So last night I was reading a few Dr. Seuss stories, when I got to “Too Many Daves”.
It’s about a woman, Ms. McCave, who has 23 sons who are all named Dave, and how she should have named one this or that instead, to make life a little easier, blah blah blah.
Then it goes on to list some of the names she should have gone with, such as Bodkin Van Horn, Biffalo Buff and Marvin O’Gravel Balloon Face… you know, typical Dr. Seuss.
Then I ran across a name that caught me by surprise.
Now THERE’s a name that cries out to be mispronounced… the only one that comes closer to that charming term for (ahem) turning the other cheek is Joey Buttafuoco.
As for Soggy Muff, that reminds me of a name Mrs. Chef once ran across. She was bored at her job at a company that shall remain nameless but whose name rhymes with “Semen, park us!” and started looking up people’s credit records at random. She ran across an unfortunate woman whose name was…
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…Mossy Bush.
While accepting this theory is very appealing
A little bit more research found something revealing.
You see, before the Doctor wrote “Green Eggs and Ham”
He sold bondage equipment from the back of a van!
Handcuffs and latex, cold nipple rings
And a shocking collection of battery operated things.
Young Suess did travel, selling these goods
all around and about West Hollywood.
Oh sure, once published he left all this behind.
But you still have to wonder what remained in his mind
and take a second look at the things that he wrote
“Would you, oh could you, with a goat”?!?
Now, is this stuff really what our children should see?
Sure, it’s much tamer than the stuff on T.V.
In my high school freshman English class we all had to read a poem in front of the class. Not really caring what I read, I thought it would be funny if I read this poem “Too Many Daves.” Well, I finished reading the poem, and my english teacher, master of the passive putdown that she was said: “Thank you, I’m sure it took a lot of courage to read that poem.”
Same teacher that let me read a whole passage of Homer pronouncing “Telemachus” tell-uh-MOCK-us.
When I saw this thread’s title, I thought it might be about the good Doctor’s WWII political cartoons, some of which are a bit racist. Dr. Seuss had no trouble condeming racism (everyone got the moral from the Sneetches story, right?) but his progressive attitude seemed to have a blindspot when it came to Japanese.
On more than one occassion, his cartoons depicted American citizens of Japanese descent in a negative light. Over all, the good outweighed the bad; I only mention this to sound learned.
Anyone interested should read “Dr. Seuss Goes to War”.
P.S.
This thread has inspired me to change my sig!
Dr Suess. is no better nor worse
than anyone ele who rhymes in verse
Try it you’ll see it much to hard
rhyming things without sounding like a…really insensitive person
Somtimes you run out of luck
you throw up your hands and go “oh… this really bites”
To all his detractors I must say wait
At least he had nothing to do with Mrs. Tate
most of the time dr. suess got it right
The same can’t be said for poor Gladys Knight
Dr Suess had a dark side as well. Check out some of his paintings sometime. I happened to wander into an art gallery that had some of his works on display, and I was struck by how creepy yet beautiful they were. Many of them were like cartoonish nightmare scenes. Weird!
Rose
My favorite painting of his features a boy tentitivly approaching a pretty girl who is sitting on the trigger of a deadly looking mousetrap-like mallet device. The message is pretty naked, “The bait is tempting, kid, but it’ll destroy you”.
