Say Cheese

I came across an article claiming that cheese was as addictive as cocaine.

A very logical friend of mine pointed out that this would mean that cocaine was as addictive as cheese.

A scientifically-focused friend of mine pointed out that this was all about the dopamine - things we like tend to release dopamine in our nervous systems.

Here's something from me that's predictive:
Everything you enjoy is "addictive".

An example, just to be fair:
I'm super-addicted to air.

Vampires of the Creepy Kind

In reference
To bed bugs,
My preference
Is dead bugs.

Warmish

The artificial daylight of the street lamps in the city
Reflects across the puddles with a yellow-orange glow.
The trees are bare, the grass is pale, but somehow it’s all pretty,
And I’m just glad the rainfall wasn’t blankets full of snow.

Diplomacy Was Not

Diplomacy was not her strongest suit.
Her strongest suit was grasping the essential.
She’d lay the facts out with a sort of brute
Display of logic, taut and consequential.
And if you did not like it, you were free
To figure out a way to disagree
But sometimes you would find your dreams were haunted
By her conclusions, proven but unwanted.

Diplomacy is not the highest art.
It leaves the mind bedazzled but unsure
Exactly what was in the speaker’s heart.
Was it pure gold or was it just manure?
She told the truth she saw, from where she stood,
Believing that its power was for the good,
And while it sometimes meant she lost a friend
She lived for real, not having to pretend.

Aquaman

Monday night we saw Aquaman with one of my wife's brothers. I can't say I was crazy about it, but it wasn't bad. I'm just a bit jaded about giant CGI battle scenes. I like them, but in somewhat smaller doses, I guess, than the average movie-goer.

Aquaman is about an individual, scorned as an illegitimate half-breed, who becomes the ruler of Atlantis. I was thinking of telling people that it was a metaphor for Trump. But they might take me seriously. I suppose I could also argue that it was a metaphor for Obama. Butm again, someone might take me seriously.

But seriously, there's great appeal, at times, in putting an outsider in charge. I suppose that was actually going on with both Obama and Trump.

Under the sea
Or up on the land
The powers-that-be
Can get out of hand.

Ho ho ho

Plenty of empty seats on the train.
Where are my fellow workers?
Christmas Eve has struck again
And turned them into shirkers!

Semicolons

Semicolons have somehow dropped out of fashion;
They’re good at precision but poor at projecting passion.

Belated Welcome

I finally got an email from the Chicago Marathon indicating that I was selected for 2019. It wasn't a welcome exactly, it was an "update", but I'll take it. I was actually kind of worried about not getting an email from them - even though the website listed me as "selected".

I can list off the bad things about the Chicago Marathon.

1) it is slow to start, with 30,000 fast people in front of me. Really, it takes about an hour to get to the start line.
2) it is kind of crowded the whole way

I can list the good things too:

1) great crowd support
2) it is so darn flat
3) I don't have to drive far to get to it

I will tell you how it all works out in October 2019. Yeah, that's a downside too. You have to commit to the race way in advance.

Of course, you can run the same distance on your own
In your own neighborhood
But there are stoplights and no free Gatorade
So your time is never as good.

Gingerbead

I saw there's some silliness going on about the gingerbread man. Is he really a man? Should we refer to the cookie as a gingerbread person? Don't we have something more exciting to argue about? This seems so 2017. After all, we know from the famous nursery rhyme, that he identifies as a man. "Run, run, as fast as you can. You can't catch me - I'M THE GINGERBREAD MAN!" Capitalization added. So is it written. So shall it be.

The gingerbread man, he likes to claim
His fast pace can't be beaten.
But every year, about this time
He ends up caught and eaten.

Forms

I ran into this online, apparently attributed to Douglas J. Steele:

There was a young man
From Cork who got Limericks
And Haiku confused.

I thought that was pretty funny. It helps to know that County Limerick borders County Cork in Ireland.

A guru whose humor was blue,
Wrote what he claimed were haiku.
They ran on too long
And rhymed like a song
And ended like limericks, too.

Passed Over

Oh sure, you may laugh,
But I was hoping to be the chief of staff!

Delayed

Something must’ve gone wrong
With the Lyft driver’s locator.
I waited and waited too long.
Now I’m catching a train much later.

Vortex

I'm puzzled. I seem to have been selected in the drawing for the Chicago Marathon 2019. That's not puzzling, since the odds are about 53 to 47. What's puzzling is that they were supposed to notify me, and they have my email address in their system, but the did NOT notify me. I had to log into my participant account, where I could see that I was listed as "selected".

Very understated. And I had to go ask for it. Where's my hyped up, "Welcome runner!" email?

Maybe my electronic welcome got lost in the space-time vortex somewhere. I realize they have many to send out.

On a completely different topic, I gave blood tonight.

There's always a need
For this stuff that we bleed.

In Place of Dew

The grass is embossed
With silver-gray frost.

TGIF

Pity now the Ancient Greeks
Who didn’t mark their days by weeks
And as a result forgot to take
Their weekend break!

Sniffle

Why do anteaters rarely catch colds?
Is it from drinking hot toddies?
The answer’s so simple, you’ll gasp when you’re told:
They’re just full of antie-bodies!

Duck

Why does a duck have feathers?
To cover its butt quack, of course!
If I tell this joke to my wife,
I fear she’ll want a divorce.

Gnomic

Forget that elf on the shelf!
I’m getting a troll in a hole,
So instead of observing myself,
I’ll be mocked by an underground mole.

Gnite

Some say sleep is overrated
But I think that’s best debated
After a nice long snooze
To illustrate my views.

Protagonists

There's a simplified schema for storytelling, in which there is a single protagonist on a mission.

And there are a lot of great stories like that.

But they don't all have to be that way. Romances, for example, whether comic or tragic, are more often of the "takes two to tango" structure. This does not prevent them from having a very strong, rather archetypal, story structure.

The hero with a thousand faces
Entangles with a heroine with superior social graces
And then it takes while
For things to reconcile.

Divergent

I haven’t a clue
So please tell me how
It can be that thou
Doesn’t rhyme with you?

Damage

"In the late 1940s, the United States experienced a “lobotomy boom” where the use of the lobotomy expanded exponentially... We argue that government provision and funding for public mental hospitals and asylums expanded and prolonged the use of the lobotomy. We support this claim by noting the lobotomy had virtually disappeared from private mental hospitals and asylums before the boom and was less used beforehand."

Somehow the guy who developed it was given a Nobel for his efforts:

"In 1949, the Portuguese neurologist António Egas Moniz received the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for his development of the prefrontal lobotomy — a procedure in which the connection is cut to a part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex in mentally ill, depressed or learning disabled people. As the procedure can send patients into a vegetative state, lobotomies are now believed to be wildly unethical."

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me
Than a frontal lobotomy.
But in the 40s, this form of doom
Enjoyed a boom.

Cryptic Critters

Wombats, for what it’s worth,
Are certainly not of this earth.
They are aliens of high IQ,
Disguised to spy on me and you.

Weatherwise

My phone says snow.
My eyes see rain.
So I don’t know
What to tell my brain.

Wachagudfer

Decades ago, someone gave me a story called Tanner, set in a struggling Western frontier village named Wachagudfer, which was a humorous reformatting of "What'cha good for". The idea was that the town had an ethos that you should only move to the town if you had something to contribute. The story was about a dwarf who was an expert tanner and leather worker, who is eventually welcomed into the town, not because of a desire for diversity, but strictly because of his talent and hard work. I'm a sucker for such stories, and found it quite heartwarming. I was the poetry editor for a little magazine named Nomos at the time, and expressed some interest in publishing the story. I was not in actual contact with the author. Someone had passed the story along to me. And they passed back the information to me that the author, one Alexander R. Smyth, didn't want to publish it quite yet.

It seems that Smyth died in a car accident in 1999. And in 2012 his widow, Linda L. Fraser, published The Wachagudfer Stories, Simply Told, Book 1.

There are 3 stories. The first one is Tanner, which is just 18 pages long, and which is just as heartwarming as I remember it. But the next 2 stories are quite a bit longer, since the book runs to 450 pages or so.

The odd thing is that there is no online record of this book. So I cannot link to it! It's amazing, since it has a nice distinctive title. I was able to find information about the author, but not about the book.

I am in shock, over this search engine fail.
For now I will proceed to the next tale.

Visit Complete

Let there be no doubt:
Childproof doorknobs work great at locking me out.

Now that the grandkids aren't in town anymore,
Who will help me get this thing off the door?

Time Distortion

Why on earth is it called a fast?
Slowly, slowly the hours go past.

CDC

Amid the scary hoopla
Of the dreaded Romaine purge,
I have ventured toward Arugula,
To satisfy my lettuce urge.

