On Pun Rapping, © 2010 A. Allen Rowe
I would like to teach a new creative genre. It’s called pun rap. I am the happy owner of punrap.com which is at present an undeveloped piece of webestate. Would peers and students find it fun to develop the genre? Will it inspire? Might pun rap videos go viral?
Punrap started back in February 2007 when I sent my older son, Anton, an unbirthday card about “reptile dysfunction.” We started discussing the matter and came to the realization that reptilian fiscality is based on economies of scale. Anton noted that reptiles also pay scale. This banter inspired me to write what I believe to be the first pun rap, on or off the record.
Fiscality Rap, © 2007 A. Allen Rowe
Based on the recent discoveries that not only do reptiles pay scale but that also reptilian fiscality functions on economies of scale.
The fiscality of aeolian societies depends on economies of sail,
and for a marketing society it’s economies of sale,
and for writers of kid’s stories it’s economies of tale,
and for a Web society it’s economies of tail,
and at that, it is a very long tail,
and we know primate economies of the prehensile tail
and other societies, too, have economies of tail
but in such directions we dare not take the trail
but surely hay farmers know economies of bale,
so do jail birds practice economies of bail
and false prophet societies show economies of Baal
and tanning salons have economies of pale,
and for milk maids it must be economies of pail.
So smile and don’t wail.
You’ll not go to jail.
A rap on economies
Hits the head of the nail!
Then in March, sort of riding the surf of various email interchanges about pun rapping, I shared this with my sons. I share it here because it is at least linguistically cross-cultural and hints at the possible fun of such play, I hope.
Sunday Musing: Being Rageous, © 2007 A. Allen Rowe
Hey, instead of being outrageous
could I just be enrageous
or very middle of the path rageous?
Who needs the extremes?
Just give me lambda, the mean,
I mean, the golden mean.
Those who live there are golden meanies.
Better that than golden weenies,
or in German Wieners
as in Wiener Schnitzel,
a Wiener being one from Wien,
that is Vienna.
I think Strauss was a golden Wiener,
which had nothing to do
with his music or his anatomy.
Thank goodness for all the waltzers,
especially Matilda and me as we sing and sit
waiting for the wiener boil,
we just get so rageous
Matilda and me,
n’est-ce pas?
