Faith in Democracy India's Planting Mantras Sunscreen Lotion Lobsters

when faith in democracy ebbs,
destroyed by our internet webs,
don't say the elite
provided defeat;
twas ruined by we comatose plebs. 


In Goa, farmers were given a curriculum at a government workshop and told to chant the words of a healing mantra used by devotees of the Hindu god Shiva for 20 minutes every day during the planting phase.
Washington Post

the farmers who live out in Goa
are growing increasingly poa --
a mantra won't grow
their crops in a row,
no matter how much they may hoa.


Part of the problem is that dermatologists have a hard time explaining how thickly sunscreen should be applied.

Wall Street Journal


I put on my lotion so thick
that I become awfully slick.
If I am not leery
I'll fall on my deery
and crack it with quite a loud 'snick.'


Scientists say a variety of factors have contributed to the boom, including overfishing of predators like cod and the lobstermen’s own conservation efforts. But without climate change, Maine’s lobster fishery would not be anywhere near as successful as it is today . . . 
NYT


Whatever the reason or cause
I'm glad that there's more lobster claws.
The flesh is so sweet
that I rarely eat
less than a dozen red paws. 

Giraffe Kill Refurbishing Restaurants Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

The dead giraffe is curled up on the ground in souvenir photographs. The American woman who killed it during a guided hunt in South Africa is nestled in the curve of the animal’s long neck, clutching her long gun and pointing at the sky in gratitude.

That was last year. But in June, the photographs found new life online when they were published by Africlandpost, an online news organization that covers social and political issues in Africa. It posted a critical message on Twitter saying the animal was a rare black giraffe exploited by a “white American savage.”

NYT

in Africa nobody cares

if you kill grizzily bears.

or vampire bats

or termites with slats.

until it's revived via shares.

But after changing hands, changing management or restructuring, many casual-dining chains are reinventing themselves to be more contemporary. They are swapping out giant portions of food for small plates, and upgrading ingredients and décor.

WSJ

why can't they leave restaurants alone?

they have to cut things to the bone.

when I want a malt

I don't need gestalt -- 

I'm there for the fries, not the tone.

 It would have cost a fortune to air the ad on TV in the New York market, but through Facebook, YouTube and Twitter she inexpensively explained her working-class Puerto Rican roots and her demands for “Medicare for all” and free public college tuition.

Washington Post

the end of the big TV ad

is making me feel pretty glad.

deep pockets are not

how Congress is bought -- 

go viral on YouTube, comrade! 

Read my profile in the New York Times:  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/reader-center/newsroom-poet-laureate-limericks.html  

XRP Robocalls All-Time Heat Records

Digital tokens like Bitcoin and its many imitators (like XRP) were designed to make electronic transactions of all sorts easier. But today almost no transactions are happening, other than on virtual currency exchanges where people bet on their price.
NYT

a digital token is meant
like greenbacks to be quickly spent;
to pay off some bills
or purchase some thrills -- 
most cover it up with cement.

Some robocalls are legitimate—your pharmacy, your bank—but not the ones that change numbers constantly to appear local and avoid detection. Robocallers even spoof numbers held by ordinary phone customers like you and me (so don’t call them back to yell at them.)

WSJ

the robocall's smarter than you;

it always knows just what to do

so caller ID

seems awful friendly --  

but you're just a sum in their queue.

From the normally mild summer climes of Ireland, Scotland and Canada to the scorching Middle East, numerous locations in the Northern Hemisphere have witnessed their hottest weather ever recorded over the past week.

Washington Post

It does not take genius to tell

that globally we've gone to hell.

The heatwaves arise

with fricassee skies;

and glaciers turn into soft gel.

Great Knowledge

And now I, Nephi, cannot say more; the Spirit stoppeth mine utterance, and I am left to mourn because of the unbelief, and the wickedness, and the ignorance, and the stiffneckedness of men; for they will not search knowledge, nor understand great knowledge, when it is given unto them in plainness, even as plain as word can be.
Second Nephi. Chapter Thirty-Two. Verse 7.

Knowledge is too hard to search; I'd rather laze away
watching Netflix movies while I snack on Frito-Lay.
My neck is kinda stiff and so I'd better hit the gym,
and then go into debt to get a stylish new hair trim.
I don't think I'm so wicked, though believing scripture verse
sometimes makes me feel that I am heading for a curse. 

How Henri Matisse Changed the Art World Forever

What the Butler Saw. by Henri Matisse.  c. 1919

Matisse's family had been in the business of painting barber poles throughout Europe for the past five generations, so Henri came to his appetite for color and spirals honestly.

