MAY 30, singable satire: War of 1812 revisited -- "THE PRATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS"

 

ORIGINAL PARODY-LYRICS

MUSICAL UNDERPINNINGS: "The Battle of New Orleans" by Jimmy Driftwood, 1958, was one of many songs that interpreted historical events in a manner that appealed to young students. It became a popular cover by Johnny Horton in 1959, topping the charts in North American and even in the UK. 

The United States 1812-1815

PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, February, 2013. Giorgio's recounting of the historical events, and his attempt to set the record straight was posted on the parody -lyrics website "AmIRight" in 2013 as "The Prattle of New Orleans" .

UKULELE and GUITAR-FRIENDLY LINK: Our whole series of updated blog-posted satirical spoofs can now be found in a friendly format for ukulele (and guitar)-players on our sister blog "SILLY SONGS and SATIRE" with chord-charts for both the parody and original song, as well as helpful performing suggestions. 

To find ukulele chord-charts to help you accompany "THE PRATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS" on your favorite instrument, click HERE. 

Jimmy Driftwood with 
his signature home-made guitar

the original recording

battle-site map

Andrew Jackson ("Old Hickory")
 leading troops to victory

THE PRATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS

(to the tune of "The Battle of New Orleans")

As a hist’ry buff, I thought that I should delve,

Into some stated details ‘bout the War of 1812.

These lyrics have been moved, along with ukulele chord suggestions, to a posting on our personal song-blog "Silly Songs and Satire".

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MAY 29, photo-collage: avian talking heads, U to Z

 
Today's Offering (Mar 29, 2025): TALKING HEADS

 This tongue-in-cheek collection is a followup to earlier blog-posts "Avian Talking Heads", as divided into easier to swallow sections alphabetically.

Photos of this ilk and other posts displaying mammals and 'lower' animals, were obtained by Giorgio Coniglio, using an i-phone camera, at various locations, mostly in the 'wild'; a minority was obtained at zoos, museums, aquariums and wildlife sanctuaries. The first post in this extended collection can be found on January 19th, 2025.

prior avian participants 

(January 19 -- click HERE): anhinga, bald eagle, black-crowned night heron, black skimmer, black swan, blue jay, brown pelican.

(January 29 -- click HERE): California scrub jay, Canada goose, cardinal, cedar waxwing, chickadee, chicken, city pigeon, common cormorant, crow.

(February 9 -- click HERE): domestic duck (pekin), domestic turkey, emu, flamingo, gallinule, grackle, great awk, great blue heron, great egret, greylag (domestic) goose.

(February 19 -- click HERE): Harris hawk, housefinch, laughing gull, little blue heron, loon, magpie, mallard duck, marabou stork, military macaw, mute swan. 

(March 9 -- click HERE): owl, oystercatcher, peacock, pied imperial pigeon, red-bellied woodpecker, red-winged blackbird, ring-billed gull, robin.

(March 19 -- click HERE):  sanderling, scarlet macaw, snowy egret, toucan, tricolored heron, trumpeter swan, tufted titmouse.

CURRENT PARTICIPANTS:  victoria crowned pigeon, western gull, white ibis, wood duck, wood stork, yellow-crowned night heron, + neck-stretching trumpeter.

(The photos of the toucan and wood stork were kindly provided by Dr. Betsy C. and Dr Bill W. respectively. Photos were otherwise obtained by Giorgio Coniglio, using his i-phone camera, at various locations.)

trumpeter swan, stretching 

If you enjoyed this foolish collection, you might want to go back and review all our posts featuring avian talking heads. Eventually, there will even be posts featuring mammals and other life forms! 

Click here to proceed to mammalian talking heads A to G.

Readers who would like further information on the subjects, locales or technique of these photos are asked to leave a query in the Comments section. 

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OR, go back to the latest post on this blogsite ("Elegy to Tom Lehrer") HERE.

MAY 27, trees: horsechestnut trees

poetry lyrics:/
 "European replacement, said Morse. ('Chestnut'/ Whose nuts can't be eaten, of course). "Chestnut/
 That adorns your May visit,/ With exhibits exquisite,/ Kin to 'buckeye', blight-free -- It's the horsechestnut." 

 

You can review these illustrated verses in a wider context by proceeding to 'Uprooted Verse: 'Poems about Trees' on the full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". 

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MAY 26, photo-collage: more Lowcountry miscellany

 This is a followup to our prior post of May 17, 2025.

a majestic great egret

cool oldster at a public dance,
Marine Park, Mt Pleasant
 (under the Cooper River Bridge)

a loaded cargo ship proceeds up the darkening Cooper River.

 

juvenile night heron

TODAY'S POEM (senryu  *) 

Barber's "Adagio" --

string orchestra or quartet

courts the infinite.

 

Giorgio Coniglio

* learn more HERE about senryu, a lesser-known Japanese short poem that shares the physical characteristics of haiku (nominally 17 'on' / syllables in three non-rhyming lines), but deals in a satiric or humorous way with human foibles rather than with Nature. 

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OR, go back to the latest post on this blogsite ("Elegy to Tom Lehrer") HERE.

MAY 25, submitted palindromes, RANDOM PILES 41

 

You have reached the "Submitted Palindromes" thread on the blog "Daily Edifying Nonsense", a light literary entity that emanated through the blogosphere daily (almost), i.e. 30 times per month. Unfortunately, due to advancing age and other limitations, the frequency of posting on this site has been reduced to 15x times per month as of 2025.

  On the 25th of each month you will still 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. 

