Archive for the ‘Art’ Category
These limericks were published in New York in 1965. They made their way into my hands via the Northside School Library in Rogers, Arkansas. The last date the book was signed out was on April Fool’s Day in 1967. From reading them I would guess many of them were written in Great Britain, but I’ll note the authors when I can. Enjoy!
🫤🫤🫤
There was a young man of Calcutta
Who spoke with a terrible stutta,
At breakfast he said,
“Get me some b-b-b-bread
And b-b-b-b-b-b-butta.”
😯😯😯
By Robert Louis Stevenson
There once was an old man of the Cape,
Who made himself garments of crepe.
When asked, “Do they tear?”
He replied, “Here and there,
But they’re perfectly splendid for shape!”
😊😊😊
A small boy when asked to spell “yacht,”
Most saucily said, “I will nacht.”
So, his teacher in wrath,
Took a section of lathe,
And warmed him up well on the spacht.
😬😬😬
There was a young bard of Japan
Whose limericks never would scan.
When they said it was so,
He replied “Yes I know,
But I make a rule of always trying to get just as many words into the last line as I possibly can.”
😎😎😎
SUMMER’S FINALLY HERE
“The great poet is always a seer, seeing less with the eyes of the body
than he does with the eyes of the mind.”
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
I’ve been consistently nagged in recent months to post some of my own poetry. It’s not something I do or will do until the poetry gods speak to me. In recent months they’ve been oddly quiet. As with anyone writing poetry a person has to be moved by emotions. Love and hatred are two huge motivators that are fueled by a host of other lesser emotions like a few weeks or months of depression or celebration. Once I’m moved to write poetry it’s to either express a low and morbid mood or I’m flying high with love or joy over something important only to me. Let’s let some experts in on this conversation.
“Poetry should surprise by a fine excess, and not by Singularity – it should strike the Reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts and appear almost a Remembrance.” John Keats (1795-1821)
“Poetry begins . . . when we look from the center outward.” Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
“A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.” Robert Frost (1874-1963)
“The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it.” Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
*****
And here is the quote that makes and explains my initial point from the first paragraph.
‘All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotions recollected in tranquility.”
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
It’s been quite a while since I posted a Limerick Alert due in part to my semi-invalid status these last few months. Now that I’ve been cleared by the doctors once again I can freely move around my residence without the need of a wheelchair, walker, or a cane. I feel like a new man even though I will have to learn how to walk properly all over again. These limericks are always humorous as they were written by children for children and they’re all extremely well done. These are rated G and are safe for children.
By Marion Swinger
An unfortunate schoolboy named Pete
Had extremely malodorous feet.
If he waggled one sock,
The olfactory shock
Could empty the average street!
😋😋😋
By Rebecca Telford
There was a brown dog named Spot
Who tied up his tail with a knot,
To remember his bone
Which he’d left back at home
When he sometimes went out for a trot.
😁😁😁
By John Hegley
There once was an organic leek
That had managed to learn how to speak.
At the sight of a knife,
It would fear for its life,
And go: Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!!
😊😊😊
By Catherine Osborne
There was an old fellow from Pinner
Whose wife became thinner and thinner.
He told her, “My dear,
You’ll soon disappear,
Stop slimming, start eating your dinner!”
*****
ENJOY !
As you should know by now, I enjoy things odd, strange, but still interesting. I’ll tell you a short tale of my first trip outside of my home in some weeks. Since fracturing my ankle I’ve been hobbling around in the house wearing a ten-pound plastic boot and using a walker to move around. I should also mention that I drive a Smart car. It’s very difficult to fit me and my big ugly plastic boot behind the wheel of that little car. Therefor it was necessary that I become a passenger while my better-half took the wheel for a short shopping trip. I was stuck in the car because it was impossible for me to walk around a Walmart, and I absolutely refuse to use one of those electric monstrosities available for the injured and obese. Even when I was in the best of health, I never liked shopping there. Here’s my Brisk tale of my Walmart parking lot safari.
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My tale begins as I sat in my car watching a wild and crazy assortment of people wandering through the parking lot. The wind was howling, and I caught sight of a yellow empty can four aisles over rolling on the ground. As I watched, the wind blew it into traffic in that aisle and the stupid can avoided at least four vehicles and then continued rolling towards my aisle. My interest waned a bit and I began reading my Kindle. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that damn yellow can blow out from under another parked car and into the aisle three rows away. It was again missed by all of the traffic in that aisle and stopped dead in an open area.
I started fantasying that the can knew where it was going, and the wind was helping it get there. The wind kicked up once more and the can took a weird track thorough the next aisle and stopped right next to a car. An Asian fellow who had just parked his car, saw the can and gave it a kick as he walked by. The can ignored the abuse and with another gust of wind continued its journey into the next aisle. Now I was getting more interested on what the final fate of the can might be. In the next aisle a car sped by and the passing wind from the car blew the can across that aisle landing it fifteen feet from my car and ending up in a shopping cart corral. It appeared stuck there, so I returned to my reading.
