MAGIC WORDS Ding Bing Ping Swing Zunk Facts: This is a magic phrase for materializing a puppy dog in Oral Storytelling and Teaching Mathematics by Michael Schiro (2004). Dionysus He comes, the sudden Lord, A rhythmic Spike of Light, To cleave you with that spike: Himself, His flowing Word. Strike, O Poem. Strike! -- Stanley Kunitz, "For the Word is Flesh" (19 0) Facts: Dionysus is a god of ancient Greek and Roman mythology, patron of the theatre, wine and agriculture, law and civilization. He is associated with the secret rites of the mystery religions. In Literature: • "'Dionysus' had been Nietzsche's magic word to shake the world out of its slumber." -- Rudiger Safranski, Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography (2002) Dogura-Magura Origins: This is a Japanese equivalent to abracadabra. Dogura-Magura "is a word in the Kyushu dialect for 'magic used by Christians' (Kyushu, especially the Nagasaki area, was one of the first places in Japan where European merchants and Jesuits made settlements.)"4 Facts: Dogura-Magura is the title of a 19 5 work of avant-garde Gothic lit erature by Kyûsaku Yumeno. Variations and Incantations: • Dogra Magra "The poem itself is a magic ritual. The 'He' [Dionysus] . . . is the sudden Lord, a rhythmic Spike of Light, Himself, his flowing Word, and the Poem. This flurry of identities is a mystery of simultaneous beings not attributes. He is the spike and the word which the spike causes to flow. The poem, like the god, embodies and enacts its mystery. Kunitz here, as elsewhere, insists on the magical properties of language in poetry." -- Gregory Orr, Stanley Kunitz (1985) 4 Kyûsaku Yumeno, Dogura-Magura (19 5), translated by Gishokitty. 5 John Clute and John Grant, The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1999)