- Setting
- Characters
- Narrator
- Events
- Temporal Relations
- Causal Relations
- Audience
- Theme
- Genre
Narrative Features - The Mountain Meadow Massacre
HAKA HE LANGI KUO TAU
The narrative of the Laka Laka.
Characteristics of the Narrative
At least two events, often causal, are happening.
A story is the mash of at least two events, active and/or stative.
Shooting a documentary about a fading aspect of Tongan culture, and being a stranger in a strange land.
The narrative is temporal.
Chronology gives a temporal context, imperative to story-telling.
Our first week on the island, thwarted by dysentery.
The narrative is relational.
Every great story arc is the result of a change, a plot point that sends heros and villains into new directions and challenges.
The marriage proposal and losing Palangi status.
The narrative has a contextual unity.
Physical, psychological, cultural, social, and temporal contexts weave into the same theme.
Telling the story of the Laka Laka.
Characteristics of the Narrative
At least two events, often causal, are happening.
A story is the mash of at least two events, active and/or stative.
Shooting a documentary about a fading aspect of Tongan culture, and being a stranger in a strange land.
The narrative is temporal.
Chronology gives a temporal context, imperative to story-telling.
Our first week on the island, thwarted by dysentery.
The narrative is relational.
Every great story arc is the result of a change, a plot point that sends heros and villains into new directions and challenges.
The marriage proposal and losing Palangi status.
The narrative has a contextual unity.
Physical, psychological, cultural, social, and temporal contexts weave into the same theme.
Telling the story of the Laka Laka.
Rhetorical Analysis Rubric
Related Objectives
- Become familiar with and appreciate the humanities tradition to intellectual inquiry,
- Become familiar with the key modes of rhetorical criticism, namely Neo-Aristotelian criticism, ideological criticism, metaphor criticism, and narrative criticism,
- Practice performing rhetorical critiques of artifacts that students find particularly significant,
- Learn to improve the human condition through insightful analysis that offers prescriptions for the amelioration of society.
Description
Select one of your four artifacts from your summaries and write a critical essay of rhetorical analysis using that artifact's selected method of criticism. Post your essay to your blog along with a link or embedded reference of your artifact.
This analysis is due no later than midnight, Thursday, May third.
We have discussed four methods during this course, Neo-Aristotelian criticism, ideological criticism, metaphor criticism, and narrative criticism. The Neo-Aristotelian method is not eligible for this analysis due to its fundamental nature.
Your essay will be organized in five logical steps: (1) an introduction; (2) a description of your artifact and its context; (3) a description of your method of analysis; (4) your thorough findings of your analysis; and (5) a discussion of how your analysis improves the human condition through insightful analysis that offers prescriptions for the amelioration of society.
Point Value: 500 Points
Rubric
1. You establish an introduction in which the research question (the purpose) for its analysis is proposed and its significance is discussed. 50 points.
Orient your reader with your agenda. State your purpose to engage your readers, tell them the significance of what they'll learn. Research questions aren't necessarily posed in the interrogative. For example, you may declare your research question, your intent by writing, "I will advance the idea," "I will propose," "I will examine."
Wanting Adequate Enlightened
1-20 21-39 40-50
2. You describe and interpret the artifact and its context. 100 points.
Chances are your artifact is complex and it will be arduous to completely dissect it for analysis. It's your stewardship to prioritize its content and provide the most pertinent and coherent aspects to be examined within your analysis.
Likewise, you'll establish your artifact's context (physical, psychological, cultural, social, temporal) and how that context lends itself to its meaning and your analysis.
Lastly, your description justifies why your artifactual analysis is warranted or useful.
Wanting Adequate Enlightened
1-39 40-79 80-100
3. You identify your method of analysis, explaining the method's origin, its creator, and its tenets for analysis. 50 points.
For example, the tenets for analysis in metaphorical criticism can be found here.
Remember, within the ideological method are a number of interpretive approaches. Be specific in identifying your approach. For example, we discussed hegemony, semiotics, deconstructionism and feminism.
