Tag Archives: poets

Dagwood Sandwich

Dagwood Sandwich (n): a thick sandwich filled with a variety of meats, cheeses, dressings, and condiments.

His name was Chic Young.

I just wanted to see that in print—because as an author, I am fully aware that most of the things I write will be lost in obscurity or rendered meaningless.

Being a creative person is similar to manufacturing clouds. Brief vapor that they are, they soon will pass away and need to be replaced by new clouds.

Chic Young is the cartoonist who came up with the idea for Dagwood and Blondie. The strip began in 1930, when the assumption of the times was that men are lazy, always looking for a way of getting out of work and never doing what their wives wanted them to—and that women are interfering, nosy and a bit inept.

That particular line of reasoning is still alive in our entertainment today.

Yes—although it’s been ninety years, we persist in believing that men and women are destined to be at odds with one another, except when sexual arousal temporarily interrupts the warfare for a copulation treat.

I shall not comment further on that. You can probably tell by my emphasis that I find such thinking to be self-indulgent and counter-intuitive.

But back to Chic.

Let’s just take a moment and salute a fellow who came up with a character—Dagwood Bumstead—who loved to make huge sandwiches, usually with a sardine sticking out on the side—and because of that, to this day we name such concoctions and compilations Dagwoods.

How many of us can say that something we came up with led to having a sandwich named after it?

By the way, the name Dagwood is legitimate.

It actually comes from England and is translated as “shiny forest.” Although I do not know what a shiny forest would be, I assume it could only be viewed following the ingestion of some hallucinogenic drug.

So on this fine day, we want to thank you, Chic, for giving us Dagwood and Blondie.

And for all you writers, composers, thinkers, reasoners, poets and musers—keep going.

Someday something you concocted might be ordered at a Subway–with extra pickles.

 

Cryptic

Cryptic: (adj) mysterious in meaning; puzzling; ambiguous

Some examples of cryptic thoughts.

It certainly was fortunate that there were ignorant black people in Africa so that American slavery could prosper.

President Trump would be a fabulous leader if he knew where he was going.

It is ironic that the Jews would consider it anti-Semitic to be blamed for the crucifixion of Jesus, even though their Council cast the votes.

Men and women are equally talented and intelligent—and there the equality ceases.

I shot an arrow into the air and I sure as hell hope it didn’t kill anybody.

I am happiest when I know some people are sad because there seems to be a limited amount of happiness.

The best Republican President acted like he was a Democrat.

The best Democrat President was probably a secret Republican.

People don’t seem to be able to just enjoy sex without thinking they are the best at it.

The more we envy others, the less the chance of ever possessing what they have.

Religion is about as close to God as politics is to freedom.

You can always tell when a nation is failing—it attacks its poets.

I blame myself for trusting you to have the intelligence to make the decision that has now ruined us both.

These are some examples of cryptic statements.

Such talk is fun.

Such talk is clever.

Such talk can start wars.

 

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Anti-hero

dictionary with letter A

Anti-hero (n): a central character in a story, movie, or drama who lacks conventional heroic attributes.

Is it an oxymoron or just redundant?

For after all, there are no true heroes who fit the criteria we normally assess to such an honor.

  • All heroes come from nowhere just in the nick of time.
  • They cannot be manufactured–though we have hammered away.
  • They cannot be educated, though classes continue to be held.
  • They cannot be ordained, though religious institutions anoint at will.
  • And they are not born heroes.

One of the greatest misconceptions in our culture is the notion that people are born any particular way. We are all birthed with the need to be born again–emotionally, spiritually, mentally and physically–or else to be cast in the role of being mere understudies of our parents’ stage work.

No one would expect a scrawny attorney from Illinois to be the central figure for the emancipation of the black race and the maintaining of the union of our country.

No one could ever have anticipated that a young man who struggled with math would later convince us that E does equal MC squared.

Could anyone have foreseen that a gentleman of great promise who was struck with polio and was confined to a wheelchair would be elected president four times, guiding us through a national depression and a world war?

Looking at a string of poets, musicians, authors, statesmen, inventors and liberators, there is not one of them who was naturally inclined to greatness.

It is those we preen to be heroes who disappoint us and those who we have cursed to obscurity who end up astounding us.

After all, could anyone have thought that a refugee to Egypt, who grew up in a village of less than five hundred people, the son of a carpenter, would be proclaimed the light of the world?

 

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Anthill

dictionary with letter A

Anthill (n.): a moundlike nest built by ants.

In the literary world, ants are always portrayed as industrious do-gooders. They’re also priggish in the sense that when characterized by poets, they are shown to be a bit snobbish about their craft, talent and provision.

I’ve even heard public speakers suggest that a factory or a particular group of working individuals were humming along at such an efficient pace that they “resembled an anthill.”

Yet having looked at an anthill myself and watched ants at work, I would like to make two subjective points that are contrary to the common promotional representation:

1. Can there be anything uglier than an anthill?

A vision in beige, heaped up in no particular style, constructed for the sole purpose of creating a catacombs of work environment for its enslaved occupants. At least when you look at a bird’s nest, it’s formed with all sorts of remnants of this and that and has some individuality. An anthill looks like the desert got the mumps.

2. I personally have watched ants go by me–busying themselves and oblivious to the world around them–and I have noted that there is no good cheer in the little crawlers.

Even though I am a great admirer of efficiency and work ethic, when you remove joy from the experience of human discovery, you end up acting…well, like an ant, wishing you could say “uncle.”

No wonder they occasionally rebel and slip away from the hive to raid picnics. (There are even a few radicals who decide to start their own business of rubber-tree plant removal.)

But most toe the line in their blah surroundings, pushing tiny morsels into the hill in order to eat, dry their sweat and go back out to find more scraps.

So I don’t think it’s a compliment for people to tell me I work like an ant. Because if you’re going to climb mountains … you’re going to have to get out of your anthill.

 

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Amuck

dictionary with letter A

Amuck: (adj): out of control: the anarchists were running amuck.

Innocence is often what we scream when we’re notoriously guilty or foolishly ignorant.

To acquire innocence, one must find oneself in a profile free of guilt and not yet aware of ignorance. That doesn’t happen very often.

Sitting in front of a meal of fried fish from Captain D’s Seafood last night, I realized that the possibility of maintaining a low-caloric dinner depended on whether I was going to eat next to nothing of the portion provided, or push it away and rely totally on the sides that were lessened in calories.

Yet at the same time, how can you be a vivacious, energetic, creative and passionate human being and step away from a plate full of fried fish?

Perhaps if you are a nun or of a monastic order, gaining strength and pride through such fasting, you can maintain personal dignity while failing to devour.

But the true essence of the human experience is finding a way to eat the fried fish and enjoy it without running amuck and consuming too much–and then having it show up on the various areas of your circumference in the future.

How does one do that?

How does one find himself gregariously and voraciously involved in life without running amuck with overage and excesses?

It’s obvious that our poets and musicians have never been able to find such a balance, many ending up self-destructive or destitute.

Certainly ministers and schoolteachers tout that they have a regulatory system enabling them to be prudent, prim and proper–but even with them, occasionally when you pull back the holy cloth or move the blackboard, you see hidden vices and places where they have run amuck.

Is it too much to ask of a human being to be temperate?

Is it beyond the comprehension of our being–which mingles a little monkey with a little angel–to contend that we are going to do heavenly things?

Or do we need to have a side of deviled egg with our angel food cake?

 

 

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Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix