FEB 29b, pandemic verse: Kermit's prediction

"Some Pandemic Evening"
main commercial street of Mt Pleasant, SC;
8 pm; view towards Ravenel Bridge

FEB 29, photo-collage, Carolina lowcountry: unusual wildlife

a dock-coyote

Pete the Plastic Pelican

lawn unicorn, Mt. Pleasant, SC

a flock of flamingos

FEB 28, American satire: Disingenuous Don

Author's Note: Rex Tillerson, formerly a petroleum-industry executive, served for just over a year as Secretary of State under the contentious 45th president. Tillerson disagreed with his chief on a number of issues, the press reporting that Tillerson had referred to his boss as a "moron". Although this report was denied, Tillerson was publicly challenged by his leader to an IQ contest, and then was summarily fired in March 2018.

We hope that you enjoyed this verse. You can find dozens more on this topic in 7 collections on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. Click HERE to start! 

FEB 27, wordplay maps: American Scramble-towns 1,2

Who would ever have guessed? It turns out that an unparalleled word in generating anagrams (letter scrambles) is P-A-L-I-N-D-R-O-M-E-S. We have taken advantage of that property to create this unique series of wordplay maps of imaginary American (and Canadian) locales, each one completed by its official two-letter state (or provincial) abbreviation. 

LINKS: 

Forward to U.S.A. map #3

FEB 26, the Charleston garden: garden-tour docent

You can review these illustrated verses in a wider context by proceeding to 'Poetry Praising the Charleston Garden' on the full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. Click HERE!

FEB 25, American satire: 'covfefe'

We hope that you enjoyed this verse. You can find dozens more on this topic in 7 collections on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. Click HERE to start!  

FEB 24, canal verses: the Paris canal -- St-Martin

              

You can discover a bunch of silly illustrated poems about canals by checking out the collection on "Edifying Nonsense" entitled "Panama Palindrome Parodies".

FEB 23, insects: fire ants

Authors' Note: The authors note, with regret, and with continuing scratching of their inflamed ankles, the opening of the 'fire ant season'.      

Even in the winter, they can be activated.
Watch out!

You can review Giorgio's other verses about pesty and occasionally beneficial insects, as  collected in 'Buzzwords: Verses about Insects' on the full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE.

Feb 22, bottom line of medical humor: gastro-intestinal pact

Authors' Note: The concept of a formal truce was approached by both parties following the authors' misguided indulgence in the preparation for an endoscopic procedure. 

 You can view these informative verses in a wider context by proceeding to the collection 'The BOTTOM LINE of MEDICAL HUMOR' on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE!

FEB 21, American satire: revision of NAFTA

Author's Note: NAFTA is the acronym for the North American Free Trade Agreement, a pact formed by the U.S., Canada and Mexico in 1994. The trilateral pact has been the target of invective, and the subject of renegotiations by the Republican administration in 2017 to 2019.

We hope that you enjoyed this verse. You can find dozens more on this topic in 7 collections on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. Click HERE to start! 

FEB 20, singable satire: "CONSTANTINOPOLIS" (the seer of Byzantion)

 PARODY SONG-LYRICS

ORIGINAL SONG: "Moscow Nights"(Подмосковные вечера,  Podmoskovnie vechera), Chad Mitchell Trio, 1963. You can listen to the well-known Trio's version on YouTube here, or a version with English translation here.
The original was created as "Leningrad Nights" by composer Solovyov-Sedoi and poet Matusovsky in 1955, but changed at the request of the Ministry of Culture for use in a documentary about a national athletic competition. The tune was subsequently popularized in the West, in the middle of the Cold War era, by Van Cliburn in 1958, and recorded with commercial success by Kenny Ball and the Jazzmen, and the Chad Mitchell Trio in the early 60s. 

PARODY COMPOSED: Dr. G.H. and Giorgio Coniglio (registered pseudonym) , August 2018. This post deals with Graeco-Roman history during the Byzantine period, and was in part inspired by trips to Turkey and Greece, as well as by the song "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)", a swing-era hit with a very catchy tune whose lyrics are a bit truncated re history.

