FEB 24, defining opinion: academically

 verse in honour of 'Dr. JJ', whose love of life included comedy, satire, and the music of poetry ...

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.

b) Incidental Photo

 

1948

FEB 23, reprehensible modern history: cantankerous leaders

verse in honour of Dr. JJ, whose love of life encompassed comedy, satire, and the music of poetry ...

 View the entire collection of poetic assertions on this topic (currently small, but growing) at our more encyclopedic blog 'Edifying Nonsense', by clicking HERE.

Incidental Photo:

Dr JJ (left) in family trio, 1947

FEB 22, American satire (prolongation): deserved (schadenfreude)

posting in honour of Dr. JJ, whose love of life included comedy and the music of poetry ...

EDITORS' WARNING: You must be at least 12 years of age to read this post.  

Authors' Note: 

oy gevalt (oy-guh-VULT): phrase borrowed from Yiddish; an exclamation expressing shock, surprise or disapproval

schadenfreude (SHA-den-froi-duh, or as here, sha-den-FROI-duh): loanword from German; taking delight in others' misfortune

 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'.

Incidental Photo:

JJ, spoofing with youngest bro, 1970

FEB 21, handbook on trace minerals and vitamins: vitamin A deficiency

Another offering from the repertoire devoted to Dr JJ ...

Authors' Note: Deficiency of vitamin A

Avitaminosis, an absence of vitamins, causes specific deficiency diseases, although some of these cause diffuse or multi-system disorders.

Avitaminosis A, the absence of vitamin A, is the most common cause of childhood blindness in parts of Africa and South Asia, resulting in specific eye damage, including corneal ulceration adn retinal damage. Early symptoms include xerophthalmia (severely 'dry eyes') and loss of night vision; however, in appropriately nourished populations (developed countries), these symptoms are most often due to other causes.

You can find our incipient collection of verse related to micro-nutrients, i.e. trace minerals and vitamins on our topic-based blog "Edifying Nonsense" by clicking HERE. 

Incidental Photo:

at Longboat Key, FL, mid-1970s

FEB 20, singable satire: health care lyrics, "MERGERWOCKY", by Lewis Carroll

This blogpost honours 'Dr. JJ', whose love of life encompassed humour, musical parody, and even medical politics ...

POETIC PARODY LYRICS:  "Mergerwocky", G. Hurwitz, published in the Western News, 2000,  This poetic parody draws inspiration from Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky.

ORIGINAL POEM: "Jabberwocky", Lewis Carroll, 1871; the poem was included in the children's novel "Through the Looking Glass" in 1871.    

PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, 2014. The development of this song was inevitable once we realized that you could sing the poem "Jabberwocky" with minimal alteration, to the tune of "House of the Rising Sun". This important revelation was discussed on this blog in a previous post 10 days ago. Click HERE.. 

PARODY-SONGLINK: To find ukulele an guitar chord-charts to help you accompany "Mergerwocky" on your favorite instrument, click HERE.

POETIC PARODY LYRICS:  "Mergerwocky", G. Hurwitz, published in the Western News, 2000,  This poetic parody draws inspiration from Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky.

ORIGINAL POEM: "Jabberwocky", Lewis Carroll, 1871; the poem was included in the children's novel "Through the Looking Glass" in 1871.    

EDITED: The poem was modified by Giorgio Coniglio to fit the format of this blogsite.

KEYWORDS: pastiche, classicsong, Canada, medical

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
 This tale invokes an earlier period of health-care budget constraints (the mid 1990s). Manoeuvers employed by hospitals included redefinition of jobs, cancellation of services, ward closures, and even ventures into the non-health sector e.g. energy-from-waste technology. In Canada, provincial governments capped physicians’ total billings, delisted previously insured procedures and mandated employee leaves (named after Ontario’s Premier Rae). The largest legacy has been left by forced mergers of paired rival hospitals, who often initially had different skill-sets and academic pretensions. 

MERGERWOCKY

(poetic parody based on Jabberwocky")

Restructure! so the i.v. teams

Did energize recycled waste;

De-focused were the laser beams

And the closed wards outplaced.

"Beware the Mergertalks, my son!

St Joe's won't bite Health Council lunch!

Beware the Job-Job bird, and shun

The clawbacking Budgetcrunch.   

He shook his VPs' golden hands:

Time-line proactively he maps,

Then spreadshot he by the Lap-Top key

And graphed the Full-Times' caps.  

And  as in upsized thought stood he,

The Mergerwock, with errored claims

Came sniffling through the OPD,

De-listing as it came.

Old site! New Site! And deep in debt:

The shuttle-bus reshuffled wards.

"Let's integrate, new Mission state!"

He e-mailed to the Board. 

"And hast thou done the Merger-deal?"

A mix of cheers and groans and snarls;

"Come to Grand Rounds, my deanish boys

At the Princess-Di-and-Charles". 

'Twas Wednesday; at the clubhouse bar

Complained the Rae-dayed Docs anew,

"Our Conjoint Foursomes shoot near par,

But the Brass still play through!"

Incidental Photo:

summer in Bermuda (medical externship), 1965

FEB 19, funny bones: Jones (fifth metatarsal) fracture

verse in honour of Dr. JJ, whose love of life included comedy and the music of poetry ...

