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Growing up a space child
19 May 2006 08:18 amI hereby declare this International Honor Your Influences Week. To kick things off, an appreciation of The Space Child's Mother Goose, which I recently mentioned a couple times. All quotes for purposes of squeeing over critical discussion.
More so than Tom Lehrer (whom I met later), the rhythms of Frederick Winsor are engraved in my marrow bones. I was raised on this stuff, and pieces of it tumble out when I'm not looking -- I rarely twiddle in forms he didn't use. Every few years, as an object lesson for the new crop of graduate students, my father would post outside his office "The Theory That Jack Built" ("This is the flaw / That lay in the theory that Jack built.") My mother's favorite was
What impresses me most now, leafing through my battered copy, is Winsor's craft. His verse (as good light verse must be) is spot-on, swift and deft and deadly sharp6. There's a reason many were originally published in The Atlantic. For all this and more, I honor it.
Footnotes:
1. Little Miss Muffet / Sits on her tuffet / In a nonchalant sort of way. / With her force field around her / The spider, the bounder, / Is not in the picture today.
2. The Hydrogen Dog and the Cobalt Cat / Side by side in the armory sat. / Nobody thought about fusion or fission, / Everyone spoke of their peacetime mission, / Till somebody came and opened the door, / And there they were, in a neutron fog, / The Codrogen Cat and the Hybalt Dog; / They mushroomed up with a terrible roar -- / And Nobody Never was there -- Nomore.
3. The Pseudo-Anapest / Moves awkwardly at best; / His feet are long, uneven, and retractile. / Who hunts the beast in rhythm / Should take his meter withm / And still may only bag a Ptero-Dactyl.
4. Cymric is defined as Brythonic. Gee, thanks.
5. Russell and Whitehead and Hegel and Kant! / Maybe I shall and maybe I shan't. / Maybe I shan't and maybe I shall. / Kant Russell Whitehead, Hegel et al.
6. Hey diddle diddle / Distribute the middle / The Premise controls the Conclusion / This Disjunctive affirms / That the Diet of Worms / Is Borbetomagic confusion.
(The Answers helpfully points out that Borbetomagus was the Roman town that became Worms.)
---L.
More so than Tom Lehrer (whom I met later), the rhythms of Frederick Winsor are engraved in my marrow bones. I was raised on this stuff, and pieces of it tumble out when I'm not looking -- I rarely twiddle in forms he didn't use. Every few years, as an object lesson for the new crop of graduate students, my father would post outside his office "The Theory That Jack Built" ("This is the flaw / That lay in the theory that Jack built.") My mother's favorite was
Little Jack HornerOver the years, I've come to see her point. Though my favorite is
Sits in the corner
Extracting cube roots to infinity,
An assignment for boys
That will minimize noise
And produce a more peaceful vicinity.
Rock and RollAs for what's so good about this book -- the loopy parodies of nursery rhymes1? The jaundiced opinions of modern technology2? The footnotes in verse3, sometimes less than helpful? -- supplemented by a glossary (called "The Answers") that often helps even less4? The philosophic fillips5? All of those and more.
With self-control,
My Cybernetic Baby;
The Laws of Mede
And Persian need
That infants heed them--maybe.
Foundations shake,
Computers break
And Science goes Be-bop,
But Baby's joy
Is still the toy
With foolish ears flop.
What impresses me most now, leafing through my battered copy, is Winsor's craft. His verse (as good light verse must be) is spot-on, swift and deft and deadly sharp6. There's a reason many were originally published in The Atlantic. For all this and more, I honor it.
Footnotes:
1. Little Miss Muffet / Sits on her tuffet / In a nonchalant sort of way. / With her force field around her / The spider, the bounder, / Is not in the picture today.
2. The Hydrogen Dog and the Cobalt Cat / Side by side in the armory sat. / Nobody thought about fusion or fission, / Everyone spoke of their peacetime mission, / Till somebody came and opened the door, / And there they were, in a neutron fog, / The Codrogen Cat and the Hybalt Dog; / They mushroomed up with a terrible roar -- / And Nobody Never was there -- Nomore.
3. The Pseudo-Anapest / Moves awkwardly at best; / His feet are long, uneven, and retractile. / Who hunts the beast in rhythm / Should take his meter withm / And still may only bag a Ptero-Dactyl.
4. Cymric is defined as Brythonic. Gee, thanks.
5. Russell and Whitehead and Hegel and Kant! / Maybe I shall and maybe I shan't. / Maybe I shan't and maybe I shall. / Kant Russell Whitehead, Hegel et al.
6. Hey diddle diddle / Distribute the middle / The Premise controls the Conclusion / This Disjunctive affirms / That the Diet of Worms / Is Borbetomagic confusion.
(The Answers helpfully points out that Borbetomagus was the Roman town that became Worms.)
---L.