The day after his birth someone somewhere probably choked on a fish bone during a hasty meal -- and this unavoidable tragedy weighed heavily on Henri Matisse all of his brief life. He died tragically young at the age of 95. Don't snicker -- some people die tragically old at the age of 19. 

During a trip to the south of France to recuperate from asafoetida poisoning, Matisse was enchanted with the hallucinatory sunlight and swirling color schemes that seemed to leap out at him like an amorous goat. He immediately began painting everything he saw, including his landlord's kitchen sink, which caused such an uproar in the village where he was staying that he was hung in Effigy (a tiny hamlet down the road from where Van Gogh did that silly thing with his ear.)

When Matisse returned to Paris he determined to leave behind him his prosperous work as a marine underwriter (his pens got too soggy anyways) and devote his life to painting. This did not sit well with his wife, Jeeves, who immediately took Matisse to court to have him declared insane and unfit for decent company. After the judge viewed several of the artist's latest canvases he threw out the case on the grounds of Aribus Teneo Lupum, otherwise known as Love Laughs at Andy Hardy. 

Free at last to paint, Matisse immediately took up horse racing and won the Kentucky Derby. 

Abandoning linear drawing, Matisse began sculpting huge amorphous shapes that he called "Huge Amorphous Shapes." 

His work now fetches such amazing prices that none of it has been sold for the past forty years. 

Referring to himself and Pablo Picasso, Matisse told reporters: "The artist is never tethered to reality, and must treat all outward sensory stimulation as so much burgoo."  

Splitsville

A change in the new Republican tax law will eliminate a tax break for alimony payments that are finalized after Dec. 31, prompting financial planners and lawyers to warn wealthy clients that if they have been contemplating filing for divorce, they better act fast.

NYT

The rich are not like you and I.

To them taxes do not apply.

Although when they split

they still like to git

their alimony on the sly

Read Tim's profile in the New York Times by clicking here 

One Fell Sip

In one fell sip, Seattle on Sunday became the first major U.S. city to ban drinking straws, an environmentally friendly move that leaders hope will spark a nationwide conversation about small, everyday changes that people can make to protect the planet.

Washington Post

Seattle says sipping with straws

is now against all of their laws.

And so they usurp

our right to a slurp --

and milkshakes will drip down our jaws!

Read my profile in the New York Times at:  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/reader-center/newsroom-poet-laureate-limericks.html

How Piet Mondrian Changed Modern Painting Forever

Who's on First? by Piet Mondrian. c. 1944. 

Every child starts out a genius. It is the responsibility of the adult world to crush their spirit of inquiry and extinguish every spark of genius before that spark helps them escape the inevitable banality of this world and gives them mad and unstoppable strength.

Such was the intended fate of Piet Mondrian, who was scheduled to become a Postal Inspector by his parents in Holland, but who instead made the daring leap from childhood prodigy to adult genius -- and never looked back. Although he always did have a fondness for rubber stamps.

Mondrian first came to the attention of the art world in 1912, when he unveiled his surrealist masterpiece "Kumquats Anonymous." It was so bizarre that it caused soccer riots in Argentina and minor flooding in the Grampian Hills. The interlocking pieces of cinnabar and darning needles clearly indicated a mind and spirit that were done with ordinary reality and ready to enter the Twinkie Zone (that's five miles past the Twilight Zone.)

The painting was destroyed during the First World War when German troops mistook it for a walrus and shot it for the ivory.

During the Twenties and Thirties Mondrian began his reductionist phase of painting -- eventually eliminating everything from his canvas but a few black lines and primary colors. Then he forged ahead and got rid of the lines and colors as well. His blank canvases sell for astronomical prices. 

He married Elizabeth Taylor in 1951, and they had 3 boys and 2 girls before they divorced in 1952.  (They both took vitamins.)

At his death in 1949 his widow had not yet been named. Most of his work is now housed in the Donnan Arena of Edmonton. Don't buy the hot dogs -- they stink. 

Sunday Diary. July 1, 2018.

I'm the middle photo, dressed for the angel gag. Ringling. 1976.

Got up at 5:30 a.m. Took my meds, washed down with the last of the Tang. I'm all out of juice now -- just 2 cans of Mountain Dew left. And a quart of milk. But rent is due, and once that's paid my food budget for July is just about nil until my Social Security kicks in on the 18th. I overspent these past 2 weeks on -- what else? -- books and exotic foods from the Asian Market. But at least the apartment now reeks of Thai basil and fresh dill weed -- very comforting odors. 

Oh, and I forgot to mention earlier that my Cannon ELPH 180 digital camera is broke -- when I turn it on it flashes the message "Name Error!" across the screen. So until I can afford another camera I'm going back to collage for my visual work, putting haiku on the back burner. What a loss for poetic literature! 

