Si þin nama
gehalgod to becume þin rice gewurþe
ðin willa on
eorðan swa swa on heofonum.
urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg
and forgyf us ure gyltas
swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum
and ne gelæd þu us on costnunge ac alys us of yfele soþlice
NB the ð and the þ are pronounced ‘th’
You will get it better if you read it out loud. Even non Anglo saxon speakers usually work it out with out being told.
Damn, Last Hussar, you’re good!!
Just change the first line to “Our Bastard, who art in blogosphere,” and it’s perfect.
Ditto.
ditto.
Ditto.
Ditto.
This way I can keep my unoriginality and still say what I mean … without having to think.
I just have so much fun here. Unlike a lot of other blogs, this one has always struck me as highly personalized and cozy.
Double-dipping: Thanks for the hysterical laugh, Last Hussar!
Ditto all around! Thanks again for the great playpen, Les!
I love that Old English, Hussar. Another step back:
Atta unsar, þu in himinam, weihnai namo þein.
Qimai þiudinassus þeins.
Wairþai wilja þeins, swe in himina jah ana airþai. Hlaif unsarana þana sinteinan gif uns himma daga.
Jah aflet uns þatei skulans sijaima, swaswe jah weis afletam þaim skulam unsaraim.
Jah ni briggais uns in fraistubnjai, ak lausei uns af þamma ubilin.
Unte þeina ist þiudangardi jah mahts jah wulþus in aiwins.
- Gothic, around 350 AD.
That sounds a lot like Frisian from Norde Nederland.
Gonna get a T with that on.
Stick some Chaucer in as a third entry and you can see the evolution of the language 350->700->1400AD.
Possibly. That’s the great thing about English, it draws on two strong roots, Germanic and Romance. Although generaly regarded as being a difficult language to learn (due to it’s irregularity) it is also one of the most robust and diverse, allowing for subtlety and complexity. Apparently it is one of the best languages for puns.
Congrats on the 40,000! That my son should have poetry to describe his success!
Ah – poetry – it’s a different zone, isn’t it?
L4T (aka P4Y) asked, who has prayed?
I think a more interesting question would be: who has written poetry?
I’ve written a lot but the only one I can remember is:
I am so wise when I am stoned,
I think to myself I shouldn’t get stoned.
But, as soon as I’m straight,
as soon as I’m able,
I go up the stairs and sit at my table,
and cone.
When I was sixteen I wrote a villanelle entitled The Boy Whose Hair Was Like a Shade of Gold for a school project.
It was no Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night (perhaps my favorite piece of poetry ever written), but it was well done for a wee teen, if I should say so myself.
Ahhh, Dylan Thomas. Now that’s awesome poetry.
Hussar, and anyone else interested in the development of Germanic languages, (including Frisian, John)- there’s a nice comparison of texts, including the “Our Father” in Gothic I posted, here. The translations are all in German, but you get the idea.
Sadie- didn’t Dylan Thomas say “Rage, rage, against the lying of the right”?
I must confess. I read Melvin Bragg’s ‘History of English’ sometime ago and it mentioned a weather report in current Frisian sounding much like some of the current English Dialects (it was a hook – caught nothing). As my maternal G’father was Frisian (6’5
John: I always say, Dutch sounds like a joke language made up by a Limey and a Kraut after a few beers. And Frisian is between Dutch and English, so it’s almost understandable by us, without having to have learned it.
With English as your mother tongue, it’s fairly easy to learn any other Germanic language, once you loosen up your grip on grammar and vocabulary, and simply regard the new language as a rather distorted dialect of English.
One of the things my lisp (living-in-sin partner) and I do is marionette shows in Middle High German. Once you can understand that pretty well, you see all kinds of connections with Dutch, and Danish, and Icelandic even. Lots of fun.
I’ve written my fair share of (mostly bad) poetry over the years. It’s one of those art forms that I’ve always assumed I don’t really “get” simply because it doesn’t do much for me. I have much the same reaction to a lot of “modern art” as well.
I was going to say there is nothing so obscure that you can’t find reference to it on the web, but I suppose it is no different to Chaucer being on telly.