Mystery Most Fowl

This has happened twice to me: I encounter a cardboard box outdoors, in a public place, containing a big dead bird.

The first time was during the summer, and the situation was smelly. I saw the bird’s feathers were speckled, but I didn’t poke around to get a view of the head or feet. I thought it might be a pheasant.

The second time was yesterday. This time I took s better look, and it turns out the bird was a decapitated Guinea Fowl. Its feet were tied together with string.

I think it was the same kind of bird each time.

It is weird that someone would kill these birds, which are poultry, and leave them in cardboard boxes in public places.

There are some religions that kill birds of this variety. For example, voodoo. But I have the idea they usually eat the poultry they sacrifice.

This seems an offense
Against moral sense.

Thankful

May your travels
Not unravel,
May your dinner hosts
Serve up the most
Scrumptious food,
And may your mood
Be warm and mellow
With all your mealtime fellows.

While We're On The Subject Of Times To Avoid

If a time-traveler offers you a trip,
Be wary, and request an an itinerary
That's specific, not vague.
I've found it's best to skip
The Year of the Plague.

536

'Ask medieval historian Michael McCormick what year was the worst to be alive, and he's got an answer: "536." ... A mysterious fog plunged Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia into darkness, day and night—for 18 months.'

According the article, massive crop failures followed, resulting in a mass starvation of human beings. Some scientific researchers believe that the mystery fog was probably due to the eruption of an Icelandic volcano. This claim is based on some very high-tech ice-core studies.

When it comes to years, 536
Is apparently the roughest of picks.
I don’t remember it, but as you can probably intuit,
I did have ancestors who lived through it.

Chilly

Is it true cold showers
Give you superpowers?
Well, make no mistake,
They sure do jolt you awake.

Headquarters and Hindquarters

Alexa, will you,
Explain the HQ
Situation to me?
Of course I knew
You wanted two,
But say, can it be,
That you really need three?

Melville Cane

Speaking of dead poets suddenly coming to my attention, there's Melville Cane.

Apparently he was a lawyer as well as a poet, and was admired in both capacities by Ayn Rand, who I've spent a lot of time studying.

According to this article, "reliable speculation" has it that she was a big admirer of these lines by Cane:

She was not bound by mortal sight,
The stars were hers, at noon.
Against the malady of night
She stood, alone, immune.

It reminds me a bit of "Invictus" at first glance.

Mr. Cane, although published in his time, and award-winning in his time, seems to have zero poetry represented on the web for some reason. He died in 1980, so perhaps his estate is trying to protect his copyrights, or perhaps everything is on the New Yorker site, a step removed from easy viewing.

Meanwhile, I bet,
Few are beating down the paywall door
For a chance to explore
His poetry, just yet.

Kate Light

I was sorry to see that the poet, Kate Light, had died. I had never read much of her until recently, when I picked up a book of hers, "Open Slowly", at the local used book store. She died a couple of years ago, it turns out, at the age of 56.

Anyway, I enjoyed reading this book. My favorite poem was one I don't see anywhere on the net, so I'm going to type it in here. It seems to be part of a series of poems about a man she loved but who was emotionally distant.

Funny, As In a Man,

one man, for instance, trying
to express tenderness with no model to base
his take on it on. How this severe face
struggles to be concerned, to be clear; shying
just short of simply saying what
he wants to say (or does he not
know?) As in a poet explaining, Class,
if you know what you want to say, you
will be clear; and if you don't (sarcasm
here) nothing will help you get through,
not even a room full of anxious coaches.
Funny, as in this man, whom
it happens I feel quite tender towards,
stumbling on his attempts to put into words
kind words. Trying more direct approaches,
a drunken bull in a matador
shop, he's lurching at the spinning room;
searching, looking for a door,
to open into what - one can assume -
would be a wider field, a fuller range.
Look at him. It's kinda funny, I mean, strange.

I particularly liked the altered metaphor, the "drunken bull in a matador shop". That brought me up short. You see, you expect the bull indoors to be heedlessly wrecking things, but it turns out that the indoors location is actually dangerous for the bull.

It's not simply that the man cannot express his feelings, and so wounds his beloved by accident. It's that he believes that if he says the wrong thing he will open himself up to a skewering! I am certain that many men feel that way at times. Many women, too, I suppose!

One interesting aspect is that she seems to be a step removed from his efforts, observing him, as if she too is emotionally distant in her way. She sees him a funny and strange.

It's a bemused, ironic stance
toward her object of romance.

Urban Fauna

I was walking to the drugstore
On a busy downtown street
When I saw a furry creature
Just ahead of my own feet.

At first I thought, how darling,
What can that creature be?
But as I focused on him,
I realized I could see

A rat, a good-sized rat!
It dived right through a grate.
Nobody else had seen him
And now it was too late

To offer him a tidbit
Or maybe sage advice
About which local restaurants
Have food that's extra nice.

Armistice Day

One hundred years ago, the killing paused -
A pause too brief.
For soon enough the world faced the jaws
Of yet more grief.

Possums

Of all American mammals,
They’re our most distant cousin.
They take up less room than camels,
So I’m ordering a dozen.

Parker Solar Probe

Now that most of its travel is done,
It’s going to hang around the sun,
To catch some rays and collect a ton
Of data.

Draw One In The Dark

Finished reading Sarah Hoyt’s fantasy novel, Draw One In The Dark. The title turns out to be old fashioned diner lingo for black coffee. Years ago I knew some of this humorous lingo, although I heard it referred to as Hashhouse Greek.

Anyway, it was an interesting shapeshifter novel, pretty logical on its own brain-straining terms. There’s a softpedaled sweet romance.

Your dating options may seem atrocious and bitter
If you sometimes become a ferocious critter.

Typical Midterm Resultd

An energized electorate has selected...
Massive gridlock, just as projected.

Judgment Slips

Many "how could that happen?" puzzles are solved
Once you're informed that alcohol was involved.

By Their Nature

Children aspire
To bigger and higher.

Unskeletal

Traditionally by Halloween
Lots of trees are bare.
But this year, as is clearly seen,
The leaves don’t seem to care.
Some of them are even green...
Come on, drop down from there!

Bomber

I’m disappointed this is just some isolated loon.
I was hoping for a convoluted conspiracy - and soon!
So I’m starting a rumor that this guy was framed
By some very bad people, never to be named!

Routine But Ouch

My dog had an operation.
She seems to be healing.
Seeing her tail wag again
Brings a wonderful feeling.

Yawn

Took a class on yoga for restful sleep,
But had to wake up to drive home.
I hope my state of relaxation will keep
Ready while I finish this poem.

Did It Again

Once I sign up for a race
I feel bound to do it, just to save face,
But I don’t tell anyone of my plans,
So I wouldn’t be disappointing any fans,
Except the guy in the mirror, who I hope
Won’t think I’m a mope.

Effects

A life is like a a stone
Thrown in a pond.
It goes on rippling
When the stone is gone.

Java Juice

Am I drinking coffee enough?
It’s just one daily cup of the stuff.
But it’s a large, so is that in fact
Two cups stacked?

Rattling

A big supply of rattlesnakes
Really makes
Being trapped in a mine
Exquisitely fine.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45893215

Excelling

A proper spreadsheet glories
In hierarchical categories.

Sessile

The lovely Sea Cucumber
Is rather prone to slumber.
Unlike the busy ant,
It gets mistook for a plant.

Product Idea

Someone needs to sell time-release safes for home snacks
To protect ourselves from late night craving attacks.

Tick

I hadn’t known the Tick
Was an Arachnid.
I'm sure some smart kid
Sitting in the back did.

Glad Hostage Is Free, But...

Why did we go from “minister”
To calling people “pastor”?
I’m sure it’s nothing sinister,
And not a big disaster,
But word-choice alteration
Always jars my brain.
Just when you know a language
It goes and changes again!

Staying On Track

From what I can figure, a train engineer
Doesn’t even have to steer.
They hit the gas, they hit the brakes,
And try to avoid catastrophic mistakes.

Dry

I talked to a Chicago police officer who had worked marathon support for the race here last Sunday. I asked about the weather and she said it rained a lot. So I suddenly felt I had stumbled into a bit of good fortune because it hadn’t rained that morning in Milwaukee, where I was running that other marathon.

I’m not quite sure that made up
For hours of extra travel,
But something about cold rain
Makes my brain unravel.

Milwaukee

After steady forecasts of rain this morning, and after a rainy early morning drive from Chicago to Milwaukee, the rain stopped for the actual marathon.

Went out way too fast
And had to slow down
But still had a blast
Seeing the town.

