larryhammer | Recent Entries

Characters frequently appearing in this drama:

I - your humble narrator, sometime writer, poet, and translator, also journaling as lnhammer and prettygoodword (online pronouns: he/him/his)
Janni - spouse and writer (online pronouns: she/her/her)
Eaglet - nom de internet of our child, formerly known as TBD, not yet a writer (online pronouns: they/them/their)

I subscribe to interesting-looking journals to put them on my reading list, with no expectation of reciprocation. Feel free to, but no pressure.

Crossposts: https://lnhammer.livejournal.com/395183.html

I’ve had this quote in my scratch file for a few years, waiting for me to find something to say about it. Except, I’ve got nothing that it doesn’t say itself, and better:

“Imaginative fiction trains people to be aware that there are other ways to do things, other ways to be; that there is not just one civilization, and it is good, and it is the way we have to be.” —Ursula K. Le Guin

---L.

Subject quote from Rocket Man, Elton John.

Chinese has a lot of suspiciously specific characters, most of them obscure, though in many cases the suspicion is because they’re the name of an object that’s no longer used, such as 铃, pronounced líng, which is a sort of bell used only for decorating an imperial carriage. And then there’s ones like my favorite: 虯, pronounced qiú, meaning a young dragon old enough to have grown horns.

There are characters that are more suspiciously specific, but this one, I keep circling back, inventing contexts that would require having a word for the concept. I mean, I can see farmers inventing shoat/shote so they can talk specifically about weaned pigs that are less than a year old, and getting them ready for market, but dragons aren’t farmed or hunted, or even fished.

虯 —that’s—huh. Yeah.

---L.

Subject quote from Safely You Deliver, Graydon Saunders.

A few links with quotation marks:

The amazingly complex palindrome poem that is “Armillary Sphere Chart” (璇璣圖), in which Su Hui (蘇蕙) (4th century CE) complains about her husband leaving her for another woman, plus many other topics. Wikipedia article. (via

adore)

“Landslide,” but it’s about landslides. “Well I’ve been afraid of landslides / ’cause the ground falls down around you.” (via YT suggestion)

“Soda Pop” played on actual soda bottles. (via

conuly)

---L.

Subject quote from These Boots Are Made For Walkin’, Nancy Sinatra.

For Poetry ~~Monday~~ Tuesday (because spent yesterday hiking in the mountains), another Francis:

Hallelujah: A Sestina, Robert Francis

A wind’s word, the Hebrew Hallelujah.
I wonder they never gave it to a boy
(Hal for short) boy with wind-wild hair.
It means Praise God, as well it should since praise
Is what God’s for. Why didn’t they call my father
Hallelujah instead of Ebenezer?

Eben, of course, but christened Ebenezer,
Product of Nova Scotia (hallelujah).
Daniel, a country doctor, was his father
And my father his tenth and final boy.
A baby and last, he had a baby’s praise:
Red petticoats, red cheeks, and crow-black hair.

A boy has little to say about his hair
And little about a name like Ebenezer
Except that you can shorten either. Praise
God for that, for that shout Hallelujah.
Shout Hallelujah for everything a boy
Can be that is not his father or grandfather.

But then, before you know it, he is a father
Too and passing on his brand of hair
To one more perfectly defenseless boy,
Dubbing him John or James or Ebenezer
But never, so far as I know, Hallelujah,
As if God didn’t need quite that much praise.

But what I’m coming to; Could I ever praise
My father half enough for being a father
Who let me be myself? Sing Hallelujah.
Preacher he was with a prophet’s head of hair
And what but a prophet’s name was Ebenezer,
However little I guessed it as a boy?

Outlandish names of course are never a boy’s
Choice. And it takes some time to learn to praise.
Stone of Help is the meaning of Ebenezer.
Stone of Help; what fitter name for my father?
Always the Stone of Help however his hair
Might graduate from black to Hallelujah.

Such is the old drama of boy and father.
Praise from a grayhead now with thinning hair.
Sing Ebenezer, Robert, sing Hallelujah!

---L.

Subject quote from Don't You (Forget About Me), Simple Minds.

For Poetry Monday:

Blue Winter, Robert Francis

Winter uses all the blues there are.
One shade of blue for water, one for ice,
Another blue for shadows over snow.
The clear or cloudy sky uses blue twice—
Both different blues. And hills row after row
Are colored blue according to how far.
You know the bluejay’s double-blue device
Shows best when there are no green leaves to show.
And Sirius is a winterbluegreen star.

Francis (1901-1987) was a New Englander who as a young poet had a very Frost-ian voice, though he later developed his own.

