Gosh, all crikey. I certainly didn't expect this. Thanks everybody, and most aged yet wise and prophetic thanks to Ursa and Teresa for the votes. I'm particularly delighted to win against such strong competition as this quarter provided, and congrats to Moonbat and willwallace for a tremendous fight.
Victoria, I'm glad you used the word "strange" because that was something I felt about your story, and actually I do think it was poetic, as many of your pieces are, but with a kind of dry poeticism if that makes sense, not lush and overgrown, but restrained and cerebral.
If anyone is interested in the origins of my story, though I loved the image I had absolutely no idea what to write and was badgering the Judicial Helpmeet for thoughts yet again, and he said the sculpture looked like a speaker of some kind with those holes in it, but I couldn't get anywhere with that. Then on the Saturday morning as we set off shopping the phrase "Old man Yew" came to me, so I was traipsing round the fruit and veg aisles pondering ideas about an aged tree in a forest (which is where the "Older than the birch, younger than the mangrove" came from, which I liked enough to keep), but that went nowhere as well. But as I was repeating "Old man Yew" to myself as I liked the line, it transmuted into "Old man Yu" and I had an image of a Chinese village, and at the same time the idea of people saying one thing but meaning another, and when I finally began writing the speaker idea came back. The title was the last thing to come, but I like a good pun now and then.
Re Cascade's piece, the short story it reminded me of involved a man (a university professor, I think) waking up one day as a cow and his desperation as he tried to communicate with the men around him, but he couldn't speak of course, only moo. He's driven into the slaughter house and getting panicky, then realises he can still write, and with one hoof, writing upside down so it can be read by the slaughterman waiting for him, he writes his name/profession, then walks forward, knowing he'll be recognised and helped. The scene cuts to a couple of slaughtermen talking, and one saying he had another of them odd steers doing a fancy dance in front of him -- the slaughterman can't read...
Victoria, I'm glad you used the word "strange" because that was something I felt about your story, and actually I do think it was poetic, as many of your pieces are, but with a kind of dry poeticism if that makes sense, not lush and overgrown, but restrained and cerebral.
If anyone is interested in the origins of my story, though I loved the image I had absolutely no idea what to write and was badgering the Judicial Helpmeet for thoughts yet again, and he said the sculpture looked like a speaker of some kind with those holes in it, but I couldn't get anywhere with that. Then on the Saturday morning as we set off shopping the phrase "Old man Yew" came to me, so I was traipsing round the fruit and veg aisles pondering ideas about an aged tree in a forest (which is where the "Older than the birch, younger than the mangrove" came from, which I liked enough to keep), but that went nowhere as well. But as I was repeating "Old man Yew" to myself as I liked the line, it transmuted into "Old man Yu" and I had an image of a Chinese village, and at the same time the idea of people saying one thing but meaning another, and when I finally began writing the speaker idea came back. The title was the last thing to come, but I like a good pun now and then.
Re Cascade's piece, the short story it reminded me of involved a man (a university professor, I think) waking up one day as a cow and his desperation as he tried to communicate with the men around him, but he couldn't speak of course, only moo. He's driven into the slaughter house and getting panicky, then realises he can still write, and with one hoof, writing upside down so it can be read by the slaughterman waiting for him, he writes his name/profession, then walks forward, knowing he'll be recognised and helped. The scene cuts to a couple of slaughtermen talking, and one saying he had another of them odd steers doing a fancy dance in front of him -- the slaughterman can't read...