Driving Out Of My Way

I was downtown today, to do some work. The place was jammed with out-of-towners here to run or watch the Chicago Marathon. Forty-thousand runners, that's a lot.

Even more people would like to run it, if they could, but forty thousand is some kind of practical limit. So they put in a lottery to get in, for normal people, like me.

Tomorrow is the Chicago Marathon,
But I'm not going to run it, I'll be gone,
Off to Milwaukee to run a marathon there.
Such are the burdens that lottery losers must bear.

Pirate Pet Preference

Said the pirate with a parrot,
“Other pets are just absurd.
Neither dog, nor cat, nor ferret,
Can repeat your every word.
If your pocketbook can bear it,
Then you ought to buy a bird!”

Scholarly Advice

You want your homework
Eaten by a doggy?
Just add gravy -
Get it nice and soggy.

Street View Sighting

I saw the Google street view car.
Will I soon be a street view star?
Will I be shown for all to see
With blurred-out physiognomy?

Stella

Stella, our beloved cat,
Who always went tuxedo-clad,
After eleven lives, has passed,
Leaving us alone and sad.

We Had Them Laughing Last Night

The Matchmaker is your one and only chance,
To see me as the lead in a romance.
You’ll watch as I, an old and cranky miser,
Get ambushed by my social-life advisor.

Another Opening

Dress rehearsal’s done, it’s in the bag.
Now let’s hope we open without a snag.

The Matchmaker, by Thornton Wilder

Here’s a startling fact:
In this show I act.
I play a man named Horace,
A sort of tyrannosaurus,
Who endlessly rails about folly
But ends up outsmarted by Dolly.

Harvest Time

Most seasons have one name
And then there’s autumn/fall.
Can this be explained at all?
And who, pray tell, is to blame?

Tomorrow

I think the autumn equinox
Should be locked up in some dark box,
And summer needs to stick around
About six months, till spring is found.

The Root of the Problem

It’s my belief that “root canals” are dreary.
I much prefer the one that’s known as “Erie”.

Surge

Sometimes when acting a scene, I will feel a startling wave of emotion, emotion I didn’t plan on feeling, but that pertains to the character’s situation. The trigger is acting with another person, which has an amplifying effect. This is a hazardous moment for remembering my lines! Fortunately it’s mostly something that happens in rehearsal.

By the time we’re on stage
I know what to expect
And my concentration’s
Less likely to get wrecked.

Show Closing, Show Opening

Well, the 4-day Hale Park Theatre production of O'Brien & O'Brian is complete. I'm sad to wrap it up because it was so much fun while it lasted. We had nice big audiences every day, and on Saturday night we filled almost every seat. There was lots of laughter every night, and I heard from the cast that they had a lot of fun doing the show. It's the nature of live theater to be ephemeral, of course, but it's so intense while it's happening.

There is no rest for me, however, because I acting in a show - in the same festival at Hale - in about a week and a half. I'm playing Horace Vandergelder in Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker, which is the basis of the big hit musical, Hello Dolly. I'm playing the male lead, and of course at the end I am engaged to Dolly herself. It's a big part with lots of lines. I'm just about there on having all my lines by heart, which is good.

I've been pounding my lines
Into my brain
And it's holding up fine
Under the strain.

Hale Theatre’s O’Brien & O’Brien

Mike Murphy, who directed, has a sure sense of what’s funny, and he was working with a cast he knew, so I figured this’d would be s very funny production. I was right.

O’Brien & O’Brian opened to a great crowd at Hale.
I’m proud to say they laughed without fail.
We all had a blast.
Thank you, dear cast.

Worldwide

“There are members of the flat earth society
All around the globe.”
Boasts of that variety
Hurt my frontal lobe.

Disease Not Understood

A lot of money has poured into Alzheimer's research. So far, it looks like not much practical progress has been made. A few drugs have been tested, but not successfully.

So I thought this NPR story was interesting: Infectious Theory of Alzheimer's Disease Draws Fresh Interest

There re some statistical reasons to think something infectious could be involved, but it's certainly just another hypothesis at this point. There's one line of thought that Alzheimer's is come kind of late-life reactivation of the roseola virus - a rash that most babies get. For some reason the roseola virus shows up a lot in the brain tissue of Alzheimer's victims.

Could the dreaded disease
Have a connection
With a childhood rash
Or some other infection?

But Do You Feel The Condition Is Real?

You might think that a fear of palindromes would be called palindrome-o-phobia. But someone came up with this: aibohphobia.

It seems distinctly unkind
That the phobia’s name is designed
To unsettle the sufferer’s mind!

Nike

It's interesting how a big publicly held company will decide to go all-in behind some controversial issue. On the one hand, they risk alienating people on the other side of the controversial issue. Hence the slogan, "Get woke, go broke." The additional danger is that your own partisans may turn on you, when it turns out that you're really just another profit-seeking company without a truly deep commitment to "sacrificing everything".

There's a theory that soon there will be liberal shoe brands and conservative shoe brands. Ditto with all consumer products.

Shoes do come in left and right,
But keep your politics out of sight!

Sat Pic

Plane flying over the local woods,
Cruising by my neighborhood.

This surprised me. I don't know why it should. My neighborhood is on the flight path to Midway Airport. Why shouldn't one of those Southwest 737's show up in a satellite view? And yet - I've never noticed a jetliner in the satellite views of my own neighborhood before.

This one popped up at the USA Track & Field website, where they have a "Map It" application that lets you draw your running routes on a map or satellite view. That's what I was in the middle of doing when I noticed that big plane. You can see the blue line I was drawing on Longwood Drive, parallel to the plane. There's something a little bit funny about the left wing of the plane - there's a dark splotch on it. I don't know if that's some kind of artifact of the photography process, or what it is.

I see them everyday, but from the ground.
Here my point of view is all turned round.

Memorizing a Part

Got in a visit to the beach.
Got in some swimming in the lake.
Lay in the sun and tried to teach
Myself my lines beyond mistake.

Richard Frisbie

I attended my godfather's funeral yesterday. Richard Frisbie, 91.

My sister Kathy and I went with my father, who was the best man at Richard Frisbie's wedding.

He made his living as a writer, which is no mean feat.

His son, Tom, gave a charming remembrance of him. One of the funnier lines was that his father was "Google search before there was Google." In other words, the man was a walking encyclopedia.

It was a sad but loving event
Celebrating a life well-spent.

Disappointing

I see Facebook ads that promise
To show X "destroying" Y,
But when I break down and watch,
Nobody seems to die.

Story In Pictures

You can make out that I was working hard on the bike, then felt ready to wilt mid-run, but picked up my attitude at the end.

At the finish of the Chicago Tri,
I was trying hard to look like
I wasn't about to die.

Nomenclature

There’s a disappointing restaurant
Known as Panda Express.
A panda steak is all I want,
But they never, ever say yes.

Heat Index

They shortened the triathlon today
Because of the heat,
So I’m just exhausted and tired
Instead of completely beat.

Chicago Triathlon

The guy who gave the mandatory course talk yesterday referred repeatedly to the beautiful view in the bridge over the Illinois River.

That river is why this city is here, but it’s not the Illinois. It’s the Chicago.

What he said was mostly true:
It’s a lovely view.

It’s Bananas

It seems that somehow impeachment
Has little to do with peaches,
But rather concerns bad apples,
From what my textbook teaches.

Endurance Insanity

I just read my second story about a woman planning to do 50 long (Ironman distance) triathlons in 50 days, in the 48 contiguous states plus twice in Haiti. I thought it sounded almost impossible, but then I saw there was a guy who did it already.

The guy who did it says he averaged about 14 hours per triathlon. That's most of your waking day, right there. So when did he sleep? Well, in Tennessee he says he fell asleep on the bike and crashed. Anyway, if this appeals to you, you'd better be a person who can get by on short hours of sleep.

These aren't regular organized triathlons, of course. These are stunts, where you run a course you design yourself. If you wanted to cheat, the opportunities would seem to be there. But maybe nowadays these people hook themselves up to electronic tracking devices and broadcast their locations real time, with pictures, as they move, on Facebook or Twitter. That's the modern way!

I'll just say what I feel:
This holds no appeal.
An Ironman's a brutal test.
Afterwards, you need a rest.

Probably

How does cotton get preshrunk?
Does it involve a warm-water dunk?

Diet

I heard word of the new Snake Diet
And studied its fast/binge laws.
Although I don’t totally buy it,
I’m trying to un-hinge my jaws.

The Matchmaker, The Film

I'm acting in Wilder's The Matchmaker, so I spent some time looking at the old film of the play tonight. I play the miserly half-millionaire, Horace Vandergelder. Paul Ford played him in the movie. Walter Matthau played the same role in Hello Dolly, the musical made from the play. I've long been very partial to Matthau, and I may want to watch Hello Dolly next. In the little excerpts I've seen, the camera loves his interplay with Barbara Streisand.

