Friday, August 05, 2016

Poem for Friday, The Lobster, Canal Animals

The Voice Of The Lobster
By Lewis Carroll

"'Tis the voice of the Lobster: I heard him declare
'You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.'
As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose
Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.
When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark,
And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark:
But, when the tide rises and sharks are around,
His voice has a timid and tremulous sound."

"I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye,
How the Owl and the Panter were sharing a pie:
The Panther took pie-crust, and gravy, and meat,
While the Old had the dish as its share of the treat.
When the pie was all finished, the Owl, as a boon,
Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon:
While the Panther received knife and fork with a growl,
And concluded the banquet by..." [eating the owl?]

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I have lots to do on Friday so I tried to get as much done on Thursday as possible, meaning that the Voyager review is mostly there but the laundry isn't folded. We took Adam and Maddy to Bed, Bath & Beyond to get dorm stuff for him and room stuff for her, since she has been using his trash can and things like that. After dinner, Maddy went to bake cupcakes for a bake sale with one of Adam's high school friends.

The rest of us watched The Lobster, which is one of the most self-consciously highbrow satires I've ever seen (I'm debating calling it self-consciously pretentious). The performances are great and it's never slow or dull, but the world-building is so incomplete as to leave plot holes and ultimately it's hard to say what statement its metaphors mean to express. Here are summer C&O Canal animals from Riley's Lock:
















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