An arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife

Oh, that I knew a schöne Müllerin, of whom I might truthfully say that I'd let her millstones grind my staff of life any day of the week! Then, truly, would life be good.—but as good as it would be if that were the case and, moreover, I figured out how to work in some stuff about grinding slow or grinding exceeding fine into the line without making it an ungainly chimera? No! It seems that even hypothetical better lives can hypothesize still better lives.

I've come up with a brilliant—perhaps too brilliant—idea for a Modern Love column. The headline (though I realize the authors of articles and columns don't generally pick their own headlines, and I'm not even sure that the Modern Love column has headlines): "A Boswell to my johnson". In it, the ever so slightly fictionalized Adonis-like author from, say, South Carolina takes up with an ever so slightly clichéd sensitive poet type, who in fact is more than a poet type and is a real poet, who (in fact!) begins composing poems to the protagonist's reproductive organ, being, as said fictionalized author describes the situation, the Boswell to his johnson, receiving every word of its thick southern drawl and ennobling them* in poetry**. At first, HAP will be a little put off by the whole proceeding, especially when acceptances from various reviews and journals and such concerns start coming in. Literally dozens of people might be reading these poems! However, ease returns to his mind after (something happens to bring this about). But then his boat is rocked again by a disturbing change in fortune: no more acceptances, but many rejection slips. Is his inamorata trying to signal something? Is she no longer capable of appreciating teh c0ck? Or some other possibility which I believe I had thought of before but now can't remember? Es ist ihm egal; either way, he can't handle what any possibility might mean; the relationship is over.

It may be true that the entire exercise above was just an excuse to deploy the doubtless highly unoriginal phrase "a Boswell to my johnson".

* The other night, when I first thought of this hare-brained scheme, I had a much better word in mind, but now, now it is forgotten!
** Boswell, to the best of my knowledge, was not a poet, but, to my mind, this confers on my hypothetical column an advantage, viz, that the sort of reader who likes thinking that he or she is more informed than the nits who write the Modern Love column will have something about which to feel more informed.

Comments

[A White Bear]

Hmm, the only time I've ever used the phrase, it was not in reference to my c0ck, but to the pug I do not own, who I imagine would run along at my heels, staring up at me and writing down every word I say. My little Boswell!

What if the Boswell to your johnson actually wrote down everything your cock did and said, had quarrels with your cock, made up with your cock, and caused a nation to adore your cock?

[ben wolfson]

I submit to you that, in the circumstances you describe, what you said was "the Boswell to my Johnson", not "the Boswell to my johnson".

[bitchphd]

AWB, your little dog story amuses me because my students once decided that Boswell was, in fact, exactly like a yippy little dog from a Warner Bros. cartoon.

Ben, I'm going to steal this idea of yours, but I'm not going to wate it on the Modern Love column. You'll countenance my theft because I shall mention you in the dedication or acknowledgements or something, which will lead the entire world to think it's about *your* cock, and therefore they will beat a path to your door.

[apostropher]

they will beat a path to your door.

Or just beat your johnson. These outcomes are devilishly difficult to predict.

[bitchphd]

Either one, however, is obviously desireable, so who cares?

[Standpipe Bridgeplate]

receiving every word of its thick southern drawl and ennobling them*

* […] I had a much better word in mind, but now, now it is forgotten!

Emphasis added. The referent of the asterisked pronoun is the singular "every word".