Ten minutes later this giant Walmart employee with his cute little vest appeared next to my car to empty the corral. He looked pissed off and began pulling carts from here and there and fortunately for the can, he dislodged it. He stormed off mumbling to himself (probably how much he hated Walmart) and left the area. The wind gusted again and believe it or not that can rolled right over to my car and stopped next to the passenger side door where I was sitting. I’m not a believer in fate but I just knew I had to give that can some assistance before it was destroyed. I opened the door and put the empty can in my pocket and took it home with me. It’s now sitting on a shelf in my garage taking a well-earned vacation from all of the human dangers it had faced and survived. During our next shopping foray, I’ll return it to the wild to continue its journey. Maybe I’ll do it a real favor and drop it off at Home Goods, it’s a much better neighborhood and a cleaner parking lot.
AND THAT’S MY TALE
Bill Haley & the Comets
I love Rock and Roll. I mean the old-style Rock & Roll of the 50’s, 60′ and 70’s. The current music trends leave me flat due primarily to the unavoidable bad influences of Rap which is highly overrated and just plain sucks. Only Rhythm and Blues still seem as smooth and sexy as always. Today I’m going to throw out some trivia from the golden age of Rock & Roll for those of you still interested in good music. This trivia is a little obscure but nonetheless interesting.
- Link Wray’s hit instrumental “Rumble” from 1958 sounded so menacing that it prompted a ban by several US radio stations.
- In 1986, Duane Eddy teamed up with The Art of Noise, an electro-pop act, for a revival of his old “Peter Gunn” hit.
- A bobbysoxer teen idol, Ricky Nelson returned in 1972 with a singer-song writer style hit, “Garden Party”.
- Chantilly Lace almost scrapped a top 30 placing in 1972 for legendary rock and roller Jerry Lee Lewis.
- The Drifters returned to the British charts in 1972 with a revival of their mid-60’s single “Come on Over to My Place”.
The Bee Gee’s
- The Father of Rock & Roll, Bill Haley, died in 1981.
- MC5 and Roy Wood attracted boos and worse at the London Rock ‘n’ Roll Show held at Wembley Stadium in 1972. The crowd was upset that they all had long hair.
- The Beach Boys released a song by cult hippy leader Charles Manson on the B-side of their1968 single, “Blue Birds Over the Mountain”. Originally called “Cease to Exist“, the band gave it an even stranger title of “Never Learn Not to Love”.
- The US hard-rock band Aerosmith made an unlikely appearance in The Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band film performing the Beatle’s “Come Together“.
- The Bee Gee’s first number one single hit in the US, “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart”, went nowhere in Britain, which is all the more surprising because it’s since become a standard.
The Beatles
ROCK ON ! ! !
Born: December 10, 1830, Died: May 15, 1886 (aged 55)
*****
I’m something of a fan of serious poetry and an even bigger fan of those bawdy limericks I post so often. I guess I’m simply a fan of creative people who aren’t afraid to bare their souls to us. I’ve noticed over the years that creative types are a breed all their own. Many are looked upon as being a little strange or weird which has always seemed unfair. Being strange or weird for me is a badge of honor. Let me share the following with you.
Emily Dickinson, whose poetry thrills millions today, fantasized about the earth and sky and heaven itself, but left her home state, Massachusetts, exactly once, and that was to visit her father in Washington DC. She became such a recluse that she would not stay in the same room with her guests but would speak to them from an adjoining room.
Only seven of her poems were published in her lifetime. After her death in 1886, over 1,000 poems were discovered in a bureau. They were subsequently published, but often after word and punctuation changes were made by overzealous editors. A definitive edition of her works did not appear until the 1950’s.
As with all artists and other creative types, you never seem to get the recognition and fame you deserve until you’re dead.
R.I.P.
I realize that many of you out there are avid music fans. I’m addicted to oldies from 1958 through 1974 and have thousands of songs from that era. I like a lot of the new stuff too but I’m able to pick and choose the ones that really get me going. While we are all music lovers, my second passion is limericks and interesting poetry. So, with that in mind I decided that today my limerick selections would be G rated and concern music and musicians. I hope you enjoy them as much as you enjoy your music.
🎵🎵🎵
By Anonymous
There was a composer named Liszt
Who from writing could seldom desiszt.
He made Polonaise.
Quite worthy of praise,
And now that he’s gone, he is miszt.
🎹🎹🎹
By Ogden Nash
A bugler named Dougal MacDougal
Found ingenious ways to be frugal.
He learned how to sneeze
In various keys,
Thus, saving the price of a bugle.
🎸🎸🎸
By Paul West
All of a sudden, the great prima-donna
Cried, “Heavens! My voice is a goner!”
But a cat in the wings
Cried, “I know how she sings,”
And finished the solo with honor.
