Metamorphosism » ferner liefen

What is my art

mig — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 15:01:27 +0000

Cat with only slight halitosis
wakes you up in the middle of the night
licking your beard as you remember
how happy you were when she finally came home
one cold winter after being missing for weeks
and everyone else gave up but you didn’t
and one night she just scratched on the door
like before and you let her in
skinny and dirty and sick
with a variety of parasites
and she keeps licking your beard
with little grunting noises mixed in with the purring
you wonder which parasites they were
you think of all the sick mice she probably ate
on her heroic snowy winter trek home
and probably still eats and she licks and licks
licks and grunts and licks, pure love.

I had one of those dreams in my head when I woke up.
One of those *bam* dreams
that would change your life
if only you could recall one or two fuzzy things
I was talking to a baby that was also older than a baby
it looked like a drawing I made of Beta when she was a baby
so, basically a baby with curly fine light baby hair
but underneath that darker straighter older hair
and the baby said goo-goo ga-ga stuff for a while
but then it also said, and I quote,
“You have to decide what your art is.”
And art means art, but it also means (in German) “kind” or maybe “essence”.
I told people about the baby, in the dream
and they all said, no, the baby doesn’t say goo-goo ga-ga it talks
the baby can talk.
And I said, yeah, I know.
And I woke up feeling it all through my body

All the best, people

mig — Wed, 25 Dec 2024 07:10:04 +0000

to all the best people
hope something good happens today
hope this day is good to you
maybe something expected
like my kid and i gave each other climbing equipment
we had shopped for together
maybe something unexpected
like the doctor saying
“want me to remove that malignant
growth from your face right now?”
instead of waiting til the end of
january
which lowered everyone’s worry
levels for the holidays
all the best to you
the leftover roast beef is delicious
all the best to you
my daughter gave us all framed
copies of our weirdest chats
my other daughter gave us pillows
she had sewn from beautiful
fabric she brought home from africa
all the best to you
the cats don’t understand why they can’t
lick my face
all the best to you
pancake batter is mixed
and waiting for someone
to wake up

Ford Tourneo Courier Ecoboost 1.0 Part III

mig — Fri, 08 Nov 2024 13:18:53 +0000

The screen has gone black / failed to come on upon starting, twice. Turning the car off and back on “fixed” it both times.
Now that weather is growing colder, the buttwarming front seats, and the heated steering wheel are nice, as is the heated windshield (at least until a piece of gravel hits it and I have to have it replaced) (nice because one does not have to scrape ice in the morning it just melts right off).

What an embarrassing time to be an old white man.
I have been a bit depressed and a bit grieving since the election and really have to summon extra self-control from somewhere to keep from ranting. But so far so good.

Alpha and I had goose with friends on Wednesday. That is, we went to the best restaurant in the next town with friends of ours, and ate roast goose, 2 kinds of dumplings, and red cabbage. I don’t know if the goose also had friends, possibly. The wine was good, and we also had some schnapps. They all sympathized with me.

The world, or the part I am familiar with, a part of the world that previously had some amount of respect (or even affection) for the United States (they were so happy for us when Obama was elected), is shocked that a legitimate clown and convicted felon made it this far.

Part of me is, too. But part of me knows Americans have always been like this.

Every Republican president during my lifetime was elected by the same people for the same reason – domestic war on the poor, on minorities, on women, on the left. That’s what Nixon’s War on Drugs was all about. The current gang is just a little more openly fascist.

I have some questions: Trump is old, ill and senile. He will die soon. How allegiant is his cult to him personally, and how much to those propping him up? What will a President Vance be like? What happens if Trump dies or is incapacitated before being sworn in? What happens if he is caught traitoring? What happens when those around him start fighting amongst themselves. What happens when those behind him start fighting (billionaires vs Russia vs Saudi Arabia vs China vs whatever)?

Here in Austria, the far-right party won the most votes in the recent election, but currently it looks like the other parties will refuse to form a coalition with them, which means they might not be in the government. Or, the conservative party might just be pretending, and could eventually say “whelp coalition talks failed so we are forced to coalesce with the rightists in the interest of stability in these unstable times.”

