Jim And Edna
Jim and Edna were both patients in a mental hospital. One day while they were walking past the hospital swimming pool, Jim suddenly jumped into the deep end.
He sank to the bottom of the pool and stayed there. Edna promptly jumped in to save him. She swam to the bottom and pulled Jim out.
When the Director of Nursing became aware of Edna’s heroic act, she immediately ordered her to be discharged from the hospital, as she now considered her to be mentally stable. When she went to tell Edna the news she said:
“Edna, I have good news and bad news. The good news is you’re being discharged. Since you were able to rationally respond to a crisis by jumping in and saving the life of another patient, I have concluded that your act displays sound mindedness.
The bad news is that Jim, the patient you saved, hung himself in his bathroom with the belt of his robe right after you saved him. I am so sorry, but he’s dead.”
Edna replied, “He didn’t hang himself. I put him there to dry. How soon can I go home?”
This story is from an e-mail, and was not written by chamblee54. The authors deserve your thoughts and prayers. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost
How To
This is a repost from 2018. This controversy is mostly forgotten today. Many of the original posts have been deleted. If you want to read How To, click the link. @AndersWeePoet, has product to promote, and seems to be doing just fine.
“Read the controversial poem and let me know what you think.” It has been a while since a poem was controversial. Somebody made a fuss about How To, a feature at The Nation. It is not sure how many people complained, or whether The Nation amplified the protests to create awareness.
‘By the time most people heard of it, the magazine had apologized. The author, @AndersWeePoet, took a sincerity pill, and pinned an apology to his twitter feed. Many observers are not amused. “Katha Pollitt, a columnist for the magazine, wrote: “I can’t believe @thenation’s poetry editors published that craven apology for a poem they thought was good enough to publish … [it] looks like a letter from re-education camp.” “In the morally illiterate idiom of the moment, a white poet’s “appropriation” of Black English serves “white supremacy,” putting it in the same category of things as lynchings, cross-burnings, and segregation. The Nation is neck-deep in that nonsense.”
I was puzzled by this. I did not think the poem was important enough to warrant a tweetstorm of this magnitude. It is encouraging to see poetry receiving attention, even if it is from re-education camp. One response was a blackout poem, based on the politically incorrect doggerel. The next step was to re-write the poem in his own style. Should Part Two say you, or you’re?
How To Part Two
if you’ve got hiv say aids told her
go say you’re pregnant if you are a girl
if you’re young say younger old say older
hardly even there so give it a whirl
crippled don’t flaunt it don’t tell me to pray
stops’m from counting when they drop it rough
splay a knee cock your leg funny today
let them think that they’re christian enough
say you’re homeless whatever you call it
they don’t know what opens a wallet
you gonna lower yourself to spend
little shame they’re going to comprehend
people passing by listen for the kick
what you believe about sin is the trick
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
The Hoary Head
@ChrchCurmudgeon “It’s in the Bible, punk.” Mudge used this admonition to trumpet a meme. “Grey hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life. — Proverbs 16:31 Take that, whippersnappers.”
@chamblee54 “The hoary head is a crown of glory, If it be found in the way of righteousness.” As usual, King Jimmy gets it right.” Proverbs 16 has a few more zingers.
27 An ungodly man diggeth up evil: and in his lips there is as a burning fire.
28 A froward man soweth strife: and a whisperer separateth chief friends.
29 A violent man enticeth his neighbour, and leadeth him into the way that is not good.
30 He shutteth his eyes to devise froward things: moving his lips he bringeth evil to pass.
31 The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness.
32 He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty;
and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.
Many of today’s “Godly men” are violent whisperers. We don’t know what King Jimmy’s crew was translating as “ungodly.” It is obvious, to many people, that God lives in all of her children, no matter what you “believe.” Take care of yourself. Hypocrisy is its own reward.
@gumnos “Meanwhile, I’ve learned not to worry about my hair and live with just the bear necessities. (2 Kings 2:23–24)” — 23 “And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.
24 And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.” Party On!
Soon lunchtime arrived. The scribe needed to quit looking at comments, copy what he needed into the document, and eat. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress
#WritingPrompts
A twittersearch for #WritingPrompts led to @The_Scribblings. “Drew, his own self · Any comments should not be taken as either statements of fact and/or legally binding. The author may have had too many Smarties. · Albuquerque, NM the scribblings · DHOS has a series of prompts, which are mostly a hashtag followed by a single word. There was a graphic, with the quirky title icon guide. This might make a haiku reduction, which can then be the prompt for today.
