And finally

humor, humour, Uncategorized, writing, , , , ,

OK, so I know I should leave it alone now -and I will – as soon as I’ve posted this.

Some of you will know that yesterday I wrote a post about an app that claims to be able to analyse your writing. This app. is called I Write Like, and I’ve had a hilarious time with it.

Today, inspired by a comment from my friend Pat, over at imissmetoo (you should check out her blog – it’s beautiful, intelligent and often thought provoking), I threw this at the analytical robot which lurks, waiting eagerly to chew up our words and spit out whatever it pleases:

Jane Basil
Jane Basil Jane Basil
Jane Basil Jane Basil Jane Basil
Jane Basil Jane Basil Jane Basil Jane Basil
Jane Basil Jane Basil Jane Basil Jane Basil Jane Basil
Jane Basil Jane Basil Jane Basil Jane Basil Jane Basil Jane Basil
Jane Basil Jane Basil Jane Basil Jane Basil Jane Basil Jane Basil Jane Basil
Jane Basil Jane Basil Jane Basil Jane Basil Jane Basil Jane Basil
Jane Basil Jane Basil Jane Basil Jane Basil Jane Basil
Jane Basil Jane Basil Jane Basil Jane Basil
Jane Basil Jane Basil Jane Basil
Jane Basil Jane Basil
Jane Basil

This is the result I got:

I write like Agatha Christie

Really?

Not being one to skimp on my scientific experiments, I changed my poem slightly, thus:

Jane
Jane Paterson
Jane Paterson Basil
Jane Paterson Basil Paterson
Jane Paterson Basil Jane Paterson Basil Paterson
Jane Paterson Basil Jane Basil Paterson Jane Paterson Basil Paterson
Jane Paterson Basil Jane Paterson Basil Jane Paterson Basil Jane Paterson Basil Paterson
Jane Paterson Basil Jane Paterson Basil Jane Paterson Basil Paterson
Jane Paterson Basil Jane Paterson Basil Paterson
Jane Paterson Basil Paterson
Jane Paterson Basil
Jane Paterson
Jane

Guess what?

I write like Bram Stoker

I rest my case. Forever.

Thank goodness that naughty Robert Mitchum has agreed

Robert-Mitchum.png

to stay out of this post.

Phwoarr…

©Jane Paterson Basil

 

51 thoughts on “And finally”

  1. Ha! That’s brilliant. So it really just selects an author at random, one that most writers would be quite happy to emulate? Insane. Bob was good looking in his youth. Sadly, I first remember him in Winds of War (in which he gave a solid performance some wag said was ‘Robert Mitchum’s suit’ acting not the actor) and that coloured my view of his talents ever after.

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    1. I thought he was unforgettable in black, or blue, or grey, or topless. Acting? I don’t remember a single part he played. I just remember his mouth moving, and his eyes. And his cigarettes.
      Pathetic.
      I had a thing for Richard Widmarck too. All before my time… There’s safety in distance.
      Reality leaves scars.

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      1. Quite so … it was a stogie in D.Day, getting the boys off the beach. I’m often amused by that … men smoking cigarettes like all get out. Then chasing someone for miles …. superhuman stuff. Mr. Widmark, for myself, was in the same category of forgetfulness. Just the name brings that echo of ring … reality leaves scars. Cheers Jamie

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              1. I first heard her records, while in UK in 1970’s. My larger exposure came in late 70’s and early 80’s, because of my ex. she had all of Dory’s records from her previous husband. You might like her songs? They may be found on youtube. Dory Previn was once married to Andre Previn. Until he had an affair with Mia Farrow. Ms. Previn had an abusive father and she left home when young and eventually found work writing musicals. As a lyricist. Her records are wonderful and my fave is, Mystical Kings and Iguanas. All her albums have a charm about them. Cheers Jamie

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                1. I’d already made a note to listen to more of her when I stop my frantic writing for a moment. Thanks for that title, I’ll add it to my note.
                  I was busy being a fake hippy in the early 70s (fake because I liked neither drugs or Pink Floyd). I don’t think Dory Previn would have fitted in with my Indian bedspread Kaftans. I listened to Grateful Dead and said they were, like, far-out, man, then went home to Steppenwolf, Lou Reed and Leonard Cohen.
                  Then I turned to punk since I had friends in the business (Remember The Adverts – Looking through Gary Gilmore’s eyes? Gaye Advert, the sexy bass player, was my best friend).
                  It’s no wonder I missed out on Dory Previn.

