MESSENGERMy work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird —
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.
Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,
which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.
~ Mary Oliver, born in 1935, American poet
When what I typically call my work becomes just a bit overwhelming, it's good to remember what my work really is (or should be).
By Alexander Humez
Largely gone from the funny pages but alive and well on the rear bumper of the car, the rebus is a visual puzzle that, in its various forms, encapsulates the history of alphabetic writing from ideograms (pictures designating concepts or things) to pictographs (pictures representing specific words or phrases) to phonograms (pictures representing specific sounds or series of sounds). Dictionaries struggle to define the term in such a way as to capture the range of shapes a rebus can take, typically focussing on its pictographic and phonogrammic attributes, forgoing mention of the ideographic. For example, the OED defines rebus as “a. An enigmatical representation of a name, word, or phrase by figures, pictures, arrangement of letters, etc., which suggest the syllables of which it is made up. b. In later use also applied to puzzles in which a punning application of each syllable of a word is given, without pictorial representation.”
The origin of the word is a matter of some debate (nicely summarized by Maxime Préaud in his “Breve histories du rebus francis” and treated at greater length by Card and Margo lin in their Rebus de la Renaissance: Des images quai par lent), but whatever its pedigree, the thing itself has been a popular item since at least the end of the fifteenth century. In his treatise on orthography of 1526 (Champ Fleur), Geoffroi Tory notes the practice of “jokers and young lovers” who make up “devices,” such as a small a inside a large g to signify “Jay grant appetit,” that is, “g grand a petit,” which he decries because, he says, such practices often result in sloppy penmanship and pronunciation. After giving a few more examples of “devices” made up of letters, he goes on to say that there are devices that aren’t made up of “significative letters,” but, rather, are made up of “images which signify the fantasies of their Author, & this is called a Rebus,” of which he describes (but does not depict) some examples.
The simplest rebuses are those consisting only of letters: IOU, the (in)famous title of Marcel Duchamp’s moustached Mona Lisa “l.h.o.o.q.” (Elle a chaud au cul, literally something like ‘Her ass is hot,’ figuratively, ‘She’s horny’), and such staples of modern day texting as CUL8R or French @2m1 (à deux m un, i.e., “à demain” ‘[See you] tomorrow’).
An elaboration of the all-character rebus is exemplified by the following, the first in English, the second in French (cited by Estienne Tabouret des Accords in his Les Bigarrures et Touches du Seigneur des Accords—roughly, ‘Lord des Accord’s Medley of Colors and Dabs’—which appeared in several editions in the late 16 th century):
(“I am overworked and underpaid”) and
(Le sous het en sur pens le
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