What Do They Know

Hollywood said

yr smile

too crooked

yr head

the wrong shape

neck

too long

sex appeal

zero

yr figure

more mandolin

than guitar

her name?

Marlene Dietrich

*pic courtesy of Wikipedia

Is it Character then?

Is it the characters, then?

No, it is not.

Scenery. dialogue,

intrigue,

the machinations of plot?

No, it is not.

Really? None of the above?

Then, pray tell, what?

Far more important

than any of those,

he says,

is vivacity,

the vivacity of the prose.

* what is it you most treasure in a short story?

pic courtesy of Pixabay

An Altercation with Auto-Correct

 

When I started out on my post on Pachelbel he was, in spite of being dead a few hundred years, in pretty good nick. Now it has come to my attention that he is not well. Worse, he has undergone a frightful transformation. ‘Transmogrified’ is the word.

Literal minded, know nothing, bossy auto-correct is the villain.

Whenever I wrote ‘Pachelbel,’ auto-correct fiercely underlined it with red, saying, No, No, that is not a word.[it is doing it now]. Then what word am I after? I asked. The word you are after it asserted was — wait for it! — ‘Bellyache’. What? Are you mad? I said. How do you get ‘Bellyache’ out of ‘Pachelbel’? Auto-correct became belligerent and I’m sad to report we came to fisticuffs. Finally bruised and black-eyed I over-rode auto-correct. There was no way soothing Pachelbel would become painful Bellyache! Afterwards though I did have a good belly-laugh over it.

Auto-correct is no longer speaking to me.

 

Have you had similar problems with auto-correct?