I heard back from several more reporters overnight about my NYT profile. Bob Davis from the Wall Street Journal. Joan Vennochi from the Boston Globe. And Alicia Caldwell of the Wall Street Journal. So I've added them to my daily timerick list. And taken off a few deadbeats who never respond to my poems anymore. 

As I'm writing this at 6:27 a.m. The Sunday Long Read posts on my email. I am the Senior Limerick Editor for them (as everyone and their dog must know by now) and so here is my column for this week, recorded for posterity here in my Sunday Diary:

TIM TORKILDSON'S SUNDAY LIMERICK

 

From Elite Daily:
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: "Congress is too old . . . They don’t have a stake in the game.”

From Tim:
Our Congress has reached a ripe age.
They’re getting too old, and not sage.
I think the time right
To tell ‘em “Goodnight!”
And make ‘em retire offstage.

Tim Torkildson is a retired circus clown who fiddles with rhyme. All his verses can be found at Tim's Clown Alley.

I notice the cuffs on my pajama bottoms are filthy; they're too long for me and drag on the floor. Ugh. I'd better do a load of colors this morning. I have just six quarters left in my change jar. Enough for one load. 

But now it's time to turn my attention to the Book of Mormon. I've already said my prayers, on my knees. For a long time I said my prayers sitting in a chair with my head bowed, because of the osteoarthritis pain in my knees, but it just didn't seem right, so I started kneeling again. But now I'm beginning to associate personal prayer with pain, so I'm going to have to reevaluate my position. Literally. 

Sarah just FB messaged me that they want me over for dinner this coming Tuesday, and not today. I was hoping for today because Sunday really drags when I'm alone and I tend to let sad memories crowd my feelings as the sun sets and my energy and fortitude ebbs. 

(I keep getting pop-ups from ReImage for potential security breaches; one just came up now. I discontinued their program 2 years ago because both Madelaine and Adam told me I didn't need that kind of  expensive protection on my laptop -- but their damn cookies keep popping up from out of nowhere. There. Deleted.)

6:40 a.m. I emailed Bob Davis of the WSJ this morning that I needed to cancel my online subscription to their paper cuz of the rising cost of my meds -- gotta make budget cuts somewhere. So he just sent me this email:  

"Hey, we are going to get you a free subscription. We need such dedicated readers. Meet Suzi, cc:d here who can take care of you." 

Isn't that something? I'll think about THAT all evening, instead of mooning over past mistakes and sorrows. It means I can keep reading new stories in the WSJ and making poems about them. The WSJ doesn't let anyone read any of their stories w/o a subscription. Their paywall is fierce. 

Okay. 7 a.m. and time to pick a chapter at random from the Book of Mormon. Mosiah 20 looks good. I just love LDS.org for scripture study. I can make the print as large as I want and since I'm online I can stop and look stuff up as I go along. I read each chapter from the bottom to the top, just for a change of pace, so I'm starting with verse 26:  

"And when the Lamanites saw the people of Limhi, that they were without arms, they had compassion on them and were pacified towards them, and returned with their king in peace to their own land."

There's a concept unknown in the modern world -- national compassion and retreat from a weaker country. Would that we had practiced some of that in Vietnam fifty years ago. 

I think I'll make a poem to fit the verse:

Whenever there is strife among the nations, it is rare

to hear of armies that a drop of clemency will spare.

But even the most hardened troops may sometimes softly yearn

their murderous demeanor set aside and briefly spurn.

The light of Christ will work with ev'ry sinner who exists

to bring them gladly back from Satan's ever-blinding mists.

A warrior who robs and ruins in what he thinks his cause

may find the Prince of Peace has got a better set of laws. 

There. I timed myself and it took me exactly fifteen minutes to write that. It's facile, of course, with no depth. Like a watercolor. But all I care about is that it declares my allegiance. Artists, especially poets, are mostly incapable of being loyal to anyone or anything except themselves. I struggle with that weakness constantly.  Now I'll post it on the Ward Facebook page.

Okay. It is now 7:20 a.m. and I'm going to have some ramen noodles. It's Fast Sunday, I know, but if I take my meds and don't eat an hour or so later I get really sick. And I think I may start my laundry as well. It's nice that the laundry room is literally 20 feet from my front door.

8:00 a.m.  The noodles were good; I cut up some scallions into the bowl and added two eggs to the boiling water so I could poach them while the noodles cooked. 

I got 2 likes on my B of M poem on the Ward FB page while I was eating breakfast. 

