What I Think About

Hello, readers. In the name of keeping all things bonny around here, I thought I would share some amusing facts I learned this week. I received an assignment at my job (you know, that little distraction that keeps me from writing nothing but bonny blog entries all day) to write a promotion for a zoo. Included in the project brief was a handy dandy printout entitled, “Animal Collective Names.” And while it did little to help me with my project, it has provided hours of amusement as I sit at my wee little desk. In the name of humor and hilarious visuals, I have decided to share some of the words that have kept me going this week.

 

Animal           Group Name

(singular)            (plural)

 

Alligator             Congregation (“I call this meeting to let you know that there are too many wildebeest thriving these days.”

Bat                      Cloud (If you are fortunate enough to see a group of bats in flight, they do resemble a cloud!)

Cobra                 Quiver (Now, who would really quiver in this situation? My call, Indian Jones.)

Cockroach         Intrusion (Indeed!)

Elephant            Memory (Elephant, memory, AHH HAHAHAHA!)

Emu                    Mob (“So listen up, pal. You have three seconds until I steal your wool and take     over your side of the grazing hill!”)

Ferret                 Fesnying or business (What the hell is a “fesnying? Also, imagine a ferret in a          business suit, just for a moment. Please.)

Flamingo            Flamboyance (Clearly.)

Giraffe                 Tower (Also, clearly.)

Guinea Fowl      Confusion (“Wait. Let me get this straight. You are a what? From where? G…?        I am just… wait... oh...)

Jellyfish            Smack (I always imagined the funny sound they would make if I were ever brave    enough to take a whack at a jellyfish. Or… smack.. rather.)

Nightengale      Watch (but what? I can not see! It is at night!)

Rattlesnake      Rumba (“Would you like to dance, RLes?” Actually, rattlesnakes are solitary          creatures. I know because I live in Texas. So having a dance party would be              difficult. But if you are ever lucky enough to come upon one of these fabulous          rattler parties, please let me know!

Rhinoceros       Stubborness (“I’m telling you for the LAST TIME, Ino! You hear me? The last         time!”)

Swallow            Gulp (“No, no, no. Gulp, then swallow. Then swallow!”) 

 

I kill myself.

 

Also, this informative print out ended with this note; “Another animal group that you may consider is a nag of wives and a jerk of husbands.”

 

Happy Friday. I am going to finish my work beer and go home. 

Wedding 1

Well, I am totally off kilter already. Thursdays were supposed to be my day for posting about weddings... or was it Saturdays? I am currently sitting in my office after having done five hours of work today, Sunday, so please forgive me. I will get back on track this week. But do not despair! I have a wedding for you today! 

This wedding comes from a fabulous website, Style Me Pretty. If you are engaged, in the wedding industry, or just style obsessed like I am it provides hours of pretty, stylish bliss.  The site is clearly aptly named. This wedding is DIY fabulous. It has the most beautiful use of paper, of all things. A smorgasbord of color! Hurrah!

Love those kiddos. 

Paper! I love creative use of paper!

Siiiiiiiighhhhh.

John and Gil

On the onset of this blog, I swore I would mention no personal details of my life. And while what I am about to say is not terribly personal, I fear I am beginning to slide down the slipperiest of slopes. Ready for my revelation?  

I was once a college student. Shocking, no? I attended Furman University and delved in the humanities for four glorious years, learning a little of philosophy, film, theatre, music, history, and writing quite a bit about it along the way. Pages and pages and pages of words flew (and sometimes oozed) off my fingers during my time there.

 And when I was in my senior year, after all that structured writing, I took a poetry class thinking, "Oh I have this in the bag.  Anna Beth Bonney = Prose Champion of the East. I'll have 'em weeping." What a little schmuck I was.  However, pride always cometh before a fall, and upon my first day in class, I realized two things. 1. I was nowhere near as awe inspiring as my professor, whom I adored from the first moment I heard him speak of how much he loved poetry. 2. I had no real conception of what poetry actually was, much less how to write it. Unfortunately, this knowledge swiftly spiralled into a dehabilitating inferiority complex that I wrestled with throughout the course.

My professor, a wise man, surely had seen other students make the overwhelmed and shamed expression I did during a particular meeting in regards to my poetry. "Dr. Allen!" I exclaimed. "I never like anything I write! My thoughts feel beautiful and original as they swirl in my mind, but when I try to word them out on paper every word seems ugly and cliché."

