JUN 21, reptiles: broad-headed skinks

another individual, spotted at Caw Caw Plantation

 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'.

JUN 20, singable satire: the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band sings about canoeing, "LOST COUNTRY"

PARODY-LYRICS 

Young canoeist in the bow,
Sunset on Bass Lake, Ontario

ORIGINAL SONG: "Lost River" by Michael Martin Murphey, most famously performed in conjunction with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band HERE.

Key lyrics from the original, retained in the parody version, include lines in the chorus about a "Quebec girl" and "fleur de lis". Murphey is in fact married to a Québécoise, and, as the song's protagonist presumably wishes to take her on a trip of rediscovery to the nostalgia-generating "lost river" of his youth. For those interested, the original song is displayed in ukulele-friendly format on our sister-blog.

SONG-LYRIC UNDERPINNINGS: On our song-blog you can find an earlier concoction entitled "Canoeing Lesson (Canoe, Canoe, Canoe, Canoe, Canoe)",  based on the original song  "I Do, etc." by ABBA, 1975. This earlier song also builds on Berton's concept of the relevance of canoeing to Canadian identity.

"A Canadian is someone who knows how to make love in a canoe", Pierre Berton, eminent Canadian journalist, editor, historian and author.

PARODY COMPOSED: Dr.G.H. and Giorgio Coniglio, December 2018, based on the precedents of song-lyrics and limerick verses, with a few new twists.

CHORD-CHARTS and OTHER PARAPHERNALIA:
As is usually the case with song-lyrics, we have simultaneously provided suggested chords for ukulele, guitar or whatever-stringed-instruments for the parody and for the original lyrics on our music-buff site "SILLY SONGS and SATIRE".  To access ukulele chord-charts to help you accompany "Lost Country" on your favorite instrument, click HERE. 

"LOST COUNTRY" (Canadian Canoeing Nostalgia)

(to the tune of "Lost River" by M. M. Murphey) 

M. M. Murphey
songwriter and performer

Urban summers seem so hot

That you'll need to find a spot

To escape (no use stewin'),

Where it's cool for canoein'.

Paddle straight and go faster

When the J-stroke you'll master.

Once you learn what you're doin'

Seek your spirit's renewin'.

A Canadian's someone who

Can make love in a canoe.

He knows lots of good strokes

And can thwart ogling folks.

Starting foreplay, he'll untether,

He'll move sideways with the feather;

He'll avert curious eyes

With a series of pries.

CHORUS: Oh, lost country, now I'm paddlin' back

To those thousands of lakes,

That beau paysage I've lacked*. 

Oh Quebec girl come with me, 

Oh, ma belle, ma fleur de lis,

Northern vision in our mind,

That Pierre Berton defined.

Now at heart our Rose did hate
Tryin' to make the boat go straight.
Paddlin' lessons were a battle
'Til some tricks she learned (don't tattle!)
In the stern she could discern
That instructors might well yearn
To teach Trudeau's stroke, fiddle-faddle
While she straddled their paddle.

Repeat CHORUS

 

JUN 18, birdlore: red-winged blackbirds

You can view an encyclopedic collection of illustrated poems on this topic by proceeding to the post 'Poems about Avian Life -- BIRDLORE' on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE. 

JUN 17, palinku (poetic novelty): ponderings

 

   In this post, we continue with a novel form of poetic wordplay. Inspired by Japanese haiku poetry, and by European-language attempts to convey its essence ina cross-cultural context, 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. 

You can 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.

JUN 16, amphibians: American toad

Authors' Note:    In the Canadian province of Ontario we have only two species of toad, apparently -- the American toad, Anaxyrus americanus, and the closely related Fowler's toad. There are also some 10 species of 'true' frog.

  The author had initially given excessive credence to the differentiating rule that states, "if something hops, it's a toad, but if it leaps, it's a frog." The creature in question was apparently under great pressure to reach the Great Lakes beach.

  Be sure to check out the whole collection of 'Amphibians' by proceeding to "Edifying Nonsense." CLICK HERE ! 

