Bee’s Knees

This is an utterly delightful young woman who was born Brittany but has chosen to be Bee. She is a staff member at PIP Coffee & Clay, where I do pottery-making frequently.

True to her name, Bee is always busy, at the pug mill or in the kiln room, helping potters and keeping things flowing. Her philosophy of life is “Relax and be kind.” She would have fit right in at Woodstock, though it occurred long before she was born.

But what truly endears me to Bee is that she proudly displays a visual pun in the form of tattoos just above her knees. And the Bee’s Knees is such an apt description of this delightful lady. Long may she buzz!

ICAD 2023, day 3: Q&A

Q: What do you call a Personal Check that has crossed an Event Horizon? A: A voided check. (Thanks for reading my Bad Pun of the Day, all!)

BPBTC, First of November

Friends, I had another Bad Pun Brain Teaser contest on Facebook.. I will not reveal the answer here, but it is on my Facebook timeline. What I will do is pose the question and then reveal the prize I’ve made for the winner.

Ed was on a special blind date, with special instructions. He had a young, talking rubber tree in a pot that was easy to carry. As he walked toward his Blind Date rendezvous the tree kept saying to passers-by “Nice hat, Sweetheart” or “Have a wonderful day in that great-looking suit, fella” or “Heaven just called. They want you back, Angel.”

Ed’s date was easy to spot. She was at a table at the Alfresco Bistro and the lovely bonsai she had brought had just told the server, “You look dapper indeed, Sir.”

“Marcia?”

The young lady stood and said, “Hello, Edward. Very nice to meet you.” She gestured to the tree. “This is for you.”

Her bonsai said, “Yippee! I know I’m going to like you, Ed. And you can call ME Ed if you want. Two Eds are better than one!”

Ed smiled and said, “Thanks, Other Ed, I will.” He then placed the rubber tree next to Marcia’s chair. “I hope you like him, Marcia.”

In a smooth, Morgan-Freeman-reassuring voice the rubber tree said, “I can tell we’ll get along famously, my dear Marcia.” And Marcia smiled.

Friends, this scene may seem bizarre, but with the help of a Bad Pun it becomes something that happens all the time on blind dates. What were Ed and Marcia doing?

First correct answer will get an original drawing of the blind date scene, including the talking plants.

Congrats again to Scott, and here’s a heads-up, Friends: I intend before the end of the month to conduct a Bad Pun Brain Teaser Contest on this blog! 🙂

weather tizz no blur

In Facebook is a poetry group called Poets All Call. My friend Joe posts a weekly challenge for the group. This weekend, he said he was out of ideas and invited us to write about the weather. I responded with “weather tizz no blur,” posted the poem on the group’s page, and then decided to add it to this blog, with notes following.

weather tizz no blur

wither on the vine we do
whithersoever we travel
why the whereas makes it so
waysayers try to unravel
we the thereuponned may ponder
wangle and wheedle and wage
when the river becomes absconder
wuthering highs disengage

but soft
are sheets
and sunshine’s welcomer
zenith and trough notwithstanding
when there’s cessation of storms
we shed sloth
seeking
an
outcome
outlanding.

*****

The title riffs on the “whether ’tis nobler…” phrase in Shakespeare’s famous Hamlet soliloquy. Hamlet is wondering whether or not he should fight against all his problems, or pack it in and end his life. I do have a penchant for punning–so did Shakespeare–but this pun served the additional purpose of relating Whether with Weather. Weather drives our Whethers. If it’s cold and rainy, we act differently than if it is warm and sunny. “weather tizz no blur” is a focused (no blur) look at the bottom vagaries (tizz as in Tizzy) of weather, both externally with atmospherics and internally with mood and decision.

I wanted to make the poem analogous to weather, so I made the first stanza a bit like a steady rain, with the starting sounds of each line bearing a similarity that toward the end of the stanza breaks up a bit. The challenge became the buildup of a meaningful passage, and my intuition led me to some legalese, what with “whithersoever” and “whereas” and “thereupon,” language found in contracts and proclamations, serving the dual purpose of being as droning as steady rain, and enabling specificity.

The second stanza differs from the first in the way that good weather follows bad, and the analogy disappears and becomes content, reviewing what we do when weather clears.

