"The Definition of Insanity is Doing the Same Thing Over and Over Again and Expecting Different Results" - Albert Einstein

Monday, July 19, 2010

Procrastination, Portobello and Poofs

I have a paper do on William Blake tomorrow morning, so obviously, I'm going to post a really long blog entry on entirely different subject matter instead of edit it for perfection. But before I do that, I really need to let out some personal feelings that I cannot keep inside anymore (Sorry in advance to anyone who is offended by these revelations [and in particular, Sean, if you wouldn't mention this to any of the professors here I would greatly appreciate it]). Well, here goes.

I hate William Blake. I think he was a nut-job lunatic and I don't think his poetry is all that exciting. Lets be serious for a second, how hard is it to rhyme couplets? Not that hard. I could totally do it. The fact the he occasionally uses slant rhyme REALLY bothers me, because a writer of his caliber should not be using it. Also, I hate the poem "Tyger, Tyger." It is probably Blake's most famous and anthologized poem. And I think it's awful. TRY AND SYMMETRY ARE NOT RHYMING WORDS. I wrote a poem about it actually myself.

It cannot be that hard to rhyme
I'm sure I'd do it all the time
And never would I use a slant
Cause slant rhyme is for no talent hack-jobs who think their readers don't know how to accurately pronounce words.

In case is gives any legitimacy to this absolutely pointless rant, I submit as evidence a conversation I had with my friend Bryan while we were working on our papers.

B: I just read on Wikipedia that someone said that William Blake was the greatest artist to come out of Britain ever.

J: Are they serious?

B: Better than Shakespeare apparently

J: No. No. Not better than Shakespeare. He’s not better than Tennyson for sure, or Robert or EB Browning. Or Orwell.

B: Not better than John Lennon. Fuck it, Blake’s not even better than Ringo.

There you have it. Blake is not even a better artist than Ringo. Ok, I'm done now.


I suppose you all would much rather hear about my exciting weekend plans. It has been an amazing few days here in bonny England. On Saturday we took a trip out to Portobello Road (Street where the riches of ages are stowed) and walked around for a while. The street is really cool. Because it was a Saturday, all of the shop owners set up tables outside on the street and you can browse to your merry hearts content for just about anything you’d want. Bargaining is key, so it’s a good thing that I’m a savvy shopper. I left with an antique book of the collected poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson and a fabulous dress. It's cool, I'm a stylish English Nerd.

Then that night we all got dressed up and went out to dinner and then to see Billy Elliot at the Victoria Palace Theatre. We had dinner at this delicious Italian restaurant across the street called Prezzo, and I forgot how much I miss pizza. Pizza is so good when done well. I've never been so happy to be geographically close to Italy.

Doesn't everyone look dapper? I'm wearing my new dress from Portobello in this picture too.

The show was absolutely amazing. This was actually the second time I have seen it; the first time I had to make up a new adjective to describe how awesome it was, and this time I was just speechless. I'm always gobsmacked when I leave that show. I'll go on record recommending it to anyone, and if you go and see this show and don't at least enjoy it for the absolute unparalleled amount of talent possessed by the cast then you probably aren't human.

Guess I'll get back to work on my paper now, but I'm sure there'll be more posts soon.

1 comment:

  1. Jaclyn, not that you would be surprised but I have really never heard of Wm. Blake! Wm. Shakespeare on the other hand has his own category on Jeopardy!

    Loved the new dress glad you had nice weekend can't wait to see you.

    Love Dad

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