Subtext

I was looking at a book on writing plays, and I liked this quote on subtext, which has to do with dialogue that communicates somewhat indirectly:

"Subtext is often found in two areas: understatedness and inarticulateness. The British are masters of the former... Americans of the latter."

I love subtext, in its place, but it puts demands on the actor, who needs to understand what he is not spelling out.

Poorly acted subtext
Can leave you sorely vexed.

Merry Christmas!

Hump day is my favorite
But I’m not at work to savor it!
I have no emails to answer,
Not even from Rudolph or Dancer.

NYC Declared Rudest

Don’t tell me to have a nice day!
I’ll have it my own way.
Because what makes me happy
Is having a day that’s crappy.

North / South

A winter solstice here
Is a summer solstice there,
But at the equator
I hear they just don’t care.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

If burglary
Is on your mind
A wide-awake dog
Is awkward to find.
Is he just friendly,
Or will he bite?
Sometimes it's best
To flee in the night.

Bananas

I had a banana for breakfast,
But made no money at all.
If only I’d had the wisdom
To tape it on the wall!
I mean, let’s get real,
That is art with appeal.

Morning Sighting

Cat on a neighbor’s roof,
Contented and aloof.
No one can really say why,
But they like to sit where it’s high.

Commas

I like the vocal comma. 

You put it wherever you pause. 

No need for urgent drama

About different kinds of clause

Or exact grammatical laws

On what precedes the “and”

In lists that get out of hand. 

Building a Snowman

You start, of course, with snow.
Make sure it’s not too cold.
You want it wet like dough,
So when the balls are rolled,
Each puny starting piece
Will rapidly increase.
It’s good advice, at least,
If you live in the Northeast.

Boom

After defeating fascists on two fronts,
The greatest generation, still undaunted,
Married in haste, in record setting amounts,
And had as many children as they wanted.
They welcomed new life, after facing doom.
That’s the story of the baby boom.

Frozen

If your turkey’s so big
It inspires awe,
It might be time
To begin the thaw.

His Food Bill May Put You In Debt

The elephant seal
Is less than ideal
As a pet.

He eats lots of fishes
And sleeps where he wishes
And seldom shows signs of regret.

My Dear Watson

What canal runs through
Both peasants and gentry?
The answer, I tell you,
Is quite alimentary.

Precondition

I’d like the opportunity
To testify under immunity.
But first I need to join a plot
To do some things that we should not.

In Passing

As to the weather, let’s make one thing clear:
Autumn was my favorite day this year.

Dead Language

Saw this in an NBC article:

‘Asked to further elaborate on her statement regarding bribery, Pelosi said, "Well, you know we’re talking Latin around here — e pluribus unum, from anyone, quid pro quo, bribery, and that is in the Constitution, attached to the impeachment proceeding."’

“E pluribis unum” is not “from anyone” - it’s “from many, one”! They sound similar, but what is going on here? I’m going to give Pelosi the benefit of the doubt, and blame the reporter, Rebecca Shabad.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/pelosi-first-impeachment-testimony-corroborated-evidence-bribery-n1082311

I hope they fix it.
Ipse dixit!

Accept

I too use cookies to improve performance.
When work is dragging, the boost can be enormous.

Fishy News

SeaWorld CEO
Arrested for squid pro quo.

Ahead of Schedule

When the cold comes early

My attitude gets surly. 

I prefer more time to prepare

For the arrival of arctic air. 

CST

I’m glad we got that hour back.
All summer long, I felt its lack.
But must the afternoon fade to black?

Low Spirits

If channeling ghosts
Fills you with tedium,
You probably won’t
Be a happy medium.

Keeping Time

It’s true that DST is going away,
Causing some people to weep.
So flip your hourglass one time more that day
And catch some extra sleep.

Maybe Not

I was thinking of trying meth.
Wakes you up like coffee, but without the coffee breath.
But instead of teeth discoloration,
They exit to an undisclosed location

Chicago Marathon Yet Again

I ran the Chicago Marathon yesterday. Cool weather. 40s-50s. Very good conditions for setting a world record apparently, since a young woman from Kenya set a new women's world record on the course. She would have been about half-way done by the time I got started. The first wave started at 7:30 AM, and she would have been near the head of that. The third wave, my wave, started at 8:35 AM, and I was nowhere near the head of that.

I was very happy with my race, not because I was particularly fast, but because I did not struggle with leg cramps. I'm not sure what made the difference, to tell the truth. It's hard to do controlled experiments on yourself on an event that you do only a couple of times a year. But I suspect it helped a lot that I stopped taking my daily statin medicine for three days. Statins tend to do a great job of lowering your blood's lipid levels, but they can cause muscle cramps in some individuals. Normally, I'm not bothered. But I think that with really intense, long races, I may be vulnerable. So, having talked it over with my doctor, I took a few days off, and I think it made a big difference. Well, we'll see what happens during my next prolonged endurance event.

Avoiding pain
Is a kind of gain.

Aquatic

Yellow Submarine and Octopus’s Garden
Are almost the same song.
If that sounds mean, I beg your pardon.
Feel free to tell me I’m wrong.

Trust

On a lonesome street without a map,
No detour shall I fear. 
I’m counting on the driving app
To get me out of here!

Corny

Explored a maize maze.
It did feel vaguely haunted,
And took longer than I wanted,
But at least it wasn’t days.

