JAN 30, cynic's singable satire: "GLOBAL ROASTING CAN BE SET ASIDE"

 PARODY-LYRICS

ORIGINAL SONG: "The Christmas Song", a.k.a. "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire..." written by Wells and Tormé, 1944; recorded by the Nat King Cole Trio in 1946.

PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, November 2014.
PARODY-SONGLINK: To access ukulele chord-charts to help you accompany "GLOBAL ROASTING CAN BE SET ASIDE" on your favorite instrument, click HERE.

THE CLIMATE-CYNIC'S SONG
("Global Roasting Can Be Set Aside")

(to the tune of "The Christmas Song")  
 

Al Gore
former U.S. Vice-President

Planet’s roasting can be set aside.

Al Gore’s nightmare can’t unfold -

Records tumbling, roads closed, bursting pipes

And six-foot drifts in Buffalo ...  

   ...Armchair  experts doubt, outliers like some melting floes
Help predict our global fate.
Tiny dots graphing century lows-
 Warm some years, but it’s not too late.

We know that Sa-anta’s on his way;    

If he brings shorter winters here - more time to play!

I’ll ditch my snowboots, yet retire in my town,

‘Cause rising seas may make South Florida drown.

And so I send November sympathies,

Where Christmas came too soon this year -

Although it’s been said many times many ways,

Glad it didn’t,  glad it didn’t,

Glad it didn’t hap - pen here.

JAN 29, poetic non-sequitur: professor and madman

 

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.

 

JAN 28r, Canadiana: Western Canadian funky towns

 

a) reprise from January 2020 and July 2021

JAN 28, Canadiana: Western Canadian funky towns

b) Giorgio's Lexicon of Binomials

JAN 27, cinematic guide: George Formby's films and songs

 

Authors' Note: Perhaps the best-known song by British singer, actor, comedian and consummate ukulele artist George Formby, Jr. (1904–1961) was "When I'm Cleaning Windows." The song appeared in the 1936 film Keep Your Seats, Please; initially banned by the BBC, the song was later revealed to be a favorite of the royal family. 

online photo as displayed in "Ukulele Magazine"

In his films, Formby portrayed a good-natured but incompetent little man from rural county Lancaster, with songs interspersed throughout in which Formby, his character "laced with shy ordinariness", sings while accompanying himself adroitly on ukulele or banjo. Apparently, the Beatles, particularly George Harrison, were among the musicians influenced by Formby's performances. 

JAN 26, poems about parasites: the parasitologist (host)

Authors' Note: The term host has become a classic descriptor used in infectious diseases, and particularly in parasitology, although such usage may seem distasteful to many. Symbiosis describes a relationship in which the parasitized host and the invading organisms share a mutually beneficial association.

You can review Giorgio's other verses about parasites, both external (ecto-) and internal (endo-) on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE.

JAN 25, national and multinational verse: Iceland

You can review our collection of verses about various individual nations, and about the groupings to which they belong, on our topic-based blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE. 

JAN 24, bi-lyrical limerick: 'aphonic'

 

Be sure to check out the whole collection of 'bi-lyrical limericks' by proceeding to "Edifying Nonsense." CLICK HERE ! (Or, if you prefer, you could look over this stuff on Giorgio's Facebook photo-albums.) 

JAN 23, braincheck: homonomous hemianop(s)ia

  

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 or 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).

JAN 22, poets' corner: noun-verb contractions

Authors' Note: In the above limerick verse, seven noun-verb contractions, each characteristically joining its two elements (a pronoun or noun, and a verb) with an apostrophe, are italicized in blue. But, don't be misled: other types of contractions also use the apostrophe, and these are flagged in red font. Aren't is of course a negative contraction, and one's is a possessive form. 

You can find lots of other verses on this blog under the listing "Poets' Corner".  Click HERE. 

JAN 21, creative anachronism: the dawning of history

Along the same lines, readers are invited to review our small but growing collection of "creative anachronisms" on our blog "Edifying Nonsense" by clicking HERE.

JAN 20, singable satire: The Four Lads sing "THUNDER BAY" (Ontario)

  PARODY LYRICS

ORIGINAL SONG: "Istanbul (not Constantinople)" a jazz-band style concoction recorded by The Four Lads in 1953. 

PARODY COMPOSED: Dr.G.H. and Giorgio Coniglio, May 2023. See some additional photos and the song-lyrics alone (without chord indication) on the blog "Edifying Nonsense."

PARODY-SONGLINK: To access ukulele chord-charts to help you accompany "Thunder Bay (not Constantinople)" on your favorite instrument, click HERE.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

In 1930, "Istanbul" was designated as the official name of the largest city in Türkiye (Turkey), known in earlier periods as Byzantion, Byzantium, Constantinople, and primarily as Istanbul since the fall of the Byzantine empire in 1453.

In 1949, Newfoundland joined Confederation as Canada's tenth and newest province; in 2001, the Canadian Constitution was amended to revise the province's name to "Newfoundland and Labrador" (the mainland area of Labrador included less than 5% of the province's population but the majority of its landmass). The island of Newfoundland (NEW-found-land) is known by its inhabitants as "the Rock". 

In 1953 (the 500th anniversary of the "fall of Constantinople"), the Four Lads, a Canadian singing quartet who had moved from Toronto to the United States, acquired their first gold record with the release of the jazz-band styled "Istanbul (not Constantinople)". Other hit recordings by this group include "Standing on the Corner" and "Moments to Remember". BTW, the original members of the Four Lads attended the St. Michael's Choir School in downtown Toronto, on a small street well known to the authors.  

In 1970, the city of Thunder Bay, Ontario (current population about 110,000), at the western end of Lake Superior was formed by the merger of the two smaller communities of Fort William and Port Arthur.  