Wanting Adequate Enlightened
1-20 21-39 40-50
4. You write a thorough analysis indicating your findings as they relate to the method. 200 points.
This is the body of your essay. While it includes relevant literature that relate to and sustain your findings, your featured ideas of your findings are paramount to be expressed using reasonable inference.
Organize the body obeying the tenets of your chosen method. Write coherently. Organize and present your findings with continuity, balance and parallelism.
Your organization may be dictated by your identified tenets of the analysis. Your presentation is an art, not a science. Don't be afraid of postulating your position, making sure you're balanced in your analysis, and parallel (meaning apples-to-apples) in your argument.
Though it's expected you'll use APA format for source citations, I'm asking that you embed Internet sources as links within your text.
Wanting Adequate Enlightened
1-79 80-179 180-200
5. You improve the human condition through insightful analysis that offers prescriptions for the amelioration of society. 100 points.
How are we better having read your analysis, or what can we do to improve as a result of your findings?
Wanting Adequate Enlightened
1-39 40-79 80-100
A process for metaphorical criticism.
- Read, scrutinize, examine the entire artifact.
- Isolate the metaphors within the text, illustration, photograph, whatever the artifact.
- Search for obvious and subtle substitutions of meaning.
- Identify tenor and vehicle, effectively analyzing how dissimilar objects share similar characteristics.
- Sort the metaphors according to tenor/vehicle patterns of use within the artifact.
- Analyze the metaphorical relationships to reveal how their structure may affect the intended audience.
measure
this stone wrest on riverbank
and cleansed by currents rolled
into form clear and smooth
knocked off the rough and ungainly
to the one who picked it up
and cleansed by currents rolled
into form clear and smooth
knocked off the rough and ungainly
to the one who picked it up
and threw it back to river bottom
not skipping wakes and eddies
sank beyond the infiltration of
sun’s light and sky’s blue
blanketed in depositing silt
not skipping wakes and eddies
sank beyond the infiltration of
sun’s light and sky’s blue
blanketed in depositing silt
knew certain a better value
than this
to be crag and surface covered
in this water’s refuse
at mercy to extrinsic force
to ever change and feel a hand again
than this
to be crag and surface covered
in this water’s refuse
at mercy to extrinsic force
to ever change and feel a hand again
blind to seasons passing
sole ambient clues to time
so different to a rock
than to any other item of
this rotating possessor
sole ambient clues to time
so different to a rock
than to any other item of
this rotating possessor
tempests raced with larger grains
and cleaned it clear of aberration
to gather what tiny rayons penetrate
the dust of wet and swift and
pull an image of something far away
and cleaned it clear of aberration
to gather what tiny rayons penetrate
the dust of wet and swift and
pull an image of something far away
and focus on the floor beneath
in the moment’s collaboration
of distance, light and shape
a synthesis of
hope and
color
in the moment’s collaboration
of distance, light and shape
a synthesis of
hope and
color
aided by the water’s surface turned
at depths correct and lucid currents
grew its liberator from the silt from
light’s full spectrum and death’s tip
till free it skipped on
from the place it held so long
at depths correct and lucid currents
grew its liberator from the silt from
light’s full spectrum and death’s tip
till free it skipped on
from the place it held so long
in eons one would have to measure
change in shape and purpose found
change in shape and purpose found
-e
depreciation
From The Grace of Divorce
Four years into my first divorce I was dropping my kids off at their mom's house. My little girl was six and my son was twelve at the time and we had reached a point where the routine of visits had established some continuity in their lives. Yes, it took four years. Up to one night in particular, my daughter would often ask when she'd be going back to mom's house long before departure time and the inquiry would sting me to the core. On that one particular night, though, as we sat in my truck outside their mother's house, my little girl lingered at my side, slid her arm around mine and squeezed.
Her brother hopped out and grabbed his homework, but she didn't relent, holding me tighter. "I don't want to leave you," she said. She didn't want to leave me. I had waited for this moment, worked so hard to gain her trust back after years of taking her seeming rejection so personally. The logic of her being a mom's girl was lost on me, instead I felt like a depreciated dad, despite my efforts. Selfish and narcissistic, I know, but that's where my angry mind was.