In response, Dr. Allen wordlessly stood. Walked to his considerable bookshelf. Selected a slim volume which turned out to be M.S. Merwin's Flower and Hand: Poems 1977-1983. He said, this poem may help. Of course a poetry professor would know the correct poem for every occasion, especially an exasparated student. He read, in his soft voice, through his bushy white mustache:

Berryman

I will tell you what he told me


in the years just after the war


as we then called


the second world war





don't lose your arrogance yet he said


you can do that when you're older


lose it too soon and you may


merely replace it with vanity



 

just one time he suggested


changing the usual order


of the same words in a line of verse


why point out a thing twice



 

he suggested I pray to the Muse


get down on my knees and pray


right there in the corner and he


said he meant it literally



 

it was in the days before the beard


and the drink but he was deep


in tides of his own through which he sailed


chin sideways and head tilted like a tacking sloop



 

he was far older than the dates allowed for


much older than I was he was in his thirties


he snapped down his nose with an accent


I think he had affected in England



 

as for publishing he advised me


to paper my wall with rejection slips


his lips and the bones of his long fingers trembled


with the vehemence of his views about poetry





he said the great presence


that permitted everything and transmuted it


in poetry was passion


passion was genius and he praised movement and invention

 



I had hardly begun to read


I asked how can you ever be sure


that what you write is really


any good at all and he said you can't



 

you can't you can never be sure


you die without knowing


whether anything you wrote was any good


if you have to be sure don't write



 

W. S. Merwin, Flower & Hand: Poems 1977-1983
Copper Canyon Press, Port Townsend, WA (1997) pp. 155-156]

Now, the writer and academic  who inspired Merwin's "Berryman" had a fascinating life, one I will address at a later date. But Gil Allen did not need to explain the history of John Berryman's life to me that day.  The lesson was learned. And while I still have not mastered or even begun to skate across the surface of the wide world of poetry, I am still writing.  Thank you, John and Gil.

Pennies From Heaven

This morning, sweet bliss, I woke up to the sound of rain tinkling on my windowpane. 

After a drought in Texas bad enough to be reported on in the New York Times,  the rat-a-tat-tating produced more wonderment and childlike giddiness than a birthday at the zoo. It was so lovely, words fail me. However, Billy Holiday never does. 

If you do not know the song "Pennies from Heaven," I suggest you listen to it here.

Pennies From Heaven

Oh every time it rains

It rains pennies from heaven

Don’t you know each cloud contains

Pennies from heaven

You’ll find your fortune

Fallin’ all over town

 

 

Be sure that your umbrella is upside down

Trade them for a package of sunshine and flowers

If you want the things you love

You must have showers

 

 

So when you hear it thunder

Don’t run under a tree

There’ll be pennies from heaven

 

For you and me

Have a great day, everyone. 

A Bonny Post

In crafting the identity of my blog pertaining to "All Things Bonny," I decided to do a little digging into the origin of my name--Bonney.  While I know a little of my namesake, thanks to my sadistic orthodontist singing "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" while wielding pliars on my teeth, there were still many questions. For instance, "bonney" vs. "bonny" vs. "bonnie." Which spelling is correct? Are they all correct? To answer my questions, I took a little venture into cyperspace.  Sigh.

I often find conducting research on the internet is like acting as mouse munching through a block of cheese.

 Yes, like this wee little mouse, I had to munch through the muenstery, muckedy internet, making little tunnels (and consuming too much in the process) leading seemingly nowhere in my quest to get the root of one. simple. word. Chomp, chomp. 

An hour and many stomach grumbles later, I finally figured something out. Those medieval crazies didn't even know what was up. The word "bonny" (the original spelling) is a Gaelic word meaning handsome or pretty. But from there, we have all these other reports of Latin and French getting all in there, and voilá, confusion on the actual origin of the word. From the Latin and later French words, "bon," meaning "good" and "jolie," meaning "jolly," we have another interpretation of how my bonny little name arose. 

As for the spellings, the Gaelic adjective, "bonny" is the correct usage in everyday conversation.  "Bonnie" is a girls name only.  And as for "Bonney," well, thats the spelling you use when you refer to my ancestor, that scoundrel William Bonney who killed 21 men before being shot by Sheriff Patt Garrett.  But before you get too sad for Billy the Kid, take heed! The story has a happy ending.  His great great great  whatever (me) is best friends with Sheriff Patt's great great great granddaughter, Susan. Susan and I discovered this fact in 5th grade during history class and promised each other that the past would not repeat itself.  So far, so good. 

So in the end all the associations with the word "bonny" are positive (save one), and I believe we are well on our way to making a nice little blog here!  From here on out, you will receive only the goodest, jolliest, handsomest of posts. 

And now I'm off to annihilate a slice of provolone.