“original use · please Begin romp mean issue · question Diary try” This is a horrible reduction. The image was a waddled bit of amateur photoshop. Who gave the monkey a gun has morphed into who gave the pothead photoshop. You should always try to do your best. Unfortunately, sometimes the best you can do is make lemonade out of lemons.
original use of this graphic tragedy was a list of rules for a writing prompt community. A writing prompt is a call to chaos, an excuse to let your fingers lose control on the keyboard, and see what dribbles out. It seemed like a good idea.
mean is one of those many words in english with multiple meanings. mean can mean that a concept represents something. In this case it would mean that romp means issue. issue is another word with many definitions, applications, and abuses.
issue has become a synonym for problem. I mentioned this to someone. “John, you should not say problems anymore, today people say issues.” “Cam, I have an old fashioned job. I have problems.” OTOH, “Gotta issue” just doesn’t have the same intimidation mojo as “Gotta Problem.”
question Diary try Henry Charles Bukowski Jr. asked a lot of questions. He might have kept a diary, but then got drunk and forget where it was. One thing is certain. The headstone says DON’T TRY. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress · selah
Shade
Sunday was the freebie-friendly Summer Shade Festival in Grant Park. Monday was for pulling merchandise out of my bag, a process known as de-swagging. There were 2 tote bags, 2 pair of sunglasses, 1 inkpen, 1 bottle opener, 1 baseball hat, 1 portable shader, and 1 serving of CHAMPAGNE TOAST hand sanitizer. Next weekend is labor day, when you do not venture into town.
Later, it was time to go take pictures of painted utility boxes. These make great backgrounds for graphic poems, and there are a couple nearby. Decatur, a PUB wonderland, was briefly considered. Common sense prevailed. Doraville and Dunwoody will have to be enough D for today.
Lunch time was approaching. A Whopper® has been begging for me to have it my way. There are a couple in Dunwoody, one of which was down the road.
The barely OTP intersection never seems to complete its roadwork, with no sign of a BK. Finally, there is a uber-modern BK on the right, with a sign “GRAND OPENING.” Life is good.
Since this is Monday, a new episode of Blocked and Reported is available. The theme of BAR is internet bullshit. Today Jesse is talking about Candace Owens, who is about as fecal as you can get.
Candace Amber Owens Farmer is what passes for a 2024 celebrity. Reward ignorance with apathy, and don’t pay her any mind. Jesse had a clip of her recent musings. recent musings. CAOF said that Leo Frank killed Mary Phagan on passover. It was time to turn the noise off.
Mary Phagan died on April 26, 1913. “Pesach for Hebrew Year 5673 began in the Diaspora on Monday, 21 April 1913 and ended on Tuesday, 29 April 1913.” A broken clock is right two times a day. April 26, 1913</a< was also Confederate Memorial Day.
The prevailing story was that Leo Frank was falsely accused of the murder, with strong antisemitic/racist overtones. There was little reason to doubt that story. Then, one afternoon, I stumbled onto the Leo Frank Archive. If you google “Leo Frank guilty,” you will find people who feel that way. It is 111 years later. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress
The Provolone Ranger
Part Three of the 2020 chamblee54 report on The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is here. Part One and Part Two are there. Pictures for this affair are from The Library of Congress.
Her raven hair, ruby lips, sensuous jaw, and luminous pearly teeth would all be perfectly preserved—Jacques desperately hoped—by an expertly honed blade and carefully positioned guillotine basket. Mark Watson, Chapel Hill NC
“I do enjoy turning a prophet,” said Torquemada, as he roasted the heretic seer on a spit.
A. R. Templeton, Stratford Canada
Minnie was a short order cook with big ties to organized crime and sought respect within the Family, hoping to impress the Godfather, Don Knotz, with her signature dish, a succulent filet mignon, but the meat was stored on the top shelf of the massive walk-in freezer and, in the end, the steaks were just too high. Donald J. Hicks, Manchester NJ
The day I lost my tractor was the same day I found out my wife was moonlighting as a hooker when she gave me a wad of cash and told me, “It’s from a John, dear.”
