An Adage Comes of Age

Rome's long fallen
So time's mores phrased anew:
When at home
...
Do as the homos do!

Ode to Kenneth Anger

Dedicated to Bill Landis




Cocteau famously told us your Fireworks
Touches the quick of the soul, so rare!
But as the Beast once whispered to a beauty
Don't ever believe that tales ... are fair ...

Voicemail

Children - Welcome back for another installment of "Adventures in Poetry"!

First, let's recap last week's lesson. After analyzing the metrical formulae underlying all "well-constructed" (or, for my more advanced students, "canonical") voicemail greetings, we studied an example of the generically "safe" model:

Please leave a message
At the tone
Speak slowly and clearly
Remember -
You're on the telephone!

And now, time to move on to something meatier!

For this week's lesson, we turn to the ground-breaking work of my good friend and mentor, T. Sedgwick, Freshman Associate at the Foundation for the Study of World Importance (headquartered in sunny Miami, Florida!) I direct your attention to his seminal study, "Voicemail Aesthetics: How to Lighten Your Load in a Rough Economy".

Specifically, we now examine the current voicemail Oeuvre of a literary queen who is no stranger to any of you - Her Incomparable Highness J. K. Rowling! Heads up! - here we go:

Hello
This is J. K. Rowling
I'm not at home
I've just gone bowling ...

Next week: Dame Barbara Cartland welcomes us to her Devonshire estate!