Misdirected

I think because I like to read

About medical conditions 

I often find my Facebook feed

Is filled with admonitions

To end my imputed worry

By calling a doc in a hurry. 

Low Profile

People in witness protection,
Can contribute to Wikipedia,
But shouldn’t pose selfies
On social media.

Reading Lucretius

Ancient thinking about atoms
Was mostly clever guesses,
But they got a few things right,
So yes, it still impresses.

Beeing

To be a bee,
Or not to be,
To spend your hours
Touring flowers,
And dancing jive
In a buzzing hive,
To sit around secreting honey -
Honestly, it all sounds funny.

No Ice Yet

Construction season continues

Upon our city streets. 

We’ll take a break for winter,

And then it all repeats. 

Etymological Equity

Why is it called equinox
And not equiday?
I just want to get that question
Out of the way.

On the Vine

Here, this year’s pumpkins are seen
In a vibrant non-rhyming color.
Without them, Halloween
Would be monstrously duller.

Alien Immigration

When the aliens come from space
I hope Antarctica is the place
They choose to build their permanent base.

No one really seems to care
Much about the land down there,
Covered as it is in ice.

And if they look like penguins, that would be nice.

On Schedule

Acorns are dropping
And the squirrels are hopping.

Fuzzy

Certainty
Admits of degree.
But not, in the average case,
To a specified decimal place.

Delayed and Afraid

When they blame mechanical problems
I always want to ask
Exactly which part of the choo-choo
Wasn’t quite up to the task.
I want to know which I should worry about:
The engine or the brakes?
Should I worry when starting or worry when stopping,
For that is the difference it makes!

Preferences

I don’t care much for jam
In the paper or traffic flavor.
But when it comes to strawberry,
I’m very much in favor.

The Dogged Pursuit of Wealth

I adopted a golden retriever...
In the hopes that he'd bring me some gold.
Alas, he's an under-achiever,
Or else I was over-sold.

Young Fortinbras

We don’t need one million monkeys. 

We have computers as flunkies

To randomly generate text. 

Could “Hamlet, The Sequel” be next?

Getting a Shock from a Cuban Croc

This is CNN: "A man has been hospitalized after being bitten by a crocodile that once belonged to the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro. The injured man was attending a crayfish party -- a traditional Swedish celebration at which crayfish is eaten -- in Stockholm's Skansen Aquarium, when he was bitten on the arm by a crocodile. The man was giving a speech while standing on a rock in a restricted area of the facility."

They say you shouldn’t trust the smile
Of the average crocodile.
He may be in a jolly mood,
Mostly because you look like food.

Native Slavery

I was looking at a book today at the library, Stealing Indian Women: Native Slavery in the Illinois Country, by Carl J. Ekberg. The title sounds sensational, but the prose seemed careful and dry, with lots of quotations and evaluations of original materials, which are actually somewhat thin.

This is about the Mississippi Valley when it was controlled by the Spanish and French. It turns out, as you may know, that the native people were already engaged in the practice of slavery, before the Europeans showed up. It was the prisoner-of-war variety of slavery, apparently. You know, "I spared your life when I raided your village, so I own you." That kind of thing.

As I say, the records are thin, because the native people did not keep written records. Also, there weren't all that many literate white people around either. But the second half of the book, which I just glanced at, is about a big murder trial that occurred, about which proceedings were kept.

Just to be perfectly clear,
In some ways it was not the same,
But before the white men came,
Slavery was here.

Motivation

Cats believe that fetching a stick
Is a “beneath them” sort of trick.

Sore the Next Day

Why does the runners’ high
Often pass me by?
Why does the runners’ low
Mostly decide to show?
And why is the stoppers’ relief
Pleasant beyond belief?

Artistic

Artistic types can have trouble in school, so consumed are they with the desire to express. They will patiently master the tools to express, they will patiently acquire what they need to know to express, but they feel the urgency to create now, and do not want to spend time on things that might or might not prove useful for some reason later.

It’s not an absolute rule
That artistic types have trouble in school,
But it happens enough
And it’s frequently rough.

Enterprising

Just bought a lemonade
At a little neighbor’s stand.
Unregulated business
Is getting out of hand.
I mean, it’s the worst-
They exploited my thirst!

Nocturnal Neighbors

Someone wearing a furry mask
Ambled across my path tonight,
Then turned and stared, as if to ask
Why I continued to trouble his sight,

Classifications

A giant panda is a bear.
A red panda’s more like a raccoon.
How that happened, I'm unaware,
But hope to find out soon.

Icebox in the Summer

Seward
Got skewered
For buying northern land,
But the views up here are grand.

Alaskan Inner Passage

Whale
Tail.

Sailing

I am prone to motion sickness.
It can strike with startling quickness.
I did bring meds to use,
But so far on this cruise
I’ve had no queasy blues.
The seas are calm, it seemeth,
And this boat is a behemoth!

Wigging Out

I’m going with grey
For my man-bun toupee.

I Just Kant

The thing in itself
Sits high on a shelf
Away from prying eyes.

Trust me. It’s there.
Yes, its features are bare,
But it’s sort of a mystery prize

That we like to discuss
Just among us,
To see who can tell the best story

Of intuitive laws,
Preceding all cause,
And rising beyond category.