G. Andrew Lundberg, Los Angeles CA
“My laddies may not be the fastest sugar cane harvesters,” Fergus confessed, “but they’re not as slow as my lasses…” Mark Meiches, Dallas TX
Fighting injustice in the Southwest Italian dairy cow farming region fell to the cheese-rind masked man of mystery, the Provolone Ranger. Mark Meiches, Dallas TX
The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and it was precisely this questionable choice of paving material, combined with the ongoing flight of middle-class demons from the urban center of Pandaemonium proper to more spacious brimstone-lakefront homes in its suburbs, that had produced the mess of closures, detours, and gridlock that were making Azazel’s commute this morning a living . . . well, you know. Alexandro Strauss, New York NY
As we unrolled our sleeping bags, the sickly-sweet notes of the old torch song “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” played in my mind and the smell of burning chocolate and liqueur wafted in a treacly cloud of smoke from the next campsite, where a vacationing confectioner had lit a smoldering bonbon-fire. Bart King, Silverton OR
There were shadowy conspiracists behind every smoking volcano, and in all the dark corners of Washington, and hiding from the harsh glaring sunlight of the High Desert of California, but they were laughably easy prey when the Martian lizard people, the subterranean Vril-empowered mole-men, and the globalist pedophile Commies finally did show up. David S Nelson, Falls Church VA
Compulsive Anagramming Disorder
There might be a problem. When I see a word, my instinct is to anagram it. What is the fancy psychological name for Compulsive Anagram Disorder?
I sometimes go to events in the lobby of 7 Stages. There, in big red letters, are the words MAIN STAGE. Saint Game. Game Stain. Mets Again. Will I be ever be able to sit in that space, and not think of ways to rearrange MAIN STAGE?
Google directed me to various sites that create anagrams. While these are amusing, this is not what we need. The next step is to try DuckDuckGo. First, hit cntr+k. Nothing happens. Is google making a bid for world domination, by limiting access to other search engines? You have to google ddg, and create a bookmark for future GoingDuckDuck.
DDG does not answer my question either, but they sent me some amusing links: Compulsive Versus Pathological Lying: What’s the Difference and Why Do People Do It? · Distress Response to the Failure to an Insoluble Anagrams Task: Maladaptive Emotion Regulation Strategies in Binge Drinking Students · Fifty psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid: a list of inaccurate, misleading, misused, ambiguous, and logically confused words and phrases · Why Anagrams Are More Than Just Fun: Benefits for Cognitive Development · The Fascination With Anagrams.
What is the future for a person with compulsive anagramming disorder (CAD)? Is there a chapter of Anagramist Anonymous? I should look for Again Smart Mayo Nouns to find a meeting near me. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 2024
The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest has announced the results of the 2024 competition. Every year, B-LFC solicits opening sentences for bad novels. The “winners” of this competition receive heartfelt condolences from all concerned. Chamblee54 uses B-LFC for text to go between pictures every year, like this. Part Two and Part Three are here. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
As a “value added service,” chamblee54 compiles a list of noteworthy author names and locations. This years notables: Jack Harnly, Sarasota FL, Douglas Purdy, Roseville CA, Mary Laiuppa, San Diego CA, Sophia Wang, Nashville TN, Debi Hassler, Central Point OR, Gwen Simonalle, Grenoble, France. This year saw three men with multiple entries: G. Andrew Lundberg (7) Mark Meiches (8) Joel Phillips (4.)
Norman gazed searchingly into Susan’s mesmerizing Windex-colored eyes, observing that her left eye was quite lighter than her right, more like a watered-down generic glass cleaner, probably at a dilution ratio of 1:3 which Norman predicted would definitely leave some streaks.
Leslie Muir, Atlanta, GA
She was poured into the red latex dress like Jello poured into a balloon, almost bursting at the seams, and her zaftig shape was awesome to behold, but I knew from the look on her face and the .45 she held pointing at me, that this was no standard client of my detective agency, but a new collection agency tactic to get me to pay my long-overdue phone bill. Jack Harnly, Sarasota, FL
As Nils Nordgrund struggled mightily treading water to stay afloat, while grimly watching from a distance the Norwegian oil tanker he captained slowly sink in the treacherously dark and stormy seas off Murmansk—he gave no thought to whether the Giants had any chance at a pennant win this year. Rex Allen, San Rafael, CA
It had seemed a good idea at the time, the first night of my two-week all-inclusive vacation, spent with an affable stranger in a tapas bar oiled by an excess of Corona Extra and tequila shots, but now, in fancy dress holding a red cape, under a pitiless noonday sun, while 1000 pounds of snorting horned beefsteak eyed me malevolently, hoofing a hole in the dirt, the packed spectators oléing for all their worth, I, a junior sales rep in kitchen utensils from Milwaukie, wasn’t so sure.
