From the land where the Bong-tree grows

Ladies and gentlemen, and children of all ages, please turn your attention to the center ring, where, direct from the land where the Bong-tree grows, the lilting voice of none other than Donovan, who spent a great deal of time there, will soon be heard performing a musical rendition of the poem “The Owl and the Pussycat” by nineteenth-century poet Edward Lear. Donovan’s performance will be enhanced by what is undoubtedly the most unusual collection of ornithological and feline pulchritude ever assembled in one location, as upwards of thirty separate, distinct owls and thirty individual, unique pussycats have all gathered especially for this auspicious occasion. The performance will begin and end with a special “In Memoriam” tribute to someone who apparently loved owls or pussycats or Edward Lear very much. Do not let this detract from your enjoyment of Donovan’s performance.

Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, here, brought to you at great expense from the land where the Bong-tree grows, for your looking and listening pleasure, here is a treat for the eyes and ears, a veritable extravaganza of audial and visual delight -- ruffles and flourishes from the orchestra, please -- here is:

Donovan singing “The Owl and the Pussycat”!!!

What th'....????

Beginning immediately, anyone who leaves a comment on this blog will be required to complete a word verification step, which is supposed to help reduce comment spam. Not that I have been receiving comment spam, but you can’t be too careful in today’s world.

But something weird did happen Thursday night, not comment spam exactly, but very puzzling, to say the least. I am going to describe it to you as best I can, because I hope someone out there can explain to me what happened, or at least shed some light on some very strange goings-on in my little corner of the blogosphere.


Whenever anyone leaves a comment on rhymeswithplague, I receive an e-mail. Mrs. Rhymeswithplague opened our e-mail’s inbox and saw six new comments on various rhymeswithplague posts from readers supposedly named “superior,” “military,” “intelligence,” “superior,” “military,” and “intelligence.” When we opened the e-mails, the message in each case consisted of several lines of strange-sounding links. We didn’t click on any of them, though. We weren’t born yesterday. Day before yesterday, maybe, but definitely not yesterday.

Next, before checking rhymeswithplague itself, we deleted the six emails from our inbox and then deleted them again from our trash. At this point, I went to rhymeswithplague, expecting to find the new comments with their suspicious links.

Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zippo. I found nothing. The comments that appeared in my e-mail’s inbox were nowhere to be found. I delete e-mail messages all the time and the comments themselves are still on rhymeswithplague. As Arte Johnson on Laugh-in used to say, “Ver-r-ry inter-r-resting!”








I have no idea where the comments went or why they didn’t appear on my blog. But I did notice two other unusual things. In the Feedjit Live Traffic Feed thingy in the sidebar, there were a couple of entries that did not show a flag. Instead, the letters “A-P” appeared in green where the little flag usually appears, followed by the words “Asia/Pacific Region arrived on rhymeswithplague.” And in the flagcounter thingy’s expanded list, an entry appeared that said, “Unknown - Asia/Pacific Region” with a little gray rectangle where the flag was supposed to be.

Have the aliens finally arrived in Honolulu? Have Islamo-fascist-extremists co-opted my blog for nefarious purposes? Is Uncle Sam conducting super-secret maneuvers and experiments somewhere in the Asia/Pacific Region? Was Publishers Clearing House trying to reach us at long last?

If anyone can shed some light on what was going on, Mrs. Rhymes- withplague and I will be forever grateful. We are totally in the dark.

Please answer soon with your various theories and explanations. While we wait for your response, Jethro is practicing his growling and Mrs. Rhymeswithplague and I are hunkered down behind drawn curtains and closed shutters, with baseball bats at the ready.






















As I started to say in the title, what the dickens is going on?

The Owl and The Pussycat

Anatomy of a post, or How My Mind Works.

In the previous post, I included a photograph taken in 1945 of Coney Island, New York, in which you cannot see the beach for all the New Yorkers. In a comment, Reamus from California said, “I am not in that particular picture, but I am in a similar one no doubt at that very beach a number of 4th of July weekends later. Used to take the subway there all summer back when the world and we were young.”

I replied, “Why would you take the subway all summer long to a beach you couldn’t even see? Or maybe the beach wasn’t what you went to see.” The phrase went to see reminded me of the phrase went to sea which struck me as somewhat ironic since those folks at Coney Island couldn’t see the sea they went to sea to see and that further reminded me of Edward Lear’s poem, “The Owl and the Pussycat”:


The Owl and the Pussycat
by Edward Lear

The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
“O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are.”

