
So goodbye yellow brick road
Where the dogs of society howl
You can’t plant me in your penthouse
I’m going back to my plough
Back to the howling old owl in the woods
Hunting the horny back toad
Oh I’ve finally decided my future lies
Beyond the yellow brick road
~ Elton John (lyrics from Goodbye Yellow Brick Road)
Preamble š
The Decision Is To Proceed Full Steam Ahead š
The Elements (aka Journey Pit-stops) In Our Collage š
Tell you what, this time Iām going to let the cat out of the bag from the very get go š
- William Shakespeare š
- Stephen King š°
- Mary Karr š
- Charles Dickens š°
- Samuel Johnson š°
- William H. Gass š
- Robert Frost š
- Edward Ashford Lee š
- Paul Graham š®
- T.S. Eliot š±
- Kitty Fassett š
- Emily Dickinson š
- William Shakespeare š
āFinessing The Duality Of Comparing And Contrasting š - Stephen King š°
āImpressing The Heart And Mind With Gusto š° - Mary Karr š
āConnecting Minds Through The Rawness Of Tribal Drama š - Charles Dickens š°
āScaffolding With The Power Of Balance And Proportion š° - Samuel Johnson š°
āInjecting Ethereal Layers Of Similarity And Difference š° - William H. Gass š
āProjecting Breathtaking Acts Of Balance š - Robert Frost š
āDirecting Emotions With Deftness š - Edward Ashford Lee š
āMarshaling Reason Through Creative Vigor And Intuition š - Paul Graham š®
āMelding Language, Thought, And Abstraction š® - T.S. Eliot š±
āCorralling Fleeting Remembrances With Strokes Of Genius š± - Kitty Fassett š
āHarnessing The Desiderata By Discarding Inessentials š - Emily Dickinson š
āCarving Astonishing Feats Of Imagination š

Check this⦠š
Does art follow life or does life follow art?

1. William Shakespeare (Finessing The Duality Of Comparing And Contrasting) š
The Original (William Shakespeare) š
As Caesar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honour him: but, as he was ambitious, I slew him. There is tears for his love; joy for his fortune; honour for his valour; and death for his ambition šŖ
~ William Shakespeare (in The Tragedy Of Julius Caesar)
Gangsta Remix (Akram) š
Bruthaā, you gotta somehow keep love in the hood. Your man Brutus knew, however, that too much love make you soft and dat aināt happeninā around here; gotta keep the hood good, so chill, RIP (and I aināt talkinā Rip van Winkle, yoā¦). So Brutus did the hood a solid and straight mercād Caesar with a dagger; yo, that’s when we got Caesar all choking up and saying things like, “You Too Brutus.ā (in the Roman language of course!). But da bottom line still is: another one bites the dust, and that why we got Brutus āsplainin above ābout why he be killing Julius Caesar, amirite?

2. Stephen King (Impressing The Heart And Mind With Gusto) š°
The Original (Stephen King) š
Itās a question that people ask in different waysāsometimes it comes out polite and sometimes it comes out rough, but it always amounts to the same: Do you do it for the money, honey? The answer is no. Donāt now and never did. š°
~ Stephen King (in On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft)
Gangsta Remix (Akram) š
When I read da sentences aboveāso many things clicked together in a flashāI got so inspired that I wannaā give King a bear hug!
Iām tellinā ya, Kingās got it down good, real good⦠All he sayinā is dat our society become way too materialistic; we all going down the drain, brutha. So I got a primo plan to nip the society problem in the bud. Yo, get with the plan and come togetha, show each otha some love, and stay warm; money aināt everything, for crying out loud.
Remembaā that dat wise-as-an-owl shrink sista’ Mary Pipher (yo, she gotta a PhD next to her name, and even wrote up a terrific book called Reviving Ophelia)? Brutha, she now be talkingā about all of us becoming The Shelter of Each Other and stuff like that. Letās all of us show our love in the hood for good? Bruthaā, you gotta keep love in the hood, amirite? So go out and writeāor read, or run, or sing, or whatever your thing happens to beāwith passion and climb out all of the toilet-drain that is the making oodles of dollars, which threatens to pull us all into the vortex of no returnā¦
Bruthaā, we gotta keep love in the hood, for good!

