Category: humor

haiku, humor, language

Innocence Lost & Mischief Found

Posted on by Mellow Curmudgeon
Tweaking a wistful response to an earlier challenge in a different series yields a response to

that defers to Canada’s retention of British spelling.  (One of the tweaks was to replace color by colour.)  Being deferential does not suit me, so I revert to US spelling in some new mischief at the end.

When colour computer displays came in, I was jolted to see that a yellowish green and an orangish red were now “primary” for RGB coordinates of coloured pixels.  I also had to use CMYK coordinates for coloured inks and pray to the graphics gods that printing software would translate from RGB to CMYK in a way that respected how something looked.  My prayers were seldom answered.  Eventually, I learned to put away childish things (like hard copy).

Before Colours Went RGB
|Red, yellow, and blue
|were “primary” when kids
|smeared paint on paper.

RYB-triangle_700x619

I am all too aware of several ways that Canada is more sensible than the USA.  I used one of the less important ones to balance a little mischief about one small way the USA is more sensible:

Color in 6 Letters
|Some folks spell it with a U.
|On my honor, they sure do.
|Hour and sour I can buy;
|misspelled humor makes me cry.
|You stayed loyal to the Crown?
|Gotta press that U key down!
|I’m a proud Yank but confess
|that our anthem is a mess,
|sung as if we never heard:
|yeh-et really ain’t a word.

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2
humor, language, philosophy, photography

Don’t Sweat the Meaning of Life

Posted on by Mellow Curmudgeon
Your life and mine are not arbitrary symbols used by a third party to communicate with a fourth party.  Don’t let sweating “the meaning of life” interfere with living.
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While pondering “the meaning of food” is rare, pondering “the meaning of life” is common.  Deservedly?  Buckle up and enjoy the ride.

§1: Colors

Meanings are tricky.  Colors provide a simpler way to explore some of the relevant ideas.

§1.1: What Color is the Number Six?

The question heading this subsection is nonsense.  Many different kinds of thing have colors, but numbers don’t.  Making sense is harder than just having sensible-looking syntax.

One of the ways that philosophy made substantial progress in the past century was the realization that some “deep” questions could be as nonsensical as the one heading of this subsection.  Determining which ones are really deep will take a while.  Nonsensical questions may sometimes be failed attempts to pose serious questions that would be more tractable with better wording, so some nonsense may deserve more sympathy than the heading of this subsection.

§1.2: What Color is the US Flag?

Flags do have colors, but the question heading this subsection is still nonsense.  The US flag is red, white, and blue.  While mostly red, the Chinese flag also has some yellow.  How many nations have flags of just one color?

Nobody is silly enough to speak of “the” color of a nation’s flag, but people often do fall into the trap of speaking of “the” thingamajig when there are in fact several relevant thingamajigs.  I posted 4 varied examples (and there are many more).

It does make sense to say that white is the color of the stars in the US flag, that green is the color of the fake foliage in my Xmas wreath, and so on.  But look at the ribbon on my wreath:

closer_crop_840x485

The color I see at any place on the ribbon is intricately context-dependent.  Where is the light coming from?  Where am I standing?  While the solid red ribbons on other wreaths are easier to describe, my iridescent ribbon is prettier to see.

§2: Words

Mole

© tunedin123 | 123RF Stock Photo
(Image has been cropped.)

The word mole has utterly different meanings in chemistry, dermatology, and espionage.  Even if we suppose it makes sense to attribute a meaning to life, pondering “the” meaning of life may still be like pondering “the” color of the US flag, “the” color of an iridescent ribbon, or “the” meaning of mole.

Like mathematical notations (and many hand gestures), words are arbitrary symbols with enough consensus about what they mean to support use in communication.  Who uses life to say what to whom?

I posted 4 imagined responses by an old Yankee to a novice philosopher’s bloviations; one of the responses is

Wehrds need meanings; life don’t.

