Saturday, March 16, 2024

My new favorite poem

...is the following one, purportedly by Billy Collins:

Another Reason Why I Don't Keep A Gun In The House

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark
that he barks every time they leave the house.
They must switch him on on their way out.

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
I close all the windows in the house
and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast
but I can still hear him muffled under the music,
barking, barking, barking,

and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra,
his head raised confidently as if Beethoven
had included a part for barking dog.

When the record finally ends he is still barking,
sitting there in the oboe section barking,
his eyes fixed on the conductor who is
entreating him with his baton

while the other musicians listen in respectful
silence to the famous barking dog solo,
that endless coda that first established
Beethoven as an innovative genius.

(end of poem)

I say purportedly because I could not find that title in a list of the complete poems of Billy Collins at Poetry Foundation. To be fair, however, I do not know when the list was compiled and Billy Collins, who is still alive and kcking, may well have written the poem since the list was put together, in which case the list needs to be updated.

I laughed when I read the poem and thought about the two big dogs, Rebel and Jasper, who live behind my next-door neighbor's fence. They go ballistic every time I take Abby out our back door. They sound ferocious, like they want to eat her if they could just get to her, and maybe me as well. Abby seems to enjoy setting them off but I do grow weary of the scenario.

I said to Mrs. RWP (the lovely Ellie), "Want to hear something crazy?" and read the poem aloud to her. She agreed that it was crazy, and I said, "I know! It's good but it's crazy! I think I'm crazy sometimes but I finally found someone crazier than me!"

Billy Collins and I are practically twins as we were both born in March 1941. Both of us turn 83 next week, me (I?) on Monday and him (he?) on Friday. Both of us write poems, some of them crazy. There is one minor difference between us, though. Billy Collins served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003; I have yet to be asked.

Thursday, March 14, 2024

I wonder as I wander

When and why did people start saying 'from here to Timbuktu'? Why don't they say 'from here to Tegucigalpa' or 'from here to Ouagadougou' or 'from here to Ulaanbaatar' or even 'from here to Kealikakua, Hawaii, where the humuhumunukunukuapua'a go swimming by' instead?

Although careful readers of the previous paragraph know that Kealikakua is in Hawaii, how many of them can match the other four places with their countries?

Why do people in the northern states say "I don't know [person's name] from Adam's off ox" but prople in the southern states say "I don't know [person's name] from Adsm's house cat"?

Why do fools fall in love?

Oh where, oh where has my little dog gone? Oh where, oh where can he be? With his ears cut short and his tail cut long, oh where, oh where can he be?

Does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight?

Who is Sylvia?

Monday, March 11, 2024

The Flowers That Bloom in the Spring, Tra La

...will just have to wait another few days because Spring has not yet sprung and will not for another week or so. My apologies to the Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan and lovers of The Mikado all over the world (you know who you are).

What if today were proclaimed International Don't Hold Back, Say What You Really Think Day?

One thing I would say is that when U.S.President Joseph Biden said recently that he and Israel's Prime Mnister Benjamin Netanyahu, a Jew, were going to have a 'come-to-Jesus meeting' it revealed an obtuseness, a mental denseness, a complete disregard for what is lnguistically appropriate so great as to be beyond belief. It further indicates, as Anna Russell once remarked about coloratura sopranos, that President Biden has resonance where his brains ought to be. This is just one person's opinion. of course, and you are certainly free to have another, but you would be wrong.

Another thing I would say on IDHB,SWYRT Day is that while I am aware that language is an ever-changing, flowing stream, Americans who believe the principal parts of the verb 'sneak' are 'sneak, snuck, snuck' instead of 'sneak, sneaked, sneaked' and that the principal parts of the verb 'drag' are 'drag, drug, drug' instead of 'drag, dragged, dragged' and demonstrate their beliefs daily through their speech patterns are far more numerous than any resident of the UK could possibly imagine.