My dad once saw a Norwegian and a Swede talking in English, as it was the only language they had in common. In England you can pretty much trace the area of the Danelaw (are contolled by the Vikings) by the place names- Viking in the North East, Saxon in the South West. The Saxon pronounciation still exists in someplaces- Hereford is pronounced Heh- reh- ford, not here-ford, while others have been mangled- I live in Aylesbury (pronounces Ales- bury) a mangling of Eigils Burgh (the fortified place where Eigils people live). And of course Birmingham in, Alabama, Michigan and Iowa were never the farm (ham) of Beorn, unlike the one in England.
I see poetry as Heart stuff – it’s basically ‘fuck’em … I’ll write the way I want to write’ ..
When I was in the psycho hospital a few year ago a bloke wrote a lot of stuff.
He gave ME a copy and then Hung himself – that was a … buzz … downer. Downer. Downer. Downer. Downer. Downer.
He ran off 8 copies.
He gave me one:
He wrote on the front:
To John: I hope this gets you thru the good times as well as the bad …
Good luck mate … Noel.
I wrote an ‘obituary’:
Noel was a man
Did two tours of ‘Nam
Rough man, tough man
Had the heart of a lamb
He had his ‘probs’
Carried his baggage
His enormous mo’
Made him look quite savage.
He showed me his softness
I saw it in is eyes
I saw his caring side
I was not surprised
He gave me his book of poems
Will mine be as good?
He said: just write mate –
There is no ‘should’
I thought all poems
Always had to rhyme
He showed me that
Any writing was just fine
Goodbye my friend
I know you’re at peace
I’m just sorry you’re not here
To read this piece.
Tears … Tears … Tears … Tears …
And one of Noel’s …
A fool’s Pride.
A tree stood straight and tall
It looked just right as if it was made for me.
Not too short but a bit too tall.
So I climbed a branch or two so my feet could dangle and not touch the ground by a foot or two,
But I heard a voice from above, it was a white cloud shaped like a dove.
The voice was kind and full of love, and it said “you’r (sic) soul is not your’s (sic & many others) to take, there has been enough tears and sorrow in you’r families life, so please son, the choice is not your’s to make
Whoa, John- heavy stuff. Sorry about your friend Noel. I’m glad you made it out of the hospital.
About rules and poetry, and also about what you said in another thread about words:
Right- before I start this post please be assured that I have thought about what I am about to type, so if John is offended, I am sorry, but I believe I am ‘technically correct’, though that is not always a defence. I add this comment only as it relates to poetry, not anyone’s personal experience. John- this is not to do you down, but if you can see where I’m coming from, future poetry will be better…
Anyway (now I’ve made you all pre-emptively hate me).
Noel is technically the better poet. I actually found him easier to read, and more importantly, to comprehend. The reason for this is the same reason as the fact that John’s poem, while moving, didn’t work for me.
John’s poem was ‘doggerel’- meaning that the function had to fit the form- he forced it to rhyme in the ‘correct’ place.
Noel’s rhymes are there, and appear to be in the correct place. You don’t notice them, but it seems to flow correctly (caveat- I haven’t fully analysed the poem). This is because his lines fit what he wants to say, not the other way round. The overall form reminds me of T S Eliot.
I actually tried to ‘clean it up’, but it doesn’t fit. Those who say it’s not poetry because it has no form or rhyme are those who don’t understand poetry. Yes there is the odd tweak that could be done, but I suspect this was a first draft, and Noel was not the sort to draft and redraft for professional polish on poetry. If so, it’s pretty damn good. I have saved a copy on my hard drive.
John- Noel was a rare one. Hold his memory true.
But what do you think of these limericks, Last Hussar? I’ll give you sufficient warning that they are in very poor taste.
There was a young man from Peru,
who fell asleep in his canoe,
while dreaming of Venus,
he played with his penis
and woke up covered in goo.
There once was a lady named Dot
Who lived off of pigshit and snot.
When she ran out of these
She ate the green cheese
That she grew on the sides of her twat.