---L.

Subject quote from Once in a Lifetime, Talking Heads.

For Poetry Monday, something I think is a repeat but can handle a repost:

Ancient Music, Ezra Pound

Winter is icummen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm,
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!
Sing: Goddamm.
Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham.
Freezeth river, turneth liver,
Damn you, sing: Goddamm.
Goddamm, Goddamm, ’tis why I am, Goddamm,
So ’gainst the winter’s balm.
Sing goddamm, damm, sing goddamm.
Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM.

Parody ofc of the Middle English round “Sumer is icumen in.”

---L.

Subject quote from Baker Street, Gerry Rafferty.

With Yuletide authorships revealed, I can admit that I wrote a crossover between two very Welsh literary artifacts, both requested by the recipient. One is technically a verse closet drama and the other a technically-prose radio drama, but they are remarkably consonant in style and substance. Maybe because they were both written by Welsh Modernist poets, though that both are set by seaside also helped:

Behind Stars and Under Hills (1551 words) by lnhammer
Fandom: Ballad of the Mari Lwyd - Vernon Watkins, Under Milk Wood (Radio)
Characters: Captain Cat, Rosie Probert, Mr Ogmore, Mr Pritchard, Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard
Additional Tags: Welsh Folklore, solstice rituals, Dreams, Ghosts, Inspired by Poetry, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Mild Sexual Content, faux Dylan Thomas, honestly faux Dylan Thomas ought to be an archive warning
Summary: The Dead return. Those Exiles carry her, they who seem holy and have put on corruption, they who seem corrupt and have put on holiness.

They strain against the door on a moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black.

Basically it’s the dead characters of Under Milk Wood bring the Mari Lwyd to Llareggub.* The tag “faux Dylan Thomas” is, I feel, obligatory,** but so is the confession that I did steal some passages of real Thomas to prop up my fake tissue. There’s not much to the story aside from bringing out the consonance of the two works, but weaving together the two fibers was fun.

Fwiw I was matched on “Ballad of the Mari Lwyd,” and if you’re not familiar with it, here’s a copy.

* Which, remember, is “bugger all” backwards.
** It is not sociable to thrust Dylan Thomas, cod or kosher, upon people without warning.

---L.

Subject quote from Freedom, Beyoncé feat. Kendrick Lamar.

Short shameful (?) confession: this reread of Heyer’s The Nonesuch, my secondhand embarrassment over the romantic misunderstanding was way more acute than before, as in actively wincing as I read.

---L.

Subject quote from Circles, Post Malone.

So Eaglet gave me a book, Dad Jokes by A. Grambs,* and I am annoyed. Not at the giving — it’s a perfect gift. Eaglet knows me well.

I am annoyed at the book itself.

People, this is not a good joke book. Weak wheezers, forced puns, tenuous connections, so many barely worthy of Uncle Benjamin from The Blue Castle. All too many pages evoke not even a single groan, only ugh — or in Eaglet’s idiom, a flat bruh. In fact, to compare we pulled out Eaglet’s own book, Laugh Out Loud Jokes for Kids by Rob Elliott, and opening either at random, the kids’ entries are better in every way.

I feel cheated, and disrespected as a dad. 1/5 do not recommend. (Not 0 only because there are a couple pages with something groan-worthy.)

* Copyright is by Alison Grambs.

---L.

Subject quote from In Your Eyes, Peter Gabriel.

For Poetry Monday, another cat poem from Le Guin:

Black Leonard in Negative Space, Ursula K. Le Guin

All that surrounds the cat
is not the cat, is all
that is not the cat, is all,
is everything, except the animal.
It will rejoin without a seam
when he is dead. To know
that no-space is to know
what he does not, that time
is space for love and pain.
He does not need to know it.

--L.

Subject quote from The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

This has been a Yuletide of abundance — five gifts in three fandoms, including a surprising amount of poetry. My matched gift was appropriately titled:

Gifts (1212 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Flower Fairies - Cicely Mary Barker
Additional Tags: Fae & Fairies, Bargains With Fae & Fairies, Unwise bargains With Fae & Fairies, Becoming a real boy, or otherwise - Freeform
Summary: Humans, give a little something. Give me something, get a present. Humans, give me, just a small gift —

A fae of dubious credibility asks the human models of several flowers (in alphabetical order) each for a gift, just a little thing, to help it become real. The tag “unwise bargains with fae & fairies” is accurate. Beautiful, seductive, and more than a little dangerous.

