JAN 30, singable satire: Jake Shimabukoro plays "WHILE MY UKE WORDLESSLY SINGS"

 a) Reprise of material posted on January 30 in previous years ...

2020: American satire, the Mooch (illustrated verse)
2021: insects, the (cock)roach (poem) 
2023: singable satire, Global Roasting Can Be Set Aside (parody lyrics)
2022: singable satire, Stem Cells ... (parody lyrics)

To access the details of any item in slide format, type its title, as displayed above in red font (e.g. ... roach), into one of the two search bars at the the top of your blog-page. Underneath the slides for each entertaining delight that you discover, you will find a clickable link that lets you easily explore a more widespread collection of wonderments (verse, photos, wordplay, song-lyrics etc.) on the topic of your choice. 

b) Today's Offering (Jan 30, 2024): 

PARODY SONG-LYRICS

ORIGINAL SONG: "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" written by George Harrison, and recorded by the Beatles for their 1968 album "The Beatles".         

JAKE'S RENDITION, "While My Uke Wordlessly Sings": Jake Shimabukuro had started playing instrumental ukulele as a band member, but in 2002 broke into a solo career. In 2006, a video of Jake's virtuoso rendition of the Beatles song became one of the first to 'go viral' on that site, and has accumulated 16 million hits. The author of this blog has been privileged to attend three Jake concerts in the last 5 years; recently these have included guitar collaborators and a few vocals, but the emphasis remains on instrumental ukulele. 

PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, January 2019.

SONGLINKS: The parody-lyrics for "While My Uke Wordlessly Sings" with accompanying chords for guitar or ukulele players are found on our lyrics-blog "SILLY SONGS and SATIRE" HERE. 

(Giorgio's other satire lyrics substituted to Beatles' songs include "Vonnegut" (Imagine); "Saturday Night" (Yesterday); "Brennan's Tweet" (Let It Be), and "Relic Submarines" (Yellow Submarine).)
 

WHILE MY UKE WORDLESSLY

 SINGS

George Harrison

(to the tune of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps")

To Jake Shimabukuro I listen enraptured

While his wordless ukulele sings.

I look at his band, the song's spirit they've captured,

Arranged so his ukulele sings.

Hawaiian family that enclosed you

Teach and perform on uke.

Though you don't sing, some force convinced you to 

Play virtuoso uke.

You played with teen bands, then began upward spiral,
Developing a novel style.

And "While My Guitar.." went iconically viral

You did instrumental uke all the while.

Your reputation's undisputed --

The world's saluted you.

On concert tours you speak unmuted,

Ukulele-san, that's you.

I listen enraptured to Jake Shimabukuro

While his wordless ukulele sings.

I look at his band, the song's spirit they've captured,

Arranged so his ukulele sings.

JAN 29r, magical palindromes: introductory poem, with examples #1 to #5

a) Reprise of material posted on January 29 in previous years ...

2020: magical palindromes, introductory, examples #1 to #5 (wordplay)
2021: old world palindromes, #9 (wordplay maps) 
2022: hellenophilia, Santorini wines (illustrated poem)
2023: non-sequitur, professor and madman (poem)

To access the details of any item in slide format, type its title, as displayed above in red font (e.g. ... Santorini), into one of the two search bars at the the top of your blog-page. Underneath the slides for each entertaining delight that you discover, you will find a clickable link that lets you easily explore a more widespread collection of wonderments (verse, photos, wordplay, song-lyrics etc.) on the topic of your choice. 

b) Today's Offering (Jan 29, 2024): 

b) current birdie-pics (repeated window strikes):   Almost with the timing suggested by the video, a foolish pair of Eastern bluebirds repeatedly attempted to fly from their perching spot atop the birdfeeder's crook, through the upper part of our dining-room window; this despite our attempt to cut down the reflection of the sky behind the feeder and the false appearance of a nesting space in the interior. Finally, the feeder was removed from the crook, and the drama ended. See further posts for the follow-up.

bluebird repeatedly trying to fly through the dining-room window

temporary "cure":
markers on window to prevent bird strikes

JAN 28, curtained verse: complimentarily

  a) Reprise of material posted on January 28 in previous years ...

