JUL 30, singable-satire: palindromic parody " X66X "

PARODY-LYRICS consisting of PALINDROMES

ORIGINAL SONG: "Route 66", written by Bobby Troup, 1946, performed by Nat King Cole, covered by Perry Como, Chuck Berry, Bing Crosby, Rolling Stones, The Manhattan Transfer, John Mayer etc.

PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, March 2014.

PARODY-SONGLINK: To find ukulele chord-charts to help you accompany "X66X" on your favorite instrument, click HERE.

Palindromes are highlighted here in green font and italicized (Warning! Some of these contain adult material). A tip of the hat to Weird Al Yankovic who invented the concept of singable palindromes with his spoof "Bob". See also my previously posted palindrome-song "Otto", and various other posts highlighting palindromes.  

John Mayer's rollicking version of the original song is found on YouTube HERE.

X66X  

(to the tune of "Route 66")

If you're the type not vexed by 'Joy of Lex',

Get your fix by fax or telex or Express.

The best letter is rated 'XX'.

It's boxed in the slot before 'Y',

Sly x-axis, it seldom rides high,

Best letter is rated 'XX'.   

Now there's, No 'x' in Nixon

No 'xx' - Exxon

No 'x' Al, knit on; toot no tin klaxon

"Laid Fixes" - sex, if dial

Max. esteem meets exam

Sex-aware era waxes

Six axons, no x-axis.

Mix a maxim. No 'x' - a Saxon.

The Bible of word-play

Just flex to the nexus of this text,

Your next exit past Texas and New Mex,

Best letter is rated 'XX'.

The best jest is  "Xerox, O Rex."

Best letter is rated 'XX'.

        

Not 'UF', not on futon!

No 'yarn' in rayon

Un nu?  No! it's a bare-era bastion

Lapse - porno on ropes, pal

Llama - nix in a mall

Sex at my gym taxes

Six at my gym? Taxis!

Sod-lid dildos. Sex-elf flexes.

   

Get relaxed with the moxie of this text,

More exotic than Texas or New Mex,

The letter that ends "Joy of Lex".

That letter is rated 'XX'.

The best letter is rated 'XX'.

Puzzling palindrome, used in Weird Al's song "Bob"

JUL 29, Toronto ravines: Park Drive Reservation

If you are interested in wending your way through an encyclopedic collection of four blogposts stuffed with photo-collages on Toronto ravines, click HERE.

 

JUL 28, anagram swarm: A-VERY-STABLE-GENIUS, #13 and #14

You can review an amazing number of anagrams based on this book title on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. There are two posts to view:  ’A Very Stable Genius': Theme and Variations (97 anagrams), and 

'A Very Stable Genius': additional funky anagrams

JUL 28, insects: insect repellents (DEET)

 

Authors' Note: The full name of the chemical is N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide.

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.

JUL 27, wordplay maps: American Scramble-towns, 7

 

LINKS to other nonsense in this series: 

Forward to the first Canadian map.

Forward to the next American map (8).

Back up to the first American map.

JUL 26, magical canal palindromes: more far-flung venues

 

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.

JUL 25, TARGETED PALINDROMES, submitted, J, K

 

You have reached the "Submitted Palindromes" thread on the blog "Daily Edifying Nonsense", a light literary entity that emanates through the blogosphere daily (almost), i.e. 30 times per month.

  On the 25th of each month you will find a slide-filling group of palindromic phrases submitted to the editors by a panel of 7 palindromists. These folks have all been working on this project since January 2020. The personal profiles for each of these contributors are displayed in panels published here at the start of things, and then, we have asked them to provide (palindromically, of course) their views on one of the iconic items in the classic literature, starting with "A man, a plan, a canal -- Panama", continuing with other well-known phrases, such as "Dennis sinned". Otherwise, their contribution will be grouped in monthly random piles (a phrase that you might recognize as an anagram of the word p-a-l-i-n-d-r-o-m-e-s).

You can access this delightful entertainment right here by entering submitted palindromes in one of the two search bars at the top of this post and scrolling downwards through the wordplay posts that you will discover, OR, just follow the links indicated above. 