I know some actors purposely avoid looking at previous portrayals of the characters they are working on. But I never feel overly influenced by such looking. I feel like I pick up a few possibilities. But I'm not going to become Walter Matthau, or even try to.

Speaking of influences, this play is thought to have an ancestry that traces back to a play by Terence, the ancient Roman playwright:

"Many of the stock personages in Phormio directly correspond to characters in The Merchant of Yonkers: the rich old man, the young men looking for brides, and the parasitus, who finds her incarnation, or rather apotheosis, in Dolly Levi."

Accept that you will be influenced,
Though hopefully not overmuch.
There's much you may learn from tradition,
But do let it show your own touch.

Sample Marketing Material

The show is in rehearsals
And barring any reversals
I'm expecting lots of yuks -
And the price is right - ten bucks!

Indistinct Singing

I heard a not-too-new pop song on the radio, and it got caught in my head, and I realized I didn’t really know the words. Usually I know enough of the words to find lyrics on Google, but I was failing on that front.

So I downloaded an app called Sound Hound to my phone, and sang just the melody to the app, using La-la-la as the lyrics. And it found it. I’m impressed by its ability to pick a melody out of my singing, and I was impressed by my own inability to have picked any full three-word-phrase from the song, which was Say It Right by Nelly Furtado.

At least I could hum it right
And didn’t have to stay up all night
Wondering over words
I never quite heard.

August Twelfth

“Twelfth” has just one vowel
But lots of length.
Still it’s beaten out
By good old “strength”.

USPS Rebranding

“Snail mail” sounds derogatory, so...
I’m recommending “lettres de escargot”!

A New Part

Brain, embrace the challenge of size:
Lots of lines to memorize!

Freedom

Individual rights
Give some people frights,
But the best is attained
When no one's enchained.

Neonatal Vision

I suppose it’s quite a surprise,
Having lurked in the dark endless days,
To suddenly open your eyes
And meet your mother’s gaze.

Violence

I see in the news that 40 people were shot in Chicago in a 7 hour span. Four of them died. It's mostly the usual stuff - mostly gang rivalries in rough African American neighborhoods. It was a hot weekend, so lots of people were outdoors, which always seems to increase the likelihood of shootings.

Earlier this week, a couple of ministers led an "anti-violence" protest march through the nice neighborhood near Wrigley Field, where the Cubs play. The march snarled traffic during evening rush hour. The ministers said their goal was to "redistribute the pain", which sounds like a threat, and which got a lot of local press coverage... but which didn't really seem to scare anyone much.

There's a lot going on with these shootings. But I want to talk about one particular problem where witnesses won't i.d. perpetrators. Sometimes this is because witnesses are scared of the perpetrators. But not always. Sometimes this is because witnesses - and even victims - think the matter should be settled between the gangs themselves, that it's the gangs' business, not really police business.

These sorts of attitudes
Help continue the feuds.

Red Blooded

The blood donation people call our house everyday. I've given gallons over the years, but nowadays I think I average 1 or 2 pints a year. I have the sense it affects my race times, so I like to give in the cold months, when I'm not racing. When I looked it up recently, trying to stick to substantial studies, it does seem statistically likely to slow me down a bit.

I remember mentioning to a doctor once that I thought I could feel the effect of donating on my running times, even after 2 weeks. He seemed skeptical. But, maybe it's all about the fact that I actually push up to my personal maximum when I race. And, nowadays, my personal maximum speed isn't all that maximum, so I really notice any slow-down!

The standard donation info online says that you replace all your red blood cells in 8 weeks. But apparently that's an average.

"Blood donors are allowed to give one pint of blood every eight weeks. A major concern is that about 25-35 percent of regular donors develop iron deficiency."

That's a big percentage of people who evidently need more than 8 weeks. Anyway, it turns out that taking extra iron helps your red cells recover faster. So... what the heck... Even though I normally resist dietary supplementation...

I decided to take some iron pills
To make up for my racing ills.

Sounds

Distant din of children at the park,
Summer evening long before it’s dark.

I.D. Required

My grocer said I shouldn't be makin'
Breakfast with Canadian bacon
Unless I could demonstrate
That my passport was up to date.

Mean vs. True - What Should I Do?

It kind of annoys me when I'm outside, and I see the sun is at its highest point of the day - due south - and I think to myself that it's true noon. The I look at my watch, and often it's not that close to noon! 

That's because our official time keeping is done by means of the "mean sun" rather than the "true sun".

"Now, the variations in the true Sun's motion causes it to sometimes be ahead of, sometimes lag behind, and sometimes be neck and neck with the mean Sun."

Also, because Daylight Savings Time really throws things off around here.

I was thinking of switching to solar noon.
I planned to do it very soon.
I bought a super precise sun dial,
But late at night, it's not worthwhile.

Storage

It was brilliant to call it the cloud
And to claim it was everywhere,
Rather than saying “it’s just a crowd
Of random servers, here and there.”

Hale Theatre Rehearsal

They've officially started rehearsing the new production of my play, O’Brien & O’Brian.

Tonight’s initial reading
Gave me laughs I was needing.
Now I just have to remember
Not to miss the actual show in mid-September.

Language Shifts

Call them “senior citizens” I was told.
It was a euphemism for being “old”,
But biased against non-citizens - that’s clear.
Now just “seniors” is mostly what I hear!
It seems to mean we’re of an age to retire,
But not quite ready to just give up and expire.

Twitter Stock Dives

When you're a kind of dive bar,
Where lots of fights occur,
Just admit what you are,
And go on as you were.

Don't try to redeem your brand,
By forcing the trolls to leave -
That easily gets out of hand,
And then your investors will grieve.

Manteno 2018

I did the Manteno Triathlon this morning.



Last year I was the only male in my age group. I took first place, just for finishing.

This year there were 4 of us, same age group as last time. I took third place. I worked harder because I purposely passed someone in my group and kept up my speed to maintain my lead.



I think intrinsic goals are generally better, in a number of ways. But there is something natural about the urge to compete, something natural that can improve performances.

When I was in my thirties I did my first foot race as an adult - a 10k. I was surprised, as we left the starting line, by what I felt.

I felt the urge to compete
Possess my feet.

Casting that Spell

There's something ironic
About the spelling of phonic.

English orthography
May seem like a mystery.
But really it's a lesson
In geography and history.

Strings Attached

“Everybody knows about fire and the wheel, but string is one of the most powerful tools and really the most overlooked,” says Saskia Wolsak, an ethnobotanist at the University of British Columbia who recently began a PhD on the cultural history of string. “It’s relatively invisible until you start looking for it. Then you see it everywhere.”

The invention of string and rope
Helped humans cope.
I suspect they looked at a vine,
And stole the design.

Alarms

I thank you, dog, for being on such steady high alert.
With that great bark, the burglars will be scared of getting hurt.
But there’s no need to raise the roof each time a dog goes by.
You’ll scare them more, I swear, by giving the silent treatment a try!

Terrible Lizard

If you hear a stegosaurus
Sing the Hallelujah Chorus,
In a bright soprano voice...
Recall that you are dreaming and rejoice.

Professional Bike Racing

We had some serious bicycle racing in the neighborhood yesterday, and we walked around the course while the women were racing.

The women were noticeably slower than the men. My wife was wondering why that was, since it didn't seem likely to be due to male upper body strength. She wondered if it was something to do with the different hip structures. I said I didn't know why it was, but that female champion marathoners are slower than male champions, and that there were no women that I'd heard of in the Tour de France.

Anyway, I found an article about why men are faster runners, and it turns out it's multiple biological factors, including both the hip structure and the fact that men actually have more muscle in their legs. Well, this is why we have separate prizes or races for women.

Here's a separate article about the difference between male and female Olympic cycling, which gets into some of the arcane aspects of advanced cycling.

Of course, every single one of the women cyclists on the course could beat me in a bike race.

I think everyone riding had a ten thousand dollar bike,
Any one of which... I would like.

With Feeling

When puppies fight they start snarling -
Ferocious-sounding snarls!
When people love they say darling,
But no one ever darls.

Walk Away

Headline from the NY Times:

Psychology Itself Is Under Scrutiny
Many famous studies of human behavior cannot be reproduced. Even so, they revealed aspects of our inner lives that feel true.

Maybe "reveal" isn't quite the right word here.

Results you can't reproduce
No matter how true they feel
Are of truly minimal use
As a guide to what's real.

O'Brien & O'Brian Again!

The Hale Theatre Company has announced auditions - this week - for a September production of my play, O'Brien & O'Brian.

