No light shines upon the ground at this hour,
The half moon’s rays overshadowed by cloud.
And yet I must walk back, but not too loud;
Such noise gives these shadows a secret power.
Nature, in darkness, still lurks and glowers:
Vicissitudinary[1] truth in shroud
Which will gladly receive what I have owed.
Payment for all those trampled-on flowers.
So now the branches swing fast at my face
And the ground is pitched[2] with stumps and dark muck
Which swallows me whole into the dark night.
And now I cannot leave this curséd place.
No shower will cleanse me, eternal guck.
Next time, I will remember a flashlight.
[1] Vicissitude: (OED) 1. The fact of change or mutation taking place in a particular thing or within a certain sphere; the uncertain changing or mutability of something. Used in Wordsworth’s “Surprised by Joy”
[2] Pitch(1): (OED) 1. trans. To cover, coat, seal, or smear with pitch (also with over, up); to mark or brand (a sheep, etc.) with pitch; to soil or stain with pitch. 2. trans. fig. To make as dark as pitch; to envelop in darkness. Also Pitch(2) I. To thrust in, fix in, set in place, etc. Used in Shakespeare’s Sonnet VII.
Or he would have been, except that Raptors are from the Cretaceous.
I finally started reading Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larrsson, you know, three years after it became a critical bestseller and Sweden’s best gift to literature since they started handing out Nobels. And it’s good, I will give it that. I really like the characters, and the mystery of the book is certainly riveting. I just don’t know if the hype is all it’s cracked up to be. I don’t think a level of detail implies that I need to know Salander’s exact make of computer, for example. But we’ll see how this goes.
For years now, I have been somewhat curious about the origin of my last name, Cycyota. Not the genealogy, you understand, but the phonetic and etymological origins. The name is Czech slash Polish in origin, with at least one corruption of form somewhere along the line. Typing Cycyota into Google returns pages upon pages of names, with not a lot of indication as to what Cycyota means.
However, that is not where the story ends. I know that a Cycyota was shortened from Czeczota, or something very similar to this form. Typing Czeczota into Google returns names, but also returns a fair amount of Polish websites, including this one, http://portalwiedzy.onet.pl/9830,,,,czeczota,haslo.html, which is apparently some sort of Polish encyclopedia. Luckily, Google Translate is fairly decent at Polish, and the definition of Czeczota comes up thusly:
wood, usually birch or poplar, sycamore, elm with an abnormal arrangement of rings forming a beautiful, intricate drawing called czeczotowatością. Arises from the disruption of growth of the tree.
Valued in the furniture industry, particularly popular in the style of Biedermeier.
That’s right. Cycyota means “an irregular growth in trees.” Be excited about that one, family members. Isn’t language fun?
Has anyone ever noticed that William Shakespeare resembles no living person so much as Kanye West? That’s right, I’m comparing the eminent Bard to the self-professed “Voice of a Generation,” on the basis of some striking similarities which I will now enumerate.
- Shakespeare and Kanye both derive the bulk of their income from writing, whether that be plays and poems or mellifluous pieces of tripe which may be classified as works of art (I’m referring to Shakespeare here).
- Both artists have classified themselves as geniuses, unabashedly, in their own work. While Kanye’s lyrics often denote his superiority (Bow in the presence of greatness/’cause right now thou has forsaken us/You should be honored by my lateness /That I would even show up to this fake shit- “Stronger,” Graduation) Ol’ Bill’s lyrics are very prescient about the immortality of his work, especially his sonnets (Not marble nor the gilded monuments/ Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme- Sonnet 55).
- Both men leverage their work into that favorite pastime of men, chasing tail.
- Both saw the downside to fame during their lifetime, as Shakespeare was reviled and left destitute for a time while Kanye cancelled his tour over that Taylor Swift thing (though you could hardly say he’s destitute at the moment).
- Fantastic Facial Hair.
Of course, the ramifications of these similarities are quite disturbing. If people 400 years from now are critically examining the works of Kanye West and restaging such gems as “Robocop” and “Homecoming,” I may just decide to rise from my grave to stop that nonsense.