JUN 15, patients and maladies: eye discharge

Verse in honour of Dr. J J.'s birthday (also, check the post of June 23)

Authors' Note:

dacryocystorhinostomy: a surgical procedure used to relieve lacrimal obstruction (blocked tear drainage)

 DCR: abbreviation for above, used by surgical ophthalmologists, who usually perform the procedure

 

You can view these verses in a wider context by proceeding to 'Nurse-Verse: Patients and their Maladies' on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE!

JUN 14, poetic Panama palindrome parody: Sir, .. a Paris

You can review the whole collection of our illustrated verses on this topic  by proceeding to 'Reversing Verse: Panama palindrome parodies' on the full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'.

And, if you are interested in seeing innumerable examples of spoofy palindrome variants on wordplay maps, you could embark on a journey through a collection of  blogposts entitled 'Tourists' Palindromic Guides: The Americas, #1 -#4'. All that's needed is to click on the link.

JUN 13, doctors and their practices: the lecturing internist

Authors' Note: 'Essential', an outdated-sounding modifier, is used to imply 'idiopathic', i.e. without known cause. There are some underlying risk factors, e.g. genetic disposition, and kidney disease, that may contribute, but well over 90% of hypertension is without a definable underyling cause. 'Essential hypertension' is a well-known (although archaic) term for your health-care provider, but is confusing and even counterintuitive for patients.  

You can view these informative verses in a wider context by proceeding to the collection 'DOCTORS and their PRACTICES' on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE!

JUN 12, portraits of couples: black (Australian) swans

  

 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.

JUN 11, death and the afterlife: leaving the planet (by canoe)

There are not many poems dealing with canoeing in the afterlife, so we hope that you enjoyed this one. 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!

JUN 10, a brief saga (insects): clothes moths ('holesome verse')

Experienced poet-humorists had stated that it wasn't possible to write a limerick about 'caterpillars', but we proved them wrong (see verse D below)!

You can review Giorgio's other verses about pesty and occasionally beneficial insects, as  collected in 'Buzzwords: Verses about Insects' on the full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". 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 proceed in a collaborative editing process that may take several weeks to over a year. 

  Generally, OEDILF has not been enormously welcoming of multi-verse submissions, but Giorgio Coniglio has persisted, and the OEDILF number for each accepted multi-verse poem is shown here on the slide with its first verse. 

To access the next 'brief saga' on this blog (July 2021), proceed to 'Radiation Exposure'.

To access the most recent previous 'brief saga' (May 2021), back up to 'Methylated Spirits'. 

JUN 9, English literature survey course: the diary of Samuel Pepys

 

You can review the entire curriculum for our 'English Classics Survey Course' at "Edifying Nonsense" by clicking HERE.

JUN 8, yesterday's excursion: Toronto Brickworks

red-winged blackbird

 
a midland painted turtle scampers by 

water lilies, just coming into bloom

 a bullfrog chimes in at the ponds

time for dinner!

On a gusty afternoon, with the marsh plants 'on board' having grown tall enough to catch the breeze, you can view this type of  boating action. You don't have to go to Bolivia to see 'floating islands'!

JUN 7, life in Palindrome Valley: family relations

Authors' Note: Any grouping known as 'the Palindrome Family' will have more daughters than sons. (In the case cited, older sisters Hannah, Ava and Lil have already been married off.) And, in classic parenting, you have to watch out for their welfare; extreme caution is advised with respect to questionable dates, escorts or suitors like Dennis.

Italics are used to outline palindromic words and phrases in the above verse. More subtly, Dennis sinned, Tennis sin-net, and Golf flog are phrases consisting of two mirror-imaged entities known as semordnilaps, that unite in wordlock to produce a palindromic phrase.

You can review other illustrated verses on this topic by proceeding to the collection 'Life in Palindrome Valley' on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. For further revelations about Dennis and his sins, click HERE. 

JUN 6, boating: Rose's canoeing lesson

 

You can review these illustrated verses in a wider context by proceeding to 'Reverse Strokes: 'Verses About Canoeing' on the full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'.

JUN 5, old world palindromes #23 and #24

 You can view the entire collection of 'Old World Palindromes' on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense";  start by clicking here.