I am excited
And beyond delighted.

Shot Dead

A barber got shot dead by the police in my old neighborhood - the neighborhood I left 50 years ago. It's rougher now. The local people were up in arms about the shooting, but the police released some body-cam video today. For some reason there's no audio. But you can see that the police have stopped this guy, then they try to arrest him, but he breaks away. There's very clear footage that he's got a semi-auto pistol of some kind on his pants. He runs sort of haphazardly, flailing his arms. You can see where you might think he's reaching for that gun. And one of the cops shoots him down.

If you're a real 2nd-amendment absolutist, the police shouldn't have stopped him in the first place, since they were stopping him for looking like he was carrying a gun. At least that's the current report. Apparently, according to Illinois laws, he shouldn't have owned a gun, and he shouldn't have been carrying it around in public either. Didn't have the right cards and permits. You can see where he might not want to get arrested and searched.

Maybe had a good reason for being armed, even though he didn't have the right permits. So, provisionally, I feel bad for him. But once you start resisting police arrest and once you start looking like you're grabbing for a gun, your life expectancy is unfortunately shortened. It's a brutal fact of life in the big city.

Think very hard before you resist arrest.
Compliance with the law is usually best.

CORRECTION: As of a day later, it looks like he did have the card from Illinois that says you can own a gun, what we call the FOID card (Firearm Owner's I.D.). He just didn't have the concealed carry permit.

Over In Washington State

"Burglar breaks into escape room, can't figure out how to escape"

No matter what
You want to take out,
Don’t break in
If you can’t break out.

Limits

At races I need to crank up my acting
Crossing the finish line.
My photos often look like I’m dragging
Rather than feeling fine.

On Wabash Avenue

Warm sun is in the sky
And we have snowballs in July.

Triathlon Creatures

I wish
I could swim Ike a fish.
And it would be swell
To run like a gazelle.
But there’s no faster species to like
When it comes to riding a bike.

Lake Zurich Triathlon

There's a Lake Zurich in Illinois. That's where I did this triathlon today. I didn't go to Switzerland, where the more famous Lake Zurich is.

The last time I did this race was 2005. They had changed the design a bit. They used to have you swim point-to-point, across the lake, from one beach to another. I liked that, except it meant you had be bused from where you left your bike to where you started your swim. I didn't like that part.

The run portion is a run around the lake. For the distance I was running, you have to do that twice. I like running around the lake, it feels natural somehow. But somehow the second loop was a lot harder than the first today. I started off fast and slowed way down.

I've reached the age where my age group is a lot smaller than the younger age groups. The number of people who are 65 and up, who do this sort of thing... well, age takes its toll. I feel lucky to still be able to do it. Yes, some of this is my doing, but not all of it. I feel that I've been lucky with my knees, for example.

Knees, if you go bad,
I'll try to understand,
Treasuring the fun we had
Traversing water and land.

Poe At Sea

I came across that Emerson quotation about Poe, because I was looking at books about Poe at the library, because I was reading a couple of stories by Poe: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, and A Descent into the Maelström. I remember that I was supposed to read them in college, for a seminar devoted to Moby Dick. I neglected to read these works back then, so I decided it was time to make up my coursework belatedly. These 2 works are often thought to have influenced that mega novel about the Great White Whale.

Poe wrote many a big-whopper tale
But none, I believe, involving a whale.

Jingle Man

Perhaps Emerson was being small-minded about his competition:

'Emerson, irked by Poe’s lack of moral gravity, called him “the Jingle Man.”'

The linked article mentions the strange phenomenon that the American critical establishment has never much cared for Poe, while the French critical establishment raved about him. It's an earlier version of the Jerry Lewis controversy.

I'm a poor student of Emerson's poetry, which I find boring. But two poems of Poe's I always find enchanting - The Raven and The Bells - so I periodically reread them with pleasure.

I like moral gravity well enough,
But not as all-in-all.
When Poe unleashes his jingly stuff,
I fall into his thrall.

Lull

After the first cloudburst,
Homeward I scramble.
Maybe I can escape the worst.
Of course, it’s a gamble.

Long Live The Revolution

Glad to be back to the states!
Other nations’
4th of July celebrations
Are not that great.

Language

“Doppio” means a double shot
Of espresso coffee, black and hot.
It sounds really dopey, but it’s not.

Swimming

Jellyfish, you are hauntingly lovely.
Only your touch feels tauntingly ugly.

Semifortified

I like to keep
Old stones in a heap.
I believe in stockpiles
Of rock piles.

Drenched

It seems like couples in a movie
Always laugh and think it’s groovy
When they get caught in the rain.
But in real life it’s a pain.
I suspect that it’s a narrative device
To get their wet clothes off in just a trice.

Retrotech

If Dante had had a smartphone
He wouldn’t have needed a guide.
He could have traversed the afterlife all alone
Though I’m still not sure how he did it without having died.

Grumpy

I've yelled in the midst of a restaurant crowd...
Just because the music was too damn loud.

A Breed Apart

Labrador retrievers
Are rather firm believers
In obtaining the max
Number of snacks.
You might say they're high achievers

Ciardi's Couplet

I've been reading the Ciardi translation of the Divine Comedy, and there's a 2-line poem I remembered as being Ciardi's. I had a read it in a book at a bookstore, I think, and it had stuck in my memory. But I hadn't verified it for a long time. Well, Google came through today, and here's the whole poem. I didn't recall the title at all, and I was unsure of the punctuation, but the words are just as I remembered them.

Dawn of the Space Age

First a monkey, then a man.
Just the way the world began.

I love that little poem. One of the many things I like about it, is its positive attitude about the space age. The intellectuals and artists at the time were mostly looking down their noses at the space age, when they should have been looking up at the worlds of possibility.

La Comedia

I have to say that Dante's famous work
Is somewhat short on Comedy in fact.
I hesitate to slam him as a jerk,
But damning old foes is his favorite act.
Well, maybe not his favorite. He does love
A former girlfriend, who can still attract
His heart below the earth and then above.

McCartney in Liverpool

If you're a McCartney fan,
I thought this was very well done.
His voice, of course, is gone,
But it looks like he's still having fun.

Thank You, Supreme Ones

Does the high court ruling on sales tax
Apply to the dark web, too?
It’s strictly for a friend I ask -
It’s nothing I would do.

Post-Downpour

After a great flood
Ants scurry to excavate
Their homes free of mud.

It’s So Nice Out There

I considered changing my mind,
But it was too hard to find.
I’m not sure where it’s gone.
Maybe out on the lawn.

Reintarnation

Metempsychosis is not
A form of clinical craziness,
The details of how it might work
Are subject to terrible haziness.
But if I come back as a sloth,
Please forgive my laziness.

Pondering

Could it be more than happenstance
That punishment starts with pun?
Do you think that puns, perchance,
Are the painfullest sort of fun?

First World Third Place Problems

I did a fun triathlon this morning. They actually let me sign up on Saturday for a triathlon Sunday. Which was great for my procrastinating self. Except, somehow the late signer-uppers didn't have a prepared race-packet at packet-pickup. There was a special procedure for us. Which went wrong somehow. I believe they began by giving me the wrong bib number - giving me somebody else's number. So that at the end of the race, on the computer, when I entered my bib number, I saw my time with a 35-year-old's name.

I tried to get the timing people to correct this. They said they did. But somehow I ended up with my first name misspelled, and still 35 years old. Which put my results in the Male 35-39 age group.

I think - think, mind you - that I took third place in my age group. Just barely. Out of 4 guys in my age group.

This is deeply into the realm of first world problems. In retrospect, I'm thinking I shouldn't have bothered trying to get this straightened out. I probably could have left the race an hour earlier!

It's very flattering, I must say,
When all the hair I have is gray,
To be mis-classified this way.

World Cup

I hear there's a world cup of some kind.
Good luck to you all, but I hope you don't mind
If I say that a sport with a ball you can't throw
Simply seems like the wrong way to go.

Gustave Doré Illustration

In Dante's Hell, there are souls
Whose soles stick out of holes.

Unexpected Waves

A crypto current sea
Is a choppy place to be.

My Dopy Digital Assistant

Thank you, Alexa, for waking up during random conversations,
And confessing you can’t answer our imagined interrogations.

Free Advice

Please don’t stare at your phone
While walking along outside,
Because that’s what I’m doing too,
And I fear we may collide.

Foul is Fair

My dog stands ready to sniff -
No question of when or if.
You think some smell is horrible?
To her, it's just adorable.

Don't Lose The Thread

The main trouble with time travel,
Is when everything starts to unravel,
And it turns out that I was never born.
That always leaves me feeling forlorn!

