Y is for ... Yak

As a friend to the children commend me the Yak.
You will find it exactly the thing:
It will carry and fetch, you can ride on its back,
Or lead it about with a string.

The Tartar who dwells on the plains of Thibet
(A desolate region of snow)
Has for centuries made it a nursery pet.
And surely the Tartar should know!

Then tell your papa where the Yak can be got,
And if he is awfully rich
He will buy you the creature - or else he will not.
(I cannot be positive which.)

Hilaire Belloc's 1896 poem ascribes to the yak considerable virtues, without troubling to mention the Himalayan bovine is among the largest species in the family - a wild yak can stand 7 feet tall at the shoulder and weigh over a metric ton - or that they are so well-adapted for the harsh high-altitude environment they call home that they struggle in more human-friendly habitats. In Tibet, domesticated yaks - which are smaller than the wild yak - are used as hardy beasts of burden, and for their milk, their meat, their hides ... even their dung makes valuable fuel, for there is little vegetation in the high Himalayas that can serve this purpose. Yaks even provide a tourist attraction, and are employed in bizarre sports like yak polo.

Another use to which the yak has been put is in substituting for another infamous Himalaya native, also known by a name beginning with Y. Hide from yaks has been claimed in the past, wittingly or otherwise, to be residual evidence of the legendary yeti, the cryptid apeman of the Himalayas. Other specimens have been reliably identified as belonging to Tibetan blue bears, or the serow, a species of mountain goat. Cryptozoologists continue to return, however, drawn by a long history of mysterious footprints in the high snowfields, periodic intriguing finds of partial remains - the Panboche hand, a relic that had Neanderthal features but that was stolen before it could be fully tested, is a classic example - and a wealth of eyewitness reports stretching back into history and persisting to the present day. We shall speak more of the Yeti another time.

X is for ... Xanth

The Xanth novels of Piers Anthony - he claims the partial eponym is coincidental - are a series of works of comic fantasy, originally conceived as a trilogy, that now spans enough books to qualify as a cubic trilogy with some to spare (the 27th Xanth novel was entitled Cube Route, a punning reference to the fact that 27 is 3 cubed).

Anthony has found a gold mine with his Xanth universe - its magical Talents, its population of centaurs and gargoyles and goblins, its tongue-in-cheek Adult Conspiracy to protect children from knowledge that might scar their youthful minds, and, above all, its pervasive puns have made it hugely popular with a devoted following. The author himself has remarked that Xanth novels are all his publisher wants him to produce these days, and if he sounds a little bitter there it's because even the most successful milieu can become an albatross round an author's neck if he's unable to write about anything else.

Particularly in the fields of humor and fantasy, imaginative creativity is the author's mainstay. When that author has spent around three decades churning out sequels set in the same world, there is a tendency for his well of inspiration to run dry. Indeed, for neutrals at least, Xanth novels, taken as a whole, constitute an uneven set; some are sublime, others simply seem to be extended Feghoots whose sole purpose is to fulfil Anthony's contractual obligations and shoehorn puns, almost at random, into a derivative plot.

That being said, even the worst Xanth novel is entertaining - Anthony is a fine writer, and he's been canny enough to supplement his own inspiration with that of his legion of fans. He receives huge amounts of fan mail incorporating suggestions for plot devices, character twists, new Talents - and puns, of course. I myself have sent him almost a dozen puns in the hope that one would show up in a future Xanth novel.

No pun in ten did.

You may groan now.

R is for ... Rolling in the Deep

An unusual circumstance attends today's blog; time is short enough that I can't indulge my general tendency to ramble around the perimeter of the subject, admiring the topiary and getting sidetracked by the resemblence of passing clouds to former heads of state, and yet sufficient that I can't in good conscience pretend it were impossible to get my head down and write something. As a compromise, herewith a musical recommendation and review.

Adele Adkins burst onto the British music scene back in 2008, at the tender age of 19. Her debut album, entitled '19' for reasons that astute followers of this blog can probably deduce for themselves, earned her nominations for the 2008 Mercury Prize (previously bestowed upon such luminaries of the Brit music scene as Portishead, Pulp, and Gomez) and a remarkable four Grammys - album track 'Hometown Glory', written by Adele when she was just 16, won her a nomination at the following year's Grammy Awards also.

