Congratulations to First Offender Justin Stone for his chiasmus ink in this week's Invitational. Along with your Fir Stink tree-shaped air "freshener," you're also assigned an official Loser Anagram, aka Granola Smear. Some possibilities:
Tennis Joust
Sunset Joint
Tunes Joint
or the Loserly
Joins Nut Set.
Within a few days you'll see your name on the One-Hit Wonders stats list at NRARS.org, where you'll remain until you get that second blot of ink and can sit at the grownups' table.
"Dogs love to have jobs. Nothing makes them happier. It’s one of their greatest attributes" - Apparently my Yellow Lab Max's job ( you remember, the one who entered the neighbor's house through their doggie door that my wife stuck her head in to call him back out) was to pick up plastic water /soda bottles and carry them home. We lived just close enough to a 7-11 that there would be PLENTY along the route. He could spot them from a mile a way. He could grab one before I even knew it was there and once he grabbed it, there was no getting it back. Until he left it in the middle of the yard somewhere, a now crinkle-less mound of plastic.
I like all of the top 4 this week very much, but I have to say I especially liked Rob Cohen's one of a kind / kind of a 1 would be my pick for the winner. It made me laugh and I had to share it immediately with my family.
For the pool, I really don't fear any of those things. I enjoy public speaking if I know what I'm talking about, I will sing spontaneously anywhere anytime, and dancing is fun if the music is inspiring.
So I selected death. But it's really not death that I'm afraid of, it's the process of dying. THAT scares the bejesus out of me.
If you had told me about the EV manual transmission thing without supporting web evidence, I would have assumed it was an April Fool's joke. It should be.
When our daughter was a freshman at Harvard (1995), the Boston area had an unusually severe winter, with lots of snow. Coming from a place where snow is extremely rare (especially these days), she was not surprised but did not know that this was unusual even for Massachusetts. It did, however, quickly teach her that her "Fairhope coat" was not going to cut it in Cambridge!
What most galled me was that Toyota has plans for a fake manual transmission that will fake stall to add realism. Yes, I’m outing myself as the one who alerted Gene; driving stick was my Nickelback.
What if you don't have testicles? I don't mean in general (that I know), but if you end up with Weingarten's Syndrome. What would then become as a big as a beanbag chair or Dustin Hoffman?
2 comments: 1) AITA Questions was one of the best contests ever.
2) on "poetry" rules about near rhyme or slant rhyme. I love metrical genius (E. A. Robinson is one of my favorite poets!) and I don't believe in "free verse." (As Robert Frost observed, "writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down). BUT, there is a sublime genius in the slant rhymes of, among others, Gwendolyn Brooks or e.e. cummings. I would never ask for a rule change. But there is almost always lurking in the hectoring tone a sense that "if it doesn't rhyme it's not poetry." But what you want is not actually poetry, you want doggerel or verse (of which, as a LONG-TIME reader, I am a big fan). That's all.
Here is Brooks' rigorous and metrically sound sonnet "Piano After War" which uses only consonant rhyme:
On a snug evening I shall watch her fingers,
Cleverly ringed, declining to clever pink,
Beg glory from the willing keys. Old hungers
Will break their coffins, rise to eat and thank.
And music, warily, like the golden rose
That sometimes after sunset warms the west,
Will warm that room, persuasively suffuse
That room and me, rejuvenate a past.
But suddenly, across my climbing fever
Of proud delight— a multiplying cry.
A cry of bitter dead men who will never
Attend a gentle maker of musical joy.
Then my thawed eye will go again to ice.
And stone will shove the softness from my face.
This is the last 16 lines of cummings' "my father moved through dooms of love"--couplet rhyme ONLY on the consonants!
I absolutely loved the first place winning video and song by Mr. Jensen and his bandmates. So clever and so enjoyable. I always enjoy Mr. Jensen's entries, but this was the best so far.
I have gone to a lot of church, and sharing funny aspects of the leader are bloodsport. Someone told us prior to a Christmas morning service (at someone else’s parish) that the priest did something funny when consecrating the wine. He said the words, bowing, and then spoke directly down into the cup, causing the hollow amplification you’d expect. In spite of the quietness and solemnity, weakened by a too-late Christmas Eve, we cracked up and prayed to God to silence ourselves.
Congratulations to First Offender Justin Stone for his chiasmus ink in this week's Invitational. Along with your Fir Stink tree-shaped air "freshener," you're also assigned an official Loser Anagram, aka Granola Smear. Some possibilities:
Tennis Joust
Sunset Joint
Tunes Joint
or the Loserly
Joins Nut Set.
Within a few days you'll see your name on the One-Hit Wonders stats list at NRARS.org, where you'll remain until you get that second blot of ink and can sit at the grownups' table.
I like him out there with the kids.
Joins Nut Set gets my vote!