UKULELE and GUITAR-FRIENDLY LINK: Our whole series of songs can be found in a friendly format for ukulele (and guitar)-players on our sister blog "SILLY SONGS and SATIRE" with chord-charts for both the parody and original song, as well as helpful performing suggestions. 

To find ukulele chord-charts to help you accompany "Constantinopolis" on your favorite instrument, click HERE.

CONSTANTINOPOLIS

(to the tune of "Moscow Nights")


Said Byzántion’s seer,* “Constantine will found,

Nova Roma, his new cosmopolis.

They’ll construct right here;  

Then we Greeks will cheer

Rome’s second home: Constanti-no-po-lis.” 

“In Rome’s legions march with a martial sound,

They’ll build Fourth Century’s eastern cosmopolis --

Grand Sophia’s dome,

And a huge Hippodrome

Rome’s second home: Constanti-no-po-lis.”

“Who’ll unite this Empire too vast to rule?

Few the Caesars who exert such might.

Year Three-Ninety-Five (395 A.D.),

Things take a permanent dive --

East/West will split; West drops out of sight.

“In clean-shaven West, ‘barbarians’ storm the gates,

Middle Ages will settle there to stay.

Vandals, Lombards, Goths –

Old stomping grounds get lost,

Down East here, ‘Roman’ power’ll hold sway.”

“Who will dogma craft for new Christian creed?

Peter’s primacy;  Roman popes’ll.

We’ll counter Holy See

With Eastern Orthodoxy,

Here in Byzantine Constan-ti-nople.”

“Vicious wars with neighbours” quoth our sooth-saying seer,

Peering in his Prophet-Kit prism,   

“Charlemagne and Popes

Will undermine our hopes,

And result in an East-West Schism.”

“Things take a bad turn with the Fourth Crusade,

Frankish knights, their mission quite hopeless --   

Retake Holy Lands?

But no! They’ll change their plans,

Seize and ‘Latinize’ Constantinopolis.”

 “Fifty years to rid the place of Latin louts

Then two centuries, invasions we’ll stop. All this

Has an end, it’s clear.”

States our seer, with tear,

"When Turks topple Constantinopolis.”

Then we took our seer out for lunch that day

To a small café by the Bosporus.

Name of the café

Where we ate that day,

Was ‘Istanbul (Not Constantinopolis)’.

*  the prediction was made by the Seer early in the fourth century A.D.

Byzántion (Greek), later known as Byzantium (Latin) was at that time a moderate-sized Greek colony-city on the Bosporus. It was chosen by the Roman Emperor Constantine to become the eastern capital of his empire.

As capital of the Roman Empire (also called Romania), the grand city was known as Constantinopolis, or Konstantinoupolis, for most of its history, i.e. until 1453 A.D. (later as Istanbul by the Turks). The term 'Byzantine Empire' has only been in use by Western historians since that time.

FEB 19, waterfowl: Canada geese

To see more photos of these birds, you might want to review our posts "photo-collage: Canada geese" and "folio-entry: a Canada-goose couple".

You can review our collection of illustrated verses in a wider context by proceeding to 'Immersible Verse: Limericks about Waterfowl' on the full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. 

FEB 18, pathos and poetry (gun control verse): Second Amendment rights

 

We hope that you enjoyed this verse. You can review our entire poetic outpouring on the important topic of gun control by proceeding to a post on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'; click HERE.

FEB 17, nuclear cardiology haiku, continued

 

FEB 16, poetic non-sequitur: epistaxis

 Here's a verse that exemplifies use of the prefix EPI- ...

Authors' Note: 

peccadillo: loan-word from Spanish meaning 'little sin’

epistaxis (eh-pih-STAK-sihs): bleeding from the nostrils

  

Our collection of 'Non-Sequiturs' on our parent blog "Edifying Nonsense", contains an admittedly bizarre assortment of nonsensical odds-and-ends, that don't quite fit into other topic-based offerings. But should you want to review the entire collection, click HERE.

