This is one of my favorite clever uses of language. Syllepsis is the term used to describe when one word (usually a verb) modifies two words, and must be understood differently in order to fit them properly. “Silva Rhetoricae” also describes it as ‘A combination of grammatical parallelism and semantic incongruity, often with a witty or comical effect.’
Examples include:
“You held your breath and the door for me.” ~ Alanis Morissette
“I live in shame and the suburbs.”
“Putting on airs and long skirts.” ~ Me 🙂
I would love to hear any other examples you can come up with, quoted or your own!
There was a really interesting word in my inbox this morning, courtesy of my word-a-day email.
Pseudandry noun: The use of a male name as a pseudonym by a woman. The opposite of which is pseudogyny (a man takes a woman’s name as a pseudonym). The latter is apparently common in some genres such as romance, where people expect female authors.
I knew such things happened. I didn’t realize they had WORDS for them. Man, I love language.
And so on this Friday morning, my email made me consider interesting things like usernames (ah, the internet, how terribly easy it is to be something/someone/etc. which one isn’t!), and authors I know who have ambiguous names (*coughCharliecough*), and how my last name is difficult enough to spell that I’ve considered (and rejected) a nom de plume more than once, though I’ve never really wanted a first name any different from the one I have. Also, it seems like women, women’s positions of power and influence or lack of same, women characters, etc. are just floating around out there in the news (Cleopatra’s tomb, the possible appointment of another woman to the Supreme Court) and in the brains of writers I admire. So, in the words of one of those writers, I’m having a ‘thinky’ day.
courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution, National Postal Museum
Well, my first official ‘no thank you’ letter arrived today for “Fish Girl.” However, I do not lose heart–an official ‘no thank you’ is like the Post Office declaring that Kris Kringle is Santa Claus: I must be a real writer! *wry grin*
“Fish Girl” did not find a home at this particular magazine, but I got invited to try again, so that could have been a lot worse. Sadly, it was basically a form letter, no particularly helpful comments included on letter or manuscript, but it’s all ok. I would have been pretty ridiculous to expect instant success, and didn’t. So I shall try again, with this publication or another, with this story or another. I have a lot of works in progress and a lot of ideas still bubbling away in the back of my head. Shall file this one away and keep going.
In other news, I now have a new desk chair from which to keep writing (yay!) as well as new curtains, some picture frames, and a rug. My room is looking stunningly habitable these days…pity I never seem to be in it. When is April vacation week (3rd busiest week in the museum calendar) over?
I love April. It’s National Poetry Month! I get to post lots of poetry!
Um…which is, maybe, not so different from the usual around here. Ooops.
But anyway, for those of you who are creatively inclined, Writer’s Digest has a very fun poem-a-day challenge here, with the opportunity to be chosen for publication in an ebook, and a NaNoWriMo style goody-for-you certificate if you write 30 poems. I’m going to give it a whirl, and make this a personal poetry writing month as well as my usual poetry-absorbing-and-promoting.
Also, GottaBook is doing “30 poets/30 days,” with a new previously unpublished poem for kids being posted everyday, starting with today’s by Jack Prelutsky, whom I love.
Tomorrow is the first official day of spring, which is delightful to my somewhat pagan heart. And, as someone who occasionally (or often, depending on whom you ask) feels she’s living in the wrong time period, I take this opportunity to wish you a happy Vernal Equinox. May you, like the Sphinx at Giza, orient yourself towards the sun tomorrow and have a bright and promising kind of day. (Or at least look forward to the weekend.)
And should you need a soundtrack for your celebration of spring, I am here to answer the question: “Just what kind of music does one listen do when suffering from temporal instability?” If you, like I, have ever been told you are a ‘living anachronism,’ you use ‘archaic’ or ‘funny old’ language in your daily speech, or merely have an irrepressible desire to shout ‘Huzzah!’ then I recommend a dose of Renaissance Rock.
Renaissance what?