Anyway, as the party with the most votes, the president of parliament (Rosenkranz) is from the far-right party, which makes many people unhappy. Today he attempted to lay down a wreath at a memorial for pogrom victims in Vienna but was blocked by a Jewish students group who oppose him etc. He asked the police to move them so he could access the memorial (but they did not). Austria’s (at the moment) best newspaper, “Die Tagespresse” (a satirical newspaper similar to The Onion) then reported, “In memory of the November pogroms, Rosenkranz orders police to move Jews out of the way”.

There is a saying in German, “Die Lage ist hoffnungslos, aber nicht ernst.” (The situation is hopeless, but not serious.) I think, since fascists depend on fear, it is important to maintain a sense of humor and creativity and never stop pointing out what clowns they are.

When possible and you are not going to be murdered for it etc.

Anyway. Did I say the goose was good? It is easy to make goose tough and stringy and dry, but this was perfect.

First review of Ford Tourneo Courier 1.0 Ecoboost

mig — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 18:47:15 +0000

We picked it up today and drove it home past what we later found out was a tornado and out to lunch and then I went shopping with it, more rain, and then we drove it back to the dealer to return the 2nd key from the Kia we traded in and pick up the back support pillow I forgot in the driver’s seat of the Kia.
So not a lot of driving so far, maybe an hour total. I will submit further reviews here with additional impressions as they arise.
For the moment I am enjoying the bells and whistles and electronic doodads and functions. I finally figured out the cruise control, for example, and am gradually getting used to the stay-in-your-lane function and the don’t-tailgate function, not to mention the you-are-exceeding-the-speed-limit alarm.
It also folds the outside mirrors in when you lock it, which is useful if you are someone with a tendency to check if you forgot to lock the door, because now you can see – if the mirrors are folded in you locked it.
When you turn the vehicle on, the radio comes on. When you turn the vehicle off, the radio stays on. Then when you open the door to get out, the radio turns off. I have had cars in the past that did similar things, but this is the first one that seems to do it by design and not because you haven’t found the loose wire yet.
Size-wise it resembles a Doblo, even looks more compact, but has a very roomy feel and there was plenty of room for all the nuts and dried fruit I bought at the supermarket today to make my own energy bars because energy bars are expensive!
Unfortunately dried fruit and nuts are also expensive, oh well.
Lastly, there is no CD player in the Ford, which I gather is normal now, so I guess I will have to bite the bullet and get going on a Spotify account or something.

