Special Guest Star: Anna Lu

We take a pause today from the Animal adventures in the Council underworld, to bring you a delightful poem by previous contributor, Anna Lucile Reck. You may remember Anna Lu from the adventures of Speedy - his disappearance, his wanderings, and his return home.

The Animals and Monsters of Big Bed Land admire this poem very much. Polar Knight, Big Bard of Big Bed Land, has this to say about it: "With its haunting contemplative voice, CATS ARE BEST describes the inner reality of beauty through the cat, who contains all others within her. It also explores the idea of what is best, that timeless question of Monsters. As a writer myself, I agree that even in cats, with their grace and skills, their playfulness, beauty and freedom, it is their longing to read that is truly inspiring. Unlike many Monsters, cats can probably read everything - the sky, the trees, the house. Poet Anna Lu has real insight into the world. Thanks for sending this to Platypuss-in-Boots!"

Love to Anna Lu too from all of us. We are looking forward to seeing you this summer!

And for those who are anxious about whether the Animals will ever decode the Tea Towel they encountered while traveling to the Grange Hall in the Argonaut - tune in on Thursday and you'll see how it was done!


CATS ARE BEST
by Anna Lucile Reck


Cats are best,
if you ask me.
Cats are better than the queer Monkey.

Cats see in the dark.
They run and play happily,
not in a park.

Cats are by far the best,
though they take all rest
into their beautiful body.

They love to eat,
and play, and roll,
right on their graceful feet.

If you see what I mean
as you probably should,
you will see that,
if they could,
they would read, read, read,
until they'd had their feed.

Cats are the best!

Some Good Advice From Pinky

Note From Your Hostess Pinky: Remember - breakfast is the most important meal of the day!

Even if your schedule is very busy - even if you’re in the midst of battle like the Animals of Big Bed Land, who ran into the French Revolution as well as the Battle of Troy while voyaging the Council Idaho sewer system in the Argonaut, their small but sturdy submarine – don’t forget to eat breakfast.

If you’ve read the last three posts, you know that the crew aboard the Argonaut under the leadership of Pirate Goat and guidance of Piggles has just surfaced from the mysterious underworld of Council’s sewers in the Ladies Room of the old Grange Hall. They had no sooner gotten their bearings, when they saw the turret gun of a tank through the window!

Immediately they saw that turret gun was aimed right at the courthouse directly across that venerable route of passage, Highway 95. The sign in front of the tank reading “Peace Park” faces the other way, and they have assumed that the tank means war! And I can’t tell them about the sign because their communications system was damaged during the dangerous ascent to safe harbor in the Ladies Room!

If they could reach Monster J. they’d ask his advice – but he is off on his own quest in the land of Massachusetts and it would take days to get there without the assistance of Panda Air! They have decided not to trouble dear Monster E. with this matter, since she can’t even follow the action of battles in movies, much less real ones! But they have decided they must fight to protect the safety of their beloved Monsters’ community!

Pirate Goat is in the Argonaut’s dinghy, sharing breakfast with his newly appointed Intelligence Officer, Bink (whom you may know as Your Pocket Philologist.) During this troubled time of war, he has given up his arduous studies to offer his skills to decipher the coded message the Argonaut picked up while surfacing.

I sent them the breakfast basket myself, knowing they would need to build up their courage as well as their keen battle skills. I sent Goat a big mug of Captain Crunch because it makes him feel ferocious – and I knew that Bink would feel better with an extra dose of his favorite Alphabet Soup from a can. And a large plate of marshmallows. Please remember, these substances are only good for Animals like Goat and Bink and are not to be consumed by Monsters!

Trouble on the Argonaut

Platypuss: On Thursday we left the Animals as they were traveling the sewers of Council in a small submarine called the Argonaut, captained by Pirate Goat. Having learned a thing or two about the French Revolution - and keeping their eyes peeled for the shroud of Marat - they surfaced in the old Grange Hall and saw, with dismay, the armoured tank and turret gun outside the window. If the Animals had paid more attention back in the days when Monster E. covered town meetings for the newspaper, they would have remembered the story of this tank. Shall I just point out in passing that paying attention can really pay off?

Pink Bear: So, like, if we see a tiny green Bolivian beetle laboring across a locket, we should watch the entire progress so that later when we are trying to map fractyls we’ll know how to do it?

Platypuss: That’s right, Pink Bear.

Pink Bear: Or if we see a spider starting a web, we should watch the whole process so that later on in the Hunt for the Wild Petunia we can weave nets from the hairs on the trees where the Targs have scratched their backs so we can catch the marshmell-o-wisps and read our comic books by their light?

