[ExI] Prufrock

[Lee Corbin]

Jeff writes

> When Lee wrote:
>
>>>"The women come and go,
>>>speaking of fellatio."
>
> I experienced a spasm of fussiness.  The rhythm/meter is
> unsatisfying,... not quite in correspondence to the original:
>
> ...speaking of Michaelangelo.

Yeah, well, it still works---and it still makes the point
about the cultural shift. Sorry my cynicism didn't appeal
to you as much as it could have.

> Lee, for his part, was no doubt faithfully reproducing the variant of
> the phrase as he had encountered it.

Sir!  The substitution was my own invention

 I conceived of it  several months back; actually when looking
at a little of  Eliot's poetry in response to an article by John C.
Wright, who so beautifully expressed my own sentiments about
moral decline. And decline in a lot of other things, for that
matter. (Not that I'm damn glad to be living now rather
than any time before, mind you.)

> But I thought it sad, because it
> was, to my way of thinking, an entirely unnecessary defect.  For
> instance, it could have employed the original "Mi" of Michaelangelo
> and, preserved the meter with:
>
> "Speaking of my fellatio."
>
> A bit too personal, that first person?

"A bit"???  Of course.  This doesn't work at all.

>  Then it could have been:
>
> "Speaking of thy fellatio."

You're getting somewhere now, it seems, though I'll quickly
grant you have a better ear for this than I do. Actually, I was
aware that the meter (or whatever) was a bit off---at least not
matching the original. It hardly seemed to matter, because
if a modern Eliot had wrecked the poetic artistry of the line
so much the better.

> Or,
>
> "Speaking of 'Cry fellatio!'"
>
> referring perhaps to a campaign of the anti-war activism where "Cry
> 'Havoc!' and release the dogs of war" is countered with
> "Cry 'Fellatio!' and release the bawds galore."

You're back to stretching again.   :-(

> Or perhaps
>
> "...Try fellatio."  A campaign to broaden sexual horizons.  Or
>
> "Speaking of sly fellatio."  Moving beyond the vanilla version, or
>
> "...High Fellatio."  Enhanced, documented, and certified by the
> Fédération Internationale pour le Sexualité.

Ah.  Maybe the best so far! Very good.  Yes.  "The women
come and go, speaking of high fellatio."

Wait. Mic-al-ANG-i-o    doesn't match  Hi-fel-Lat-i-o.  Hmm.
Or does it. Isn't there something still ab it off?  Can't put
my finger on it, though.  I wish I'd said "high fellatio".  Thanks.
In the future, I'll be sure to run my poetic fancies past you before
posting.


> "...fly fellatio.", if the women in question were nerdy collegiate
> entomology majors.

Puh-leeze!

> At which point I concluded that I had way too much time on my hands

Yeah, I guess maybe you do.  Or---think of it this way (always works for
me!)---you just needed a lighthearted break from your other efforts to
create wealth or save the world.

Lee