Tintinant Aures
Wednesday, July 9, 2008 at 06:33AM in critic "A few more questions."
(sigh)
"I have time for only one today."
"Haven't you read your Pound? What advice does Mr. Nixon give?"
"Consider carefully the reviewer."
"Good, so don't you think..."
"I never mentioned a man but with a view
Of selling my own works.
The tip's a good one, as for literature
It gives no man a sinecure."
(silence)
(silence)
"One question."
"Don't you think this has gone too far?"
"Not far enough, sometimes. Kingstown pier, a disappointed bridge."
"The scope is audacious. Aren't you worried you've bitten off more than you can chew?"
(silence)
"I'll answer with my own question. Have you ever heard of the Kissinger rule?"
"No."
"As an undergraduate at Harvard, Kissinger wrote a thesis that was almost four hundred pages long. The Kissinger rule states no thesis is to be longer than a hundred pages."
"I don't understand how this relates to Melancholy."
"His biographer, Walter Isaacson, wrote that having bitten off more than he could chew, Kissinger proceeded to chew more than he bit off."