Archive

Tag Archives: French language

20190903_122401

This was hard enough to do in itself, but there is more rough road to bump over, because this is just one acrostic, yet the acrostic is “Catastrophic Cat Acrostics”–plural. So at least one more is forthcoming.

The other issue is “Catastrophic.” Where is the catastrophe? Well, the default will be that Cats have a reputation for living on the edge They are rumored to require nine lives because of their endangering curiosity. In this version of the poem, the third line reads “Tomcats who leap off a roof so often land intact.” But in an early draft the line read “Toss Tomcats off a roof and they so often land intact.” Catastrophic scenario, but what a horrible thing to do!

CATastrophic CAT acrostics #1

Collectors know that Kitties go beyond mere bric-a-brac • And soothsayers regard the Black-Furred key to the Arcana • Tomcats who leap off a roof so often land intact • And Prowling after Plummeting becomes a tom’s Nirvana • Successful integration of a cat in story’s arc • Takes understanding of the Cat as Empress/Angel/Boor • Rejuvenator/Savior yet a l o o f when you embark–O • Oui is Yes & Non is No & Always is Toujours • Peut-être is Perhaps and fot Eat Well Bon Appetît • Here almost endeth our leçon for Boredom is Ennui • It suits a Cat as does most French for there Cats are très chic • Comprenez-vous Lautrec, Toulouse un chat avec précis

Another three arguments for the Catastrophe of this acrostic is the degenerative use of the French language, the clumsy sometimes-iambic-sometimes-trochaic septameter, and the stifling crowdedness of the text. As to the first, French is useful when an endword must end on a certain letter AND rhyme.

The good news is the next one can’t help but be better.

Image

I’m no photorealist, but I took two days instead of my usual one with my page image in order to take the proper time to be a tourist in Photorealville. Like a marathon, it’s more fun HAVING done it than actually DOING it.

In French, “Il faut que…” means, approximately, “It is necessary that…” I haven’t studied French in more than thirty-five years, but I think whatever follows the phrase must take the subjunctive. Luckily I only needed the phrase to make an international bad pun. This one isn’t just punning for the sake of, though. With Ill meaning Sick and Faux meaning False and Ku meaning Haikuesque, the play on words fits the words of the poem, which are these:

out of the darkness,
into the comprehensible:
uneasily done…

One example is Galileo’s Inquisition-forced recantation of his assertion that the Earth revolves around the Sun, rather than vice versa. He is rumored to have muttered “Eppur si muove” [“Nevertheless, it [the earth] still moves”] as he walked off to compromised freedom.

A more recent example is Richard Feynman’s bucking of NASA authority in publishing, and demonstrating, his assertion that the material that the O-Rings were made of was the likely cause of the Challenger disaster. Less known is the fact that he was on a supervisory committee for the approval of textbooks in the state of California, and tried to fight senselessness in the textbooks he reviewed, to little avail and in the face of offered bribes and other senselessness. He finally quit in frustration and emotional stress; THAT battle he could not continue to fight.

Bottom line: If you have a Truth that defies societal “truth,” and you wish to defend the Truth, prepare for uneasiness.