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Tuesday 2 March 2010

Edward Lear: There Was an Old Man Who Screamed Out


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http://tomraworth.com/ny09.jpg




There was an old man who screamed out
Whenever they knocked him about;
So they took off his boots, and fed him with fruits,
And continued to knock him about.




File:Lemon stand; Pompeii.jpg





There Was An Old Man Who Screamed Out: Edward Lear, from More Nonsense, Pictures, Rhymes, Botany, Etc. (1872)

Please Help Yourself (25.12.08): photo by Tom Raworth, 2008
Lemon stand, Pompeii, Italy: photo by Bill, 2007

7 comments:

TC said...

Click on the lower image to see more of the fruits they may have fed him, both concentrated and intact, as they knocked him about.

TC said...

And you too might scream out were you to be "severd with Sweet and Sour or Curry Sauce". In addition to being knocked about.

bill sherman said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bill sherman said...

all right, i'll bite...

"Infant Innocence"

The Grizzly Bear is huge and wild;
He has devoured the infant child.
The infant child is not aware
It has been eaten by the bear.


(A.E. Housman, slyly quoted by Norman N. Holland in "Literature and the Brain" (The PsyArt Foundation, Gainesville, Florida, 2009.)

Anonymous said...

I'll join Mr. Sherman in a taste: It's just too delicious to pass up, so I will indeed help myself. I'll pass on the salad's though, thank you.

We can assume that the oranges are for anatra all'arancia, or here, a version of roast duck with a big-flavored Sweet and Sour Sauce.

From Bejing Tour operators, a description:

"The ducks are raised for the sole purpose of making the food. Force-fed, they are kept in cages which restrain them from moving about, so as to fatten them up and make the meat comparably tender."

I'm not sure with what meats we are supposed to compare it though.

But north of the Bay of Naples, other oranges of interest include the citrus aurantium. Their scent can knock you about pretty good, too.

Countess Orsini distilled perfumery oil from them.

And their bitter orangeness is utilized in OpenCola, a drink made in response to "the proprietary nature of almost everything."

And if I'm not having the duck or the salad's, I'll just have to make do with Tom Raworth's stunning photos...and the scream.

TC said...

Excellent culinary contributions all round.

___

There was an Old Person of Pett,
Who was partly consumed by regret;
He sate in a cart, and ate cold apple tart,
Which relieved that Old Person of Pett.

___

There was an Old Man of Hong Kong,
Who never did anything wrong;
He lay on his back, with his head in a sack,
That innocuous Old Man of Hong Kong.

aditya said...

I liked them all .. Wonderful !!!
Had never read anything like this before. Made me smile.
The Old Man from Honk Kong reminds me of --

Last
day
of the
spring
blossoms
the best.