Monthly Archives: July 2008

Like so many things I get involved in, the brief sketch I planned for this spot has gotten completely out of hand. Rather than rein it in, which would take even more time, I’ll include it (below the spinach) but not ask it to do what it was originally intended to do, which was, to explain this photograph.

Yes, it’s true, that’s a white flag. I am ready to cease hostilities.

Yesterday morning I learned that I had won the limerick contest over at the Garden Monkey’s place. Thank you, Mr. Monkey, for choosing me out of that densely crowded and talented field. (Okay, moderately crowded. Or do I mean moderately dense? Hmm.)

My limericks were of course caustic attacks on James, my fellow dueler of the now intercontinental Sock Wars, which have swept up an increasing number of innocent bloggers, threatening the tranquility of their community. My prize is a signed copy of Gardeners’ World 101 – Bold and Beautiful Flowers, by one James Alexander-Sinclair. Yes, same James.

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Variously known as the “Sock Wars,” the “Transatlantic Sock Wars,” the “Spaghetti War,” and “Dueling Bloggers,” this bitter exchange brought “diplomatic gardening relations” between the United States and the United Kingdom “to an all time low,” as one esteemed historian put it.

List of the Original Posts (see bottom of page)
History of the Exchange
Analysis of Impact
    On International Relations
    On the English Language
    On Internet Use

HISTORY OF THE EXCHANGE

Pictures of socks flew across the Atlantic, black and white–

competing with brilliantly colored–

the neatly paired, as in the two photographs above, with the totally disarrayed, as in the one below.

Threats involving noodles, dibbers, fish, and dueling pistols were traded with an abandon that paid little heed to possible long-term international consequences, and the price of potting soil plunged worldwide. Oblivious to this catastrophe, gardeners throughout the US and the UK took sides, exchanging insults the likes of which had never been heard in the normally peaceable and polite gardening community. Terms such as “dastardly” and “blackguard” were freely used.

Eventually, diplomats from Kissinger to Mandela were brought in to broker a peace, but the contestants could not agree on the degree of gardening expertise required of a mediator, and after one side sent Kissinger packing, there was little hope that the other side would accept any mediator. Unfortunately, the dispute happened to occur over the Fourth of July, when Americans celebrate their independence from Britain–a coincidence that perhaps sharpened both the rhetoric and the appetite for blood of all those involved. Riots broke out iin a number of major cities in the U.S., during which people ripped up and burnt beds of English Ivy, vowing to rename it “Freedom Ivy” and to burn anyone who dared grow it. One man who tried to point out a perceived failure of logic here was bundled into the middle of a great ball of ivy and rolled down the longest, steepest hill in Kansas, a distance of at least ten feet. He suffered two bruises and a scrape, and staggered from the scene, a sadder and wiser man.

In recent years, many have pooh-poohed the seriousness of the events, as did this commentator:

“Really, the whole thing was quite old hat, all overblown rhetoric and outworn insults. If it weren’t for the tragic international repercussions, leading to France’s withdrawal from NATO (and, of course, the odd incident of the fish-flavored spaghetti, from which Italy’s pasta industry has never recovered) no one would bother with it today. The only truly memorable aspect of the entire bruhaha is the remarkably chic pair of socks that appeared on VP’s blog in the very early days of the controversy, before it degenerated into the farcical shifts in allegiance, the endless one-upmanship, that characterizes it today, ten years later.”

ANALYSIS OF IMPACT

    On the English Language

It is widely suspected that a number of colloquialisms that we now take for granted actually had their genesis in the Sock Wars. For instance, some linguists believe that “to wet-fish” as in, “Don’t you wet-fish me!” can be traced to the suggestion that wet fish be used as weapons in the constantly threatened duel around which the “wars” revolved.

    On the Internet

An unprecedented number of bloggers (one) started filing posts under the new category “silliness.”

