Hypnotist and blindfolded woman with angels on stage: The Donaldson Litho Co., Newport, Ky., n.d. (Library of Congress) Reineke Fox: Frithjof Spangenberg, 2004
The unfortunate too-long-words habit which has doomed me as a novelist has plagued me since winning the Chicago Daily News school kids' spelling bee in 1949. It's all been a terrible downhill slide since then.
For many years I hid away in shame over my long words problem in a cottage in the small Welsh town of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndro bwllllantysiliogogogoch.
One day I almost took a bus to Gorsafawddachaidraigodanheddogle ddollonpenrhynareurdraethceredigion, but at the last minute thought better of it.
I migrated then to the town of Tetaumatawhakatangihangakoaua otamateaurehaeaturipukapihimaunga horonukupokaiwhenuaakitanarahu in New Zealand.
Years went by.
Finally I settled here in Thailand, in the remote village of Krungthepmahanakornamornratanakos inmahintarayutthayamahadilokphop nopparatrajathaniburiromudomra janiwesmahasatharnamornphimara vatarnsathitsakkattiyavisanukam prasit.
Things have gone better here. I no longer speak at all. I have however come down with a worrying case of Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilico volcanokoniosis.
Genious must end with lunacy. Great fox, I really liked it. It is hard to choose the few words that describe something, and you made it acurately Take care my friend
Thanks for enjoying the fox. He is a character out of Goethe and a close cousin of Reynard the Fox, the trickster of the forests in much magical European folklore.
Also: I suppose the idea that genius must end in lunacy would not go over well with most geniuses--how would we know? would they tell us, mired in their lunacy as they inevitably in the end are?
The poet Wordsworth, who in his youth penned works of genius, must have had some prescient inkling on this subject when he wrote:
We poets in our youth begin in gladness; But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness.
Of course "in the end" Wordsworth, who perhaps simply made the mistake of living too long, became not a lunatic (which might have been good for his poetry, if not for him) but a rather stodgy civil servant... and, dare one say it, an Old Bore.
Caught on the horns of this dilemma, what is the poetic genius to do?
I like the quote that you wrote about the poet called Wordsworth, it is so true most of the times.
I think that great artists shouldn't live to be very old, because they lose their rebel spirit, their magic powers, but mostly they loose momentum when they are gone. They end up being remembered as in the crazy decadents oddballs they became before they where gone.
This witter reminded me of the following thought:“ A poet confessing to mental illness is like a weight-lifter admitting to muscles ” - Roddy Lumsden
Which is think it is almost always true. There for if your art is this one you 'd better to take precautions at least for not sleeping in a bench.
Well, I will admit to often pausing for rest upon a bench. But not sleeping (so far). Perhaps this simply means I have not yet established my personal benchmark?
NOVELLA
ReplyDeletedarling
yes
sorry
ah
truly
ah
Timmy,
ReplyDeleteYour novella is redemptive, has a happy ending (??) and employs shorter words than my novel. Grrrr... I am jealous.
nobody beats me at six words, dude. nobody.
ReplyDeletealternate:
gosh mr clark, i bet you could come up with shorter words real easy
Timmy,
ReplyDeleteI must bow to your superior brevity.
The unfortunate too-long-words habit which has doomed me as a novelist has plagued me since winning the Chicago Daily News school kids' spelling bee in 1949. It's all been a terrible downhill slide since then.
For many years I hid away in shame over my long words problem in a cottage in the small Welsh town of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndro
bwllllantysiliogogogoch.
One day I almost took a bus to Gorsafawddachaidraigodanheddogle
ddollonpenrhynareurdraethceredigion, but at the last minute thought better of it.
I migrated then to the town of Tetaumatawhakatangihangakoaua
otamateaurehaeaturipukapihimaunga
horonukupokaiwhenuaakitanarahu
in New Zealand.
Years went by.
Finally I settled here in Thailand, in the remote village of Krungthepmahanakornamornratanakos
inmahintarayutthayamahadilokphop
nopparatrajathaniburiromudomra
janiwesmahasatharnamornphimara
vatarnsathitsakkattiyavisanukam
prasit.
Things have gone better here. I no longer speak at all. I have however come down with a worrying case of Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilico
volcanokoniosis.
oh
ReplyDeleteyeah
i
can
dig
it
Wonderful account of your polysyllabic travels (and travails), Tom!
ReplyDeleteSHORT STORY
He wondered
if perhaps
and then thought
no
Zeph,
ReplyDeleteThe brilliant indecisiveness of SHORT STORY is, in brief, overwhelming.
Genious must end with lunacy. Great fox, I really liked it.
ReplyDeleteIt is hard to choose the few words that describe something, and you made it acurately
Take care my friend
Mariana,
ReplyDeleteThanks for enjoying the fox. He is a character out of Goethe and a close cousin of Reynard the Fox, the trickster of the forests in much magical European folklore.
Also: I suppose the idea that genius must end in lunacy would not go over well with most geniuses--how would we know? would they tell us, mired in their lunacy as they inevitably in the end are?
The poet Wordsworth, who in his youth penned works of genius, must have had some prescient inkling on this subject when he wrote:
We poets in our youth begin in gladness;
But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness.
Of course "in the end" Wordsworth, who perhaps simply made the mistake of living too long, became not a lunatic (which might have been good for his poetry, if not for him) but a rather stodgy civil servant... and, dare one say it, an Old Bore.
Caught on the horns of this dilemma, what is the poetic genius to do?
I like the quote that you wrote about the poet called Wordsworth, it is so true most of the times.
ReplyDeleteI think that great artists shouldn't live to be very old, because they lose their rebel spirit, their magic powers, but mostly they loose momentum when they are gone. They end up being remembered as in the crazy decadents oddballs they became
before they where gone.
This witter reminded me of the following thought:“ A poet confessing to mental illness is like a weight-lifter admitting to muscles ” - Roddy Lumsden
Which is think it is almost always true. There for if your art is this one you 'd better to take precautions at least for not sleeping in a bench.
Thanks for the post
Mariana
Mariana,
ReplyDeleteWell, I will admit to often pausing for rest upon a bench. But not sleeping (so far). Perhaps this simply means I have not yet established my personal benchmark?