"It's okay, sweetie." I tried to assuage. It wasn't the best timing. I was working in broadcast news at the time, directing a ten o'clock nightly show and was needed back at the studio by nine to start the run-down. I was already late and there was no one to call.
"I want to stay with you." It was a school night on top all else that was pressing. "Come to the studio with me tonight," I said, the wrong call. She didn't like it there, the stress of a live show turned me into Mr. Hyde, though more of a Disney version. She knew I had to go, squeezed me even tighter and kissed me, and reluctantly slid across that bench seat and dropped out to the sidewalk. "I love you."
She closed the door and joined her brother at the porch and the two went inside waving as they did. I put the truck in drive and had a heart attack.
An unusual one, albeit. My jaw clenched, pain radiated down my left shoulder and arm and I did my best to ignore it. Made it all the way to the studio, in fact. I made it to the lobby where I was met by a producer who immediately sized me up, "You're having a heart attack," and down I went. He called the paramedics.
I had a second more severe MI later that night in the cardiac care unit, not a bad place to have one. Cardiologists ran the usual gamut of tests with puzzling results; damage, but no blockage, no plaque. After a lengthy interview about the day's events and those in my life that had brought me to that moment, the cardiologist diagnosed my broken heart.
Indeed. I lived with that diagnosis for two weeks when it was then revealed that a medication I had been taking for the past three years was causing heart damage. But to this day, I'd stick to the first diagnosis. It wasn't oxygen deprivation that caused my pump to fail, it was depreciation.
Read through my blog and you'll find that I've had my share of joy and pain. The pain parts I'd never wish on anyone, suffice it to say I understand grief and mourning, I've endured physical and psychological stress to extents of post traumatic stress, but all of this pales when put aside the devastation of being discounted. I can think of no ache worse than being rejected by someone you believed once valued you.
Now, let me stress, my broken heart is not the result of my little girl. In fact, she's my healer. Instead it is the result of my agreeing with the contextual circumstances of my perceived depreciation.
The depreciation that ends marriages happens long before the outright rejection and is symptomatic in the absence of gratitude. This takes hold as relational time increases and sensitivities wane, obscured by routines and worries, or obliterated by ego and narcissism.
The daily grind is enough to make many sensitive souls numb to feeling or expressing gratitude. Throw a crisis on top of the grind, the loss of a job, an illness, a death in the family, and most quickly wounded hearts lose the capacity to appreciate, intent, instead, on just surviving the ordeal.
Worse, though, and truly the damaging plaque at the heart of any relationship is the mind's growing incapacity to appreciate due to selfishness. Disappointments ferment to regrets, expectations amplify in their own justification, and resentment displaces kindness. Kind actions go unnoticed, kind words remain unspoken where entitlement instead becomes the default response. As soon as we believe ourselves to be entitled to better treatment, chances are we've stopped appreciating.
Depreciation grows a discounted soul. While there are men who know this feeling, I'm writing about the exponentially greater amount of women who suffer depreciation on account of their image, their sensuality, and their efficacy in living.
Guys don't get it. This is a rash generalization, but I'd bet you'll nod your head here in just a moment. We do not understand the impact of comparing a female companion to any other woman. It's one thing to appreciate beauty, but quite a depreciator to leer at it. Such is the grit of pornography. No partner, female or male, is ever going to compete with the silicon version of a fantasy sex partner, even if aesthetics are equal. Why?
Because pornography has no conscience. It doesn't care how sexy you are, how adept you can be at foreplay, how often you can orgasm. Porn doesn't have to roll out of bed in the middle of the night to calm a child, or in the morning to provide that first or second income. What porn does so well is spawn expectation and when unfulfilled, depreciation. While I'm positive that neither sex is immune, I'd wager that men default here faster and deeper than women, because porn turns women into parts for men, while it turns men into fantasies for women.
I'll throw in a caveat here. The inclusion of erotic material in a couple's sex life can possibly be a good thing, but left to one partner in a relationship, the outcome will at the very least depreciate the other partner's image and sensuality.
