Start again, I heard them say

[Geoffrey]

Breavman knew a girl named Shell whose warmth was like sunshine that seems to make back alleys smell of urine. She had her ears pierced so that she could wear long filigree earrings, but the punctures festered - and when he nibbled her earlobes he became a fly in the ointment. When eating she would romantically say he was allowed to watch the food going in, but not coming out. He would have taken her as his wife, but she was continually putting white powder up her nose and telling him that marriage sinks a person's lifeboat. And always fishing in his past with questions like: "Did you swallow, did you inhale?" Shell's dislike for Wagner was rooted to pure musical taste, she said - and that the only difference between Jew and Gentile was foreskin. Whenever a conflict arose she would quote her mother: "One day a bird eats maggots and the next day maggots eat the bird, and no matter how long it might be, there are always two ends to a turd." It has been said that a relationship is like a shark, it has to keep moving forwards otherwise it will die, because people who stand still move away from each other. So, like a houseowner who had neglected his roof, Breavman eventually harvested only storms. An athiest can draw a picture of Jesus on the cross just as easily as can a christian, but Breavman just couldn't pretend he loved her any more. Unlike her, he never experienced enjoyment in lifting other peoples' quilts, so didn't pry into her past. To him that would have felt uncomfortable, like wearing the suit of a dead man - or trying to sell condoms to the pope. On a train Shell liked to sit at the rear end, in case there was an accident. Breavman preferred to sit near the engine with his back to the driver, so he could see where everybody was coming from. As the carriages rocked and swayed it was like looking down the throat of a writhing snake - and he was not going down there to find her.

[Geoffrey]

[slightly revised]

Breavman knew a girl named Shell who didn't mind if people lied to her just as long as they made her feel good. Her ears were pierced so that she could wear long filigree earrings, but the punctures festered - and though each lobe sported the smallest scar, they mercilessly hijacked one's eye. They caused her humour to swing to and fro, fits of depression that would start and stop - like the tracks of a tyre that had driven through a puddle. They were minute, but as visible as half a cockroach's leg floating in one's egg liqueur. We are on the doorstep of springtime. Breavman and Shell sat on a park bench watching the sunrise while their ears kissed intimately. With heads leaning together they looked as if someone had pressed two typewriter keys simultaneously. He told her the scars were imagined, and backed it up with a story of someone who'd seen the face of Elvis burnt into a piece of toast. "Our galaxy occupies only the tiniest corner of a pixel in a thousand dots-per-inch image," he comforted. "The entire cosmos is but the size of an infant's eye-lash lost in a gorilla's coat, and this planet but a miniscule parasite hiding up the back-end of a dung beetle in the Amazon. Those two scars in your bleedin lug-holes are nought but fantasy," - he continued. "You're lifting the lead hem on the skirt of an air-rifle pellet!" He knew that all the flattery in the world added up to one cold shower, yet this sudden burst of insincerity surprised even himself. He felt as though he had just sent Fredo Corleone fishing. What virtue in having talent as a liar, displaying a shelf full of empty cans that had been opened upside down merely to give the impression of a pantry well stocked? He looked into her eyes and could see the key in the ignition - but felt he'd locked himself out. "There are great big eyes in a fish's head, but they are blind to the hook in the bread," he thought. Then, like a nutcracker the April sun started splitting open the awakening buds around them, and with deft needlework began tattooing each blossom onto the morning's thawing skin. The two lovers still felt like Hansel and Gretel lost in the woods, but birdsong was taxiing them along a runway of optimism. Their love was becoming a chain-saw that could make a clearing and help build a look-out tower. Shell started vocalising spontaneous verse: "The higher up the mountain we go, the shorter there the trees do grow." And then: "The one who has the birthday is the one who cuts the cake, but if you're not nice and take more than one slice you might get the bellyache." The air was a gallery in which she could hang her brief bursts of poetry. For a second she forgot about the scars. Her sadness corroded at the edges, like an island of chocolate powder dropped into a mug of warm milk. For a moment time froze, as if somebody had pressed the video pause button. "They say a mother lives a lifetime between the midwife's slap and the baby's cry," she said. "Did you know that the more you look forward to going on holiday, the more you wish to return home early?" - she asked. Breavman kissed her on her cheek and tasted the path of a tear. It was slightly salty, and reminded him of the sticky area on the back of his hand after he'd drank tequila. "You are delicious," he said. And he meant it.

