During the last couple days, as some of you know, I’ve posted limericks on my Facebook page. I’ve done this because I couldn’t think of a mortal thing to say about my life that could possibly be of interest to anyone.
I hasten to add that I’m talking clean limericks here. My favorite limericks come from a collection of light verse that was in my childhood home (all decent). I did not learn about the scrofulous mass of the genre until I was a grown-up. According to Wikipedia, the experts say that “the true limerick as a folk form is always obscene.” I have no standing to challenge the experts, but the limericks I like are the ones that are clean and clever. Some marvelous effects have been achieved by geniuses (some of them anonymous) who used the form to create what seems to me transcendent nonsense. (I do not include Edward Lear in this group. I hate Lear’s limericks. His technique of repeating the first-line rhyme in the final line, in my opinion, destroys the very things that make limericks wonderful.)
I’ve quoted this one by Oliver Wendell Holmes in this space before:
Said a great Congregational preacher
To a hen, “You’re a beautiful creature.”
And the hen, just for that,
Laid an egg in his hat,
And thus did the Hen reward Beecher.
A couple more, by the greatest genius of all—“Anonymous.”
There was a young lady of Woosester
Who usest to crow like a roosester;
She usest to climb
Two trees at a time,
But her sisester usest to boosester.
A beautiful lady named Psyche
Is loved by a fellow named Yche.
One thing about Ych
The lady can’t lych
Is his beard, which is dreadfully spyche.
Now I call those pure genius. Not only are they funny, but they parody the very language in which they’re written. I love English, but it can be a very silly language.
But my point (such as it is) is this: I think we’ll never see that kind of inspired piffle again.
There was a time, long ago, when I used to write humor for (a little) money. I sold maybe a half dozen pieces to the Wittenburg Door. I specialized in very stupid puns. I loved to salt two or three horrible puns in every piece.
I believe I was able to do that because I had a boring job.
I was working in shipping and mailing at the time, and much of my work involved long periods of repetitious behaviors. After repeating the same motions a few thousand times, I was pretty much able to do this work without any brain engagement at all. My mind floated free, and I’d often fix on a word that showed up in a newsletter I was inserting, or in an address on a label. And I’d find a way to use that word in a pun. Then I’d stop, make a note of the pun, and take it home to the plastic container where I stored my gags, to eventually (perhaps) be incorporated into a Door piece.
What I’m saying, my children, was that this was back in the days when lots of stuff which we now do electronically still got done by hand. Today, not only do computers make our work less repetitive, less likely to induce that fugue state where puns are born, but we find ways to avoid being alone with our own thoughts at all. If I were doing that kind of work today, I’d have earphones on, and I’d be listening to music or talk radio instead of exploring my right brain.
One thing you learn when you’re a historical reenactor is how long everything used to take in the old days. Life involved long walks, extended periods of repetitive work, and (often) quiet environments. It was in such circumstances, I think, that verbal pyrotechnics were born.
If any verbal brilliance gets produced in our time, it’ll probably come from the Third World.
Speaking of funs, do you know why Turkey is so much healthier now than a hundred and fifty years ago? It lost Greece.
A limerick is a five-line poem written with one couplet and one triplet. If a couplet is a two-line rhymed poem, then a triplet would be a three-line rhymed poem. The rhyme pattern is a a b b a with lines 1, 2 and 5 containing 3 beats and rhyming, and lines 3 and 4 having two beats and rhyming. Some people say that the limerick was invented by soldiers returning from France to the Irish town of Limerick in the 1700’s.
Limericks are meant to be funny. They often contain hyperbole, onomatopoeia, idioms, puns, and other figurative devices. The last line of a good limerick contains the PUNCH LINE or “heart of the joke.” As you work with limericks, remember to have pun, I mean FUN! Say the following limericks out loud and clap to the rhythm.
I try to include several acts of verbal pyrotechnics in any and all July Fourth festivities.
The Limerick art form is dead.
We’re too busy – lets write prose instead.
But it still is sublime,
To put words out in rhyme,
As a way of relaxing your head.
Kingdom of Loathing‘s a game,
You kill monsters to earn loot and fame.
But to relieve the drudgeon,
There’s a limerick dungeon.
Though some jokes, I admit, are quite lame.
Very good, Ori.
I thought I would be mighty slick
And dash off a quick limerick
But I’ve such a hard time
Trying to make up a rhyme
That it’s making me physically ill.
Oh, very good. I like that kind.
(I did not write this one:)
There was a young man from Japan
Whose poetry never would scan.
When they said, “It won’t go,”
He replied, “Yes, I know,
“But I always try to fit as many words into the last line as I possibly can.”
The Japanese are often baffled as to why we need to make things rhyme. As you know, their stuff usually doesn’t. (Ex: Autumn leaves soon buried in snow.)(I do know they have numbers of words and sounds that must make up their style of poetry and the like, and I’ve forgotten more than I learned…)
So, since I”m not into limericks, I thought I’d go into a bit of a historical report of my yesterday.
Tuesday night is Men’s Prayer night at Jefferson Baptist Church in Jefferson, Oregon.
I’ve not attended it perhaps 4 times in 5 years. I miss it when I don’t go. I even feel a little guilty. Praying with a bunch of Christian guys is a very up-lifting thing for me.
However, have you heard the saying, “If the wife’s happy, the hubby is happy.”? Well, we passed our anniversary and I really did tell my wife I’d go to a classical concert with her if she could find one on such short notice…. Within 20 min. she had found just the concert she wanted to hear and found some tickets on sale.
Now, is that some kind of wife or what???
We went. I missed the prayer meeting… I felt guilty… I had one of the best times of my life.
First was Bach’s #4 in D and it was, as expected, very good and comfortable.
The last piece was a good, interesting Beethoven, #7 in A. Well worth listening to.
I go back now to the middle selection. Bernstein’s #2, “The Age of Anxiety” It was the first time the orchestra had played this piece in public. (I’m not a big Bernstein fan, usually, and I don’t often like any modern works.) But, let me tell you!!!
Bernstein wrote this piece in the 40s. He took it from a Nobel Prize winning poem by the same name. The poem is 80 pages long! (The music is 35 min.)
The piece is about 3 men and 1 woman who go to a bar in New York City, have a few too many and start to create some limericks, much to everyone’s unhappiness. So, they get philosophical. They decide God is dead… That’s the way it goes sometimes.
So, with that in mind, they say, “Let’s go up to the lady’s apartment and have a real party!” They do so. They get even more philosophical. God really is dead. Here, have another beer…
“OK”, they say, “let’s just mourn for a few minutes over this sad news.” (My paraphrasing.) They do.
Then in their great intoxicated wisdom, they go out to their own homes realizing that God really isn’t dead…nay, they say, there is even room for, Gasp!, FAITH! Everyone lives happily ever after. (This whole story came from the conductor so I can’t swear to it’s accuracy.)
Interesting story for a piece of music…but let me tell you the music was worth my time away from the prayer group. I loved 98% of it! I especially enjoyed the First Chair violinist. He pivoted at the waist! He bowed over to his knees!
He reared back almost into the violinist behind him! He balanced his weight on the back edge of his heels! He stomped his feet! He stomped his feet as he started to rise off his chair! Let me tell you, this guy was animated!!! This was some kind of music!! This guy was great!!
The Firsts Chair violinist was Jun Iwasaki. He’s Japanese. They say that most Japanese fail in artistic careers because they have no passion to add to their technical works..(and they don’t rhyme their poems or limericks.)
Go figure….