Cats

Jennifer Hudson can sing.
Francesca Hayward can dance.
The trailer's the freakiest thing.
It puts me in a trance.

In His Shell

I was biking on a trail that goes by a small body of water, when I saw a good sized something on the road. So I stopped to check it out. It’s hard to tell from this pic, but he was big, maybe a foot wide?

When I returned, he was no longer there.
I won’t say he vanished into thin air,
Since, unless I make a mistake,
He probably vanished into the lake.

At Moonrise

A baby baboon
In a bassinet
Blew a rollicking tune
On an ancient bassoon
While a dancing raccoon
Played the castanets.

Looking Back

We thought that when we landed on the moon,
The Soviets would be behind us soon.
But decades after we swore “the moon or bust!”
It’s just American footprints in that dust.

Grumble

How annoying of clouds
To turn loud.

50th Anniversary

Old poem of mine about a big day for the human race, the first moon landing.

The arena is silent -
Indifferent.
Nothing lives nor stirs -
Except -
What’s this occurs?
A man has stepped -
Put his print -
Into the sand -
And,
Behind him, distant,
A race has learned to stand.

Delightful

I’ll tell you a truth that I have grasped firsthand:
The children of your children are truly grand.

Trying Out

When auditioning,
I try to just do it.
I feel for those listening
Who have to review it.
They must guess who’d be best
To cast in their show.
That job is hard, too.
Trust me, I know.

Grown to be Shown, Not Thrown

Snowballs in July
Please the eye.

After the Break

On this day when we celebrate our break with England, I was reminded of my shock in coming across a statue of George Washington in London’s Trafalgar Square.

After the break
We found ways to make
Common cause
Always deeply aware of each other’s flaws.

Molded

From a book I just finished: “...the environment and our own choices molded us as much as our genes.” (Darkship Renegades by Sarah A. Hoyt, p. 465 in paperback edition.)

Well said, and I liked specifically that she included our choices as something that makes each of us unique. In the endless nature vs. nurture debate, you too rarely hear choice mentioned as a viable third force that shapes our characters. For a while I’ve pondered what third word could possibly work poetically with the other two. Tonight I’m thinking of calling it the nature vs. nurture vs. virtue debate. Virtue has a nice verbal ring with the other two, and in philosophy something called Virtue Ethics seems to be a rising cause. It seems to derive from Aristotle whose ethics made much of the way choices accumulate to become virtues or vices.

When it comes to a pleasing phrase
I find I cannot rest
Until the way I plead my case
Passes the aural test.

***

Nature, nurture, virtue:
All three have a role
In shaping who we are,
At the core of our soul.

Picnic Favorite

When I was a kid, I thought the dish
Was simply called Cold Slaw.
So who was Cole and why did he wish
To eat his cabbage raw?

AKA Australian

People who voted badly
Need to be publicly shamed.
That dreadful secret ballot
Lets them escape unnamed!

Local 5k

Third place guy in my age group
Accidentally ran off course.
Second place guy in my age group
Ran on artificial hips.
I took first place in my age group,
I ran with maximum force,
But either might have beat me
With slightly different scripts.

You Are What You Eat

When your dog eats your philosophy homework...

You get s pensive pup
Who ponders all that’s up,
Including whether the human mind
Quite compares to the canine kind.

Jumbo Planet

In tonight’s sky,
Jupiter looks stunningly large,
Which I guess is why
Roman mythology put him in charge.

Bad Blood

For book club, we read John Carreyrou’s book about the Theranos scandal: Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup. It’s kind of a page turner, where the crazed boss just keeps getting away with bad behavior until very near the end.

When you get caught in big lies
And you lose people’s trust
It shouldn’t be a surprise
That your business goes bust.

New Bike

It's the first day of summer, and I bought a new road bike. I'd had my old once since 2001. Its shifter for the front gears had started to fail. So I needed to get the shifter fixed, which I could have done, or spring for an actual new bike.

I hesitated over buying the new bike. I'm treating it as my birthday present. But I'll be 67 in August. Does it really make sense to buy a new bike at this age? How many years can I get out of it? Such are the worries of old people, I guess.

Anyway, it's more comfortable than my old bike. I took it out for a 20 mile spin in the forest preserve. It has a carbon-fiber front fork that "dampens the vibrations" as you ride over bumps. Now I'm telling myself it's a good purchase because old people need comfortable bikes as an incentive to get out there and ride!

It's from the Giant brand. They're a Taiwanese company, currently the world's biggest bike manufacturer. This is the third bike in a row I've had from them. The first I bought in 1992, so I'm a loyal but infrequent customer. They are not one of the cool name brands, but they seem to make pretty good bikes for less.

I like
My new bike.

ICE Slip Up

It happened here:

Man being deported escapes ICE agents, hails cab after using O’Hare restroom
Law enforcement officials set up a perimeter to contain him, but he was already gone, police said.

When you’re escorting
A guy you’re deporting,
Watch him closely in the loo.
It’s the smart thing to do.

Joining

Yoga is etymologically related to yoke.
The same can’t be said of toga and toke.

Coming Up Soon

It's the nineteenth of June
And we're exactly one month away
From the 50th anniversary of the day
Someone walked on
And talked on
The moon.

My Theory, Not My Practice

How could Shakespeare
Have known so much?
He hung out in bars
To stay in touch.

Fast

Since a fast is when you arrange to not eat,
The phrase “fast food” seems strangely offbeat.