If you are of a mathematical bent, and even if you are not, I recommend for your reading pleasure two fascinating posts by Mr.Tasker Dunham of Yorkshire, England (speaking of residents of the UK). In one of them, he even mentions me. Here are the links:

Tasker Dunham's post 'Proof of the Pi'

Tasker Dunham's post 'Pythagoras'

I now end today's post by telling you that the Germans have a word for a sense of what is linguistically appropriate and that word is sprachgefühl.

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

I’ must be slipping

...because the person I was a few years ago would have told you last Saturday that March 2nd is Alamo Day---all together now, 'Davy, Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier!'--and that today, March 6th, is Texas Independence Day. Texas declared itself independent from Mexico in 1836 and was an independent country for nine years. As part of its annexation agreement with the U.S. (it was never a territory), Texas can split into as many as five states any time it decides to. The powers that be will probably come after my Lone Star State Nembership Card if anybody turns me in to the authorities.

The days are getting longer; in 15 days the equinox will be here and Spring will have sprung once again. Before that happens, however, it is important to remember to turn your clocks forward one hour this Saturday, March 9th, before you retire for the night, as Daylight Saving Time returns Sunday at 2:00 a.m. after a four-month hiatus.

A short post this time.

Sunday, March 3, 2024

Telling it like it is

If there were a movement advocating truth in song lyrics, "Home On The Range" might go like this:

Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam,
Where the deer and the antelope play,
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word,
'Cause how much can an antelope say?


Truer words were never spoken. I mean, think about it. Skies that are not cloudy all day are rarer than hen's teeth talking antelopes. I wish I could say I wrote that new last line of "Home On The Range" but alas, I cannot. Actually, I could but it would not be true.

In my last post, I shared with you the moment of silence that I found most surprising during several recent Jeopardy! episodes. You may remember that it involved the four words "it might have been" that appear in the last line of a poem by John Grenleaf Whittier, "Maud Muller" to be exact, which I mentioned in the comments section but not in the post itself. Little did I know there would be an even greater shocker of a stumper on Friday evening's program. Read on.

In a category called Novel Endings the clue was "This 1922 work ended with the words 'yes I said yes I will Yes'." and there was a deafening silence onstage during which I yelled 'Ulysses' at the screen at least three times.

According to an article entitled "The 10 best closing lines in books" by Robert McKrum in The Guardian in July 2012, James Joyce's Ulysses is number two on the list, right behind The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

It seems to be a losing battle and the dumbing down of America side seems to be winning. What can we do? I will tell you what we can do, the only thing we can do. We can beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

I didn't write that line either.

Thursday, February 29, 2024

,Look before you leap

...is always good advice (better safe than sorry), but especially so today because today is the Leap Day that occurs once every four yars in the Julian calendar. It is also the birthday of two of my friends in real life, Dick S. and Walter T., the latter of whom is no longer with us.

The country in yesterday's Globle game was Oman. The country in English Worldle was Tajkistan. I got both of those. The country in French Worldle was Burundi. I didn't get that one. Call me crazy, but i really enjoy identifying countries by their silhouttes (Worldle) and by their distance from and in what direction from wrong guesses (both Globle and Worldle).

The blank stares I found most surprising on Jeopardy! in the last week occurred in a category called 4 Words. The clue was 'Poet John Greenleaf Whittier wrote that of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these.'

All together now, class, the answer in the form of a question is 'What are "it might have been"?'. Without looking it up, do you know the name of the poem by Whittier from which those lines come? I do, thanks to who else?, my old English teacher Mr. D.P. Morris back in Mansfield, Texas, seven decades ago.

A short and hopefully sweet post today, and now that you have looked, you may take a flying leap and hurtle another 1.6 million miles along the path that is the earth's 584,000,000-mile-orbit around the nearest star, a path that takes (as readers of this blog should know) 365.25 days to complete.

All together now...3, 2, 1, LEAP!

