OCT 30, singable satire: "ZOMBIE COCKROACH"

PARODY-LYRICS

ORIGINAL SONG : "Boney Fingers" 1974, Hoyt Axton. 
PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, October, 2015.

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

BIOLOGICAL BACKGROUND: The emerald cockroach wasp, or jewel wasp, Ampulex compressa is a fascinating creature, recently investigated with respect to its unusual reproductive behavior. Incredible details of the strange, even nightmarish habits of this predatory insect are shown by this video.   

Emerald Cockroach Wasp

ZOMBIE COCKROACH 

(to the tune of "Boney Fingers")

I’m an emerald-wasp Mom, and I’m doin’ my duty

Looking for daycare, and I’ve found me a doozy

Larvae can snarf, then get their beauty-sleep as pupae

They need a peaceful place where they’ll get protein while they’re growing,

Need a quiet place where they’ll get protein. 

Know where to hunt to find “la cucaracha”
Filled my stinger with a toxin called GABA *
Direct first sting to prothoracic ganglia

Likely that his limbs are weakened for two minutes.
Likely that ‘ll make his big arms weaker.

Inject toxins in his chest - whadda ya get?
(Weak limbs!) Woossie cockroach – woossie cockroach.

Oh! the second sting goes to the base of his brain:
Hit the right target and he's feeling no pain;

Lead him like a leash-dog, then one egg I’ll be layin’
Stuff them in a tunnel, the egg hatches in the mornin'
That is when my larva starts to eat him.

Hungry larva needs to grow - what does it eat?
(Whoo whoo!) Cockroach protein – cockroach protein.

For baby wasps, it’s a huge refrigerator
Inside and out, treats that Mother Nature catered
Five days of eating, then protected place for sleeping

In two weeks adult emerges ripe for breeding
Dressed to kill and carry on life-cycle.

Pretty pupa needs to sleep - where does it rest?
(Whoo whoo!) Zombie cockroach – zombie cockroach.

Wasps' lives are scripted, and they don’t need coaches.

Each gal makes toast of several dozen roaches

Mating takes a minute, they won’t need no urgin’

Every mom will be a horror-movie neurosurgeon

Every gal will be a neurosurgeon.

Inject toxins in his brain - whadda ya get?
(Whoo whoo!) Zombie cockroach – zombie cockroach.

Now, there's.......
Other bio-systems with bizarre behavior
Parasite controls and make the host enslav-ier
There are crazy notions, and this one's no crazier  -   
Maybe further research will have human implications
Maybe we'll make mental illness better.

Best test-model that we've got? What would ya guess?
(Whoo whoo!) Zombie cockroach! Zombie cockroach!

* GABA (pronounced by biologists as " gabba' ") = gamma-aminobutyric acid, a neuro-transmitter substance.

OCT 29, two gruesome verses for Halloween

Authors' Note: Each year at Hallowe'en, all (living) persons, in addition to honoring tradition, must decide if they are ready to combat the zombie revolution.

 

Check out the whole collection of short poems, called "Gruesome Verse" on our blog "Edifying Nonsense" HERE.

OCT 28, photo-collage, Carolina lowcountry: wildlife revisited #2

  

little blue heron

Atlantic ghost crab

brown pelican, artistic rendering

cormorants and dolphin

roseate spoonbills, Deweese Island

sanderling

willet

yellow-crowned night heron

 

busy sanderlings

OCT 27, domestic hazards: fatbergs

 You can view an extensive collection of illustrated poems on this topic by proceeding to the post 'DOMESTIC HAZARDS' on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE.

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 then month of interest, and then select (by clicking) the post of your choice.

OCT 26, wordplay maps: Scramble-towns of eastern Canada, #11 and #12

Who would ever have guessed? It turns out that an unparalleled word in generating anagrams, i.e. 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 to other nonsense in this series: 

Forward to the next Canadian map, eh?

Back to the previous Canadian map, eh?

Default to U.S.A. map #21 (final American version).

OCT 25, Toronto ravines: Todmorden Mills

 

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

OCT 24, binomial phrases: "a hug and a kiss"

Authors' Note: "And too many others to mention ..."

 To review the poetic effusion that we have accumulated about binomial phrases, proceed to our blog "Edifying Nonsense", and review the post  'Grandpa Greg's Grammar: Binomial Expressions'. Click HERE ! 

There is also an entire collection of lyrics to patter songs, somewhat older material, dedicated to various kinds of binomials, that provides more didactic material and an extensive series of examples, and allows you to sing these expressions for your own enjoyment, or for that of others around you. Click HERE !