Friends, I hope your own inside-weather is pleasant and gently energetic, right as rain. 🙂

Alive, Well, and On a Pun-Fun Voyage

Mr. Herman Melville and I, it would seem, are brothers from other mothers.

In his highly-acclaimed novel Moby Dick, or The White Whale he unleashes one of the worst puns in human history, calling a cow whose two front hooves are stepping on discarded fish ‘slip-shod.’

Melville might claim that the opunions of Ishmael are not necessarily his own–but I know a Pun-Brother when I read one. 🙂

 

a Dart in time saves mine

I am known–some might say despised–for my horrible puns. One of the worst is in this narrative.

cantankerously unobstreperous: a double acrostic sonnet

cantankerously unobstreperous

curmudgeons may include him, her, and you
and dogs who howl and bay to fill the moon
not mentioning an undynamic duo
that carries on more frenzied than haboob
antagonism coexists with brothers
neanderthalic whims take to the street
kerfuffle ends, but soon will be another
euripedes was ofttimes indis-crete
rasputin took some hits, but none too deep
olivier became a drilling foe
upended abel’s brother was no keeper
soliloquizing hamlet sez hell/o
life reads as epic, wit reads like a senryu
you turn a scowl to grin–you pay your dues

Can you find the twelve curmudgeons in this sonnet?

Don’t bother, he said grumpily.

Psychosis Symphonic

As with a good deal of other human endeavor, this text-based image is a happy-accidental cacophony of One Thing Leads To Another, with an overlay of a consciousness trying to make sense of it all. What luck it was that “Psychosis” is choppable into equal three-character strings, and hey! so is “Symphonic!” And Wow–“Psy” names a pop star of Korean roots, and so does “Cho!” A lookup of “Sis” yields–WOW!!! “Secret Intelligence Service,” aka MI16!!!! And so forth.

Early on in this image I’d intended to ask a musically-gifted friend to compose the three ending bars of the Psychosis Symphony–but the crazy-minded flavor of my acrostics made the route I took here suit the subject more fittingly. There is just enough musical notation to frame the elements, and that is another happy accident.

“Psychosis” words:

Paste-effacement is no basis
Prawn-bowl cause could lead to stasis

Shown shorn wraiths of Anasazi
Sphagnums guest heat into ziti
Spared a tool with Luca Brasi
Scarfed aphasic Nefertiti

Yet heard echoes of glissandos
Yaw pitched metaphoric rondos

“Symphonic” words:

She’ll help with a hum/bello piñon
Suppress an oppressivish minion

You might hear from Lauper, Cyndi
Yearn & search for Don’t Bee koi
Yes, & werebeests’ hoped-for chindi
Yet may garnish fresh bok choi

Might need to enshroud a Jung maniac
Moo, Zeke! It’ll get downright zany, Mac

Dewey in the Midst of Erratic

Dewey is a rat, and a fun one at that; so says my replacement on the Graveyard Shift, who is Dewey’s human.

Why is Dewey in the midst of Erratic? Just my erRATic sense of play at humor, and vice versa.

Here are the words to the quintuplesque acrostic:

Histrionic nonmouse idling-whiskered bulby-eyed
Eats preys scampers madly–synchronicity gone wide
Let the record show and tell a rat’s lot’s tough and low
Loathsome inhumanity yields rocky rows to hoe
O for Pizza cheesy with a crust that’s not too doughy

(Dewey really does eat pizza.)

NaPoWriMo Poem for April Fourth

halving an oft day

i cot myself sheafing this mourning,
and then i tied trying my choose.
the popcorn yinyanged, its tao corning
as greensward gave berth to the blues.

went driveling oft to my woofplace
and clogged in presizedly at seven.
the cubic hold tolled off a jerkface
and bread had more film at a leaven.

then lungetime, and thyme to crees forehead,
the voice in my forehood felt faint.
it spoked of a spooklier warsaid,
and saintlier aintlier daint.

three churros for dayend dessertion
and laycheck in latent elation.
the clogout was functory whirr shun
width dogfood dude ken l. oration.

then holm and its dinned dear and moo vee
then biddybye with a comped banyan.
comp won and comped awl, slipping tubey,
an oft day not halved baaed to spannion.