§3: How to Live

Your life and mine are not arbitrary symbols used by a third party to communicate with a fourth party.  Maybe some concerns about “the meaning of life” are poorly worded concerns about how to live.  Preferring the workable to the grandiose, I go with a simple short list:

  • Try to have some fun.
  • Try to do more good than harm.
  • Don’t sweat “the meaning” of it all.
9
fiction, humor

Weird Works Wanted in 2019

Posted on by Mellow Curmudgeon
If my excerpt from a call for submissions sounds interesting, please consider submitting a story or some poetry.  (Previously published work is OK if the author retained the rights.)  This post ends with visual hints about ways to be weirdly funny.
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If the following excerpt from a call for submissions sounds interesting, please don’t lament having missed the deadline in 2019.  The intrepid editors plan to put out an anthology of weird stories (or poems) each year.  (Previously published work is OK if the author retained the rights.)  This post ends with a few visual hints about ways to be weirdly funny.

The Writers’ Co-op invites submissions of short stories (and poems) for the second edition of our yearly anthology, The Rabbit Hole.  Volume one was released in November last year, volume two is scheduled for September 2019.

This year, we are looking for weird stories dealing with the following themes: entertainment, weather or science.  (If you want to combine all three, we’re very open to stories about a group of scientists on their way to the theatre when they’re caught in a freak snowstorm.)  However, there will also be a section Weird At Large for stories that don’t fit the specific themes suggested.

• • •

The deadline is 31st March 2019.  Submissions should be sent in an attached file to curtis.bausse(at)outlook.com with the subject ‘Co-op submission’.  They may have been previously published on personal websites (or elsewhere) but authors must have full rights to them when submitting.  Authors will retain said rights after the story or poem is published in the Writers’ Co-op anthology.

The call for submissions describes the many kinds of weirdness suitable for the anthology.  While definitely not required, humor is encouraged.  For visual hints about ways to be weirdly funny (and sometimes thought-provoking), those whose memories of works like the classic Far Side cartoons by Gary Larson have faded can look at some of the Bizarro cartoons by Dan Piraro.  The following images are also links to the pages where they appear and are discussed:

Bizarro_girm-reaper-gondolier

Bizarro_road-sign -tropies

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flowers, haiku, humor, love, philosophy, photography

Gift of Silence

Posted on by Mellow Curmudgeon
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Words ~ Pic and a Word Challenge

As Susie left home to start a new life with Dale, her mother watched and wondered.  Would the mixed marriage work?

Aware that sharing her worries would be unwelcome and unheeded, Mama let her words of warning remain unspoken and unheard.

susie-dale-mama_840x598

Wisely,  Mama kept silent despite having words to say.  Unwisely, some people run afoul of Wittgenstein’s Laws by breaking silence despite not having any sensible words to say.

Memo to Mystics
|Unless you can grab
|bubbles, you cannot put your
|wisdom into words.

soap-bubbles

4
haiku, humor, photography

Are U Lookin’ At Me?

Posted on by Mellow Curmudgeon

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Farm Animals

are-u-looking-at-me_840x537

No, this cow did not lose an argument with a bucket of white paint.  Belted Galloway cattle are bright white in the middle, with either brown or black fore and aft.  The white is usually in a neat band, much like the rust-colored band on a woolly bear caterpillar.  Maybe this cow’s sloppy band comes from too much time in a certain pub.

What the World Needs
|More silliness from
|those who know they are silly;
|less from the others.

3
growing old, haiku, humor, philosophy

Old Age is a Mixed Bag

Posted on by Mellow Curmudgeon
Yet again, classical literature says something complex and important, while leaving much for later generations to discover and say.  For now, I will shut up after 2 haiku.
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Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #61
a new feature for the weekend … introduction

calls for Japanese-style poetry inspired by an excerpt from Plato.  (An excerpt from the excerpt appears below.)  Yet again, classical literature says something complex and important, while leaving much for later generations to discover and say.  For now, I will shut up after 2 haiku.