"Dogs love to have jobs. Nothing makes them happier. It’s one of their greatest attributes" - Apparently my Yellow Lab Max's job ( you remember, the one who entered the neighbor's house through their doggie door that my wife stuck her head in to call him back out) was to pick up plastic water /soda bottles and carry them home. We lived just close enough to a 7-11 that there would be PLENTY along the route. He could spot them from a mile a way. He could grab one before I even knew it was there and once he grabbed it, there was no getting it back. Until he left it in the middle of the yard somewhere, a now crinkle-less mound of plastic.
I like all of the top 4 this week very much, but I have to say I especially liked Rob Cohen's one of a kind / kind of a 1 would be my pick for the winner. It made me laugh and I had to share it immediately with my family.
Things happen when Pat and I negotiate, Jon.
You have excellent taste, Jon.
And thanks to you, sir, I've tasted excellence!
In a time of chimpanzees, I am, finally, a monkey.
Don't get too comfortable. Now that you're officially a member of a captive population, expect dung and other objects thrown your way
I loved the version of Our House and the video and thought it should have been in second place.
For the pool, I really don't fear any of those things. I enjoy public speaking if I know what I'm talking about, I will sing spontaneously anywhere anytime, and dancing is fun if the music is inspiring.
So I selected death. But it's really not death that I'm afraid of, it's the process of dying. THAT scares the bejesus out of me.
If you had told me about the EV manual transmission thing without supporting web evidence, I would have assumed it was an April Fool's joke. It should be.
When our daughter was a freshman at Harvard (1995), the Boston area had an unusually severe winter, with lots of snow. Coming from a place where snow is extremely rare (especially these days), she was not surprised but did not know that this was unusual even for Massachusetts. It did, however, quickly teach her that her "Fairhope coat" was not going to cut it in Cambridge!
What most galled me was that Toyota has plans for a fake manual transmission that will fake stall to add realism. Yes, I’m outing myself as the one who alerted Gene; driving stick was my Nickelback.
What if you don't have testicles? I don't mean in general (that I know), but if you end up with Weingarten's Syndrome. What would then become as a big as a beanbag chair or Dustin Hoffman?
Interesting question. Kevin McCarthy, for example, may still be subject to developing it.
The image of the possibility has me laughing. Especially after watching several episodes of Naked Attraction.
It's... alarming.
The Philadelphia Weekly needs a copy editor.
2 comments: 1) AITA Questions was one of the best contests ever.
2) on "poetry" rules about near rhyme or slant rhyme. I love metrical genius (E. A. Robinson is one of my favorite poets!) and I don't believe in "free verse." (As Robert Frost observed, "writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down). BUT, there is a sublime genius in the slant rhymes of, among others, Gwendolyn Brooks or e.e. cummings. I would never ask for a rule change. But there is almost always lurking in the hectoring tone a sense that "if it doesn't rhyme it's not poetry." But what you want is not actually poetry, you want doggerel or verse (of which, as a LONG-TIME reader, I am a big fan). That's all.
Here is Brooks' rigorous and metrically sound sonnet "Piano After War" which uses only consonant rhyme:
On a snug evening I shall watch her fingers,
Cleverly ringed, declining to clever pink,
Beg glory from the willing keys. Old hungers
Will break their coffins, rise to eat and thank.
And music, warily, like the golden rose
That sometimes after sunset warms the west,
Will warm that room, persuasively suffuse
That room and me, rejuvenate a past.
But suddenly, across my climbing fever
Of proud delight— a multiplying cry.
A cry of bitter dead men who will never
Attend a gentle maker of musical joy.
Then my thawed eye will go again to ice.
And stone will shove the softness from my face.
This is the last 16 lines of cummings' "my father moved through dooms of love"--couplet rhyme ONLY on the consonants!
then let men kill which cannot share,
let blood and flesh be mud and mire,
scheming imagine, passion willed,
freedom a drug that’s bought and sold
giving to steal and cruel kind,
a heart to fear, to doubt a mind,
to differ a disease of same,
conform the pinnacle of am
though dull were all we taste as bright,
bitter all utterly things sweet,
maggoty minus and dumb death
all we inherit, all bequeath
and nothing quite so least as truth
—i say though hate were why men breathe—
because my Father lived his soul
love is the whole and more than all
Death, Roo Roo, or both? None of the above. Disgusting and really on the border if not deep in the weeds.
Judy Freed, you are a genius.
I absolutely loved the first place winning video and song by Mr. Jensen and his bandmates. So clever and so enjoyable. I always enjoy Mr. Jensen's entries, but this was the best so far.
oh come on.There is NO pumpkin in pumpkin spice.
I have gone to a lot of church, and sharing funny aspects of the leader are bloodsport. Someone told us prior to a Christmas morning service (at someone else’s parish) that the priest did something funny when consecrating the wine. He said the words, bowing, and then spoke directly down into the cup, causing the hollow amplification you’d expect. In spite of the quietness and solemnity, weakened by a too-late Christmas Eve, we cracked up and prayed to God to silence ourselves.
And a similar theme about Ivana
Ivana, Trump’s wife, her memory not to mar
What we don’t know is how many Trump wives is par
Best weather is on a golf course, bar none
Trump finally had, or dug, a hole on One