Lox

I came across this headline:

"The English Word That Hasn’t Changed in Sound or Meaning in 8,000 Years"

The word is lox and the headline is misleading, since lox means a kind of smoked salmon, but 8000 years ago it just meant salmon, period.

And the story of lox, in particular, is mainly a hook to hang a general story about the ancient people who spoke proto-Indo-European, the mother of many tongues, and why there were so successful at spreading their culture - because, it is said, they were the first to tame the horse and then to attach wheeled vehicles to the horse.

I’m glad that proto-Indo-European
Proved so successful.
If it hadn’t, there would be no English,
And that would be stressful.

I’ve invested a lot into English,
A whole lot of time,
Especially studying words
Which do or don’t rhyme.

These ancients lived near salmon,
Which they called lox.
But was a squarish container
Known as a box?

Stroller Ditty

It’s just a little bump,
The kind that makes you thump,
You feel it in your rump,
Yes you do!

(Song composed for baby, to be sung when stroller wheels encounter an uneven surface.)

But It Does Happen

Making major decisions
While drinking whisky
Is widely regarded
As risky.

Apples

Apples have appeal,
And can fit at any meal,
But they won’t really block
All visits to a doc.

To Be Clear

Redundancy increases the chances
That a message will be understood;
Also it lessens misunderstandings,
Which is very, very good.

Non Euclidean

When I see two railroad tracks merge,
Is it proof that parallel lines converge?

Leon's Triathlon 2019

At the tri today, we swam in Wolf Lake.
As usual I drank some.
The water looked green but tasted clean
For this I'm rather thanksome.

There is algae, and fauna too:



Mama swan
Carrying on.

I Was Informed

If you open your umbrella in London
When you feel the very first drop,
The locals know you’re a tourist.
They wait till it’s coming nonstop.

Before Cars Were Computers

Rewatched My Cousin Vinnie
On flight across Atlantic.
Who knew that positraction
Could sound so darned romantic?

At the Reconstructed Globe

The original Globe Theatre,
Was a three-thousand seater.
Except... they couldn’t all sit.
One third of them had to stand.
They say the smell was bad,
But, oh, the words were grand.

Ruffly Speaking

How did this sort of collar
Ever become a fashion to follar?

Last Night

Loud screaming baby
On flight out of town -
Kid, could you maybe
Just settle down?
All of that yelping
Of sorrowful blues
Isn’t much helping
My efforts to snooze.

Saw One In The Neighborhood

I think it would be noyce
To have my own Rolls Royce.
I wouldn’t let it roll
For fear it might get stole.
Instead I’d let it lodge
Secure in my garage!

Serial Disappointment

I watched Battle Star Gallactica
All the way to its awkward end,
So if you followed Game of Thrones,
I feel for you, my friend.

Migration Time

I saw this scarlet tanager
With feathers of red and black.
I offered to be its manager
But it would not answer back.

Neighborhood Effect

One of the best things about having a daughter
Who lives three blocks away
Is that I can visit my granddaughter
Almost every day.

Etymology Enigma

In Latin nunc means now.
In Spanish nunca means never.
That make sense - exactly how?
I’ll just say: Whatever!

Nonhuman

My dog works hard to insure that she gets
Her fair share of pets.

There she goes,
With canine command,
Nudging her nose
Into my hand.

Second Sunday in May

My role has been that of a dad,
But I’m awfully glad
That some people are mothers too,
And if one those people is you,
I just want to say
Enjoy your day.

Concrete Criticism

I bought a garden troll
For my flower bed.
He jumped right into his role.
“Your tulips suck,” he said.

GOT Latte

Film is a beautiful art,
So remember to pick up
Your Starbucks cup
Before the cameras start.

Spare Parts

Where do you take a dog who loses his tail? A re-tailer!
And if you think that joke’s a failure,
I’ve got one more.
Where do you go if you lose a hand? A second-hand store!

While Walking a Baby

You can see the thing as pointless I suppose -
This thing that we call life, this act of being.
But when you’re in the middle of its throes
It seems to BE the point - no disagreeing.

You can argue whether babies should be born,
You can say it would be better if they weren’t,
But surely such a world sounds forlorn,
A future without passion, ashen, burnt.

The beauty all around us is so real,
It pulls us forward in the dizzying dance.
What makes it all worthwhile is the feel
Of riding through it while you’ve got the chance.

Flaky Induction

They tell you each snowflake’s unique.
I fear that this claim may be weak.
I’ve watched them float down in the air.
They come way too fast to compare!

Forecast Revised

I thought I’d already enjoyed
The final snow of spring
But now my hopes are buoyed
By what tomorrow will bring!
And really, who’s to say
It won’t snow more in May?

Balbo Monument

Ancient pillar from Italy
Posing prettily
Here in Chicago, a gift
From a dictator
With whom we later
Developed a major rift.

Admissions

News stories indicate that a couple, who are charged in the college admissions scandal, are leaning toward a “we didn’t think we were doing anything wrong” defense.

They do dn’t know their money
Was going someplace funny.

Bard Schmard

Shakespeare said a lot of stuff first,
Which proves he really was the worst.
Why on earth should we lavish praise
On a guy who only spoke in cliches?

Postprandial

I’m going to write a ballad
About gorging on egg salad
And chewing till it hurts
On peeps for just desserts.