Niche

We made people keep their loose dogs off the street,
Where coyotes now roam, hunting bunnies to eat.

First Tri of Summer

Hard-won advice for the day:
If you change the pitch of your bicycle seat
Remember the job’s not complete
Till you tighten it all the way...
Or you may find yourself riding at a pitch you hadn’t intended,
And relieved but sore once the ride has ended.

What Is Vivitrol?

They've been running this ad on the electronic billboard at the train station downtown. It has some fine print lines at the bottom, but I've never gotten close enough to see what they say. I can only see this message: "What is Vivitrol?" This question is accompanied by a good looking young woman with nice blonde hair, staring straight out, with a serious expression.

I guessed it was hair product. Nope. Wrng

It's an anti-addiction shot you get, a medicine that makes opioids not work on you. It blocks the high.

And the gimmick with just asking what is the drug? That may be a legal work-around, to not have to list the no-doubt long list of dangerous side effects.

This all previously came up in Boston, apparently, on the Red Line. Here's a photo snatched off the internet.



This is the sort of mystery ad
That has the potential to drive me mad.

Skynet Not Yet

Some say we’re doomed to die
At the hands of deep-learning AI.
But that day has not yet come.
AI is still kind of dumb.

The Challenge

There's this local race that I've been running faithfully since 1983. The course has changed a couple of times, and, more significantly for today's story, they added a second race to it. Originally it was a 10k, back when 10ks were popular. Now it's a 10k, and a separate 5k, now that 5ks are popular.

And, you can sign up to run them both, one after the other. This is called "The Double Challenge".

I've been rising to the challenge, and this year I came in second, in my age group, for the combined event.

I was 7th out of 20 on the 10k.

I was 5th out of 12 on the 5k.

But I was 2nd out of 6 for the hardy band who ran both. There's actually no "award" for that, except in my mind.

Whether you win or lose,
Is sometimes something you choose.

Only One Letter Left Out

Apparently there's no U.S. state
That's spelled with the letter Q.
Let's change the spelling of New Yorq.
It's the right thing to do.

GDRP as Applied to Me

As for storing your deets,
Each night I do an erase.
It’s almost too complete.
I may not remember your face!

Sumer Is Icumen In

My plan is to un-tilt
The planetary axis,
Cut back the Weather Service,
And save big bucks on taxes!

beWaRe

zAny caPitaliZatioN
iS A thReat tO cLear menTatiOn.

Charms to Ruffle the Savage Breast

Apparently a lot of stores and "pubic spaces" now play classical music loudly to chase away louts:

"Experts trace the practice’s origins back to a drowsy 7-Eleven in British Columbia in 1985, where some clever Canadian manager played Mozart outside the store to repel parking-lot loiterers. Mozart-in-the-Parking-Lot was so successful at discouraging teenage reprobates that 7-Eleven implemented the program at over 150 stores, becoming the first company to battle vandalism with the viola."

It's an interesting idea, with some intuitive appeal, but then the author writes this:

"Today, deterrence through classical music is de rigueur for American transit systems."

I can tell you that's not true in Chicago. I ride transit here all the time, and I'm not hearing a lot of oboes.

The author of the piece is not too happy about this alleged trend, referring to it as "weaponized classical music," and seeming to take the attitude that this represents some kind of classist oppression. But I like this sort of music, so I say: bring it on!

They say that vandals
Can't abide Handel.
If so, it's no scandal
To chase them away.
Let Hallelujah play!

Again

I fear that mad-shooter notoriety
Is bad for our society.

Perennial

Grandchildren are lovely creatures
With next-generation features.

Verbatim Theater, Verboten Viewpoint

I never heard of "verbatim theater" but apparently it's used to describe plays whose scripts are literally excerpts of verbatim testimony. You might recall that someone made a stir by doing that with one of the Hillary/Donald debates, keeping the actual words of the debate, but flipping the genders. People were surprised when this somehow seemed to make the Donald into a more sympathetic character.

Anyway, there's a new play based on that stinky attempted shakedown of Chevron Corp. on "environmental" grounds in Equador. I haven't followed the case, but the plaintiff's lawyer got in very serious trouble for unethical behavior.

It's a clever way to write a play. I mean, you don't have to write a thing! But you do have to edit. Mercilessly, no doubt. And it looks like he raised 24k to put on the play, so my hat's off to him.

What really interested me was that an actor dropped out of the play.

"Apparently, the actor had difficultly performing the part because it cast the environmental movement in a negative light, the sources say."

Of course that's the actor's right, but you do wonder why he took the part in the first place. I wonder if someone put pressure on him after he signed up for the part. Theater people don't confuse actors with their roles. If you play Iago, we don't imagine you must be a villain. But participating in a controversial play can be construed as "supporting it", I suppose.

What actor wants to be seen
As anti-green?

Gradualism

My mind is in a muddle.
Would someone please respond?
At what point does a puddle
Turn into a pond?

Burro

In Italian, burro means butter.
In Spanish it means an ass.
My brain fills up with such clutter,
Which will not vanish, alas!

Canine Grapevine

I’d heard that puppies on the Dog Star
Were up to something mysterious.
But you know how rumors are -
It wasn’t really Sirius.

Terza Terza Terza

As you may have noticed, I've been fiddling with terza rima. Something I hadn't paid attention to: there are a couple of ways to end them.

"...there are a few different ways you can choose to end your terza rima poem. One way is to simply end it with the last stanza. Another way is to add a couplet, which is a set of two lines which rhyme. Or, you can choose to add one extra line that stands alone to conclude your story. Try writing more than one terza rima, and experimenting with ending them in all different ways!"

The last way is the method used by Dante. I have followed that method so far, although I didn't isolate the last line visually.

I see that Robert Frost, in a poem included at the link, used the final couplet method, as did Shelley in his West Wind ode. Why haven't I noticed this before?

I suppose the Ode to the West Wind is the best known English poem in this form. He uses a lot of off-rhymes to solve the problem of "how do I keep coming up with 3 rhymes at a time?"

Terza Rima is an interloper in English,
Which is insufficiently jinglish.

HMD

Laying an egg was evidently too easy
So evolution instead decided to
Ask that for months you wake up queasy
Lugging a child around inside of you.
You rose to the challenge and bore forth young.
Now, on this day, let your praises be sung!
Happy Mother's Day.
Happy heartache and rewards like no others day.

Is Unfriend Even A Word?

I unfriend in a somewhat random way.
Not in response to something said to me,
But in response to broad polemic spray,
A splatter pattern there for all to see.
Plus, as a rule it's someone I don't know,
Don't know in flesh and blood reality.
They do not notice that I choose to go.
I just evaporate from their big set
Of faces in the social network flow.
Not one has called to say they miss me yet.

Terza Rima

I’m reading Dante’s tale which takes the form
Of three-line stanzas braided into rhyme.
In English such tight chains are not the norm!

The poet starts by telling of a time
When he was wandering in a darkened wood,
And found a hole, and made a downward climb.

So soon enough it turned out that he stood
Before the undelightful gates of Hell.
You might thing going in would not be good,

But he persisted, and he lived to tell
The story of his journey in a poem.
This happened once or twice to me as well,
But I kept quiet after I got home.

Bear Necessities

UPI: "A Canadian zoo has been charged under the country's Wildlife Act after officials took a bear for ice cream at a Dairy Queen drive-through."

This is an incredibly friendly and well-behaved bear, as you can see here.



Although, if I was the DQ guy, I wouldn't be handing any food directly to the bear.

With such a well behaved bear,
I think it was only fair,
To drive her into town
To pick up treats she could gobble down.

At the Blood Donation Place

I probably go there twice a year on average, to donate blood. But it feels like a very familiar place to me. What's funny, is that something is always different. Today what really jumped out at me is that men and women were BOTH supposed to answer questions about being pregnant. I guess this is geared toward people who were born female but who subsequently declare themselves to be men.

Anyway, there's no maybe,
I cannot carry a baby
Anywhere inside my bod,
Honestly, so help me, God.

Pressuring for Song

The prosecutor says you'll take a fall,
Unless you tell him what he wants to hear.
Really, this is something for us all,
Not just the would-be songbird, to fear.

As a federal judge recently said:

“This vernacular is to ‘sing,’ is what prosecutors use. What you got to be careful of is, they may not only sing, they may compose.”

The reported reason to fear the tactic, is that often it brings forth a new set of lies, lies that the prosecutors are eager to accept as truth.

The witness sings
But does he compose?
For justice that brings
Worse woes.

Next on the Book Club Reading List

Why a stairway to heaven?
Why a highway to hell?
Is traffic that uneven?
Perhaps my friend Dante can tell.

