DEC 30, singable satire: New Years' song, updated by R. Burns, "AULD LANG's SINE"

 PARODY-LYRICS    

Robert Burns 

Repercussions of what we sang on New Years Eve (Hogmanay to the Scots)

ORIGINAL SONG: "Auld Lang Syne", by Robert Burns, 1788.

PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, January, 2015.

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".

WORDPLAY LINK: A somewhat different version on the Simon Lang story, with a more modern take, has been twisted into limerick verse, and can be seen HERE.

PARODY-SONGLINK: To find ukulele and guitar chord-charts to help you accompany "Auld Lang's Sine", a song about the origins of trigonometry, on your favorite instrument, click HERE.

AULD LANG’S SINE

(to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne")

A clever Scot, Auld Simon Lang

Rests in a box o’ pine;

His contributions near-forgot -

‘E invented Auld Lang’s Sine.

Dreamed up the trig’s sine function, 

And its coz’n bright an’ fine;

[One minus (Lang’s-Sine)squared], my dear,

Its square-root – Auld Lang’s Cosine.

And though his mind did grow less clear,   

His concept’s been refined –

One o’er t’other – Tangent, dear

All derived frae Auld Lang’s Sine.

And at the end, his sight grown dim

Ideas still implant –

Turned on its head, Auld Lang’s Cosine,

We know as Auld Lang’s Secant.

His final word, “Cotangent”,

Then his soul was carried up;

So kindly pass the pi', my dear,

And to Lang we’ll drink a cup.

For Simon's radiant angles,
Bright his ratios still shine!
O' Trig we'd all be mindless were

It nae for Auld Lang's Sine. 

Related Palindromes

T. set stats test.

Crazy Z-arc.

I-pen is rotator: sine pi.

DEC 29, birdlore: new birdfeeder!

New birdfeeder!!!

Initial photo-experience on a rainy day using a cell-phone camera. Stay tuned as the technique develops! 

tufted titmouse

i-phone photo with automated "removal of background"; this software works relatively well with persons, but for birds, the tails and legs get detached relatively often

 

house finch (male)

Eastern bluebird

COMPARISON EXPERIENCE: 

tree-squirrel inspecting a conventional birdfeeder

Readers interested in a truly funky experience are invited to review our bizarre verse about "seabird-feeders" by clicking HERE. And you are also invited to check out our subsequent moderate success in photographing our avian dining guests HERE. 

You can also view an encyclopedic collection of illustrated poems on this topic (land-birds) by proceeding to the posts "Poems about BIRDLORE" on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE.

Corresponding, there is a slew of illustrated poems in five linked posts dealing with WATERFOWL that you can access by clicking HERE.

DEC 27r, poetic non-sequitur: cumulative song

 

a) reprise from December 27, 2020

DEC 27, non-sequitur: cumulative song

 Authors' Note:  The cumulative song "I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" was created by two Canadian folksong aficionados in 1952, and then recorded by Burl Ives in 1953.  Other well-known cumulative songs which are traditional include "Old MacDonald had a Farm" and "The Green Grass Grew All Around".

 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.

b) current birdie-pic

poolside, late afternoon
at the Ibis Hotel

DEC 26, Submitted Palindromes: J, targeted at "ZEUS SEES SUEZ."

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. 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. 

DEC 26, Canadiana: Haida Gwaii

web-photo

Authors' Note:

snowbird: a Canadian retiree seeking a warmer venue to spend the wintry months

  The Queen Charlotte Islands are a Canadian archipelago situated between the northwestern tip of Vancouver Island and the Alaska Panhandle, with landmass one-third that of the Hawaiian Islands (the latter located considerably further south). They had been the heartland of the aboriginal Haida people, who numbered thirty thousand at the time of first contact with European explorers in the eighteenth century. Their territory has a unique environment based on moderate temperatures and heavy rainfall. The province of British Columbia renamed the islands Haida Gwaii (HIE-duh GWIE[-ee], "islands of the people") in 2010.

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

DEC 25r, holidays and celebrations: Xmas post

 

a) reprise from December 25, 2020

DEC 25, holiday verse: every Adventuality

 

b) Incidental Photo:

decoration of a gingerbread house

DEC 24, postal places, Canada: Red Deer AB

Authors' Note: AB is the official abbreviation for the Canadian province of Alberta, in which the city of Red Deer, population 100,000, is located mid-way between the province's two main cities of Calgary and Edmonton.

Prior to the arrival of European settlers, aboriginals had called a local stream "Elk River". European settlers renamed it as "Red Deer River" after the more familiar Eurasian species, and founded a village there in 1894, at a river crossing used by Fort Normandeau, a stockade stronghold in the Northwest Rebellion of 1885. The town of Red Deer expanded dramatically during the 1940s owing to the discovery of major Albertan oil and natural gas reserves. 

If you want to know more about the Canadian province of Alberta, ask speedysnail, author of the OEDILFian poem Alberta.

 At one swell foop, you can review all our postal poems about intriguing places in the USA and Canada, by proceeding to the encyclopedic blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE !
 