2020: Canadiana, western funky towns (wordplay maps)
2021: etymology, horse (illustrated poem) 
2022: gun control verse, anger and guns (illustrated poem)
2023: lexicon of word-pairs, alliterative binomials A (wordplay)

To access the details of any item in slide format, type its title, as displayed above in red font (e.g. ... horse), into one of the two search bars at the the top of your blog-page. Underneath the slides for each entertaining delight that you discover, you will find a clickable link that lets you easily explore a more widespread collection of wonderments (verse, photos, wordplay, song-lyrics etc.) on the topic of your choice. 

b) Today's Offering (Jan 28, 2024): 

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

JAN 27, waterfowl: Ibis Hotel

  a) Reprise of material posted on January 27 in previous years ...

2020: insects, bumblebees (illustrated poem)
2021: anagram swarm, ELECTION-FRAUD contest, state entries (wordplay) 
2022: reprehensible history, clannishness negated (illustrated poem)
2023: national verse, Iceland (illustrated poem)

To access the details of any item in slide format, type its title, as displayed above in red font (e.g. ... horse), into one of the two search bars at the the top of your blog-page. Underneath the slides for each entertaining delight that you discover, you will find a clickable link that lets you easily explore a more widespread collection of wonderments (verse, photos, wordplay, song-lyrics etc.) on the topic of your choice. 

Bumblebee working purple asters

b) Today's Offering (Jan 27, 2024): 

 current birdie-pic: the authors' favorite pond for viewing birdlife

     
                  

guests at poolside, Ibis Hotel

                              

JAN 26, limerick extension: Collection of Internal "LIMERRHOIDS"

  a) Reprise of material posted on January 26 in previous years ...

2020: waterfowl, great blue herons (illustrated poem)
2021: anagram swarms, US scramble-towns, 13 (wordplay maps) 
2022: reptiles, amphisbaenians (illustrated poem)
2023: parasites, the parasitologist (host) (poem)

To access the details of any item in slide format, type its title, as displayed above in red font (e.g. ... parasitologist), into one of the two search bars at the the top of your blog-page. Underneath the slides for each entertaining delight that you discover, you will find a clickable link that lets you easily explore a more widespread collection of wonderments (verse, photos, wordplay, song-lyrics etc.) on the topic of your choice. 

b) Today's Offering (Jan 26, 2024): 

Learn more about these limerick variations as described by their "inventors" and perpetrators HERE !

Readers can find a collection of even more of these variant verses by clicking HERE !

 

JAN 25, Submitted Palindromes: RANDOM PILE #2

  a) Reprise of material posted on January 25 in previous years ...

2020: fabric art, the fabric artist (illustrated poem)
2021: birdlore, American robins (illustrated poem) 
2022: funny bones, hook of the hamate (poem)
2023: submitted palindromes, presenter - Don's Ho (wordplay)

To access the details of any item in slide format, type its title, as displayed above in red font (e.g. ... Don's Ho), into one of the two search bars at the the top of your blog-page. Underneath the slides for each entertaining delight that you discover, you will find a clickable link that lets you easily explore a more widespread collection of wonderments (verse, photos, wordplay, song-lyrics etc.) on the topic of your choice. 

b) Today's Offering (Jan 25, 2024): 

  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. 

JAN 24, defining opinion: homogenized milk

  a) Reprise of material posted on January 24 in previous years ...

2020: new world palindromes, #3 (wordplay maps)
2021: American satire, freedom-from-Trump Day (illustrated poem) 
2022: dental felings, implants (illustrated poem)
2023: bi-lyrical limerick, aphonic (poetic novelty)

To access the details of any item in slide format, type its title, as displayed above in red font (e.g. ... implants), into one of the two search bars at the the top of your blog-page. Underneath the slides for each entertaining delight that you discover, you will find a clickable link that lets you easily explore a more widespread collection of wonderments (verse, photos, wordplay, song-lyrics etc.) on the topic of your choice. 

b) Today's Offering (Jan 48, 2024): 

 

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 23, death and the afterlife: decease in the crease

  a) Reprise of material posted on January 23 in previous years ...

