Headlines & Verse. Sunday. June 25. 2017

HOMEMADE SLIME IS BIG BUSINESS FOR AMBITIOUS KIDS -- ALL YOU NEED IS ELMER'S GLUE AND BORAX

I’d rather not make any rhyme

About the concocting of slime.

It makes me quiver

Like slabs of raw liver --

I’ve got better use for my time!

ECOMMERCE THREATENS RETAIL JOBS WITH EXTINCTION

I wonder what happened to clerks

At stores where the shopping had perks --

Like they knew your name

and where from you came --

Now Amazon over all lurks.

WANT TO TOUR NORTH KOREA THIS SUMMER? HOPE YOU LIKE JAIL FOOD!

When traveling North in Korea

You’ll go in a new Black Maria.

All tourists are hailed

And cheerfully jailed,

And probably dine on urea.

TRUMP BLOWS OFF MUSLIMS BY REFUSING TO HOLD TRADITIONAL WHITE HOUSE RAMADAN DINNER

A President missing a dinner

For Moslems or Christians or sinner

Has passed up a shot

At grub piping hot --

How CAN such a man be a winner?


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MAIL ART CALL.

Project title:  “What I Saw at the Circus”

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

650 West 100 North  #115

Provo Utah 84601  USA

Photo Essay: Fresh Market Foods. Provo

I love wandering through grocery stores, especially on a Sunday morning when the aisles are either ghostly clear or cluttered with new inventory. I find it easy to celebrate God's bounty in a supermarket.

The shopping cart was invented by Sylvan Goldman for his Oklahoma City Piggly Wiggly customers in 1937.

Their onsite bakery uses only prepackaged and premeasured ingredients, I know; but for a guy without a car like me it means warm bread and fresh donuts every day. The store is a block from my apartment.

Not an endorsement, but I'm a sucker for these gut shots. They remind me of the pickle juice I used to drink straight out of the jar from my mother's refrigerator -- it would drive her crazy to find half a dozen pickles in dry dock because I'd drained all the juice.

A vista of endless abundance -- to me just as magnificent as a panoramic view of the Grand Canyon

Yet even in paradise there are pitfalls for the unwary

I bought pork chops from the quick sale pile once. I'll never do it again. 

 Must be time for their Swimsuit issue

The faceless taking of my money -- another blessing of modern technology

Margie has worked at Fresh Market for six years. She likes the early morning shift, cuz the customers are all regulars and the store is quiet. But she wishes she didn't have to work Sunday mornings.

A box of tortilla chip bags

A parking lot on Sunday morning is a lonesome place

At the back of the store they crush cardboard boxes together, to ship to recycling plants in China

"A very important aspect of properly observing the Sabbath concerns shopping on Sunday. Unfortunately, many commercial businesses and establishments are open on Sunday. The world sees no conflict in Sunday shopping. But we of the Church have been counseled and taught by prophets to keep ourselves “unspotted from the world.” We should not shop on Sunday."    

Earl C. Tingey 

New Mail Art Call

MAIL ART CALL.

Project title:  “What I Saw at the Circus”

Work in all mediums accepted.
There is no entry fee.

Deadline:  December 29, 2017

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

650 West 100 North  #115

Provo Utah 84601  USA

Headlines & Verse. Saturday. June 24. 2017

CONEY ISLAND 'CYCLONE' TAMER RETURNS FOR NOSTALGIC VISIT

The only cure for gridlock blues is roller coaster riding.

It gives a guy the feeling that through troubles he is gliding.

Nothing beats the heady breeze as on the track you scoot --

It’s enough to drive a man to give up his commute!

Alas, I’m now too old upon those rides to gaily weave --

Otherwise my hotdog I will positively heave!

U.S. SENATE REPUBLICANS CLAIMING NEW HEALTHCARE BILL FAVORS THE DISADVANTAGED -- INSURANCE EXPERTS RETORT 'DREAM ON, LUNKHEADS.'

Whenever a lawmaker cries

That poor folk are his dear allies,

I have to suspect

There is some defect

That makes him embrace such huge lies.

JOHNNY DEPP SUGGESTS ASSASSINATING TRUMP -- HIS FANS TELL HIM TO TRY IT HIMSELF FIRST

A ham actor named Johnny Depp

Took a career ending step.

His unthinking talk

Put him in dry dock --

I’d not give you shite for his rep . . .

ANCIENT NATIVE AMERICAN POTTERY WAS BAD FOR THEIR HEALTH -- AND MAKING IT CREATED GREEN HOUSE GASSES LONG BEFORE AUTOMOBILES

The ancients weren’t so innocent of cooking up pollution --

Bitumen coated vessels show their culpable collusion.