Third Cousins

On the 23andMe website, in my DNA relatives list, there was a recently-added woman I didn't know.

Aside from some actual known relatives, she was the closest DNA relative I've seen online.

She indicated online that she was looking for relatives.

The website guessed she was my third cousin, and I just confirmed that guess was correct, using some information from her, and the Mormon(LDS) "family search" website which gives very nice access to US census records, from 1940 backwards.

The good news was that we had a last name in common in our family tree, and some geography in common too. Now that I've placed her into my family tree, I can point her at a line that goes back to the colonies and to Scotland.

Thank you 23 and Me,
For your relationship guess,
And for searchable census data,
Thank you L.D.S.!

Safety First

Is there a way for me to surmise
Which airline window is likely to pop?
I’ll ask for an aisle seat in the skies
And keep my belt tight till we stop.

But They Didn’t Ask Me

This morning Facebook tried to get in everybody’s biz,
Trying to figure out, it seemed, just what hate speech is.
But lots of people hated being asked to take the quiz.

Poof

Theater sets disassemble quickly,
And for that I am truly glad.
But seeing a lovely set come down
Always makes me a little sad.

Woulda Never

On the train yesterday I heard a woman say “woulda never did that”. She said it twice. It got me thinking because I woulda never said that. I’ll say woulda for would have, but I wouldn’t say did there, and I wouldn’t put the never between the woulda and the done.

I never woulda done that.

That’s the closest I would come in my own habitual grammar.

I would never have done that.

I’d say that, too. But never would I generate:

I would have never done that.

I leave aside the did/done issue.

The linguists love to inform us that everybody has a grammar of some sort, but I wish I understood hers well enough to write a character who speaks that way.

There are forms of English grammar
Which I readily understand
But which I have failed to master -
They don’t rise at my command.

Play Going Well

To the audience, Harvey is invisible,
But his tale is clearly risible.
(We had the audience laughing,
Despite or because of our unseen staffing.)

Observation

Jupiter,
I’ve heard it suggested that you’re stupider
Than Mars.
But tonight
You did look bright,
Outshining all the stars.

Beware of Demotivation

Occasionally I’ve seen it turn out
That over-exercise leads to burn out.

Brisk

I know that Spring is coming,
And it will come to stay,
But due to Local Cooling,
That may not be till May.

Not Sure If This Came Up In Plato's Republic

If rule by one person
Is a monarchy,
Is rule by one swindler
A conarchy?

Fresh Blood

I’m voting for Zuckerberg
For the U.S. Senate.
At least one techie nerd
Ought to be in it.
But don’t get too perturbed.
He’ll never win it.

They Say

They say that poets are crazy
And often off their meds.
They say that poets are lazy
And ought to be working instead.

Such poets sit around thinking
Of making words sound right,
Without an apparent inkling
That surely it’s impolite

To rearrange a sentence
Until it beats like a drum.
You might think I’m due for repentance,
But that day never will come.

For the words in my head
Insist that I write
Till my fingers turn numb.

The Third Symphony As It Happens

So restful to be in an airport
Playing Beethoven, not CNN.
I am a news junkie, of course,
But they air the same story again and again.

In Boston

After a snowstorm gets out of hand
Broken branches litter the land.

Roles by Rote

Some lucky actors are blessed
And find their lines just “stick”.
The rest of us get stressed
And chant them till we’re sick.

Home Opener

"Snow, rain and cold temperatures couldn’t deter White Sox fans from attending the team’s home opener against the Tigers Thursday afternoon."

Chicago in the Spring...
That can mean anything.

Confidant

If you want to keep a secret,
Don’t trust human chat.
That can lead to leakage.
Only tell your cat.

Travelers

Bizarre funny story:

"The Rise in Self-Proclaimed Time Travelers: They’ve come from the future for two reasons: 1) To save us from ourselves; and 2) to make YouTube confessionals"

I find time travel pleasant.
I'm glad it was invented!
Living in the present
Leaves me somewhat discontented.

Lines, Lots of Lines

Went to a rehearsal
But in an odd reversal
I didn’t need to stay
Since I had no lines to say
Not in Act One, anyway
Which is what we were doing today.

(I worked on Acts Two and Three
At home, which suited me.)

Logistics

Mythical bunny needs speedy legs
To haul and hide so many eggs.

March 31, 1596

It’s René Descartes’ birthday... I think.
Do I sound doubtful? I am.
What if I’ve just been hoodwinked
By a demonic Wikipedia scam?

Enemy MIne

I used to treat my dogs with this stuff to prevent heartworm infection.

What If A Drug Could Make Your Blood Deadly To Mosquitoes?

I'm willing to give up
Some of my blood
If skeeters who sup
Will crash with a thud.

I Mean, Why Not?

I'm letting my hair grow out curly,
Fostering an attitude that's surly,
And celebrating April Fool's Day early.

I’m Not Quite Jewish, But...

A favorite Passover dish
Is known as gefilte fish.
I buy by the pound
From a deli I found
That sells me as much as I wish!

Arms And The Man

The second amendment - strangely it's still around,
Annoying opponents who claim it isn't sound.
Mere words on paper - oops, somehow it's the law.
Let's read it again - there must be a fatal flaw!

Infrequent

Rain in the desert:
Cactuses dripping,
Thirsty young lizards
Warily sipping.

Unusual Pool

A chance to swim in the sky.
Is this what it feels like to fly?
Would you want to give it a try?

After All, It Is The Perfect Shape

Why doesn't Excel show more deference
When I try to make a circular reference?

Data, Data, Everywhere

I hope my Facebook data is used
To further world peace.
But mostly I pray my rhymes are excused
By the new thought police.

Rescue Pups

'Colorado Springs firefighters said they were surprised to learn that the littler of "puppies" they rescued from a storm drain were actually baby foxes.... The "puppies" were taken to Powers Pet Emergency & Specialty, where veterinarians said they weren't actually dogs at all, but rather newborn red fox kits.'

Those vets. They know the secret signs whereby a canid is revealed to not be a domestic dog.

Baby dogs are pups.
Baby foxes are kits.
I'm not sure why this is
Or how they got mixed up.

Cosmic Daze

He thought he had been gifted by the gods.
She was as perfect as a work of art,
But warm and loving. What fantastic odds
Had brought them close? He felt his beating heart
Had somehow recognized her secret spirit,
A rhythm of her blood, a coursing rush
Of music too abstruse for ears to hear it.
He knew it was his brain that spawned this crush,
That spun the spell of leaping into love,
As if her soul were something made to order
To mesh with his. Not so much hand in glove
As hand in hand, toward a golden border.
Unsure if it was chance or hidden laws,
He uttered thanks unto the unknown cause.

Creepy Illinois State Voter Program

It comes in an envelope that looks like it might be official. The envelope has big red letters "Important Taxpayer Information Enclosed". But that's a falsehood, a trick to get you to open the envelope. The information isn't to do with taxes. It's to do with voting. And, strangely enough, it's a chart of whether I and some of my neighbors voted in elections in 2014 and 2016.

This is public information - not how you voted - but whether you voted.

Gateway Pundit says the "shady" group behind it is liberal. There's nothing explicitly liberal about the verbiage, except its creepy Cass-Sunstein nudge-like wording:

"Dear John,

What if your friends, your neighbors, and your community knew whether you voted?"

It goes on in that vein. And ends with a promise/threat to mail out an updated chart soon:

"You and your friends, your neighbors, and other people you know will all know who voted and who did not vote. DO YOUR CIVIC DUTY---VOTE!"

Dear Voter Program, please carefully note:
Freedom includes the right not to vote.
I wish you had told me whom YOU endorse -
I'd vote for his opponent, of course.

Standards

Person happy to go outside:
Let’s all get a whiff of fresh air!
Dog happy to go outside:
Hey someone peed over there!

Heard on the Street

Heard a bird
While on my walk.
Rat-a-tat-tat!
No song or squawk.
A woodpecker busy -
Pounding away.
I would get dizzy
Doing THAT all day!

NG

I was talking with someone whose native language is not English. Her English is generally excellent, but somewhat accented. Anyway, I was talking about the fact that German and Yiddish speakers tend to over-pronounce the "g" in our "ng" words. So, Long Island sounds a big like Lawn Guyland. Or singer is pronounced to rhyme with finger.

At this point, my friend stopped me and quizzed me. She didn't actually know that singer doesn't rhyme perfectly with finger. She says them the same way. And I listened carefully to her speech, and sure enough, she has the "hard version" of our "ng" sound, and doesn't actually say the soft version. Or, maybe she has one in-between sound. But I could definitely here the "explosive" "g" when she said singer.

With this variation
Of English pronunciation
You won't be misunderstood
But you won't sound perfectly good.