Devotees of palindromic wordplay can further explore limericks and other short verses about the classic palindromes (and quite a few recent concoctions) that are randomly scattered on this blog after September 2000, or collected into grouped postings on our more scholarly blog "Edifying Nonsense" -- start HERE.  

JUL 24, illustrated verse, Ontari-oases: Toronto ravines

Authors' Note:  Glacial can be pronounced with either 2 or 3 syllables. Here, the word has the meaning of 'produced by, or related to a glacier’. 

  Geologists tell us that during the Wisconsin glaciation, the ice-sheet scooped out soft rock and pushed the piled-up debris, sand and gravel, southward towards Lake Iroquois, the precursor of Lake Ontario. Twelve thousand years ago, with the ending of the ice-age, meltwater from the Laurentide Glacier eroded the channels that became the basis of Toronto's system of ravines.

If you are interested in winding your way through an encyclopedic collection of four blogposts stuffed with photo-collages on Toronto ravines, click HERE.

You can review the entire series of illustrated poems about the good old days in Ontario by checking the post 'Ontario Nostalgia' on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE. 

JUL 23, anagram swarm: A-VERY-STABLE-GENIUS, #12

Bonus wordplay concoction:

You can review an amazing number of anagrams based on this book title on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. There are two posts to view:  ’A Very Stable Genius': Theme and Variations (97 anagrams), and 

'A Very Stable Genius': additional funky anagrams

JUL 22, at heart: myocardial ischemia

Authors' Note: There is variability in patients' response to the development of blockages in the coronary arteries. Part of this is due to the gradual development of collateral arteries or side branches, which may mitigate the effect of the obstructions to produce chronic symptoms or acute severe damage to heart muscle. The net impact on flow can be assessed through imaging showing blood flow to heart muscle at rest and stress, with nuclear or other studies of myocardial perfusion (‘gated SPECT’). 

You can view more poems on this topic by proceeding to "Cardiologic Tracings: AT HEART" (parts #1 and #2) on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE!

JUL 21, anagram swarm: A-VERY-STABLE-GENIUS, #11

Bonus wordplay concoction:

You can review an amazing number of anagrams based on this book title on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. There are two posts to view:  ’A Very Stable Genius': Theme and Variations (97 anagrams), and 

'A Very Stable Genius': additional funky anagrams

JUL 20, singable satire: Tom Lehrer sings "ALLITERATIVE BINOMIALS A to K"

 PARODY SONG-LYRICS

ORIGINAL SONG: "The Elements", Tom Lehrer, 1959.

Occasional binomials show alliteration
(e.g. one and only)

PARODY COMPOSED: Dr. G.H. and Giorgio Coniglio, 2015. This song is the second of nine in the series on Word-Pairs. You can find the links to the lyrics of the previous songs at the bottom of the post. 

EXPLANATION: The current effort involves a linguistic device discussed by Wikipedia as “Siamese twins” or ‘Irreversible Binomials”. These 

phrases include some of the most colorful expressions in English. There are probably a thousand binomial expressions in the English language. To enhance the singability, I have skewed my selection of binomial pairs here, to emphasize those that have alliteration of the 2 elements. 

For  a recently revised discussion of binomials, click HERE; there is also a post that honors our earlier exploration of these intriguing expressions entitled "The Allure of Word-Pairs: Alliterative Binomials (compendium)".

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". Click HERE to proceed to this site. 

 

Above (beyond), and art(ifice), and ask and answer, aid/abet,
Askew/akimbo, bag and baggage, beg or borrow, deep in debt.
And bits and bytes, and black and blue, and belles and beaus, and do or die,
And birds and bees, and bed and breakfast, born and bred, and baby’s cry.

There’s cute and cuddly, cash or carry, big/bad/bold and beautiful,
Command/control, and bread and butter, dos and don’ts, and dutiful,
And clap and clamor, crass and crude, and drunken and disorderly,
And dear departed, dark and dank, and devil (and the deep blue sea).