THUNDER BAY (not CONSTANTINOPLE)

(Intro theme, mid-Eastern, on kazoo)

"The [Am]Lakehead" was Fort William and Port Arthur
Now it's Thunder Bay, not Willi-am and Arthur
It's a [E7]wondrous town with name that's far superior --
Like [Am]Turkish delight, [Dm]on a [E7]stormy [Am]night.

Every [Am]dame today, 'round Lakehead way,
Stays in Thunder Bay, not with William or with Arthur
You've a [E7]rainy date in Fort William or Port Arthur?
She'll be [Am]waiting in [E7]Thunder [Am]Bay.

Even [Am]old Newfoundland hooked up with Labrador.

[Bm7+5]Ask a Newfie, he might say,

"They [E7]thought, on the Rock, we'd like that more, eh?"

So, [Am]take me back: Fort William and Port Arthur
No, you can't go back in time, it's so much farther;
Been a [E7]long while past, since Willi-am and Arthur.

Why the [Am]name-change? Here's the crux:
[E7]  It's no one's business but Ca-[Am]nucks.

Thunder Bay. 

(kazoo)

Thunder Bay.

JAN 19, defining opinion: hose

Our blogpost "Defining Opinion" on the topic-based blog "Edifying Nonsense" shows a selection of similar verses submitted to OEDILF (the online Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form). You can see all of these on one visit by clicking HERE.

JAN 18, reptiles: anoles going green

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

WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF THE POETRY ON THIS SITE?

 Poetry appearing on this site was written (unless otherwise indicated) by Giorgio Coniglio (registered pseudonym), and for the most part contributed to the online humour dictionary-site...

OEDILF (Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form). In its 15 years of existence, OEDILF has worked its way alphabetically from Aa- to He-, with the goal of accumulating a verse defining every meaning of every word in the English language. This co-operative project has  accumulated over 110,000 carefully edited limericks, with completion date estimated to be around the year 2065. In the past five years, Giorgio has contributed over 500 poems to the project; the site's accession number for the verses is indicated at the bottom of the relevant slides in our presentations.

JAN 17, palinku (poetic novelty): family life

  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. 

  And, just in case you have forgotten what palindromes are about, your blogsite hosts have arranged a serial set of brief lessons on the topic ('Political Palindromes'); click HERE. 

  You can readily 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.)

 

JAN 16, classic palindromes, 'no left felon'

Authors' Note: Apparently a few felons are politicians, and vice versa.

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'. 

JAN 15, binomial phrases: "poop and scoop"

 

Authors' Note:  The rhyming binomial phrase, stoop and scoop, sometimes quoted as stoop and scoop, describes a group activity by pet-owners.
See also the author's poem "dog park".  

     

To review our poetic effusion about binomial phrases proceed to our blog 'Edifying Nonsense', 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 !

JAN 14, curtained verse: octogenarian sex

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 verses: Faintly Obscene (Selected) Limericks' on the full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'.

JAN 13, (re)duplication: fuddy-duddy

Authors' Note: 

(FUD-ee-dud-ee, or as a possibility here, fud-ee-DUD-ee)

Another example of a (re)duplication.

Readers willing to go down an internet rabbit-hole HERE can easily get to a collection of more than a dozen other short verses in which we have dealt with specific reduplications, as well as three fairly lengthy patter-songs about this fascinating linguistic phenomenon. 

JAN 12, Carolina lowcountry: photo-study of the Cooper River (Arthur Ravenel) bridge

This photogenic bridge, a part of US highway 17, links the historic city of Charleston, South Carolina, with the suburban town of Mt. Pleasant across the Cooper River. 

Photos were taken with the camera function on Giorgio Coniglio's i-phone 7, later upgraded to an i-phone 13. A few other pictures can be found in a pre-pandemic blogpost HERE. 

t-shirt motif

You can see this marvellous feat of engineering as rendered in fabric art by clicking HERE and HERE.

TO SEE MORE STUFF (poems, pics, peculiarities): To see older or newer material  (posted daily, or at least on most 'good' days), CLICK below the Comments Section, on 'Older Post' or 'Newer Post'.

JAN 11, review of 'brief sagas' from 2022

 A NOTE from the EDITORS: 

 As readers may have gathered, this blogsite highlights several types of light, wistful and humorous reflections on current life, chief among them being short verses using the limerick format, more or less (see the blogpost "Limerick Variations"). But on occasion, we feel the urge to continue important themes through several stanzas worth of poetic  ideas. So in this post, we highlight the previous years' offerings of 'lengthier' poems of at least 15 lines or 3 stanzas. We have been publishing these at the rate of once a month on this blog ("Daily Illustrated Nonsense"), but as they are found mixed with shorter verses of 5 lines, i.e. standard limericks, or even 3 lines --palinku (palindromic haiku), you might have failed to notice and review them in their entirety. 

  This summary gives you a second chance to explore these lengthier creations that contain as many as 6 stanzas -- hardly lengthy enough to be considered a genuine saga, but we hope reflecting the authors' sagacity.  

  The compressed mode in which our 'sagas' are displayed may enhance your appreciation of the range of topics covered; if you prefer to enjoy the details in a larger and more readable font, you can quickly access the posts on this blog devoted uniquely to their stanza-by-stanza display (as well as notes, related photos and videos), by entering their title into the search lines provided. And from there, you can, of course, explore further to enjoy the multitude of shorter verses.  

 

For the curious reader's convenience, we have gathered our treasury of 'brief sagas' by the year of publication on this blog. Altogether, you will find more than 40 whimsical poems, that cover about 800 lines of verse. 

Click below, and enjoy!
2020
2021
2022
2023.

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