Fake Space News

"Is Chinese space station falling toward Michigan? Chances minuscule"

That's from the Detroit Free Pres. In one headline, they try to scare the locals and reassure them.

What goes up,
Must come down,
But Michigan?
Exactly which town?

City of

When you visit Chicago, remember to eat
More than you normally would.
We have big shoulders and huge appetites,
So kindly join in if you could!

Unsmooth Transition

March, I hear your name and think of Spring,
But then you send cold breezes just to bring
A blast of snow for Winter’s final fling.

First World Problem

I don’t suppose you care if
I can’t find a rhyme for tariff.

Harvey Casting

Instead of being cast as a silent invisible rabbit,
I’ve been cast as the judge.
When there’s a part with no lines I like to grab it,
But the director wouldn’t budge.

Through the Historical Looking Glass

This is a photo I snapped from an exhibit at Chicago's central public library. That's the cover of the first issue of a lesbian newspaper. The illustration shows Alice kissing the Red Queen.

"The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there." And one of the things they did in the early 70s, was represent children as having sort of proto-sexual interests. At that point, the Freudian establishment was still constantly hitting the drumbeat that children were sexual beings. The Freudians had some fairly dark views on this.

How old is Alice, you ask? Well, Wikipedia says:

"Alice is a fictional child living during the middle of the Victorian era. In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), which takes place on 4 May, the character is widely assumed to be seven years old; Alice gives her age as seven and a half in the sequel, which takes place on 4 November."

So, anyway, what really struck me was that the curators at the library went ahead and put this up on the wall. I'm surprised they weren't more concerned about the whole child-sexual-abuse thing! Is that girl old enough to consent to that kiss?

Perhaps the curators would agree
That even recent history
Already looks quite strange
After the flood of change.

Dogged

I was trying to stall my dog
Since I had some things to do.
I told her just to wait,
But then she brought my shoe.
I think she wants a walk
And this is her helpful clue.

Forbidden Fable

"China bans George Orwell's Animal Farm and letter 'N' as censors bolster Xi Jinping's plan to keep power indefinitely"

Call it the the sequel
To Orwell's bad dream.
Some are more equal,
And one reigns supreme.

No Go

My flight to Boston, canceled.
No, not once, but twice.
I want to see my grandson,
But the weather was not nice!

In Absentia

If I can get the title role
In this Harvey show,
I’m going for the title role
In Waiting for Godot!

White Rabbit

I auditioned tonight for Harvey.
I asked for the title role.
He’s never seen or heard from,
But I’d play him with lots of soul.

Suffrage the Children

I heard that people were all in a rage
To change the minimum voting age.
I thought they were saying sixty at first.
A little bit high, but perhaps not the worst.
And then I thought they were saying six.
That was my ears, just playing old tricks.
It’s really sixteen that is being proposed,
But six makes more sense, so my case is now closed.
What’s more, I think that the office of president
Should be open to every six year old resident.
Once you’re smart enough to read
Aren’t you ready to vote and lead?

Poet Nonlaureate

As poets go, in point of fact,
I’m anything but famous.
If you don’t know who I am,
You’re not an ignoramus.

Merely Rare

They say perfection’s impossible.
They say the world is glitched.
But baseball’s a counter example.
Perfect games have been pitched.

Month Two

February, you go so soon,
Leaving without leaping.
Sometimes you stay an extra day
For calendar housekeeping.
I dreamed we’d have more time but now
Your exit caught me sleeping.

To Bits

David Mamet has written a new play, about Harvey Weinstein. He has been talking to reporters in recent days, I think as part of a book tour for his new novel. Anyway, I found this paragraph from the Chicago Tribune interesting:

'He long ago and powerfully explored the matter of sexual exploitation in his 1992 two-character play (later a movie) “Oleanna.” “I think about this a lot now. I have a bunch of daughters, a young son,” he says. “Every society has to confront the ungovernable genie of sexuality and tries various ways to deal with it and none of them work very well. There is great difficulty when you are switching modes, which we seem to be doing now. People go crazy. They start tearing each other to bits.”'

"Ungovernable genie" is a nice phrase, and it does seem like people are tearing each other to bits lately. And the joining of the 2 ideas in a sentence makes me wonder if he was thinking of The Bacchae, the ancient Greek play in which the god of wine inspires a mob of women to literally tear a man to bits.

It's just a jest to declare
That a genie is involved,
But there may be puzzles here
That really haven't been solved.

It's Hard To Stop A Spree Killer In Advance, But...

I'm just gobsmacked by the repeated failures of law enforcement to stop this guy in Florida. The FBI received 2 tips, one extremely detailed and credible. The local cops had had a lot of prior dealings with this young man. And finally, to top it off, the sheriff's people had multiple officers stationed outside the school, guns in hand, positioned behind their cars, while the shooting was going on inside the school.

Yes, I realize it's early in the reporting cycle, and facts could still change, but...

When things just drop out of joint,
Suddenly, tragically wrong,
You often find there were multiple points
Of failure all along.

Blarney

The world's smartest pig
Is Irish, that's no sham.
His brain is extra big,
And he is a Cunningham.

Aftereffect

Melting snow
And rain galore
Have made my yard
A pond once more.

No Place Like

After I’ve journeyed
Around for a while
It’s good to return
To my own domicile.

In the San Jacinto Range

I do indeed worry I’ll fail
To keep to the right mountain trail,
But with GPS as my buddy,
Along with a bit of map study,
I somehow got out and back
While staying mostly on track.

In Palm Springs

Hummingbird hovering over the green,
Dipping for nectar while I sit serene,
What are the words that your song does not say?
Something perhaps that I might take away?

Petrified Forest National Park

Freakishly fossilized logs
From fallen Triassic trees,
Cells replaced by silica
And streaks of manganese.

Keeping My Mouth Shut

If your tongue
Got stung
By a bee
Would you be
Unable to speak
For most of the week?

News from Saugatuck

I've spent a lot of time in Saugatuck, Michigan. But this was news to me:

Saugatuck dog mistakenly approved for unemployment benefits

Will work for food
And improve your mood.

After Nine Days of Snow

From the Chicago Tribune:

"Southwest Airlines runs out of de-icer, cancels all flights from Midway"

In retrospect, having more de-icer
Would have been nicer.

Probiotic

I went to the airport cafeteria
To acquire an emotional support bacteria.
I sneaked it in, inside my system.
TSA just kind of missed him.

Up In The Air

Americans are getting wider and taller
But airplane seat space is getting smaller.
I’m scared to predict what will be the case
If both of these trends continue apace.

My Annual Metsphysical

A universe without stuffing
Would be a show about nuffing.

Dreaming

We’ll launch and eat our lunches
In electric cars,
Cruising midst the comets
On our way to Mars.

Horsedogship

Here is a funny short video of a neighbor's corgi riding a "one-eyed pony". It's another one of those "friendship across species" videos, but I was really struck by the extent of the cooperation in apparent imitation of human riding, especially since they reportedly worked this out on their own.

It's a dog and pony show.
I'm not sure how the dog says "whoa!"

Hopium

A friend of mine assured me
That winter was nearly gone.
I didn’t bother to argue.
I’m not sure what he was on.

Wendy MacLeod Bows to Crowd

"Kenyon professor calls off original play about cultural insensitivity amid criticism that it's culturally insensitive."

The playwright is Wendy MacLeod, who is pretty well known. Not like David Mamet, but pretty well known. And she is the "playwright in residence" at Kenyon College.

I've always wondered about these writer-in-residence jobs. They sound sweet. Except, apparently, that the sensitivity kids can keep you from putting up your play.

"The play is inspired by a true story in which a group of Guatemalan minors were forced to work on an Ohio egg farm; three of their captors were convicted and a fourth was indicted last year. MacLeod’s play imagines what might happen if one of the youth escaped to a nearby liberal arts college and encountered a group of less-than-culturally-sensitive white undergraduates."

But it wasn't "white" students who complained. It was "Latin American" students. They didn't like the way the Guatemalan was portrayed. They didn't like that another character used the word "illegal" to describe him. They didn't like that he didn't have many lines - and no English lines at all. They didn't like that he was a "stereotype".

Of course MacLeod caved.
And the college administration
Issued congratulations
On how they all behaved.

Beware of Rhyming Foods

An adventurous antelope
Whose mood was mostly jolly
Consumed a bad cantaloupe
And came down with meloncholy.

Pretzels, Better for Eating than for Posing

I’m bad at pretzel poses.
It’s really not my fault.
It’s just I always try them
With a great big grain of salt.

In case you raise the question,
That picture isn’t me.
The closest pose that I can do
Is known as Tipping Tree.