I Am The Lorax
Or so an ex-girlfriend once compared me, of course she also once compared me to Dr. Who and Ewan McGregor, so let’s face it we’re just not sure about her.
I hope she wasn’t but I kinda suspect she was thinking of lines like these when she said it:
“He was shortish. And oldish.
And brownish. And mossy.
And he spoke with a voice
that was sharpish and bossy.”
This year would have been the 100th birthday of Dr. Seuss, one of my personal artistic heroes. CBS News has an okay article about him here.
I call it okay and not great or even good for a number of reasons. First of all, it links to a story about (and contains a picture from) Mike Myers’ vivisection of “The Cat In The Hat,” the most recent exploitation endorsed by Seuss’ widow, who apparently decided the literary estate of America’s best-selling children’s author wasn’t enough $ for her.
Also, it plugs a couple of Seuss biographers but not Judith & Neil Morgan. I haven’t read the new books but it’s hard to imagine they’re finer than the Morgan’s “Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel,” one of the most artistic, funniest biographies I have ever read.
Finally, the last paragraph of the CBS News story is frankly kind of mawkish. But it does make the point that Seuss had fun with words in his books, which made words fun for his readers. Which led to this reader having fun with words on his blog and elsewhere.
Or maybe this is what my ex-girlfriend was thinking of:
“UNLESS someone like you
cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better.
It’s not.”