Redact Me!

I'm spending tomorrow in hiding
So I don't have to hear about this report,
And so I can put off deciding
Which new interpretation to support.

Avian Sounds

A woodpecker’s rat-a-tat-tat,
A dove’s insistent cooing -
My busy feathered friends
Inform me what they’re doing.

I wonder, while I listen,
To chatty sparrows chirping,
Why I never hear
Any birdies burping?

Notre Dame

We think we have tamed it, but fire remains
A dangerous friend, with death in her veins.

Frozapril

It’s charming to see the day bring
The last snow of spring.

Right Day Wrong Number

When Friday the thirteenth falls on the twelfth,
Jason doesn’t know what to do with himselfth.

Speaking of Across the Pond

I don't have details yet about which day it will be playing, but Kitties In Space, in its ten-minute incarnation, will be part of this science fiction theatre festival in London, England.

It's hard to imagine... Socks and Mittens with British accents. But, why not?

Kitty cat, kitty cat, where have you been?
I've been to London to visit the Queen.
Kitty cat, kitty cat, why did you go?
I wanted to be in a fun sci-fi show!

On The Bare Branch

Are wasps asleep inside all winter long?
If I climb up to visit, is it wrong?

Understatement

Tell me, are people still fond
Of saying “across the pond”
When referring to the Atlantic?
That pond is pretty gigantic.

Headturning

Saw an orange Lamborghini
Driving along
On a plain old city street.
It just seemed wrong.

Something that exotic
Ought to be banned
From every mundane spot
Across the land.

Looking For Anvils In All The Wrong Places

If you happen to have a big anvil you're looking to declutter, my daughter-in-law is looking for one. She says she's "asking for a friend". I hope her friend isn't Wile E. Coyote.

You might think it's impossible to rhyme anvil.
Fortunately, there's an Illinois town: Danville.

Need to Know

I often see headlines that shout:
“What you need to know about!”
But reading on, I mostly find
I didn’t need it in my mind.

Semifinal Suspense

It’s true he threw three free throws through.
I find that's hard to say.
My tongue gets in the way.

Mexican Border Not Yet Closed

Let everyone be alerted:
Avocado crisis averted.

Privation

An avocado shortage
From coast to coast?
Among the foodie voters
Trump would be toast!

Tutero

I’m writing a phone app called Tutero,
To teach babies English in utero.
Study before you swaddle!
Formula ads are our business model.

Wasted

To save water we have got to pass a new rule.
It is now against the law for babies to drool.
April fool.

Dryer Innocent

The dryer made my clothing shrink.
That was what I used to think.
But to my surprise I found
It was my fridge that made me round.

Fascinating Question

Does “fascinate”
Rhyme with “fasten eight”?
Asking for a friend
Whose questions never end.

Interlaced

There is a sort of rhyme
Where the endings interlace.
It’s not an easy game
But it adds a certain spice.

Slate

We speak about “the slate”,
And when to wipe it clean.
But real ones, as of late,
Are seldom to be seen.
So rarely does one catch
That sound we love to hate,
When fingernails go scratch
Upon a board of slate.

A Friend Asked

A friend asked whether
I ever composed haiku.
Yes, sometimes I do.

To catch the fleeting
Moment is the endeavor -
In spare simple song.

Some say it’s cheating,
To sprinkle rhymes in the text
Where they don’t belong.

If purists are vexed
Does it mean I should worry?
Not in a hurry.

It Hides

It hides its hue from out your view,
Beneath the ground it’s grown.
A carrot doesn’t care at all
To make its orangeness known.

Infants

Infants keep parents up at night
With all too frequent appetite.

Recreational

Recreational linguistics
Is legal in Illinois.
No punishments for punning -
So feel free to enjoy.
But there’s a catch, of course:
It still is grounds for divorce.

Fear And Trembling

Why must the dominant narrative
Offered by every side
Always be so scarative?
My nervous system gets fried.

Freedom of Speech

Freedom of speech
Batters illusions,
But helps people reach
Better conclusions.

Beaty Again

Beauty is the priceless gift
That nature strews about.
You’re walking home, you’re feeling miffed,
Your heart is plunged in doubt,
But there’s a sunset straight ahead
That makes you stop and stare.
Where there was dread, you feel instead
The glory in the air.

Autopilot

Autopilot is good,
But this is worth a mention:
Someone upfront should
Still be paying attention.

Beauty

Whatever Beauty may be,
We recognize it easily,
But struggle to say
What makes it that way.

3.14

Circumference divided by
Diameter will give you pi.

Just So

According to my theories,
Which are very rarely wrong,
Hushing crying babies
Is why we invented song.

Academic Corruption

If anyone bribed Admissions
To get me into college,
I’m not admitting nothing -
It was done without my knowledge!

AI

Artificial Intelligence
Is right around the corner.
For fifty years that’s where it’s been.
I just wanted to warn ya.

Spring Forward

I look forward to Spring
But not to Spring Forward.
Because the next morning
I always feel horrid.

Armed Bears

Never write laws
Telling bears that their claws
Should be sheathed
So that we
Never bleed.
It’s pointless because
They can’t read.
Guaranteed.

Comics Page Synchronicity

Today in the Chicago Tribune funny pages, there were 2 strips involving pizza consumption AND 2 others involving donut consumption.