3. Mary Karr (Connecting Minds Through The Rawness Of Tribal Drama) š
The Original (Mary Karr) š
All drama depends on our need to connect with one another. And weāre all doomed to drama; even the most privileged among us suffer the torments of the damned just going about the business of being human⦠Still, a living, breathing human beingāeven a boneheaded or barely articulate oneāconveys so much in person. The physical fact of a creature with heart thrumming and neurons flickeringāwhat Shakespeare called the āpoor, bare, forked animalāācompels us all; weāre all hardwired in moments of empathy to see ourselves in another. Hearing each otherās stories actually raises our levels of the feel-good hormone oxytocin, which is what nursing mothers secrete when they breastfeedāwhat partly helps them bond with their young. It helps to join us together in some tribal way šŖ
~Mary Karr (in The Art of Memoir)
Gangsta Remix (Akram) š
The way the cookie crumbles is dat we all need to connect with one another from time to time; otherwise, we all get the cabin fever. And you donāt want to go thereāat da core, we real social creatures, all of us, so letās chill. Thang is, the need to bond be baked into our very nature. We one big family, all of us on dis planet, so we better start reaching out to one another. Thatās the way to go, broā. Thatās right, this sistaā be slinging some of the finest sentences imaginable! They all be the fruit of Herculean efforts. But the way prose be flowinā effortlessly, a homie like you and me think it come easy; it donāt. Hats off to the sistaā now.
Her message be one of hope, one of warmth, and one of timeless wisdomāletās start by playing some of that mushy gushy song We Are The World nowā¦

4. Charles Dickens (Scaffolding With The Power Of Balance And Proportion) š°
The Original (Charles Dickens) š
Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards, and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little āprentice boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon, and hanging in the misty clouds š
~ Charles Dickens (in his novel Bleak House)
Gangsta Remix (Akram) š
Dayum, Iām tellinā ya, that Dickens fellaā one mean writer; he be painting pictures with his words; and he got the art of writing down smack like no one else! A cool-headed homie, he nonetheless be writing from the wellspring of his fertile imagination, settinā the readin’ and writin’ world on fire. Remember the lovely song Nightshift (by The Commodores) where they be singin’ all ’bout soul/R&B singer Jackie (Wilson) and rememberin’ us dis’
It seems like yesterday
When we were working out
Jackie (Jackie, oh) you set
The world on fire
You came and gifted us
Your love it lifted us
Higher and higher
Keep it up and
We’ll be there
At your side
Oh say you will sing
Your songs forevermore (evermore)
~ The Commodores (Lyrics from Nightshift)
No doubt about it, Dickens be one mean writer and prolific, tooāsettin’ the readin’ and writin’ world on fireābut he always be serious, talkinā grim business that make you scratch your head. My sweet grade school-teachaā, though, she tell me herself, many moons ago, that I be doing myself a favor reading Dickens; she sayz to me, “Itās good for you, it gonna broaden your horizons and make your mind groove in the right directionsā, or something close to that is what I remember her telling me, my sweet grade school-teachaā hesself!)
While Dickensāhe sure was one dickens of a writerāgot the power of balance and the power of proportion, it’s in their mixin‘ that the mean bruthaā outdo everyone. Erryone and their brother you care to mention, yo, he outdone them all! So even though he sometimes be writing all prissy about fog and other touchy-feely stuff, he make you think; he wrap you upāand no, not in nylon as Madonna would have youāin all kindaā exquisite atmospheres with, as I was alluding to earlier, his smashing-good word-painting. He be my mayne man, my homie; he the real thangā.