Male narcissism has reached levels of being diagnosed as a personality disorder and perhaps is one of the most recognizable influences in depreciation of women. Self-righteous and aggrandizing patriarchal orders have been culturally perpetuated for generations and thrive in conservative contexts. Where masculine and feminine roles are discriminately (some might say traditionally) defined, the feminine roles tend to be discounted in value. One need not look too far to witness cultural subjugation of women in earnings and education and when this metastasizes into expectations in the home where women hope to be equal, depreciation becomes the malignancy.
So, I've mixed metaphors here, heart disease and cancer. Anyway you look at it, the discounted soul is not healthy. Here is the importance, then, of grounding your value within yourself, a self-appreciation, unlike narcissism, a habit of personal communicative behavior that upholds inherent values of efficacy, beauty, intelligence, spirituality, power, strength and worth. When personal foundations are grounded in internal values versus external expectations, rejection loses its destruction and gratitude can prevent a broken heart.
Four years into my first divorce I was dropping my kids off at their mom's house. My little girl was six and my son was twelve at the time and we had reached a point where the routine of visits had established some continuity in their lives. Yes, it took four years. Up to one night in particular, my daughter would often ask when she'd be going back to mom's house long before departure time and the inquiry would sting me to the core. On that one particular night, though, as we sat in my truck outside their mother's house, my little girl lingered at my side, slid her arm around mine and squeezed.
Her brother hopped out and grabbed his homework, but she didn't relent, holding me tighter. "I don't want to leave you," she said. She didn't want to leave me. I had waited for this moment, worked so hard to gain her trust back after years of taking her seeming rejection so personally. The logic of her being a mom's girl was lost on me, instead I felt like a depreciated dad, despite my efforts. Selfish and narcissistic, I know, but that's where my angry mind was.
"It's okay, sweetie." I tried to assuage. It wasn't the best timing. I was working in broadcast news at the time, directing a ten o'clock nightly show and was needed back at the studio by nine to start the run-down. I was already late and there was no one to call.
"I want to stay with you." It was a school night on top all else that was pressing. "Come to the studio with me tonight," I said, the wrong call. She didn't like it there, the stress of a live show turned me into Mr. Hyde, though more of a Disney version. She knew I had to go, squeezed me even tighter and kissed me, and reluctantly slid across that bench seat and dropped out to the sidewalk. "I love you."
She closed the door and joined her brother at the porch and the two went inside waving as they did. I put the truck in drive and had a heart attack.
An unusual one, albeit. My jaw clenched, pain radiated down my left shoulder and arm and I did my best to ignore it. Made it all the way to the studio, in fact. I made it to the lobby where I was met by a producer who immediately sized me up, "You're having a heart attack," and down I went. He called the paramedics.
I had a second more severe MI later that night in the cardiac care unit, not a bad place to have one. Cardiologists ran the usual gamut of tests with puzzling results; damage, but no blockage, no plaque. After a lengthy interview about the day's events and those in my life that had brought me to that moment, the cardiologist diagnosed my broken heart.
Indeed. I lived with that diagnosis for two weeks when it was then revealed that a medication I had been taking for the past three years was causing heart damage. But to this day, I'd stick to the first diagnosis. It wasn't oxygen deprivation that caused my pump to fail, it was depreciation.
Read through my blog and you'll find that I've had my share of joy and pain. The pain parts I'd never wish on anyone, suffice it to say I understand grief and mourning, I've endured physical and psychological stress to extents of post traumatic stress, but all of this pales when put aside the devastation of being discounted. I can think of no ache worse than being rejected by someone you believed once valued you.
Now, let me stress, my broken heart is not the result of my little girl. In fact, she's my healer. Instead it is the result of my agreeing with the contextual circumstances of my perceived depreciation.
The depreciation that ends marriages happens long before the outright rejection and is symptomatic in the absence of gratitude. This takes hold as relational time increases and sensitivities wane, obscured by routines and worries, or obliterated by ego and narcissism.
The daily grind is enough to make many sensitive souls numb to feeling or expressing gratitude. Throw a crisis on top of the grind, the loss of a job, an illness, a death in the family, and most quickly wounded hearts lose the capacity to appreciate, intent, instead, on just surviving the ordeal.
