|
|
| Author |
Message |
polygon
|
|
Rather prescriptively so ...
| 
Sep 20 13:31 UTC 1991 |
Do acanthus leaves thrive in their astragal vases?
Do Ionian volutes have curl?
Do Greek Doric columns all really lack bases?
Is a caryatid my kind of girl?
Yes, it's almost prescriptively so!
Mark my words, you'll be needing to know.
They're all part and parcel, these pieces and parts
It's rather prescriptively so!
Is a campanile square and a turret more rounded?
Can a towering fleche be a spire?
Is a bay just an oriel, very well grounded?
Does a minaret mean there's no choir?
Yes, it's almost prescriptively so!
You can document these, don't be slow!
It's all quite delightful, twelve building campaigns
It's rather prescriptively so!
Did the Mount Vernon ladies preserve for the nation?
Does the Tax Act require three old walls?
Are there jobs to be found in hop-barn preservation?
Did the HCRS stroll Washington's halls?
Yes, it's almost prescriptively so!
Since the dinosaurs roamed, high and low
When fact -- not fiction -- comes to the fore
It's rather prescriptively so!
|
| 8 responses total. |
polygon
|
|
response 1 of 8:
|
Sep 21 18:01 UTC 1991 |
Okay, I guess I should explain that the above was written as a parody on
the expressions and phrases used all the time by Professor Michael A.
Tomlan, director of the Historic Preservation Planning graduate program at
Cornell. During my first semester there, my classmates and I had him for
*three* classes, so we heard a lot of "almost prescriptively" and "quite
delightful" and "when the earth was flat and the dinosaurs roamed."
The verses are about some of the curriculum of his courses, the choruses
are full of his expressions.
|
jennie
|
|
response 2 of 8:
|
Sep 21 18:07 UTC 1991 |
Did you ever show it to him?
Griz
|
remmers
|
|
response 3 of 8:
|
Sep 22 12:44 UTC 1991 |
Related question: Did you pass his courses? :)
Nice song!
|
polygon
|
|
response 4 of 8:
|
Sep 22 20:15 UTC 1991 |
Copies of the poem/song were distributed at the Christmas party. At the
same party, and getting a lot more attention, was a cookie made in the
image of this same professor, except that they used green frosting for his
hair.
Yes, I passed his courses.
|
polygon
|
|
response 5 of 8:
|
Sep 22 20:18 UTC 1991 |
The poem was signed "Starbuck E. E. Newelman"
|
keats
|
|
response 6 of 8:
|
Sep 29 23:15 UTC 1991 |
one presumes it is to the tune of gershwin's "it ain't necessarily so."
ain't it?
|
polygon
|
|
response 7 of 8:
|
Sep 30 03:29 UTC 1991 |
It was, but it turned out I did not remember the tune correctly.
|
keats
|
|
response 8 of 8:
|
Sep 30 03:50 UTC 1991 |
(i was having trouble humming it in spots...). nonetheless, a clever
piece.
|