Are Felt Wordplay 13
Click: Chicken Scratching Kitsch Art House-Hatched Correct Chick in Kinesthetic Kimchee Kitchen!
posted by Horace Jeffery Hodges @ 8:42 AM
5 comments
Gypsy Scholar
Brainstorming about history, politics, literature, religion, and other topics from a 'gypsy' scholar on a wagon hitched to a star.
Wednesday, April 21, 2021
About Me
- Name: Horace Jeffery Hodges
- Location: Seoul, South Korea
I am a retired professor. I last taught at Ewha Womans University, mostly composition, research writing, and cultural issues, but also the occasional graduate seminar on Gnosticism and Johannine theology and the occasional undergraduate course on European history. My doctorate is in history (U.C. Berkeley), with emphasis on religion and science. My thesis is on John's gospel and Gnosticism. I'm also an award-winning writer, and I recommend my novella, The Bottomless Bottle of Beer, to anyone interested. I'm originally from the Arkansas Ozarks, but my academic career -- funded through doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships (e.g., Fulbright, Naumann, Lady Davis) -- has taken me through Texas, California, Switzerland, Germany, Australia, and Israel and has landed me in Seoul, South Korea. I've also traveled to Mexico, visited much of Europe, including Moscow, and touched down briefly in a few East Asian countries. Hence: "Gypsy Scholar."
5 Comments:
The increasingly thick layering of words feels less like a chicken's egg and more like an oyster's developing pearl! You're talking chickens but making pearls! Not a complaint, to be sure—just an offhand observation.
#PerlesDeSagesse
But I need the sound to be like "kitsch" - a scratchy sound. Now, "crustacean" would sound exactly right. But "oyster"? "Pearl"?
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Ah. I wasn't even thinking in those terms when I wrote my comment, but now I have to wonder: while I get the need for scratchy sounds, the "itch" sound itself appears only twice with "kitsch" and "kitchen." Why not go balls to the wall and swamp the reader with itchy sounds?
a chikkin is a critcher—
just a cluckin', bitchy glitcher;
watch it scritch a little itcher;
watch it pitch and go a-twitcher;
think yer rich? well, you'll be richer
if you draw a faintsy pitcher
pitcher kitsch? just make it kitscher
sell a lich yer bitchin' pitcher
make a pitcher of a critcher
throw yer sister in a twister
when she breaks, then you can stitch her
if she croak, then you can ditch her
if she live, then you can switch her
for a lich who made you richer
when you sold your bitchin' pitcher
—O, the dead
Translation of the above nonsense:
A chicken is a creature
just a clucking, irascible ensemble of flaws
watch it scratch a small itch
watch it teeter and go spastic
you believe you're rich? well, you'll be even richer
if you were to draw a fancy picture
is your picture kitschy? just make it kitschier
sell a wight your outstanding picture
paint a picture of a creature
throw your sister into a tornado
when her body returns broken to you, you can mend her
if she's dead, then you can throw her corpse away
if she's alive, you can switch her out
for a wight who made you richer
when you sold your outstanding picture
—O, the dead
A lich is technically a corpse, but in Dungeons and Dragons, it's a sort of undead ruler of the undead.
"you believe you're rich? well, you'll be even richer
if you were to draw a fancy picture"
Please pardon my tense-control error:
"you believe you're rich? well, you'll be even richer
if YOU DRAW a fancy picture"
In German, the word for corpse is "Leiche."
Good rapping song, by the way, worthy of Itchy and Scratchy as performers!
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Post a Comment
<< Home