Lunch at Altausseer See in Altaussee near Bad Aussee near Grundlsee

mig — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 19:42:45 +0000

Today, or yesterday (I am vacationing so my grip on time is more tenuous than usual) I was served a memory from a year ago, a picture of me with a butterfly tickling my nostril at the fish restaurant at Toplitzsee, where we go every year, or have gone each of the past five years, as we have fallen in love with the lake one lake over, Grundlsee, and the surrounding mountains, and other features of the landscape etc in the vicinity; however when we hiked to Toplitzsee for more fish this year the restaurant was closed since we made the mistake of going on a Tuesday and it’s closed Tuesdays, and the second time we went it was open and the fish was good but no butterflies, only mosquitos; likewise when we (in this case my daughter Beta and myself, my wife Alpha having returned home on Thursday to take care of the cats while Beta returned here (she had gone to our house a few days prior to replace her sister Gamma as catsitter because Gamma – who had been with me at Grundlsee at the beginning – was going to Innsbruck to give a presentation at a conference, and to climb in the climbing gym there, which is said to be the best in the world) went to Altausseer See in Altaussee, near Bad Aussee, which is one town over from Grundlsee, for a hike and lunch. While walking around the lake, which is pretty and amidst pretty landscapey views, we were a bit worried whether we would get a table at the place, a rustic restaurant on the bank of the lake, it being tourist season and Friday and noon, but we needn’t have worried because the place was about a third full, if that, when we arrived and we took an empty table and that is when the fun started (the hike had been fun too, except for one stretch with a lot of biting flies) because it seemed to be… New Waitstaff Day? or something? Like first I ordered a “Loser Bier” which is a brand of beer named after a nearby mountain, it comes in a bottle which is good for taking “funny” selfies, which I have been known to do; however, and maybe fortunately, the waitress (a different one from the one who had taken my order) brought a large glass of beer (ein großes Bier) and I was like, internally, all Who is hard of hearing here, you or me? but said nothing because I figured, more beer for the same price and probably the Loser beer selfies are getting old. Then, having studied the menu I asked her what a particular burger, named after the restaurant, was, i.e. was it just a regular burger or what? and she said Yes it was a regular burger. But when my food came it was a fish burger, which I discovered later, after she had gone yet I did not mention it to anyone because 1. fish burger was tasty 2. i figured maybe the burger I ordered, named after the restaurant, was indeed a fish burger not a regular burger and the new waitress who had gotten my beer order wrong had simply not known better. Later, after Gamma and I had eaten a waiter arrived with a regular burger and said, you were served a fish burger right? And I said Right and he said, But you didn’t say anything when it was served? And I said, no problem, just give me the regular burger too and he did and I didn’t know what the fuck was going on but it turned out I had to pay for both burgers apparently because I had failed to point out their incompetence to them immediately, which had not been possible for me because as I mentioned I had not been sure the fish burger was a mistake but I didn’t want to argue and paid; if I had started complaining to the guy I would still be there complaining, wrong beer, wrong burger, right burger not very good (too much filler in the patty), unfriendly blame-shifting waiter. So we paid and left. The waitress who took my money (the 4th waitstaff member to grace our table) had not been involved in any of the mistakes so I still tipped her, a decent tip by Austrian standards but a little paltry by American standards, sort of hit the sweet spot with the percentage, small enough so that it seemed on my end that I was penalizing them for their misdeeds, while large enough that they would not notice anything. Then we walked to our car and got there just as the first raindrops fell and by the time we got home thunder and lightning and lots of rain, it was great.

When are you going to do these?

mig — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 15:06:47 +0000

When are you going to do these?
My wife brandishes a sack of purple iris things and some other bulbs that she bought recently that i thanked her for buying.
On the weekend, I say, this not being the weekend, but Thursday, although I am home, having skipped work / opted to work from home due to the plausibility of a reaction from my 5th covid shot as an excuse.
It’s always the weekend, she says.
Which is true, I married a philosopher and she is retired now.
However I am drunk (and drunk gardening = risky), because we went to the bank today to negotiate a higher interest rate on my savings account after which we went for a walk along the Danube that ended abruptly at the Alpenverein with wine.
Abrupt and unexpected, but not unwelcome.
You only live once, so.
The problem is, i dunno.
Kid in a candy store problem, I guess.
In this abundant, beautiful world.
When there is so much to love.
Despite everything.

On tardigrades

mig — Sun, 02 Apr 2023 13:13:25 +0000

Upon waking this morning, I noticed that my mind was already working full bore, considering tardigrades. Specifically, wondering whether, if they are so good at surviving inhospitable environments, they survive the human digestive tract when accidentally (or, I suppose, purposely) eaten and if this is so, whether their number is growing to the extent that the proportion of tardigrades in our food is increasing such that, some day in the future, all of our food (and all of our poo) will be pure tardigrade. Or, I also wondered, would tardigrades elect to remain inside us, and if so, will they find a way to control our thoughts and actions? It is not an unrealistic outcome, considering how tardigrades, besides being extremely attractive and hardy, are also intelligent and wise beyond the limited ability of humans to comprehend and suitable leaders for this planet and all planets, without exceptionnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