5. Samuel Johnson (Injecting Ethereal Layers Of Similarity And Difference) š°
The Original (Samuel Johnson) š
The style of Dryden is capricious and varied; that of Pope is cautious and uniform. Dryden observes the motions of his own mind; Pope constrains his mind to his own roles of composition. Dryden is sometimes vehement and rapid; Pope is always smooth, uniform, and gentle. Dryden’s page is a natural field, rising into inequalities, and diversified by the varied exuberance of abundant vegetation; Pope’s is a velvet lawn, shaven by the scythe, and levelled by the roller.ā š š
~ Samuel Johnson (in The Works of Samuel Johnson)
Gangsta Remix (Akram) š
Check itāthe two rams in the picture above aināt no Alexander Pope and no John Dryden. They both good homies, always dressing up real decent, wearing ironed shirts and shirt-ties, their hair all combed-back slick like Johhny Depp, with gobs of da real thang, that LA Looks hair-stylinā gel; Pope and Dryden werenāt all that bad either⦠Hey, just checkinā, just checkinā, cuzā no rams wearing no LA Looks! Just wannaā make sure you all stay awake. No napping around heahā. (Disclaimer: I ainātānever was and never willāhustling no hair styling products, yo!)
Ennyhow, hereās what went down with Samuel Johnson (SJ) ramlināerr, ramblingāabout Pope and Dryden, the dynamic duo: As SJ be tellinā us, Pope real uptight, always makinā sure he cover his butt; he donāt want nobody put the smack on him for violating uniformity in his writing. Dryden, on the other hand, he one cool goose, always chillinā and going with da flow (he be my style of writer!).
While Pope give his reader prissy velvet lawns, Dryden be groovin, giving us readers the real deal, giving us the scoop at Ground Zero: Dryden never talking down to us homies. In fact, he level with us, and he level usāin a good wayāwith them mighty machine the steamroller, amirite?

6. William H. Gass (Projecting Breathtaking Acts Of Balance) š
The Original (William H. Gass) š
In the preface to his Dictionary, Dr. Johnson whines (another persistent feature of the genre)āāIt is the fate of those who toil at the lower employments of life, to be rather driven by the fear of evil, than attracted by the prospect of good; to be exposed to censure, without hope of praise; to be disgraced by miscarriage, or punished for neglect, where success would have been without applause, and diligence without rewardāāa whine, yes, but how perfectly composed. As the reader reads these prefaces, ticked across a clock of ages, he can be expected to exclaim, Another lame excuse, still further transparent self-flattery, one more bitter complaint, abject apology, resentful pose, inadequate defense, insufficient explanation; yet gladly add, on account of the pure delight to the eye they are, But when has lameness or insufficiencyāso common, so ordinary; when has flatteryāoft offered, oft boughtābeen so acceptably employed, so agreeably offered, or so well and comfortably expressed?ā š¾
~William H. Gass (in A Temple of Texts: Essays)
Gangsta Remix (Akram) š
Errybody know da story of those snooty literary critics swooping down like vultures and feasting on other peopleās writing instead of doing their own writing, you know what Iām sayinā? But this gangstaāāa mighty righteous gaseous fellaā named what else but Gass broāhe different from erryone else: He going around writing some of the slickest prose this side of the Mississippi, Mark Twain notwithstanding.
Iām tellinā ya, Gass the real deal, a true hustla’, writing with virtuosity I aināt see anywhere else! He write with valor, verve, uninhibited by what others think or what others say; he bring da subjectāno matter what subject he be tacklinā in an essay at any given timeāto life in a way homies like you and I just canāt match.
Plus the lucky stiff be married to an architect biddy who keep on building personal libraries for her hubbyāGass, who else?āto betoken her luvā for him. So he be reading all day long, and he be writing his butt off all night long; dayum, after all that, homies like you and me aināt got the prayer of a chance to match the prose that Gass be slingingā¦
In the sentence(s) above, Gass be giving us the lowdown on what another big dawg (Samuel Johnson by name) was up to when he (SJ who else, bro, and no, not SJ as in San Jose, cuzā itās SJ as in Samuel Johnson) was trying to tell us when he was yammering ābout them two rams dressed up slick with their LA Looks-combed-back fur, sunbathing on the mountainsideādang, me at times bedeviled by Freudian slip shenanigansāI meant to say that we were talking ’bout the two gents that we met (in the previous element in our collage that we got going here)!

