I think Cindy may be a bit surprised to find out what she’s signed up for! Then again, anyone with such superior stacking skills will surely discover other as yet unknown talents along the road!! I have a theory that all the round boxes have spare wigs in them – she does like to change hair styles quickly and often! lol
Hopefully Tom will post the next part of the story to go with the image tomorrow! 😀
UPDATE: Tom has indeed obliged with a most entertaining description of the state of things! Please see comments!
image (cc) 2010 Hilary Farmer
Green Tea Doodles 
With the little dog Big snuggled up in her lap
Cindy-Lou took a breath and felt her heart flap
and fuddle and flutter like a bird in a cage
while she clung to the stranger and tried to seem sage,
saying, “Look at those flowers! And more mountains, too!
And how the sun sparkles like diamonds in dew!
I wonder if ever I’ve packed enough hats?
And wigs, combs and corsets… did you bring your spats?”
“I seem to have missed that mode of attire…
they’re so rarely needed when walking through fire.”
Cindy’s eyes grew as big as her mouth was around,
“I didn’t expect there’d be burning ground
we’d travel across to rescue my uncle…
do we pass through the land of Eyjafjallajokull (ay-yah-FYAH-lah-yer-KUHL)?”
“No tongue-twisting mountains stand in our way,
but nor do we have any time to delay
so worthy McDuff will take us right there
via something quite quantum… hold on to your hair!”
Cindy-Lou grabbed her boxes more tight in her grip
then watched out in horror as reality slipped
into a great vortex of colours and tropes
where rhythms of anagrams skied capable slopes…
At least that’s how it seemed to her classical mind:
the stranger just said, “Well, there’s a find!
The last time McDuff and myself passed through here
we had to fight off the Frumorious Slear…
but today the first passage looks open and safe.
Hang on to Big and keep an eye out for Grafe!”
Big barked and stood up at the sound of his name
and wagged his small tail as if staking claim
to this whirling world of uncertain forms
where all things defied merely classical norms…
except blue McDuff, who paced steadily on
as if just traversing a manicured lawn!
🙂
Copyright (C) 2010 Tom Radcliffe
I’ve never actually heard the volcano’s name spoken, but pulled the pronunciation I’ve given from a news story on it… it’s a seriously slanted rhyme for “uncle” but what would Seuss-inspired poetry be without the odd tongue twister? The cartoon you linked to previously reminded me of it.
Have fun illustrating “rhythms of anagrams skiing capable slopes”! 😀 Or maybe go for a reaction shot, with Big or Cindy’s response to what they’re seeing… I think that’s the approved cinematographic technique for handling cases when the idiot writer comes up with something impossible to actually show the audience!
Thanks for the tip! I might just end up doing that… but I will make a valiant effort to illustrate the impossible first… what IS the colour of magic anyway??
Another fun poem – I completely approve of wayward rhymes and pronounceable names!! – whether typed by kitties on keyboards or not!
“we had to fight off the Frumorious Slear…”
Oh I like that! A little salute to Lewis Carroll? Very nice touch!
Thanks, Max! It was indeed a salute to Carol.
My next goal is to get Hilaire Belloc in here somehow… his Cautionary Tales was big favourite with my younger son when he was growing up… as fine examples of wildly blood-thirsty children’s verse as you’ll ever see.
I’m pretty sure I can put Cindy-Lou into the position of saying something equivalent to Belloc’s comment on the “superiority” of Europeans over native peoples, from “The Modern Traveller”:
“Whatever happens, we have got
the Maxim gun, and they have not!”
I’d be curious to see that image animated and to see them all swaying slowing back and forth as the morse walks. Background music: “Addio a Cheyenne, by Ennio Morricone” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhfZRQBpitg&feature=related
Nice choice Max!! I don’t know how soon that’s in the cards though! animation is not my forte… but I can see all the stacked items shifting around independently from each other yet never falling… lol