Little Boy Upon the Bank

Little boy upon the bank,

Are you planning some new prank?

Do you fish for minnows, so?

Does the sun seem never low?

How the green weeds glow today!

Tadpoles dip and spiders play.

You hold the world so nonchalant --

So filled, without a fear or taunt!

Mail Art Call for Missionary Experiences

I am the creator and the current curator of The Provo Museum of Mail Art. We invite all interested missionaries, past and present, to mail in a visual representation of your missionary experiences -- in Thailand, and elsewhere. We also invite all those who have interacted with the LDS missionaries to submit mail art as well. Your submissions will be put on display at the Museum this fall, and admission will be free to one and all.

If you don't know what mail art, or postal art, is, then let me explain briefly:

It started as an artistic movement in New York City, when several professional artists grew tired of the exclusiveness of art galleries and museums. They decided to bypass all the snobbery by mailing each other samples of their work for enjoyment and for critiques. Today the movement numbers around five thousand members worldwide.

For a more detailed explanation and description, click here.

Please let me emphasize that you do not need to be a professionally trained or exhibited artist to participate. All entries are welcomed and will be put on display on an equal basis! In fact, I strongly encourage anyone with the least bit of interest in the visual arts to participate. This includes children!

Here is the official Mail Art Call as it will appear on the International Union of Mail Artists website:

MAIL ART CALL.

Project title:  “The LDS Missionary Experience in Thailand and Elsewhere”

Work in all mediums accepted.

Deadline:  December 29, 2017

There is no entry fee

All submissions become the property of the Provo Museum of Mail Art

All submissions will be on display at the Provo Museum of Mail Art for

approximately eight weeks after being received.

Please send electronic submissions to torkythai911@gmail.com

Please mail submissions to:

The Provo Museum of Mail Art

℅ Tim Torkildson

PCHA Bldg

650 West 100 North  #115

Provo Utah 84601  USA

Headlines & Verse. Sunday. July 9. 2017.

DEMOCRATS CONTINUE TO DISDAIN RELIGION, WHILE VOTERS CONTINUE TO DISDAIN THEM 

The reason that Democrats lose

Is that they don’t like the Good News

Of God up above --

Since they’d rather shove

Laws down our throats like cheap booze.

IS UNCLE SAM A CHRISTIAN? POLITICIANS ARE RAISING HELL ABOUT IT 

Is Uncle Sam Christian today?

The thought causes pundits to bray,

Reporters to smirk,

And lawmakers jerk

Like puppets attempting ballet.

LOUISVILLE TO HOST THIS YEAR'S LEBOWSKI FEST, WHILE REPORTERS WHO GOT THE NEWS RELEASE ARE LEFT TO WONDER 'WHO CARES?' 

America goes to the flicks

For action and giggles and kicks.

But some see the screen

As more than obscene --

Perhaps a religious quick fix . . .

FLASHING POLICE APPARENTLY STANDARD PROCEDURE FOR CALIFORNIA MALL PATRONS

When thrown out of malls for undress

Young women may feel great distress.

To aggravate cops

They rip off their tops --

Which certainly shows great finesse.

Headlines & Verse. Saturday. July 8. 2017

SCIENTISTS DISCOVER NEW QUIRKS IN QUARKS 

Smashing an atom is fun.

Naming the pieces a blast.

Switzerland is a great place,

If you have funding that’s vast.

Nobody knows what a quark

Looks like or does for a laugh.

But guessing about it remains

A good way to tart up a graph.

Predicting a particle wave,

And tracking its miniscule charms,

Helps one to sleep well at night

After the day’s false alarms.

With visions of baryons small

Dancing in physicist's pates,

They soon will discover a way

To bypass God’s own Pearly Gates!

IN TROUBLED TIMES AMERICANS DO NOT TURN TO RELIGION -- THEY TURN TO DISNEYLAND

A person attends Disneyland

For reasons that ain’t very grand:

To live as a child;

Forget we’re exiled

From places that never are bland.

NASA SAYS VP MIKE PENCE IS TOO 'TOUCHY-FEELY'

Vice presidents really do shine

When they can’t read a plain sign.

They’ll touch all they please --

They might even squeeze --

Like Cosby they think it is fine.

UNITED NATIONS INKS AN ACCORD TO END NUCLEAR WEAPONS. MAJOR SIGNERS INCLUDE LOWER SLOBOVIA AND CLOUD CUCKOO LAND

When nations have signed an accord

That makes ploughshares of their bright sword,

I’ll not only eat

My hat, but excrete

A brick that’s the size of a Ford.

GRIEVING CALIFORNIA FAMILY DISCOVERS SON IS STILL ALIVE -- AFTER CORONER'S OFFICE 'FESSES UP TO HUGE MISTAKE

When my time has come to expire,

A good bodyguard I will hire

To see that the doc

Is not an old crock

Who sends me off to the wrong pyre.

IVANKA TRUMP TAKES OVER FOR DADDY AT G20

When you’ve got the looks and the bod

There just isn’t anything odd

About sitting in

With heads in Berlin

And waiting for them to applaud.