David Hynes, Bromma, Sweden
As he mustered the platoon for another patrol on a moonlit Mekong night, Lieutenant John “Hoseman” Walker, Jr., USMC, remembered what his dad—a fellow devildog who survived the previous generation’s island-hopping campaign against Japan that had sealed the Corps’s legend—had told him as he shipped out from Coronado fourteen months earlier: son, when you’re a Marine, rank is what you smell, not what you pull. G. Andrew Lundberg, Los Angeles, CA
The grappling hook caught, and Dirk hoisted himself hand-over-hand to the balcony, where to his surprise stood Dr. Darpa, a banana sandwich in one hand and a Smith & Wesson Bodyguard M&P 380 in the other—a pistol more suited to the delicate hand of a femme fatale, he thought—though he kept this observation to himself. Joel Phillips, West Trenton, NJ
Magnus was in a tough spot…the Icelandic Police were pressing him to cough up the name of the top capo in each of the 3 main cities in which the Mafia operated—Reykjavik, Akureyri, and Middelf—threatening to lock him away for life if he didn’t, but he knew that if he ratted out the Reykjavikingur or the Akureyringur the Mob would kill him for sure—so he just gave them the Middelfingur.
Mark Meiches, Dallas, TX
It was a dark and stormy night, which makes perfect sense when you realize we’re on Neptune, with a mean distance from the Sun of 4.5 billion kilometers (or 30 astronomical units), and winds that howl at 100 meters per second, composed of mostly hydrogen and helium (and only trace amounts of methane), which is way better than Uranus, which stinks to high heaven. Jon A. Bell, Porto, Portugal
#Hasbaratwitter
It was a monday morning for the books. After finishing the weekly notes, I started to download podcasts. Blocked and Reported was available early, which does not always happen. Working my way down the list, I thought to check Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Low and behold, the 2024 winners are here. It felt like winning the lottery.
Going further down the list, I thought of checking in on Search Engine. They had ended season one a few weeks ago, with no indication of when more episodes would appear. Turns out the new episodes started to appear a few weeks later. There are now have 6 episodes to binge on. After depending on youtube for Gaza-bad-news, there is now an overflow of distractions. Life is good. …
Tuesday stormed in uninvited. Though the weather outside appears to be clear and calm, inside, it is as dark and stormy as ever. The winner of the BLFC 2024 is an out and proud “opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels.” “She had a body that reached out and slapped my face like a five-pound ham-hock tossed from a speeding truck.” Lawrence Person, Austin, TX. …
@asymmetricinfo “As a gentile, I don’t want to pretend that the surge of anti-semitism online affects me the way it does my Jewish friends, neighbors, and colleagues.” … @rhealforno “You can talk about antisemitism all you like. It’s not going to distract people from noticing that Israel is committing a brutal ethnic cleansing right under our noses.” @asymmetricinfo “How does dislike of Israeli government policy explain spreading vile lies about Jews murdering Christians on Passover?”
This exchange says something about the battle for public opinion. To Megan McCardle, shock about mass murder in Gaza is “dislike of Israeli government policy.” When anti-semites of the future talk, #Hasbaratwitter is what they will discuss.
Pictures today are from the Library of Congress. Marjory Collins took the pictures in September, 1942. “Dyeing hair at Francois de Paris, a hairdresser on Eighth Street, New York NY”
L’Idiotie Quotadine
Peter Berg told a story on the Joe Rogan Experience. A newspaper printed an obituary, saying Alfred Nobel had died. (It was Ludvig Nobel, Alfred’s brother, who died.) Alfred Nobel had accumulated a fortune by inventing dynamite.. The obituary called him a “merchant of death.” Mr. Nobel decided he wanted to be known for something else, and established the Nobel prize. Alfred Nobel died December 10, 1896, eight years after Ludvig died. … This is a repost. In a recent episode with Peter Thiel, Joe Rogan repeated the Nobel story.
