EAST IS EAST, AND WEST IS WEST, AND NEVER THE TWAIN SHALL MEET. –Rudyard Kipling
The above quote notwithstanding, it’s not too late if you want to meet Twain. Forget East/West, and return to the site of my previous post (MARK TWAIN ON DONALD TRUMP), where Twain still lives. I could quibble that you should have met him there then, but I am magnanimous enough to forgive those of you who didn’t read that post (so long as you promise never to let it happen again).
Be that as it may, this is April — April 24th, to be exact, which just happens to be East Meets West Day, which just happens to give me an excuse to engross you with some of my favorite East and/or West songs, such as this old standard by an old favorite:
Keely Smith (born Dorothy Keely) died four months ago at age 89, one of the best (though underappreciated) female vocalists of the 1950s-60s.
Next, we change directions for this Kurt Weill classic from the 1943 musical ONE TOUCH OF VENUS:
Let us end, fittingly, with WEST END BLUES by Louis Armstrong, one of the all-time great recordings in jazz history:
That performance was recorded in 1928; 90 years later, you can travel far and wide, east and west, and never the same shall meet.
You’re really going East — Far East — with that one, G.H.! Though your question is a bit off-subject with the theme of this post, I’ll venture to predict that if ‘Past is prologue,’ N. Korea will agree to, but not keep, a treaty. Herbert Hoover wasn’t the greatest of American Presidents, but he wisely said, “Peace is not made at the council table or by treaties, but in the hearts of men.”
Yes, I did digress! But thanks for sharing the info you gave. I strayed as the title of your post reminded me of how the west as in Trump is planning to meet eastern Asia’s N Korea Kim. 😊
No problem, G.H.! If “digression is the better part of valor,” who am I to say you stray? Unfortunately, the old saying is “discretion” (not “digression”) is the better part of valor” — but I digress. 😦
Mr. Kipling also assured us that…
“But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth.”
Sorry to hear about the passing of Keely Smith. She was a great singer. And, here’s her take on the subject.
As you may know, Don, “Sing, Sing, Sing” was a huge hit for Benny Goodman’s big band in 1937 and was one of the songs which helped establish him as the “King of Swing” in the Swing era. Interestingly, the song was written by Louis Prima, Keely Smith’s first husband, who famously partnered with her professionally in the 1950s.
How much time and thought do you devote to coming up with just-the-right title for your story, poem or article? If you take writing seriously, the answer is probably: as long as it takes to nail it — which could be almost no time at all, if it comes to you in a flash — or, more time than a less intense writer is willing to allot.
Ernest Hemingway, for one, evidently wasn’t the latter type. Case in point: in writing his definitive Spanish Civil War novel, he didn’t settle for less than a killer title that would encapsulate ‘the moral of the story,’ eventually finding it in this passage from a 1624 work by the poet John Donne: “Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
As a writer of (mostly) humorous poems and posts, I’m inclined to go for witty and/or wordplay titles. Many times, the title to a particular piece all but suggests itself, but more often, no such luck, and I’m stuck — until eventually (as with the title of this post) a eureka moment rewards my resolve….or a poem resists my labeling efforts, and I just settle for:
UNTITLED
This poem’s title is Untitled —
Not because it is untitled,
But because I am entitled
To entitle it Untitled.
If I’d not titled it Untitled,
It would truly be untitled….
Which would make it unentitled
To the title of Untitled.
So it is vital, if untitled,
Not to title it Untitled,
And to leave that title idled,
As a title is entitled.
Moving on, suppose we try a title quiz based on the Papa Hemingway model (sorry, those of you who’d prefer the mistermuse model). Here are five passages from classic original works from which later authors lifted titles for their novels. Can you name the five later works and pin each tale on its author (ten answers total)? If you name all ten correctly, you win the title (with apologies to Cervantes) of Donkeyote Of All You Survey.