Plato-CDHK

“… the pleasures of youth and love are fled away: there was a good time once, but now that is gone, and life is no longer life.”

“… when the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are freed from the grasp not of one mad master only, but of many.”

“… for he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden.”

“… I rather suspect that people … think that old age sits lightly upon you, not because of your happy disposition, but because you are rich, and wealth is well known to be a great comforter.”

Fond Memories
|Nostalgia for
|what never was (nor could have been):
|old man dreams of sex.
|
Still Standing
|Mellow curmudgeon
|shrugs off fate and stands proudly
|paradoxical.
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fiction, humor, photography

Wondrous Weirdness — Why Am I Here?

Posted on by Mellow Curmudgeon
The first edition of a new yearly Writers’ Co-op anthology is a little like a great surrealist painting by René Magritte, and that helps answer the question posed by the subtitle.
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The subtitle’s question is rhetorical, not an ancient conundrum.  Nearly all of the prose I read or write is nonfiction.  Why am I posting (for the third and final time) about a book of weird stories rather than about something in the endlessly fascinating Real World?

The tweetable answer begs the question.  Sure, I wrote one of the 35 stories.  (Click here to see blurbs for some of them.)  But why did I get involved in a substantial fiction project?  The answer is some nonfiction weirdness.

The call for submissions grabbed me in 2 ways:

  • Contributors could opt (as many indeed would) to have their shares of any royalties donated to the Against Malaria Foundation.
  • While weird things are often disturbing (when not merely weird), the call was emphatic about the possibility of being weird and funny (or even weird and funny and disturbing, all at once).

Hmmm.  Could some of the stories in this anthology be simultaneously weird and funny and thought-provoking?  Could they be a little like some of the best surrealist paintings?  The following photo doubles down on the idea behind a great painting by René Magritte:

gecko-not_840x1212

Seduced by the call for submissions, I took up the challenge of revising a fragment of weird fiction from a discussion of several poems (and comments) that involved various people, so as make a standalone short story that would be broader and even weirder.  After another revision in light of helpful comments from one of the editors (Atthys Gage), I believe that my story is good as well as weird.  It is also just 2 pages long, so even those who dislike it may still be glad they bought The Rabbit Hole for $2.99 as an e-book or $12.50 as an ink-on-paper book.

BTW, gecko lizards really can climb straight up hard, smooth walls.  Weird.  But they don’t speak with an Australian accent or tout insurance.  Not in this universe, anyway.

Providing a brief writer’s bio for the anthology prompted me to revise this blog’s grossly outdated About page.  The revised page has a new joke, a few links, and a nice photo.  A nice photo of me would be really weird, so the photo is of something else appropriate.

My other short forays into fiction are also weird.  Both are about an ancient Greek (but written in modern English): Plato watches baseball and copes with a hangover.

1
fiction, humor

Wondrous Weirdness — Worried Wabbit

Posted on by Mellow Curmudgeon
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Rabbit-Hole_Worried-Rabbit
Our little friend is worried.  Mistaken for Bugs Bunny by Elmer Fudd’s hired hit man, (s)he was on the run for a while.  There was no chance to pause for rational thought about whether to get the prerelease discount on The Rabbit Hole by ordering the e-book before 2018-11-01.  Yes, being big on rationality is weird for a rabbit.  Some weirdness rubbed off when (s)he posed for the cover of the book, but there is still plenty inside.

The upside of ordering early is that (s)he could save $1; the downside is that (s)he would be trusting promotions like my previous post.  Should (s)he wait for a chance to use something like [Look Inside] on Amazon?  After release, the e-price would still be low at $2.99, and the ink-on-paper version would be an option at $12.50.  Decisions, decisions.