Never leave without treats

mig — Fri, 30 Sep 2022 12:22:14 +0000

The ceiling fan turned slowly, as if a small, discouraged helicopter had turned upside-down and began to poke through from the apartment upstairs, but then accepted its fate and given up. The private detective’s office smelled like cheap tobacco, medium-priced whisky and expensive divorces and the afternoon light slicing through the dusty, half-open Venetian blinds gave everything a slicy, dusty look.
“So how’d you describe dem?” said the PI.
I glanced up from my phone, which I had briefly switched on to see if its recent vibration had been from an important notification or something ignorable like “you have achieved your stair-climbing goal” (I had exceeded it) but then fallen down a rabbit hole of short videos of animals that were normally sworn enemies interacting cutely, like a puppy riding around on a goose or a cat with a mouse on its head.
“He was covered with iridescent black feathers and had a slender head,” I said. “So I’m not sure if it was a he or a she or a young he or what.”
“Iridescent.”
“Yeah! It turns out the iridescence might be a way they tell each other apart, like an additional feature they notice. Which makes me wonder if we have an invisible iridescence, invisible to us, but that they can notice, because how do they recognize me otherwise, no matter what I’m wearing, even a hat or sunglasses, or a raincoat or carrying an umbrella? Once I was standing in the middle of about 25 of them and pulled a feather out of my inside suit pocket and showed it to them. No idea what I had expected, but not what I got. They all, like, startled, and took a couple steps back, and a few left altogether. Despite the treats I was giving them.”
“Treats? You sure they like them?”
“Well another one today came over with 2 peanuts in its beak and when it saw the treats it discarded the peanuts and took the treats.”
“This the first time you got mugged?”
“I’m not sure that’s what it was. I mean, ok. It felt… as if someone had hit me in the back of the head with a medium bird. Feathery, initially, but an instant later quite substantial, and moving at a good clip. Not just a flyby and whack you in the head with a wingtip thing.”
“Not.”
“No. Cause that happened too, months ago. Same street corner, in fact. Same perp too, most likely. At the time it felt like a ‘hello!’ or something, to get my attention, but now I’m not so sure.”
“Slender, iridescent etc etc,” said the PI.
“Yeah. I mean, he might’ve figured I was affiliated with the others invading his territory.”
“Mob thing?”
“For all I know I *was* affiliated with them. They did follow me around. Into his territory. I have no knowledge of corvid real estate law.”
“Yeah, makes sense, I see what you mean,” said the PI, and leaned back and put his feet on his desk. He put his hands, which I noticed were oddly-shaped, behind his head.
The back of my neck crawled. I felt a hunch coming on. Then a shoe fell off and a bird head stuck out of his pant leg and I was sure.
This was no human private eye, it was a bunch of crows in a “sexy private eye” costume you can order on the Internet.
My eyes scanned the room for a route of escape. I couldn’t egress via the fire escape, there would just be more out there.
I had to leave the way I had come, through the front door.
“So these treats,” the PI said.
I reached into the pocket of my overcoat and removed a handful. “These here,” I said.
The PI’s countenance took on a greedy aspect. I threw the treats to the floor and they rolled into a far corner of the room. Everything that happened after that is blurred in my memory. I lurched for the door while the detective dissolved into a swarming mass of iridescent black-feathered birds and attacked the still-rolling treats in a cacophony of caws and flapping wings.
To my shock and horror the door was locked. But luckily the key was in the keyhole and by turning it I was able to unlock the door and make my escape after all.
I slipped a few more treats through the mail slot in the door just to be nice before leaving.
“Never leave without treats,” I thought, “no matter where you are.”

The haunted doorbell

mig — Mon, 22 Aug 2022 08:21:49 +0000

this is the terrifying story
of the haunted doorbell
the weather here has been
real hot and dry
but lately it has been cooler and
wetter and today the
constant rain started
when the constant rain starts
i think of ray bradbury’s story
about astronauts on venus
in constant rain
the second thing that happens when
the constant rain starts
is our haunted doorbell starts
ringing
its creepy half-ring
my wife just called me at work
and said, it’s ringing again,
and she said, what should i do?
i said she should, first of all
put on rubber gloves.
i didn’t say, wait until i get home,
i said, put on rubber gloves, first of all.
then pry off the cover
there are no screws, it just pops off
but careful not to break it
then you want to unhook the two wires
there are two screws
loosen the screws but
don’t touch them
even with rubber gloves
nothing would happen, you would
just get a little shock
(a medium shock, in fact)
then when the screws are loose
pull out the wires
easy as that
she said she would wait until i came home
isn’t it too creepy, that
creepy haunted doorbell
half ringing all day?
i told her to call the guy
to look at the heating and he could
do the doorbell while he was there
she said, he’s a plumber not an electrician
but he could do two screws, i said
you can do it when you get home
she said