7. Robert Frost (Directing Emotions With Deftness) š
The Original (Robert Frost) š
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader. For me the initial delight is in the surprise of remembering something I didnāt know I knew. I am in a place, in a situation, as if I had materialized form cloud or risen out of the ground. There is a glad recognition of the long lost and the rest follows. Step-by-step the wonder of unexpected supply keeps growing. The impressions most useful to my purpose seem always those I was unaware of and so made no note of at the time when taken, and the conclusion is come to that like giants we are always hurling experience ahead of us to pave the future with against the day and when we may Want to strike a line of purpose across it for somewhere. We enjoy the straight crookedness of a good walking stick. Modern instruments of precision are being used to make things crooked as if by eye and hand in the old days. I tell how there may be a better wildness of logic than of inconsequence. But the logic is backward, in retrospect, after the act. It must be more felt than seen ahead like prophecy š
~ Robert Frost (in The Figure a Poem Makes)
Gangsta Remix (Akram) š
Frosty be one of them three solitary poets to make my list, assuming weāre not counting Billy Shakes as a full-fledged poetāhis sonnets of course are a phenomenon to behold in their own right though he shaking the world of prose real goodāand deserves high marks for slinging some amazing verses. Actually, what you got above is an example of Frostyās prose, though he still be talking smack about his real love: verses of poetry!
This gangstaā be a master of the turn of phrase. Check this: “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the readerā¦ā. This aināt no fool we are dealing with; heās our own homie, so chill (If only he had done less of that Apple pickingāI donāt like no apples cuzā Iām strictly a coffee kindaā guy and not dig da jejune you know, broāāand more of Starbucksā Coffee, I be talkinā even more highly of Frosty now!)

8. Edward Ashford Lee (Marshaling Reason Through Creative Vigor And Intuition) š
The Original (Edward Ashford Lee) š
The title of this book comes from the wonderful book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan (Taleb, 2010), who titled a section of the prologue āPlato and the Nerd.ā Taleb talks about āPlatonicityā as āthe desire to cut reality into crisp shapes.ā Taleb laments the ensuing specialization and points out that such specialization blinds us to extraordinary events, which he calls āblack swans.ā Following Taleb, a theme of my book is that technical disciplines are also vulnerable to excessive specialization; each specialty unwittingly adopts paradigms that turn the specialty into a slow-moving culture that resists rather than promotes innovation. But more fundamentally, the title puts into opposition the notion that knowledge, and hence technology, consists of Platonic Ideals that exist independent of humans and is discovered by humans, and an opposing notion that humans create rather than discover knowledge and technology. The nerd in the title is a creative force, subjective and even quirky, and not an objective miner of preexisting truths ā š§
~ Edward Ashford Lee (in Plato and the Nerd: The Creative Partnership of Humans and Technology)
Gangsta Remix (Akram) š
This bruthaāāEdward Ashford Leeāknow all about bringing understandin’ and keeping love in the hood. He neatly sidestep the prollem that a lotta writer folk got when they treat their readers like they stupid or something. But not Edward, no sir, he not have anything to do with making errything so damn confusinā jusā to sound smart. Instead, Edward do da exact opposite: he be servinā his readers through his writing by (and methinks he take da cue from another smart cookie by the name of Albert Einstein) making errything as simple as possible, but no simpler.
And dat the thing that bring real love to what Edward write for us homies. And to boot, he be sportinā a great sense of humor on the reg!
That got me all excited; itās a long story. So I wrote up my very first essay on the work off this bruthaā. Then I wrote up another one. Dayum, and if that wasnāt enough, I wrote up a third one, the longest essay methinks I ever wrote! (Haven’t had this much fun in a great long while!)

