I was looking for a poem about dogs, and ended up finding a fun one by Dorothy Parker. It's by her! Really!
However, this site I'm linking to here contains two different "analyses" of the poem, and all of lines quoted ARE NOT IN THE POEM. In fact, judging by a pretty thorough search, none of the lines quoted appear on any other webpage.* Conclusion? Both analyses are AI generated. AI analyzes crappy poetry it generated itself!
Amazing. And appalling.
Honestly, I don't know how students are going to be able to navigate this.
*Here's an excerpt:
The poem begins with the speaker addressing her dog, saying "Your dog is not a Lassie, / Your dog is not a Rover; / But I must do my best to see / That you behave him over." The speaker is acknowledging that her dog is not a well-behaved, obedient pet like the fictional Lassie or Rover. Instead, she is resigned to the fact that she must try her best to control her dog's behavior.
"That you behave him over"? OMG, I feel like I'm losing my mind.
My encroaching departure from Facebook has me wondering if I should revive my moribund blog. Not promising anything, but this is an expanded version of a thread I posted on Bluesky. Maybe I'll post from time to time? (I'm otherjimdonahue over on Bluesky, by the way.)
I just went down a wormhole regarding the folk song "She Moved Through the Fair." (Some versions use "Moves," but "Moved" is traditional.) If you never heard it, the song is about a doomed romance; the narrator of the song watches his love moving through a fair, and it's the last time he sees her. She disappears and, it's implied, she dies. In the final verse, her vision -- a ghost? just a dream? -- visits him.
First of all, there's at least some controversy about how "traditional" a song it is. Some say it's an old folk song. Some say the basis may be an old folk song, but a poet named Padraic Colum wrote most of the lyric that we know today. Not getting involved in that -- I don't know the answer. (BTW, some versions leave out the verse that makes it clear the "she" of the title disappears/dies -- making the last verse confusing. Colum said at some point that he forgot to send the next-to-last verse it to the publisher, and it was added to later editions.)
But the thing that intrigues me is a line from the first verse:
"And my father won't slight you for your lack of kind."
That's how most folks sing it. But I'm not sure what "lack of kind" would mean. However, at some time in the late '80s or early '90s, I saw a singer (her name escapes me) at the Bottom Line in NYC perform the song, and she wanted to explain the line "And my father won't slight you for your lack of kine" -- kine, not kind. "Kine," she said, meant "cattle," and the line meant that the parents of the "she" in the song wouldn't mind that that her husband-to-be was poor. (If I remember correctly, she simply wanted to explain the word -- she didn't say "Some people use the word 'kind' there, but they're wrong." To her, "kine" was part of the lyric, period.)
I found another singer (country star Kathy Mattea) who used "kine" and explained the term as meaning "cattle," but also sang the song as "HE Moved ..." -- given the gender switch, she said it meant the the man's parents wouldn't mind if his wife-to-be didn't have a dowry.
For the record, the first published version of lyrics (1909) have "kind," not "kine," and it's titled "She Moved..."
Could it be that Padraic Colum didn't write that lyric in the early 20th cent. as he claimed, and the original folk version had the word "kine," which was an out-of-use word even in 1909?
I don't know! But if someone could explain what "kind" would mean in that line, I'd love to hear an explanation.
PS: It looks like somewhere around 90% of recordings use "kind." (Maybe a little more than that, even.)
Soooo. No, this blog isn't reviving. But on the off chance anyone still has this in a feed or something, I just wanted to point out I will soon have a column online at the Daily Grindhouse site about this film. So, stay tuned, please--and meanwhile, enjoy this trailer.
How WNET--the biggest local PBS affiliate in the New York City area--treats viewers is baffling and maddening.
I'm a fan of The Great British Baking Show--a baking competition program (minus the usual crappy trappings of competition shows) that's become a big hit. The PBS network finished its run of the season two weeks ago (August 12). But because WNET did not double up on a few episodes as the network as a whole did, this past Sunday (it's airing here on Sunday afternoons rather than Friday evenings, as on the network) was only the quarter-finals. And next Sunday should be the semi-finals.
But it's not airing.
That's because WNET is starting yet another fund drive this weekend, and regular programming is off the air so it can rerun medical quackery programs, financial advice shows, doo-wop extravaganzas, yet another salute to Downton Abbey (yes, a special called something like I Miss Downton Abbey, a show that literally just aired its final episode a few months ago!), etc. (And, I'm not kidding, wasn't there a fund drive in late June or early July?) The regular schedule won't be back for at least two, possibly three, Sundays. It's so far off in the future that the show is not even showing up in a search of Optimum's schedule (not even sister station WLIW appears to be showing it!). That's if WNET even bothers to show the last two episodes at all. A few years ago, WNET disrupted the run of the last season of Poirot for a fund drive, with one or maybe two episodes left. I could never find them, if it showed them--certainly, it didn't run them in the regular Sunday night slot. By the time the drive was over, Masterpiece Mystery was on to a new series.
Is that really any way to treat viewers? (Can I watch the last two episodes on my computer? Sure, and I probably will. But why is WNET treating viewers so shabbily?)
PS: I support my local public radio station, but, no, I stopped giving to public TV a few years ago out of sheer frustration.
Episode 1 of "I've Made a Huge Mistake," the Arrested Development podcast, is now available. Look for two new episodes every week. (Will also be available via iTunes, but it appears episode 1 isn't there as I type this. There's a different podcast with the same name, so look for the one with the orange-colored icon that says "An Arrested Development podcast" beneath the title.)
Of course you understand the question--Arrested Development is only the best TV comedy of the 2000s.
And since you do love Arrested Development as much as I do, note that there's a new podcast devoted to the show, and it's called "I've Made a Huge Mistake." It starts next week, and I'll be on the show devoted the ninth episode of season one, "Storming the Castle," in a month or so.
But don't wait for me--put on your denim cutoffs, whip up a nice batch of mayonegg, and meet me where the magic happens. (You know, at the Gothic Arsehole.)
Nothing had been so hateful in the sight of these mobs as the man of learning, at first because they had served the princes, but then later because they refused to join in the bloodletting and tried to oppose the mobs, calling the crowds "bloodthirsty simpletons."
Joyfully the mobs accepted the name, took up the cry: Simpletons! Yes, yes! I'm a simpleton! Are you a simpleton? We'll build a town and we'll name it Simple Town, because by then all the smart bastards that caused all this, they'll be dead! Simpletons! Let's go! This ought to show 'em! Anybody here not a simpleton? Get the bastard, if there is! --Walter M. Miller, Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz
