A blogsite offering entertaining daily oddities since January 2020. There are now over a thousand unique posts in these three years. Images, both visual and poetic, are drawn from daily life, as well as from verses, photos and computer-graphics on our parent blog "Edifying Nonsense".
December 31, 2022
* DEC 31, HOGMANAY (New Year's Eve): Auld Lang's sine
December 30, 2022
DEC 30, creative anachronism: Roget's Roman "Thesaurus"
December 29, 2022
DEC 29, ecto-parasites: bedbugs
December 28, 2022
DEC 28, painterly poetry: Auvers-sur-Oise
Authors' Note:
Oise: a tributary of the Seine River, just north of Paris
Auvers-sur-Oise (oh-vayr-syoor-WAHS): village on the river Oise, in which a number of prominent 19th and 20th century painters lived
Vincent Van Gogh moved from St-Remy in the south of France to Auvers-sur-Oise to be closer to Paris and his art-dealer brother Theo. The move brought the possibility of supervision by Doctor Gachet, a friend of Cezanne and other impressionist painters. Appearing to be convalescing from his mental illness, Vincent spent 70 productive days there before his unexpected suicide. He is buried in a cemetery in the village beside his brother Theo, who died 6 months later.
December 27, 2022
DEC 27, palinku (poetic novelty): sweet treats
In this post, we will continue with a novel form of poetic wordplay. Inspired by Japanese haiku poetry, this new form is used for a terse verse with a total of 17 syllables displayed on three lines. Unlike its classic Japanese analogue, this concoction does not mandate the precise distribution of the syllables among the three lines, but does stipulate that each word in the poem be included in a palindromic phrase or sentence in English (i.e. one that can be read either forwards or backwards).
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.
(Ed. note:) Verses of this type have continued to accumulate, and there are now more than 50 of them. You can easily view them all if you proceed to our more encyclopedic blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE.
(Or, if your prefer, you can view all this material on Facebook in Giorgio's photo-albums.)
December 26, 2022
DEC 26, mammalian wildlife: gerbils
December 25, 2022
* DEC 25, Holiday season -- every Adventuality
December 24, 2022
DEC 24: holidays and celebrations: poinsettias
Happy Birthday to Trooper, wherever you are!
Incidentally, although the plant is assumed by many to be toxic, that possibility appears based on an incorrect original report, and is unsupported by other evidence.
December 23, 2022
DEC 23, objectionable adjectives: fulsome
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.
December 22, 2022
DEC 22, higher connections: great chain of being
December 21, 2022
DEC 21, Canadiana: over-wintering waterfowl (downy)
December 20, 2022
DEC 20, mythed opportunities: Aurora and Tithonus (eternally)
You can take advantage of the whole spectrum of illustrated poems dealing with 'Mythed Opportunities' that we have collected on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. Click HERE!
December 19, 2022
DEC 19, death and the afterlife: where bad Jews go
December 18, 2022
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 ?
December 17, 2022
DEC 17, waterfowl: flightless seabirds
December 16, 2022
DEC 16, patients and their maladies: Graves' disease
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.
December 15, 2022
DEC 15, reptiles: ophidiophobia
December 14, 2022
DEC 14, classic palindrome: go hang a salami ...
December 13, 2022
DEC 13: (re)duplication: harum-scarum
Authors' Note: The grammatical term (re)duplications is also discussed by the author in a verse about hanky-panky.
Readers willing to go down an internet rabbit-hole HERE can easily get to our other seven short verses dealing with specific reduplications, as well as three fairly lengthy patter-songs about this fascinating linguistic phenomenon.
December 12, 2022
DEC 12, planet-saving verse: drought
You can help save the planet by viewing all our verses in this series at "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE!
December 11, 2022
DEC 11, signs of confusion: second collection
This post is the second in a series of 5. You can attempt to get all of this straight by reviewing the collection in the previous post of November 16, '22
![]() |
toplessness? |
![]() |
as a child, I believed that 'Pickering' was an abbreviation for 'pickled herring'. I guess I was wrong |
This post is the second in a series of 5. You can push onwards and review the collections in these subsequent posts ...
December 10, 2022
DEC 10, palinku (poetic novety): diapers
December 9, 2022
DEC 9, inspired by Ogden Nash: ultimate tribute
December 8, 2022
DEC 8, doctors and their practices: Doctors Without Borders
This verse is dedicated to Dr. M. G., an Irish-Canadian emergency physician, now in Yemen.
You can view these informative verses in a wider context by proceeding to the collection 'DOCTORS and their PRACTICES' on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE!