Friday, February 27, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
Frances Chesterton
Apparently, one of the poems of Frances Chesterton has been set to music. visit
http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/c.asp?c=C1077
To get your search started.
http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/c.asp?c=C1077
To get your search started.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Alarms and Discursions
Rrrringg!!! Hey! Wake Up!!!
It's TEST DAY!
(Oh, no!)
Ahem. I apologise for intruding into our comatosity. (Is that a word? It is now.)
But I decided I would try to assist in getting things going again. And I know you are wondering: What the heck is "alarms and discursions" anyway? So let's do that first. Alarms and Discursions is the title of a collection of GKC's essays, which I understand previously appeared in his weekly Daily News column, and so it goes with Tremendous Trifles on your bookshelves. As GKC explains in his preface, it is a take-off on the Elizabethan stage-direction called "Alarums and Excursions" (which my concise OED tells me means "noise and bustle").
I presume that most of us are busy at present - I am too, but I often have to wait for something else, and have room for little excursions into the E-cosmos. So, I was wondering, how I might assist in producing some activity here. Since everyone hates essay tests, and all too often the empty posting-box (or even the empty comment box) gives one that tension of having to write an essay, maybe I can make it a multiple-choice kind of affair...
Ready? Put your books away, sit up straight. You may begin now.
1. Given that I have some spare time, I would rather:
(a) Write something about Chesterton (or in his style)
(b) Read Chesterton, or a discussion of his writing
(c) Read more about my distant nephews and nieces who visit this blogg
(d) Learn more about what GKC writes about, like say Heraldry, or World War I, or Distributism, or Christianity, or Poetry, or...
(e) None of the above.
My answer: ______
NOTE: If you choose (a), we hope to see a posting from you soon.
If you choose (b), let us know what you want to read.
If you choose (c), you'll have to help us out by writing about yourself.
If you choose (d), let us know what topic(s) you'd like to see.
Otherwise, you have to say WHAT you WOULD do.
That's it. Just one question. (Hey, we're not that testing place in Princeton.) Now sharpen your number two pencils, open up that comment box and fill it in neatly.
It's TEST DAY!
(Oh, no!)
Ahem. I apologise for intruding into our comatosity. (Is that a word? It is now.)
But I decided I would try to assist in getting things going again. And I know you are wondering: What the heck is "alarms and discursions" anyway? So let's do that first. Alarms and Discursions is the title of a collection of GKC's essays, which I understand previously appeared in his weekly Daily News column, and so it goes with Tremendous Trifles on your bookshelves. As GKC explains in his preface, it is a take-off on the Elizabethan stage-direction called "Alarums and Excursions" (which my concise OED tells me means "noise and bustle").
I presume that most of us are busy at present - I am too, but I often have to wait for something else, and have room for little excursions into the E-cosmos. So, I was wondering, how I might assist in producing some activity here. Since everyone hates essay tests, and all too often the empty posting-box (or even the empty comment box) gives one that tension of having to write an essay, maybe I can make it a multiple-choice kind of affair...
Ready? Put your books away, sit up straight. You may begin now.
1. Given that I have some spare time, I would rather:
(a) Write something about Chesterton (or in his style)
(b) Read Chesterton, or a discussion of his writing
(c) Read more about my distant nephews and nieces who visit this blogg
(d) Learn more about what GKC writes about, like say Heraldry, or World War I, or Distributism, or Christianity, or Poetry, or...
(e) None of the above.
My answer: ______
NOTE: If you choose (a), we hope to see a posting from you soon.
If you choose (b), let us know what you want to read.
If you choose (c), you'll have to help us out by writing about yourself.
If you choose (d), let us know what topic(s) you'd like to see.
Otherwise, you have to say WHAT you WOULD do.
That's it. Just one question. (Hey, we're not that testing place in Princeton.) Now sharpen your number two pencils, open up that comment box and fill it in neatly.
Sunday, February 08, 2009
By request: The Ballad of an ALMOST-Dead Blog
In the deeps of e-space, that gives birth, (like a god,
From nothing), to websites, text sites, journals, and blogs,
There lived The Chesterteens, fairest blog, and first.
(If you won’t post a comment, I will write verse) .
She collected some children, put them ’neath her wing,
And from them, learned Chesterton’s truth of many things.
O! for those old days when this blog fairly burst!
When some would write comments, and some would write verse!