JUN 4, Canadiana: 'Torontonian/Buffalonian'

 

Authors' Note: 

Buffalonian: a native of Buffalo, New York, in the northern tier of American cities, located 90 miles (150 km) from Toronto, Canada

northern cities vowel shift: linguistic term for the key element in a regional accent whose use peaked in a band across the northeastern portion of the United States. Its use there is apparently now declining, but it has never been used in adjacent parts of Canada; the dialect is known as the Great Lakes dialect, Inland North dialect, or Inland Northern American English.

Buffalo Bisons: a class AAA minor league baseball team (Toronto Blue Jays affiliate). 

 

You can review poems, pictures and diverse nonsense related to Canada on the post "Canadiana" on our full-service blog  "Edifying Nonsense".

JUN 3, to clot, or not: Virchow's triad

Authors' Note:  

stasis: an absence of flow, or markedly reduced flow

deep venous thrombosis (DVT): a condition in which clots form in the deep veins, usually of the calves; the disorder often produces symptoms, but may be silent

The above verse conjures studies of factors in causation of DVT more than a century ago by Rudolf Virchow (FEER-koh), the famed German pathologist, that eventually resulted in the concept 'Virchow's triad'. The modern triad includes the elements of venous stasis, increased coagulability of the blood, and damage to the local endothelium (lining of the blood vessels). 

You can view these verses in a wider context by proceeding to 'To Clot, or Not to Clot' on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE!

 

JUN 2, American satire: Georgia voters

Authors' Note:  The fiefdoms of major American political parties are frequently identified on political posters and maps by color coding, Republicans being depicted as red, and Democrats as blue. The relatively conservative southern state of Georgia had traditionally voted Republican in federal presidential elections for several decades until, in November 2020, Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by a relatively small increment of twelve thousand votes statewide, a difference of less than 1%.

  After the 2020 election, the transcript of a phone call between the President and his lawyers and Georgia's Secretary of State (the state official in charge of elections) was obtained by the media. In the phone call, the federal parties derided the state's procedures, suggesting that a significant number of Democrat votes had been cast by dead persons. They asked that this unfair situation be redressed by "finding" just enough previously unrecorded Red votes to alter the outcome.

  

   We hope that you enjoyed this post. You can find 30 verses on this topic in 5 collections on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. Click HERE to start!  

 

JUN 1, numbers: unity (1)

You can review our cumulated nonsense about numbers by clicking HERE.

MAY 30, reptiles: painted turtles

Authors' Note: With four regional subspecies, the painted turtle, Chrysemus picta, has a range covering almost the entire United States and a part of Canada; it is North America's most common turtle.

  The verse's tale, based on a recent experience by the author dealt with an attractive female belonging to the eastern subspecies, although her accent was definitely southern.

a Canadian colleague (midland painted turtle)

 

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'.

MAY 29, oncologic verses: cancerophobia

 

 You can view all such verses in a wider context by proceeding to the collection of "ONCOLOGY VERSES" on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE!

MAY 28, funny bones: AVN (avascular necrosis) of the hip

Authors' Note: The femoral head is the proximal portion of the femur (thigh bone) within the capsule of the hip joint. The blood supply to this area is fragile, and its blockage, presumably due to a variety of disease processes (often poorly understood or not obvious), can result in death of bone cells and collapse of this weight-bearing structure. Replacement of the hip joint may eventually be needed. 

  Orthopedic surgeons (surgical bone specialists), known in medical jargon as orthopods, are involved in monitoring and treating the condition.  

You can view verses on this topic in a wider context by proceeding to the post 'Breaking News: FUNNY BONES' on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE!

 

MAY 27, amphibians: Dominican 'crapaud'

Authors' Note:  crapaud (KRA-poh, Caribbean pronunciation), derived from the

French word for ‘toad’ (kra-POH).

At one time widely distributed in the eastern Caribbean, the large edible frog, Leptodactylus fallax, is now found only on parts of the islands of Montserrat and Dominica. Hunted extensively for its meaty froglegs, once the national delicacy of Dominica, this defenceless animal has been known by many different and colorful names, reflecting the English, Dominican Creole French, and patois spoken by local residents. Although hunting has been banned on Dominica since the 1990s, the crapaud remains on the list of severely endangered species.    

 Be sure to check out the whole collection of 'Amphibians' by proceeding to "Edifying Nonsense." CLICK HERE !