I started a load of laundry, a bit reluctantly because I remember my mother would never do laundry on Sunday no matter what. It was considered the mark of a slovenly housekeeper to do laundry on Sunday. Monday was wash day -- everyone knew that. Of course, mom would slave away in the kitchen making huge Sunday dinners. I particularly remember her roast ham, studded with cloves and draped with canned pineapple rings, and her lemon meringue pie. Anyway, that reluctance to wash clothes on Sunday has stuck with me all through the years.

Well, better get back to my B of M study . . . 

Feeling flighty I instead read Elder Bednar's General Conference talk Meek and Lowly of Heart. Here's what sticks out to me from that talk:

"Meekness is a defining attribute of the Redeemer and is distinguished by righteous responsiveness, willing submissiveness, and strong self-restraint." 

I am very lacking in all 3 of these things. It makes me wonder if I can ever make it back Home worthy enough to see Heavenly Father as more than just my judge. I'll think about that while I floss and brush my teeth. I'm starting to feel tired again -- I always feel exhausted after a meal nowadays. So I may just take a little lay-down. Until the timer dings to put the laundry in the drier.

8:45 a.m.  I went to put my load in the dryer and found a box of Lipton Cold Brew Iced Tea bags at my doorstep. Now who could have done that -- and why? I only drink herbal tea, and that rarely. I think Sarah likes iced tea, so I'll save it for her when I go over for dinner on Tuesday. I'm still feeling very tired, but will start on my daily timerick for my reporter friends while I wait for the laundry to dry. You get 35 minutes for fifty cents.

8:55 a.m.  Found a story in the WaPo about a foiled robbery in a convenience store up in Canada. The tag line is "Chaplin would have been proud." That is an irresistible theme for me, so I'll send the reporter, Amy B. Wang, a timerick -- but won't share it with any other reporters on my list. Heck, I've got all the time in the world, so why not?  

a guy who attempted some stealing

in Canada got the weird feeling

he was in a flick

that featured slapstick

because a girl fell through the ceiling.

Hah! Not five minutes after emailing this to Wang she emailed me back:

Omg. I was just reading about you in the New York Times. I’m so honored to get a “Timerick.” Thanks!

Amy B Wang

Reporter | The Washington Post

amy.wang@washpost.com

Twitter: @amybwang

I immediately emailed her back:

Thanks. What caught my eye, of course, was your mentions of Charlie Chaplin. That's a hot-button phrase for an old circus clown like me. I was beginning to think that young people had never heard of Chaplin, or wouldn't dare use him as a reference anymore. Thanks for restoring my slapstick faith in journalism!  Tim T. 

Her response to my email came back in another five minutes:  

Ah, yes, of course the Chaplin reference would be a good prompt. Btw, is your Twitter handle @lefse911 or @torkythai911 (or both)?

Amy B Wang

Reporter | The Washington Post

amy.wang@washpost.com

Twitter: @amybwang

Now I'll add Amy B Wang to my daily timerick list. With her kind of adulation among reporters, I may get a write up in the WaPo before much longer!  (She tweeted my timerick on her twitter account just now, too -- I gotta start doing more with Twitter.)

Okay, now I better find a story I can write a good general purpose limerick about.

Oh phooey. I'm burnt out on rhyme. This is supposed to be a day of rest, right? So I'm gonna rework my daily timerick list -- the card I have it on is a mess and I can barely tell who I've scratched off and who I've added.

10:11 a.m.  Okay. So my new list has 24 names on it -- including 3 professors from BYU who are my personal friends: Gov Allen, Bruce Young, and Dana Bourgerie. Gov is the guy who took me out of a homeless shelter in Virginia to stay with him and his family five years ago. May God set a flower on his head.

Think I'll take a shower to see if that perks up my mental facilities a bit. Then maybe write a nonsense 'appreciation' of Picasso -- the nonsense pieces I've been doing on painters are getting more viewers than anything else. 

Amy just called. She's upstairs at Karen Allen's apartment and wants to bring down a box of Irvin mementos for me to look through. I said I'd like that. She said she'd call when she was ready to come down.

Better sort and fold the laundry.

10:53 a.m.  Another response from my massive emailing of my NYT profile. This one from Nausicaa Renner, of the Columbia Journalism Review:

Nausicaa Renner	10:40 AM (9 hours ago)
to me

Wow!! Honored to be one of the 22. Thanks for sharing.

Now what kind of a self-serving response should I send her? Heartfelt thanks, of course -- but what would serve my goal of more publicity as well? I think she's just a college student, and may never amount to much in the journalism world, so should I even worry about my response? I think I'll give her a bit of the 'old-timer remembers' routine:

Thanks.  