OCT 23, gruesome verse: two horrific quandaries for Hallowe'en

Hallowe'en is creeping up on us!

Check out the whole collection called "Gruesome Verse" on our blog "Edifying Nonsense" HERE.

OCT 22, photo-collage, Toront-oases: City Halls

 

OCT 21, Toronto ravines: Moore Park (Mud Creek) Ravine, photocollages #1-#2

 

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

OCT 20, singable satire: Hoagy Carmichael sings "STAR-NOSED MOLE"

 PARODY-LYRICS

ORIGINAL SONG: "Heart and Soul", Frank Loesser and Hoagy Carmichael, 1938.

PARODY COMPOSED: Dr.G.H. and Giorgio Coniglio, February 2015.

Explanatory notes: The star-nosed mole inhabits wet low-lying areas of Canada and the northeastern US. It has been much less well known than its lawn-disturbing cousin, the common Eastern mole. National Geographic recently suggested that it may be the weirdest creature on the planet.

PARODY-SONGLINK: To find ukulele and guitar chord-charts to help you accompany "Star-Nosed Mole" on your favorite instrument, click HERE. 

STAR-NOSED MOLE

(to the tune of "Heart and Soul")

Star-nosed mole – I fail to grasp your charms -

Fleshy snout, thick tail and flipper arms

Slit eyes,

No need to use a mirror:

You won’t be ogled by peers.

  

Star-nosed mole – a neuroscience find -

Tactile nose, hunts prey though eyes are blind

Feelers (tentacles)

Discern where kisses land,

Just like an eye or a hand.

Star-nosed mole – bolts half its weight each day

Stim-response? – Earth’s quickest, Wiki say,

Nostrils

In midst of quivering nose,

Stay underwater closed.

Strangely evolved for digging, feeding, swimming. 

How do you get to breeding, her-and-himm-ing?

So, you can ‘see'

By integrating touch,

Brain can ‘watch’- snarf yummy worms and such.

Somehow

You find cloacal holes

Of other star-nosed moles. 

You can find a poem about the star-nose mole, with informative notes, on our blogpost 'Mammalian Wildlife'. Click HERE to access it.

 

OCT 19, photo-collage, Carolina lowcountry: wildlife revisited #1

black-crowned night heron

 

mud crab

brown pelican

downy woodpecker

great egret, in marsh

great egret 

OCT 18, humorists' scurrilous talk: 'the cock'

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

  The collection of informative verses dealing with 'HUMORISTS' SCURRILOUS TALK' can be found by proceeding to our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE!

OCT 17, palinku (poetic novelty): identity

   In this post, we continue with a novel form of poetic wordplay. To help the reader discern the origin of the lyrics, each palindrome (generally occupying one of the three lines of the poem) has been color-coded. 

 You can view all our "palinku" verses if you proceed with a single click to our more encyclopedic blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE. (Or if you prefer, you can stay on this particular blogsite and look for the offerings for the 17th day of each month -- there are now more than 60 of these.)

OCT 16, wordplay maps: Scramble-towns of eastern Canada, #9 and #10

Who would ever have guessed? It turns out that an unparalleled word in generating anagrams, i.e. 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 to other nonsense in this series: 

Forward to the next Canadian map, eh?

Back to the previous Canadian map, eh?

Default to U.S.A. map #21 (final American version)

OCT 15, neologism (personal): POTUSA (abuelita latina)

Authors' Note: 

abuela: grandmother in Spanish

abuelita: 'little grandmother', an honored family role in Hispanic-American culture

POTUS: President of the United States, acronymic title that has so far been applied only to males, few of whom have been bilingual

POTUSA: (A = of America), a title, influenced by Spanish wordforms, for a female American president; and if she's a Latina, so much the better

 (Ed. Note:) To make this effort easier, we have now collected these neologistic verses in a collection on our parent blog "Edifying Nonsense";  click HERE.

OCT 14, English literature survey course: "The Raven" (Poe's poem)

Authors' Note:   Edgar Allan Poe wrote his best-known poem, "The Raven", in 1845. "The lost Lenore", and “quoth the Raven, ‘nevermore’ ” are famous phrases repeated in the poem. 

   An established classic, the poem will likely remain in the pantheon of poems ad infinitum (evermore).

You can review the entire curriculum for our 'English Classics Survey Course' at "Edifying Nonsense" by clicking HERE.

 

OCT 13, mammalian wildlife: batty idioms

Authors' Note: BATS, the flying mammals, are found in many idioms, which mostly give them unfavorable press, including:

batty,

old bat,

to have bats in the belfry,

(take off) like a bat out of hell,

as blind as a bat.

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 !