DEC 30, singable satire: "CAROLINA WINTER MORNING"

PARODY-LYRICS

ORIGINAL SONG: "Carolina in the Morning" written 1922, best-known version is by Al Jolson.

PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, January 2014, in response to an unusual weather phenomonon.
You can also view these lyrics and commentary (without images or chords) displayed on a parody-lyrics website at AmIRight.com Post "Carolina Winter Morning".
PARODY-SONGLINK: To find ukulele and guitar chord-charts to help you accompany "CAROLINA WINTER MORNING" on your favorite instrument, click HERE.

Southern subdivision

Ravenel Bridge, SC,
from Mt Pleasant to Charleston
closed due to ice

Near Charleston harbor, Jan 2014

CAROLINA WINTER MORNING

(to the tune of "Carolina in the Morning")

Yankees call us whiners -  snow in coastal Carolina! ice-storm warning

Heat pumps, 'lectric stripping, so the breakers flip, they're tripping in the morning.

Where is global warming when we need it most? 

Weathering this month's storming, our palmetto trees are toast.

Bridges closed confine ya', snow in coastal Carolina; cancel meetings. 

Sleet looks so much neata' when you're cozied near the heata', if you've heating.

Towns don't have no snow ploughs, so just stay home, folks;

View through frosty windows icy Spanish-mossy oaks.

Blame the Great Designer, don't malign the coal strip-miners - no El Niño.

Random variation, polar air mass brings us Fahrenheit nineteen - oh!

If I had some winter treads and I wouldn't skid,

I'd skulk off further south, then boast what I did;

Something could refine the clime of coastal Carolina winter mo-o-orn-ings! 

DEC 29, for HOGMANAY (New Year's Eve): Auld Lang's sine

reprise from December 31, 2020

DEC 31, a brief saga: Hogmanay (New Year's Eve)

 A HAPPY NEW YEARS TO ALL !!!

Incidental photo (start of 2023):

midnight scene from our Toronto aerie

 

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 stanzas in limerick form, constituting a single submission to the online humor site 'Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form'. On the OEDILF site, rigorous standards for content and format are involved in a collaborative editing process that may take several weeks to over a year. 

 Generally, OEDILF has not been enormously welcoming of multi-verse submissions, but Giorgio Coniglio has persisted, and there are now over 90 of these multi-verse poems feature in his "Author's Showcase". The  OEDILF number for each accepted multiverse poem is shown here on the slide with its first verse. We have been blog-publishing these poetic adventures here monthly.

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

2020
2021
2022
2023.

DEC 28, painterly poetry: Alfred Sisley, en plein air

 

You can view review other information about Sisley and his painting by accompanying us to the Courtauld Gallery, London, UK, by clicking HERE.

OR, check out our entire collection of illustrated verses on 'painterly poetry' exhibited on "Edifying Nonsense" by clicking HERE. 

DEC 27, poetic non-sequitur: "The Secret Life of Plants" (+ US news)

 

Authors' Note: "The Secret Life of Plants", 1973, was a controversial piece of 'non-fiction' that recounted controversial experiments that pointed to plant sentience and emotion. The book became the basis for a documentary film, and even inspired a music album by a well-known popular singer/musician in 1979. Considerable criticism arose from its then-trendy pseudoscientific claims based on non-replicable reports. Subsequently, aspects of how plants, including vegetable species, sense and react to environmental changes, have undergone more intense and sober investigation by academic botanists.

Update from this week's news ... 

Readers may want to review the origin of the charges in this case by reviewing our poem "Classified" posted November 3, 2022. 

DEC 26, mammalian wildlife: gerbils

Authors' Note:

Honest Herb(ie), a westponder, concedes that pronouncing the herbal 'H' in Britain and Australia may be the norm there, but he prefers the more common North American way to say it with the 'H' silent, as in 'hour', and 'honest'.  In fact, language detectives may correctly intuit that Herb is a Canadian, as he spells offence with a 'c', rather than the 's' used by Americans.

