I especially treasure "bastard donkey-headed mites" as an epithet because it seems to imply the existence of legitimate donkey-headed mites got 'tween the lawful sheets.
Consider the sufferings of those poor donkey-headed mites who exist at the margins of their own families, never acknowledged as legitimate members of the clan and excluded from all inheritance.
To my eternal shame I had never heard of Mrs. Ros until Dr. Hart kindly shared with us this crowning achievement of the Western literature. I think we have finally discovered the true inspiration for Vogon poetry.
It is a good joke, but the comparison is hardly fair:). Nicolas Cage has had some memorable (for the right reasons) roles and has enjoyed critical and commercial success.
Of course, with humdingers like “I have an acronym for myself. B.A.D Balls, Attitude, Direction. You should give yourself an acronym…cause it helps you visualize your goals” (Kiss of Death), Nicky C. certainly belongs to a class of his own.
Hahahaha, that's great. I admit that, as a child, I was very impressed by Cage's performance in Birdy and that might have clouded my judgement regarding some of his subsequent endeavors. I was also rather fond of his acting in Raising Arizona. But if my appreciation of him is a delusion, at least it is a shared one. His list of nominations and awards is long enough to merit a separate Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awards_and_nominations_received_by_Nicolas_Cage
For my part, I was quite partial to Con Air and The Rock as a youngling; although I fear to return to them now: I’ll stick with the pleasant nostalgia of a teenage memory.
She lived like that lonesome lord who slew the savage striders which spread their insatiable sails to wrest the windy riches from the greedy grip of gusting gales, and thereby get the germ of the freshly fallowed fields.
Even so her fame was fanned by the society of self-satisfied scorners, who, wandering the waste of boredom, in the desert of desultory delight. Such supplicants plied her pen, gasping gullets turned toward the nib, not for wise nutrition, but to mock the mother of their mirth.
In this day of discernment, we wise proffer poor pearls to the debt due her numinous name, though in vain, for it is that ceaseless debt of the shoat to the sow.
------------
We can never repay what we owe Mrs. Ros, but maybe sometimes it doesn't hurt to try.
So she truly is the Corey Feldman/Tommy Wiseau of literature ...
Someone who mimics certain forms of expression without actually understanding, why things are done in the way they are done. Still, there is a certain chaotic creativity behind those strange metaphors. It is certainly a skill of its own to come up with them.
Thank you, David. This post was a welcome respite and a reminder that all cannot be dark in a world where such glorious absurdity exists. There is a lightness and tenderness in my being this morning thanks to this exposure. I understand your reservations, but your love is clear, and I am grateful that you chose to share it.
I'm reading this on a brightly dark day. I'm warm while it's freezing and happy because I don't have to be. It's a miserable, beautiful day. - Thanks for introducing me to this awfully hilarious writer! Perfect timing.
Oh, my lord, would that I still had a copy. In 1954, T.S. Mercer published a little volume of AMR-related ephemera, including D.B. Wyndham Lewis's hilarious article from 1926 called "Meet Irene." In it, he called attention to an illustration of one of the characters, Sir John Dunfern, that made his trousers look absurdly shapeless and baggy; and he speculated that perhaps Irene is drawn to another character, Oscar Otwell, because he had had the good sense to press his trousers "under the bed" (meaning, of course, laying them out between mattress and box). Amanda, who tended to think about sex quite a lot, wildly misinterpreted this a a reference to Oscar having his way with Irene while his trousers lay unused on the floor beneath the bed. Her reply--not published before Mercer got hold of it--damned Wyndham Lewis as the equivalent of a pornographer; its most famous passage is probably this one:
"Is it not then one of the gravest and grossest of scandals that ever appeared or was permitted to be printed in any paper, public or private, decent or fringed with decency, for a man sexed or unsexed—and posing as a critic by the bye!—such as D. B. Wyndham Lewis, to proceed by a train of thought driven thither by an engine charged with the foul steam of a mind pregnant with capsules of corruption of the rottenest filthy types, to Frogmore (where this Queenly Death-Diamond of the first and purest water reposeth in her Royal Cradle of Calm, made more calm because of her cleanly and blameless life, her duty towards God and her countless subjects, her unflinching love and her rigid reverence for all things associated with a true Christian life) enter its holy portals, to view this Great and Good Queen who lay within its Hallowed walls, in order to tear into scrags her chilly unstained death-robes and riddle her lifeless form with his deadly pellets of scandal?"
I'll have to include that in my next In and Out of Season column.
I especially treasure "bastard donkey-headed mites" as an epithet because it seems to imply the existence of legitimate donkey-headed mites got 'tween the lawful sheets.
Consider the sufferings of those poor donkey-headed mites who exist at the margins of their own families, never acknowledged as legitimate members of the clan and excluded from all inheritance.