Photo Essay: Losing a Daughter to Texas

My daughter Virginia and her husband Andy, with their 6 month old Cici, are leaving Orem this week to move to San Antonio, Texas. Since I don't really travel anymore, due to health and finances, having lunch with them today is probably the last time I'll see them for some years to come.

Andy has a good position in the oil field waiting for him. I'm sincerely happy that he will be able to provide well for his family. But right now the coming deprivation gives me an ashy, stale spirit.

I made a pasta casserole for our lunch, with coleslaw on the side. Dessert was Jello. Bottled spring water to drink. Andy and Sarah had good appetites, and I gave them the leftovers to take back to her sister Sarah, whom they're staying with this week, for their dinner tonight.

I suppose the next time I see Cici she'll be a teenager, and I'll be a poster boy for senility. Every time one of my kids leaves for a far away destiny, I die a little bit -- that's because I'm greedy and jealous and scared. Why can't everything stay exactly the same, except continue to get better just for me? Is that an unreasonable request to make to God?

I gave Virginia a small clown statuette as a going away present, and a can of Saint Luke's Prickly Heat Powder to Andy -- because he's got a problem rash.

Babies experience the anguish of separation dozens of times each day; so I guess I'll get over my anguish eventually

I just hope she doesn't grow up and marry someone named Bubba

Andy liked the store bought Jello. Virginia wouldn't touch it

The problem with catching people off their guard with a camera is that sometimes they look mad when they're not -- such as in this photo.

They stuck around for a good hour after lunch to chat. Andy tinkered with my laptop and Chromebook to remove some of the junk that was slowing things down. But then it was time for them to leave. I walked them out to their car, parked in the shade. It was 101 today.

These two kiss after the blessing on food, when one of them has to leave the room for more than ten minutes, and when they open car doors for each other. Disgusting. And romantic.

Godspeed, kids. 

Headlines & Verse. Friday. July 7. 2017

FRANCE TO PHASE OUT FOSSIL FUEL CARS IN THE NEXT TWENTY YEARS 

The French are a funny old race,

Who’ve run out of free parking space.

They’re writing memoirs

About their old cars,

Then giving them up with bad grace.

INSTAGRAM USERS DENIED ACCESS TO THEIR ACCOUNTS THROW MEMORABLE HISSY FITS 

When Instagram goes on the fritz,

Their users find out it’s the pits.

No photos to share --

At what can they stare? --

Life is but vain without glitz!

ON ANNIVERSARY OF THE INVENTION OF THE BIKINI, NEWS MEDIA RUNS PLENTY OF EYE CANDY FOR ONCE

An engineer named Mr. Reard

Invented bikinis and cleared

A path for decay

In man’s moral way --

As modesty sure disappeared!

UTAH'S ICONIC SPIRAL JETTY CONTINUES TO DETERIORATE, AS FEW SIGHTSEERS WANT TO TACKLE A TRACKLESS WASTE TO GET TO IT

The Mormons settled Great Salt Lake because their God had spoken;

He wanted them to leave a world too wicked and quite broken.

After many years gone by the landscape still was bleak,

And only crazy artists roamed from peak to salty peak.

One of them a jetty built; his goal remains opaque --

It draws but very meager crowds of tourists to the Lake.

I, too, am quite possessed by art -- the art of words, that is.

But I won’t travel to the Lake -- it gives my hair a frizz.

If you would like to see my work, it’s chiseled in the Cloud --

Where all the little blogsites go that never get endowed.

BERLIN PROTESTERS TRY TO SHUT DOWN G20 SUMMIT BECAUSE THERE'S TOO MUCH MONEY IN THE WRONG HANDS (MEANING NOT THEIRS) 

G20 now meets in Berlin

While protesters make the place spin.

They think that the goods

Those financial hoods

So constantly chisel are sin.

Headlines & Verse. Thursday. July 6. 2017.

TRUMP TURNS BACK ON EUROPE, SO CHINA SNEAKS IN TO SAY "HELLO DERE!"  

The vacuum that Trump has conceived

Has left Europeans quite peeved.

To fill in the gap

A byzantine chap

Named Xi is politely received.

STATE LEGISLATURES INCREASING RESTRICT GRASS ROOTS DEMOCRACY IN LARGER CITIES

The cities that overstep bounds

Make state bureaucrats cry out “Zounds!”

A liberal town

Produces a frown --

So lawmakers send out the hounds.

VENEZUELA FILMS NEW THREE STOOGES FILM DURING 
PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE 

They say down in humid Caracas

“Those bastardos just want to mock us!”

To congress they go

To quietly show

“What happens when you try to fock us!”

COMMENT:  from Karla Zabludovsky, reporter at BuzzFeed --  "Excuse me?"

 OFFICE OF GOVERNMENT ETHICS NEEDS A NEW BOSS: THE OLD ONE JUST QUIT BEFORE THE VERY IDEA OF ETHICS IN GOVERNMENT IS BRANDED 'UNPATRIOTIC'

When ethics and D.C. collide

There’s little enough left, outside

Of circling dust

And scruples of rust,

That settle upon the wayside