Date: Fri, 10 May 1996 10:23:56 EDT From: a tinkle at the back of their minds Organization: feathers and broomsticks, tarred Subject: EXERCISE: And When They Gaid All Night... [Fryday, when fish are filleted and beef delayed. Out of the pan and into the flames, it's time for writing!] Let me see. How about a poetic extravagance? [those who don't do poetry--just skip the parts that don't please you, and go right ahead and do your exercises anyway.] First, let's toss in a definition: portmanteau word: A word formed by combining two or more words. In Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll referred to his own inventions in the poem "Jabberwocky" as "portmanteau words": "You see," says Humpty Dumpty, explaining to Alice that slithy means lithe and slimy, "it's like a portmanteau--there are two meanings packed up into one word." James Joyce made extensive use of portmanteau words in Finnegans Wake, as, for example, "bisexcycle." (p. 213 in Literary Terms: A Dictionary by Beckson and Ganz) [I'm not sure what that has to do with anything, but it seems innocently intriguing, at least until the penny drops in.] Second: ottava rima: In English, a stanza consisting of eight lines in iambic pentameter rhymed abababcc. Used by such noted writers as Boccaccia, Pulci, and Tasso, it was a favored stanza for narrative and epic verse. Adapting the form for his mock epic, Byron uses ottava rima in Don Juan, which opens: I want a hero: an uncommon want When every year and month sends forth a new one, Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant, The age discovers he is not the true one: Of such as these I should not care to vaunt, I'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan-- We all have seen him, in the pantomime, Sent to the devil somewhat ere his time. (p. 187 in Literary Terms: A Dictionary by Beckson and Ganz) [pssst? What's an iambic pentameter, again? A brand name for pens that are five meters long? Close, but no poetry. Pentameter means five feet, iambic means each foot is unstressed syllable followed by stressed. So we got ah thump, ah thump, ah thump, ah thump, ah thump in each line. Leastwise, that's what the book say. Oh. I thought maybe we needed nickel loafers.] And, last but not yeast, pick a number from one to six. 1. Mountains of gold would not seduce some men, yet flattery would break them down. Henry Ward Beecher, Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit (1887) 2. With stupidity and sound digestion man may front much. Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus (1833-34) 2.7 3. The heaviest baggage for a traveler is an empty purse. English Proverb. 4. The faces in New York remind me of people who played a game and lost. Murray Ray Kempton, quoting Lane Adams' daughter, "Is This All?" America Comes of Middle Age (1963) 5. Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives. William Dement, Newsweek, Nov. 30, 1959. 6. Society is now one polished horde, Formed of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored. Byron, Don Juan (1819-24), 13.95 (Quotes from The International Thesaurus of Quotations by Tripp) [knead that! Work it, roll it around, and let the little grey cells brewed over it a while.] That's likely enough stimulation, if not too much, for the fevered fingers of our poets (who knowits?). A thema, a schema, and a portmanteau, mon dieux! So give it a try--after all, it is Friday, and you've got fish to fry, right? [a single sentence starter? Unrelated to the iambic pentameter, since my thumping in the night seems to have an arrhythmic urgency to it? The music was a wash of purple in the dusk, the gunshot a flash of white. Suitable for framing or whatever tales wag your puppy's butt. You are welcome to bend, staple, mutilate, and even fold this sentence, but don't stop until the words come.] a thump in the night and a hearty keyboard clicking it's... tink