Saturday, May 8, 2010
Yogi Bear, Wally Gator and Tennessee Tuxedo and That Walrus that hangs out with Tennessee are on this big raft going through the jungle. Creepers, shoots, lianas and flowering tubers erupt and pustulate all round the frolicsome group as they roll downstream around elbows in the tributary and whitewater features replete with jumping packs of piranha chattering their choppers and flashing mirror-like scales. Smoke swirls around the volcano.
Yogi looks first at Wally, then to Tennessee, then to Atom Ant who he didn’t know was on the boat until this moment and says to no one in particular, but not the walrus whom he disdains for no reason he can put his finger on, maybe a simple lack of formal introduction never enacted by the hatted penguin, “Hey, Boo Boo, do you hear something?”
Yogi looks first at Wally, then to Tennessee, then to Atom Ant who he didn’t know was on the boat until this moment and says to no one in particular, but not the walrus whom he disdains for no reason he can put his finger on, maybe a simple lack of formal introduction never enacted by the hatted penguin, “Hey, Boo Boo, do you hear something?”
As a lost dog on the edge of a sidewalk timidly approaches first one passerby and then another, uncertain of what to ask for, taking a few embarrassed steps in one direction and then suddenly veering to another before being able to ascertain what reception her mute entreaty might have met with, puzzled, lost, miserable, ready to slink back into her inner confusion at the first brush with the outside world , so your aspirations my soul on this busy thoroughfare that is life. What do you think to gain by merely standing there looking worried, while the tide of humanity sweeps ever onward, toward some goal it gives every sign of being as intimately acquainted with as you are with the sharp-edged problems that beset you from every angle? Do you really think that if you succeed in looking pathetic enough some kindly stranger your name and address and then steer you safely to your door?
And there is no use trying to tell them trying to tell them that the touching melancholy of your stare is the product not of self-pity but of a lucid attempt to find out just where you stand in the fast moving stream of traffic that flows endlessly from horizon to horizon like a dark river. I know that the pose could be some other one, joyous or haughty, or whatever. It is only that you happened to be wearing this look as you arrived at the end of your perusal of the way left open to you, and it “froze” on you, just as your mother had warned you it would when you were little . And now it’s the face you show the world…
(Child Roland approaching the dark tower and every energy concentrated toward the encounter)
And there is no use trying to tell them trying to tell them that the touching melancholy of your stare is the product not of self-pity but of a lucid attempt to find out just where you stand in the fast moving stream of traffic that flows endlessly from horizon to horizon like a dark river. I know that the pose could be some other one, joyous or haughty, or whatever. It is only that you happened to be wearing this look as you arrived at the end of your perusal of the way left open to you, and it “froze” on you, just as your mother had warned you it would when you were little . And now it’s the face you show the world…
(Child Roland approaching the dark tower and every energy concentrated toward the encounter)
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Leaning down to the snake oil spill, every fiber of his being screamed against it. His pupils dilated and tail thrashed -in desperation he drank it down. He hadn't been able to keep up with his peers' massive food stores due to the bad back and he was willing to try anything. His friends were derisive, but he'd show them. Once the back was healed and Martha was off his case, he'd be digging twice as many holes.
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Toad was the stubborn curmudgeon to Frog's Pollyanna in Arnold Lobel's Caldecott award-winning Frog and Toad series of children's books. If we can please Toad with a story, know we've succeeded.