[Violet]

Geoffrey wrote [from the Poem for Geoffrey thread]:

"... As I have said before, I possess not the poet's mind - and have precious little writing skill. Therefore I take great pleasure in being allowed to enter this area of the forum and witness the creativity. Just wish I could contribute something, but alas - I completely lack talent. I don't know where people get there ideas from. Much warmth - G"

Geoffrey... I don't know you all that well as yet, but your writing here suggests that you possess a great imagination, and are extremely funny, and your metaphors and/or similes (Manna??).. are priceless... I particularly like... "They were minute, but as visible as half a cockroach's leg floating in one's egg liqueur"...


sincerely (and also warmly),

v i o l e t

[Manna]

This metaphor is a simile.
This simile is like a metaphor.

The primary rule of similes and metaphors is that similes are less direct of a comparison. With similes, we use words like "like" or similar or as:

1. Her eyes were like knotted wood.
2. Similar to a bucket of tar, her mood was dark, deep and sticky.
3. She was as pretty as roadkill.

With metaphors, the comparison is more direct, going so far as to equate the two things being compared:

1. Her sunglasses are armour.
2. The table was a desert.
3. The old pine tree was an Indian Chief.

I'm not sure if it counts as metaphor when it comes out like this, but I'll count it as such until someone comes along and corrects me:
1. A rocket of sneezed snot
2. A storm of bed linens
3. A carpet of snow (I'm getting lazy now)

So that's the main thing, but for a writer, that part is really about as important as knowing that a haiku goes 5-7-5. The real differences between similes and metaphors are much more interesting. For instance, if I borrow from Geoffrey, he wrote:

They caused her humour to swing to and fro, fits of depression that would start and stop - like the tracks of a tyre that had driven through a puddle.

Geoffrey accurately used a simile rather than a metaphor. If he'd said the stops and starts of her fits of depression were tyre tracks, no one would have believed him, at least not in this context. The reason is that he'd just connected those very fits of depression with swinging, not rolling or driving, so he had to soften this second comparison.

[Violet]

... oh, one more question, Manna... how would you talk about an analogy?... I just referred to "I could drink a case of you" as an analogy... is it??...

grammar grasshopper
v i o l e t

[Geoffrey]

Thank you, Violet and Manna, for the complimentary and educative posts. I have much of which to be thankful - and much to learn. What an incredible collection of pleasant and knowledgeable people one can meet in this forum! -G

[Manna]

An analogy generalizes a relationship. The simplest type is something like a queen is to a country as a mother is to her children.

But I wonder if a double or extended metaphor can count as an analogy.

Long version:
The grey cloud is dressed in a fine tuxedo. He takes up his stick with gusto and conducts the wind through the firs. He lifts his hand as though under a great weight, and crashes it down to patriotic thunder. He is roiling now, and the first tiny hail stones keep timid time, then grow into a drum solo. The cloud points his finger- lightening! and a crow takes his cue for a trumpeted finish.

Short version:
Weather is to nature's noise as a conductor is to the orchestra.

You'd have to explain what you meant by A Case of You being an analogy. The title or the whole song? This is one of my favourite songs ever, and I know so little about it. Do you know about whom she was writing?
I could drink a case of you and still I'd be on my feet.

When you hang out with just about anyone, there are awkward times. Maybe you strike a nerve without realizing, maybe your nerve was struck, maybe you just can't seem to speak the same language. But I get the impression that this was someone who got her in an intimate way, someone on her wavelength, someone she could have become comfortable with, if she were comfortable with the idea of such intimacy, and I don't know if she's experienced a lot of that.

Or it could be that person had a tendency to make her mad for other reasons.

But 'you are to me (sort of but not really) what a case of wine is to me' doesn't quite seem to qualify as analogous to me. Maybe paralogous or orthologus.

[Geoffrey]

Please ignore this thread, I'm just figuring out ways to start my book:
-----------------------------
Breavman knew a girl named Shell whose tongue was pierced so she could wear a ring that clacked against her teeth when speaking. It reminded him of a key being tossed around inside a washing-machine. She almost choked to death when it snared a length of spaghetti, and he had to whack the back of her head with his palm and hook a finger down her throat - while she grimaced and poked her tongue out at him. He felt good afterwards, and held up the short strand of pasta as if he were a prizefighter displaying his championship belt.

