Thursday, February 24, 2005
If I May Have Your Attention For A Moment
I would like to point to our current poll, directly to your right. Our polls are the work of The Farmer, which will come as no surprise to any of our regular readers. I happen to think that this particular one is perhaps his finest and funniest thus far.
However, I am saddened to note that the correct answer is only in second place. Yes, from my viewpoint there is a single correct answer, though I realize that arguments can be made on behalf of any of the proffered choices.
I can only assume the failure of so many to select that correct answer, which happens to be # 9, "The Rove Strumpet Swan" is due to a general lack of knowledge as to the true nature of swans. Most of you probably view them as benign creatures of great beauty, those wondrous entities into which ugly ducklings grow. Surely, they are beautiful. But just as surely their preening display of their own beauty is less than attractive, and an excellent avian equivalent of Jeff/Jim Gannon/Guckert's advertisements for his own display of nudity.
Most of you probably view your average swan as having a serene temperament. I don't blame you for that. I suspect that most of you have never had a close encounter with a swan. I have.
At the age of four, at a farm of a friend of the family where we sometimes spent the weekend, I became entranced by the beauty of the swans our friends kept in a pond, and waded in to pet one of them. Within a nanosecond, I was pinned under the gigantic wing of one of the swans, who commenced slapping me silly with the other wing, punctuated by occasional jabs of its beak and kicks of its webed feet. I was rescued before I sustained any permanent damage, but it took two grown men to free me, and one of them sustained two broken bones in the effort.
No one blamed the swan, nor do I. But I am here to tell you that swans are preternaturally strong beyond ordinary imagination, clannish, quick to anger, domineering, and that they posses a decided mean streak. I think it was grannyinsanity in comments who pointed to certain features of Gannon/Guckhert's physique that might indicate a predilection for dominance and the meting out of punishment. Are not the correlations between Rove Strumpet Swans and Jeff JD Gannon Guckert all too obvious? I will leave the discussion at that, except to observe that any of you who think that Leda had anything remotely like fun should think again, or re-read Yeats on the subject:
Vote your conscience, of course, but on no account ever try and pet a swan.
However, I am saddened to note that the correct answer is only in second place. Yes, from my viewpoint there is a single correct answer, though I realize that arguments can be made on behalf of any of the proffered choices.
I can only assume the failure of so many to select that correct answer, which happens to be # 9, "The Rove Strumpet Swan" is due to a general lack of knowledge as to the true nature of swans. Most of you probably view them as benign creatures of great beauty, those wondrous entities into which ugly ducklings grow. Surely, they are beautiful. But just as surely their preening display of their own beauty is less than attractive, and an excellent avian equivalent of Jeff/Jim Gannon/Guckert's advertisements for his own display of nudity.
Most of you probably view your average swan as having a serene temperament. I don't blame you for that. I suspect that most of you have never had a close encounter with a swan. I have.
At the age of four, at a farm of a friend of the family where we sometimes spent the weekend, I became entranced by the beauty of the swans our friends kept in a pond, and waded in to pet one of them. Within a nanosecond, I was pinned under the gigantic wing of one of the swans, who commenced slapping me silly with the other wing, punctuated by occasional jabs of its beak and kicks of its webed feet. I was rescued before I sustained any permanent damage, but it took two grown men to free me, and one of them sustained two broken bones in the effort.
No one blamed the swan, nor do I. But I am here to tell you that swans are preternaturally strong beyond ordinary imagination, clannish, quick to anger, domineering, and that they posses a decided mean streak. I think it was grannyinsanity in comments who pointed to certain features of Gannon/Guckhert's physique that might indicate a predilection for dominance and the meting out of punishment. Are not the correlations between Rove Strumpet Swans and Jeff JD Gannon Guckert all too obvious? I will leave the discussion at that, except to observe that any of you who think that Leda had anything remotely like fun should think again, or re-read Yeats on the subject:
Vote your conscience, of course, but on no account ever try and pet a swan.
