Greetings.
Today’s news and commentary:
Today’s weird thing is
Book-A-Minute, the site that lets you read ultra-condensed versions of books, because I feel like it.
Special bonus: I am including an ultra-condensed poem I wrote (or rather rewrote) below. Enjoy.
Aaron
The Hunting of the Snark
An abbreviated agony in eight stanzas
by Aaron Solomon (ben Saul Joseph) Adelman
based on the original poem by Lewis Carroll“Just the place for a Snark!” the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair.
All the danger was past—they had landed at last,
And the Bellman made opening remarks.
But his talk was disturbed, and the silence reverbed
As the Baker did speak about Snarks.
“My uncle said, ‘Nephew, please do what I say!
You may hunt it with forks and hope;
But if it be a Boojum, you’ll vanish away
And no more be met with, you dope!’”
The Bellman looked uffish, and wrinkled his brow.
“If only you’d spoken before!
I’ll speak again later. The hunting starts now
With the Snark, so to speak, at the door!”
They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
They pursued it with forks and hope;
They threatened its life with a railway-share;
They charmed it with smiles and soap.
Then the Butcher contrived a new means to their ends,
And the Beaver devised the same scheme.
They returned from their sally the closest of friends,
While the Barrister had an odd dream.
As the Banker was seeking with thimbles and care,
A Bandersnatch swiftly drew nigh
And drove him so mad that he shrieked in despair,
For he thought he was going to die.
In the very last word that the Baker did say,
In the midst of his laughter and glee,
He softly and suddenly vanished away—
For the Snark
was a Boojum, you see.