Authors' Note:  In fact, Syd has the right idea. Current therapy for the Jones fracture (which occurs due to repeated twisting stress in dancers and tennis or basketball players) includes surgical placement of a screw that binds the two fragments, to eliminate the possibility of bone non-union that complicated earlier forms of treatment. In cases where surgery is not selected, treatment usually consists of an external cast and avoidance of weight-bearing for six weeks. 

 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! 

Incidental Photo:

Dr JJ, in tub at reader's left, 1947

FEB 18, poetic non-sequitur: the old prospector

Our collection of 'Non-Sequiturs' on our parent blog "Edifying Nonsense", contains an admittedly bizarre assortment of nonsensical odds-and-ends, that don't quite fit into other topic-based offerings. But should you want to review the entire collection, click HERE.

Incidental Photo:

summer in Bermuda (medical externship),
Dr.JJ, 1965

FEB 17, palinku (poetic novelty): sports

This blog-post is in honour of 'Dr. JJ', whose love of life included satire, the music of poetry, and of course, both participatory and spectator sports ...

  In this post, we will continue with a novel form of poetic wordplay. Inspired by Japanese haiku poetry, 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 of this type 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.)

 

Incidental Photo:

on Florida beach, undated

FEB 16, verse inspired by 'Dr. JJ'

 

 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.

Incidental Photo:

JJ with family,2020,
 at his summer cottage
(photo courtesy BF)

FEB 15, poets' corner: the poet's family

verse in honour of Dr. JJ, whose love of life included comedy and the music of poetry ...

You can find lots of other verses on this blog under the rubric "Poets' Corner".  Most of them are in limerick format, and have been subjected to the editing process at OEDILF, the Online English Dictionary in Limerick Form. To access the others, type the phrase Poets Corner into the searchline on this blogpost (at the top of the righthand navigation column).

 

Incidental Photo:

JJ, with his two younger brothers and Mom

You can find lots of other verses on this blog under the listing "Poets' Corner".  Click HERE.

FEB 14, photo-collage: wildlife of the Carolina lowcountry -- consolation provided by Nature

photo-collage in honour of Dr. JJ, whose loves included the outdoor life ...

brown pelican closeup

egret and shadow

great egret launching

two buddies

waterfowl trio
(great egret stalking slowly,
snowy egret walking,
tricolored (Louisiana) heron fishing)

hooded mergansers:
very cute, but quite skittish little ducks

great blue heron

aerial coyote, on guard at a seafood vendor

green anole, displaying its orangy-pink dewlap

pizza delivery boxes in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina,

touting service to 'the Lowcountry'

FEB 13, commercial product: Smart Garden Gnome

verse in honour of Dr. JJ, whose love of life included comedy and the music of poetry ...

Authors' Note:  A garden gnome is an ersatz creature, often assumed to be of below average intelligence and technical sophistication. Here the author reimagines the garden gnome as a technically adept home protection device, suited to the western American setting.

 Our range of domestic and commercial products is somewhat limited, but you might want to review our unusual prospective gifts on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE.

Incidental Photo:

JJ, undated childhood photo

FEB 12, portraits of couples: frogs

 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.

FEB 11, at heart: Jack Sprat and his bypass grafts

verse in honour of 'Dr. JJ', whose love of life included comedy, satire, and the music of poetry ...

Authors' Note: Statins are drugs in frequent use for patients with arterial disease that reduce the body's manufacture of cholesterol. A small proportion of patients are intolerant of this class of oral medication, most commonly due to muscle cramps.

The most common site of symptomatic arterial blockage is the coronary arteries, which provide nutrient blood flow to the heart muscle. Surgical bypass grafting of multiple sites of obstruction is a common treatment for this disease. Following such surgery, patients such as Jack need to remain attentive to risk factors including dietary fats.

You can view more poems on this topic by proceeding to "Cardiologic Tracings: AT HEART" (parts #1 and #2) on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE!

Incidental Photo:

JJ. at his younger bro's bar mitzvah celebration

FEB 10, a brief saga (inspired by Ogden Nash): 'the gnat and the nit'

verse in honour of 'Dr. JJ', whose love of life included comedy, satire and the music of poetry ...

The gnu photo illustrating this verse was kindly provided to the editors by Barry Weinstock. But you already knew that, if you had read the prior blogpost about 'gnu dung'. 

  

Readers might want to proceed to our post on "Edifying Nonsense", where we display a few of Nash's (verified) limericks. 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 multiverse poem is shown here on the slide with its first verse. In this particular case, the two final stanzas of the poem were added later as a blog-specific addendum to the verses A to C.

To access the next 'brief saga' in this series (March 2022), proceed to 'Bequest'.

To access the most recent previous 'brief saga' (January 2022), back up to 'Drug Development'.

To access all of our 'brief sagas' by the year of their creation, click on your selection below.

2020
2021
2022
2023.

Incidental Photo:

FEB 9, exotic destination: Hawaii vs. Haida Gwaii

verse in honour of 'Dr JJ', whose love of life included comedy and the music of poetry ...

Other verses about 'Exotic Travel Destinations' can be found on our blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. Click HERE.

Incidental Photo:

JJ, age 14, dancing with his mother