Growing up a space child
19 May 2006 08:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
larryhammerI 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.
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no subject
Date: 19 May 2006 03:25 pm (UTC)Thanks for posting about this!
no subject
Date: 19 May 2006 04:04 pm (UTC)Hmm. I think another honored influence post is on the way.
---L.
no subject
Date: 19 May 2006 04:13 pm (UTC)Richard Armour delighted my youth. Sillier than "1066" but in a similar vein.
no subject
Date: 19 May 2006 04:18 pm (UTC)I always had mixed results with Richard Armour -- my favorite remains his Shakespeare book. "If the quality of mercy isn't strained, how is it kept from getting lumpy?" I imprinted on 1066 like a duckling on an orinthologist.
---L.
no subject
Date: 19 May 2006 04:30 pm (UTC)Armour was just my speed when I was in middle school. "If Charlemagne was 7 times as long as his foot, how long was his arm?" Hilarious if you're in the fifth grade. 1066 worked better for me when I was older.
no subject
Date: 19 May 2006 04:35 pm (UTC)---L.
no subject
Date: 19 May 2006 04:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 19 May 2006 04:42 pm (UTC)---L.
Can I honour this?
Date: 19 May 2006 04:26 pm (UTC)The teardrop of a crying ant would be your swimming pool.
A crumb of cake would be a feast
And last you seven days at least,
A flea would be a frightening beast
If you were one inch tall.
If you were only one inch tall, you'd walk beneath the door,
And it would take about a month to get down to the store.
A bit of fluff would be your bed,
You'd swing upon a spider's thread,
And wear a thimble on your head
If you were one inch tall.
You'd surf across the kitchen sink upon a stick of gum.
You couldn't hug your mama, you'd just have to hug her thumb.
You'd run from people's feet in fright,
To move a pen would take all night,
(This poem took fourteen years to write--
'Cause I'm just one inch tall).
Shel Silverstein
Re: Can I honour this?
Date: 19 May 2006 04:33 pm (UTC)---L.
Re: Can I honour this?
Date: 19 May 2006 04:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 19 May 2006 06:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 19 May 2006 11:27 pm (UTC)---L.
no subject
Date: 19 May 2006 07:06 pm (UTC)Thank you.
no subject
Date: 19 May 2006 11:26 pm (UTC)---L.
no subject
Date: 19 May 2006 10:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 19 May 2006 11:25 pm (UTC)---L.
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Date: 20 May 2006 07:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 20 May 2006 08:06 pm (UTC)---L.
no subject
Date: 20 May 2006 07:29 am (UTC)I tried to teach my nieces that the Battle of the Bulge and the Diet of Worms were linked, but they were wise to me.
no subject
Date: 20 May 2006 02:04 pm (UTC)---L.
no subject
Date: 17 July 2008 08:52 pm (UTC)Möglich-Wahrscheinlichkeit, mein Schwartzhenn,
Legt ihr Ei in das Relativwenn.
Sie legt kein Ei in das Positivdann
Weil sie nicht nur einmal postulieren kann.
Since I was studying physics and German at the time, I was fascinated. It was several more years before I discovered the source.
no subject
Date: 17 July 2008 11:48 pm (UTC)---L.