Ode to an Ode

 

To write about a thing, like, say, I don’t know, hypothetically, an ode, you might really want to have an intimate knowledge of the thing. Or perhaps you might want to really get to know the thing, so you spend hours and days and weeks researching the thing. Or you might chat with experts, folks that spend their life studying the vicissitudes of the thing.

Or, then again, you might just be a columnist.

In a world with self-proclaimed experts who, in fact, are just making this up as they go, I find that columnists often (not always) stand apart by knowing even less and making up even more. But say what you want about columnists (I do!), they do have deadlines.

So today… an ode to an ode.

When I initially settled on “an ode to the ode”, I didn’t have my glasses on and thought I was writing a column on Garfield’s clueless, lovable canine punching bag. But that’s not an ode. That’s Odie. Odie was pretty great though. Look, he was definitely a mouth breather, and he drooled a lot. But where Odie really shined is that he was a good sport. Yes sir. Garfield would throw the kitchen sink at him, occasionally literally, and good ol’ Odie just took it in stride.

But it turns out, Odie is no ode. An ode, I then thought, still unable to locate my glasses, is a decadent way to order dessert. Except, it turns out, you cannot order dessert a la ode. I was thinking of dessert with a scoop of ice cream, a la mode.

So, what have we learned so far? So far, we have learned that I need to find my glasses. I located them and then looked up the word. ode | od | noun, a lyric poem in the form of an address to a particular subject, often elevated in style or manner and written in varied or irregular meter. • a poem meant to be sung.

Now, I certainly have a high opinion of my writing. I mean, I do write a column after all. But am I really ready to elevate it to “elevated”? That depends on how strong my cocktail is. On the other hand, I do think my words are, on occasion, “varied”. And, when I’m at my absolute best, my prose is indeed “irregular”. So, there’s that. But is this column, Beyond Reason, really a poem meant to be sung? I suppose you never know until you try. So, I will grab an old column. Here’s one making fun of children. No, this one on golf is better. No, no. This one making fun of pickleball is best of all. Boy, that one ruffled a lot of feathers. Now I shall see if Beyond Reason holds up… in song form. Here goes.

Okay. That was a mistake. In a word, humbling.

It turns out jokes about pickleball are best served in print. Or verbally. Or in cartoon form. Or around the campfire. Look, there’s a lot of great ways to make fun of pickleball but I’m not up to the task of doing it in song form. So, emphasizing my abilities to make a thing “varied” and “irregular”. My ode to an ode:

Ode to an Ode

Oh, Ode…

You help us contemplate things in an elevated, varied, and irregular way.

Things like, apparently, I guess, a Grecian Urn.

Which is, um, good, maybe? Or bad, perhaps? I don’t know exactly.

Oh, Ode…

Your elevation, variation, and irregularity are so… you.

You help us consider things like immortality and wine.

(Though we were enjoying wine in a pretty elevated way before you came along.)

Oh, Ode…

You lead us to elevariation

Which is technically not a word.

But one of the great things about an Ode is that if you’re in an Ode, you can make up words!

And you can do it on the regular.

If you do it with irregularity.

Oh Ode…

Of you, mastery belongs only to the masters

Wordsworth and Shelley and Neruda – and arguably that Perez columnist.

But, boy, Keats really went to town with you, Ode.

I mean, anyone can write an Ode to autumn or a west wind or sadness.

But only Keats could write an Ode to a Grecian Urn.

A Grecian Urn!

Oh Ode…

You are ode-ish.

Which sounds kind of like, but is not the same thing as, odious.

Ode-ish is also not the same thing as being odd-ish.

But if a thing’s irregular, you could say it’s odd.

And then for fun you could add “ish”

Oh Ode…

Thank you.

Thank you for being you.