Pussy said to the Owl “You elegant fowl,
How charmingly sweet you sing.
O let us be married, too long we have tarried;
But what shall we do for a ring?”
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-tree grows,
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.

“Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling your ring?”
Said the Piggy, “I will.”
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon.
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.


I poked around a little more on the internet and discovered that on May 12, 2000, the following paragraph appeared in the Writer’s Almanac:

It’s the birthday of painter and poet Edward Lear, born in Halloway, England (1812). He was the 20th of 21 children, and was raised by an aunt. He had to scramble to make a living: he traveled to Europe, Asia, and Africa to collect views that he would then turn into paintings to sell to Englishmen at home or abroad. Sometimes he set out a hundred paintings at a time and work on them simultaneously to have enough products to sell. He was a lonely man -- an epileptic who hid his seizures, a homosexual unable to find a mate, and a depressive, subject to what he called “the morbids.” But it’s not for his art or his sadness that he’s remembered, it’s for the little nonsense poems he wrote to give joy to the children of his friends and patrons. He always felt most comfortable around children, and he entertained them with poems such as “The Jumblies” and “The Owl and the Pussycat.” He popularized the limerick too.

That’s him up there in the picture.

And then it occurred to me that May 12 was also my Dad’s birthday -- May 12, 1906 -- and although he was neither an owl nor a pussycat, he went to sea too, though not in a beautiful pea-green boat. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II as a machinist’s mate on the USS PCE-869, which was a patrol craft escort of the type known as Sub Chaser.

Then it occurred to me that my father died of pancreatic cancer on March 3, 1967, and that the anniversary of his death is just a few days away.

It’s enough to give a person “the morbids.”

And that, more or less, dear reader, is How My Mind Works.

Here a blog, there a blog, everywhere a blog blog...

Good morning (or afternoon, or evening, as the case may be)!

When I look at the little map thingy over there in the sidebar and realize that over fifty countries are represented by little red dots (meaning someone in the dot has found his or her way to my doorstep), I also realize that it is morning, afternoon, and evening all at the same time on this amazing planet we live on. Not for each one of us individually, of course, but for all of us collectively.

My science teacher would be so proud.

And just as American playwright Eugene O'Neill once said, “The iceman cometh,” American blogger rhymeswithplague now says, “The blogosphere cometh.” I have no idea what that means, but it sure sounds good.

I don’t have an award to distribute today (if I did I would certainly distribute it). Instead, I want to introduce you to some of your fellow rhymeswithplague readers so that you can get to know one another, as it were, but only if you care to. As you will see, you are a varied lot, and I mean that in the best possible way.

Say hello to:

Pat - An Arkansas Stamper, who recently attended the 137th Annual Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Arkansas as a lay delegate.

Jeannelle of Iowa (not to be confused with Eleanor of Aquitaine, the mother of Richard the Lion-hearted), who is passing her midlife by farmlight with a herd of Holstein cows.

Sam Gerhardstein of Columbus, Ohio who manages to find some really neat things about which to post, including a video of Patches the Horse that is not to be missed.

Dr. John Linna of Neenah, Wisconsin, who claims to have a little town in his basement where the trains still run, dragons fly, and life is back to normal (a contradiction in terms if I ever heard one).

Ruth Hull Chatlien of Zion, Illinois, who has written books that have been published by real publishers, and so has her husband, Michael.

Mr. Yorkshire X. Pudding, Esq., M.D., P.D.Q., N.Y.P.D., L.S.M.F.T., who lives in England and enjoys soccer or rugby or something.

Ian (a.k.a. “Silverback”) who divides his time between Sebring, Florida, and Leeds, Yorkshire, in the U.K.

Daphne, also of Leeds, Yorkshire, in the U.K., who once visited Ian (a.k.a. “Silverback”) in Sebring, Florida.

Mr. David (“Putz”) Barlow of Ephraim, Utah, who seems to be a heck of a nice guy even though he is orthographically challenged.

Mary @ Annie’s Goat Hill, who makes soap and lotions somewhere in southwestern Ohio.

Reamus (Michael in Carlsbad, California), whose writing makes me positively green with envy.

Carolina in Nederland who not only lives in Nederland but also, according to the sidebar thingy, in Apeldoorn, Gelderland.