Their carbon footprint moccasins were just as stained as ours,

Even though they didn’t drive around in swanky cars.

So when I start my lawnmower I now feel lesser guilt,

Knowing shards of pottery are tainting lots of silt!

Henry David Thoreau

TWIN CITIES MINIMUM WAGE TO BE SET AT FIFTEEN AN HOUR, DESPITE PLEAS FROM LOCAL SMALL BUSINESS'

When I was but a simple youth I worked a job or two --

Al’s Breakfast had me bus the counter, wiping grease and goo.

At the House of Hanson there were boxes to break down --

A boy could earn a couple bucks at work in Dinkytown.

A dollar and a quarter was the standard wage back then

For kids who came in after school (and all the ‘fremmed’ men.)

I rode my bike or walked to work -- and lived at home as well.

My earnings were munificent --my bank account did swell.

Today I understand that wages have sunk far below

What it took at Walden Pond for cheapskate H. Thoreau.

Fifteen bucks an hour sounds extravagant to me --

But then, I live on pork and beans through Social Security . . .

NURSING HOME RESIDENTS TO BE ABANDONED BY MEDICARE

There was an old woman of Kent

Who couldn’t pay nursing home rent.

When asked, Medicare

Suggested fresh air --

And offered to buy her a tent.

Photo Essay: Deseret Industries. Provo.

Deseret Industries was started in Salt Lake City in 1938. The Provo Store opened in 1959.

When I moved to Provo in 2013, one of the first places I visited was Deseret Industries on North State Street. Having traveled extensively with the circus for over thirty years it is my considered opinion that there are no better managed thrift stores in the United States. As a young impoverished clown at Ringling, I bought my clown costumes at thrift stores -- since I couldn't afford a professional seamstress.

                         The store in Provo is always busy, from 10 to 10, Monday thru Saturday. 

Some people are squeamish about wearing other people's clothes and shoes. Me, I haven't bought a new pair of pants or a shirt in the past 15 years. These slippers cost one dollar. 

Groupings are utilitarian

Knickknacks and do-dads abound. Nothing costs over a dollar.

Wedding dresses are next to the book section. I never leave DI without buying at least on book.

Most of the toys are broken or missing a piece. 

The only employee uniform is a bright red apron.

The place has a lot of 'found art,' if you're looking for it 

They used to have a large and intriguing selection of used neck ties, but no more. Why don't people donate old neck ties anymore? What else do they do with them?

This guy picked up several boom boxes, nothing else.

I bought one book -- a bio of Thomas Paine -- one small clown statuette, and one porcelain clown mask, suitable for hanging. The total was $3.50. As a non-profit, they aren't required to collect sales tax.

I missed my bus connection on State Street, so I killed another 20 minutes back inside DI. That's when I saw this glass clown statue in their Collectibles section. I bought it for ten dollars. Fine detail work.

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MAIL ART CALL.

Project title:  “What I Saw at the Circus”

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

650 West 100 North  #115

Provo Utah 84601  USA

A little loafing

When the old Ringling clown Swede Johnson was told by his doctor to hang up his orange fright wig and baggy pants and take it easy, he told the medico "If I can't make people laugh anymore what the hell good am I?" As my own osteoarthritis has progressed and robbed me of my slapstick abilities, I, too, have wondered the same thing. But in my case I have been blessed to discover a second career as a humor writer. So I can still bring out a few grins here and there -- thanks to the Internet.

But writing humor is not easy -- and, in my case, not always successful. It takes a lot of woolgathering, and sometimes the results are not all that good. So I wonder if I'm wasting my time, and the time of those kind hearts and gentle people who read my stuff.

Reading in a religious study manual the other day, I came across a quote that heartened me and reassured me that the pursuit of laughter, in any form, is not a sin or a vice. I'd like to share it with you here, along with my poetic response:

“A little play and a little loafing are good.”

Gordon B. Hinckley

I’m glad the prophets understand my need for deep repose.

It takes a heap of dreaminess to write a little prose.

To read and nap and fry an egg, then look up at the sky --

Is not the vice of slothfulness, but helps my spirit fly.

Afflicted with the vision that the world deserves a smile,

I look for quiet whimsy to cheer up the second mile.

So if my foolish impulse plants a grin upon your face,

I’m hoping God accepts my immobility with grace.  

Gordon B. Hinckley

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MAIL ART CALL.

Project title:  “What I Saw at the Circus”

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

650 West 100 North  #115

Provo Utah 84601  USA