"Pigasus is a portmanteau word combining pig with Pegasus, the mythological winged horse, an homage to the idiom 'when pigs fly' perhaps." http://www.wordlab.com/2006/04/pigasus.cfm
The Pigasus was used by John Steinbeck as his symbol. "The little pig said that man must try to attain the heavens even though his equipment be meager. Man must aspire though he be earth-bound." -- Elaine Steinbeck in a 1983 letter. See The Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies, San Jose State University, http://steinbeck.sjsu.edu/biography/pigasus.jsp.
Pigasus also appeared in the Oz books of Ruth P. Thompson. And here. And yon.
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| PIGASUSÂ SIGHTING!!! |
Reader, Pigasus spotter and jpt friend Char has come through with this Pigasus find (image and text copyright Smithsonian, reproduced here under fair use license unless forced to yank. Also appears at http://www.smithsonianstore.com/catalog/product.jsp?. . .)
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All dat jazz
Dear Jazz Lines editor,
Congratulations on the new jazz column, an island of reality in the jpt sea of out-loud laughing. I look forward to additional narratives from Henry Blackburn like the one on Jimmy McPartland, of whom I had heard but knew little. An up-close and personal account from an authoritative source who was there is so much more vivid than a sterilized page in a text on jazz history! The Chronology of the author's experiences in music is a great feature in its own right. Please extend my subscription till the music and the laughs play out. --BN
We're more than pleased ourselves. None in our vast approving audience will be disappointed this go 'round, either. --eds.
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Think Quick
Dear editor,
In Issue 3, you indicated that "Willis Quick (P.I. Richard Poole--Storyteller's Space) has become something of a staffer for jpt." Elsewhere in the issue you wrote, "We don't know if Willis means to favor us with more of the 'Cowboys' tale. We are told that a legal wrangle with his publisher has Murder for a Distant Stranger on hold at present." Then in Issue 4, William J. and Martha Q. Schafer reveal that Mr. Quick has in fact been dead since 1996. WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS? --Meltdown
The Quick phenomenon is so much larger than any of us. Often, that which half-seems might not be fully so, and that which seems not might be half the story. Around the world, since well before his reported death and continuing to this day, Willis Quick's identity has been misappropriated by pretenders perhaps as frequently as that of showman P.T. Barnum, often cited as the most impersonated figure on record. Thousands of works surfacing in Quick's name have yet to be authenticated. The legitimacy of countless contracts between Quick/"Quick" and overeager (if not derelict) publishers must be verified. His is that strange, hybrid legacy of shadows, pitch-blackness, false light and brilliant light-of-day. It is immensely difficult to discuss him in any delimited context, while referencing only selected facts and reports. Further complicating the picture, the corporate Quick estate continues to administer new engagements and ongoing affairs for him as though in dying he had but dashed out briefly for the funeral and coffee, then back to the office. Willis Quick, in his creative rejuvenations, in charisma more tangible than ethereal, in his classics and emerging works and postmortem ambition to a literary destiny nonpareil, is around to stay. Take all the representations you have cited as viable. --eds.
Dear Editor, Journal of Provincial Thought:
I met Charline Quick [Memories of Willis Quick, jpt Issue 4, Nov 2007] in Manhattan in 1950, around the time of her Museum of Modern Art show. She and rarely-seen hubby Willis had rented and moved into three rooms over C'est Quoi, a facility which my then-husband was in the process of transforming from an atrocious oyster caterie into an equally atrocious outré hotspot. Charline was a young woman of lovely disposition, with a disarmingly quizzical expression that stole your heart even as her remarkable intellect won your admiration. For a while I thought she deserved a more attentive mate than the handsome globetrotter in whom her romantic passion was seemingly poured away as into a boundless void. Eventually, I realized several things. Charline, robustly independent and possessed of the artist's spirit, required her own considerable space (literally, as she farmed and fussed amid thousands of photographs, but also in a personal sense), which her marriage to Willis perfectly afforded. Second, there were deep bonds and complexities between them that I did not at first appreciate. Today they'd be called soul mates. Finally, I ought to have been concerned with my own marriage instead of theirs, which was in fact none of my business. But I, too, was young. --E. G.
Charline Quick photographically documented in great detail the digs, domains, & denizens of her spheres of habitation. Her collected record that's designated "Manhattan, 1950" establishes conclusively that on several occasions she stayed with a friend during the Museum show, but did not otherwise dwell in Manhattan either before or after. Perhaps you encountered an early couple pretending to be the Quicks, or-- and this is our considered guess-- perhaps you are something of a fibber. ('mon back, say it ain't so...)
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JPT,
It's because I was reading that I noticed. (I was also greatly enjoying, by the way.) Please do not become defensive, but in "Our Revered Ancestors," your Firbanks excerpt omitted a tiny and, in this case, inconsequential word, but a word nonetheless. You quoted: " 'But this Ronald Firbank I can't take at all.' " The correct quote is of course, "But this Ronald Firbank I can't take to at all." Notice the word to, and be thankful that I, and not a Firbank zealot, caught it.
Several times, but not every time, you called Mrs. Barleymoon Mrs. Barleycorn. I might have concluded that your intent was to toy with the illiterate, but ultimately attributed the gaffe to an illiterate and inattentive editor-- a straightforward application of Occam's razor on my part. --- F.M.F.
Any anomalies were deliberate, as usual. It is possible, but not necessary, to present information accurately. Furthermore, you have but scratched the surface in your razorings, while leaving larger issues unshorn. We are certainly grateful for your spirited participation-- too many these days are out U-tubing-- though a bit fearful of your demons. Onward, upward, & forth! --eds.
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O Dem Bones
Dear Editors,
Amen brother! I'm cropping two days off the Wallyworld family itinerary this summer in favor of the Creation Museum, after the eye-opening coverage by Tawny Fossille [Darwinists 6, Creationists 0 jpt Issue 4 Nov 2007]. To Tawny, this poem: Bitter and biting: I find your style exciting. For you I would wait, if it weren't now too late. --Jose Gillette
JPT Editor,
Satan deceives the seed of man by planting relics in the earth, and your scientists come confounding themselves in their theories about so-called dinosaurs, and swallowing whole his perpetration. Some will believe the bones and be damned. -- A. S.
He's also a stinker for switching downtown street signs, and the ladies/men restroom placards at prep football games. Falling for those can lead to shock and dismay as well. --eds.
| jptArchive Issue 5 |
| Copyright 2008- WJ Schafer & WC Smith - All Rights Reserved |
| The Journal of Provincial Thought |
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