Maybe our little friend will feel better after reading blurbs for some of the 35 stories, ordered as in the book:

  • Foggy
    A father and daughter’s boating trip is ambushed by a mysterious, underwater tormentor.
  • I Should’ve Known Better
    There’s just one thing wrong with his beautiful luxury apartment: it’s a transdimensional portal.  Will the Flying Demon Things get him before he gets one of the centaur Babes?
  • The Scroll and the Silver Kazoo
    You never know who (or what) will show up at an open mic event.
  • Quicksilver Falls
    A mysterious phenomenon puts the future of the world in the hands of a simple Indiana farmer and sparks the world’s strangest writing competition.
  • Satori from a Consulting Gig
    Management consultant Frank Dow has a new client: God.
  • The Adventures of Conqueror Cat
    Herr Trinket (a sharp-eyed and even sharper-tongued shelter cat) traverses an interdimensional rabbit hole into poochlandia to explore the enduring dog-cat dichotomy.
  • Eggs On End
    Claudia had a secret: she was ordinary – agonizingly, mind numbingly ordinary.  But all that was about to change.  And it would all begin with eggs.
  • Life Changing
    Lawrence decides to exercise his brain to avoid his Alzheimer-stricken mother’s fate, but when his life twists beyond recognition, he can’t escape the possibility that lost minds must be somewhere.
  • Carolina Brimstone
    The passion of the zealot is proportional to the power of the demon inside.  Constance Hennfield’s fervor knows no bounds.

 

3
humor, philosophy, photography

Novice Philosopher Meets Old Yankee

Posted on by Mellow Curmudgeon
The novice bloviates.  Maybe people he has not met yet will try to set him straight.  They might say pretty much what the Yankee says, while making the points in ways that are gentler, longer, and subtler.  But not as funny.
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… Why are we here? …

‘Cuz wer nawt theyah.

… What is the meaning of life? …

Wehrds need meanings; life don’t.

What happens when an irrestible force meets an immovable object?

We lehrn who was lyin’: the fellah sellin’ a fawhrs or the fellah sellin’ an awbject.
Hmmm.  Coulda been both.

Certainty is not exclusive to math and logic.
For example, no squirrel can get past the baffle on my bird feeder.

Ehyah??

squirrel_840x636

 

5
fiction, humor

Wondrous Weirdness — Prerelease Discount

Posted on by Mellow Curmudgeon
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The first volume in a new Writers’ Co-op anthology series will be released on 2018-11-01:

Rabbit-Hole_840x1267

An e-book version can be preordered now by clicking on the image and then clicking on the button for your platform.  On the release date, the e-price will rise from $1.99 to $2.99.  There will be good news then also: oldsters like me will be able to buy the physical ink-on-paper version from Amazon.

For 3 of the 4 platforms reached from the link to The Rabbit Hole, the platform’s page has a nice summary of the contents and spirit of the anthology:

How do you like your weirdness?  A subtle nudge towards the untoward?  A quick zap of zany?  Or a full-on assault of aberration?  Whatever your taste, you’ll find it here, and many more strains of strange that you didn’t suspect existed.  From magic rain to a talking (severed) head, extraordinary eggs to belligerent birds, the stories in this collection enter the rabbit hole to explore its hidden corners and winding ways.  Through all the variety, what they have in common is originality, creativity and fine writing.

While I will wait for hard copy before reading the whole thing, I really have read several of the stories (not just the one I contributed).  I solemnly swear (or affirm) that the following paragraph is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

The Rabbit Hole‘s first edition has 35 diverse selections by 35 authors.  Anybody with a taste for weirdness has a good chance of finding some things they like.  Moods are as varied as lengths, which run from 1 to 17 pages (with 7.6 as the average).  There is humanity and humor as well as some darkness and much weirdness.

2
flowers, humor, photography

Vibrant Synergy

Posted on by Mellow Curmudgeon

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Vibrant Colors

I like the synergy when a few good things up their game by working together, as with peanuts and chocolate.  When they do not clash, bright colors can work together in vibrant synergy.