DEC 23r, classic palindrome: 'Yreka Bakery'

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, P.E.H !!!

a) reprise from December 23, 2020

DEC 23, classic palindrome: 'Yreka bakery'

You can review these illustrated verses in a wider context by proceeding to 'Reversing Verse: Limericks About Classic Palindromes' on the full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. 

HAVE a HAPPY HOLIDAY SEASON !!!

b) Seasonal photo:

seasonal lighting at City Hall

DEC 22r, waterfowl: brown pelicans

 

a) reprise from December 2020:  

 

b) recent birdie-pic 

 software-enhanced photo (January 2024)

You can review illustrated verses like these in a wider context by proceeding to 'Immersible Verse: Limericks about Waterfowl' on the full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". 

DEC 20, singable satire: "AVITAMINOSES"

 

PARODY-LYRICS

ORIGINAL SONG: "The Twelve Days of Christmas", traditional carol, of English or possibly French origin, published in its current known form by Frederic Austin 1909.
PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, January, 2016. 

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

This parody-song is just in time for the  Twelvetide.  

Recently there has been some emphasis on the excessive use of multi-vitamin supplementation pills in the general population. But, many of our processed foods are already enriched with these essential chemical nutrients, and freedom from vitamin-deficiency diseases (avitaminoses), such as rickets, beriberi and pellagra is a gift for all mankind.

The pronunciation of the chemical names is a bit difficult, and for some of them, alteration from the typical was necessary to fit the meter of the original; these instances have been flagged by capital letters indicating the vowels which require unusual emphasis; e.g. ribOflavin, pEllagra. 

The bracketed material is included for edification and for comparison with the original lyrics, and is not meant to be sung. In the second verse, (?)indicates cases in which a clinical deficiency state is not certain.  

THE AVITAMINOSES

(to the tune of "The Twelve Days of Christmas"- final verse)

Twelve funky diet factors,

Funk named them vitamine *:

(12.) Ascorbic Acid (vit C)

(11.) Retinol’s good for vision (vit A)

(10.) Cholecalcif’rol (vit D)

(9.) Alpha-tocoph’rol (vit E)

(8.) K – phylloquinone (vit K)

(7.) Hydroxo-cobal’min (vit B12)

(6.) Then, Folic Acid (vit B9)

(5.) Next, bIOtIn  (vit B7)

(4.) PantOthenate (vit B5)

(3.) Niacin (vit B3)

(2.) RibOflavin (vit B2)

(1.) And the first ‘B’ known as ThiamIne (vit B1)

For each vitamin, twelve-odd,

Its lack will cause disease:

C-lack gives scurvy

A-absence gives night blindness

Rickets and fractures (vit D)

‘Oxidative damage’? (Vit E)

K-lack gives bleeding

C. Eijkman 1929
Nobel Prize in Physiology
discovery of anti-neuritic factor (B1):
commemorative stamp 

Anemia pernicious (vit B12)

Fetal malformations (vit B9)

Low fertIl-I-tY? (vit B7)

NeurOpathy? (vit B5)

PEllagra (vit B3)

Amplifies B3 (vit B2)

Brain disorders and beriberI. (vit B1)

(Outro)

A dozen Nobel Prizes

Awards in Chemistry,

And Med’cine and Physiology.

* Casimir Funk, working to elaborate the 'antineuritic' property of rice bran for potential therapeutic use in beriberi, isolated a substance that he called 'vitamine' as it contained an amino- chemical group.  

DEC 19, ambulatory verse: falter

You can review all our verses on this topic, accumulated for you on our companion blog "Edifying Nonsense", by clicking HERE.

b) recent birdie-pic

great egret, hunting

DEC 18, defining opinion: hoot

 

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.

DEC 17, palinku (poetic novelty): reversal

  In this post, we continue with our novel form of poetic wordplay. 

  Inspired by Japanese haiku poetry, the "palinku" is a terse verse with a total of 17 syllables displayed on three lines. Unlike its earlier English-language forerunners, 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  (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. Readers will note that we have been publishing verses of this type on the 17th of each month.

 You can readily view all our 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.)

DEC 16r, portraits of couples: mallard and wood ducks

reprise from November 2020

NOV 4, portraits of couples: mallards and wood ducks

Authors' Note: Enjoy an illustrated poem about mallard ducks by clicking HERE.

Authors' Note: Enjoy an illustrated poem about wood ducks by clicking HERE.

You can view these sample photos from our portfolio of 'Couples' portraits in a wider context on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE. 

 

b) current birdie-pic

white ibises

DEC 15, homophonous verse: corrective

 You can view our whole collection on this topic -- verses intentionally crafted with contentious repetition of the rhyming syllables --  in a wider context on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Check the post "Homophonous Verse" by clicking HERE. 

DEC 14, fabric art: abstract

DEC 13, commercial product: prostheses for male turkeys

 

Authors' Note: The male turkey's facial snood is an erectile caruncle that plays an important role in his ability to attract females. Unfortunately for domestic toms, commercial turkey breeders see it as advantageous to remove these facial appendages at an early age. The process of desnooding, and its devastating effect on turkey romance, have been versified by the author previously. Commercial development of a prosthesis to assist males in adult life, as described in this verse, is apocryphal.

    

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.