Came across this

[likethebeer]

I'm glad I'm not this parent, but the response is brilliant (from Table Talk, a salon.com chat page):

Erythrosine - 06:23 am Pacific Time - Nov 26, 2007 - #951 of 1475

As homework, my older son has to select ten people from a list (helpfully supplied), set up a seating arrangement (extra credit for presenting this on your posterboard in a novel and beautiful way, and no, he has no ideas for that), and then devise ten conversations, one for each pair of adjacent famous personages. He is suffering with this one. So far, he has made his selections, apparently at random (Hammurabi, Siddhartha Gautama, Henry VIII, Socrates, Plato, Confucius, Leonardo Da Vinci, Alexander the Great, Emperor Constantine, and Pope Innocent III), spent HOURS on looking up what years they flourished, and written famous quotes from a few of them on cards, with the plan of sprinkling real quotes in among the conversations. I am incredulous at how many hours he can stretch each little step into.

[frankly, I'm really impressed by the work of the kid]

Edit:Then this person wrote in a response a few hours later to the parent's post above:

Sicut Cervus - 10:09 am Pacific Time - Nov 26, 2007 - #986 of 1475

Said Henry, "I want Anne Boleyn."
But Innocent cried, "That's a sin!"
While Gautama Buddha
Remarked, "Well you shoulda
Considered the mess you'd get in."

And Socrates said, "That is true,"
And noble and beautiful too.
But I'd rather have boys
As my personal toys."
Alexander replied, "I'm with you."

Leonardo said (winking at Plato)
"This subject's a right hot potato
But nearly as nice
If you take my advice,
Is a ripe red Italian tomato."

Confucius declared, "Ah, though beauty
Is nothing when set against duty --
I must say, Da Vinci,
I feel kind of pinchy
When I spy some nice Florentine booty."

Said Constantine, "Well, yes, of course!
Now Henry, get off your high horse,
And tell Hammurabi
You're going to lobby
For laws that will let you divorce."

And I'm watching the snow coming down. I have to get dressed & drag in our enormous trash can that's out by the curb from yesterday's trash pickup, then come back and do more writing. I just took my MC off to get drunk at bars on a satellite (a naturally occurring satellite). And call my sister at some point for x-mas preparations.

Comments

[sirreal13.livejournal.com]

Do kids in school really talk like that?
"I feel kind of pinchy" sounds like Noel Coward...

[likethebeer.livejournal.com]

Oh, maybe there's some confusion--the parent put a description of the assignment up and another adult wrote in the response. Makes sense of the Noel Coward reference. I like the rhyme but I'm glad he/she used "pinchy", because then hopefully the kid won't just steal the response!

[sirreal13.livejournal.com]

I might be thinking of Bennet Cerf, too:

From "Out on a Limerick", by Bennett Cerf, (Harper & Bros. 1960)
A collection of over 300 of the World's Best Printable Limericks - assembled, revised, dry-cleaned, and annotated by Bennet Cerf. Reprinted with his genial permission.

[Spelling Progress Bulletin March 1962 pdf p22]

A jolly old Southern colonel
Has a humorous sense most infolonel.
He amuses his folks
By laughing at jolks
That appear in the Ladies Home Jolonel.

There's a young man who lives in Belsize,
Who believes he is clever and wise.
Why, what do you think,
He saves gallons of ink,
By merely not dotting his "i's". The fabulous Wizard of Oz
Retired from business becoz
What with up-to-date science
To most of his clients
He wasn't the wiz that he woz.

There was once a man not unique
In fancying himself quite a shique.
But the girls didn't fall
For this fellow at all,
For he only made thirty a wique.

http://www.spellingsociety.org/news/media2006/limericks.php

[sirreal13.livejournal.com]

I blew the formatting...

"The fabulous Wizard of Oz" is a separate poem..

[likethebeer.livejournal.com]

Got it--the rhyme bespoke the separate limerick.

Tomato tomahto

[drunk-bohemian.livejournal.com]

Problem here is that it is highly unlikely Da Vinci knew what a tomato was since he died in 1519 and the tomato was imported from Central America via the Spanish shortly thereafter, and not cultivated in Europe till the mid-1500's at the earliest. And Plato/tomato constitutes a more inaccurate mix.

Also, if we take the slang "tomato" to indicate "woman," the supposedly gay Da Vinci probably would have been more of Alexander's and Socrates' mindset. Casual limmericky at best.

(It's not an editor's job to make writers paranoid and squeeze the fun out of everything. That's just one of the perks. ;/)

Re: Tomato tomahto

[likethebeer.livejournal.com]

I realize that my post might give the impression that you're seeing the kid's response; but this was just something that someone else wrote in after the parent posted. I still think the guy/girl did ok in 4 hours or so.

Re: Tomato tomahto

[drunk-bohemian.livejournal.com]

No, I got that it was an adult (and a fairly clever one); that's why I held them to a higher editorial standard. Kids get a pass. Adults beware.

;[

Re: Tomato tomahto

[drunk-bohemian.livejournal.com]

I mean "him/her" to a higher editorial standard. Er um ... ahem.

(Nervously pulling at neck of shirt.)

Re: Tomato tomahto

[likethebeer.livejournal.com]

I will be ok with Da Vinci noting a tomato in a verse written in a couple of hours. And I will live with the tomatoes in The Lord of the Rings trilogy movie. And I will even crave tomatoes afterward. And maybe even potatoes. And, as always, tobacco. But I won't stand still when someone says that FLLW patented the color "Cherokee Red". I think I saw sparks b/c my eyes were rolling so hard back into my skull.