9. Paul Graham (Melding Language, Thought, And Abstraction) š®
The Original (Paul Graham) š
Experienced Lisp programmers divide up their programs differently. As well as top-down design, they follow a principle which could be called bottom-up designāchanging the language to suit the problem. In Lisp, you donāt just write your program down toward the language, you also build the language up toward your program. As youāre writing a program you may think āI wish Lisp had such-and-such an operator.ā So you go and write it. Afterward you realize that using the new operator would simplify the design of another part of the program, and so on. Language and program evolve together. Like the border between two warring states, the boundary between language and program is drawn and redrawn, until eventually it comes to rest along the mountains and rivers, the natural frontiers of your problem. In the end your program will look as if the language had been designed for it. And when language and program fit one another well, you end up with code which is clear, small, and efficient š
~ Paul Graham (in On Lisp)
Gangsta Remix (Akram) š
So hereās my main jam with this bruthaā, cuzā he be groovinā and movieā the world of programming like nobody else. He be special, real special. In the passage above, he be tellinā us all about the magic that happen when you be fooling around long enough with melding language, thought, and abstraction: heady stuff, so bettaā have your wits about you when reading what this brutha wrote.
Take heart, though, cuzā this Lisp hackerāan uber code-slinger of yesteryearādid a solid to the programming community by staying the course, even as he be slinging (and sharing with the rest of us homies) some of the slickest computer programs in the Lisp programming language that the world ever put their eyeballs on⦠And he be avoiding philosophizing about ethereal stuff like Mary Shelley doin’ in her novel Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus.
(Sadly, he no more be writing a smidgen as much as he used to, which is a dang pity cuzā he know his stuff and he know how to write awesome⦠Graham be one of my main mayne and big influence on my own writin’ style and programming philosophy!)
Here he be jamming about what makes Lisp the lispiest language known to mankind broā, and womankind to be sure, so chill. I support our sistaā, all of themāeven Sarah Huckabee Sanders as I want to be reachin’ out across the aisleāand of course to honor all of them my sista’. So I be a feminist, amirite?

10. T.S. Eliot (Corralling Fleeting Remembrances With Strokes Of Genius) š±
The Original (T.S. Eliot) š
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window panes
Licks its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingers on the pools that stand in drains,
Lets fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slips by the terrace, makes a sudden leap,
And seeing that itās a soft October night,
Curls once about the house, and falls asleep š
~ T.S. Eliot (from his poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock)
Gangsta Remix (Akram) š
Check the curled-up cat that be all asleep in the pic atop this element in our collage⦠She be a good cat. Much the same, poetry be all good, my sayz unabashedly! Itās for all regā homies like you and me. Bruthaā, poetry be the distillation of reams of prose; how cool is that.
We now be entering the realm of corralling fleeting remembrances with strokes of genius (Different stroke for different folks, amirite?) And who bettaā to round up them evanescent thoughts than T.S. Eliot, a homie way smartaā than all da othaā ganstas’ who be writing poetry with valor.
Bruthaā, anyone even remember what I wrote up ābout another poetry-slinging thug by the name of W.H. Auden in a recent essay? (Hint: Say āYes!ā And keep your bloggerās heart from breakinā yo, so I know you be paying attention to what I be writing, or I be preachinā to the choir sound asleep?)
You know something? T.S. Eliot owes a boatload of (intellectual) debt to Billy Shakes. So our mayne manāwho else but Billy Shakes, the leader of the pack who put down the smack on the readinā and writin’ worldāthe fellaā who be leading our list of writing loveliness, is still the biggest dawg of āem all š¶
Even though he sling lovely verses of poetry, itās the world of prose that he be shaking and turninā upside down! And so I be sharing a ditty I wrote up to honor my nemesis, the Bard:
While Auden may be the modern new thang whose poetry be pelting you both soft and hard,
Yo, itās still the inimitable Bard who be rollinā with the punches and holdinā every single card
And so it is that I hold aloft the message I myself wrote up on this trifold placard
āYo, words never had it so good as when they were in the safe hands of the Bard!”

