I must admit, I love words. I’m sure this comes as no surprise to those who know me or have even read this site for some time.

Take, for instance, this couplet from Brian Eno’s brilliant “The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch” on his first post Roxy Music album Here Come the Warm Jets.

By this time I got to looking for a kind of substitute
I can’t tell you who I found, except that it rhymes with dissolute

Now, I’ve asked a couple of people, and they just don’t get this. Who did Mr Eno find? Knowing the definition of dissolute almost certainly makes this clear.

Lacking moral restraint; indulging in sensual pleasures or vices.

Any guesses now? He found a prostitute in case you don’t see that yet.
It’s word plays like these that I love. I think it comes from my love of clever things. I love math because it’s clever; and so, I love witty, clever use of language.

My favorite books all make novel use of the English language. Take Lolita for example. Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov, is written in docile, splendid prose. Each sentence shimmers with beauty and etches its meaning in the reader’s mind. See, for example, this often quoted paragraph.

She was musical and apple-sweet. Her legs twitched a little as they lay across my live lap; I stroked them; there she lolled on in the right-hand corner, almost asprawl, Lola, the bobby-soxer, devouring her immemorial fruit, singing through its juice, losing her slipper, rubbing the heel of her slipperless foot in its sloppy anklet, against the pile of old magazines heaped on my left on the sofa—and every movement she made, every shuffle and ripple, helped me to conceal and improve the secret system of tactile correspondence between beast and beauty—between my gagged, bursting beast and the beauty of her dimpled body in its innocent cotton frock

Despicably, this is written by Humbert Humbert, a middle-aged man, and Lola, Lo, Lolita is a twelve-year-old girl. Shocking and disturbing, yes. But undeniably poignant.

Back to music for a moment. Most lyrics are rather terrible. But some, such as the words penned by Alec Ounsworth of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah are interesting and reach near poetic levels. For instance, let’s look at the following verse from “Over and Over Again (Lost and Found).”

I heard it from a friend
The Revolution never happened
Sigh
A little die
No more a child
Goodbye

So, how can we interpret this? I see it as a tale of innocence lost. He believed something to be true (the revolution happened), and later found out his belief was wrong. Part of him died, but that’s part of growing up.

By the way, if you haven’t heard Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, I highly recommend listening to the two songs on their website.

Admittedly, I really have no point for this post, but I do like the following paragraph from Ulysses, the most clever book ever written.

He foresaw his pale body reclined in it at full, naked, in a womb of warmth, oiled by scented melting soap, softly laved. He saw his trunk and limbs riprippled over and sustained, and saw the dark tangled curls of his bush floating, floating hair of the stream around the limp father of thousands, a languid floating flower.

And lastly, why didn’t I major in English? Well, mathematics is far more beautiful than even Joyce’s prose. And besides, an average mathematician is more clever than any poet shall ever be.