Saturday, February 17, 2024

The world keeps changing before our eyes

Things that once were true are now false. For example, I learned in school that there are nine planets orbiting our sun. Kids today are told there are eight. Pluto got the axe (translation: was reclassified as a dwarf planet not in the same league with the others).

Things that used to be described one way are now described another way. Take dates, which for the past couple of thousand years in the western world have been referred to as either AD or BC (or, more accurately, A.D. or B.C. before periods/dots/points fell out of fashion). More and more frequently nowadays I see dates referred to as either CE (Common Era) or BCE (Before Common Era). I believe this particular change has occurred in recognition of the fact that adherents of the Jewish and Muslim faiths with calendars of their own prefer not to measure the passing of the years with a Christian reference point. 2024 AD (Latin, Anno Domini, "in the year of the Lord") is 5784 AM (Latin, Anno Mundi, "in the year of the World") to members of the Jewish community, 1445 AH (Latin, Anno Hegirae, "in the year of the Hegira") to members of the Islamic community, and we won't go into either the Mayan calendar or the Chinese calendar because they are complicated. You can read fascinating articles about them in -- where else? -- wikipedia.

Allow me a little Jeopardy! stuff before we continue.

The Clue: Minnesota is bordered on the north by Manitoba and this other Canadian province.

One contestant said Alberta, one said Manitoba, and one didn't buzz in at all.

The Answer: What is Ontario? More on geography later in the post.

It made me feel especially old when no contesdant buzzed in for these two:

Category: Presidential TV
Clue: The Man From Independence
Answer: Who is Harry Truman

Category: Notable Names
Clue: This woman was America's first black Congresswoman
Answer: Who is Shirley Chisholm?

Well, that's enough of that. Too much, probably.

I have been improving my geography and international skills by playing three online games every day -- two versions of Worldle (not Wordle) and Globle (not spelled Global). If you want to try your hand, here are the three addresses:

worldlegame.io
worldle.teuteuf.fr
globle.org

The second of the Worldle games is played in French and includes identifying the country's neighbors, capital city, flag, unit of currency, and population range.

Today, for the first time since I began playing these games several months ago, the answer to Globle and the English version of Worldle was the same country, Sierra Leone. The French version's answer was Australia (spelled the French way, Australie). I enjoy these games a great deal and can now recognize the silhouettes of such places as Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, United Arab Emirates, Lithuania, Venezuela, Myanmar, and many others that I couldn't have recognized before.

Which in the overall scheme of things doesn't matter to a hill of beans, but playing each day has helped me keep my mind active. I used to do that by playing the piano, but between my failing eyesight and my stiffening fingers, those days are pretty much over.

I close today's post with a question. Did you know there is a connection between Donald Trump and John F.Kennedy besides the fact that they were both presidents of the United States? Well, there is. Mar-a-Lago, Trump's palatial home in Palm Beach, Florida (126 rooms, 62,500 sq ft on 17 acres), which he purchased in 1985, was built during the 1920s by Post Cereal heiress Marjorie Meriweather Post while she was the second of three wives of financier E.F. Hutton (yes, that E.F. Hutton). Their daughter bcame the actress Dina Merrill, whose second of three husbands (the apple doesn't fall far from the tree), actor Cliff Robertson, starred in a film called PT-109 as U.S. Naval Lieutenant (junior grade) John F. Kennedy, who was commander of the vessel when it was rammed and sunk by the Japanese in the Solomon Islands during World War Ii. It is of only passing interest that President Kennedy's parents, Joseph and Rose Kennedy, lived in Palm Beach, Florida, when they were away from Hyannisport, Massachusetts. That is a coincidence, not the sort of connection I meant.

If I have told you any of these things before, I do apologize. My memory is not what it once was either.

<b>My new favorite poem</b>

...is the following one, purportedly by Billy Collins: Another Reason Why I Don't Keep A Gun In The House The neighbors'...