The Mongolian gerbil, Meriones unguiculatus, a hardy small herbivorous rodent has become a popular pet. Originally a resident of Asia transported for use as a research subject, it was introduced from the US to the UK in 1964; its pronunciation preferences currently remain unrecorded.

Check out this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_gerbil

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 !

DEC 25: holidays and celebrations: poinsettias

Authors' Note:  Poinsettia is now the common name by which this seasonal plant is known around the world.

  Joel Poinsett, South Carolinian physician and amateur botanist, served as the first US ambassador (a position designated as minister) to Mexico. In the 1820s, he sent home to his greenhouses samples of Euphorbia pulcherrima (member of the spurge family), locally known as flor de nochebuena (Christmas Eve), linked to the Hispanic nativity celebration. 

  Distribution of the poinsettia in the US was enhanced by development of cultivars with a more lush profusion of the colored bracts, and recently, by variants in other appealing colors. Today, a single nursery in Texas accounts for 70% of American sales, and half of all global sales of this decorative seasonal specialty.

  Incidentally, although the plant is assumed by many to be toxic, that possibility appears based on an incorrect original report, unsupported by other evidence.

 
rainy-day visit to the
Allan Gardens Conservatory

DEC 24, curtained verse: florid

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

 Authors' Note: 

STD: initialism for 'sexually transmitted disease', a problem for which one might consult an STD-clinic or an STD-doc

Although it's principal meanings revolve around the Latin term for flowery or flourishing, florid has come to imply, in the medical context, "referring to a disease or to a symptom in its fully developed form", or perhaps "fragrantly, flagrantly florid".

 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'.

DEC 23, objectionable adjectives: fulsome

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to P.E.H. !!!!!!!

 

Authors' Note: Pretentiousness may be at work when the word fulsome is (ab)used by a writer or speaker who feels that 'full' is not sufficiently impressive.

You can review our editorially selected doggerel (eight verses) relating to 'Objectionable Adjectives' by clicking HERE.

DEC 22, higher connection: great chain of being

Authors' Note: Originally conceived by Plato and Aristotle as a construct to explain the universe, the Great Chain of Being, known in Latin as scala naturae, organized all beings and matter in a hierarchy, descending from heavenly powers through humans, animals, plants and minerals. 

   In medieval times, the concept was expanded as a rationale for the Divine Right of Kings, and to deny unapproved social mobility.  

 

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.

Incidental Photo:

the holiday season is upon us ...

Readers can view our collected verses dealing with 'higher connections' by clicking HERE.

DEC 21, STD-poetry: latent lues

Authors' Note:  VDRL (initialism for venereal disease research laboratory): a screening blood test for syphilis developed in 1906 and updated in 1946

   Syphilis is sometimes referred to medically as lues, accounting for the choice of name for our protagonist.

   This verse, dealing with the asymptomatic latent stage, follows the author’s verse ‘chancre’, a manifestation of the early (‘primary’) stage. Treatment with penicillin at either of these stages is dramatically effective at preventing the dire consequences of progression to symptomatic late (‘tertiary’) disease.

You can review verses on this topic in a wider context on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense" by proceeding to the post 'Ruination, Rumination and Reminiscence: STD-Poetry'. Click HERE. 

DEC 20, singable satire: Tradition Al sings the carol "KOOKY PRESIDENTIAL"

PARODY SONG-LYRICS:

PARODY COMPOSED:  Dr. G.H. and Giorgio Coniglio, February 2019.
ORIGINAL SONG: "Good King Wenceslas", written by English hymnwriter John Mason Neale in 1853, but often now mistakenly referred to as 'traditional'. (The artist mentioned in the byline, "Tradition Al", is apocryphal). Neale's piece (based on accounts of the Bohemian Wenceslas legend and a 13th century 'spring-carol' tune), was highly criticized in the 1920s as "ponderous moral doggerel", but as you all know, has become a seasonal classic.
On You-Tube, you can readily find a spectrum of video recordings of the original lyrics, from the Choir of Westminster Abbey, to Bing Crosby and the Irish Rovers (the last-mentioned is highly recommended for its quirky nature). 
SONGLINK: See the version of this post designed for ukulele and guitar players on our lyrics-blog 'SILLY SONGS and SATIRE' HERE. 