There’s Dungeons/Dragons, dribs and drabs, and dusk 'til dawn, all day and night,
With each and every dine and dash there's fast and furious fight or flight.
And eyes and ears, and down and dirty, first and foremost, drink and drive,
And fun and frolic, friend or foe, and feast or famine, four or five.

With form and function, fact or fiction, fling (past — 'flung')/flirta-ation,
And foppery and frippery, and leisure relaxa-ation, 
Forgive/forget, and flora/fauna, flew through flue, the flies and fleas,
Farm/fact'ry, neither fish nor fowl, and grins and giggles, life of ease.

There’s gruff and grim, and ghosts and goblins, Hell/high water, good as gold,
And guys and gals, and house and home, and hoot and holler, have and hold.
And he and she, and his and hers, and him and her, and heiress/heir,
Horse/hounds, and hale and hearty, hot and heavy, neither hide nor hair.

There's hassle/hurry, fire and fury, add insult to injury,
And judge and jury, jams and jellies, sugared Spice Girls -- gingery.
And Jack and Jill, and Jew and Gentile, juke and jive, and jeer and joke; 
Kit and caboodle, king and country, kill or cure, and kith/kin-folk. 

There's likely many others, but so far I can't imagine 'em --
They'd spread across the alphabet from A (aardvark) to zymogen.

And, for those interested, here's how you find the lyrics-only-version

of the nine songs that make up this cycle. If you would like to  accompany yourself on ukulele or guitar, find relevant chord charts by following the links that will take you to the versions in our blog "Silly Songs and Satire". 

1. PAIRS, to the tune of "Words" in the style of the Beegees

...  the following songs in the style of "The Elements" by Tom Lehrer

2. ALLITERATIVE BINOMIALS, part#1

3. ALLITERATIVE BINOMIALS, part#2

4. RHYMING BINOMIALS, part#1

5. RHYMING BINOMIALS, part#2

6. A LESSON ABOUT REDUPLICATIONS

7. REDUPLICATIONS, part#1

8. REDUPLICATIONS, part#2

9. LEGALISTIC DOUBLETS, in the style of "Supercalifragilistic..." from  the musical "Mary Poppins"

JUL 19, anagram swarm: A-VERY-STABLE-GENIUS, #9/#10

Bonus wordplay concoction:

You can review an amazing number of anagrams based on this book title on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. There are two posts to view:  ’A Very Stable Genius': Theme and Variations (97 anagrams), and 

'A Very Stable Genius': additional funky anagrams

JUL 18, waterfowl: at the 'pelicatessen'

More illustrated verses about brown pelicans can be found on our blogposts "Caribbean brown pelicans", and at "brown pelicans".

Interested readers can find another uproarious excursion to the 'pelicatessen' by clicking HERE.

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

Editor's Note re 'The Pelicatessen': After initially using this neologism (word-creation) as a descriptor on the blog "Edifying Nonsense", and misconstruing it as his personal invention, the author became aware via the internet that there is a restaurant located at a resort on Bald Head Island, North Carolina with that name. Although that fact is of interest, it is of limited relevance. Seabirds are apparently not served at the establishment, either as customers, or as menu-fare.

JUL 17, poets' corner: inventiveness (palinku, a novel poetic form based on 'haiku')/'senryu')

 

Authors' Note: The palinku is a recently invented poetic form. Able to boast a length of only three lines, it has like the haiku, its source of inspiration (and the senryu, a lighter, lesser-known, but entertaining haiku-variant), a demand for terseness, word compression and poignancy. But, moreover, each  three lines must be composed only of words that are part of brief English palindromic words, phrases or short sentences. You can discover examples right here on this blog-site, published  on the 17th of each month. With their short length, palinkus can accumulate quickly and there are now over 60 of them. Our original creations of this type are displayed on this blog starting August 2020. The most recent, dealing with the American political situation, can be found HERE. Enjoy !  

* learn more HERE about senryu, a lesser-known Japanese short poem that shares many of the physical characteristics of haiku (nominally 17 'on' / syllables in three non-rhyming lines), but deals in a satiric or humorous way with human foibles rather than with Nature.