For many long months, she lived with life bounding
For, being like mind, she could live on posting
But then things fell silent, so low that I durst
Say “If you won’t comment, then I will write verse.”
Her falling was caused by both lover and dragon
The beast was a failure, the lover a human
Together they threatened to send her a hearse
For one could not comment, the other wrote verse!
Until the over-poster, realizing his crime
Decided to combat the disaster with rhyme
And with full satire, he said with a burst
“If you won’t post a comment, I will write verse.”
And suddenly galloping like knights to her aid
Came two handsome comments. Her peril they stayed!
One was old Dr. Thursday’s, t’other’s Mom Who Learn’st’s
They posted a comment, I ought not write verse.
But in a brave effort to renew the blog’s quest
These two learned typing heroes made a request
For newly-wrote poetry, they have a thirst
Despite their two comments, I still have writ verse!
From nothing), to websites, text sites, journals, and blogs,
There lived The Chesterteens, fairest blog, and first.
(If you won’t post a comment, I will write verse) .
She collected some children, put them ’neath her wing,
And from them, learned Chesterton’s truth of many things.
O! for those old days when this blog fairly burst!
When some would write comments, and some would write verse!
For many long months, she lived with life bounding
For, being like mind, she could live on posting
But then things fell silent, so low that I durst
Say “If you won’t comment, then I will write verse.”
Her falling was caused by both lover and dragon
The beast was a failure, the lover a human
Together they threatened to send her a hearse
For one could not comment, the other wrote verse!
Until the over-poster, realizing his crime
Decided to combat the disaster with rhyme
And with full satire, he said with a burst
“If you won’t post a comment, I will write verse.”
And suddenly galloping like knights to her aid
Came two handsome comments. Her peril they stayed!
One was old Dr. Thursday’s, t’other’s Mom Who Learn’st’s
They posted a comment, I ought not write verse.
But in a brave effort to renew the blog’s quest
These two learned typing heroes made a request
For newly-wrote poetry, they have a thirst
Despite their two comments, I still have writ verse!
Friday, February 06, 2009
A Post (of sorts)
"Over and above the horrible rubbish-heap of the books I have written, now filling the pulping-machines or waste-paper baskets of the world, there are a vast number of books that I have never written, because a providential diversion interposed to protect the crowd of my fellow-creatures who could endure no more."
-G.K. Chesterton As I was Saying Chapter 1~ About Mad Metaphors
Well I have never quite written books, but if you merely replace the word book with the word post, that would probably apply pretty well to my blogging career. But OFL has begged for a post (and for good reason) and so in search of material I pulled As I was Saying (of course by GK) from the shelf. With such intriguing topics as About Relativity, About Traffic, About Mad Metaphors and About The Telephone one on such a mission could hardly fail to be intrigued. I was, and proceeded to read the essay About Mad Metaphors from which the above quote is taken. It was rather delightful. In it he explained an unfufilled plan for a story regarding, well....
"...something about some people who had reached so sensitized and transparent a state of imagination what when they mentioned anything it materialized before their eyes; and this applied even to metaphors or figures of speech which they had not consciously conceived as material."
Anyways there was a good deal more, but I probably shouldn't type the whole essay out as you can find it, along with the rest of the book right here.
Also, side note, I agree with Dr. Thursday and AGP, OFL you should still write a poem. (:
-G.K. Chesterton As I was Saying Chapter 1~ About Mad Metaphors
Well I have never quite written books, but if you merely replace the word book with the word post, that would probably apply pretty well to my blogging career. But OFL has begged for a post (and for good reason) and so in search of material I pulled As I was Saying (of course by GK) from the shelf. With such intriguing topics as About Relativity, About Traffic, About Mad Metaphors and About The Telephone one on such a mission could hardly fail to be intrigued. I was, and proceeded to read the essay About Mad Metaphors from which the above quote is taken. It was rather delightful. In it he explained an unfufilled plan for a story regarding, well....
"...something about some people who had reached so sensitized and transparent a state of imagination what when they mentioned anything it materialized before their eyes; and this applied even to metaphors or figures of speech which they had not consciously conceived as material."
Anyways there was a good deal more, but I probably shouldn't type the whole essay out as you can find it, along with the rest of the book right here.
Also, side note, I agree with Dr. Thursday and AGP, OFL you should still write a poem. (:
Beware!
If somebody doesn't start posting or commenting, I will write a poem, "Lament to a dead blog." And nobody wants that except me.
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