SEP 30, singable satire: The Eagles sing "BROKEN ARROW"

 SAD ANTI-WAR SATIRE:

ORIGINAL SONG:  "Desperado", The Eagles, 1973. "Desperado" is also the name of the second studio album recorded by the band. 

SATIRE COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, March 2018.
PARODY-WORDLINK: The original story was encountered as a 60th anniversary reprise by the Charleston SC daily newspaper Post and Courier. Another take on this interesting episode has been twisted into limerick verse by  Giorgio in a 3-stanza poem HERE. 

PARODY-SONGLINK: The same tune was used as the vehicle for a parody song posted in 2014 entitled "Macadamias".

To find ukulele and guitar chord-charts to help you accompany "Broken Arrow" on your favorite instrument, click HERE.

BROKEN ARROW

(to the tune of "Desperado")

"Broken Arrow" - Why don't we drop the pretenses
The Department of Defense has hidden truth 'til now.
Hardened warheads (or just training simulation),
And the trigger didn't detonate the payload somehow.

We're talking Cold War '58, and a farm near Florence in our rural state.
Air pocket, training crew, bomber overhead.
They lost control of a big device
A nuclear explosion wouldn't be nice.
Had it triggered, folks in Florence'd all be dead.

"Broken Arrow" - from the heavens bomb tumbled.
When A-bombs are fumbled, there's no time for alarm.
Flattened farmhouse, and left a 30-foot crater, but
No plutonium detonater, so 'no serious harm'.

Just months before, off the Georgia shore, two Air Force planes collided;
Never found, an H-bomb ditched into the sea.
Plutonium capsule had been removed (official account's not yet disproved)
Near Tybee Island, the device rests quietly.

Broken Arrows - there are dozens of examples.
The evidence is ample, we should close off this gate.
World leaders, we're needing
Diplomatic moderation.
Let's halt reckless provocation, reckless provocation,
Let's stop arms proliferation before it's too late.

SEP 29, postal places, Canada: Antigonish, NS

 

Authors' Note: NS is the official abbreviation for the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, in which the town of Antigonish, population 4,700, is located on the shore of Northumberland Strait, a source of excellent local seafood.

Based on an aboriginal Mi'kmak name, the town was founded in 1784 by a land grant from the British crown. It is now the home of the annual Antigonish Highland Games, and of Sir Francis Xavier University, highly reputed on a national level for undergraduate teaching.

 At one swell foop, you can review all our postal poems about intriguing places in the USA and Canada, by proceeding to the encyclopedic blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE !

SEP 28, 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. 

SEP 28, duplication: hocus-pocus

 

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".

SEP 27, ambulatory verse: scamper (seduction)

 

 

You can review all our verses on this topic, accumulated for you on our companion blog "Edifying Nonsense", by clicking HERE.

SEP 26, gruesome verse: hidey-hole

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

SEP 25, Submitted Palindromes: D, targeted at "WON'T LOVERS REVOLT NOW?"

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. Their profiles are indicated 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", and continuing with other well-known phrases, such as "Dennis sinned". Otherwise, their contribution will be grouped in 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 all of this delightful entertainment 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. 

SEP 23, waterfowl: flightless seabirds

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

SEP 22, "pictures at a renovation": finishing touches

  PREVIOUS VIEWS:

You can journey back through the whole arduous undertaking by scrolling back through our earlier posts (you can also click these dates for direct transport back to see the previous views). 

June 13: reconstrucion phase

May 31: reconstruction phase

May 25: reconstruction phase

May 7: reconstruction phase

May 3: reconstruction phase

April 26: reconstruction phase

April 18: reconstruction phase

See earlier posts for the planning and demolition phases! 

SEP 21, objectionable adjectives: forced (bulbs)

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

SEP 20, singable satire: Allan Sherman sings "MINOS'S TAIL TWIST"

 

PASTICHE WITH PARODY SONG-LYRICS

ORIGINAL POEM:  "Inferno" by Dante Alighieri, the first book in the triad, "The Divine Comedy", written in the early 14th century.
ORIGINAL SONG: "The Mexican Hat Dance", Allan Sherman, 1963. 

PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, November 2015.

PARODY-SONGLINK: To find ukulele and

 guitar chord-charts to help you accompany "Minos's Tail Twist" on your favorite instrument, click HERE.

Resuming at Canto 5 of “The Inferno” after a considerable pause.... Dante, guided by the Roman poet Virgil is on a mission presumably sanctioned by heavenly powers, that leads them progressively further downward into the Circles of Hell.

MINOS’S TAIL-TWIST

(to the tune of "The Mexican Hat Dance")

Intro:

Oh! King Minos, his son was a Taurus -

A Greek legend whose details might bore us,

Yet old Virgil’s Aeneid implores us

To think Minos a judge of the Dead.

The next chapter is D. Alighieri’s

He conceived of a Minos more scary.

This huge reptile makes sinners despair-y

He’s Inferno’s vile judge of the Dead.  Olé!

  

Dante:            Così

Discesi del cerchio primaio

Dov’è dolor che piunge a guaio

A lagrimar mi fanno pio

 "Minos", Gustave Dore

Stavvi horribilmente Minòs.

Our nice outing in Limbo had ended.

To the grim Second Ring we descended,

Where this gross snarling monster offended

With the verdict he gives with his tail.

Essamina le colpe nell’intrata,

Le confessa l’anima mal nata

Vede qual loco d’infern' è da essa,

Della peccata è conoscitor!

