In Defense of Docility
I say what I mean, and I mean what I say. Perhaps my fault is being obedient in Wonderland; nevertheless, I hate useless words. The use -- the propriety -- of a thing may not be immediately obvious to all. Who among us would have seen as quickly as Alice did what the wabe is? Nevertheless, any good girl who has basked quietly in the delight of adults, hands folded, and who moreover has seen the perfect freedom pleasant little-girl silence and compliance gives her to wander the Wonderland inside, knows just so quickly: docility is seductive. Too much growing and shrinking makes one want to say: Yes, please. Only ask me. Only tell me. Only instruct me. My conduct can be pleasing when everything else is shrieking. Let me be quiet and smile. I am not helpless or vacant, sir, only obedient.
There are days when I want nothing more than Joan Baez' instruction to lie back and think of nothing at all. She sings, and I switch off the over-educated harpy and do so. Docilely.
There are days when I want nothing more than Joan Baez' instruction to lie back and think of nothing at all. She sings, and I switch off the over-educated harpy and do so. Docilely.
posted by Ms. Blue Jeans | 5:41 PM
4 Comments:
the complaint of impropriety is not sociolinguistic, but sonic.
of course, there is something sociolinguistic imbedded in the terms through which sonic/not-sonic is constructed, but - to shoot myself in the foot - there's nevertheless something to be said of frost's "sound of sense."
::i'm doing the robot now::
How comforting to realize that, as an aesthetic disagreement is so subjective
as to be no practical disagreement at all, we won't have to fight a duel the
next time I'm in the (un)fair state of Mississippi. It doesn't sound
dissonant to me at all, but my language-ear is tuned to Austen and Bronte,
not the SAT manual. It seems like any word learned while vocab cramming
would sound odd in one's mind, because it has always, like the cheese, stood
alone. Ah, for the days when SAT words were just words. And sound-sense is
charming, but frequently impractical as a governing principle. Robert Frost,
you'll notice, is a poet (as, I hear, are you); I myself am prosaic to my
toes. So there lies the root of the age-old dispute. That rhyme was just
for you.
PS... The above notwithstanding, I imagine I would find it pleasing (although
possibly not aesthetically) to see you do the robot.
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