Goat: Excuse me, Pink Bear, we’re in the middle of a battle here…

Pink Bear: By all means continue your dear battle, dear Goat. Anything I can do to help?

Goat: How about getting off this com-link and maybe go and save the world or something?

Platypuss: Go ahead and run along to your dear world, Pink Bear. (Fervent thanks from Goat here, who comments that that Pink Bear is REALLY pink, almost dangerously pink.) But as I was saying, if they had paid more attention when Monster E. got home from courthouse meetings and told Monster J. all the news that was stranger than fiction, they would have known that the tank had been proposed by a war vet as an ornament to the park near the old Grange, Rodeo and 4H grounds. He would spare no time and trouble, he told the county commissioners, in his quest to locate an Army surplus tank for this purpose – at no cost to the County whatsoever!

He came in regularly to report to the commissioners on his progress, which was slow. In fact, these reports just seemed to have become part of the normal life of the county courthouse. Monster E. could tell that the commissioners were assuming that he would never find his tank to put in the park by the old Grange Hall. But they didn’t want to offend this kindly war vet so they let him continue his quest. One day, however, he came in to tell them that the tank would be delivered within the week. He described the tank in great detail. The question no one ever asked was: do we WANT a tank in a children’s park where the young ones will clamber joyously across its venerable surface WAY above its concrete pad? It was too late to ask that question now. So the tank arrived and they renamed the park the "Peace Park."

Meanwhile, a battle was waging between the citizens of Adams County and the commissioners who had made arrangements with an architect (of the snake oil variety) to build a new courthouse, sheriff’s office – and a large private prison. The commissioners didn’t really bother to mention these negotiations to anyone, or suggest any reason why the town might WANT a large prison, and when people finally heard about it, they turned out in droves to storm the commissioners’ office.

It was during this time of unusual rancour and conflict that a posse of civilians made the decision to site the tank, in the old Grange park across the road from the projected building site, so that the gun would be aiming directly at the new courthouse. And there it has remained, as an eternal memorial to the populace of its anger toward its commissioners at that time.

Not knowing this, however, the Animals were horrified when they saw the huge armed monstrosity. If only they had seen this sign! They would have known that tanks mean peace! As it was, they were really very worried.

“Look,” Lefty said. “They’re going to blow up that building. That’s the county courthouse, sheriff’s department, and jail - the heart of law and order in our Monsters’ community!”

“You’re right,” Goat said. “We have no choice but to fight.”

“I’m with you,” Lefty said, “we must fight! What side are we on?”

“We protect civilization!”

“Hey, what kind of a pirate are you?” Lefty joked.

“The CAPTAIN kind,” Goat reminded him with a glare that made all the Animals go completely quiet.

“Excuse me,” said Pink Bear, “but if you’re going to wear costumes—“

Goat glared at her. “I’m sorry,” she corrected herself, “if you’re going to wear UNIFORMS, could you please make sure they’re really different colors or something? You know how I get confused if they are not CLEARLY different colors…”

“I thought you were going to save the world?” Goat growled.

“I already did. Now I’m kind of bored and just want some recreation. Do we have the home team advantage?”

“NO PINK BEARS ARE PERMITTED ON THIS SUBMARINE!” Goat roared. “Captain’s orders!”

Then the Animals knew that this fight must be really serious. They went back to the submarine feeling very subdued all of a sudden, and that's when they first saw the filthy shred of rag clinging to the tail of the submarine. All concern for the fate of Adams County or themselves was forgotten for the moment. Had they actually found it? Had they found Marat’s shroud just as the great bard Victor Hugo described it in his epic battle with history in the sewers of Paris? They were almost afraid to approach it, and came to a straggling halt.

Piggles strode out ahead of them all and plucked the grimy shred of fabric from the Argonaut’s tail and held it at arm’s length. “I will wash it,” she said. Their eyes followed her, and they were speechless at her daring.

When she returned from the submarine’s spacious and well-appointed laundry room, what she carried in her hands was not a shroud, but a clue from Council’s own history, a clue that they immediately realized they would have to decipher.

An Animal! A Bear! Hand-embroidered on a tea-towel! “What this is,” Piggles said, “is a coded message. Remember how the women of the French resistance wove codes into the patterns of their children’s mittens and sent them across enemy lines?” She started back toward her cabin, holding Pink Bear by the hand. "Is this part of the game?" Pink Bear was asking as they disappeared. The rest of the Animals gathered round the Code Bear, speechless.

"What we must do," Goat told them, filled with confidence again now that there was some action to take, "is crack this coded message. We will need an Intelligence Agency."