PV Technology

mig — Sat, 27 Nov 2021 22:01:14 +0000

So, after hating on technology for a good part of my life, we got photovoltaic panels on the roof and I really like everything about them so far. Even though it is winter they still generate a little power, even on a foggy day. Not much power (on a foggy winter day) but you could power a few lightbulbs or something like that. The system comes with an app, you log in to the website and apparently the system is telling the website how much power it is making etc because there is a neat little graphic that tells you how much you are producing, using, how much is going into the battery (and its level of charge) and how much is going into or coming out of the power grid. It’s very calming to watch.
The battery is nice because, if there is ever a black out we’ll have power for a few hours while society collapses around us.
Another impressive thing about the panels are roof avalanches (Dachlawinen in German). When it snows, like yesterday (doesn’t produce much power when covered in snow) the snow just sits there (if it’s wet snow, like yesterday) until the weather warms up to a little over freezing and then whammo it all slides off onto the sidewalk all at once.
We never had roof avalanches before today, because we have a tile roof that has a rough texture and that holds the snow more, that higher coefficient of friction. Wet glass, on the other hand… I went outside and saw the pile of snow on our sidewalk and was very relieved not to see little kid or old lady feet sticking out of it. We put up warning signs, and took them back down after all the snow had slid off the roof or melted.
Winter is going to be a bigger problem with our PV system than we thought.
(But it’s really cool.)

Big Time

mig — Thu, 11 Nov 2021 09:26:06 +0000

Ever since my COVID-19 booster shot I have been getting these epiphanies when I go near a transformer or an electric car drives past.
Like, listen, just now, recently, we woke up at, say, for example, eight but according to our phones it was only seven.
Our phones determine what time it is.
And our computers. And anything else, any other timepiece, that resets itself automatically. Or, more accurately, is controlled by someone else.
Time used to be a natural thing, man.
Then clock time was introduced, and natural time faded into obscurity except when various scientists would lock themselves into a dark cave and do whatever.
With clock time, clock time was a social construct, but it was something everyone had to agree upon and gave clockmakers a lot of power.
Now clocks, especially in cars and ovens, are at most butts of jokes. They’re always wrong, or they’re wrong half the time and then self-correct six months later.
Nobody cares about clockmakers. And I suppose remote-control clocks are a thing now, right? Never wrong.
All these remote control clocks – time is no longer a social construct, it is in the hands of Big Time. Big Time I will define here as “whoever resets the clocks”-
Daylight Savings, or this regular switching between winter and summer time, is absolutely pointless. When something looks pointless, ask yourself who benefits from it?
Big Time.
Daylight Savings exists to acclimate us to the idea that time is malleable, and not to freak out when it suddenly makes no sense. Indeed, to pay less attention to rubberized time and just… live with it.
Every six months, a big deal is made of this quality of time.
Time is precise, yet random.
You have to be at work by 8 o’clock sharp, and yet sometimes the day goes fast, sometimes it drags on and on and you are exhausted and feel like you have been at your desk or terminal or table or conveyor belt or whatever forever, for ten hours or 12 hours or whatever but you look at your watch and still have hours to go how can that be?
Well this is how it can be: Big Time is messing with your time to make you work longer without collecting overtime.
Eight hour day? Sure you can have an eight hour day. But we define what an hour is, and what eight means.
We used to have internal clocks.
Used to be, if I set an alarm clock I woke up a minute before it went off. That is a precise internal clock. (Maybe my alarm clock made a faint click a minute before it went off, and it was the click that was waking me, I never tested that… but for the sake of argument…)
Same thing – pets. Cats, and perhaps dogs and other species, some days they wake you up an hour, hours early, starvin'; other days you feed them at the agreed-upon time and they just look at it as if they were still full and ignore it until hours later and then refuse it because it isn’t fresh anymore.
At least cats.
Right?
This is because their internal clock is still accurate, and they are still in touch with it, and Big Time hasn’t gotten to them yet the way it has gotten to us.
There is only one way to deal with this and that is to take time back from Big Time. Take time back into our own hands. How do we do that?
You can’t trust anyone. Any central source of time – TV time, Internet – is under control of Big Time, you can assume. Even the dates printed on newspapers and magazines. All the same thing. You have to literally take time back into your own hands.
Physically. Democratic time is only possible when everyone makes their own clocks. This means, immediately, sun dials. Big Time does not control the sun. Astronomy and observing the migration of birds work for seasonal events, but nothing beats a sun dial for telling time. Except a clock you have made yourself. That is the ultimate goal – everyone learns to make their own clocks.
Before the advent of Big Time, one could argue for simply using analogue clocks, but with its tentacles in every pie, you can’t trust any source of time anymore – Big Time has certainly got to clockmakers now.
The only way around that is to make your own clocks. Go to Switzerland, hire on as an apprentice, how hard can it be? And until then, make a sun dial. It is relatively simple. Stick a stick into something, write numbers around it that the shadow of the stick hits, and depending on what number the shadow falls on, that’s what time it is – time is now back in your own hands. Easy peasy. Big Time is defeated, right when they thought they had us.

