Monday, November 17, 2014

SMALL, GENERIC STREETS



And speaking of streets, in a generic sort of way, here is a wonderful/terrible poem by one Hamish Beamish, titled “Streets”
‘Streets!

Grim, relentless, sordid streets!

Miles of poignant streets,

East, West, North,

And stretching starkly South;

Sad, hopeless, dismal, cheerless, chilling

Streets!‘



The poem and Hamish Beamish are the creations of PG. Wodehouse in the novel 1927 The Small Bachelor, a novelization of a 1917 musical, “Oh, Lady, Lady!” although a quick look at the cast list of that musical reveals no such character as Hamish Beamish.

Elsewhere in the novel Molly Sigsbee tells her father about a wedding proposal she’s received.

        "Well, anyway, we walked around for a while, looking at the animals, and suddenly he asked me to marry him outside the cage of the Siberian yak."


          Hilarity, of course, ensues.




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