FEB 15, wordplay maps: new world palindromes (#7,#8)

TO ENLARGE any slide or stand-alone photo on this blog, just click on it. To reverse the process, and return to this standard view, find the little 'x' in the upper right corner of the black field and click there.

You can view the entire collection of these 50 wordplay maps, by accessing the collection 'Tourists Palindromic Guides: The Americas'. Start by clicking HERE! 

FEB 14, holidays and celebrations: Valentine's Day

TO ENLARGE any slide or stand-alone photo on this blog, just click on it. To reverse the process, and return to this standard view, find the little 'x' in the upper right corner of the black field and click there.

"The Kiss" by Auguste Rodin, marble, 1882
(photo by G.C. at Rodin Museum, Paris, 2019)

FEB 13, classic palindrome: 'never odd or even'

Authors' Note: 

odd or even: binary classification of whole real numbers, related to basic counting, as in the idiomatic ‘counting sheep’ remedy for insomnia

never odd or even: classic palindrome that seems to revel, perhaps excessively, in the profusion of numbers that cannot be classified by the above simple scheme

You can review these illustrated verses in a wider context by proceeding to 'Reversing Verse: Limericks About Classic Palindromes' on the full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. 

FEB 12, magical palindromes: examples #6 to #10

You can become an expert fan of our wordplay concoction 'magical palindromes' by reviewing the explanatory material found in ancient days on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense" HERE; then, you could check how we applied this technique to 'canal palindromes' by viewing this more recent post.

FEB 11, garden intruders: common (eastern) moles

Keep more to yourself for a while, wash your hands frequently, remember to laugh on occasion, and stay well!

Readers, you are fortunate to have available all our poetic comments on creatures (animal and vegetable), devoted to subverting your gardening plans. To view this collection on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense", click HERE!

FEB 10, a brief saga (trees): sabal palmetto trees

  a) Reprise of material posted on February 10 in previous years ...

2020: poets' corner, depressed poet (photo folio)
2021: insects, computer bugs (illustrated poem) 
2022: inspired by Ogden Nash, a sloth in a slough (illustrated poem)
2023: submitted palindromes, targeted, Was it a rat I saw? (wordplay)

To access the details of any item in slide format, type its title, as displayed above in red font (e.g. ... goose family), into one of the two search bars at the the top of your blog-page. Underneath the slide(s) for each entertaining delight that you discover, you will find a clickable link that lets you easily explore a more widespread collection of wonderments (verse, photos, wordplay, song-lyrics etc.) on the topic of your choice. 

b) Today's Offering (Oct 20, 2024): 

Authors' Note: Sabal palmettos, native trees growing along the southeastern and Gulf coastlines of the United States, are also distributed and planted in the temperate portions of the country further west.

You can review these illustrated verses in a wider context by proceeding to 'Uprooted Verse: 'Poems about Trees' on the full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". 

For the purpose of this blog, a 'brief saga' is defined as a poem, usually narrative, but occasionally expository, that tell its story in at least 15 lines. Most commonly, the format involves three or more stanzas in limerick form. Your blogging team has been presenting these concoctions at the rate of one per month, mixed in with the shorter poems, wordplay and other general offerings.  

  

To access the next 'brief saga' on this blog (March 2020), proceed to Walrus and Carpenter (Carolina lowcountry version)'.

To access the most recent previous 'brief saga' (Jan/Feb 2020), back up to 'Chemainus, British Columbia '.  

To access all of our 'brief sagas' by the year of their creation, click on your selection below.

2020
2021

FEB 9, anagram swarm: tribute to a Senator

Picking up on last week's news, here is our tribute to an individual, Senator Mitt Romney, who decided to voice his opinion, even if that would result in invective and scorn being heaped on him by those who hoped to pressure him to toe the 'party-line'.


(You can enlarge any slide or individual photo on this website by clicking on it. To exit the viewing-mode, click the small 'x' in the right upper corner of the blackened field.)

FEB 8, wordplay maps: new world palindromes (#5,#6)

You can view the entire collection of these 50 wordplay maps, by accessing the collection 'Tourists Palindromic Guides: The Americas'. Start by clicking HERE!