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.