She describes her genre as "heartbroken soul," and she's not exaggerating. She has a quite simply extraordinary voice - rich, powerful, swooningly expressive. Hailed as the New Amy Whitehouse when she first emerged on the airwaves, Adele has repeatedly demonstrated that she is, in fact, the First Adele Adkins. Here for your listening pleasure is the first US release from her sophomore album '21'; you probably don't need me to tell you how it got its name: click here, and prepare to be amazed.

...In my defense, that does begin with R as well. Here's the real Adele, doing what she does best:

B is for ... Brevity.

Brevity is the soul of wit ~ William Shakespeare (allegedly...)

Erin, you can stop reading now. Just kidding.

Out, out, brief candle! ~ also William Shakespeare (allegedly...)

The author of the plays commonly ascribed to one William Shakespeare often reflected on Man's mortality. "All the world is but a stage," opines Jaques in As You Like It, "and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances." It is, perhaps, telling that the exits are mentioned first; although Polonius finds something admirable in brevity, Macbeth's lament is much closer to "Shakespeare"'s message.

Dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return ~ Genesis 3:19

Yet there may be something comforting in brevity, if we focus more on our time on that stage than the waiting in the wings afterwards - and, perhaps, something more still if we reflect that beyond one stage may lie another. The action in Tom Stoppard's play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - a landmark in the theater of the absurd - takes place mostly in the wings of "Shakespeare"'s Hamlet; might we also take wings when our lines our spoken and the curtain falls?

* * *

A story I love, which comes originally from Persian folklore - although the version I heard was a Hebrew adaptation - concerns a very wealthy and powerful king.

This king had virtually everything he could possibly want, and it amused him to demand yet more of his loyal subjects. Upon a time, he summoned his vizier and said to him, "I have been thinking long and hard about what more I can ask of you, and I have realized there is still one thing I do not have. Legend tells of a ring of power, such that any happy man who wears it becomes sad, and any sad man who wears it becomes happy. I would own this ring." And the vizier, who was quick on the uptake, knew better than to disappoint his king; so he assured him in unctuous tones that the ring would be obtained, and departed, fretting and gnawing his beard at the impossibility of the task.

The vizier was no slouch in the wisdom stakes himself, and he consulted with all the wise men his wisdom could reveal; but none of them knew the location of this ring. He journeyed far and wide, and his beard grew longer, for he could not have it trimmed to his liking, and yet more sparse, for he rent it daily in agitation. At length, he despaired and determined he must return to the king's palace and admit his failure, and he halted for a night's meager rest at a tavern. While there, he fell into conversation, as one does at a low ebb with some strong drink inside one, with a stranger: a man who turned out to be a jeweler himself.

"... And I have searched for that accursed ring this past year, and tomorrow I shall return empty-handed, and the king shall have me torn apart by wild tapirs!" For this was the king's custom. Much to the vizier's surprise, as he concluded his tale of woe, his drinking companion laughed brightly and said the most astonishing words in the world: "I have the ring you seek." And he produced it, quite as if it were only a very ordinary ring of the sort jewellers carry with them everywhere they go.

The vizier accepted it in shaking hands, and observed that it was inscribed with these words: Gam zeh ya'avor, which is to say, This too shall pass. And as he read those words, it was as if all the year's long, despairing drudgery fell away; he laughed too, and he and the jeweller drank each other's health until the dawn.

Next day, the vizier, beard trimmed to even his satisfaction and a jaunty spring in his step, presented himself to the king. "Twelve months have passed since you dared enter my halls," intoned the king wrathfully. "I had given you up for a miserable servant." He snapped his fingers imperiously. "Bring forth the tapirs!"

But even this dire threat could not blight the vizier's mood. "Behold!" he cried in a voice that carried throughout the king's great hall. "I have found the ring you desired!" And he hurried forth and laid it in the king's hand.

The king examined it closely. His lips were observed to move as he deciphered the inscription. And he looked around him, at the sumptuous finery of his hall, at the gilded tableware, at the ornate draperies and peerless rugs, at the mighty edifice of his palace and the hushed throng of his subjects. And he looked at the ring - this too shall pass - and his countenance became grey with sorrow...