PRINCETON HHH 777.4


Date: June 28, 2000
Weather: Same old, same old
Venue: Likewise: Alexander Road and towpath to the rod and gun club driveway
on the road to Mallville
Time: 45 minutes
Set by: Geezer
Hashers:  Kim, Chris, John who's not Second Story Party Girl, Oui Pee,
Nonsensei, Throat Deep, Rubber Alan, Wacko, Discomfort, Hey Yo! Shrinkage!,
Rojo, Minor minor minor minor Tom the Army Guy, Juicy, Llloda, Llloda's
swinging Franco-Suisse couple Eduoard et Daphne, the Rat, Catch and Release,
Schwa!, Tropical Depression, Iced Blue Balls, Spawnosolo, Grant really needs a
name and Tickteaser doesn't cut it, and weren't there five others I've
overlooked?


    Six Haiku in Search of A Geezerheim


Here's the starter haiku: 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables, using simple
words, one of which denotes the season.  Just what "syllable" means in
Japanese is unclear, as is just what the Japanese count: see Dr. Richard
Gilbert's fascinating article, "Stalking the Wild Onji: The Search for Current
Linguistic Terms Used in Japanese Poetry Circles," at
http://www.ahapoetry.com/wildonji.htm.  The universe of haiku opens with Kim
Komurasaki's Haiku World webpage, http://cc.matsuyama-u.ac.jp/~kim/.
    Anyway, add five more haiku about #778.4 for Wrongway to add to the
Archive!  (Time for an update, incidentally, and all those hits by curious
hashnippers about days and hashes of yore are burning holes in the Archive!


Summer mud conceals
Virgins calling, Are You? Yo!
Shrinkage sings at night


    Want to know more about the first master of the art?  See
http://www.gale.com/freresrc/poets_cn/bashobio.htm for a nice summary on
Matsuo Basho, the 17th century superpoet.


    "One day, after Kojyo-sensei and I had satisfactorily laid onji to rest,
sensei dug up a gorgeous book of collected haiku, and read mostly Basho and
Buson, but some modern haiku also. And we talked about each haiku a bit; he
made instant translations after reading the commentaries, and we counted kana
and clapped out the mora. This experience was most satisfying. Having had so
many haiku spoken out loud by a sensitive reader, I now have a better sense of
the spoken haiku rhythm, and why classical writers may have sometimes added or
subtracted an -on or two, here or there.
    "As poets know, the feeling of the language and its living texture often
takes precedence. Language is not, after all, some pure mathematical equation
with exact answers; words play, stretch, bend into each other, eddy and
separate. The supposedly 'tight' form of haiku and tanka has served to mask
the fact that whether a line has 4, 5, or 8-on, in Japanese, these lines can
sound shorter or longer, staccato or legato, be phonemically complex or have
extreme brevity, regardless of the 'count.'
    "No doubt this information does not translate easily into English,
especially because this has to do with sound and speech, not just reading the
standard medium for approaching Japanese poetry in English translation. It was
wonderful to hear a sensitive native-speaker reciting haiku, to "get into it"
in this way. I think this was why Kojyo-sensei, at a certain point, just put
down the texts and began to read out loud."
    from Richard Gilbert's article.
On on, wipi


Wednesday, July 5: Nonsensei's Co-Dependence Day hash
Wednesday, July 12: Tropical Depression and Ice Blue Balls set the
Quincentennial GeezerHash
    Possible special guest: Petting Zoo, if we can wheedle her out of the Comp
Sci Building!

===============================================================================
Additions...

Geezer:
Inscrutable. Yes!
Oui Pui scribbles a writeup.
no one understands.

Five are forgotten?
They dwell unknown in limbo.
Records weep in pain.

Basho is boring.
Oui Pui's last eulogium
lacks any content.


Minor minor minor minor Tom the Army Guy:
Summer's "set" ting sun
Hash howls hang on humid air
Piels of laughter drown

June hash canal path
Minor Tom the Army Guy
Poison ivy finds


Bang Him Harder (from New Zealand):
P H H H mail
makes me ever nostalgic
for Jersey shiggy.
>sigh<


Geezer (in response to Bang Him Harder):
British beer: not piss
Triumph of an old culture
Along with Shakespeare


Speedbumps:
I dwell in limbo
Bad haiku overcomes me
what has OuiPea done?


Nonsensei:
Mob Mentality.
Squashed gnats blended in hash sweat,
Down by the Canal.


(and, regarding Hash start for July 5th)

Tick bite from setting
My sequel to virgin hash.
Paranoia looms.

A tranquil hash run
For Post-Independence Day
--you wish. But not quite.