Thirteen Ways House Looks at the World (PG)

[deelaundry]

Written for nightdog_barks and bironic who did it first, and better, with Wilson and SGA's Rodney. 255 words. Concrit very welcome.

Thirteen Ways House Looks at the World
A reimagining of Thirteen Ways of Looking At A Blackbird, by the American poet Wallace Stevens (1879 - 1955).

I
Among twenty fledgling med students,
The only moving thing
Was Cuddy's... mouth.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a differential
In which there are three in altercation.

III
Thick eyebrows lifted above eyes of brown.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV
A man and his symptoms
Are one.
A man and his symptoms and the deceptions that obfuscate them
Are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The power of inflections
Or the power of innuendoes,
The moment of my whistling
Or just after.

VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of my companion
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII
O gullible patients of Clinic,
Why do you imagine grand illnesses?
Do you not see how the sniffliest of children
Linger around the feet
Of the parents about you?

VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That my begetter is involved
In what I know.

IX
When Stacy flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X
At the sight of fellows
Striding in an orange light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI
He rode over New Jersey
On a so-called deathtrap.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his Honda
For a hell-bent flatfoot.

XII
Her mouth is moving.
The patient must be lying.

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
House sat
Behind a wall of slow-moving glass.

Comments

[perspi.livejournal.com]

Oh, oh, oh, I love this! I love all of these '13 Ways' poems. *hearts*

I think my favorites here are I, IV, XII and XIII--the last because it invoked the image of House hiding behind one of those water-sculpture things.

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

#I was what set it all off. Nightdog had 20 labcoats in hers, and that reminded me of the scene in S3 where House is looking down on Cuddy escorting the gaggle of med students somewhere.

XII is an old joke but it just fit so well with the original XII and with House. : ) It's maybe too close to IV in theme, but then again it's House's world view, so maybe not surprising that it came up more than once.

I also couldn't resist the dig on the horrible lighting schema of the pilot episode in X. Heh.

[savemoony.livejournal.com]

VII is without a doubt my favorite. It captures his cynicism and his clownish charm. *Woot!*

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

Hee! The original is "golden birds" vs. blackbirds, and I thought hypochondriac-dreamed obscure illnesses vs. garden-variety colds worked too. (Remember the mom who thought her little daughter had epilepsy when really it was "Finding Nemo"?)

[savemoony.livejournal.com]

Yes!

[bironic.livejournal.com]

The appropriateness of IV and the show-humor of VII. The dawning power of VIII. The symbolism in XIII. ♥

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

I kept trying to substitute names in for every instance of "blackbird," and it wasn't working. IV in particular was hard to write that way. Once I loosened up, the thought of what together was "one" came to me right away.

Tell me what you think VIII and XIII are about. Nightdog's already provided a different interpretation than what I'd first had.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

*checks what she said* Oh! I hadn't thought of David Shore. That's clever.

VIII – House's facility for language or articulate/incisive speech ("noble accents"), and his facility with musical instruments and/or his post-infarction limp ("rhythms"), are due in part to (or in the case of the limp, a source of contention with), no matter how much he'd prefer to ignore it, his father.

XIII - the "wall of slow-moving glass" separates House from the world around him while he can still observe it (because the wall is transparent), just the way he'd like it. There's probably something else to unpack in the fact that glass does flow, so slowly, with time – perhaps that House is changing, imperceptibly, year by year, though he might not notice?

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

Ooh, awesome. I love more interpretations. I was thinking VIII was House looking at his childhood in other countries, the interesting languages ("accents") and cultures ("rhythms") he experienced.

For XIII, Perspi thought of the water sculptures around PPTH, which are cool. I meant it as you said it -- that House observes but still feels separate, and he knows obscure things like the fact that glass actually moves. As you said, it can also be a symbol of how House is changing slowly.

[nightdog-barks.livejournal.com]

Hee! I love it, Dee! One of my favorites is XII -- the punchline of the old joke is even funnier set here within these more serious lines.

I'm not quite sure who the "begetter" of VIII is, but I still like it. :-)

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

XII is such an old joke, but I couldn't not use it. Couldn't!

"Begetter" is an odd synonym for father. There weren't that many to choose from that show the distance House feels from the man, so I went with that. My thinking was that segment could be House looking back on all the travels of his childhood, how exciting the different languages and cultures were, and that it wouldn't have happened without his father, which leads to a strange, conflicted gratitude.

[nightdog-barks.livejournal.com]

*nods*

After a bit that's who I thought you meant. At first I thought you might have been being meta and were referring to David Shore.

*g*

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

OH! Yes, of course. Of course, I was clever enough to have that level of depth and meta (because OMG David Shore and the accent and the inescapable rhythms totally fit).

[hannahrorlove.livejournal.com]

What a treat to wake up to!

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[chocolate-frapp.livejournal.com]

Oh my God this is great! I love House and I love good poetry too.

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

Thanks! It was fun.

[phinnia.livejournal.com]

*grin* AWESOME. <3 I love the 'oh clinic patients' one the best, I think.

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

That does seem to be a favorite. XD Thanks.

[shutterbug-12.livejournal.com]

The clinic patients one is definitely my favorite! Whimsical and funny. =) What a neat concept for all of them, though.

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

It was remarkable how closely Wallace Stevens' original matched with House's world! Barely had to tweak any of the words. Thanks.

[dangomango.livejournal.com]

Dude. XII. LOL!
*encourages MOAR*

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

Hee! Check out nightdog_barks and bironic for more. Thanks. : )

[layne67.livejournal.com]

So very, very House. Esp XII!

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

Isn't it cool? The original mixed with House-world so very easily! Thanks.

[daasgrrl.livejournal.com]

Very cool! I liked VI and VII muchly. I didn't know the 13 things I kept seeing were based on the poem - I must go check them out now :)

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

It was very interesting how closely the original fit with House. Thanks!

[daisylily.livejournal.com]

HAHAHAHAHA! That's made my morning - specifically I, VII, X and XII (stupid pilot lighting scheme).

I love XIII; it's so very atmospheric.

These 13 things are wonderful!

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

I had to include that dig at the lighting scheme of the pilot. It was horrible! Hee hee. Thanks!

[topaz-eyes.livejournal.com]

Yay! This "Thirteen Ways" is fabulous. :-)

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

Thanks! It was a fun exercise.

[xaipw.livejournal.com]

Dee! This is just fabulous! XIII is vet poetic. But I think my favorite is VIII, because it seems as if House is thinking about his father.

This is so inspiring. Now I want to dig out my favorite poems and try something. William Carlos Williams, maybe?

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

Go for it! This was very, very fun to do (nightdog_barks had the marvelous idea), and I'd love to see where you could take it.

[inlaterdays.livejournal.com]

These are INCREDIBLE. II, IV, and X utterly knock my socks off. All of them do, but those especially.

The beauty and flow of your language continually astonishes.

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

Most of this language was Mr. Stevens' (http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/stevens-13ways.html), but I had a lot of fun adapting it to House. Thanks!

[inlaterdays.livejournal.com]

Sorry; that's what I meant! :)

I just spent a day and a half trying and failing to write haiku. D: It's no easy task to alter a base.

[joe-pike-junior.livejournal.com]

These are just so cool. I think IX is my favourite -- matter-of-fact and sad at the same time.

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

These were very fun to do. It was interesting how little had to be changed from the original poem to make the words relevant to House.