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                  1. I am a few years older than you and consequently different life. When I was thirteen my parents gave me guitar … an acoustic type a la Spanish. The next ten years or so, played with friends and my cousin heavily. Then I went to India, in my early twenties learned meditation. Drugs went out the window was already a vegetarian. Went to work on Hampstead Heath. Down on Highgate Hill and Chalk Farm Road, saw many types. Early punk … never understood that? Didn’t want to. All minds are crazy, for attention. Was trying to shed ego, not gain it. Ended up living near Aberystwyth and married with a son. Cut my small finger left hand and it never really regained strength or agility. I still tootle around on any musical instrument, never got good at any except maybe flute? In my late sixties, now. Bought a Uke last year and its fun especially for use in an apartment building. Yup, still do my meditations. Drink tea, coffee and vegetarian … sort of… eat fish but not so much since the radiation pouring into Pacific. The thought of eating another warm-blooded mammal is now revolting. I like the blogging activity and of course just reading other blogs and commenting, takes a lot of time. My new wife now lives with me and we are hoping that her permanent residence card comes through or she’ll have to leave by December, again. I lived single for over 15 years yet prefer my life now.

                    Of course you and I both have different life experiences and I always enjoy how you relate to them. How drug dependency has been so destructive in many ways, for you and how your life at the time of Dory recording, was missed and why. I held and still do hold many of what might be termed “Hippie” views. I.e. Peace and love universal, close. That’s not exclusive to so-called hippies. While I am a Green supporter, I dislike the type of Green nazi’s that seem to pervade society. i.e. CO2 causes global warming. Yet, as a world that’s heavily polluted and run by industrialists, I abhor much of industrialists destructive work. I guess, I might be an independent thinking Green? If there is such a thing? Power always corrupts etc. Now the Greens here in Provincial Canada share political power. They may be thinking twice about jumping into bed with another party even if it has given them what they want? I don’t know? Too old to really care? I am still vibrant but the energy of change, is for the young? Many of the musicians from my youth even my thirties have either retired or died. I just resurrect their music from time to time and plunk away on my uke. I have a melodeon too, packed away in my storage but it’s far too noisy for the building. Leonard Cohen had a good career; Dory, surprisingly? Was just a few years younger than my mother … God rest her soul! Cheers Jamie

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                    1. I hadn’t realised the depth of your musical influence. You’ve led an interesting life. Sounds like you avoided all the traps while absorbing a lot of knowledge. It’s interesting to have the background of a freethinker such as you. I could have guessed that India would have come into it somewhere along the way. Remember the phrase “I went to India to get my head together”?. It worked for some – maybe they were the ones whose heads hadn’t fallen apart.
                      I think I gave the wrong impression with the mention of punk. At the time I was married, with a young daughter. I didn’t do the punk thing – just went to gigs and hung out with friends who’d jumped on the band wagon to make a few quid screaming bad lyrics at an audience of gullible kids. The whole movement was brainless and the music was terrible, but I loved the energy. Punks were basically the same as the sad tail-end hippies I’d mixed with – talking crap and doing nothing. I was always the weird one who made it to anti-nuclear demos and got involved in political campaigns. I had faith in my power to change things back then.

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    1. I don’t remember what roles he played – I didn’t care, as long as he was facing the camera 🙂
      But comedic actors – now you’re talking. We had some amazing British ones. Peter Sellers and Danny Kaye were my favourites.

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                1. The War of the Worlds – wasn’t that the one that got people in a panic, thinking it was really happening? That was scary even though by the time I saw it I knew it was fiction.
                  We probably wouldn’t bat an eyelid these days…

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                    1. I hardly ever watch a movie these days, and I missed the remake. I don’t usually enjoy remakes as much as the original – The Great Gatsby is an example. For me, Robert Redford will always be the one and only Gatsby, much as I admire Leonardo De Caprio.

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    1. You could say I’m incurable – but these days at least I keep my distance. I don’t want anyone breaking into my lovely single life 🙂
      Not that I haven’t had offers (she says, coyly fluffing up her hair). Ridiculous at my age – but it a ridiculous offer from a ridulous neighbor who (apart from the eyes, unfortunately) is nothing like Robert Mitchum though he seems to think he is.
      I know – TMI 🙂

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    1. From now on all of my poems will contain only my name, repeated over and over in varying orders and formats. It will make me the most famous (and richest) poet who ever conned their readers lived 🙂

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        1. My new poetry movement is called “Name Dropping Verse”. The agents will be at my door any minute, begging to sign me up. Oh, look – there’s one coming up my path now… seems to be swaying a bit… it’s OK – he’s got up. Oh dear, he’s been sick over my neighbour’s car, and now he’s accusing a lamp post of sleeping with his girlfriend. Such bad language for a literary agent – and he’s wearing Adidas…
          I’d better make sure my door’s locked.