I also got a Flower Fairy treat, in this case a poem:

Flower Fairies of the Gone Woods (193 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Flower Fairies - Cicely Mary Barker
Additional Tags: Fae & Fairies, Botanical accuracy, Biographical liberties, Poetry
Summary: The berries are not to be eaten
She says in a marginal note
Miss Barker, she asked you to listen
So what’s that bright thing in your throat?

Homage and critique, with a nice sting in the end.

Then I got two treats for another fandom, again a poem and a story. The poem is amazing, giving backstory using the stanza of the original:

The Vigil (1056 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came - Robert Browning, Original Work
Characters: Childe Roland, Cuthbert, Giles
Additional Tags: Original Character(s), Backstory, Blank Verse, Time Loop
Summary: Upon this quest, there can be no release.
Unto that hallowed tower we must go...

I flail.

Three Knigths by the Dark Tower (2104 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came - Robert Browning
Relationships: roland/cuthbert, Cuthbert & Giles, Roland & Cuthbert & Giles
Characters: Roland (Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came), Cuthbert (Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came), Giles (Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came)
Summary: Giles and Cuthbert follow their friend Roland even to the threshold of the Dark Tower, hoping to help him on his quest.

Cuthbert and Giles have not in fact departed from the quest, as Roland (at the end of his rope) had thought.

And finally, a treat on the Housman poem “Her strong enchantments failing,” being a poem cycle expanding a bit on the backstory and worldbuilding:

ILLUC VOLAT (278 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Her Strong Enchantments Failing - A. E. Housman
Additional Tags: Poetry, Inspired by Poetry
Summary: A series of poems inspired by “Her strong enchantments failing” by A.E. Housman, which re-tell the story of that poem in a new way.

Yessssssss.

More links and recs later, after I’ve had time to explore more of the archive.

---L.

Subject quote from Your Own Special Way, Genesis.

For Poetry Monday:

For Leonard, Darko, and Burton Watson, Ursula K. Le Guin

A black and white cat
on May grass waves his tail, suns his belly
among wallflowers.
I am reading a Chinese poet
called The Old Man Who Does As He Pleases.
The cat is aware of the writing
of swallows
on the white sky.
We are both old and doing what pleases us
in the garden. Now I am writing
and the cat
is sleeping.
Whose poem is this?

—L.

Subject quote from Time in a Bottle, Jim Croce.

Meanwhile, in the annals of contemporary linguistics, I’ve become fascinated with the adverbial use by certain Gen-Alphas of low-key. It also has the same adjectival uses that have been around for a while, but when used as an adverb, it’s a mild intensifier, roughly comparable to rather, so slightly stronger than kinda but weaker than very. (I’ve heard someone use kinda then correct themselves to low-key to strengthen the statement.)

What’s fascinating, though, is that it almost always modifies negative attributes — bad, tired, hungry, bored. The main exceptions I’ve heard are negations of negative attributes, so both “low-key hungry” and “low-key not hungry.” Both forms, ofc, include negations, which might be why both are acceptable?

This is even more interesting than how derogatory mid is — it doesn’t mean “middling” quality, like it first sounded, but thoroughly mediocre. And yes, something can be low-key mid.

---L.

Subject quote from The Duck Song, Bryant Oden.

A link for you, and a link for you, and, yes, a link for you, too. All three are for the anonymous gifter of a paid account -- thank you, whoever you are:

Drone videos of black sand beaches in Iceland.

There I Ruined It presents Santa Claus Is Coming to Town as sung by Radiohead, to the tune of “Creep.” (via)

A contemporary (1813) review of Pride and Prejudice. That Mr Collins was considered a recognizable type and not a caricature is interesting. (via lost)

---L.

Subject quote from On Grafton Street, Nanci Griffith.

For Poetry Monday, more autumn from an early Modernist:

Leaves, Frederic Manning

A frail and tenuous mist lingers on baffled and intricate branches;
Little gilt leaves are still, for quietness holds every bough;
Pools in the muddy road slumber, reflecting indifferent stars;
Steeped in the loveliness of moonlight is earth, and the valleys,
Brimmed up with quiet shadow, with a mist of sleep.

But afar on the horizon rise great pulses of light,
The hammering of guns, wrestling, locked in conflict
Like brute, stone gods of old struggling confusedly;
Then overhead purrs a shell, and our heavies
Answer, with sudden clapping bruits of sound,
Loosening our shells that stream whining and whimpering precipitately,
Hounding through air athirst for blood.

And the little gilt leaves
Flicker in falling, like waifs and flakes of flame.

