Things I do when stumped on the dissertation*

[rymenhild]

*To be fair, I'm less stumped than I was when I met with my advisor this afternoon.

Anyway, my newest procrastination mode: I write double dactyls about the texts I'm studying.

Stalworthy, schmalworthy,
Kitchen knave Havelok
Married a princess
In Lincoln, one night,

Fell asleep, mouth open,
Illuminatingly.
Cried Goldeborw,
Our future is bright!

**

Watery fluttery
Brendan the Voyager
Plus sixty pilgrims de-
Cided to sail.

Halfway to Eden, they
Stopped on an island, but
Exploratorially
Called it a whale.

**

Maybe I'll write more of these on the plane tomorrow. (I'm flying east for spring break and Passover.) I'm still trying to figure out what I can do with the nicely double-dactylic word "historiographers."

In the meantime, you all should try some. Remember, two stanzas of four lines each, first line is gibberish, second line is someone's name, one line in the second stanza consists of a single six-syllable word, and fourth and eighth line rhyme.

Comments

[skygiants]

Oh, a challenge, is it?

Qwa-qwa-qwa qwa-qwa-qwa,
Duck - wait, no, Ahiru -
- maybe she's Tutu now -
Who can keep track?

Well, say "our heroine"
Accomodatingly
Joins in the story but
Adds her own "quack!"

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Higgledy piggledy
Anteaterina was
desperately longing for
partnered ballet.

Tried out a pas-de-deux
tragicomedical,
departed stage left
with a sobbing sashay.

[skygiants]

Scritchety scratchety,
"Say, Drosselmeyer-san,
How should this tale finish,
If I might pry?"

Sipping his tea, the old
Epistolarian
Said, "Well, that's easy,
Have everyone die!"

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

*shriek* AWESOME.

I'll have to go think for a while before I can come up with something good enough to cap that with.

[skygiants]

It was more awesome before I realized I'd just passed up a GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY to use the world "Drosselmeyerian".

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

jfdalk;fdjlkfdjlak; I have "Drosselmeyerian" as the only word in my next Tutu double dactyl, and I've had it in my working file for hours, darn you for coming up with it before I finished that double dactyl.

[skygiants]

*weakly* Great minds?

Here, have a non-Tutu one, because it's more fun than work:

Agony-angstily,
Vanyel the Herald-Mage
Sat in the rain weeping
Crystalline tears.

How could you say that it's
Melodramatical?
You see, HIS BOYFRIEND'S DEAD!
(Has been for years.)

[gramarye1971]

*adores both of you*

I had to take my computer out of the suitcase to post this one

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Cavalry revelry
Lymond of Sevigny's
Talented to an
Outrageous degree-

Hundreds of conquests
And lovers, despite being
Antiheroical
And twenty-three.

Re: I had to take my computer out of the suitcase to post this one

[skygiants]

*CHOKES*

Okay that one I'm not sure I can top. *_* *_* *_*

[just-ruth.livejournal.com]

Any chance your spring break wanderings would head a little further north? :)

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Alas, "further north" is eight to ten hours out of the way D:. Very sad, because I would love to see you.

[larryhammer]

Hee! Not bad, those two.

Somewhere around here, I should still have some physics-related double-dactyls (and double-amphibrachs) from my grad school days ...

---L.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

I didn't know there were such things as double-amphibrachs until I googled just now! If you find your works of literary physics, do share. :)

[larryhammer]

For some reason, the amphibrach rhythm is easier for me to sustain.

Will dig through my files anon.

---L.

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

I love double dactyls. Although they are SO HARD TO WRITE.

Conjury devilry
Faustus of Wittenberg
Drew up a circle and
Chanted a spell

He signed a contract most
Mephistophelean
Now he's applying for
Tenure in hell.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

*snort* I love the last line! Once an academic, always an academic...

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

*bows* Thank you! Here's some more Marlowe:

Shepherdy empery,
Scythian Tamburlaine
Shows us the way to cause
Widespread defeat:

Buy off some minions, and
Hyperbombastically
Overthrow potentate,
Rinse and repeat.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

I look forward to seeing what happens to "historiographers"!

[terriqat.livejournal.com]

any chance of seeing you in this vicinity?

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

No plans yet, but it's not without the realm of possibility...

[bracketyjack.livejournal.com]

Fun fun fun.

Dictionly fictionly
Geoffrey of Monmouthshire
made up the history of
seventy kings

little imagining
anti-papistical
nationalist agents would
run with the thing!

**

Clippety cloppety
Gawain went questingly
wondering how to hang
on to his head.

Finding he couldn't be
pentangularical
slipped on a garter, and
made Green see red.

**

Dwarfishly morphishly
Miles Vorkosigan
got himself killed but o-
mitted to die.

Cloning and bodymod
unschitzophrenically
reified two of him.
Both wonder why.

**

I believe my favourite summary of a Great Work, though, after some fighting for first place with Wendy Cope's 'Waste Land Limericks', is Maurice Sagoff's Shrinklit of 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'. IIRC -

Aged pest
buttonholes
wedding-guest,
rigmaroles
how bird
hexed boat.
Prayer kept
him afloat.
'Love Conquers
All.' Unquote.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Awesome. I was considering a Geoffrey of Monmouth one myself, but yours is great, and I love your Gawain and Miles.

(Yes, I got your email, and your file is open on my computer, awaiting a spare moment to read it. :) )

[bracketyjack.livejournal.com]

You're welcome (*grin*) and sure - though if spare moments are scarce just now I'd be grateful if you could check the qtn of you to OK consent to quote &c. I hope to fire th file off to HEB sooner rather than later.