Tuesday, August 21, 2007

A tribute blog to Theresa Duncan

Well, it was bound to happen. Theresa Duncan's "children" have started a tribute blog to their dearly-departed, demented plagiarist. The group blog Children of the Staircase is "a place where Theresa's admirers can post items, scents, musings, or images that they think are especially Theresa Duncan-esque or that inspire them."

Perhaps someone can explain how to post a scent over the internet. The first scent that comes to mind when thinking of Duncan is "fishy." I'd post something in the cod family. Yes, definitely something cod-liver-y. Preferably reheated.

Children of the Staircase write:

We are not trying to duplicate "Wit of the Staircase," which would be impossible. No one can ever replace Theresa's sparkling writing and wit. But she inspired us and continues to inspire us so we'd like to use this blog as a virtual bulletin board on which to capture scattered pearls.



Actually, you'd be surprised. It's pretty easy to duplicate Duncan's writing, Children of the Staircase. I'm going to give try. A-hem! [clearing throat] Here's my Duncanesque quote of the day. It goes something like this:

"Old Dan Tucker" is a popular American song. Its origins remain obscure; the tune may have come from the oral tradition, and the words may have been written by songwriter and performer Dan Emmett. The blackface troupe the Virginia Minstrels popularized "Old Dan Tucker" in 1843, and it quickly became a minstrel hit, behind only "Miss Lucy Long" and "Mary Blane" in popularity during the antebellum period. Mr. Wit and I often hum the tune to Old Dan Tucker when we're sitting in his studio waiting for his agent to call with news of another spectacular sale. Said agent's name is Dan of course and there's something about Dan's name, his sweet, mellifluous below the Mason-Dixon line drawl when he calls to say "sooooooled anahtha pahnting, Jerahmy!" that brings to mind this haunting folks pre-pre-punk melody. Perhaps Mr. Wit and I are artists who long for a time when agriculture was the major economic activity and the CIA and mind manipulators did not lurk in alleyways and canals. Back then sugar production, in particular, required large amounts of land, labor, and capital, and it was along the fertile river bottoms of the Mississippi delta that one could find the grand, extensive plantations commonly associated with the antebellum South.Yes, Mr. With and I love our canal cottage, but on some nights, when gardenias bloom and dogs howl, we long for the lush gardens and ornate mansions of our dual and complex vision's imaginary South. Sugarcane heavy air mixed with a slave lover's musky sweat, rumpled bed strawmattressy mess sunk down in the center, cramped shared quarters, books read by candlelight, a punk Scarlett O'Hara betrayed by desire, taffeta and manure on the heels of her boots.

5 comments:

poussin said...

I wish you had illustrated this post with a picture of the "strawmattressy mess" that you have so evocatively conjured.

The tribute site is overreaching just a tiny bit, don't you think? Is it just hurricanes that Theresa is whipping up? Can we count on Theresa-generated tornadoes, snowstorms, and dust devils? Is she from here on in responsible for all natural disasters and freak weather anomalies?

Greater questions, Poulet, greater questions.

Consider the malodorous possibilities of internet scratch and sniff. Gee, why didn't someone think of that earlier? There must be a trick to it and we enfants of the coop look to you to figure out how to do it.

Poulet said...

Thanks for your faithful readership, Poussin. I think you, Kate Coe and a handful of other souls are the only ones reading my chicken scratchings.

(And btw, please feel free to do your own research and post here telling us what you find.I just don't have the energy to get into the whole Sid & Nancy thing you'd mentioned. Don't tell anyone but punk bores me.)

Good point. This post should have included an appropriate pic. I was too lazy to add one. What can I say, I'm just not as ambitious a blogger as The Wit was.

I found the tribute site inspiring, actually. I've a mind to set up my own Duncanesque blog to give people what they're clearly craving: eccentric, "well-researched" meandering (and sometimes paranoid) posts based on wikipedia articles.

LeChat said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
LeChat said...

Please don't give up, poulet. There is so much left to explain:
...the fascination with Freud
...the reliance on fetish items, such as "several vintage typewriters in The Wit Of The Staircase office" that were pointedly not used (if real they are "status symbols" but not using the imaginary typewriters...whazat??)
...the assertion on Wednesday, July 26, 2006 that "Mr. Wit Of The Staircase and I are looking to buy a house in Los Angeles, most likely Topanga Canyon, and I can't tell you what this has thrown up from the Wit unconscious." Some big messiness, presumably, in view of the next year's events.

I hope I don't sound catty.

A successful career in the arts demands generous portions of self confidence, energy, intelligence and talent - and a soupcon of delusion. The proportions are variable, and that's why (as many others have argued) we're interested in TD.

Thank you!
(Reposted because cats can't edit. Meow.)

Poulet said...

Lechat, your name reminds me of an Eddie Izzard bit.

TD was determined to be a bohemian, so it makes sense she'd stake out Topanga as her future home.