Thursday
My son Toby Wilson-Bates alerted me to how literature lovers have been having a field day on Twitter over the Rudy Giuliani press conference held at the Four Seasons Total Landscaping company to proclaim voter fraud. Why Giuliani held it there is a mystery. Some think that his advance team booked the wrong venue, intending to choose the Four Seasons Hotel in Philadelphia, but Toby’s theory is that Donald Trump is too cheap to spring for anything expensive.
In any event, literary tweeters have been incorporating “Four Seasons Total Landscaping” into famous poems and first lines ever since. I’m sharing some of the better ones below, and to give you a chance to test your literary knowledge, I have included the original passages and their authors at the end.
Comedian Peter Sagal:
Four seasons total landscaping, light of my life, fire of my loins, my sin, my soul. Four seasons total landscaping: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of four steps down the palate to tap, at four, on the teeth. Four Seasons Total Landscaping.
Toby:
Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowe–, no, schedule the press conference, no, uh– “Hello. Four Seasons Total Landscaping?”
Toby again:
so much depends upon total landscaping near the dildo store beside the yellow hose
Tweeter Celese Ng went up with a whole series, including:
I have scheduled
the press conference
that was at
the Four Seasons Total Landscaping
and which
you were probably
saving
for the Four Seasons Hotel
Forgive me
It is hilarious
so sweet
and so cold
riverrun, past Four Seasons Total Landscaping
Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see Four Seasons Total Landscaping.
In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. Son, he said, Four Seasons Total Landscaping.
It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing at Four Seasons Total Landscaping.
“Christmas won’t be Christmas without Four Seasons Total Landscaping,” grumbled Jo.
The sun shone, having no alternative, on Four Seasons Total Landscaping.
Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of the Four Seasons Total Landscaping. Do not think that I am very much impressed by that as a boxing title, but it meant a lot to Cohn.
I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up. I had just gotten over a serious illness that I won’t bother to talk about, except it had something to do with Four Seasons Total Landscaping.
Tweeter Erika Kyrgios:
It was a bright cold day at the Four Seasons Total Landscaping, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
Blogger @pluiedautomne has a particularly good one given that the landscaping store is situated next to a crematorium:
Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know. I got a telegram from Four Seasons Total Landscaping: “Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours.” That doesn’t mean anything. Maybe it was yesterday.”
I award the prize for my favorite to Natalie Luhrs:
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Four Seasons Total Landscaping to be born?
It’s unclear how seriously we should take Trump’s temper tantrum over losing, but laughter seems a healthy response.
Original Passages
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee, Ta.–Nabokov, Lolita
Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.—Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens --William Carlos Williams, “The Red Wheelbarrow"
I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold --William Carlos Williams, “This Is Just to Say”
riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s–Joyce, Finnegan’s Wake
Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting.—Faulkner The Sound and the Fury
In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.—Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they executed the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.–Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.—Alcott, Little Women
Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton. Do not think that I am very much impressed by that as a boxing title, but it meant a lot to Cohn.—Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.—Samuel Beckett, Murphy
I had just gotten over a serious illness that I won’t bother to talk about, except that it had something to do with the miserably weary split-up and my feeling that everything was dead. With the coming of Dean Moriarty began the part of my life you could call my life on the road.—Kerouac, On the Road
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.—Orwell, 1984
MOTHER died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can’t be sure. The telegram from the Home says: YOUR MOTHER PASSED AWAY. FUNERAL TOMORROW. DEEP SYMPATHY. Which leaves the matter doubtful; it could have been yesterday.—Camus, The Stranger
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
—Yeats, “The Second Coming”
I welcome your own contributions.