KOOKY PRESIDENTIAL VIEWS

(to the tune of "Good King Wenceslas")

Kooky presidential views re the southern border 

(As shown on Fox Cable News)… “Source of all disorder.

Rapists, addicts, dealers (drugs): none are denied entry --

Can’t squelch caravans of thugs with a single se-e-ntry.”

“Hither lackies, stand up tall, we must stop this evil.  

Fund a Gulf-to-Ocean wall, barrier medieval.

Let’s proceed my base to please; they need our assurings --

With an immigration freeze, let in no Hondu-urans.”

“It’s a liberal flashpoint: child, orphaned in detention.  

(When my kids have been reviled, gleans no fake news mention.)

Wetbacks we need in plain sight, murderous and cruel.

Even CNN will write, ‘Trump’s Concern Gains Fue-ell’.”

“Scour the penitentiaries, find Hispanic hitmen,                                    

Who’ll admit they snuck across (for them, that’s easy sh**, men).

Let’s get footage of their crimes and their apprehension.

These rude methods fit the times; hence my condesce-ension.”

“Sire, the week is ending now; jet is prepped for Flor’da.  

Golf at Mar-a-lago, thou fret not ‘bout the border.

Next week we’ll identify ‘Pedro’ and ‘Ra-úl’.

They’ll Fox viewers petrify -- home-invaders cru-uell.” 

 

DEC 19, death and the afterlife: where bad Jews go

 

 You can review more poems about 'Death and the Afterlife' in context ('death and the afterlife') on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. Click HERE!

DEC 18, news-post: FIFA (soccer) World Cup 2022

 FIFA WORLD CUP 2022:

Final at Qatar venue ends in 3-3- tie. 

Thrilling tie-breaker, Argentina, Messi: What more can you say ?

DEC 17, palinku (poetic novelty): timidity

 You can view  all our "palinku" verses if you proceed with a single click tthat will take you 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.)
 V

DEC 16, patients and their maladies: Graves' disease

 

Authors' Note:  Graves' disease (often shortened by medical types to the ominous-sounding Graves' ), described by Robert Graves in 1835, is a common auto-immune disease that attacks the internal controls in the thyroid gland, and results in the overproduction of thyroid hormones. Significant symptoms result from hyperthyroidism, the hypermetabolic state that is produced.

Among several effective treatments, antithyroid drugs, taken over months or years, block production of these hormones, and often result in resumption of the euthyroid (normal) state.       

You can view collections of verses on this topic by proceeding to "Nurse-Verse: PATIENTS and their MALADIES" on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE!

DEC 15, reptiles: herpetophobes

Authors' Note: 

ophidiophobia: an extrem or incapacitating fear of snakes

herpetophobia: a similar anxiety disorder extending to all reptiles

The reptilian suborder Serpentes was previously known as Ophidia, a term derived from ophis, Greek for 'snake'. 

You can review photos and illustrated herpetologic verses in a wider context by proceeding to 'Verses about Reptiles (don't worry! no snake-photos!)' on the full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense".

DEC 14, classic palindrome: 'go hang a salami ... '

Authors' Note: Hanging a salami is an easily accomplished, but important step in the process of dry curing this meat product.

'Go hang a salami; I'm a lasagna hog' is a frequently cited palindrome of relatively recent origin. It has been variously attributed to Jon Agee, a cartoonist and children's writer, and Baby Gramps, a musician and wordplay guru. A lesser known variant of this phrase, possibly primally inspirational, is 'Yo, bang a salami. I'm a lasagna boy.'