MAY 23, urban concerns: farmers' market

 

Near our block, a new perk, folks remark —

Farmers' market, each week in the park.

Local crafts play their part,

Veggies fill up your cart. 

Salsa, honey and cheese,

And, in season, fresh peas!

Browse and chat from mid-morn until dark.

 Giorgio Coniglio 

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MAY 21, mud-dauber mother-wasps

TODAY'S POEM (senryu *) 

foolish mother wasp 

anchors mud-dauber's nest to

backyard umbrella.  

Giorgio Coniglio

* learn more HERE about senryu, a term that designates a lesser-known Japanese short poem that shares the physical characteristics of haiku (nominally 17 'on' / syllables in three non-rhyming lines), but deals in a satiric or humorous way with human foibles rather than with Nature. 

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To navigate around the 2,000 posts on this blog ("Daily Illustrated Nonsense", or D.I.N.), scroll downwards until you get to a widget with a clickable SUMMARY OF CONTENTS BY DATE displayed with blue fonts -- the most recent are at the top; the oldest at the bottom of the list. Then, just click on any year or month to view the detailed contents.

 

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MAY 20, #singable satire: "CONSTANTINOPOLIS" (the seer of Byzantion)

 ORIGINAL PARODY SONG-LYRICS

MUSICAL UNDERPINNINGS: "Moscow Nights"(Подмосковные вечера,  Podmoskovnie vechera), was a popular song recorded by the Chad Mitchell Trio, 1963. You can listen to the well-known Trio's version on YouTube HERE, or a version with English translation HERE.
The music was first developed as "Leningrad Nights" by composer Solovyov-Sedoi and poet Matusovsky in 1955, but changed at the request of the Ministry of Culture for use in a documentary about a national athletic competition. The tune was subsequently popularized in the West, in the middle of the Cold War era, by Van Cliburn in 1958, and recorded with commercial success by Kenny Ball and the Jazzmen, and the Chad Mitchell Trio in the early 60s. 

PARODY COMPOSED: The song's tune was used by Giorgio Coniglio (registered pseudonym) for a historical allegory written in August 2018. The story concerns Graeco-Roman history during the Byzantine period, and was in part inspired by trips to Turkey and Greece, as well as by the song "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)", a swing-era hit with a very catchy tune (whose lyrics are a bit truncated re bona-fide history).

UKULELE and GUITAR-FRIENDLY LINK: Our whole series of songs can be found in a friendly format for ukulele (and guitar)-players on our sister blog "SILLY SONGS and SATIRE" with chord-charts for both the parody and original song, as well as helpful performing suggestions. 

To find ukulele chord-charts to help you accompany "Constantinopolis" (the seer of Byzantion) on your favorite instrument, click HERE.

CONSTANTINOPOLIS

(to the tune of "Moscow Nights")

Boasts Byzántion’s seer, “Constantine will found,

Nova Roma, his new cosmopolis.

They’ll construct right here;

 These lyrics have been moved, along with ukulele chord suggestions, to a posting on our song-blog "Silly Songs and Satire".

  

*  the prediction was made by the Seer early in the fourth century A.D.

Byzántion (Greek), later known as Byzantium (Latin) was at that time a moderate-sized Greek colony-city on the Bosporus. It was chosen by the Roman Emperor Constantine to become the eastern capital of his empire.

As capital of the Roman Empire (also called Romania), the grand city was known as Constantinopolis, or Konstantinoupolis, for most of its history, i.e. until 1453 A.D. (later as Istanbul by the Turks). The term 'Byzantine Empire' has only been in use by Western historians since that time.

READY TO SEE MORE ?

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OR, go back to the latest post on this blogsite ("Elegy to Tom Lehrer") HERE.

MAY 19, photo-collage: mammalian talking heads, A to G

  

This tongue-in-cheek collection is a followup to an earlier series of blog-posts "Avian Talking Heads". All the photos (except for a few noted exceptions) were taken by G.C.

CURRENT PARTICIPANTS: armadillo, basset hound, beaver, bison, capuchin monkey, chipmunk, cottontail rabbit, cow, coyote, elephant seal, giraffe, goat, gray squirrel, grizzly bear. 

armadillo

basset hound

beaver

bison

 capuchin monkey

chipmunk

cottontail bunny

cow

coyote (park placard)

elephant seal

goat

gray squirrel

grizzly bear
(photo contributed by W.Wingfield)

  

Talking Heads are a media resource:

Seasoned viewers at breaking news' source,

As in sports, storms, disasters.

But they're sometimes just 'masters'

Who the show-host's weird views reinforce.

Giorgio Coniglio

If you enjoyed this foolish collection (that started with the concept of avian talking heads) you might want to proceed to several more posts featuring mammals, as in today's blogpost. Eventually, there will even be posts featuring other life forms! 

Click here to proceed to mammalian talking heads H to O.

Or, click here if you would like to go back and review the whole series, starting with avian talking heads.

Readers who would like further information on the subjects, locales or technique of these photos are asked to leave a query in the Comments section. 

 _________________________________________________________________________

READY TO SEE MORE ?

To navigate around the 2,000 posts on this blog ("Daily Illustrated Nonsense", or D.I.N.), scroll downwards until you get to a widget with a clickable SUMMARY OF CONTENTS BY DATE displayed with blue fonts -- the most recent are at the top; the oldest at the bottom of the list. Then, just click on any year or month to view the detailed contents.

 

OR, go back to the latest post on this blogsite ("Elegy to Tom Lehrer") HERE.