Burns Supper, 2013: Toast To The Lassies Revised

The dirge of winter upon us, we were happy to be invited to one of the season's highlights: the Robert Burns Supper.

The haggis (both traditional and veggie) were particularly tasty, and the whiskies included a Talisker, a Balvenie, two Ardbegs and a very special Bunnahabhain.

There was much delight in readings of all sorts, and even a multi-media rap extravaganza. That is not a joke, it was incredible.

Aya gave an energetic and sincere rendition of the Selkirk Grace while wearing a tiny hat that she had decorated.

Keith had to find a way to up the ante on last year's sideburns.

Our starlit, effervescent Host and our robust, erudite Chairman generously invited Keith to repeat his Toast To The Lassies that he wrote for last year's Supper. That original contained some now-outdated material, so he gave it a re-working and even managed to memorize it. Here it is, with the borrowed bits glossed below:

A Toast to the Lassies.

To honour the Lassies from the heart,
I think we must really go back to the start,
While Evolution's advances may sometimes perplex us,
Its best move was our split into two different sexes,

None of us here, of course, can remember,
What life was like before there was gender,
Think of the emptiness, the complete perversity,
Of life in the time before biodiversity,

But we left that tangled bank¹ behind,
And what a pleasure, then, to find,
The act of mating befits the Id²,
Far more than parthenogenesis³ did,

It has been the root of all our thriving,
As we've increased it's been rhythmically driving,
Over aeons, our selections;
Selfish genes⁴ cloaked in affections,

Now here is Mars, and here is Venus,
And vive la difference between us,
This twinkling binary constellation
Illuminates our primal fascination,

Man's life is enriched by these cherished Others,
Friends, sisters, lovers, wives and mothers,
He's charmed by their wild and graceful eccentricity⁵,
And clumsily joins in an eager domesticity,

To a marriage a Lassie brings what she will,
Her blend of strength and passion and skill,
She offers her Self, her sincerest treasure,
And a Lad reciprocates with pleasure,

For every man quietly comes to know,
Whether or not he lets it show,
That without Woman there is no Man,
Woman is, therefore I am,

So Eilidh, Shawna, Tracey, Janet,
And Aya (the origin of life upon my planet),
Please take this crude communication,
As pure and deep appreciation,

I've made this project too complex,
While that's a birthright of my sex,
My caveman forebears doubtless would,
Have simply grunted, "woman good",

And now the toast at last is here,
Raise your whisky, wine or beer,
And as we drink don't think me rude,
If I ask that we might all include,

Not just the Lassies in our quorum,
But all their kin who've gone before 'em,
Their living faces freshly bloom,
In every flower in this room.

To the Lassies!

©Keith Ikeda-Barry
2013

1) The Tangled Bank Hypothesis suggests that sex evolved in order to prepare offspring for the complicated world around them.  The “tangled bank” phraseology comes from the last paragraph of Darwin’s Origin of Species, in which he referred to a wide assortment of creatures all competing for light and food on a “tangled bank.”

2) The id is the unorganized part of the personality structure that contains a human's basic, instinctual drives.

3) Parthenogenesis is a form of asexual reproduction in which growth and development of embryos occur without fertilization.

4) The Selfish Gene is a book on evolution by Richard Dawkins, published in 1976. Dawkins coined the term "selfish gene" as a way of expressing the gene-centred view of evolution.

5) Letter from Robert Burns to Miss Margaret Chalmers (Sept. 26, 1787) from The Poetical And Prose Works of Robert Burns: With Life, Notes And Correspondence by A. Cunningham