He nodded at Bink, and Bink stepped forward. "My not insignificant language skills are entirely at the service of Captain Goat. Long live Council! Long live the Argonaut! May Piggles reign forever!" he added in an unusual burst of enthusiasm, and all the Animals cheered.

(To Be Continued)

The Hat That Launched A Thousand Ships

Platypuss here. What began as a simple expedition in a small submarine (the Argonaut) through the sewers of Council, inspired by Victor Hugo and led by Pirate Goat, has already become an epic. This kind of thing does happen pretty often to Goat, as you may have noticed. At the last minute, many more Animals joined the expedition than had initially signed up and quarters are cramped. If you want to know how the Animals came up with this idea, along with advice from well-meaning bloggers, scroll down to the previous post from the lost land of Monday for the details.

(Goat interrupts here:) Hey Platypuss. You say this kind of thing happens to me a lot, but every time is totally different! How could the unsuspected perils of Rock Slide Tobogganing have possibly prepared me for what is happening down here under the potholed streets and glorious alleys of Council! If it hadn’t been for help from Sandra Leigh and Johnny Jack Poetry Guitar Guy, I’d still be riding on the outside of the submarine! Sometimes plans for things like submarines are hard to read, you know. And if I knew what I was doing, it wouldn’t be an adventure, would it?

Platypuss continues: It’s hard to say exactly what happened – Sandra Leigh may be at the bottom of this – she’s the one who mentioned “stygian” while wishing the crew well in their voyage through the bowels of the earth. Goat insisted that the word was French, but after an argument, Bink looked it up – and there we all were suddenly, not in the Council sewer, but in the Council Underworld. A portal to the past where all myths meet - all unbeknownst to the citizens of the surface chatting in the Thrifty Shoppe on dollar-a-bag day next to the abandoned People’s Theatre and the abandoned Timberline Title building with the sleek US Bank looming over all like an artificial life form…

Wait a minute, Platypuss! Goat here. That was not an argument. It was a battle of wits, and a valiant one. Bink is a worthy opponent. And I will just mention that HKatz too played a big part in our current peril – mentioning the Golden Fleece made Polar Knight start thinking about the lost link between the Golden Fleece and the Golden Eyepatch awarded at the Annual Pirate Picnic, and how it might finally be found in the Council sewer. Not to mention Johnny Jack Poetry’s discussion with Bink on the Greek root of the word “nostalgia” which ended up with Poetikat and Monster E. becoming involved recently with us in the battle of Troy! No one knew we would find ourselves in the Underworld. Where all the ancient battles are fought simultaneously like a multi-plex Valhalla right under the People’s Theatre! Perhaps Jeffscape could help us out of this one, I thought, but alas! - all communications systems were down.

We knew we were in the sewer directly underneath the People’s Theatre because the sagging structure produces eerie groans only audible in the Underworld where they are amplified by the sewer pipes- to an unnerving degree, I will freely confess. This is where the strange perils of the Underworld began to show themselves. Cleopatra, the much-beloved Finger Giraffe who is visiting us from those young muses Zoey and Grace, suddenly appeared with a new body and a hat from the Ancient Past! All the Animals were suddenly wearing hats! Party hats, we wondered? But we soon realized that this was no party, and began to wonder if we would ever make it back to Big Bed Land from this Labyrinth of illusion.

Strangely, it was the Big Bard of Big Bed Land, Polar Knight, who gave us the first clue as to finding our way out of the dreaded Labyrinth. I am always surprised when the flag of Poetry flies during battle, but Pirates are scrupulously honest (when they remember to be) and I must say that this happens with some frequency.

Polar Knight thought back to Subby’s mention of Victor Hugo on Robert Frost’s Banjo, which first led to our noble but perhaps doomed expedition. Polar Knight with the glow of inspiration in his eyes suddenly declaimed: “The most surprising rencounter was at the entrance to the Grand Sewer…from one of these hinges hung a dirty and shapeless rag …Bruneseau held his lantern close to this rag and examined it…they made out a heraldic coronet and embroidered above these seven letters: LAVBESP…They recognized the fact, that what they had before their eyes was a morsel of the shroud of Marat!!”

“Of course,” cried Cleopatra, throwing her hat into the ring, “the Charlotte Corday hat!”

Now, I’m all for open discussion among the crew, but it seemed to me that any sense of purpose had been lost. “What are you talking about?” I demanded.

