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

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

2020: literature survey, "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" (illustrated poem)
2021: singable satire, Babel-Talky, multilingual 'Jaberwocky (parody lyrics) 
2022: singable satire, Fickle Twist of Verse, #3 (parody lyrics)
2023: singable satire, Nessun Dorma (parody lyrics)

PARODY SONG-LYRICS

MUSICAL UNDERPINNINGS: "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 29, birdlore: in-flight videos

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

2020: magical palindromes, introduction (poem and wordplay)

2021: old world palindromes, 9, 10 (wordplay maps) 
2022: hellenophilia, Santorini wines (illustrated poem)
2023: poetic 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): 

snowy egret

black-crowned night heron

JAN 28, mythed opportunities: shooting dice with Satan (hosta)

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: word-pairs, alliterative binomials H-K (wordplay lexicon)

 Author's Note: Many floriculturists would sell their souls to find a cultivar of the lush perennial hosta, Hosta spp., whose foliage would persist through the winter. Although the plant routinely dies back during icy months, it usually returns in the following spring.

John Milton's epic work Paradise Lost, and the crapshoot are described in other verses.

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!

JAN 27, selected pics: (waterfowl): Ibis Hotel

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

2020: anagram swarm, US scramble-towns, 1 (wordplay maps)

2021: anagram swarm, US scramble-towns, 13 (wordplay maps)

2022: anagram swarm, Canadian scramble-towns, 3 (wordplay map)
2023: anagram swarm, Canadian scramble-towns, 15 (wordplay map) 

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. 

bee working purple asters

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

     
             

b) Today's Offering (Jan 27, 2024):     

guests at poolside, Ibis Hotel

       

a flap at the 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 swarm, ELECTION-FRAUD contest, state entries (wordplay)  

2022: reptiles, amphisbaenians (illustrated poem)
2023: parasites, the parasitologist (host) (poem)

2024: limerick extension, Giorgio's 7-liners (poem collection)

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):

 Re PAGES: 

You, members of the audience of Daily Illustrated Nonsense, (D.I.N.), often have questions about the authors of this blog, and the purpose, history and organization of our online e-manations. To help answer these puzzlements, we have scrawled some material on the undated PAGES section of this blog. Please review these 'documents', although some remain under development. Although expansion of these explanations is contemplated, we admit to taking our time to write down what seems natural to us, but more outreach with this type of communication is planned.

So far, you can take a look at these important documents :

1) Our Blog (D.I.N.): Authors and Purpose (under construction)

2) Content of the blog, and its Historical Development

3) Distribution of Thematic Material

4) How Can I Contribute? (under construction)

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 PILES 25

 

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. The personal profiles for each of these contributors are displayed 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", continuing with other well-known phrases, such as "Dennis sinned". Otherwise, their contribution will be grouped in monthly 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 this delightful entertainment right here 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, OR, just follow the links indicated above. 

Devotees of palindromic wordplay can further explore limericks and other short verses about the classic palindromes (and quite a few recent concoctions) that are randomly scattered on this blog after September 2000, or collected into grouped postings on our more encyclopedic blog "Edifying Nonsense" -- start HERE.

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)

2024: defining opinion, homogenized milk (poem)

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 24, 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: sister-cities anagrams, 5,6 (wordplay maps)

2021: minerals and vitamins, zinc (illustrated poem) 
2022: anagrams, US postal service (wordplay maps)
2023: basic medical science, homonymous hemianopsia (poem)

2024: death and the afterlife, decease in the crease (illustrated 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, Toront-oases: 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): 

common Toronto wildlife

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

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"

   

 

MUSICAL UNDERPINNINGS:: "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 "crepuscular rendez-vous"

   

To start, check out the post "crepuscular rendez-vous". 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 more formal pose

at the ibis hotel

 

JAN 18, photo-collage: crepuscular rendez-vous

 "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.