I was in skeptic mode, and decided to talk to Mr. Google. A story came up. It had a photograph of the headline … in English … in a newspaper called L’Idiotie Quotadine (Quotadine Idiocy.) History.com has another take. “The newspaper incident is often cited as the driving force behind Nobel’s philanthropy, but historians have yet to find an original copy of the “Merchant of Death” obituary.”
A google search for Quotadine led me to Kathy “Kathy Loves Physics” Joseph. She has an article, and two videos, (one two) about the Nobel urban legend. Apparently, the word quotadine, with that spelling, does not exist in either french or english.
The short version: The term “Merchants of Death” was coined in 1932, 43 years after the death of Ludwig Nobel. “The term seems to have been coined by an author of an article written in 1932 about a real character named Basil Zaharoff who was known for his ruthlessness, selling munitions to anyone who had enough money. In fact, Zaharoff was even known to encourage conflict and then sell arms to both sides! This article was poetically titled, “Zaharoff, Merchant of Death”
In later years, a pair of biographies (Fant Halasz) applied the MOD tag to Mr. Nobel, along with the festive origin story. The truth seems to be a bit more romantic. Mr. Nobel befriended a lady named Bertha Von Suttner, who seems to be a be a bit of a character. As time moved on, Mrs. Von Suttner became involved in a peace movement, and recruited Mr. Nobel to the cause. “In 1905, Bertha von Suttner was awarded the 4th Nobel Peace prize.”
Peter Berg is the JRE guest who told this tale. Mr. Berg is promoting a tv show, Painkiller, about the Oxycontin tragedy. At least some of what he is saying about opioids is the truth. It is a shame he needs to embellish that tale with Quotadine Idiocy. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Weird Buzzing Sound
Dave Smith was on the Tucker Carlson show, “one coup and one assassination attempt” after his last appearance. The two are frequently called conservative, by people who use the c-word as an insult. It was rather surprising to hear this:
Tucker Carlson: “… there’s so many people in the Democratic party who are closeted including, in positions of real power. I know them, I don’t believe in outing people, and I’m not going to. I know that for a fact, and it’s like, on what grounds are you hiding it.”
Dave Smith: “I also have absolutely nothing against gay people. I do have an issue with people living a lie. … it’s also not just lying but living a lie. It’s a profound thing where you get used to every inch of your existence being a lie. The very nature of Who You Are is a lie. That just obviously leads to people who have the ability to totally lie about who they are. That I do have an issue with.”
The show went pretty much as expected. Smith is a vocal critic of Israel’s hideous conduct in Gaza, and Fox News fired Carlson for criticizing American support of Ukraine. Many sacred cows were slaughtered. At some points, a weird buzzing sound was heard, and the screen said they were discussing COVID. This is not allowed by youtube.
They both agreed that queers are better off out of the closet. When J. Edgar Hoover ran the FBI, saying that could get you killed. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Google Gotcha
The fbf posted this quote: “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” — W.B. Yeats. I was looking for something, in the public domain, to use in a graphic poem. I googled the quote, and one of the results was @QuoteResearch, aka Quote Investigator®.
Eden Phillpotts crafted the sentence. It is on page 19 of A shadow passes, a book of prose celebrating nature. “In the marshes the buckbean has lifted its feathery mist of flower spikes above the bed of trefoil leaves. The fimbriated flowers are a miracle of workmanship and every blossom exhibits an exquisite disorder of ragged petals finer than lace. But one needs a lens to judge of their beauty: it lies hidden from the power of our eyes, and menyanthes must have bloomed and passed a million times before there came any to perceive and salute her loveliness. The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.”
“God is in the details” is often attributed to minimalist German architect Mies van der Rohe, who probably co-opted the phrase from the German proverb ““Der liebe Gott steckt im detail”, which translates as “God is in the detail”. What this phrase neglects to mention is that many of these details are boring, even to an architect. That is certainly the case with Eden Phillpotts.
So the fbf was mistaken. My first impulse has been to play google gotcha, and immediately paste the contrarian evidence. This does get tiresome after a while. People like to find inspiration and entertainment where they can. The internet pedant can just find other ways to amuse himself.
Final confirmation comes from @BrainyQuote. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Chamblee54 
leave a comment