Sherry is celebrating poetry month, beginning with compressed poetry. Here’s a portion of one for today, from “Winter Is Coming” by Waverley Turner Carmichael.
De frost is fallin’ on de gras’
An’ seem to say “Dis is yo’ las’”—
De air is blowin’ mighty cold
Like it done in days of old.
Or like it done in Minnesota
and then again in Chattanooga.
Get your comment in for the Narnia book contest today. I’ll announce the winner of a Prince Caspian paperback tomorrow, and on Friday, I’ll tell you who wins the full Narnia series in one paperback with a unique timeline fold-out. If you don’t know anything about the books and can’t give a favorite line, talk about what you know from the movie or news.
Here’s the third round of our quiz. Which of the following statements or quotations are from the Bible (King James Version) and which are from Shakespeare’s plays?
1. “In much wisdom is much grief.”
2. “The devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape.”
3. “Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.”
4. “You are not wood, you are not stones, but men.”
5. “Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”
6. “Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty.”
7. “It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it unto the dogs.”
8. Dreams “are the children of an idle brain.”
9. “A woman moved is like a fountain troubled.”
10. “God’s above all; and there be souls must be saved, and there be souls must not be saved.”
Bonus: We all know you can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear, but does that comparison come from the Bible, Shakespeare, or somewhere else? Continue reading Is it from the Bible of Shakespeare (3)?
The Chattanooga Times Free Press has an article about last night’s speaker at the C.S. Lewis Lecture. Dr. Charles Lippy addressed the subject of Christianity is a changing world. Lippy said our society has changed since C.S. Lewis made his case in Mere Christianity. For example, “the enemies” of England and the West “were referred to as ‘godless Communists.'” Now the godless are leading some of our churches.
Tags: c.s. lewis, Chattanooga, UTC, c.s. lewis lecture, theology, Charles Lippy
Writer Meg Gardiner has a short of list things a writer doesn’t want to do. (via Books, Inq.)
Tags: How to, bad ideas, bad writing, writing technique
In honor of April Fools’ Day, I offer the following excerpt from P. G. Wodehouse (who did fools better than anyone). It’s from the story “Jeeves Exerts the Old Cerebellum” in the collection, The Inimitable Jeeves, and was chosen purely at random out of the rich treasure trove that is Wodehouse:
I don’t know if you know that sort of feeling you get on these days round about the end of April and the beginning of May, when the sky’s a light blue, with cotton-wool clouds, and there’s a bit of a breeze blowing from the west? Kind of uplifted feeling. Romantic, if you know what I mean…. So that it was a bit of an anti-climax when I merely ran into young Bingo Little, looking perfectly foul in a crimson satin tie decorated with horseshoes.
‘Hallo, Bertie,’ said Bingo.
‘My God, man!’ I gargled. ‘The cravat! The gent’s neckwear! Why? For what reason?’
“Oh, the tie?’ He blushed. ‘I—er—I was given it.’
He seemed embarrassed, so I dropped the subject. We toddled along a bit, and sat down on a couple of chairs by the Serpentine.
‘Jeeves tells me you want to talk to me about something,’ I said.
‘Eh?’ said Bingo, with a start. ‘Oh yes, yes. Yes.’
I waited for him to unleash the topic of the day, but he didn’t seem to want to get going. Conversation languished. He stared straight ahead of him in a glassy sort of manner.
‘I say, Bertie,’ he said, after a pause of about an hour and a quarter.
‘Hallo!’
‘Do you like the name Mabel?’
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘You don’t think there’s a kind of music in the word, like the wind rustling gently through the tree-tops?’
‘No.’
He seemed disappointed for a moment; then cheered up.
‘Of course, you wouldn’t. You always were a fat-headed worm without any soul, weren’t you?’
‘Just as you say. Who is she? Tell me all.’
Tags: P.G. Wodehouse, humor, Bertie Wooster, April Fools Day, literary, Jeeves
I thought Susan Wise Bauer was working on an ancient history series, but somehow she squeezed in a modern history book called, The Art of the Public Grovel. Her publisher sent her an image of the cover. Eye-catching. Who is man? I know I’ve seen him somewhere recently.
Harrison Scott Key writes about relationships with people who read books you can’t stand. He says, “In a pluralist culture, I suppose your Amazon Wish List is as much a cultural signifier as anything else. I somehow managed to marry a woman who not only reads books that I loathe, but who reads books that I find hard categorizing as ‘books.'”
I’m fairly easy-going about this, but then I haven’t been tested on this much. I don’t really read books anyway. I just read about them. . . .
Some are worried that the blogosphere will simply promote the lower common denominator to the exclusion of serious journalism or commentary. Alisa Harris quotes Eric Alterman saying, “And so we are about to enter a fractured, chaotic world of news, characterized by superior community conversation but a decidedly diminished level of first-rate journalism.”
Commenter Bob Buckles notes, “When a cow is milked, the cream rises to the top. So to, the best of internet ‘journalism’ will be the stuff that is aid attention to, unlike the professional ‘journalism’ of Dan Rather.” Naturally.
Here’s the second round of our quiz. I may be able to keep this up all week. Which of the following statements or quotations are from the Bible (King James Version) and which are from Shakespeare’s plays?
1. “The skies are painted with unnumbered sparks; they are all fire and every one doth shine.”
2. “The light of the body is the eye”
3. “Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.”
4. “There is no new thing under the sun.”
5. Life “is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
6. “My life I never held but as a pawn to wage against thine enemies; nor fear to lose it”
7. “And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.’”
8. “Fears and scruples shake us; in the great hand of God I stand.”
9. “We would not seek a battle as we are; nor, as we are, we say we will not shun it.”
10. “Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division.”
Bonus: Does the saying, “the game’s afoot,” originate in the Bible, Shakespeare, or elsewhere?
Continue reading Is it from the Bible or Shakespeare?