[lit-ideas] Sunday Wotsit
- From: David Ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2012 13:54:55 -0700
Small talk, a guide for foreign speakers, lessons twenty one and twenty two:
"Tit" is in that group of words which are sometimes rude and sometimes not. In
a Monty Python skit, "tit" was categorized as a "tinny word." Actually I think
it's got good mouth feel. Try saying, for example, that "tits are a large
family of passerines: blue ones, great ones, tufted ones, Pendulines." Venture
further. Say you admire Père David's or the Elegant tit. Keep thoughts of
Kate Winslet entirely out of the conversation or, chick-a dee dee dee, there
will be, as Thurber put it, "Alarms and Diversions."
With Stratocumulus cloud you're on safer ground. Folk wisdom has things
exactly right, but somehow upside down. Strap yourself into a commercial jet,
make sure your seat back is in the full upright position, turn off your
devices, wait for the equivalent of getting in the elevator, trusting that
you'll come out on the fifty second floor or at twenty thousand feet. Whoosh...
blindness.... blindness... blindness...through the cloud...wait a bit...
suddenly you're in in Tahiti, sun above, not a care above. Look down. There's
the silver lining.
Homework: around birds, when treading carefully, how big a stick should one
properly carry?
David Ritchie,
Portland,
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