The second palindrome cited in this verse is of limited longevity and suboptimal quality, as admitted by our protagonist, little Bobby; it is a brief variant of a classic phrase of unknown origin, usually cited as 'God, a red nugget: a fat egg under a dog.'

Web-resources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Gramps

https://jonagee.com/ 

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

DEC 13, duplication: harum-scarum

Readers willing to go down an internet rabbit-hole can easily get to a collection of more than a dozen other short verses SHORT VERSES  in which we have dealt with specific reduplications. 

If interested you could also discover three fairly lengthy PATTER-SONGS about this fascinating linguistic phenomenon. These songs form an important part of our cycle of 9 songs about "Word Pairs".

DEC 12, the origin of our "bloggerel": part #4, photography

 

PHOTOGRAPHY: Dr.G.H. spent the latter part of his professional career dealing with the interpretation of low-resolution nuclear images in medical diagnosis. So we have a deep interest in visual documentation whose technique renders the key features obvious. For spontaneous nature-photography on bicycle expeditions the cell-phone-camera is an obvious choice for portability, although resolution at a distance is an issue. Most of our photographs have been obtained with an i-phone 13, whose "live" feature provides an advance when the subject is moving. These photos enhance the "life-experience" nature of the posted material. On occasion, to make a point in a multi-media display, we borrow a relevant photo from the web, these are flagged by the term "web-photo", with colour coding of the text background, but space generally does not allow or mandate a full disclosure of the source. The reader is asked to please check these out, if indicated.  

   

DEC 11, dental feelings (sentimental verse): gnashing, bruxism

  You can review the collection of illustrated verses on this topic by proceeding to the post 'Dental Feelings' on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'.

DEC 10, a brief saga: hemianopsia

Authors' Note: Loss of sight in half of an eye's visual field is a medically well-characterized and significant lesion known as hemianopsia, or occasionally hemianopia. An attack on the underlying lesion, often deep within the brain is in the province of neurosurgeons, and often a multidisciplinary team is needed. The bitemporal pattern discussed here, involving the lateral half of each eye's visual field, is less common than homonomous hemianopsia. For further reading on this topic, the Wikipedia article is suggested.

Authors' Note:  Lesions in the occipital, or posterior portion of the brain's cerebral hemispheres are notorious for producing visual disruption. Each side of this sensitive area of brain tissue is targeted at integrating one half of the patient's visual field (to left or right). So for example, a tumour in the right side of the occipital lobe interrupts the signals arriving from the nerve fibres in the right side of the retina in both eyes; the patient's ability to see objects in the well-defined semi-circular zone to his left is eliminated in a fashion that is homonomous, i.e. congruent - both eyes are affected similarly. The resulting pattern of contralateral loss of visual sensation (homonomous hemianopsia) may be mapped by a test known as perimetry (visual-field analysis).

You can check your knowledge of brain structure and function in health and disease by reviewing our entire collection of illustrated verses on this topic. To review 'BRAINCHECK' on the topic-oriented  blog "Edifying Nonsense", click HERE.

 

 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 stanzas in limerick form, constituting a single submission to the online humor site 'Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form'. On the OEDILF site, rigorous standards for content and format are involved in a collaborative editing process that may take several weeks to over a year. 

 There are now over 40 of these lengthier bits of doggerel featured at OEDILF in Giorgio's "Author's Showcase". The OEDILF number for each accepted multiverse poem is shown here on the slide with its first verse. We have been blog-publishing these poetic adventures here monthly since January 2020.

To access the next 'brief saga' on this blog (January 2023), proceed to... 'Squid in the Time of Covid'.  

To access the most recent previous 'brief saga' (November 2022), back up to 'Palindrome Workshop'.

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

2020
2021
2022
2023.

DEC 9, inspired by Ogden Nash: ultimate tribute