PASSAGES FROM ORIGINAL WORKS:
Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree/Damned from here to Eternity/God ha’ mercy on such as we/Ba! Yah! Bah! –Rudyard Kipling
The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men/Gang aft a-gley/An’ lea’e us naught but grief an’ pain/For promised joy! –Robert Burns
By the pricking of my thumbs,/Something wicked this way comes. –Wm. Shakespeare
Come my tan-faced children/Follow well in order, get your weapons ready/Have you your pistols? Have you your sharp-edged axes?/Pioneers! O pioneers! –Walt Whitman
No Place so Sacred from such Fops is barr’d,/Nor is Paul’s Church more safe than Paul’s Churchyard./Nay, fly to altars; there they’ll talk you dead/For Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread. –Alexander Pope
TITLES (WITH AUTHORS) FROM ABOVE PREVIOUS WORKS:
FROM HERE TO ETERNITY –James Jones OF MICE AND MEN –John Steinbeck SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES –Ray Bradbury O PIONEERS! –Willa Cather WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD –E.M. Forster
How many of the ten titles/authors did you get? That last title, parenthetically, became part of Johnny Mercer’s lyrics to this 1940 hit song composed by Rube Bloom:
And now I fear I must tread on out….before something wicked this way comes.
If there were an award entitled “The Best Poem about Title-ing An Untitled Poem” you certainly would be entitled to it. I recall a creative writing teacher who was a stickler about titles; she said leaving a poem untitled was lazy and a refusal to finish your poem properly. In the history of Literature it seems even the use of Numbers—Sonnet 24—has been acceptable, and often the first line or phrase of a poem is used as its title—-“Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night….”.
I liked the quiz. Pour moi it was a piece of cake. Just this past month I used a line from a Shakespeare sonnet for one of my titles: “Love’s Not Time’s Fool.” Thanks for an enjoyable post!
Thank you, Cynthia. I believe the exception to the ‘poems must be titled rule’ is the limerick, which should never be titled (if one were to follow the rules, which apparently exist to curtail my fun, so I have occasionally titled a few of mine).
Congrats on getting 100% on the quiz. I hereby award you the title (in deference to your gender) of DONNA-KEYOTE OF ALL YOU SURVEY! 🙂
Don, you know how much I dig great old songs, so I’m giving you 30 bonus points for knowing FOOLS RUSH IN (WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD). That brings your score up to 100, which wins you the DON(FRANKEL)KEYOTE OF ALL YOU SURVEY AWARD….and well deserved, I might add!
Garfield Hug 1:21 am on April 24, 2018 Permalink |
I am curious too as to how the meeting with N Korea will pan out?
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mistermuse 9:56 am on April 24, 2018 Permalink |
You’re really going East — Far East — with that one, G.H.! Though your question is a bit off-subject with the theme of this post, I’ll venture to predict that if ‘Past is prologue,’ N. Korea will agree to, but not keep, a treaty. Herbert Hoover wasn’t the greatest of American Presidents, but he wisely said, “Peace is not made at the council table or by treaties, but in the hearts of men.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Garfield Hug 12:59 pm on April 24, 2018 Permalink
Yes, I did digress! But thanks for sharing the info you gave. I strayed as the title of your post reminded me of how the west as in Trump is planning to meet eastern Asia’s N Korea Kim. 😊
LikeLiked by 2 people
mistermuse 4:13 pm on April 24, 2018 Permalink
No problem, G.H.! If “digression is the better part of valor,” who am I to say you stray? Unfortunately, the old saying is “discretion” (not “digression”) is the better part of valor” — but I digress. 😦
LikeLiked by 1 person
Don Frankel 1:53 pm on April 24, 2018 Permalink |
Mr. Kipling also assured us that…
“But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth.”
Sorry to hear about the passing of Keely Smith. She was a great singer. And, here’s her take on the subject.
LikeLiked by 2 people
mistermuse 5:35 pm on April 24, 2018 Permalink |
As you may know, Don, “Sing, Sing, Sing” was a huge hit for Benny Goodman’s big band in 1937 and was one of the songs which helped establish him as the “King of Swing” in the Swing era. Interestingly, the song was written by Louis Prima, Keely Smith’s first husband, who famously partnered with her professionally in the 1950s.
LikeLiked by 1 person
dunelight 6:29 pm on April 30, 2018 Permalink |
Keely Smith..I love her. What a dream to have seen her in Vegas. She had killer timing as a comedienne. I can watch her play off Louis Prima for days.
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