The jokes were unrelated. I think it means these are funny foods. Maybe they make us uneasy because we think they’re junk but we love them?

Of course we can also be amused
By food that is “healthy” but frequently refused.
For instance, people speak of broccoli
Very mockily.

You Are Getting Sleepy

CNBC had a credulous story about a hypnotist who will help you remember your crypto-currency password - for just half a bitcoin. That's about 1900 dollars at the moment.

When your password is lost
And you can’t face the cost
You might take a chance
On hypnotic trance.

The Hawk

Here in the winter
When people talk
About our fast wind
They call it the hawk.

It swoops right in
Where your flesh is bare
And rips at your skin
With cold, cold air.

Zzz

I just read the umpteenth article purporting to present scientific certainty that you can't "catch up on sleep" by sleeping longer on the weekend.

I know this is fake news.
Because my weekend snooze
Is sufficiently long and deep
To make up plenty of sleep.

Next Gen

If you happen to love children,
Grandchildren are kind of meta:
Recursively fulfilling.
Really, what could be betta?

Babies

Babies are adorable creatures
Who mix and match their parents’ features.

Nummy

Corn chips may not be
The world’s best snack,
But pardon my crumbs
While I crunch through a sack!

Social and Antisocial Media

People on Twitter
Seem bitter.
People on Facebook just fritter
Their time away
Looking at cats all day.

In Deep

I built a drill to bore
A tunnel to the earth’s core.
My design was truly complete
Except for one thing about heat.
Imagine the sorrow I felt
When it just happened to melt.

What People Respond To

In the Wall St. Journal today there was an article by a college professor who found that his students responded well to a course on Arthur Miller, whose heyday was in the 1950s. He said that Miller became passe partly because his plays followed a formal pattern and because Miller was a universalist not an identity-politics guy.

As an aside, the formal pattern is that of the Scribean well-made play, as re-worked by Ibsen, whose structure really goes way back to the ancient Greeks and probably well before that. Basically it's a story with a beginning, middle, end and some kind of point. In the 60s, there was a concerted effort to depart from this structure. Anyway, most people stayed loyal to the structure in their heart of hearts, because there's something primally human about it.

I was also reading an excerpt from an essay about Chinese science fiction. The claim was that Chinese scifi is still full of energy and optimism, and that this remains true for American scifi films, but not for American scifi writing. Well, I suspect that's true for some segment, but certainly not all, because I've certainly seen recent energetic scifi writing, including some by Sarah Hoyt and Lois McMaster Bujold. Probably they're not the people the Chinese are perceiving as high-status in terms of American critical reception.

Critical reception can be misleading
About what people are actually reading.

Hoaxed

Assuming for now that the local police have cracked the Smollet case, I want to say that it was an excellent hoax in one respect: it got a lot of people emotionally involved in the drama, infused with righteousness and ready to condemn their opponents who would dare to doubt the veracity of the victim. It was one of these unlikely “wedge” dramas that casts one set of citizens as heroic and the other set as villainous. It pretended to present the MAGA tribe as just what their opponents always suspected they truly were.

They felt so sure
But they weren’t.
Now they endure
Being burnt.

Dramatics

If in fact he faked this crime
He could start by paying for the detectives’ overtime.
There’s enough bad stuff that happens in this city.
No need to make it up - it’s just a pity.

More of the Same

Rain and snow and rain,
Covering every lane
With a slippery layer of ice.
Not nice, Mother Nature, not nice!

Unraveling

The Maga-country story seems to be coming apart. I guess the coming days will tell. There were always public details that were head-scratchers, beginning with the fact that downtown Chicago is not Maga-country.

I'm interested in the people who are now writing things like "I wanted this story to be true".

Did they want it to be true
To validate their point of view?

Hero’s Lot

MacBeth was wrong to take his wife’s suggestions,
Othello fell for his lieutenant’s tricks,
Young Hamlet seemed to asked too many questions,
And that’s what got these fellows in a fix.
Henry the Fifth, however, did just fine,
Despite a youth of foolishness and play,
Despite consuming tankards full of wine.
If there’s a moral here, I cannot say.
In Tragedy the playwright plops you down
Into a plot you’re not prepared to handle.
He gives you virtues, wealth, and fair renown,
But never quite enough. Out goes your candle.
Your odds are better, really it’s no mystery,
If you are made the hero of a History.

V Day

Take time off from daily strife
And focus on what you love in your life.

Mitochondria

Frankly I’m enraptured
Mitochondria got captured
By some old ancestral cell.
They’re my favorite organelle!

Brrr

Most people claim that cats have fur.
From what I’ve seen, I must concur.
But I’ve heard there’s one that’s hairless.
In this weather, that sounds careless.

Slip Sliding

It's shiny but really it only looks nice.
Freezing rain coats the world in ice.

Thessalonians 3:10

If you're unwilling to work,
It's often hard to find pay.
How can we help those who shirk?
Surely there must be a way!

Merchants of Truth

Jill Abramson, former editor of the NY Times, has written a book about modern journalism, calling for a maintenance of high standards... and then the book got called out for plagiarism. And now she says mistakes were made.

What is wrong with these people? This came from a major publisher - Simon & Schuster.

Professors have software for catching plagiarists. It's used at many colleges. Couldn't Simon & Schuster spring for such software?