2020: anagrams, sister-cities 4 (wordplay maps)
2021: minerals and vitamins, zinc (illustrated poem) 
2022: anagrams, US postal service (wordplay maps)
2023: braincheck, homonymous hemianopsia (poem)

To access the details of any item in slide format, type its title, as displayed above in red font (e.g. ... zinc), into one of the two search bars at the the top of your blog-page. Underneath the slides for each entertaining delight that you discover, you will find a clickable link that lets you easily explore a more widespread collection of wonderments (verse, photos, wordplay, song-lyrics etc.) on the topic of your choice. 

b) Today's Offering (Jan 23, 2024): 

Authors' Note: In hockey, an assist is recognition awarded to a player who passes the puck to the goal-scorer at a key point in play. A sudden death system for resolving the winner in games tied at the end of regulation play has generally been used in organized hockey since its inception. The (goal) crease is an area demarcated by colored ice directly in front of the goal line where the goalie (goalkeeper) is not to be interfered with by attackers.

Although professional hockey has been the undisputed domain of males, more and more women are participating in Canada's national sport as amateurs and international competitors.

 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!

 

JAN 22, photo-collage: unusual sightings, Toronto wildlife

  a) Reprise of material posted on January 22 in previous years ...

2020: American satire, laying blame (poem)
2021: anagram swarm, ELECTION-FRAUD contest, other national entries (wordplay maps) 
2022: neologism, classic, snafus (illustrated poem)
2023: poets' corner, noun-verb contractions (poem)

To access the details of any item in slide format, type its title, as displayed above in red font (e.g. ... snafus) into one of the two search bars at the the top of your blog-page. Underneath the slides for each entertaining delight that you discover, you will find a clickable link that lets you easily explore a more widespread collection of wonderments (verse, photos, wordplay, song-lyrics etc.) on the topic of your choice. 

b) Today's Offering (Jan 22, 2024): 

iconic Toronto wildlife

JAN 21, terminal (poetic) exclamation: cold? I'M SOLD!

  a) Reprise of material posted on January 21 in previous years ...

2020: American satire, First Term on the Range (wordplay/parody lyrics)

2021: classic palindromes, Drawn onward. (illustrated poem)
2022: limerick variations, singable limericks (illustrated poem) 
2023: creative anachronism, dawning of history (illustrated poem)

To access the details of any item in slide format, type its title, as displayed above in red font (e.g. ...Drawn onward.), into one of the two search bars at the the top of your blog-page. Underneath the slides for each entertaining delight that you discover, you will find a clickable link that lets you easily explore a more widespread collection of wonderments (verse, photos, wordplay, song-lyrics etc.) on the topic of your choice. 

b) Today's Offering (Jan 21, 2024): 

Readers might want to hold off reading this submission until they have have familiarized themselves with concepts exemplified in the posts on  "Limerick Variations", and "Terminal Exclamations" on the blog "Edifying Nonsense".

                                                                  

Authors' Note: Our protagonist, presumably a Canadian snowbird, can take little comfort in the higher values of Fahrenheit than Celsius temperatures in the reasonably livable range. The temperature is what it is; only the describing numbers differ, although they are precisely related as defined in PGS's conversion. And below -40 degrees, Celsius is higher (but not warmer) than Fahrenheit.

The above verse was written on a brisk January morning when the temperature in degrees was -12C (10F) in Toronto, -10C (14F) in Atlanta, and 11C (52F) in Miami.

You can review our collection of poems on the topic of "Terminal Exclamation (Limerick Variations)" as it evolves on our more encyclopedic blog "Edifying Nonsense"; click HERE.  

Birds along the south Atlantic coast of the US, like this bright fellow, don't seem to mind. Perhaps they know that it's going to warm up shortly! (At 10:30, it's already up to 31F!)

Incidental additional poetry:

JAN 20, singable satire: Dean Martin sings "ROBBIE BURNS' DAY"

   a) Reprise of material posted on January 20 in previous years ...

2020: holidays and celebrations, Robbie Burns' Day (poem - 'brief saga')
2021: singable patter-satire, Reduplications L to Z (parody lyrics) 
2022: singable satire, Jailhouse, Now (parody lyrics)
2023: singable satire, Thunder Bay, Ontario (parody lyrics)

To access the details of any item in slide format, type its title, as displayed above in red font (e.g. ... Thunder Bay), into one of the two search bars at the the top of your blog-page. Underneath the slides for each entertaining delight that you discover, you will find a clickable link that lets you easily explore a more widespread collection of wonderments (verse, photos, wordplay, song-lyrics etc.) on the topic of your choice. 

b) Today's Offering (Jan 20, 2024):

 

PARODY-SONG: "Dean Martin Sings Robbie Burns Day" 2024, a parody pastiche with lyrics by Giorgio Coniglio, substituted to "That's Amore", the Dean Martin 1953 classic.

PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, December, 2018, updated from earlier blogposts, and with improved verse-charts. 

Explanatory Notes: Robert Burns, born 1759, became Scotland’s ‘national poet’, and a cultural icon at home and among Scottish diaspora around the world. In his short life - he died at age 37 -  he wrote hundreds of well-loved poems and songs; the most famous is Auld Lang Syne, traditionally sung on Hogmanay (New Year's Eve). Robbie Burns Day is celebrated on his birthday, January 25, often with a Burns Night supper. 

Burns' best-loved poems include "To a Mouse", "To a Louse", "Tam o' Shanter", "Parcel o' Rogues", and "Address to a Haggis".

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

Robert Burns 

ROBBIE BURNS DAY

(to the tune of "That's Amore")

INTRO (Tremolo)
In Aberdeen and overseas
Kilt-wearers freeze below the knees.....

When friends honor the haggis and flag of St Andrews - 

That's Burns Day.

First you’re piped to your place, they intone Selkirk’s Grace -

Robbie Burns Day.

Cock-a-leekie soup, cook will boast, address-by-the-host,

Offer toasts to the haggis.

The Saltire, or St Andrews cross

You think, “oops!” – dinner-wasn’t-cheap, eat tatties an neeps *,

Hope to sleep through the speeches.

Poems recite –- Mouse-that-gets-a-fright, Louse that’s-in-plain-sight,

Witches’ night – "Tam o’ Shanter"

Greed retold, Scotland’s future sold, England’s bribing-gold,

"‘Parcel o’ Rogues"  - truth or slander?

With slurred speech you sound Scottish, sipped Scotch ‘til you’re sottish - 

That's Burns Day.

Yes, you’ve downed too much malt, might be mostly your fault -

You feel plough'd.

Finally guests’ vote of thanks, you chant, closing your ranks

Like Hogmanay.

Let the world praise today the auld Bard o’ Alloway -

Robbie Burns Day!

JAN 19, photo-collage (sequel to yesterday's 'crepuscular rendez-vous')

   a) Reprise of material posted on January 19 in previous years ...

2020: personal and family history, relations (illustrated poem)
2021: commercial products, web-purchased firearms (illustrated poem) 
2022: Panama palindrome parody, Amen .. Ipanema (illustrated poem)
2023: defining opinion, hose (poem)

To access the details of any item in slide format, type its title, as displayed above in red font (e.g. ... hose), into one of the two search bars at the the top of your blog-page. Underneath the slides for each entertaining delight that you discover, you will find a clickable link that lets you easily explore a more widespread collection of wonderments (verse, photos, wordplay, song-lyrics etc.) on the topic of your choice. 

b) Today's Offering (Jan 19, 2024): 

The next day, we took our foray a bit earlier in the afternoon. The weather was clearer and considerably colder, but the late afternoon light had a golden hue....  

a pair of bottlenose dolphins hunts in synchrony

a lone cormorant flies low above the creek's surface

\

a goofy-looking penguin preens itself 

a more formal pose

at the ibis hotel

 

JAN 18, photo-collage: crepuscular rendez-vous

  a) Reprise of material posted on January 18 in previous years ...

2020: trees, Norway maples (illustrated poem)
2021: anagrams, ELECTION-FRAUD contest, honorable mention (wordplay maps)

2022: mammalian wildlife, kri-kri, Cretan goat (illustrated poem) 
2023: reptiles, anoles going green (photo analysis)

To access the details of any item in slide format, type its title, as displayed above in red font (e.g. ...Norway maples), into one of the two search bars at the the top of your blog-page. Underneath the slides for each entertaining delight that you discover, you will find a clickable link that lets you easily explore a more widespread collection of wonderments (verse, photos, wordplay, song-lyrics etc.) on the topic of your choice. 

b) Today's Offering (Jan 18, 2024): 

 "Crepuscular" is defined in our poem HERE.

black-crowned night heron

snowy egret

 white ibises in pondside shrubbery

white ibises finding a resting perch in the trees

further dimming of the light

ominous appearing cormorants

Is this a good place to spend the night?

wings of man

Be sure to check out the sequel to this foray, to be published tomorrow.