Tracie in Florida, who has a rose bush named Rosezilla.

Vonda, who calls herself Egghead and lives on a little egg farm in Oregon.

Dr. Jim, who is not a medical doctor but a college professor of business, now retired, whose video of either St. John or St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands -- the text says one thing and the video caption says another -- drove me crazy. Also, on his other blog, Ask Dr. Jim, Dr. Jim invites readers to pose questions that he attempts to answer after the manner of Ann Landers and her twin sister, Dear Abby. Some of these are a real hoot.

A guy in Arkansas named Richie who owns a business called Richie’s but who signs himself as Richies, go figure, and who once took a beautiful picture of a sunrise in Belize, formerly British Honduras.

Daisy, whose profile says she lives pretty darn close to Toronto, Canada, with her husband, a 5 year old son, dog and cat. I would have said “...dog, and cat” but I went to school a long time ago when teachers still emphasized the serial comma.

Yellow Swordfish, another chap in England.

Yellow Swordfish’s wife, Jay, who goes absolutely bonkers over Johnny Depp. I should warn you about many of these English bloggers that they think nothing of peppering their posts with Anglo-Saxonisms that would make American sailors blush and turn away. It is their language, of course, and they can do with it whatever they please, far be it from me to criticize, or, as they would say, criticise, them in the speaking of their own tongue, but many on this side of the pond have tender ears and delicate sensibilities about such things (we are a young country), the presence of R-rated movies on certain cable television channels notwithstanding.

Delwyn, a woman in Australia who just started blogging in January. She recently celebrated her Frangipani anniversary and loves blue-tongued skinks and, according to her profile, something called “stand-up paddling” and who is already a major force in blogdom, or ought to be.

Mrs. Rhymeswithplague sometimes reads Rose of Sharon up in Michigan and also Confessions of a Pioneer Woman out in Oklahoma, but both of those bloggers take so many photographs and write so many words every single day that it makes my head swim. If you go to their links, you may never find your way back.

These are some of the folks who visit my blog. Some other readers I would like to get to know better include Gail, Grumpy Old Ken, Lula’s Daughter, and Katherine in New Zealand.

And you. I see you lurking out there.

(Photo of Coney Island, 1945, by Arthur (Weegee) Felliq)

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Say whaa-a-a-t???

The sign above (posted today on Sam Gerhardstein’s blog) is from www.engrish.com, a site dedicated to displaying strange messages posted in what people in Japan seem to think is English. You may peruse the site at your leisure, if you dare. I must caution you, though. Do not drink a carbonated beverage while reading engrish or it will come out your nose and you will snort it all over your computer screen. Pat in Arkansas, this means you!

In case you cannot read the small print above, here is what the sign says:

Go into the toilet beard know

1. The service object of this toilet is limited by a person only
2. This toilet provides only into the toilet place, the dissatisfied foot goes into the toilet to have a bowel movement outside of other request
3. The one who go into toilet want to take good care of this toiletfacilities strictly forbid to move this toilet tool to did it touse
4. Go into the toilet beard to place excrement the tool is intoestablishment inside, can not spread to leak
5. The one who goes into toilet can not clamor loudly in this toilet. The in order to prevent make other go into toilet is frighten
6. Go into toilet can not the interference is other is normal into the toilet into the toilet
7. Go into toilet and can not will boil to make a food to take isedible into this toilet, the in order to prevent break good go into toilenvironment
8. Anyone can not with any form to just at earnest go into toilet carry on any bother, in order to prevent dispersion go into toilet of attention
9. Please take good care of public facilities can not in separating plank namely a wall the confusion write a disorderly painting
10. Cannot move bowels in the urine in the pond
11. Please read this beard to know hard into the toilet, and act According to carry on

You know, I couldn’t have said it better myself. I think we should all take good care of public facilities. I hate it when the confusion write a disorderly painting in separating plank namely a wall. Don't you?

Which just proves one thing. There’s only one place to go from the sublime, and that’s back to the ridiculous.

From the ridiculous to the sublime

My previous post contained the claim that I am Jackie Kennedy. Ridiculous! This post contains one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written. Sublime!

Here, sung by one of the best choirs ever assembled, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, is “O Divine Redeemer”

The words and the music were both written by French composer Charles Gounod (1818-1893).