Worse, though, and truly the damaging plaque at the heart of any relationship is the mind's growing incapacity to appreciate due to selfishness. Disappointments ferment to regrets, expectations amplify in their own justification, and resentment displaces kindness. Kind actions go unnoticed, kind words remain unspoken where entitlement instead becomes the default response. As soon as we believe ourselves to be entitled to better treatment, chances are we've stopped appreciating.
Depreciation grows a discounted soul. While there are men who know this feeling, I'm writing about the exponentially greater amount of women who suffer depreciation on account of their image, their sensuality, and their efficacy in living.
Guys don't get it. This is a rash generalization, but I'd bet you'll nod your head here in just a moment. We do not understand the impact of comparing a female companion to any other woman. It's one thing to appreciate beauty, but quite a depreciator to leer at it. Such is the grit of pornography. No partner, female or male, is ever going to compete with the silicon version of a fantasy sex partner, even if aesthetics are equal. Why?
Because pornography has no conscience. It doesn't care how sexy you are, how adept you can be at foreplay, how often you can orgasm. Porn doesn't have to roll out of bed in the middle of the night to calm a child, or in the morning to provide that first or second income. What porn does so well is spawn expectation and when unfulfilled, depreciation. While I'm positive that neither sex is immune, I'd wager that men default here faster and deeper than women, because porn turns women into parts for men, while it turns men into fantasies for women.
I'll throw in a caveat here. The inclusion of erotic material in a couple's sex life can possibly be a good thing, but left to one partner in a relationship, the outcome will at the very least depreciate the other partner's image and sensuality.
Male narcissism has reached levels of being diagnosed as a personality disorder and perhaps is one of the most recognizable influences in depreciation of women. Self-righteous and aggrandizing patriarchal orders have been culturally perpetuated for generations and thrive in conservative contexts. Where masculine and feminine roles are discriminately (some might say traditionally) defined, the feminine roles tend to be discounted in value. One need not look too far to witness cultural subjugation of women in earnings and education and when this metastasizes into expectations in the home where women hope to be equal, depreciation becomes the malignancy.
So, I've mixed metaphors here, heart disease and cancer. Anyway you look at it, the discounted soul is not healthy. Here is the importance, then, of grounding your value within yourself, a self-appreciation, unlike narcissism, a habit of personal communicative behavior that upholds inherent values of efficacy, beauty, intelligence, spirituality, power, strength and worth. When personal foundations are grounded in internal values versus external expectations, rejection loses its destruction and gratitude can prevent a broken heart.
potential hegemony
This has been the strongest artifact I can identify that brings home the idea of hegemony, especially as Iran's investigation into Neda's death plays out in the concluding scenes.
Hegemony happens where a dominant group, organization, institution, or class controls societal order and shapes opinions by making their own ideas appear to be the accepted ideas.
When those subordinates to the dominant entity accept certain ideas as natural, they've actually yielded to social constructs created by those above them.
For example, our most recent census has put an end to the idea of a white majority in America. Yet, despite some efforts, mainstream American entertainment still depicts American culture largely as white, perpetuating the social construct that the minority divide still exists.
Over the course of your discovering artifacts, what come to mind in your experience that resonates with this theory of hegemony?
Here's another example, weapons of mass destruction.
The Ideological Anti-Rubric
You're waiting for some concise and quantifiable way for me to measure whether you've got your ideological artifact figured out.
Stop waiting, because that's impossible.
It's impossible because of its subjectivity and the very likely possibility that the way you interpret your chosen ideology and the way I see it is, at best, disparate.
Don't let that stop you. Instead, and this is a chicken/egg thing, give us an idea of what lens through which you've chosen to assess your ideology. Is it hegemonic? Semiotic? Marxist? Feminist? Deconstructionist? The list doesn't end there.
This may be less painful if you identify an ideology that resonates with you, or one about which you wish to learn more. What a wonderful way to expand a horizon or two. Or you might identify a position that is 180 degrees out of phase with you, an idea so dissonant that it begs your analysis.