11. Kitty Fassett (Harnessing The Desiderata By Discarding Inessentials) š
The Original (Kitty Fassett) š
He had a mischievous streak and I remember his instructions to an employee on the makings of a martini: “Fill a large glass with ice, pour in a jigger of gin and just a drop of vermouth,” he said. “Then when my wife isnāt looking add two more jiggers of gin.”
He was an incorrigible punster, too, but most of all a gifted poet. One day he started quoting the first lines of his fiftieth reunion poem: “Return to jubilation! Scorn the woe ā of mortal age and timeās relentless flow! ā Do you know who wrote that?”
“You did, Pop,” I replied.
He was disappointed. Heād hoped I would guess Milton. It was a good poem, although I resented one of its stanzas that stated that astronauts had returned to earth “on wings of mathematics.” When it came to mathematics he just couldnāt let go. I liked his limericks better š¬
~ Kitty Fassett (from her essay Popās War: My Father, the CIA, and the Green Death)
Gangsta Remix (Akram) š
This sistaā got mojo like nobody else. While Kitty Fassett may not be a household name, yet, cuzā she be an unassuming writer, she be second to none, writing with peerless clarity, grace, wit, and verve (Sistaā got the creds too: degree from Vassar, she went on to be one of the most refined pianists evahā).
So I be havin’ the distinct honor of featuring a marvelous essay she had wrote upāmy readers who come to this blog on the reg will clearly remember how this sistaā saved you all from my quotidian prose, once anyway for crying out loudāand not too long ago either. Thatās right, this playa’ be drooling over what she write, it so good: I decided to set my sights high, and be tellinā myself, morning and evening now for a long time (and especially when on my knees, right before going to bed, with my grubby hands outstretched, imploring the heavens in prayer), that one day I be writing like this sistaā.
Hereās what went down: Me, I be literal in my writingāand elsewhere as those in the know be knowin’āputting the whole thang on the page; she, on the other hand, be showing us through her writing how to go about harnessing them desiderata by discarding inessentials.
To take just one exampleāstraight out of the excerpt aboveāshe be discarding all kindaā inessentials in the last two sentences (āWhen it came to mathematics he just couldnāt let go. I liked his limericks better.ā) and distilling reams and reams of related thoughts into that above-mentioned lean and mean pair of gangsta’ sentences, amirite?
(Hey, had it been left to me, heavens-forbid, had I instead gone about capturing them same thoughtsāyou guessed it right for a changeāI wouldāve blithely plastered reams and reams of paper with pools and pools of ink. But not her; she be supremely gifted. Sistaā got a way with words.
Check this. What I got here is serious laughing gasāby who else but Gass who be projecting breathtakinā acts of balanceāwhich will illustrate what I got in mind when I said that, “Sistaā got a way with words.ā (And you may look up the glorious details in the Dedication section in another essay). But in a nutshell, hereās whatāand letās now light up the torchāin the words of Gass:
He writes equally well in two languages: Nitty and Gritty. He is a minimalist because he compresses, and puts everything in by leaving most of it out. Joyce wished to rescue the world by getting it into his book; Beckett wishes to save our souls by purging usāimpossiblyāof matter.
~ William H. Gass (in A Temple of Texts: Essays)
Sistaā be doinā the writing hood such a solidāmaking us all proud in the processāthat from now on I be calling her Little Red Writinā Hood. But thereās a catchā¦
Right, only prollem is, she so refinedādad-gum, didnāt I tell you a short while ago that sistaā be one of the most refined pianists evahā?āthat she prolly donāt want no bizness with us gangstas⦠If she somehow find out, heaven-forbid, that I be writing like thiiiis, she put the smack on me, and I be out of the writing bizness. Foreverā¦
You prolly be thanking yo’ lucky stars when that happen, sayinā stuff like āgood riddance to bad rubbishā, but I be a forlorn writing homie, all tattered and torn, amirite?

12. Emily Dickinson (Carving Astonishing Feats Of Imagination) š
The Original (Emily Dickinson) š
The soul selects her own society,
Then shuts the door;
On her divine majority
Obtrude no more.
Unmoved, she notes the chariotās pausing
At her low gate;
Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling
Upon her mat.
Iāve known her from an ample nation
Choose one;
Then close the valves of her attention
Like stone š
~ Emily Dickinson (In her poem XIII: EXCLUSION, from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson)
Gangsta Remix (Akram) š
Iām gonnaā level with you now⦠(By the way, regarding the poem above, was that writing greatness or was that writing greatness?)
Anyhow, here’s the thang: My verses are obviously ground zero, both literally and metaphorically. Yo, now why did I say that? Here’s why: I used that million-dollar word (āmetaphorically”) cuz’ of the symbolism of the epicenter of a phenomenon and I used another of them million-dollar words (āliterally”) cuz’ of what Iāve shared above with you all in my hoodāEmilyās rockingā poem XIII: EXCLUSION as an example of her at the top of her phenomenal writinā gameāis writing greatness, amirite?
Iām tellinā ya, Emily is da one who mercs poetry, never ceasing to amaze her fans (yours truly notably among them!) as her sentences float around like butterfliesāin the selfsame unbearable lightness of beingālifting the glory of verse to dizzying heights. Dayum, others then came long and getta free ride, or so they thin⦠But you know what? There still aināt no oneāmany tried their hand in futility at emulating herāwho be writinā poetry not half as good as hers (Thang is, her impersonators try to do what she did, and then when it aināt working out, they all bent outta shape, amirite?)
She bad, the baddest of all the poets who ever lived. Sistaā bettaā than all them Yeatses, Keatses, Plaths (all put together, bruthaā). You name emā, and my sistaā Emily outdone emā all (Frosty approach her virtuosity a bit, and at times only, but then he get all bogged down in the mire of roads-not-taken and boondoggles like that. What else can I say?)
Emily be the baddest, which is why she get to have the last word in the hood, our Pantheon hood of writing greatness!

