So, today I meant to write a midterm essay for American Short Story, but instead I learned how to smoke a brisket and baked an exceptionally beautiful spice cake.
I don't think John Keats had thought about spice cakes when he wrote "A thing of beauty is a joy forever." Spice cakes embody transient mortal beauty, more valuable simply because of its impermanence.
Really, Keats should've written an ode on a spice cake to explore this angle of the aesthetic experience. But no, spice cakes aren't romantic enough for him. He has to write about seasons and birdwatching and pottery, when there are beautiful spice cakes in the world unimmortalized by verse.
But wait -- if he immortalized a spice cake, he'd be missing the point of its fleeting beauty, violating the very ephemerality which sharpens its significance.
So. . . maybe Keats actually wrote a poem about spice cakes by not writing a poem about them. His conspicuous silence on the subject actually proves his reverence and appreciation for the evanescent beauty of spice cakes.
(This ramble is indebted to this poem. Also, forgive my ridiculousness; my blog looked lonely and so I posted on it.)
7 comments:
You're still a genius; I'm glad to have found your blog again. Incidentally, I agree with you on the virtues of spice cake.
hehe!
uvvfgof
Ack, Tim Nance commented and didn't leave a link for me to find him! Are you blogging somewhere now, Tim? How are you?
Cream soda and Poetry combined into one force of delightfulness! I love it! I guess that probably irreparably crosses some high brow/low brow divide, though.
you know, its funny how you can plumb the depths of profundity with baked goods - i predict great things for you, young grasshopper. tee hee.
Might you actually let me in on the Scribbler's goodness? And what are the general rules involved? Not that I have ANY time to write now...
or I suppose it should be "Scribblers'"
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