Ooh. I like that.
Stop waiting, because that's impossible.
It's impossible because of its subjectivity and the very likely possibility that the way you interpret your chosen ideology and the way I see it is, at best, disparate.
This may be less painful if you identify an ideology that resonates with you, or one about which you wish to learn more. What a wonderful way to expand a horizon or two. Or you might identify a position that is 180 degrees out of phase with you, an idea so dissonant that it begs your analysis.
Ooh. I like that.
Blogissues
I've gone through each submitted blog and ironed out a most of the code issues, though there remain a handful that for some reason won't post correctly to the class blogroll. If your blog is one of these, I'll need you to start over, create a new blog through Blogger and send me the URL. You will not be able to duplicate your address from before.
Neo-Aristotelian Canons of Rhetoric
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Artistic Proofs
- Pathos
- Logos
- Ethos
Organization
- Chronological
- Causal
- Problem-Solution
Style
- Word Selection
- Paralinguistics
- Idioms, Colloquialisms
Delivery
- Interpretation
- Charisma
- Competency
Memory
Extemporaneous, Improvised, Read, Rote
The Process
1. Select the Artifact
2. Analyze the Artifact
Context
Canons
Effects
3. Formulate the RQ
4. Write the Essay
the RQ and the YK
As a photographer and a writer my research questions (RQ) are typically begged. This solicitation comes from within, something visceral, a solar-plexis response to an impetus, an artifact.
Designer Richard Seymour in a recent Ted Talk describes the moment as "stupefying," and I think he's right. When something has an affect on us, stupefying or otherwise, I think it begs the question, the research question, at the very least, why.
I'm more partial to "How is it that..."
How is it that the final sequence to American Beauty brings me to tears regardless of how often I've watched it?
How is it that just seeing my yellow kayak (YK) decreases my heart rate?
How is it that in our fervor to keep under God in the Pledge of Allegiance we've overlooked the significance of the word that follows - indivisible?
All of these are artifacts and all of these pull at me for different reasons. In wanting to know those reasons we intuitively develop research questions. So, all we're doing here is putting a name to it, calling out a method of natural human inquiry and qualifying it through rhetorical analysis.
The method was first formalized around 500 b.c. by Aristotle. The method works on the premise of the RQ. These questions typically focus on the tenets of the communication process and/or the transactional model.
The process has a rhetor, an audience, a situation and a message.
The transactional model has a sender/receiver, context, and a message along with a few other aspects like noise and effects.
While none of these can be discounted in the process of finding meaning, or better, shared meaning, the situation, aka context, are what drive most of my rhetorical analyses. They also drive my creative content. Take a look at this analysis on designing the photograph for the playbill and posters for the Facing East.
We also bring context to the situation which impacts the way we perceive and critique rhetoric, making all this wonderfully subjective.
As Harold Hill might say, the hours I spend in my yellow kayak are golden. The adventures there establish a foundation upon which I ask my research questions when it comes to why I find my zen in a big yellow banana. By definition, then, any object or item, lyric or verse, image or etching, sculpture or screen, word or wisdom becomes a qualified artifact if it has drawn from you something stupefying.
writing on the wall
Some of you may know where this is, though I hope you don't. I'd like to think we can keep this a secret a while longer. This natural anomaly is a spot where, if you looked hard enough, you'd find rhetoric.
And you might be thinking someone tagged the wall inside, or perhaps glued a communist work force poster, or maybe Rick Santorum was spewing within. And you wouldn't be quite correct. While rhetoric by definition begs meaning in the semantic of sarcasm or hyperbole, Aristotle would remind you that rhetoric meant something different at its genesis.
Drop inside and this is what you'll see. It's ookie in its order and parallelism, almost symbolic in a way.
No doubt (couldn't resist), you've noticed what's on Addie's t-shirt. Recognizable, at least from the pop symbol of Rolling Stone's masthead. If it's not, perhaps you need to get out more. Look a little closer above her head and you'll spy symbols more ancient than the Rolling Stones. Pretty old, indeed.
There are big-horned sheep seen profile and from behind, along with a representation of a really big snake.