I always enjoy being interviewed. It used to happen four or five times a week when I worked as a clown for Ringling many long years ago. There were a lot more newspapers back then, and a lot more local reporters who came down to the show to get made up as guest clowns and then do a full page spread about it. I guess we'll never see that kind of frivolous journalism again, will we?

Tim T. 

12:22 p.m.  Amy just left my apartment. She dropped off a box of Irvin's things for me to look over and then give to Steve. She said she is trying to finally get past his death and so is sending away the last box of his memories she has.  She was very pleasant and soft-spoken and we talked mostly about her job up at Sun Valley, where she does accounts and lives in a company dorm for $200.00 a month. She said that everyone has to wear a red tag, which she showed me, on a lanyard -- otherwise there are snipers positioned throughout the Sun Valley Resort to take out interlopers w/o the red badge. She makes $15.00 an hour.  I gotta get ready to set up the Sacrament in the Community room here.

Oh, I did write up a screwy bio of Picasso and posted same on my blog. It's already had 23 views -- more than anything else in the past 2 days. It was only a few months ago when everything I posted got six or seven hundred views in the first hour. But those days are gone for good, I reckon. 

2:18 p.m.  Sacrament meeting in the Community room went off without a hitch. I walked over to Fresh Market for a baked chicken breast and mashed potatoes w/gravy from their deli. Plus I bought a can of stewed tomatoes to heat and go with it.  $5.29. 

Adam just called. They got out of church early and he's bringing the kids over to see me!  Think I'll just lay back and relax a little until they get here.

4:00 p.m. Adam and the kids just left. It was Katrina, Noah, and Diesel. I told Diesel as soon as Steve gets back from Colorado we'd make plans to go see the latest Jurassic Park movie. Diesel looked at my digital camera and thinks I just need a new SIM card for it to work again, so he's having his dad out in Virginia send me one. We played Uno -- Katrina and Noah cheated outrageously. I opened up a bottle of Moxie and gave them each a taste. It tasted okay to me, but then there was an unpleasant aftertaste. I'm suddeanly hungry for corn chips and salsa. Luckily, I've got some! Then I think I'll read some more of Joseph Lelyveld's book on Mahatma Gandhi, "Great Soul." When I tire of that I'll find some old movie on YouTube to stream for $2.99 -- and the day will be over with. 

7:00 p.m. Well, I fell asleep for a bit while reading, then putzed around on YouTube looking for a movie to stream tonight. I'm going with Bogart and Bacall in "To Have and To Have Not." After that, if I'm still not sleepy, I'll try something by Hitchcock. The Gandhi book is turning out to be a snoozer. 

Now I'm going to get on my knees to check in with Headquarters. I pronounce Sunday, July First, 2018, as officially Over.  Tomorrow is already here. 

The Life and Work of Pablo Picasso

Mother-in-Law. by Pablo Picasso. c. 1919. 

The concept of Pablo Picasso was born in Madrid in 1885. His real accouchement is unknown. As a child prodigy he began sketching while still at the breast. His father recognized the infant genius and sold the family olive oil crock to send young Pablo to an Etch-a-Sketch factory to learn his trade from the bottom up. 

At sixteen Pablo left Madrid for Paris, where he heard the girls liked to play squidgelum. Always the loner, Picasso refused to attend art classes, instead giving himself up to the riotous nightlife of Beal Street and the Barbary Coast. He surrounded himself with the most avant garde painters of the era -- such luminaries as Eli Wallach, Walton Goggins, Strother Martin, and Vincent Schiavelli.

His mania for painting was such that he would lock himself in his studio for days at a time, living off of onion sandwiches and canned sardines, while he painted wild and extravagant canvases in a style that eventually came to be called Cubism, but which originally went by the title of Mishmosh. During the 1923 presidential election he came in second behind Calvin Coolidge.

As Picasso aged his rage at the confines of the physical world grew immense. His paintings and sculptures take on an almost hysterical writhing in shape, form, and color -- as if he knew that what happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas. 

He married twice, and had six children -- none of them survived the paparazzi.  

As the greatest painter of the Twentieth Century, Picasso transformed what had been a gentleman's hobby into a demonic maelstrom of protest, surrealism, and humus against the indignities and horrors of the modern world. His most famous painting is his canvas entitled "Gherkin" -- which shows a solitary pickle in a bleak blue landscape, peeling a banana. It recently was auctioned at Christie's for a number with so many zeros in it that no bank could cash the check and remain solvent.

Pablo Picasso lived a very long time, and then jumped into an art textbook to look at the nymphs. He's still in there somewhere.