LIST OF THE ORIGINAL POSTS

7/3   The Manic Gardener                           
           “Dueling Bloggers”

7/4    Blogging from Blackpitts Garden   
            “This Time, It Is Serious”
          Aunt Debbie’s Garden                      
            “High Noon…the Spaghetti War Begins”
         The Garden Monkey
            “Garden Monkey’s Guide to Horticultural Limericks #3”

7/5    Blogging from Blackpitts Garden  
            “It Is Still A Bit Serious”
          Veg Plotting                                       
            “Dibbers at Dawn?”

7/6    Veg Plotting                                        
            “Dibbers at Dawn: The Backstory   
        Blogging from Blackpitts Garden   
            “Vroom, Vroom”
        Veg Plot                                                
            “Blog Warfare”
        Daphne’s Dandelions
            “Succession Crops”

7/7   Veg Plot                                                 
            “Lettuce”

7/8   The Manic Gardener                          
            “Dueling Limericks: So there, VP!”

7/9   The Garden Monkey                          
          “Garden Monkey’s Guide to Horticultural Limericks #4”

7/10   The Manic Gardener                              
        “Truce Just in Time: ‘Speech, Speech'”

There have been intimations (ahem, VP) that the Dueling Bloggers might be willing to lay down arms or banjos. Nothing could be further from the truth. As to the suggestion that I, Kate of The Manic Gardener, An Organic Gardening Blog with Twisted Roots–and no, I don’t want to explain that name at the moment–am ready to beat a retreat, I laugh–ha ha!–and point out that it is James who has just "gone away," as he would put it, though fled would be nearer the truth.

For those of you who stumble, bewildered, upon one of the posts about this ongoing international dispute and who seek an even-handed account of its origins (i.e. you want to know what the hell is going on), good luck. If you find one, let me know. In the meantime, you’ll have to settle for my version, a soon-to-be-available-page on this  blog that lists all the relevant posts in order. If I’m miss ing any, tell me. (It tells you something about this dispute that you have to rely on a page that doesn’t yet exist, assembled by one of the main antagonists, to get any information at all.)

With apologies to James, Fred Astaire, all poets, the Thames, and anyone who cares about the English language, I offer the following poetical compositions for your reading pleasure:

                    I.
A blogger named Black-hearted James
for his sins was once tossed in the Thames;
    If you say, “That don’t rhyme,
    And me grammar’s just fine,”
You can join in his deep-water games.

                II.
The garden of James A.-Sinclair
Could out-tapdance bland Fred Astaire
    throw its hats in the air,
    toss its shirts everywhere,
And flower its socks off—what flair!

                    III.
There once was a blogger from Blackpitts
Whose flowers all suffered from sock-fits;
    When they bloomed they exploded
    (It seems they were loaded)
And tossed their socks skyward in cloth bits.

                    IV.
For crimes against Kate, Blackguard James
Deserved to be flung in the Thames.
    Said she, “Keep ‘im dry;
    If he’s wet he won’t fry—
What a waste of hell’s hottest flames.”

                    V.
James Alexander-Sinclair?
Last heard of, his garden was bare.
    It flowered its socks off,
    ‘till cops had to block off
The street, and a curfew declare.

                    VI.
A sniveling blackguard named James
Once crossed one of Montana’s dames:
    She wanted to shoot ‘im,
    But settled for hootin’
and hollering, “Them’s all false claims!”

First things first: When I went to Benjamin’s blog to get the URL for the link below, I discovered that today is his wedding anniversary, so, Happy Anniversary, Benjamin and Jackie!

Last week for Garden Blogger’s Muse Day, one of my favorite blogs, The Deep Middle — a title I find allusive and alluring, curiously abstract for all the simple geometry of its two main words — turned up with a poem by Tom Wayman, one of my favorites. Reading it brought back to mind the poem below, which indirectly says a lot about why I garden and why my gardening focuses on vegetables. Since I seem unable to put on a pair of shoes these days, much less a sock, without spreading controversy across several oceans, it’s not surprising that this poem is political and will probably raise some hackles.

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