shai linne - "The Perfection of Beauty" ft. Blair Linne (Official Trailer)

Winter

Winter came late this year, but it seems to be making up for lost time. I thought you might enjoy the following poem by Ogden Nash:

Winter comes but once a year but it lasts for most of it,
And you may think there is a chance it may be a mild one, but there isn't a ghost of it.
Some people still say ice is nicer than slush
And to those people I say Hush.

Some people still say snow is nicer than rain,
Which is like being still unreconciled to the defeat of James G. Blaine.
Some people still say a freeze is nicer than a thaw,
And I hope they find cold storage Japanese beetles in their slaw.

Slush is much nicer than ice because when you step in it you simple go splash,
instead of immediately depositing either your posterior or your pate on it,
And also you don't have to skate on it.
Rain is much nicer than snow because you don't have to have rain plows piling rain up in six-foot piles exactly where you want to go,
And you don't have to build rain-men for the kiddies and frolic in sleighs and sleds,
and also rain is nicer because it melts the snow.
A thaw is obviously much nicer than a freeze,
Because it annoys people with skis.
And in all my life I have only known one man who honestly liked winter better than summer,
Because every summer he used to have either his tonsils or his appendix or something out,
and every winter he was a plumber.

Truth in Advertising. . . and Love

In poetry there is a particular style which intimately itemizes a lover's beauty by using hyperbole and simile. It's called "blazon" or "blason". We certainly find a bit of this in Song of Solomon, but it develops into a particular style in the "romances" of the Middle Ages and on into the Renaissance.

Many of you are probably quite familiar with Shakespeare's marvelous sonnets. . . sigh. . . BUT chances are you never came across Sonnet 130, which parodies this "blazon" form of love poetry. I wouldn't recommend sending this to your "beloved", but enjoy the chuckle. . .

"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:

And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.