Super Samson Simpson
By Jack Prelutsky
I am Super Samson Simpson,
I'm superlatively strong,
I like to carry elephants,
I do it all day long,
I pick up half a dozen
and hoist them in the air,
it's really somewhat simple,
for I have strength to spare.
My muscles are enormous,
they bulge from top to toe,
and when I carry elephants,
they ripple to and fro,
but I am not the strongest
in the Simpson family,
for when I carry elephants,
my grandma carries me.
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The Washington Post had an article this week about Jack Prelutsky, who recently was named the "children's poet laureate" by the Poetry Foundation. His poems remind me quite a bit of Shel Silverstein's, which makes it quite odd that the article does not once mention Silverstein, considering I cannot be the first to make that observation. Anyway, if you have kids or like Silverstein you may like Prelutsky, who credits being childlike to never having become a parent. I also loved this paragraph: "He is an expert player of Pac-Man, has seen every episode of every 'Star Trek' series, and holds season tickets to Seattle Mariners baseball games; he says he has eaten at every Vietnamese restaurant in Seattle and attended every performance of the Seattle Opera for the last 15 years."
And speaking of Star Trek, I got a press release at TrekToday about how the Star Trek homage fan series Star Track has released its newest episode, the 19th ("Star Track: The Next Hesitation"). At 6 years of age, this is one of the longer-running fan productions around and I wondered why I had never heard of it or we had never linked to it, but I howled when I discovered that it's probably because it's hosted at Golden Shower Studios. And since I'm on a fannish roll -- Star Trek news today being Shatner's holiday message ("I made lots of money in 2006, let's hope for more in 2007") and Harry Mudd in a different fan film -- I got a post from a mailing list about how someone raised an "IMPEACH" banner at the Tournament of Roses Parade behind Darth Vader and it ended up on California television.
...and winter lilies in the conservatory at Longwood Gardens.
This may as well be an all-fannish post, since I stayed close to home today to avoid the Gerald Ford funeral traffic, folded laundry, took younger son to Hebrew school and watched the tenth anniversary edition of Pocahontas which had been on my wish list for so long that I forgot it was there till I got it as a Chanukah present. Next to Mulan, Pocahontas and its sequel are far and away my favorite Disney cartoons (I once received a snide comment from someone on my flist here about how I was obviously being politically correct choosing the feminist ones, but both musically and visually, I really adore these movies...Hunchback, which has the virtue of being a gay allegory as well as championing tolerance, has some good songs but the gargoyles really undercut it for me, and anyway Pocahontas isn't exactly a realistic portrayal of a Native American woman so gets no PC points there). I adored the extended edition with "If I Never Knew You" sung in the body of the film, even though I had to repress the fact that it's Mel Gibson's voice. I think it's easier having seen the sequel (probably the only Disney direct-to-DVD sequel I have ever liked nearly as much as the original) and knowing that, fictionally and historically, she doesn't end up marrying John Smith!
And on a final dorkish fannish note, I was ripping the Dawson's Creek soundtracks because although I have on my hard drive lots of obscure music I discovered from that show, like Pancho's Lament and Sweetsalt, I couldn't find "Never Saw Blue Like That" or "Lose Your Way" and then I realized, much to my shock, that I own two Jessica Simpson songs! I don't really like either of them so I never paid attention to who sang them (one is sort of whiny and the other samples "Jack and Diane" which is a much better song, even though Mellencamp is forever on my "OMG MAKE IT STOP" list because of "This Is Our Country" on the Chevy commercial). Oh, I am embarrassed!
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