Pink and Green:

IMG_2223_840x592

Magenta and Yellow (with a bee):

purple-yellow_840x825

With help from blue and green, the pink and yellow flowers in the following photo team up to illustrate a deep truth about statistics.  Really.

Outside of CFFC, I posted the photo along with a beautiful image found on the web that espresses the same deep truth in another way.  Both ways have no equations, no jargon, and no saturated fat.  Click on the photo to see the details.

daff_pink-rebel._Yellow-10_840x960

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– above post (on phone) or beside it (on desktop). –
4
food, humor, language, photography

Lime Time

Posted on by Mellow Curmudgeon
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The color word lime is used for many light or yellowish kinds of green.


Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Lime or Light Green

New leaves often display a version of lime.

lime-leaves_fix_840x1214

 
Actual limes display several versions of lime on the outside and …

lime-light_840x630

 
… yet another version on the inside.

lime-face_840x840

Got tequila?

Dry Margarita

A bottle of premixed margaritas is convenient, but the contents are too sweet for me.  To get a drier margarita with minimal mixological effort, I use roughly equal amounts of premixed margarita and dry white wine.  Tho admittedly not a world-class margarita, the result is a good no-fuss drink.

3
flowers, humor, photography

Threesome of Floral Threesomes

Posted on by Mellow Curmudgeon
In response to challenge with the word [threesome], here is a threesome of floral threesomes that pushes the envelope of what flower pix can illustrate.
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One Word Sunday — Threesome

As Susie left home to start a new life with Dale, her mother watched and wondered.  Would the mixed marriage work?

susie-dale-mama_840x598

Other floral threesomes can illustrate a poem and a point that go beyond flowers.  The following images link to earlier posts that use them.  Can U guess what the posts are about before clicking on the images?

I used 3 clusters of rhododendron blossoms to illustrate an abstract haiku.

Rhodo_928x599

In about 40 yrs of making bouquets from the many daylilies in my yard, how often have I seen 3 flowers blooming on just 1 stalk?  Exactly once, on the left in this bouquet.

3-on-1
With 3 separate stalks, the commonplace floral threesome on the right is a freebie, beyond what my title promises.  Buy 3; get 4.

8
humor, photography

Elmer’s Epoxy Epic

Posted on by Mellow Curmudgeon
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Cee’s Oddball Photo Challenge: 2018-08-12

dark-shards_840x671

? ? ? ?

What U see depends on when U look.
Here is the same detail under typical lighting:

blue-shards_840x671

A detail of what?
Scroll down to see the answer (image & text).

↓

↓

↓

↓

↓

Keep scrolling …

↓

↓

↓

↓

↓

↓

hide-baffle_840x866

A clever craftsperson repurposed some windows from an old house as suncatchers, with shards of colored glass held in place by clear liquid epoxy.  Alas, the epoxy components were not measured just right for the one I bought.  (It’s difficult.)  Sticky gunk oozed from cracks and seams after a few weeks of exposure to hot sun.

An epic battle between Elmer’s Glue and the rogue epoxy ended in victory for Elmer.  On one side of the suncatcher, a thick coating of glue was needed in some places.  I added more to make a whimsical mix of clear and cloudy, roughly 50-50.  The ratio is not so critical as when mixing epoxy.

My suncatcher is a good size for hiding the squirrel baffle above my hanging bird feeder, and it has withstood years of hot summer sun w/o having any gunk get past Elmer.  On the other hand, a few squirrels have gotten past the baffle.

5
humor, photography

Navajo Rug

Posted on by Mellow Curmudgeon
Four of the eleven items specified in a CFFC challenge are sitting on a Navajo rug.  Glad I do not need everybody in one photo.  It’s a small rug.
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Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Week 1 Photo
geometry, bushes, window, brick, etc

Four of the items mentioned in this challenge are sitting on a small Navajo rug:

NavajoRug_840x682

Geometry, bushes, window, brick, curtain, green, tan, wall, building, dark red, tree

Glad I do not need everybody in one photo.
As I said, it’s a small rug.

1