O Divine Redeemer
by Charles-François Gounod

“Ah, turn me not away, receive me though unworthy.
Ah, turn me not away, receive me though unworthy.
Hear Thou my cry, hear Thou my cry,
Behold, Lord, my distress!

Answer me from Thy throne,
Haste Thee, Lord, to mine aid!
Thy pity show in my deep anguish,
Thy pity show in my deep anguish.
Let not the sword of vengeance smite me,
Though righteous Thine anger, O Lord!
Shield me in danger, O regard me!
On Thee, Lord, alone will I call!

O divine Redeemer, O divine Redeemer!
I pray thee grant me pardon, And remember not,
Remember not my sins!
Forgive me!

O divine Redeemer! I pray Thee, grant me pardon
And remember not, remember not, O Lord, my sins!

Night gathers round my soul
Fearful, I cry to Thee,
Come to mine aid, O Lord!
Haste Thee, Lord, haste to help me!

Hear my cry, hear my cry!
Save me, Lord, in Thy mercy;
Hear my cry, hear my cry!
Come and save me, O Lord!

O divine Redeemer! O divine Redeemer!
I pray Thee, grant me pardon, and remember not,
Remember not, O Lord, my sins!

Save in the day of retribution,
From death shield Thou me, O my God!
O divine Redeemer, have mercy!
Help me, my Savior!”


I also want to show you something else I consider sublime:

Press photo © 2000-2006 NewOpenWorld Foundation

This statue is called Christ the Redeemer. It stands atop Corcovado Mountain in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The sculptor was Paul Landowski (1875-1961). To read more about the Christ the Redeemer Statue, click here.

I am not a Mormon, but I know a great choir and a great piece of music when I hear one. Neither am I a Roman Catholic, but I know a great statue and a great location when I see one. When a great choir sings a great piece of music by a great composer, it is sublime. When a great statue is built by a great sculptor in a great location, it is sublime.

Don’t look now, but...

I’m Jackie Kennedy.


No, really. I wandered over to “Brinkbeest in English” (Carolina in Nederland’s blog) yesterday only to learn that Carolina had taken a little online test consisting of two questions and discovered that she was Doris Day. I took it, and I’m Jackie Kennedy.

You might be Jackie or Doris or Marilyn Monroe or Audrey Hepburn or someone else. Maybe Ingrid Bergman or even Bette Davis.

The test has a long name. It’s called The Hello Quizzy Are-You-A-Jackie-Or-A-Marilyn-Or-Someone-Else Mad-Men-Era Female-Icon Quiz, but there are only two questions to be answered. Plus you have to tell whether you are male or female, and also divulge your date of birth.

Go ahead. Take the test. You know you want to.

Here is why I am Jackie Kennedy, or how I am like Jackie Kennedy, or something:

You are a Jackie. “I do everything the right way.”

Jackies are realistic, conscientious, and principled. They strive to live up to their high ideals.

How to Get Along with Me

* Take your share of the responsibility so I don’t end up with all the work.
* Acknowledge my achievements.
* I’m hard on myself. Reassure me that I’m fine the way I am.
* Tell me that you value my advice.
* Be fair and considerate, as I am.
* Apologize if you have been unthoughtful. It will help me to forgive.
* Gently encourage me to lighten up and to laugh at myself when I get uptight, but hear my worries first.

What I Like About Being a Jackie

* Being self-disciplined and able to accomplish a great deal
* Working hard to make the world a better place
* Having high standards and ethics; not compromising myself
* Being reasonable, responsible, and dedicated in everything I do
* Being able to put facts together, coming to good understandings, and figuring out wise solutions
* Being the best I can be and bringing out the best in other people

What’s Hard About Being a Jackie

* Being disappointed with myself or others when my expectations are not met
* Feeling burdened by too much responsibility
* Thinking that what I do is never good enough
* Not being appreciated for what I do for people
* Being upset because others aren’t trying as hard as I am
* Obsessing about what I did or what I should do
* Being tense, anxious, and taking things too seriously

Jackies as Children Often

* Criticize themselves in anticipation of criticism from others
* Refrain from doing things that they think might not come out perfect
* Focus on living up to the expectations of their parents and teachers
* Are very responsible; may assume the role of parent
* Hold back negative emotions (“good children aren't angry”)

Jackies as Parents

* Teach their children responsibility and strong moral values
* Are consistent and fair
* Discipline firmly


You know what? They're right.

I am Jackie Kennedy.