Enough publishers have been caught like this - with celebrity authors - that they ought to have the sense to protect themselves.

I wonder if celebrity authors are a little more inclined to pull this nonsense because many of them have fallen prey to a sense of invulnerability that can come with high status.

No matter how great your renown,
Though you soar way up high with the birds,
If you steal other writers' words
They will angrily shoot you down.

Blondie and the Cold

I've got a yellow Lab. Labs have a rep of being good in cold weather, and of being outdoorsy. Blondie likes the outdoors, but she doesn't like being alone in the yard. She's so sociable, she seems to get lonely, despite the intermittent walkers-by. And when it comes to the cold, well, if it's down around zero Fahrenheit, she really doesn't like it much. The big vulnerability seems to be in her paws. Of course, in humans, it's the digits that get cold first, too. So I ordered some wax to put on her paws for the extreme cold, because she doesn't seem to want to wear booties.

But tonight I took her for a walk in a pretty good downpour, with temperatures just above freezing. So that was a cold shower, by human standards. Didn't bother her at all. I suppose that matches to the breed's original function - helping hunt ducks in the autumn, gladly diving into cold water to retrieve ducks that have fallen into a pond, and so forth.

She also has the "retrieving" characteristic. She carries things around in her mouth all day.

It's too bad I'm not a hunter! She'd probably enjoy it.

Would she be a good retriever?
I'm a firm believer.

Vocations

I think that everyone
Can learn to code,
But learning to love it
Is a harder road.

So Sue Me

Read about a show-boating anti-natalist in India, who claims he wants to sue his parents for giving birth to him without his consent.

No one consents in advance to the gift of birth.
But without it, what is anything worth?

Wind out of the Sout

After subzero
Comes the big thaw.
Loveliest mud puddles
I ever saw.

Missed Opportunities by Jillian Leff

I went in with good expectations, but my wife was with me and she is a tougher critic than I am. Well, she was laughing from the beginning, always a good sign with a comedy!

I got to know Jillian Leff when she acted in a play of mine a couple of years ago. She was a talented performer onstage and a fun person to talk to offstage - full of witty-but-upbeat observations about contemporary life.

Now she's starring in a play of her own, put on by the Cuckoo's Theater Project Company. It's a romantic comedy of a modern, Millenial sort, involving a woman (Max) trying to attract the romantic attention of a man who thinks she's a lesbian. Of course, she could just tell him that she's not, right? But, no, for a variety of reasons she is reluctant to take the straightforward (ahem) approach, and instead embarks on a rather funny course of deception, which gets deeper and deeper, as deception does. You know the truth is going to spill or explode eventually, but the tension keeps building.

The acting was very funny. The set and lighting design was an elegant solution for a play that had a lot of scene changing. The sound design provided us with some amusing stuff when characters are working their electronic devices, including a voice-over so that we could eavesdrop on what our heroine was typing when she was writing her blog entries.

I have a minor complaint: I wish the actors had delivered their lines a little bit slower. Maybe I'm just old, but I know I was missing some funny jokes now and then! The repartee was crisp and new. As long as I'm mentioning my age, I should mention that the Den Theatre's third floor spaces are reachable only by stairs. Not a problem for me or my wife, but I know if could be an issue for some.

Jillian told me she has a couple more full-length plays in the works, which pleased me greatly, because it gives me more of her work to look forward to.

I enjoyed this opportunity
To laugh at some human lunacy!

That Day Again

Today it occurred to me that Bill Murray had starred in 2 films where one of his co-stars was a varmint.

Caddyshack is a less coherent film, due to improvising without a script; it was stolen during editing by the gopher puppet, as the film editor searched for a way to give the film a comprehensive story arc. Groundhog Day had a solid script, and used actual groundhogs, who did not steal the film, but who did bite Murray, resulting in his being give a set of rabies shots.

Bill Murray’s costarring critters
Were very persistent - not quitters.

Goose Egg

Everyone talks about temps being plus or minus,
But there's another temp, kind of a zero, known for its awkward shyness.

Preparedness

If you think it's overly cold weather,
You haven't put enough layers together,
To cover your skin,
The most important layer you're in.

Library Play

I wrote a ten-minute play for the Heartland Theatre Summer Festival contest. I've submitted to them 4 times before. I've only made it into the festival once. But those are pretty good odds, all things considered. A ten-minute play is a fair amount of work, but if you're under enough pressure it can be written in a day or two. As a matter of fact, when you write for a 24-hour festival, you have to write your ten-minute play in about 9 hours, max.

I liked the way this one came out, which makes me a little more optimistic about it. And my wife was enthusiastic about it, another good sign.

They choose blind, without knowing the author of the play, so they don't discriminate either way as to prior successes in getting into the festival. And despite my success there with Space Cat Graduation, I didn't create a "space kitties in the library" play, so they won't identify me as the author that way, either.

The theme of this summer's festival is "The Library". You might say it's more of a writing prompt than a true theme, but you get the idea. They get a lot of submissions, and I heard from them that there's a tendency to get multiple submissions touching on familiar ideas about a topic. So I figure they will get a bunch of plays about long-overdue books and the "Shush!" rule, and probably a bunch of pieces touching on the fact that books are going digital.

I had a complete false start on Saturday. Wrote about 3 pages and froze up right where I was going to put a 3rd character onto the stage. Rethought the whole thing, and stuck to just 2 characters.