He had aspired to be an author, but some drunkard at a pub told him that nobody can call themselves a writer until having composed a poem while inebriated that still looked good after sobering up. Breavman wondered if that explained why jazz music sounded heavenly when he sat on a barstool, but hellish when eating cornflakes.

A computer one day landed on his desk. He referred to it as a cuckoo that kicked both his typewriter and creativity into the rubbish bin. All sunshine departed. It was like waking up in dark midwinter to find the water-bottle he'd wedged under his balls had gone cold. There had been something satisfying about watching type hammering Morse onto a white sleeve, interrupted only by the regular tolling of a little bell. His fingers struggled to continue their elegant tap-dance on the keyboard, but writer's block had corked the flow like a turd jammed sideways. No more aching desire to put bread into the mouth of some distant librarian's child. Shell told him that living in an ever expanding universe one has to expect an increasing amount of nothing, expect one's brain to become a barren womb. But she also told him that whoever eats an egg eats a chicken as well, and he knew that to be a lie. That is why hitting the back of her head made him feel good.

[Lion of Lions]

Geoffrey, I can help you. I will explain your mistakes as well as praise your achievement. I will perform this act of kindness at some convenient time during the next few days. Meantime, I refer you to the tale of a Rabbi who entered a particular synagogue where all the devout worshippers were praying at top volume and intensity. He explained to his surprised disciple that he couldn't join them because the place was "too full of prayer".

Your piece is too full of clever writing and is exhausting. I wouldn't read on if this was the first page of a book I picked up.

However, I would certainly recognise the talent of the writer, and indeed in your case I always have done.

[Geoffrey]

Lion of Lions wrote:
>I wouldn't read on if this was the first page of a book I picked up.

I know what you mean, but give a lion healthy vegetables and he won't like it - he wants meat.
g
----------------------------------------------
Myself when young did eagerly frequent
doctor and saint, and heard great argument
about it and about: but evermore
came out by the same door where in I went.
[Omar Khayyam]

[Lion of Lions]

[quote="Geoffrey"]Lion of Lions wrote:
>I wouldn't read on if this was the first page of a book I picked up.

I know what you mean, but give a lion healthy vegetables and he won't like it - he wants meat.
g


nope, that's not it at all.

I dined at a top restaurant the other day and they started with four amuse-bouches. Each was fine and standing alone would have been a stimulating introduction to the real courses. Together they became a gimmick.

btw each contained only healthy vegetables as I did not want meat.

now, that's it.

[tinderella]

Excuse me interrupting on this very heavily worded thread.... Lion did you get my message on the LC Hotel thread? 2 days left and counting.

[Geoffrey]

Lion of Lions wrote:
>I dined at a top restaurant the other day and they started with four amuse-bouches. Each was fine and standing alone would have been a stimulating introduction to the real courses. Together they became a gimmick.
>
>btw each contained only healthy vegetables as I did not want meat.


i have only dined at bottom restaurants, so i wouldn't know an amuse-bouche if i was vomiting one up. why did you not want meat? were there more footprints going in than coming out?

[Lion of Lions]

Lion of Lions wrote:
>I dined at a top restaurant the other day and they started with four amuse-bouches. Each was fine and standing alone would have been a stimulating introduction to the real courses. Together they became a gimmick.
>
>btw each contained only healthy vegetables as I did not want meat.


i have only dined at bottom restaurants, so i wouldn't know an amuse-bouche if i was vomiting one up. why did you not want meat? were there more footprints going in than coming out?

ok Geoffrey, think back to the last time you dined at McDonalds, the Head Waiter doubtless brought you a bite-sized hors d’œuvre with your first wine. that was your amuse-bouche. Perhaps it contained shrimp, or a simple fois gras mousse.

anyway, it's a delightful, albeit wholly unconvincing, device for you to pretend you are not, like, just totally posh. I have it on excellent eighth hand unreliable hearsay and gossip that you even dress for breakfast. as we see you on the Gallery, so we see you in the kitchen.

by way of contrast I remain a true man of the people and eat my boiled egg and soldiers, stark naked, proud and erect.

Lord Lion of Lions

[Geoffrey]

Lion of Lions wrote:
>. . . at McDonalds, the Head Waiter doubtless brought you a bite-sized hors d’œuvre with your first wine.

you mean 'starters'?

>that was your amuse-bouche. Perhaps it contained shrimp, or a simple fois gras mousse.

i prefer good old-fashioned 'liver sausage', but then again i'm not a snob.