So it turns out that there was this really complicated battle called the French Revolution. And this woman, Charlotte Corday, carrying a copy of Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, assassinated Marat with a kitchen knife. (Hence the shroud.) Not long afterwards, the women in England who were found her action heroic started wearing a millinery confection known as the Charlotte Corday hat. Apparently they had no bumper stickers in these times. Sometimes history is just totally weird, I say to Bink. “You have no idea how weird,” Bink told me kindly, and began to tell me tales of hatpin murders.

Everyone rushed to the portholes. “Is that Charlotte’s kitchen knife?” someone shouted. “I think I see Helen of Troy’s lipstick container…” “Look - Lizzie Borden’s report card!” But suddenly our forays into the unexplored hook-ups of history came to a halt. After a dizzying ascent, we found ourselves in the harbor of the old Council Grange – we looked up past the toilet paper and the sink, to where a sign was printed on the open door: “Ladies,” it read.

“That means me,” said Cleopatra and she sashayed forth – in spite of the fact that I knew she could see, as we all did, the tank positioned ominously outside the window, its turret gun pointed right at us.

(Check back on Monday for the continuation of the Voyage of the Argonaut…and greetings to my old friend and Hugo/Louis L'Amour scholar, Dan Moors!)

Postcard to Monster J.

Platypuss here. With Johnny Jack Poetry Guitar Guy on the road with his poetry and his guitar, the community of Big Bed Land feels keenly aware of his absence. So, after a bit of discussion the Animals decided to write some postcards to the Absent Bard, as he has been dubbed. Goat wanted to be the one to write so that none of the important things happening in BBL would be left out...

Greetings, fellow explorer. Goat here. I am impressed by what I’ve read of your adventures so far – a bold undertaking, to do battle in the wilderness of the Great Western Highways, with the loneliness and frozen fog, the specters of feedlots and abandoned bars of Nebraska, the wailing wind-sound of souls who have been lost in that land. It’s more dangerous even than the Targ Forest, and I’m very happy for you - happy that you have found a setting worthy of your quest. I have a feeling that when you get home you might be awarded the Golden Eye-Patch, one of the highest honors that can be awarded at the annual Pirate Picnic – let this spur you on.

Not much news here – the day before you left, you saw that one of my tobogganing expeditions had caused a rock slide on Highway 95. Well, this kept happening. Which is only logical, as I explained to Piggles, since this new form of tobogganing is called Rock Slide and the thrill of it is when the whole hillside starts to move. But even after I explained this several times, Piggles still thought it was time for me to do something else.

Well, what Piggles says, goes, as you know. So Lefty and I have developed a new plan. We got the idea from Victor Hugo who is a friend of Polar Knight’s. Victor Hugo is a writer too. He writes in French which seems like going to a great deal of needless trouble if you ask me. But he took on History itself in the Sewers of Paris, and what an epic! In honor of that glorious battle in Lay Mizzy-marbles (that’s French, by the way) we are going to explore the Council sewer in a small submarine. Remember when I went with Monster E. to a City Council meeting and they showed how a little camera moving through the sewer could help figure out what parts of the pipe to fix? Like the wooden pipes that were still there from when Monsters built the very first sewer in town? That’s what gave us the idea. You can actually learn a lot from town meetings sometimes.

As you may remember from Monster E’s thrilling description of this meeting, the Council sewer is gravity powered. So we won’t need to build a power source for the submarine. Unless we try to go uphill. Then we’ll be up Poop Creek without a paddle! There is always the chance that we will run out of air, of course, especially if we tell too many jokes like this and laugh too much. That wastes oxygen you know. In a submarine this is never wise. Today we finished painting the name on the submarine in really big fluorescent letters: “The Argonaut.” In this photo I am consulting with experts in propulsion that makes use of gravity and currents.

We depart at midnight. We are ready. I have made the necessary charts and familiarized myself with the navigational equipment. Lefty has loaded the supplies and will take care of their equitable and timely distribution. Polar Knight will take of the poetry. Duffy will monitor the camera from BBL so all the Animals can follow our course!

It is a curious coincidence that in my research I discovered that the overall map of the Council sewer resembles in every detail one of the ancient rivers that Monster E. is studying for her book. If time permits, we will attempt to get to the bottom of this mystery.

Sleep well, fellow traveler. May Piggles guide you – but only after you’ve had your fill of adventure!

Polar Knight Goes Green

It's easy being green when you're reading Lament of the Fiddleheads by Kat Mortensen! Please scroll down for a reading of this delightful poem that will take you on a brief but merry jaunt from Christina Rosetti to Stevie Smith, with musings by the Big Bard of Big Bed Land, Polar Knight. Posted with Kat's kind permission.