To my eternal shame I had never heard of Mrs. Ros until Dr. Hart kindly shared with us this crowning achievement of the Western literature. I think we have finally discovered the true inspiration for Vogon poetry.
Verily, she truly was the Nicolas Cage of Northern Irish authors.
It is a good joke, but the comparison is hardly fair:). Nicolas Cage has had some memorable (for the right reasons) roles and has enjoyed critical and commercial success.
Of course, with humdingers like “I have an acronym for myself. B.A.D Balls, Attitude, Direction. You should give yourself an acronym…cause it helps you visualize your goals” (Kiss of Death), Nicky C. certainly belongs to a class of his own.
Hahahaha, that's great. I admit that, as a child, I was very impressed by Cage's performance in Birdy and that might have clouded my judgement regarding some of his subsequent endeavors. I was also rather fond of his acting in Raising Arizona. But if my appreciation of him is a delusion, at least it is a shared one. His list of nominations and awards is long enough to merit a separate Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awards_and_nominations_received_by_Nicolas_Cage
I thought Face/Off was pretty great, tho probably with John Woo most to thank.
For my part, I was quite partial to Con Air and The Rock as a youngling; although I fear to return to them now: I’ll stick with the pleasant nostalgia of a teenage memory.
Nicolas Cage was once a very fine actor. The John Woo films, Moonstruck, Leaving Las Vegas, etc.
I like NC. I like the whole Coppola gang, even Sofia. And I forgive him for Peggy Sue Got Married.
She lived like that lonesome lord who slew the savage striders which spread their insatiable sails to wrest the windy riches from the greedy grip of gusting gales, and thereby get the germ of the freshly fallowed fields.
Even so her fame was fanned by the society of self-satisfied scorners, who, wandering the waste of boredom, in the desert of desultory delight. Such supplicants plied her pen, gasping gullets turned toward the nib, not for wise nutrition, but to mock the mother of their mirth.
In this day of discernment, we wise proffer poor pearls to the debt due her numinous name, though in vain, for it is that ceaseless debt of the shoat to the sow.
------------
We can never repay what we owe Mrs. Ros, but maybe sometimes it doesn't hurt to try.
But, see, even then, there's a certain weirdness in her train of thought that one can't capture, even in the ablest pastiche.
I agree. I don't have any idea how anybody could write like her or think like her convincingly.
So she truly is the Corey Feldman/Tommy Wiseau of literature ...
Someone who mimics certain forms of expression without actually understanding, why things are done in the way they are done. Still, there is a certain chaotic creativity behind those strange metaphors. It is certainly a skill of its own to come up with them.
Glorious. Ordered. Looking forward, though I can't imagine a better appreciation of her work. Bless you, DBH.
Thank you, David. This post was a welcome respite and a reminder that all cannot be dark in a world where such glorious absurdity exists. There is a lightness and tenderness in my being this morning thanks to this exposure. I understand your reservations, but your love is clear, and I am grateful that you chose to share it.
I'm reading this on a brightly dark day. I'm warm while it's freezing and happy because I don't have to be. It's a miserable, beautiful day. - Thanks for introducing me to this awfully hilarious writer! Perfect timing.
Christ is born!
Can you please give a hint of the contents of St. Scandalbags?
Oh, my lord, would that I still had a copy. In 1954, T.S. Mercer published a little volume of AMR-related ephemera, including D.B. Wyndham Lewis's hilarious article from 1926 called "Meet Irene." In it, he called attention to an illustration of one of the characters, Sir John Dunfern, that made his trousers look absurdly shapeless and baggy; and he speculated that perhaps Irene is drawn to another character, Oscar Otwell, because he had had the good sense to press his trousers "under the bed" (meaning, of course, laying them out between mattress and box). Amanda, who tended to think about sex quite a lot, wildly misinterpreted this a a reference to Oscar having his way with Irene while his trousers lay unused on the floor beneath the bed. Her reply--not published before Mercer got hold of it--damned Wyndham Lewis as the equivalent of a pornographer; its most famous passage is probably this one:
"Is it not then one of the gravest and grossest of scandals that ever appeared or was permitted to be printed in any paper, public or private, decent or fringed with decency, for a man sexed or unsexed—and posing as a critic by the bye!—such as D. B. Wyndham Lewis, to proceed by a train of thought driven thither by an engine charged with the foul steam of a mind pregnant with capsules of corruption of the rottenest filthy types, to Frogmore (where this Queenly Death-Diamond of the first and purest water reposeth in her Royal Cradle of Calm, made more calm because of her cleanly and blameless life, her duty towards God and her countless subjects, her unflinching love and her rigid reverence for all things associated with a true Christian life) enter its holy portals, to view this Great and Good Queen who lay within its Hallowed walls, in order to tear into scrags her chilly unstained death-robes and riddle her lifeless form with his deadly pellets of scandal?"
I'll have to include that in my next In and Out of Season column.