Well, I'll know in a couple of months.

It was fun to create,
And now I wait.

Going Polar

It’s silly but I feel like a hero
When I show up at work when it’s way below zero.
That’s Fahrenheit, where zero has some force.
Chicago endures Celsius zero as a matter of course.

Alert

If you see spots on your weasels
You might have your vet check for measles.

Genetic Revisionism

23andMe said I was a tiny percentage Sardinian, and a tiny percentage Ashkenazi. In both cases, it was under 3/10 of a percent.

Now, those percentages are mysteriously missing when I visit the site.

That's okay, because I never knew where they came from in the first place.

At least my tiny percentage of Native American is still showing. Maybe that's actually real.

Since they were less than one percent,
I don't much wonder where they went.
All in all, it's simply fairer
To say they fell in the margin of error.

Depressing

Watched security footage of 2 winter-coat robbers, who got out of a white Mercedes, and forced a 54 year old man to give up his pricey Canada Goose jacket.

Stealing the coat off your back.
They’ve got stuff, but it’s conscience they lack.

Treasure Planet

I'm reading Treasure Planet from the Man-Kzin War series. I did not realize that it was going to be a direct take-off on Stevenson's Treasure Island. But as I was reading along, the pacing of the book just felt... 19th century.

I've got nothing against Stevenson. Take-offs like this can be interesting. I read the Pournelle-Niven scifi take-off on Dante's Inferno and enjoyed it. But I like to know going in!

The most jarring thing is this talk-like-a-pirate thing on another planet, without any particular explanation offered for why the giant space tigers should sound like Long John Silver. Well, maybe the authors will present an explanation before they're done.

Of course, the name should have been a warning, if I'd really been thinking!

For now I think I'll keep reading
To see where things are leading.

If Dogs Have Dreams

If dogs have dreams,
And I think they do,
Are they just as chaotic
As those I view?

Mine aren’t just viewed,
They’re also felt.
And for dogs, I bet,
They’re always smelt!

As an afterword, I'm not the best recaller of dreams, but I know that I sometimes smell things in my dreams, because I have occasionally half-woken, seeming to smell something in the air - usually something burning. I lie there, half-awake, trying to figure out if the smell is real. As a rule, it is not.

Moonshot Memories

I saw a moonshot launch when I was young,
One of the last, of course, for then they stopped
Our trips to that great ball of rock that’s hung
Above our planet like lighted lure.

The cylinder was lifted on a column
Of blazing fire. We knew that it was topped
By men who risked their lives, so something solemn
Caught in our throats as they began their tour.

I’d say that we are bound to go again.
I’d say our sister rock is out there still
Awaiting visitation from our kind.

The tech improves, the prices drop, and then -
Though many claimed we’d simply lost the will -
The thirst to sail rehaunts the human mind.

Asp in Her Grasp

Went to an art museum in California that I’d never heard of: the Norton Simon Museum. People I went with asked what my favorite piece was and I said Cleopatra about to kill herself. They said they hadn’t seen it, but when I showed them the picture they had in fact seen it, but hadn’t read the caption, and hadn’t noticed that off to the side she had her hand on a dark serpent.

It’s easy to make a mistake
If you don’t see the snake.

At the Train Station

In case you just love pics
Of bricks.

Transmission

I don’t like when people cough
Behind me on the train.
Of course it’s the season for colds, but I...
Would just as soon abstain.

Whispering Safer Than Texting

It is rude that a man should write passionate things and then learn
That his words have been plastered all over the net - what a burn.

Crystalline H2O

I’ve always read that birds require a lot of food each day to fly about.
So when the snow is on the ground, what do they eat or do they go without?

Real Life Laughs

Sometimes I search the news
For items that amuse.
I thank the world's reporters
For a steady stream of snorters!

They Arrive Unannounced

When, with little warning,
At one o’clock in the morning,
You get a great idea,
You should write it down, that’s clear,
But check it in the daylight
To see if it will play right.

Mortality

People say that life is short. Of course, compared to eternity, it's true. Our ability to comprehend time far outstrips our ability to occupy it. But, compared to most other animals, our lives are long.

The human mind can comprehend
Far more than it can occupy.
We take, we give, we love, we live,
Before we die.

And after,
I hope to be remembered, at times, with laughter.

My Father

RIP Jack Enright, 1927-2019

You might say he was not an easy man.
A prosecutor in his early days,
Something combative lurked within his ways,
Across his life, a long nine-decade span.

I don’t recall the day my life began,
But he was there, and in my memory’s haze,
I see him still, a giant in my gaze,
A loving father, head of our small clan.

His voice is in my head; his turns of thought
Are permanently burned into my brain
For better or for ill. His stories taught
That wits and guts should both be roundly brought
To bear when there is justice to attain.
Alas, I cannot shake his hand again.

Working on Sunday

After you've stared at numbers all day,
Watching them add and subtract,
You may feel just a little dismay
That most things aren't so exact.

A Sunny Thought

Behold the wild flower.
It grows on fusion power.

Parenthetically

A math rule we all hold in awe
Is called the commutative.
Some claim I’ve broken that law,
But those charges are putative.

Hoping Your New Year Is A Happy One

I prefer to plan ahead.
2019? Too near. Instead,
I'm forming resolutions for 2020.
Not finished yet, but trust me, I've got plenty.