Look closer and you'll see this...
...rhetoric. Any would be hard-pressed to think that these weren't created by humans, or humanoids at least. Humans create rhetoric, in fact it's been argued that our ability to create rhetoric via symbols is what sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom.
Symbols like you see above are the media of rhetoric. So are the symbols you're reading in this post along with the photos posted within. And all of this, ancient and current are communicating. Hopefully you know what the current is communicating (METACOMMUNICATION), if not, I should probably find something else to do, but we can only guess what the ancient was intended to say.
What's fascinating with these symbols is their universality. Later that night Addie and I watched a NatGeo special on finding ruins that could have been Atlantis along the Mediterranean. Among the symbols they showed was one that was remarkably similar to the one you see above.
Cue Twilight Zone music.
Ya Got Trouble
Well, either you're closing your eyes
To a situation you do now wish to acknowledge
Or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated
By the presence of a pool table in your community.
Ya got trouble, my friend, right here,
I say, trouble right here in River City.
Why sure I'm a billiard player,
Certainly mighty proud I say
I'm always mighty proud to say it.
I consider that the hours I spend
With a cue in my hand are golden.
Help you cultivate horse sense
And a cool head and a keen eye.
Never take and try to give
An iron-clad leave to yourself
From a three-reail billiard shot?
But just as I say,
It takes judgement, brains, and maturity
to score in a balkline game,
I say that any boob kin take
And shove a ball in a pocket.
And they call that sloth.
The first big step on the road
To the depths of deg-ra-Day--
I say, first, medicinal wine from a teaspoon,
Then beer from a bottle.
An' the next thing ya know,
Your son is playin' for money
In a pinch-back suit.
And list'nin to some big out-a-town Jasper
Hearin' him tell about horse-race gamblin'.
Not a wholesome trottin' race, no!
But a race where they set down right on the horse!
Like to see some stuck-up jockey'boy
Sittin' on Dan Patch? Make your blood boil?
Well, I should say.
Friends, lemme tell you what I mean.
Ya got one, two, three, four, five, six pockets in a table.
Pockets that mark the diff'rence
Between a gentlemen and a bum,
With a capital "B,"
And that rhymes with "P" and that stands for pool!
And all week long your River City
Youth'll be frittern away,
I say your young men'll be frittern!
Frittern away their noontime, suppertime, choretime too!
Get the ball in the pocket,
Never mind gittin' Dandelions pulled
Or the screen door patched or the beefsteak pounded.
Never mind pumpin' any water
'Til your parents are caught with the Cistern empty
On a Saturday night and that's trouble,
Oh, yes we got lots and lots a' trouble.
I'm thinkin' of the kids in the knickerbockers,
Shirt-tail young ones, peekin' in the pool
Hall window after school, look, folks!
Right here in River City.
Trouble with a capital "T"
And that rhymes with "P" and that stands for pool!
Now, I know all you folks are the right kinda parents.
I'm gonna be perfectly frank.
Would ya like to know what kinda conversation goes
On while they're loafin' around that Hall?
They're tryin' out Bevo, tryin' out cubebs,
Tryin' out Tailor Mades like Cigarette Feends!
And braggin' all about
How they're gonna cover up a tell-tale breath with Sen-Sen.
One fine night, they leave the pool hall,
Headin' for the dance at the Arm'ry!
Libertine men and Scarlet women!
And Rag-time, shameless music
That'll grab your son and your daughter
With the arms of a jungle animal instink!
Mass-staria!
Friends, the idle brain is the devil's playground!
Mothers of River City!
Heed the warning before it's too late!
Watch for the tell-tale sign of corruption!
The moment your son leaves the house,
Does he rebuckle his knickerbockers below the knee?
Is there a nicotine stain on his index finger?
A dime novel hidden in the corn crib?
Is he starting to memorize jokes from Capt.
Billy's Whiz Bang?
Are certain words creeping into his conversation?
Words like 'swell?"
And 'so's your old man?"
Well, if so my friends,
Ya got trouble,
Right here in River city!
With a capital "T"
And that rhymes with "P"
And that stands for Pool.