Manning (1882-1935) was an Australian-born writer best known for his WWI novels, but he was also a significant Imagist. This is from 1915.

---L.

Subject quote from In August, William Dean Howells.

For Poetry Monday, chronologically a little late but still appropriate for this subtropical climate:

November Night, Adelaide Crapsey

Listen …
With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp’d, break from the trees
And fall.

Crapsey (1878-1914) was a teacher and prosodist as well as poet, and this was first published in her (posthumous) first collection, Verses. The form is a cinquain, a fixed syllabic stanza based on Japanese tanka that she developed in her last year of life, before dying of tuberculosis.

---L.

Subject quote from Windy,” The Association.

A few links of wildly varying importance:

How a Broken Benchmark Quietly Broke America — specifically, the US’s official “poverty level” is a lie, based on outdated conditions and assumptions. Depressing but explains a lot. (I suggest skipping down to the first heading.) (via??)

For Decades, Cartographers Have Been Hiding Covert Illustrations Inside of Switzerland’s Official Maps (via)

World’s first film in ancient Sumerian released by Trinity College filmmakers. Available as an embed in the article. (via)

---L.

Subject quote from The Boxer, Simon & Garfunkel.

For Poetry Monday:

The More Loving One, W.H. Auden

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime
Though this might take me a little time.

From his collection Homage to Clio.

---L.

Subject quote from “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,” W.H. Auden.

Essential life experience: having a twelve-year-old rant at you for 10 minutes about how the existence of sweet potatoes offends them.

---L.

Subject quote from Let’s Go Crazy, Prince and the Revolution.

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Larry Hammer

my pretty good home page

January 2026

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Stickie introductory post
“mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids/in fact it’s cold as hell and there’s no one there”
“It’s something when a unicorn thinks the butterfly names are too poetic.”
“you keep lying when you ought to be truthing / you keep saming when you ought to be changing”
“slow chains may pull us apart/ when our life gets into your heart/ baby don’t you forget about me”
“into the blue again after the money’s gone / once in a lifetime water flowing underground”
“this city desert makes you feel so cold / it’s got so many people but it’s got no soul”
“i’mma wade, i’ma wave through the waters / tell the tide ‘don’t move’”
“seasons change and our love went cold / feed the flame ’cause we can’t let go / run away”
“love, i don’t like to see so much pain / so much wasted and this moment keeps slipping away”
“But I, alas, do not know how to see sheep through the walls of boxes.”
“you, you have your own special way / of turning the world so it’s facing / the way that i’m going”
“i’d like to save every day / till eternity passes away / just to spend them with you”
“and he said to the man running the stand / ‘hey! (pom pom pom) got any grapes?’”
“i just found this smile to think about you / you’re a saturday night far from the madding crowd”
“Only the querulous cricket grieves, / And shrilling locust weaves / A song of summer dead.”
“windy has stormy eyes / that flash at the sound of lies / and windy has wings to fly”
“he carries the reminders / of every glove that laid him down / or cut him till he cried out”
“the stars are not wanted now: put out every one; / pack up the moon and dismantle the sun”
“dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called ‘life’”

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Stickie introductory post

“mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids/in fact it’s cold as hell and there’s no one there”

“It’s something when a unicorn thinks the butterfly names are too poetic.”

“you keep lying when you ought to be truthing / you keep saming when you ought to be changing”

“slow chains may pull us apart/ when our life gets into your heart/ baby don’t you forget about me”

“into the blue again after the money’s gone / once in a lifetime water flowing underground”

“this city desert makes you feel so cold / it’s got so many people but it’s got no soul”

“i’mma wade, i’ma wave through the waters / tell the tide ‘don’t move’”

“seasons change and our love went cold / feed the flame ’cause we can’t let go / run away”

“love, i don’t like to see so much pain / so much wasted and this moment keeps slipping away”

“But I, alas, do not know how to see sheep through the walls of boxes.”

“you, you have your own special way / of turning the world so it’s facing / the way that i’m going”

“i’d like to save every day / till eternity passes away / just to spend them with you”

“and he said to the man running the stand / ‘hey! (pom pom pom) got any grapes?’”

“i just found this smile to think about you / you’re a saturday night far from the madding crowd”

“Only the querulous cricket grieves, / And shrilling locust weaves / A song of summer dead.”

“windy has stormy eyes / that flash at the sound of lies / and windy has wings to fly”

“he carries the reminders / of every glove that laid him down / or cut him till he cried out”

“the stars are not wanted now: put out every one; / pack up the moon and dismantle the sun”

“dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called ‘life’”