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  8. Except for now, at the tail end, I’ve always been employed. It helped to educate the young and be, educated by them. My son is now in his early forties and I think? Just woken up to how close old age is? His son, my grandson, will be starting regular school next year. Time has wings. Thanks for your appreciations.

    Similarly your life in North Devon is by myself a little envied. For I’ve always been attracted to the rural life. Yet for a young lady growing up and waiting for Paulie, it must have seemed worlds away, at times? My friends at school and I went to Aldermaston marches and later to anti-Vietnam US involvement. etc. I came to the conclusion way back then. Protests never change anything. They only sometimes help adjust, the overt crimes? Yet seldom change anything.

    Your home environment when a child must have been difficult? All too often; the male role figures let their children down. Always left to Mom who bore them, to make it right?

    From when at school, we had American influences, then rockers, mods, beats, hippies, glam, punks and on, culminating in Gen X and Y? We all seem to wish to, identify someway.

    I had a friend who lives in Brecon, and still is, a “poet”. A hangover from mid sixties “revolution” etc. Being a poet is a hard life, unrewarding except from peers. Any sort of artistic endeavour is bound to be, thus. I quite admire that homosexual painter, David Hockney. Who now makes his art using a tablet. People pushing human boundaries is always cutting edge, it seems? Cheers Jamie

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    1. Before we went to war with Iraq, my middle daughter and I went to local marches and then to a big one in London. When we reached Hyde Park, Ralph McTell was on stage, singing, as you’d expect. It was a big demonstration – and Claire said “There are so many people. When the government see the strength of feeling, they’re bound to cancel their war plans.” It made me feel like crying. It meant so much to her. I’d told her that our marches weren’t going to make any difference – but she got caught up in the atmosphere. I remembered how, at her age, I thought we could achieve nuclear disarmament by protesting. I kept going to them after I realised the truth, and I still think marches are relevant, though they do little more than make us feel less alone.
      My home environment when I was a child? That’s a complex one. Much of my life was idyllic, but there were issues with my father. I only recently untangled the truth of what he did to me. I’d confronted the most shocking details, but blocked off the glaring fact that he discouraged me from writing. He was a strange man who stunted the growth of all his five children, and took pride into telling my mother about his dirty little affairs.
      Would I be likely to have heard of your Brecon friend?

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      1. It is possible? That you know Chris Torrance ? Torrence? The second spelling, maybe? As far as i know he still lives in that cottage. no electricity, just a range and oil lamps. He published a number of books of poetry. All small publishers.

        My own father was not the best for me but he died so long ago, now. I too was discouraged from pursuing arts. He saw no future in them. Yet really, that was what I wished for at the time. Later in my forties I went to Art school. Did Ralph play in Fairport Convention? We used to go to a lot of concerts in 1960’s later, I was not interested in all that. It seemed like most people were out of their heads in the audience? Protests and marches are really for the young who try to make a difference. As you write, “they do little more than help us feel less alone”. Quite so …. Cheers Jamie

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        1. I think Ralph always played solo, but who knows – so many played in Fairport C.
          Chris Torrance – the name sounds familiar, so maybe I know someone who knows him…
          My father had no excuse for discouraging me. He was an internationally renowned photographer who walked away from his business to move to North Devon and work as a farm labourer. During his spare time he built a reputation as a bohemian artist. My mother brought up five kids on a pittance while he charmed the pants off women. Don’t get me wrong, I love North Devon – it’s my home, but he only ever thought of himself. He encouraged us all to hate school. When I was ten, and half way through my first novel, he found out and messed with my head so much that I stopped writing my story. One of the things he did was to sneeringly say I’d never be a Daisy Ashford. (I thought her book was rubbish). My sister never forgot it, and she kept mentioning it over the years. I didn’t believe her until I wrote my memoir. So much stuff started flowing out of my head. It was horrible. He was happy when I went to art college, but as he said, my sister was the real artist. Pity he never told her that.

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  9. Pingback: Smemtogis, so much more than a poem. | Making it write

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