We've surely got trouble!
Right here in River City!
Remember the Maine, Plymouth Rock and the Golden Rule!
Oh, we've got trouble.
We're in terrible, terrible trouble.
That game with the fifteen numbered balls is a devil's tool!
Oh yes we got trouble, trouble, trouble!
With a "T"! Gotta rhyme it with "P"!
And that stands for Pool!
-Meredeth Wilson
To a situation you do now wish to acknowledge
Or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated
By the presence of a pool table in your community.
Ya got trouble, my friend, right here,
I say, trouble right here in River City.
Why sure I'm a billiard player,
Certainly mighty proud I say
I'm always mighty proud to say it.
I consider that the hours I spend
With a cue in my hand are golden.
Help you cultivate horse sense
And a cool head and a keen eye.
Never take and try to give
An iron-clad leave to yourself
From a three-reail billiard shot?
But just as I say,
It takes judgement, brains, and maturity
to score in a balkline game,
I say that any boob kin take
And shove a ball in a pocket.
And they call that sloth.
The first big step on the road
To the depths of deg-ra-Day--
I say, first, medicinal wine from a teaspoon,
Then beer from a bottle.
An' the next thing ya know,
Your son is playin' for money
In a pinch-back suit.
And list'nin to some big out-a-town Jasper
Hearin' him tell about horse-race gamblin'.
Not a wholesome trottin' race, no!
But a race where they set down right on the horse!
Like to see some stuck-up jockey'boy
Sittin' on Dan Patch? Make your blood boil?
Well, I should say.
Friends, lemme tell you what I mean.
Ya got one, two, three, four, five, six pockets in a table.
Pockets that mark the diff'rence
Between a gentlemen and a bum,
With a capital "B,"
And that rhymes with "P" and that stands for pool!
And all week long your River City
Youth'll be frittern away,
I say your young men'll be frittern!
Frittern away their noontime, suppertime, choretime too!
Get the ball in the pocket,
Never mind gittin' Dandelions pulled
Or the screen door patched or the beefsteak pounded.
Never mind pumpin' any water
'Til your parents are caught with the Cistern empty
On a Saturday night and that's trouble,
Oh, yes we got lots and lots a' trouble.
I'm thinkin' of the kids in the knickerbockers,
Shirt-tail young ones, peekin' in the pool
Hall window after school, look, folks!
Right here in River City.
Trouble with a capital "T"
And that rhymes with "P" and that stands for pool!
Now, I know all you folks are the right kinda parents.
I'm gonna be perfectly frank.
Would ya like to know what kinda conversation goes
On while they're loafin' around that Hall?
They're tryin' out Bevo, tryin' out cubebs,
Tryin' out Tailor Mades like Cigarette Feends!
And braggin' all about
How they're gonna cover up a tell-tale breath with Sen-Sen.
One fine night, they leave the pool hall,
Headin' for the dance at the Arm'ry!
Libertine men and Scarlet women!
And Rag-time, shameless music
That'll grab your son and your daughter
With the arms of a jungle animal instink!
Mass-staria!
Friends, the idle brain is the devil's playground!
Mothers of River City!
Heed the warning before it's too late!
Watch for the tell-tale sign of corruption!
The moment your son leaves the house,
Does he rebuckle his knickerbockers below the knee?
Is there a nicotine stain on his index finger?
A dime novel hidden in the corn crib?
Is he starting to memorize jokes from Capt.
Billy's Whiz Bang?
Are certain words creeping into his conversation?
Words like 'swell?"
And 'so's your old man?"
Well, if so my friends,
Ya got trouble,
Right here in River city!
With a capital "T"
And that rhymes with "P"
And that stands for Pool.
We've surely got trouble!
Right here in River City!
Remember the Maine, Plymouth Rock and the Golden Rule!
Oh, we've got trouble.
We're in terrible, terrible trouble.
That game with the fifteen numbered balls is a devil's tool!
Oh yes we got trouble, trouble, trouble!
With a "T"! Gotta rhyme it with "P"!
And that stands for Pool!
-Meredeth Wilson
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