Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Fit the Fifth, Page 35, Panel 1 … ceci n’est pas une snarque



“Taking Three as the subject to reason about —
A convenient number to state—
We add Seven, and Ten, and then multiply out
By One Thousand diminished by Eight.

This is not a medically approved mathematical operation …

This is not an insight into the Essence of the Number Three …

This is not the Royal Road to 19840 …

This is not a comment upon the intractable unreality of all Numbers …

This is not a jaded Christ Church don’s comment upon the futility of impressing the intractable unreality of all Numbers upon his all-too-real thickheaded students …

This is not a jaded Montreal illustrator’s comment upon the futility of impressing his long-suffering wife with yet another impecunious display of his useless facility* in mimicking the Victorian wood engraving style …

This is not an image of an image which is not what it seems to be …

This is not the sort of thing which the general public has come to expect, thank god …

This is not the unexpected work of a far better artist …

This is not a clue to the fabled and elusive meaning of The Hunting of the Snark, for this is not clairvoyance.

_____________


* Nor is this a pathetic attempt to gain the attentions of a publisher willing to finance my surrealist-cum-baroque, illustrated translation of Jean de la Fontaine's Fables choisies … nor my Oulipian rendition of Verne's L'Île mystérieuse into Dantean terza rima.

3 comments:

  1. It certainly isn't! No strike that, this should read that this is not not a love song.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is not what you think it is, isn't it?

    ReplyDelete
  3. No — I mean, yes — I think … or, maybe …

    ReplyDelete