MAR 30, pandemic poetry: the infirm

You can review these illustrated verses in a wider context by proceeding to 'Pandemic Poetry' on the full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense".

MAR 29, mammalian wildlife: Geebo's angwantibo

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

Authors' Note:  The angwantibo (an-GWAN-tee-boh) or golden potto, Calabar angwantibo, is a small golden-haired primate inhabiting parts of Central Africa, including the country of Gabon. It undertakes its propagation rituals while hanging from tree-branches. The results of attempts at such matings by unskilled participants are unrecorded.

  To some readers the name Geebo may seem unlikely, but the author assures you that for the first twenty years of his life this nickname (one of the few of which he approved) was in common use, at least by his siblings; it is still used occasionally in close circles.

 

You can review the whole collection of illustrated verses about mammals (both domestic and exotic) by checking out the more extensive post on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE !

MAR 28, personal and family history: anniversary saga

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

MAR 27, the Charleston garden: gazebos

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'.

MAR 26, Carolina lowcountry: springtime excursions

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

"Nice, hot street pavement for sunning"
(Eastern painted turtle)

immature white ibis (less than two years)
Note the duller color of the bill and legs
and the brown-black body feathers
 versus its older companions
-compare Jan 30 and 31  

early azalea blooms

great egret in the reeds

evening view from Shem Creek Park

MAR 25, holidays and celebrations: Greek Independence Day

 Today is GREEK INDEPENDENCE DAY !

Authors' Note:

evzone: (EHV-zohn, anglicized form), member of an elite unit drawn from the Hellenic Army Infantry Corps

Grand Change: a more elaborate version of the hourly changing of the guard that takes place on Sunday mornings at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Athens' Syntagma Square, providing a popular photo-op for locals and tourists

Kleft (KLEHFT): Greek fighter in the War of Independence

fustanella: kilt made from 30 meters of white cotton, supposedly with 400 pleats to represent each of the years of Ottoman occupation. 

MAR 24, the Charleston garden: creeping fig

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 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!

 

MAR 23, waterfowl: little blue herons

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

characteristic deliberate movements

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

links for any date: scroll over to the calendar-based listings of 'Past Posts' in the righthand column on this page, choose your year and month of interest, and then select (by clicking) the post of your choice.

MAR 22, wordplay maps: new world palindromes (#11,#12)

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

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

MAR 21, the Charleston garden: tractor-seat plant (Farfugium)

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

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!

MAR 20, singable satire: ABBA sings "CANOE CANOE, CANOE, CANOE, CANOE"

PARODY-LYRICS

ORIGINAL SONG: "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do", ABBA, 1975.

PARODY COMPOSED:  Giorgio Coniglio, March 2013.

"A Canadian is someone who knows how to make love in a canoe", Pierre Berton, eminent Canadian journalist, editor, historian and author.
PARODY-SONGLINK: To find ukulele and guitar chord-charts to help you accompany "Canoe, Canoe, Canoe, Canoe, Canoe" on your favorite instrument, click HERE.

CANOEING LESSON

(to the tune of "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do")

Intro: 

Need a location, eh? Lakeside assignation?

Space for two:

Canoe, canoe, canoe, canoe, canoe.

You’ll use the J-stroke, to steer straight; and for gay-folk

Take a crew;

Canoe, canoe, canoe, canoe, canoe.

Best pick a partner like Twiggy, but short;

Bow to discomfort if trapped ’neath the thwart.

Put down your paddle, when you climb in the saddle.
’musez-vous !
Canoe, canoe, canoe, canoe, canoe.

Wear your preserver, ’cause things might get rude,

If Mounties spot-check, and you’re in the nude.

Don’t lean on the gunwale, should you enter a tunnel;

This tip’s true:

Canoe, canoe, canoe, canoe, canoe.

Pierre Berton coined it our iconic boat,

Control paroxysms, you’re certain to float.

Get with your tête-à-tête, and not get quite soaking wet,

C’est beau !

Canot, canot, canot, canot, canot.

One final pointer:  l’avant-canotage –

Don’t flirt with fore-play pendant le portage.

There’s no better bateau built for Anglo- or Franco –

Vous et nous;

Canoe, canot, Canuck, canot, canoe.

MAR 19, the Charleston garden: indica azaleas

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

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!

MAR 18, wordplay maps: American Scramble-towns 3,4

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#5

Back to U.S.A. map #1

Let's skip all this stuff and get on to the Canadian version, eh? (stay tuned!)

MAR 17, nuclear cardiology haiku, continued

 

MAR 16, curtained verse: medieval challenge

EDITORS' WARNING: You must be at least 12 years of age to read this post! 

 

You can review other mildly scurrilous illustrated verses in a wider context by proceeding to 'Curtained verse: Faintly Obscene (Selected) Limericks' on the full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'.

MAR 15, garden intruders: stinkhorn fungus

  

Authors' Note: Clathrus ruber is a startlingly shaped species of saprophytic fungus that resembles an orange plastic toy ball. Its interior surfaces are coated with a foul-smelling slime that attracts flies, which then disperse the fungal spores. The characteristic fetid odor of the fungus resembles that of rotting meat. Other common names include latticed stinkhorn, red cage (fungus), and basket stinkhorn. 

       

MAR 14, classic palindrome: 'no X in Nixon'

Authors' Note: 

mike: short form for microphone, used more commonly for 'announcing', but sometimes used for 'denouncing' (condemning or attacking openly).

   Somehow, the misleading statement ‘No X in Nixon’ achieved the status of a famous palindrome. The astute analyst might realize that palindromes are inherently poor tools for orthography.

   On the other hand, here are three 'magical palindromes’ that provide correct spelling information:

No K in Nixon; no X in Nikon.

No C in iron; no R in icon.

No S in union. “No!”, in unison. 

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

MAR 13, pandemic poetry: March Sadness

Authors' Note: Little enthusiasm among college basketball fans was invoked by substituting 'Mulch Madness' for the customary 'March Madness' televised marathon.

You can review these illustrated verses in a wider context by proceeding to 'Pandemic Poetry' on the full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense".

MAR 12, anagram swarm, A-VERY-STABLE-GENIUS: #3/4

b) Giorgio's Lexicon of Binomials

MAR 11, geysers: Geysir, Iceland

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

You can review these illustrated verses in a wider context by proceeding to 'Poetry that Spurts: Verses about Geysers' on the full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense".

MAR 10, a brief saga (Carolina lowcountry): Walrus and Carpenter (South Carolina version)

ORIGINAL POEM/STORY: "The Walrus and the Carpenter" is a poem recited by Tweedledum and Tweedledee to Alice in chapter 4 of Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, published in 1871.

POETRY-LYRICS: The third verse of the satire was originally composed as a limerick based roughly on the Lewis Carroll poem and submitted to OEDILF, an online humour dictionary, by Giorgio Coniglio in 2018. Giorgio subsequently expanded the poem to the current 6 verses.

PARODY-SONGLINK: These verses were originally conceived as poetic lyrics. However, they can, like almost all limericks, be easily sung using  certain well-known tunes; in this case, Carole King's "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?".  

Click HERE to access ukulele and guitar chord-charts to help you accompany the song ("Walrus and Carpenter", lowcountry version) on your favorite instrument.

But, if you are interested only in the lyrics, continue with the presentation that follows ...  

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 shorter poems, wordplay and other general offerings.  

  

To access the next 'brief saga' on this blog (April 2020), proceed to 'Claire's Celerity' (miscellaneous wordplay).

To access the most recent previous 'brief saga' (February 2020), back up to 'Palmetto Trees'.  

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

2020
2021
2022
2023.