Not One Mention Of Nantucket
ENTRY #32
0904.07


It started a little over three weeks ago on Diana Peterfreund's (dpeterfreund) blog (March 15, if you want the precise date). She asked her readers a simple question: Who would like an ARC of the fourth and final (or should that be "fourth & final"?) book in her Rose & Grave tetralogy, Tap & Gown? (Obviously, anyone reading the entry was thinking, "Me! Me!")

It wasn't going to be that easy, though. Diana had just returned from a trip to Ireland, and was calling to mind a visit to one pub where the barman made her and her friends sing before they would be served. In a similar fashion, she was going to make her readers work for that ARC. What we had to do was write a limerick that had something to do with the Rose & Grave novels, and post it as a comment. The best limerick would win the ARC.

As I started thinking, the first two lines came rather quickly. As a matter of fact, they came from a teaser for Tap & Gown that appeared in the third book, Rites Of Spring (Break). In one part of the teaser, the narrator, Amy "Bugaboo" Haskel, is talking to her new boyfriend, Jamie "Poe" Orcutt, and she makes the observation that all of their friends are going to find it oh-so-cute that their real names rhyme. The first line came to mind immediately; the second within a minute:

There once was a Digger named Amy,
Who fell for the patriarch Jamie . . .

Okay, two down, three to go.

The idea of them becoming a couple triggered a few long-forgotten memories, although I didn't fully realize it until sometime later. It triggered memories of a story I read a long time ago in Asimov's. In fact, it was so long ago that it was when the magazine was Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. I still can't recall the story's title, or who wrote it, but I'm fairly certain that it appeared during George Scithers's tenure as editor.

In the story, Earth had been at war with an alien race for who knows how long. In fact, at the end, we learn that the narrator is an AI controlling various defenses, and that the human race has been long dead. The same is true of the alien race, and the narrator destroys his counterpart from the alien race.

The two AIs taunt each other during the initial confrontation, and the Earth AI zings the alien AI with a rather insulting limerick -- a fart joke, as a matter of fact. When the alien AI replies that it was physiologically impossible for his race, the Earth AI says something along the lines of, "Cut me some slack; it's hard enough to get the meter right."

The Earth AI then begins to give his alien counterpart a brief lecture on the intricacies and nuances of the limerick, ending with a challenge. He will give the alien the first four lines of a limerick. If the alien can come up with a final line, he will surrender. Those first four lines went like this:

"An Earthman was seeking to couple
With a maiden so soft, sweet, and supple.
But he found in her pants
With his hands, just by chance . . . "

(This may be a slightly inaccurate quote, but it's as close as I can get without re-reading the story. And at the moment, I don't feel like going through 30+ years of Asimov's to find that one story. Incidentally, if anyone does know the story of which I speak, please leave a comment as to the title and author.)

Getting back to my own narrative, my (mostly subconscious) memories of that story, and especially that partial limerick, gave me lines three and four:

. . . On becoming a couple,
With their bodies so supple . . .

All I needed was that fifth and final line. This time, my muse thought it would be funny to bring Joss Whedon into play, as I recalled one of the memorable lines from Buffy The Vampire Slayer: "Love makes you do the wacky." A rhyme for "Amy" and "Jamie" came to mind, and I suddenly had that fifth line:

. . They did the wacky without shamie.

Keep in mind that all of these random bits of thinking took place within the span of about 10 to 15 minutes, and most of that was happening in my subconscious mind. Once I had the final line, I posted the finished limerick as a comment:

There once was a Digger named Amy,
Who fell for the patriarch Jamie,
On becoming a couple,
With their bodies so supple,
They did the wacky without shamie.

(When I posted the comment, I also mentioned that I thought it was pretty bad, but I couldn't think of anything better at just that moment.)

The week went by, and during that time, Diana occasionally mentioned the limerick contest in her blog entries. I couldn't think of anything better, so I didn't attempt another limerick.

The following Monday, as I checked Diana's blog, I saw that she had chosen the winners. And much to my surprise, I found myself reading my own limerick, followed by these comments by Diana:

"Purple Ranger's innovative coinage of 'shamie' (move over, Edgar Allan and Shakespeare!) as well as interesting (if not necessarily accurate) predictions for the future took an early lead with the panel. Jamie and Amy have *not* done the wacky, guys. Just some good, old-fashioned snogging. Says one judge: 'I just giggle every time I read "shamie."'"

Oh, wow. I was just a little surprised. I wasn't the only winner, though. There were a couple of others, including an honorable mention to one person who had submitted something like 29 different limericks.

Now that I think about it, though, I realize that the last line doesn't fit the meter as well as it should. I discovered that it scans better with just the slightest transposition of words:

There once was a Digger named Amy,
Who fell for the patriarch Jamie,
On becoming a couple,
With their bodies so supple,
The wacky they did without shamie.

Much better, don't you think?

And yesterday, I received my prize in the mail. Diana had autographed it, with the inscription, "To PurpleRanger, who already has a code name . . . " I hereby confess: That made my day.

So far, I've only skimmed the book, but I will say that it is a satisfying conclusion to the series. For more than that, you'll have to wait until Tap & Gown hits the bookstores in May.


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