celticdragonfly: (couple)
celticdragonfly ([personal profile] celticdragonfly) wrote2005-01-20 11:08 pm

Filks and straight lines

[livejournal.com profile] selenite is evil, that's all there is to it.

He was explaining to [livejournal.com profile] phoenixsinger about a game master screen, and mentioned them having just about any table a GM might want to look up. I compared it to how many cookbooks will have at the front or back charts of measurements comparisons, how many tablespoons in a cup and such, and substitutions such as how much minced onion = a chopped up fresh onion.

Then I looked at [livejournal.com profile] selenite and softly sang "The prudent cookbooks give it / in tables at the end, the drops that make a teaspoon ..." (based on Leslie Fish singing Kipling's Hymn of Breaking Strain, of course).

We riffed off various ideas for this for a moment or two, and I was just thinking it would make a pretty good filk, although perhaps I should hand it off to someone who knows rather more about cooking than I do. (Why yes, [livejournal.com profile] selenesue, I was thinking of you.)

Then [livejournal.com profile] selenite looked at me and said, "well, you could make something out of it, but it's still going to be half-baked."

I whacked him with one of my knitting needles.

New Kipling

[identity profile] carbonelle.livejournal.com 2005-01-21 06:27 am (UTC)(link)
Can't believe I missed this:

Be with us in our hour
Of overthrow and pain;
That we—by which sure token
We know Thy ways are true—
In spite of being broken,
Because of being broken,
May rise and build anew.
Stand up and build anew!

So thanks!

Re: New Kipling

[identity profile] celticdragonfly.livejournal.com 2005-01-21 03:43 pm (UTC)(link)
This one was new to you? It's one of Karl's favorites. Someone sang it during the Sunday morning Ecumenifilk at GAFilk. At the start of it I was so wishing Karl was in the room - then he showed up in the doorway and I frantically waved him in.

ROFL!

[identity profile] selenesue.livejournal.com 2005-01-21 05:36 pm (UTC)(link)
OK, let me lay some on you, including your own line. For some reason, the prose seems to apply to the metaphor of BAKING as oppose to other culinary endeavors. Surely the metaphor to human life is just as close. Some of the lines were not changed at all... well the best filks are the ones that need the least changes to the original to change the entire intent of the whole, yesno?

-=-=-=-

THE CAREFUL cook-books measure
(Let all who bake beware!)
The length and kneading pressure
amino chains can bear.
So, when the buckled dough-hook
Lets down the grinding grain,
The blame of loss, or heartburn,
Is laid upon the man.
Not on the Stuff—the Man!

But, in our daily dealing
With stone and peel, we find
The Gods have no such feeling
Of justice toward mankind.
To no receipt they make us,—
For no laid course prepare—
And presently o’erbake us
With temps we cannot bear:
Too merciless to bear.

The prudent cook-books give it
In tables at the end—
The drops that make a tea-spoon
Or makes a pretzel bend—
What Celsius bakes a biscuit
What whole-wheat should endure—
But we, poor Sons of Adam,
Have no such literature,
To warn us or make sure!


OK you take it for a while. For more inspiration, check out Master Wulfric's bread page:
http://www.whirlwind-design.com/madbaker/demisun.html