The collage be done now, but I gotta slip this in edgewise: See them two little hoodlums in the pic above? Bruthaā, that be Emily, along with some homie whose name be lost to history. She be lightin’ the way for future generations of writersāthose crafting verses of poetry as well as those crafting lines of proseāin a way no sistaā (or bruthaā for that matter) ever done beforeā¦
Emily, to you I poseāreaching back now through the incorporeal mists of timeāwith the utmost sincerity the following rhetorical question:
People stay just a little bit longer
We want to play — just a little bit longer
Now the promoter don’t mind
And the union don’t mind
If we take a little time
And we leave it all behind and sing
One more song–
~ Jackson Browne (lyrics from Stay)
What do you say, Emily? Yoohoo, Emily, wherefore art thou? š

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
~ W. B. Yeats (from his poem Sailing to Byzantium)

We walk the highwire
Sending men to the front line
And hoping they don’t catch the hell-fire
Of hot guns and cold, cold lies
We walk the highwire
Send the men to the front lines
And tell ’em to hotbed the sunshine
With hot guns and cold, cold lies
Our lives are threatened, our jobs at risk
Sometimes dictators need a slap on the wrist
Another Munich we just can’t afford
We’re gonna send in the 82nd Airborne
~ The Rolling Stones (lyrics from Highwire)

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws
And merry larks are ploughmenās clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer smocks,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he:
āCuckoo,
Cuckoo, cuckoo.ā O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear.
~ William Shakespeare (from Stanza 2)

When are you gonna come down
When are you going to land
I should have stayed on the farm
I should have listened to my old man
You know you can’t hold me forever
I didn’t sign up with you
I’m not a present for your friends to open
This boy’s too young to be singing the blues
~ Elton John (lyrics from Goodbye Yellow Brick Road)

