[John Whitworth]

OK Let's change the form again.

The War Effort

A bit of semi-smut
Is chalked up on a wall:
Your Churchill knows fuck nothing but
Our Fuhrer knows FUCK ALL.

Of course we’ll win. No doubt. No fuss.
The very language fights for us.

[Janice D. Soderling]

"worsted sire and hamster dam."

That has got to be the pun of the century. (Let's include the 1900s, and it still is.)

Your brilliance blinds me.

[Stephen Collington]

Ah yes, the form is evolving. I too wondered how long it would take before someone rebelled and gave us the Shakespearean snelsonnet. But Jim has taken things a step further and got us down to tet (and now, with John W.'s latest, tri). At this rate, we'll be back talking baby-talk before we know it:

Gay Adoption

In-
de-
ci-
sion.

Pa-
pa?

(Mary M.: I'm looking forward to the grrls' version!) Anyway, here's my new challenge. I'm upping the ante: if anyone can give us a one-worder (six syllables!) complete with correct "continental" rhyme scheme (think ABBA!) and convincing turn at the couplet, I will post video footage of me eating the hat of your choice. That smack! you just heard was the gauntlet hitting the floor.

*

Frank: Funny you should go that route. When I was brainstorming ideas for my first snel, I also contemplated the fate of an unlucky four-footed friend. I even wrote a first line,

You're strewn across the road now, guts and glory,

with the intention of following up with rabbit, habit and story. (I didn't get as far ahead in my plans as the couplet. No idea how I'd have ended it.) But then I wound up going for butterflies instead. Anyway, interesting coincidence, that. Something in the form, perhaps, that suggests road kill?

Janet: :-þ

Jan: My, what curiously musical prose you write! (Merril Moore sounds like a perfectly terrifying individual.) By the way, I agree completely.

John: I am reminded of Kenneth Mars as Franz Liebkind in the original film of The Producers, raving about the injustice of it all: "Not many people know this, but the Fuhrer was a terrific dancer . . . He had more hair than Churchill, he told funnier jokes than Churchill, and he could dance the PANTS off of Churchill! CHRRRRchill!"

Hey, whaddaya know. Seek and ye shall find:

The Magic of Youtube

(The Churchill soliloquy starts about 7:30 if you want to skip ahead. Enjoy.)

Janice: Damn, now I feel bad. It's a good thing you can touch type, though, eh? (Glad you liked it.)

Keep 'em coming folks!

Steve C.

p.s. Yes, I know. Some of you might complain that "in- and -sion" is slant rhyme. But it ain't. Honest Injun.

[Duncan Gillies MacLaurin]

Not quite up to your challenge, John, but the AAAA rhyme should give bonus points:

A
Ra-
sta-
fa-

ri
high

Duncan

[Jan D. Hodge]

"Jan: My, what curiously musical prose you write! (Merril Moore sounds like a perfectly terrifying individual.) By the way, I agree completely."

Thanks, Stephen. Just compensating for my unmusical verse?

At his best Moore is quite good and interestingly flexible with the form. He taught himself shorthand so he could write more sonnets between classes and <u>labs</u>, attended Vanderbilt with Ransom and R. P. Warren, was a member of the Fugitive circle, went on to pick up an M.D., and had a career as a psychiatrist (which furnished much of the material for his sonnets). I also understated his output, which was actually about 50,000 sonnets; he died at 54.
___

The limerick’s also too easy. What fun is there reading some wheezy ridiculous puns about abbots and nuns? I’d rather be playing parcheesi.

Yet somehow they keep being written by scribblers who, suddenly bitten by love of the sport (though it isn’t their forte), offer verse with no substance nor wit in.

And sometimes a classic arises that truly delights and surprises. The lass from Nantucket sought humor and struck it. Do likewise is what I advises.

[Frank Hubeny]

Originally posted by Jan D. Hodge:

The limerick’s also too easy. What fun is there reading some wheezy ridiculous puns about abbots and nuns? I’d rather be playing parcheesi.

Yet somehow they keep being written by scribblers who, suddenly bitten by love of the sport (though it isn’t their forte), offer verse with no substance nor wit in.

And sometimes a classic arises that truly delights and surprises. The lass from Nantucket sought humor and struck it. Do likewise is what I advises.

A limerick's easy to write, and it tends to get read with delight. All those abbots and nuns are quite proud of their sons, and their daughters, who turned out all right.

[Henry Quince]

Stephen Collington wrote:

Anyway, here's my new challenge. I'm upping the ante: if anyone can give us a one-worder (six syllables!) complete with correct "continental" rhyme scheme (think ABBA!) and convincing turn at the couplet, I will post video footage of me eating the hat of your choice. That smack! you just heard was the gauntlet hitting the floor.

Magical Senior Moment

Ab
ra
ca
dab...

less
ness

[ abracadablessness, n (conjurers' argot): the state of being confused on stage, as when suddenly losing the thread of the trick, forgetting one's patter or magic phrase, etc. ]

Top-hat, please -- the kind rabbits used to be pulled from. ;-Q



[This message has been edited by Henry Quince (edited August 05, 2008).]

[Stephen Collington]

Oh, now you're taking me aliterally. . . . Will a bowler do?

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Henry, it's brilliant. But it needs a title. "The Magic Goes Away." Something.

Anyway, one good turn deserves another:

The Magician, Distracted, Eats a Finger

Prest
i
di
. . . gest . . .

id
jit!

We are approaching a new realm of achievement in snelling here. But I'm not sure we're quite there yet. There's still the four-word sonnet to be conquered. And heck, why stop there? Go for three.

Steve C.

[Henry Quince]

All right Stephen, I've now given it a title: Magical Senior Moment.

It occurred to me you might complain that abracadablessness is too obscure a word, one hard to find in dictionaries, and on that ground decline to provide the promised tophatophagous entertainment. But obviously I needn't have doubted you. The video is there for all to see. I suppose you're aware that you look a lot like Stan Laurel?