11/15/01

I just hit my funny bone. It’s not funny. It makes me mad at Microsoft. Everything makes me mad at Microsoft.

The leaves need to be raked. Damn that Redmond software monopoly.

It’s raining again. Just give me five minutes alone in a room with Steve Ballmer.

Global warming—it’s probably Bill Gates’ fault.

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By the way, the above is an example of hyperbole.

One of the cardinal rules, growing up, was don’t exaggerate.

(That’s how WASP culture is passed from generation to generation.)

But me, I love to exaggerate. I’m a big fan of the out-of-proportion. As I’ve said before, proportion, balance, symmetry, harmony—yawn yawn yawn—hold little aesthetic appeal for me.

Except that I love the word “symmetry” in Blake’s famous poem.

Tyger Tyger burning bright,

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye, 

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?





In what distant deeps or skies, 

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare sieze the fire?





And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? & what dread feet?





What the hammer? and what the chain,

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp,

Dare its deadly terrors clasp!





When the stars threw down their spears

And water’d heaven with their tears:

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?





Tyger Tyger burning bright,

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye, 

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?