– Methinks this essay, this write-up you know (World's 10 Coolest Sentences Get Gangsta Treatment!) be touchin' a chord with many readers…
– Here be some (fan) mail I be gettin' lately:
– This sistaā here like yoā gangstaā take on Emily: āShe bad, the baddest of all the poets who ever lived. Sistaā bettaā than all them Yeatses, Keatses, Plaths (all put together, bruthaā).ā
– [Emily]…she bettaā than Frosty the Snowman, too.
– And the following handful of messages be referring to the previous essay (The 3 Joys Of Self-Disclosure) when my reader be tellin' me:
– I never ceased to be amazed at your gift for words, which often come across as poetry. Observe the alliteration in this sentence: āAs I waded through the outskirts of the marshy swamp one blustery Sunday afternoon, a boisterous bittern bit my butt off…ā I find your essays getting better and better all the time. I love them!
– Plus, for that same essay for that same essay (The 3 Joys Of Self-Disclosure), readers be asking me questions, and giving me encouragement to boot:
– Tell me, though, how true is that story? Did you really get bitten by the boisterous bittern? And did you really fall down a rabbit hole? Never mind telling me. With a gift like yours youāre entitled to a degree of poetic license.
– Red berries like the ones in the picture are almost always poisonous. Iām glad youāre still here to write about them and to keep entertaining us with your wonderful essays. Stay alive and well! š š
– Finally, yoā, flashing back to the current essay, I also be hearing things like this from my fans, readers like you:
– Welcome to the hood, broā! Hooboy! Yaāll gonna be chillinā out with yo bruthaā gangstas in this heah ghetto before God git the news! Whoopie doo!
– While I ain't got no FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) transcripts to conclusively prove that all the above (fan) mail be true (it really is, every single word, I tell you on my gangsta' honor), you all know me well enough by now to know that I wouldn't be lying to you!
– (I might occasionally confabulate, and that, too, for the fun of it, word-play and stuff, but never, ever lying!)
– I love you all!!
Just found your blog. Really enjoying reading your essays. Truly enlighting to a budding Computer Scientist (want to be) like me. Thanks for taking the time, to write such. I greatly admire you, from bottom of my heart.
On a side-note, any advice for a budding programmer/(want to be Computer Scientist) like me?
Thank you again š
Saw your post on Google+. Sorry, I don't really know how to use Google+ since it was something I made when I was in middle -school. But, thanks for the reply š
– At the risk of sounding trite and cliche, I will, nonetheless, go ahead and say this anyway: Inspiring comments from readers like you, Amey, fill me with pride and joy. Honestly, I get a kick out of writing. Even if there were not a single reader to enjoy reading them, I would continue writing the essays that are right, anyway. But the fact that thousands of readers like you regularly come to read the essays (that I publish here on the blog) is a joy in itself. Thank you, Amey!
– I heartily encourage my readers in that you all post your comments, and invite you to continue sharing your thoughts. Especially, if there are any topics on which you would like to see future essays, by all means please let me know! Feedback is crucially important; that way, we can share themes and ideas of common interest.
– As to your question ("On a side-note, any advice for a budding programmer/(want to be Computer Scientist) like me?"), I would, for starters, recommend three things, as follows, and in no particular order, with embedded links for your future deep-dives:
– Look up and study open source code in areas which are of interest to you. Open source is a game-changer, quite unlike any that I've seen in my 20-plus years in the software industry. Take advantage of the amazing stuff out there on Github!
– Developing an intuition for mathematics and algorithms will serve you well, and be a source of joy and creativity.
– Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I can offer a piece of advice that consists of a single word: Diversify! (Check out the essay The 5 Most Valuable Lessons For Programmers for more details!)
– Likewise, thank you again š
– Good luck, and keep me and fellow readers (here on OUR blog Programming Digressions) posted!
– All good: Likewise, I, too, seldom use Google+. What I wanted to underscore is that I diligently read each and every comment from readers. My responses may be delayed, and on occasion I may be unable to reply, sometimes forgetting to reply, but I definitely read each and every comment on my blog, OUR blog, really š
– To you and other readers: At your convenience, when you visit the blog next, scroll down and find the "Follow this Blog" button along the right-hand side bar, to click… …that way, you'll be notified automagically (via email) whenever a new essay is posted. How does that sound?
– As always, feel free to drop in, cruise around, read up, and of course post your comments. Never be shy š
Didn't realize such an option existed. Thank you š
– Yay, always happy to help!
– Welcome again, and spread the word about this blog to your friends š
Hello. Thank you for the reply. I was a bit busy with exams so couldn't check. Me and some of my friends are absolutely loving your essays. Thanks for the great content.
– Hi there! It's all good: Remember, studies come first, my essays after! (Meanwhile, I'm happy that you've got your priorities right) š
– Study hard, sturdy smart. Remember, too, to never, ever, let your schooling interfere with your education…
– Hey, I'm delighted to hear that you and your friends are getting a kick out of the essays I write!!
– By the way, lately (and this is regarding the links to other stuff which I embed in essays for you and other readers for deeper digging an explorations) I've started color-coding those embedded links, the URLs, with a fluorescent yellow background… Does that help?! (I had once received feedback from another reader saying that I should perhaps use a lighter background for the pages on this blog…I've always wondered whether that comment had something to do with the embedded links, the URLs, not being easily visible enough!)
– I care deeply about this kind of stuff (sometimes to the point of perfectionism!) because I care deeply for my readers… So feedback from you and from all my other (thousands of) readers is taken seriously around here with the goal, as always, to improve both the visual appeal and, of course, the content that you all get on this blog!