O frabjous day!


Today is the birthday of two unique men. Both were misunderstood in their times, both had huge personal issues, and both left a creative legacy that is integral to the canons of their respective fields.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - born January 27, 1756. He left more than 600 musical works, even though he died before his 36th birthday. He is considered one of the greatest musical minds in history. Take a minute to listen to some of his work today. You can get it for free here.

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson - born January 27, 1832. Wrote, as Lewis Carroll, a prodigious body of children's literature which has been translated into over 30 languages, as well as numerous books on mathematics under his own name. Despite the intended audience, there are few adults who can catch all of the nuanced subtleties of the Alice books, or the less read "Sylvie and Bruno." Perhaps his most well-known work is the bloody story of the "beamish boy" and his foe, the Jabberwock.

Jabberwocky

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

Read the rest here. Go on, read it - it's only five more quatrains. Just for fun, copy and paste it into Word and try to spell check it...

4 comments:

Claytonian said...

Glad to see you blogging everyday. I wish the rest of my blogroll would...

Linus said...

I do what I can...
It's amazing how prolific you can be when it's the middle of the night and you're avoiding your homework.

Rachel said...

Have I mentioned that this is one of my favorite poems of all time? I have much of it memorized and like to recite it at peculiar times, or when I myself feel a bit mimsy.

Uke Xensen said...

Nice that someone is reading Silvie and Bruno. There's more on it here.

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