Jaybur

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Original text in yellow, anagram in pink.

A poem by William Wordsworth.

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Ah, few cannot have read Wordsworth's beautiful lines. I can, in anagram, tell a genuine story behind his musings. He wasn't alone (I checked up), but with a woman, his sister Dorothy; who, we hear, jotted stuff in a diary at the time.

It had been a misty day with little sun, when they set out on their walk after lunch. The couple left a lane to avoid cows, seeing tiny violets, hidden below a hedge.

Then... they both stopped. Oh, those enchanting fabled flowers! A sight that dazzled them, indeed!

Ah, but all can change. Recently, odd, big ones were sighted: *cultivated* blooms. (One needs an investigation to check this report's authenticity.) Oh God, what a shocking scandal! An idyll, thoughtlessly vandalized by human hooligan hands!

Our England's perfect, an ideal, green and pleasant land. Oh, with duff daffs.

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A paragraph composed by Samuel Foote to test the actor Charles Macklin's claim that he could memorize anything.

So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage-leaf; to make an apple-pie; and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street, pops its head into the shop. 'What! No soap?' So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies, and the Joblillies, and the Garyalies, and the grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top, and they all fell to playing the game of catch-as-catch-can, till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots.

Grandpa went up into the attic to make some jam. There, under the eaves, he contemplated labelling pots; perhaps in the bathtub. 'Whoopee! Rhubarb!' Just then, he slipped up, and rattled his teeth. So Gran cancelled her bingo, and planned a party night. 'Oh, where's my fancy taffeta dress?' she cried. The family turned up to help taste a cheese garnish. Timothy, a teacher, came, and had an Amontillado; filling the glass, not to the top. What a soiree! Soon, all were inebriated, and tittering too, I bet!

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Lucian Freud: A German-born British painter.

The grandson of Sigmund Freud, he was born in Berlin. He came to England with his parents and acquired British nationality in nineteen thirty-nine. His earliest love was drawing, and he began to work full time as an artist after being invalided out of the Merchant Navy.

His Interior at Paddington (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool) won a prize at the Festival of Britain, and since then he has built up a formidable reputation as one of the most powerful contemporary figurative painters. Portraits and nudes are his specialities, often observed in arresting close-up.

His early work was meticulously painted, so he has sometimes been described as a 'Realist' (or rather absurdly as a Superrealist), but the subjectivity and intensity of his work has always set him apart from the sober tradition characteristic of most British figurative art since the Second World War. In his later work his handling became much broader.

This eminent, but controversial artist aims deliberately to astonish, disturb, seduce and convince. Harsh, brutal in his approach, he's no liar. He doesn't flatter, or hold back from illuminating reality; ordinary human wrinkles, hairy warts and all, are on his canvases. No romanticizing is apparent in *his* art. He maintains that honesty or truth in art is where real beauty lies.

We admire the nude gracing a Rembrandt painting. But see Freud's brutally honest work Benefits Supervisor Resting. The subject, one known as Big Sue, worked for the Department of Health and Social Security. She posed for a whole series of canvases, and he's hidden no detail, believe me! Imagine that gross, wobbling mass: it's a fat, blubbery woman who appears in dire need of liposuction!

It's difficult for a viewer to appreciate its artistic merit, this portrayal of an overweight, bare woman, if repulsed by her quite horrific girth!
And I add, warranting an alternative title: A Freudian Strip!

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Updated: May 10, 2016


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