Rock. No, seriously. Mix together a healthy dose of escapism, a passing acquaintance with Shakespeare, a quartet of teal kilts, and some guitars and fiddles, and you end up with The Lost Boys, a group of temporal travelers at least twice as crazy as I am. I treated myself to their newest album a few weeks ago (Heroes and Scoundrels, though their other relatively new album, the Teal album is also excellent) and have been happily humming “Warriors for the Working Day” and other excerpts pretty much ever since. Humorous skits about the escapades of a bunch of rowdy minstrels escaping the Tower, consorting with Merlin, and entertaining the occupants of taverns are interspersed among the music, and while it’s not exactly what I’d call soothing background music, there’s a fun assortment of musical styles involved. The Lost Boys throw together Renaissance-era and traditional folk songs set to new instrumentation, modern rock songs with anachronistic lyrics, and a bunch of original works that are extremely catchy, like my favorites, “Life is Good,” and “Scoundrels.”
If you’re looking for further ways to indulge a bit of temporal instability, I also recommend the Mediaeval Baebes*, and for a more authentic experience, Sting’s Songs from the Labyrinth, a collection of lute works by Elizabethan composer John Dowland.
*Watch out, their website has automatic-play music of some of their works, which are lovely, but I don’t know if there’s a way to turn it off.
It describes itself as ‘A Twitterzine for optimistic, near future prose poems.’ Twitter posts include serious inspirational quotes on Mondays, lighter ones on Fridays, feel good ‘window on the next 50 years’ Sci-Fi prose poems on Wednesdays, and humorous ones usually on Saturdays. Most are really fun, often quirky, and generally quite clever. The 140 character restriction is problematic for a genre which often seems to require a lot of exposition, but it forces pithy description and vivid imagery which is a fun challenge. It reminds me a little of my poetry professor in college challenging us to write a poem which fit on half an index card.
In his lifetime, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was the most beloved poet in America, internationally acclaimed for his poetry, his translations (he spoke or read at least 12 languages), and his open-minded gentlemanly regard for all the cultures and visitors that crossed his path. He lived most of his adult life in Cambridge, MA, in a gorgeous house that dated back to before the Revolutionary War, and had in fact been the headquarters for Gen. George Washington during the siege of Boston in 1775-76. His house is now a National Park, and is still entirely furnished with the belongings of himself and his family.
I worked there for 2 seasons and fell utterly in love with Henry and his family, not to mention the rangers who work in the house. It’s a crying shame that cryptic and difficult seems to be the preference for modern poetry, because the musicality, optimism, and love for language with which Longfellow’s poems overflow are sadly underappreciated today. And in that spirit, I give you one of my favorite Henry poems, which I used to open and close my tour on “Longfellow: Creator of Memory.”
The Builders
All are architects of Fate,
Working in these walls of Time;
Some with massive deeds and great,
Some with ornaments of rhyme.
Nothing useless is, or low;
Each thing in its place is best;
And what seems but idle show
Strengthens and supports the rest.
For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build.
Truly shape and fashion these;
Leave no yawning gaps between;
Think not, because no man sees,
Such things will remain unseen.
In the elder days of Art,
Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part;
For the Gods see everywhere.
Let us do our work as well,
Both the unseen and the seen;
Make the house, where Gods may dwell,
Beautiful, entire, and clean.
Else our lives are incomplete,
Standing in these walls of Time,
Broken stairways, where the feet
Stumble as they seek to climb.
Build to-day, then, strong and sure,
With a firm and ample base;
And ascending and secure
Shall to-morrow find its place.
Thus alone can we attain
To those turrets, where the eye
Sees the world as one vast plain,
And one boundless reach of sky.
Despite running into a number of roadblocks, including a fussy printer and a number of magazines which have ceased operation, I managed to get “Fish Girl and the Kapok Spirits” out in the mail today!
Given the number of closed magazines in the last few months and also how ‘plugged in’ the sci-fi/fantasy crowd is in general, I am also interested in looking at submitting to webzines. Does anyone have any leads on where I’d start that kind of search? Writer’s Market only covers periodicals which have printed editions.
Sea Dreams and Time Machines 