Dichroic Reflections

racing on a dog-day, and some doggerel

This morning was a 5K race piece - plus of course extra distance to warm up and cool down. I can't say I was pleased with my speed, but I do feel like I'm back in proper racing form, ready for all the summer regattas. (If only it were a little faster racing form!) This heat really has me tired after a practice, though actually I'm not as drained today as yesterday. And tomorrow I get to sleep late!

While hosing off my boat after the row, I stepped on a rusty nail that went right through my rubber sandal, point up. Luckily it was near enough to my toes, blunt enough, and poked through slowly enough that I could just kind of feel a sharp thing where there shouldn't be one and shift my foot back out of my shoe, instead of impaling myself. It did scratch the bottom of my foot, but didn't break the skin. I called the doctor and they said just to keep it clean and dry (how do you keep a foot dry in 110-degree weather?) and go to Urgent Care if it puffs up. Unfortunately they couldn't find a tetanus shot on record.

Over on my piffle discussion list, partly to spur my own creativity, partly to channel some of the doggerel that keeps popping up on the list lately, and partly because I wanted to be entertained, I proposed a virtual contest: reframe a story you love in the style of a poet of your choice, and let people guess both story and poet. It's been kind of fun to watch the results. Of course people have taken it in all sorts of directions, not always in line with my original proposal, but that's part of the fun. Since that's where I've been channeling my creativity (such as it is today, here are the two pieces I've posted.

Both the story and the poet parodied in this one should be very easy to guess. The only creativity required was to see how well the two go together, then it just rolled out from there, with me stealing shamelessly from the original poem:

Whenever Peter Wimsey went to Town We people on the pavement looked at him. We was a gentleman from sole to crown, Clean-favored and imperially slim.

And he was always tastefully arrayed
And he was always piffling when he talked,
Yet still he made some nervous when he strayed
Too close - after murderers he stalked.

And he was rich - yes, and he was a lord,
And Bunter saw to every little taste
How many times, on reading them we swore
How happy we should be, if in his place.

So on we read and waited for the train
And scrubbed our floors and paid our bills and all
And Peter Wimsey, one fine summer day ....
Went to Oxford and married Harriet Vane and lived happily ever after, thank goodness!

(I really was thinking of the whole series, not a particular book.)

The poem parodied in this one should be easy to guess, since I've been able to use entire unchanged lines from the original and it's not exactly obscure. The story summarized may be a little trickier, but it's a favorite of mine and one I've recommended any number of times. The biggest clue is in the first line.

Scarred by the Chartists's downfall years before, He disappears, seems dead, then speaks once more, With too much knowledge to be left to bide, With too much passion, memory and pride He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest In doubt to deem himself of the oppressed In doubt his cause or safety to prefer In fear for those he'd doom, if he should err.

She starts in ignorance, her reason such
That 'twill not find too little, but too much
Chaos of thought and passion, all confus'd;
She finds in him, abus'd or disabus'd;
Joined, now they can rise, though yet they fall;
Though understanding much, yet prey to all,
On one throw risk'd, in they wait in terror hurl'd;
Then cleansed and saved, to glory in the world.
Scarred by the Chartists's downfall years before,
He disappears, seems dead, then speaks once more,
With too much knowledge to be left to bide,
With too much passion, memory and pride
He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest
In doubt to deem himself of the oppressed
In doubt his cause or safety to prefer
In fear for those he'd doom, if he should err.

She starts in ignorance, her reason such
That 'twill not find too little, but too much
Chaos of thought and passion, all confus'd;
She finds in him, abus'd or disabus'd;
Joined, now they can rise, though yet they fall;
Though understanding much, yet prey to all,
On one throw risk'd, in they wait in terror hurl'd;
Then cleansed and saved, to glory in the world.

Posted by dichroic at June 9, 2006 03:18 PM