Then there is always the following, immortalized by Kurt Vonnegut:
There was a young man from Stamboul,
Who soliloquized thus to his tool:
“You took all my wealth
And you ruined my health,
And now you won´t pee, you old fool.”
I’m joining the chorus a bit late, I know, but I’m sorry to read that about Noel, John. There’s nothing in the world that is more tragic than suicide.
Nothing against limerics, Sadie- I can some times remember the occasional foul one meself. However the form of the poem forces itself on the sentences, as does the need to rhyme. If the inspiration was a young man from Brazil, you can only hope that he fell asleep on a hill. Because the meaning has no consequence, only the punch line, invariably the last line in a limerick, the actual content is largely an afterthought.
Poetry that is trying to convey a feeling/thought/etc is bound by the ideas/objects that inspired the feeling.
Writing a limerick can be rough
You can not do it off the cuff
Different spellings sometimes rhyme
You can’t trust this all the time
I don’t think this is too bad though
Submit the word you see below: Analysis- how apt is that?
I know. Thanks for the comments/observations.
I thought with all the warnings I was going to be offended. Not in the least.
For the living, yes. But Noel, poor tortured soul, is at peace now.
I don’t how important/relevant it is but we were both there as Vietnam Veterans, learning about and ‘coming to terms’ with PTSD.
The past has no future
The present holds some,
But the past and the future to me are one.
My mind is in two worlds, which I have to overcome,
And to live in this world,
I must become one. ….. Noel.
But life is for living so …
Phew.
The caveat was there because I know writing poetry (no matter how good or bad) is a personal experience, and often a way of saying ‘This is me’. Prose just doesn’t seem to work much of the time. I make no judgement on your sincerity.
Cool but, even if you did, it’s MY problem. I try to remember:
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. Eleanor Roosevelt
If you liked Sadie’s limericks, how about this one, courtesy of Daniel Dennett in Breaking the Spell:
There was a young lady of Tuck
Who had the most horrible luck
She went out in a punt
And fell over the front
And got bit on the leg by a duck.
An old English-major girlfriend of mine and I once had a friendly competition writing limericks. Hers were much better than mine, which tended to the absurd. One time, she challenged me to write a limerick with a line composed of only one word. Here it is:
The limerick verse form, you see,
Epistemologically,
Is the sine qua non
The mot that is bon
Of polyglot perversity.
It’s cute—I especially dig the polysyllabic second line.
Lest we forget the venerable haiku, here’s my offering:
My head, how it aches.
My mate’s hormones rage madly
By my side, damn him.
Usually he’s the one pushing me away.
Nice, Sadie! Those madcap hormones! Here’s another haiku:
My haikus are bad.
But they do have one thing right:
The five-seven-five.
“so, in other words,
I love you like you would love
me if I were you”
ouch. It went something like that. I don’t remember where I heard it. Never got over it though.
I can’t imagine turning down sex with anyone I was in a relationship with.
I’m trying to write the longest first line that poetry ever had
For a start that wasn’t bad
Now here comes a longer oneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
I know I cheated:
It was the only way I could avoid being defeated.
Any one know who did that?
One of my (irregular sounding)limericks
The once was a young Mr.
Who spoke to a girl, and then Kr. (think about it)
She said ‘It was a fright
until I found out last night
It’s ok, he’s a Dr’
I love to play with the irregulaties like this.
Whats the plural of the following
Mouse
Louse
House
?
Why?
Also why isn’t the singular of dice, a douce?
There once was a handsome young Mr.
Who spoke to a girl, and then Kr.
But then comes the Mrs.
She spits and she Hrs.
And the girl? Why, that Mrs. Dr.
Why? For the very same reason that you have:
Maus/Mäuse
Haus/Häuser
Laus/Läuse
These are old forms which have survived into Modern English, where the grammatical change from singular to plural is indicated by an umlaut, that is, a change of the vowel to indicate grammatical change. Many German plurals are still made this way, but English has discarded most of them for the more uniform “-s”, “-es” plural form, following the general trend of languages to evolve from having an initially simply inflected grammar, to highly inflected, and back to simply inflected again. English is further along than German in this respect, probably due to its more eclectic evolution.
Love ‘em.