🎼🎼🎼
By Anonymous
There was a composer named Bong
Who composed a new popular song.
It was simply the croon
Of a lovesick baboon,
With occasional thumps on the gong.
🎷🎷🎷
YOUR TURN TO HUM A FEW BARS
I’ve considered myself an artist beginning at age five or six. I love creating art but I’m also a student of art history and read any and all information I can find. Here are a few samples of art history covering many decades and artists.
- The world’s largest art gallery is the Winter Palace and the neighboring Hermitage in Leningrad, Russia. One has to walk 15 miles to visit each of the 322 galleries, which house nearly 3,000,000 works of art and archaeological remains.
- The largest painting in the world is The Battle of Gettysburg, painted in 1883 by Paul Philippoteaux and 16 assistants, who worked for 2 1/2 years. It is 410 feet long, 70 feet high, and weighs 11,792 pounds. In 1964, the painting was bought by Joe King of Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
- Henri Matisse’s La Bateau, hung in New York’s Museum of modern Art for 47 days in 1961 before someone noticed it was upside down. About 116,000 people had passed in front of the painting before the error was noted.
- Vincent Van Gogh is known to have sold only one painting.
- In 1930, during the depths of the depression, Andrew Mellon, the American financier, bought 21 paintings from Russia’s Hermitage Museum for $7 million. The Russians needed the cash, and this American millionaire has lots of it, even during the depression.
- As penance for a quarrel with Pope Julius II, Michelangelo, in 1505, began a more than year-long project creating a gigantic bronze portrait of His Holiness. Later, the portrait was melted down for cannon.
- “I am so rich that I just wiped out 100,000 francs,” said Picasso, after making a new picture he didn’t like disappear from his canvas.
- The genre of art known as Cubism derived its name from a belittling remark made by Henri Matisse in reference to a Braque painting. Matisse said that the landscape looked as though it were wholly made up of little cubes.
- In his earliest and poverty-stricken days, Pablo Picasso kept warm by burning his drawings.
- Pablo Picasso, when he died in 1973, left in for repositories in the South of France the following: 1876 paintings, 1355 sculptures, 2,880 ceramic pieces, more than 11,000 drawings and sketches, and some 27,000 etchings, engravings, and lithographs in various stages of completion.
YOU JUST NEED TO BE DEAD TO BE FAMOUS
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973)
I’m not one to celebrate birthdays on this blog but as with everything there are exceptions. Today is the birthday of my favorite writer whose works have captivated me for more than fifty years. It all started in 1968 while I was serving in the Republic of South Korea. I discovered a copy of the Hobbit in the hooch of a young lady I was seeing. She couldn’t read English and I had no reading material worth reading at the time. She made it a gift to me, and I began reading it immediately.
I became lost in his world of the Shire, the hobbits, the dwarves, the elves, and the wizards. I read a portion of that book by the light of a flashlight as I sat in a foxhole. I had no access to the trilogy at that time and was forced to take a short leave, a quick hop on an Air Force plane to the Tokyo PX, where I purchased my first copies.
Over the years I’ve read those books at least a dozen times. Along the way I read everything I could find about J.R.R. including a number of books later published by his son. I still have some beautiful calendars from the 1970’s and 1980’s painted by a number of well-known artist of scenes from his stories. I also found out that alcohol and tattooing mix rather well together since I have the door symbol from the door of Moria on my upper arm. Right next to that I have a beautiful tattoo of Smaug.
I almost lost my mind when someone who was real fan of the books made the movies. I never thought it would happen. I was again truly excited when Amazon and Jeff Bezos released the latest prequel, The Rings of Power. I was happy to see they did a great job in tying it into the original story line. I became so interested I went back and began reading the Silmarillion for the fifth time. I look forward to the new season as any good fan would.
The man was amazing, and his works will be read and loved by millions more in the coming years.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN
I thought today I would revisit a subject most of you vaguely remember and that is virginity. Some of you will barely remember being a virgin and others of you have yet to lose yours. My virginity has been gone so long I almost don’t remember losing it. These little poems will take us all back to that special day and allow us to reminisce a little. Kindly step into the limerick time machine and remember.
A lisping young lady named Beth
Was saved from a fate worse than death.
Seven times in a row,
Which unsettled her so
That she quit saying “No” and said “Yeth.”
🥰🥰🥰
There was a young fellow named Biddle
Whose girl had to teach him to fiddle.
She grabbed hold of his bow
And said “If you must know,
You can try parting my hair in the middle.
🫤🫤🫤
A religious young lassie named Claire
Was having her first love affair.
As she climbed into bed
She reverently said,
“I wish to be opened with a prayer.”
😎😎😎
There was a young girl from Hoboken
Who claimed that her hymen was broken
From riding a bike
On a cobblestone pike,
But it really was broken from pokin’.
🍆🍩🍆
NUFF SAID
everyuselessthing.com 