My own topic, y'all!
The word “holiday” itself is a kind of misnomer if you think about it. It comes from “holy day.” Back in the early modern that happened a lot to words. It makes me laugh for an atheist to say “goodbye.” What they’re really saying is a compressed form of “God be with you.” Anyhow, holidays are all well and good, but I forget about them most of the time. I forgot Valentine’s and was none the worse off. Oh hell, I just realized that this is last month’s topic. What the heck? What is March’s topic? I think it should be…
“Meditations on Birds, Rainbows, Elves, and Ponies.”
I never had a pony when I was a kid, but I had a bird once but it flew away. It was a yellow canary, and one day when we got home from school the bird was gone. Now I’m not saying that my dad released it on purpose, but that would fit his ways to a T. I had another wild bird once that I named Martin. I found it on the playground at school. I should have known that any bird worth its salt wouldn’t have let me pick it up. Anyhow, I took the bird home and put in the now vacant canary’s cage. One night we got back from somewhere, and the bird was stiff on its perch. OK, enough about birds. My mom claimed it probably froze to death, but it was summer. I knew better. The air conditioner was on though.
Once I saw a rainbow; I chased it far and wide. No pot of gold sat at its end. The clouds waxed clear, and the rainbow disappeared. Ah, “welladay.” That’s what the nurse said in Romeo and Juliet. Leprechauns used to live under my house and beat on the floor all the whole knight through. With their hot little hands they rapped upon the wood! And not a knight should pass but what I might ask him to seek out these small-bodied men; that’s what Leprechaun means in Irish you know. Rainbows make me happy because they guarantee that the earth will never be flooded again. ROYGBIV. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, these colors comprise the rainbow. “Arco-iris” is Portuguese for rainbow. I have a picture of a Brasilian rainbow over Pernambuco on the beach. Maybe I can go there for a holiday.
And some will say that Elves do not exist, but I will not force your divinity. I just ripped off Chaucer. When he was talking about how the witch Phitonissa raised Samuel from the dead in the Bible, he wrote, “And som wol say it wos ne hee, but I wol not fors your dyvynytee.” Anyhow elves pervade the Faerie Queene to such an extent that I now believe in them. Red Cross Knight and Sir Guyon were elfin knights. Spenser said that Faery Lond might be out there somewhere, a place where elf and man live side by side. They had just found Peru in 1590, so why couldn't a land of elves exist? I say Spenser was probably tossing back Irish beer when he wrote most of that stuff. I want to think elves have pointed ears, but that may be just a conflation with Spock’s look. Pointed ears might be cool to have. I bet there is someone out there who has had plastic surgery to get them. So the Leprechauns would keep me up every knight. A gentle knight finally came riding by the house on day on the way to buy some fertilizer, and I asked him where the Leprechauns came from. He said, “Ireland of course.” Well, then I’m like, “how the heck did they get here?” And although I was only seven or so, I had memorized the atlas already. I knew that it was very far from Georgia, the whole Atlantic. So he really just thought he could fool a little kid. So I told the knight to get the heck away from my house. I took out a 30.06 over and under shotgun and shot those little bastards on December 12, 1983. I never heard from them again. But I bet Phitonissa raised them from the dead and sent them back to Ireland to run with the Banshees.
“Meditations on Birds, Rainbows, Elves, and Ponies.”
I never had a pony when I was a kid, but I had a bird once but it flew away. It was a yellow canary, and one day when we got home from school the bird was gone. Now I’m not saying that my dad released it on purpose, but that would fit his ways to a T. I had another wild bird once that I named Martin. I found it on the playground at school. I should have known that any bird worth its salt wouldn’t have let me pick it up. Anyhow, I took the bird home and put in the now vacant canary’s cage. One night we got back from somewhere, and the bird was stiff on its perch. OK, enough about birds. My mom claimed it probably froze to death, but it was summer. I knew better. The air conditioner was on though.
Once I saw a rainbow; I chased it far and wide. No pot of gold sat at its end. The clouds waxed clear, and the rainbow disappeared. Ah, “welladay.” That’s what the nurse said in Romeo and Juliet. Leprechauns used to live under my house and beat on the floor all the whole knight through. With their hot little hands they rapped upon the wood! And not a knight should pass but what I might ask him to seek out these small-bodied men; that’s what Leprechaun means in Irish you know. Rainbows make me happy because they guarantee that the earth will never be flooded again. ROYGBIV. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, these colors comprise the rainbow. “Arco-iris” is Portuguese for rainbow. I have a picture of a Brasilian rainbow over Pernambuco on the beach. Maybe I can go there for a holiday.
And some will say that Elves do not exist, but I will not force your divinity. I just ripped off Chaucer. When he was talking about how the witch Phitonissa raised Samuel from the dead in the Bible, he wrote, “And som wol say it wos ne hee, but I wol not fors your dyvynytee.” Anyhow elves pervade the Faerie Queene to such an extent that I now believe in them. Red Cross Knight and Sir Guyon were elfin knights. Spenser said that Faery Lond might be out there somewhere, a place where elf and man live side by side. They had just found Peru in 1590, so why couldn't a land of elves exist? I say Spenser was probably tossing back Irish beer when he wrote most of that stuff. I want to think elves have pointed ears, but that may be just a conflation with Spock’s look. Pointed ears might be cool to have. I bet there is someone out there who has had plastic surgery to get them. So the Leprechauns would keep me up every knight. A gentle knight finally came riding by the house on day on the way to buy some fertilizer, and I asked him where the Leprechauns came from. He said, “Ireland of course.” Well, then I’m like, “how the heck did they get here?” And although I was only seven or so, I had memorized the atlas already. I knew that it was very far from Georgia, the whole Atlantic. So he really just thought he could fool a little kid. So I told the knight to get the heck away from my house. I took out a 30.06 over and under shotgun and shot those little bastards on December 12, 1983. I never heard from them again. But I bet Phitonissa raised them from the dead and sent them back to Ireland to run with the Banshees.
posted by Matt at
6:42 PM
2 Comments:
Matty- I just love the fact that you said "My own topic, y'all." It is such a contradiction: it conjures up a ditzy buxom blonde instead of "the professor." I also enjoyed your musings on never having a pony. I, too, never had a pony although I asked my father many a time when my mother was going to die so I could get one. Heartless child, was I.
By
eromler, at 7:26 PM
Matt, You have to warn me before I read your stuff at work. I was laughing so hard that that I had to close my door. All those freshmen waiting outside the electronic classrooms kept wondering what was wrong with the crazy English professor. And the bad thing is that I'll see them all semester. Your writing is a psychedelic trip through literature and fantasy. Fun stuff.
By
Donna Sewell, at 9:11 AM
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