Polar Knight’s Salon: Kat Mortensen’s "Lament of the Fiddleheads"

There are days when I do nothing at all. When I let myself wander through the polar night, or just curl up along the satisfying curve of a frozen drift and feel the curve of every leaf, every petal, every plum that ever was. When a single snow-crystal makes a lens into eons of springtimes… splendorous, that’s the word.

It was this kind of day when a tundra mycelium that I had never noticed before started speaking to me. (Note from Bink: Mycelium is: the underground mass of tiny branching threads that produce mushrooms; it can be thousands of acres in size, or the size of a fairy ring of mushrooms.)

This particular polar fairy ring contained one mushroom I knew as "Goblin Market" by Christina Rossetti, whose name resounds in the tundra underground! Then I noticed that the interconnected underground threads of this mycelium had mushroomed also into "Childhood and Interruption" by Stevie Smith and Beatrix Potter’s Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle. And there in the circle stood Lament of the Fiddleheads by Kat Mortensen - winking at me in friendly amusement. (I just noticed the “muse” in “amusement”...)


Poetikat, as many bloggers know, adventures in the land of rhyme and meter, taking humor, philosophy, and dramatic narrative in her stride. All these meet intoxicatingly in "Lament of the Fiddleheads" - one of those mysterious elixirs whose recipe can never be codified but only experienced – as a forest complete in itself, a dirge with comic moments, questions that catch you by surprise with their sudden depth: “Who has us in peril? Who is our true foe?” These spring as naturally from the language of the poem as the comically human moments: “…our sharp-shooting rival – Asparagus!”

Probably everyone remembers some moment of awe in a forest – when it seemed to speak and you were filled with silence, when a gaze into branches or down the vista of a path or following the determined doings of a beetle became infused with more stories than you could put words to. Poetikat’s evocation of such a moment is remarkarble – splendorous!

When I first read Kat’s Lament of the Fiddlehead, it took me into a very particular landscape I associate with Christina’s "Goblin Market"; this made a great deal of sense as I thought more about it – Christina uses the kind of simplicity and strong meter often associated with children’s poetry to create a landscape that is as untamed as our own imaginations once were. It’s a landscape we might remember in fragments, but never completely.

“One had a cat's face,
One whisked a tail,
One tramped at a rat's pace,
One crawled like a snail,
One like a wombat prowled obtuse and furry,
One like a ratel tumbled hurry-scurry.
Lizzie heard a voice like voice of doves
Cooing all together:
They sounded kind and full of loves
In the pleasant weather.”

The poem with its splendorously playful rhyme and meter (Christina wrote children’s verse too) tells a serious story of temptation and near-death, and the redemptive necessity of sisterly love.

What these poets do for me is reconnect the serious “play” of imagination known mostly by my childhood self with my other selves – the adult perspective that is humor and a different kind of knowledge of the world. Stevie Smith also uses the meter and rhyme of lullabyes, nursery rhymes, hymns, to embody descriptions of intense loss, betrayal, isolation – she often includes (a rather sharp-edged) humor in the mix as well:

“…And underneath the pram cover lies my brother Jake
He is not old enough yet to be properly awake
He is alone in his sleep; no arrangement they make
For him can touch him at all, he is alone,
For a little while yet, it is as if he had not been born
Rest in infancy, brother Jake; childhood and interruption come swiftly on.”

Beatrix Potter is usually thought of as a children’s author, though she herself considered her work as literature worthy of standing among the “great” – and I agree with her. The way she combines the imagination that can place meticulously dressed animals in human scenes acting out the most profound existential themes (and humor!) comes over me periodically with a kind of electric jolt. I think my favorite character of hers is the hedgehog version of John the Baptist – the washerwoman Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle who appears to a young girl and then vanishes as mysteriously. Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle collects the outer coverings of many animals (including Peter Rabbit and other characters in Potter’s stories) and washes them clean – the feet of Sally Henny-penny, the white fronts of Tom Titmouse, and the skins of the little lambs. When the girl marvels that the skins of lambs can be removed and washed and even replaced, each to its proper lamb, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle tells her “Oh yes… they’re always marked at washing!”

It has been Polar Knight’s great pleasure to discover Kat Mortensen’s work and to pull Monster E. along into the poetic adventure that is reading! Kat has given us here at P-in-B new insight into poets long beloved – and on-going delight in reading Poetikat’s own evolving work. Kat has announced that she is putting a book together for publication and we are all looking forward to this with serious excitement. Thanks Kat!

Images:
Mushrooms and fiddlehead ferns by Beatrix Potter
Illustration for "Goblin Market" by D.G. Rossetti
Stevie Smith's illustration for "Childhood and Interruption"
Beatrix Potter's illustration, "Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Wink"