>                           Here Lieth Thomas C Ware
>                             In the Arms of God
>                              A Beacon of Light
>                                   Who
>                             Never Metaphor He Liked
>

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                                                 3/3/99
Heigh Ho!


        How dreadfully charming to encounter one's epitaph on e-mail--and
framed (mirabile dictu!) by someone who is not even listed as a beneficiary
on any of my annuities.  For Prof. Rice to hustle me off to that
existential moment which I assume urologists now term the Ultimate
Disfunction, and thence to that great M.L.A. convention in the sky--after
only two meetings as Faculty Secretary--I must seem older to the outside
world than I do to myself, the ironic reverse of Dorian Gray's problem.
"We will sorely miss him," says Prof. Rice, a pitch that when used years
ago by insurance salesmen was called "backing up the hearse."
I may have a few more MWF's and TuTh's left in me--not many, perhaps, but I
think some, although there is something a bit ominous about receiving this
message, as I did, through an agency called RAVEN.  As a onetime eager
reader of Poe, I may not wish to pose many questions these days that could
have answers I don't particularly choose to hear.
        So for the nonce,instead of the final insignia to the world he
suggests for me, an engraved granite tongue sticking up from a sea of
grass, I often consider holding up from time to time some more feathery
form of memento mori.
        Perhaps the one item that bothers me most in his listings of
cliches,venerable and hoary (you should pardon the expression) as most of
them have become, is likening my mind to a "mousetrap."  Come on, now: even
the old image of "steel trap" is far too simple and mechanistic for this
latter period of apocalyptic expectations.  Were he to see my mind from the
inside, he'd think a swirling pool of half-devoured intentions would be
more appropriate; or a prison yard filled with mischievous chimpanzees
scrambling to escape; or a  stormy meadow floating with pages torn from
books; or a barefoot man on a high-wire without a balancing pole; or it's
when I'm ten years old, and in a large classroom presided over by a
six-foot two nun with the name of a Polish saint; or so on and so on. It's
usually dark in there.
        The point to all this brouhaha, for those who are not certain of
the context, is, was, an offhand comment about metaphors. The trouble with
the uses of most metaphors is the same as the trouble with three- and four-
day old glazed donuts: they're stale and they stick to whatever part of
your body  you use to pick them up.

        Yours in couse of fresh and vivid language.

        tcw