Niccolo and Lymond's Worlds: Water Music

Parody - The Annual Holiday Letter

I found this years ago on some poetry website. I can't remember exactly where, it's been so long. It's attributed to poet Sophie Hannah, and the credits say that it appears in her book Pessimism for Beginners. I can't read it without a laugh.

Another Christmas Poem

Dear Distant Friends: Surprisingly we've still got your addresses,

So here's a list of all our latest triumphs and successes.

This year we've been as busy as a family of beavers

(Though they're just furry animals and we're all high achievers.)

We've bought a big new house (my wife corrects me - it's a mansion),

Emily's verses won a prize for prosody and scansion.

Timothy got his partnership and Claire her PhD,

Which all reflects extremely well on Dorothy and me.

Our trips abroad, for which we didn't even have to save,

prove we're cosmopolitan, cultured, fit and brave.

Kilimanjaro, Venice, San Francisco and Belize;

sorry if you can only dream of holidays like these!

We're thinking of you, humble friends, in terrace, flat or hovel.

We'll be in touch this time next year (but only if you grovel),

And say that you wish you're us so much, it makes you sick.

Happy New Year to all of you! Love, Dorothy and Mick.

More Dark & Stormy Nights

When the weather turns moody and the nights become longer (and, it seems, darker), there's nothing like Gothic Suspense to tingle your spine. The best suspense scares without being gruesome. Save one of these novels for Halloween night, to be savored in between visits from trick-or-treaters.

Silk Road Journeys

I'm a history geek, and if time travel were possible, one of the journeys I'd take would involve joining a merchant caravan traveling the 13th C. Silk Road. Some of the countries that inhabit that area today were at their cultural peaks during the middle ages, and I can only imagine what sensory riches their cities contained. Even though we can't go back, some of the books, movies and music in my Listmania feature can take us there in spirit.

("Happy Journeys," Persian script)

مسیرهای مبارک

Hey Ho, To the Greenwood We'll Go

For some reason I've long been fascinated by what I'm sure are romanticized images of English countryside life, especially during the mid-twentieth century - the time during which C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien were writing. As a young teen, in addition to these authors, I devoured my mom's collection of novels by Mary Stewart and Victoria Holt. Plots were less important than details about food (as a West Coast native who grew up with salad at dinner, the concept of soup-fish-meat seemed exotic), drink (imagine - sherry, wine and port, all in the course of one evening!), interior decor complete with ancient stone hearths, and social events like high tea.

My recent visit to London didn't lead to any long excursions into the countryside, nor did I meet anyone likely to invite me to her ancestral manor for a "house party" weekend. This means that when I'm in the mood for an English country visit, I'm still free to imagine. Rereading a few of my favorite books will help.

The Art of the Insult (and a Happy Birthday to William Shakespeare - date unknown, generally commemorated in April)

Take heed, all you cynics.  Do stodgy attempts at scurrility vex you?  Do you long to give someone a piece of your mind without stooping to whey-faced banalities?  Does the F-word seem just a wee bit hackneyed these days? Then take inspiration from Shakespeare, who lived during a time when insults were an art form. Let him show you how to fulminate fulsomely.

The problem with our current stock of insults is that most of them are banal, bland and boring. Maybe this is the result of overuse. Like angry bumper stickers, we’re exposed to so much profanity these days that the shock value is gone. Sprinkle generous doses of it throughout movies and books, and it starts sounding lame, not edgy.  To revive colorful cursing, we need to go back in time.

In this endeavor I refer to an article on Shakespearean insults that crossed my screen some years ago. It included a table with three columns, two listing adjectives and one listing nouns. Readers can choose a word from each column and string them together to create custom invectives for any occasion.

 As I waited in line at a busy store recently, I overheard this exchange:

            Guy #1: Man, I hate my boss. Total *#$&@.

            Guy #2: Sucks, man.

            Guy #1: Yeah, well, *&?@  him.

Now let’s run it through the patois of 16^th C. London:

            Guy #1: My boss is the veriest onion-eyed  scoundrel.

            Guy #2: What, such pernicious outrageous fortune!

            Guy #1: A pox on him, the knavish rugheaded pantaloon.

Consider the many situations where such purple prose would be useful, such as in the workplace. When a crafty coworker steals the promotion with your name on it, try muttering “Thou whoreson dogheaded cutpurse!” instead of an ordinary “Why, that S.O.B.”  When your boss turns down your request for a raise, think “grizzled sour-faced minimus” instead of whining to yourself about the unfairness of it all. Not only will you feel righteous but you’ll add the sort of element of high drama to office politics that makes mundane jobs lively.

What would a breakup be without passionate recriminations? Surprise your soon-to-be-ex with a parting shot like “you wenching lily-livered miscreant!” or “If I’d only known you’re a total wanton empty-hearted scullion!” and I guarantee you won’t be soon forgotten.

Possible uses for creative cursing extend beyond the personal into the public arena. Take political campaigns, for instance.  The quality of insulting exchanges has sadly deteriorated since Spiro Agnew coined his famous “nattering nabobs of negativism” Royenish mottle-minded jackanape sounds more villainous than liar or idiot. If candidates widened their vocabularies and polished their imaginations, televised debates might be entertaining again.

Children could be taught Shakespearean as a second language, thus giving them a sophisticated tool for battling verbal bullies. “Leave me alone, you reeky motley-minded hedge-pig” would confound playground and locker room harassers used to “I h8 u” and other semiliterate sentiments in textese.

It may take awhile to become accustomed to linguistic flourishes. However, after a certain amount of practice, phrases like gleeking clay-brained clodpole and spongy milk-livered measle will probably come tripping off your tongue. The use of Shakespearean insults is limited only by the imagination of the user. Try it the next time someone cuts you off on the freeway.

 Fie, rapscallion!

Oh, Don't You Wish: Novels About Travel, for Summers When You Can't

One summer many years ago, when finances and obligations kept me & my family tethered to the house (except for a couple of road trips up I-5), I decided to read my way around the world. I wish I'd kept a comprehensive list of every book; this list is only a sampling.

I chose each novel as much for the author's use of language and colorful characterizations as for setting.  Each is rich in period detail as well. You'll especially enjoy M. M. Kaye's murder mysteries if you wish you could go back in time in order to travel in retro style, during eras when flight passengers were served dinner on chinaware and travelers dressed up for the train trip.

Bon Voyage!