He examines the souls of transgressors

As a devilish father-confessor,

Assigns Circle of Hell, more or less, Sir,

With the number of coils in his tail.

the traditional Jarabe Tapatio,
 "Mexican Hat Dance"

Un atto di cotanto offizio -

Sempre dinanzi ne stanno molte

Vanno al giudizio,

E dicono e odono

Minos si cigne e giù son volte.

You’d done rapine and pillage and letching

You’d sinned quite a good bit in your youth

You thought you had hidden

Those bad things you did then,

But Minos will find out the truth.

Crowds pour in! To get dissed!

In turn each one gets judged

They’d prefer not to budge,

But they’re hurled downward in the abyss.

Disse Minòs a me quando me vide,

“Guarda di cui tu ti fide”

E’l duca mio lui “Perche pur gride?”

Vuolsi cosí colà si puote.

Oh, this tail-twister’s workflow was broken,

When he’d spied me and snarkily spoken,

Virge rebuked him with a poignant token

Of the Power that willed us ahead.  

A pianto sentire or son venuto

In loco d’ogne luce muto

Da contrari venti è combattuto

Intesi - ecco dannati

I peccator carnali

Nulla speranza di posa

Ove Minòs manda colla coda. *

Now, there starts up such sad incantation,

And the roar of a storm’s emanation -

Wind-tossed darkness and sad lamentation

‘Cause by now you could guess

There’s eternal distress -

Lustful lovers were damned and confined

Here, where Minos’s tail-twist assigned.

Olé.

* coda, the Italian word for tail, also implies a conclusion or ending.

 Interesting Side-Notes (Minos as portrayed by Michelangelo)

• Michelangelo's "Last Judgment", painted on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel was criticized by a papal attendant, Baigio da Cesena, as more appropriate for a tavern because of its use of nude figures. 
• In its final version, Minos is portrayed at the lower right portion of the scene, with facial features presumably similar to Baigio. surrounded by other devils, with donkey ears, and with his tail wrapped around him. One can observe the subtle detail of a serpent biting the Minos-figure on the genitals!
• The Pope claimed he had no jurisdiction over Hell, and therefore let the painting remain in this form, despite da Cesena's objection.

SEP 19, photo-collage: great egrets at a Toronto pond

Not too bad for cell-phone photos, eh?

(A few selected still pics will be posted in a month or so.) 

 

SEP 18, lexicon of word-pairs: repetitive binomials I to O

 Giorgio's lexicon of binomials (repetitive, echoic)

Quite a few repetitive ('echoic') binomials have been highlighted in short verses by the authors:  

You can easily find all of these on our topic-based blog "Edifying Nonsense" by clicking HERE, and following the links. 

SEP 17, palinku (poetic novelty): reliable transport

 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.)

links for any date: scroll over to the calendar-based listings of 'Past Posts' in the righthand column on this page, choose your month of interest, and then select (by clicking) the post of your choice.

SEP 16, chemical states (and provinces): eastern U.S.

 

 You can view the collection of posts on this topic with this link to our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense" -- click HERE.

SEP 15, exemplification: Donald Duck's malarkey

Authors' Note: The term malarkey for "nonsense" is likely of Greek origin, but does not appear to related to mallard ducks.

 To review our whole collection of "exemplary exemplifications", click HERE. 

SEP 14, cinematic guide: gainless (M*A*S*H theme-song)

Authors' Note: Director Robert Altman had initially requested music for a single scene in the 1970 movie M*A*S*H; in keeping with the plot, this was to be "the stupidest song ever written". Having difficulty in completing the lyricist's task himself, Altman called on his 14-year-old son, who presumably finished the job in a few minutes. The music for "Suicide is Painless" went on to become highly popular as the principal theme for the movie and the TV series; the lyrics are not widely known, but earned the junior Altman large sums in royalties.

You can view our collection of verses about the cinema on our encyclopedic blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE. 

SEP 13, pill-poppin' poem: antimalarials to treat epidemic viruses

You can view informative verses like this one in a wider context by proceeding to the collection "Pill-Popping Poems (selected pharmaceuticals)" on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE! 

Also, please check out the Lancet's concurrent study on the acute use of antimalarial drugs as published online  at  https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31180-6/fulltext
Or, check this link to the story in the Washington Post.

SEP 12, portraits of couples: dogpark figures

 

You can view all of our folio-photos from the collection of 'Couples' portraits in a wider context on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE. 

SEP 11, dental feelings (sentimental verse): amalgam

 

Authors' Note:  Although standard dental amalgam is an alloy of mercury and silver, routine removal of these fillings is not routinely recommended. Ask your dentist.

SEP 10, a brief saga (medical statistics): clinical trial -- a gram of prevention

 

Authors' Note: The conclusion of this imaginary placebo-controlled trial of magic in the prevention and treatment of ILLS can be stated as follows:

Parenteral administration of a low dose (1 gram) was found uniformly effective in prevention. For oral treatment of later established cases, the dosage requirement was found to be higher by a factor of 16 times (95% confidence interval: 9 — 25).
The above conclusion could, with inherent limitations of proportionality, be converted back to older units (as spoofed on the OEDILF site by Giri): "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

You can review a collection of related poems about clinical trials and clinical statistics by advancing to the blog "Edifying Nonsense" where you can find "A Limerick-Based Handbook on Medical Testing". 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 (October 2023), proceed to ... 'Creep', and its verbal variants. 

To access the most recent previous 'brief saga' (August 2023), back up to 'Herbicides'.