A blogsite offering entertaining daily oddities since January 2020. There are now over fifteen hundred posts in these four years. Images -- photographic, computer-simulated and poetic -- are drawn from daily life as well as from poems and wordplay grouped by topic on our parent blog "Edifying Nonsense". The poetry displayed is all original (as are the song-lyrics), although portions evolved through rigorous editing on a collaborative website.
September 6, 2022
SEP 6, goats at play (videos)
September 5, 2022
SEP 5, reptiles: gila monsters, revelation
Berkeley California -- 100F September5, 2022 screen photo c/o JJH |
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".
September 4, 2022
SEP 4, painterly poetry: Manet, and the lunch on the grass
September 3, 2022
SEP 3, American satire (prolongation): special master (Mar-a-lago documents)
September 2, 2022
SEP 2, a brief saga: (organic brain poetry) alcohol and beriberi
Authors' Note: Wernicke's encephalopathy is a brain disorder that often occurs in the context of binge-drinking in poorly nourished alcoholics. As its characteristic manifestations abate, generally following hospital admission, symptoms of an overlapping condition known as Korsakoff's syndrome may become evident. These consist of various types of memory failure, with prominent confabulation (grandiose storytelling, as part of identity-amnesia). Together the two patterns are described as Wernicke-Korsakoff illness. The treatment for both stages is high-dose thiamine (vitamin B1), administered either intravenously or intramuscularly.
September 1, 2022
SEP 1, mythed opportunities: Ovid's "Metamorphoses"
Authors' Note: Sulmona is a town in Italy's Abruzzo region where the renowned Roman poet Ovid (Ovidio in modern italian), contemporary of Horace and Virgil, started writing his works in Latin. His magnum opus "Metamorphoses" is a monumental epic of 15 books, recounting chronologically the creation of the universe to the reign of Julius Caesar. Although many of its tales are recounted with a personal twist, it is the source of much of our knowledge of Greco-Roman myth.
August 31, 2022
AUG 31, objectionable adjectives: flaccid
flaccid (FLASS-id or FLAX-id): flabby or limp
August 30, 2022
AUG 30, trees: camphor laurel
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".
August 29, 2022
AUG 29, exotic destination: Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina
August 28, 2022
AUG 28, planet-saving verse: summer air quality
August 27, 2022
AUG 27, organic brain poetry: frontal meningioma
Authors' Note:
Meningioma is a not-uncommon slowly growing benign tumor within the cranium. Pressure on adjacent portions of normal brain induce neurological symptoms. When the tumor is located in the frontal cortex, neuropsychiatric manifestations may include bizarre thoughts, frequently paranoid, and unrepressed behavior. Fortunately, the tumors, when suspected, are readily diagnosed on neuro-imaging studies, and surgical therapy is often curative.
Brain tumours account for only a small portion of patients suffering such neuropsychiatric symptoms; however, medical practitioners frequently hope that such a correctable cause may be discovered.
August 26, 2022
AUG 26, a brief saga: Mar-a-lago (the dacha)
August 25, 2022
AUG 25, (re)duplication: fuddle-duddle
fuddle-duddle: an infrequently used (re)duplication, voiced dismissively in dealing with opinions that the speaker rejects.
In 1971 Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, father of current PM Justin Trudeau, unleashed a minor scandal by using unparliamentary language in the Canadian House of Commons. A portion of the ensuing brouhaha, deftly sidestepped by Trudeau, revolved around whether he had actually spoken or merely mouthed the inappropriate words.
Web discussion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuddle_duddle
Readers willing to go down an internet rabbit-hole HERE can easily get to a collection of more than a dozen other short verses in which we have dealt with specific reduplications, as well as three fairly lengthy patter-songs about this fascinating linguistic phenomenon.
August 24, 2022
AUG 24, patients and their maladies: intermittent claudication
August 23, 2022
AUG 23, Canadiana: compassionate use
Growing marijuana seems to be a major activity on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, centred in the city of Nanaimo (nuh-NAHY-moh). Exemptions from restrictions on the substance are given for certain medical conditions, termed compassionate use; however, the criteria appear loosely applied, and overlapping recreational and medicinal use of the substance underlies the region's laid-back attitude.
It is unlikely that Nanaimo will successfully challenge the dominance in limericks currently held by Nantucket. The island of Nantucket has been the setting for a number of limericks; the most famous clean one deals with a crotchety old man whose daughter rips off his poorly hidden cash.
August 22, 2022
AUG 22, funny bones: olecranon (elbow) fracture
August 21, 2022
AUG 21, classic palindrome: 'dogma: I am God'
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'.
August 20, 2022
AUG 20 (2022), singable satire: Neil Young sings "COACH the NESTLINGS"
SONG with UKULELE CHORDS
COACH the NESTLINGS
August 19, 2022
AUG 19, curtained verse: foul-mouthed Phil
The resultant marked increase in opacity of the pondwater's surface doesn't seem to bother dabbling fowl like ducks, whose omnivorous eating is targeted primarily at vegetable matter. Night herons, on the other hand, eat a diet of various small creatures, aquatic and terrestrial, ambushing them while standing near the edge of the water. I presume that a dense cover of duckweed would complicate attempts by Phil (as well as his colleagues, although he tends to hunt alone) to grab a meal of small fish (fries or minnows), if he was so motivated.
August 18, 2022
AUG 18, Italian loanwords: cicerone
You can review our entire poetic outpouring about Italian loanwords by proceeding to a post on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'; click HERE.
August 17, 2022
AUG 17, waterfowl: habitat restored (Crab Bank)
placard on site |
pelican take-off |
August 16, 2022
AUG 16, toxic vignette: digitalis toxicity
Digoxin, a cardiac glycoside derived initially from the garden plant digitalis (foxglove), has been used to treat chronic congestive heart failure and to control the heart rate in atrial fibrillation. During the author's professional lifetime, there has been a major reduction in the death-rate and in the incidence of hospital admissions for digoxin poisoning, also known as digitoxicity. This improvement is due to more judicious assessment of factors, e.g. decreasing kidney function, that may result in increasing blood levels of the drug, but also to limitation of the drug's use as alternatives have become available.
Review all our poems of toxicologic interest by clicking HERE.
August 15, 2022
AUG 15, American satire (prolongation): FBIer
Author's Note: FBIer is a term that is occasionally used to denote an employee of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. The search in question in the above verse was carried out by warrant after a federal judge had been persuaded that a crime hae been committed in the premises, in this case a south Florida golf-club. Apparently, as subsequently shown, negotiations for the return of the unlawfully sequestered documents had gone on for months, and a subpoena had been issued. (See, also, our verse 'Espionage Act')
We hope that you enjoyed this verse. You can find 40 more on this topic in 6 collections on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. Click HERE to start!
August 14, 2022
AUG 14, STD-poetry: the 'gon-dom' and the condom
August 13, 2022
AUG 13, birdlore: cattle egrets
You can view an encyclopedic collection of illustrated poems on this topic by proceeding to the post 'Poems about BIRDLIFE' on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE.