Found Poetry

Jim Moonan · #1 09-13-2021, 08:00 AM

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What have you found lately?
In my never-ending quest to find toys for my grandchildren I have been sucked into China, where toys come from. I bought (online) a toy that doesn’t work as advertised (or at all), but the directions are worth the price. (it was cheap.)

Here they are in their full unexpurgated translated glory (I've only reformatted though things are no clearer):

An Indestructible Little Doll

Get ready:
You will receive:
a set of living puppet toys,
2.5m spare hidden wires,
a hook, a rubber plug.

For ease of understanding
the hidden lines
in the following illustrations
are all represented by red lines.

The wooden blocks are placed upright
as shown in the figure
and the three positions in the middle
can be changed.
Standby concealment provided.

The length of the line is about 2.5m
and the actual cut is 60cm.
One end of the hidden line is connected
with a hole in the bottom of the block.
As shown in Figure 2.
Cut one at each end of the rubber plug.

Mouth covert wire into
as shown in Figure 3
and then plug into the hole.
The other end of the hidden line
is connected with a hook.
There is a hole in the hook.
The string is tied up.
As shown in Figure 4.
The hook is hooked
to the ear and lifted up
to check whether the hidden
line will break.

Performance:
The hook hooked on the ear.
The body leans forward
or raises its head to control
the whole set of puppets
to stand upright, rise or fall. Or fall.

Flow 1: Jumping puppets
Take out the wooden hammer.
The whole set of puppets
stand upright on the table.
As shown in the figure
The hammer hits the bottom block
while raising its head slightly.
Recurrent (a-b-c-b-a)
The hammer can’t hit the block.
It looks like a puppet can jump.

Flow 2: Living puppets.
Tilt forward slightly
pick up the whole set of blocks
and hammer away at the bottom.
The head was slightly picked up
and the piece of wood
that had been removed
came back.

Complete Set: Stop Again

I have got up.
This is the living puppet.

Recommendation:
More exercise to control
the rise and fall of the wood blocks.

The lighting of the performance room or stage
should not be too bright.

The performance suggests
wearing dark clothes

The distance between the performance
and the audience should be at least 3m.

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Jayne Osborn · #2 09-13-2021, 08:29 AM

I like the way you have formatted the "poem", Jim.

So, what's your problem? It's all as clear as... mud. Haha!

Talking of toys for grandchildren, I found two large helicopters in a charity shop last week, a Rescue one and a Police one. They were £4 and £2 respectively; both have a working winch, flashing lights and sirens, one has a rotor that works, while the other one only spins manually, and the Rescue one says "Paramedic responding. ETA two minutes", and "Come on, we have lives to save."

Three year-old Oscar, who's here every Monday, was thrilled to bits this morning. (I was quite excited too, but, as good as they are, I don't think the choppers are going to spawn a poem!

)

Jayne

Adrian Fry · #3 09-13-2021, 10:49 AM

That's oddly brilliant, Jim. By purest coincidence and apropos of nothing, a dismembered plastic doll was left outside my front door this afternoon. Spooky.

Jim Moonan · #4 09-14-2021, 12:56 PM

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Jayne, I had such high hopes for this doll when I ordered it. The short video demonstration of it jumping, etc. was magical. I still can't believe what I got is what I ordered. It never even made it to the gift box. It's been tossed. Only the poetic directions remain.

The real poetry, of course, is in eye of the beholder of the toy. They live and breath poetry and we get to watch it play out. Grand-parenting is like an encore of the best parts of parenting.

Adrian, Whoah! if these lines are of any use to you, it would be to explain the unexplainable. The dismembered doll on your doorstep may be the doll I ordered. The whole world is out of whack. We are on our own. Same as it ever was

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