Pulp fiction and asymmetrical political debate

mig — Tue, 19 May 2020 09:28:55 +0000

My father was a Greyhound bus driver and used to bring home books he said he found on the bus. I read them when I got my hands on them, like any other printed matter in that 1000 square foot house at the end of a long driveway with nothing else to do but dig holes, run around in the woods, saw scrap lumber into smaller pieces, hammer nails and set things on fire.

I remember two books in particular. The most memorable concerned a sex robot and featured my first exposure to the use, in literature* of the gusto-sodden phrase, “fuck me, fuck me, fuck me!”

The second-most memorable had two details I remember: a high-powered rifle that could (and did) shoot through the engine block of an automobile and the walls of a house containing men shooting, for a while, out of the windows at the man with the rifle; and a black box everyone was trying their best to get.

The black box didn’t do anything. Intelligence agencies had their best scientists study it, but they couldn’t figure it out. It was obviously of value, because everyone was doing their best to get their hands on it. But scientists hit it with hammers, or ran energy into it but no matter what they did nothing came out, it didn’t do anything. It was a mystery.

(Spoiler alert) The black box was designed by the Russians to waste the time and resources of other countries’ intelligence agencies. It was a weapon designed to waste their time and resources.

I think about this book every time I log onto Twitter. In particular, every time I read the tweets of leftists, or liberals, especially people tweeting, “45 said a stupid thing” or “45 did something horrendous.”

As if pointing out his bad spelling or fundamental evil will have any consequences.

There are more productive or effective uses of your time. 45 exists to occupy you. To waste your time and resources. To divert you from those more productive or effective forms of protest and action.

__________
*or anywhere else

On the musical liberation of the pineal gland

mig — Wed, 27 Nov 2019 14:23:58 +0000

Ok.
So.
Apparently.
Apparently there is a genre of music on youtube, new-agey yogish, acupuncture-therapist-waiting-room-sounding meditative drony recordings, hours long, centering on one of a number of frequencies promising to help you release negative energy, liberate your pineal gland, or third eye, chakra healing, Kundalini something, increase brain power, attain divinity, and so on, depending on the frequency.
I’ve been listening to them at work because they are relaxing and don’t irritate my office-mate.
Today was pineal liberation day.
Pineal gland liberated, I went for my lunchtime stroll.
Report:
Three cars nearly hit me
and the crows shunned me (most of them).
A liberated pineal gland seems to create a force field that distracts drivers.
Or renders them homicidal.
And corvids are like,
Watch out! Kundalini energy! Forget this guy!
Hypothesis: the pineal gland was subjugated for a reason.
In the early days of human evolution
the forces of evolution gathered in the darkness
one said, we have to do something. About the pineus.
But they look so happy and relaxed and ten years younger, said another.
Yeah but they’re eventually going to invent cars and they’ll exterminate themselves, said the first.
(the forces of evolution looked like crows)
So, boom, subjugation of the pineal gland.

2019 metamorphosism.com international St. Valentine’s Day limerick contest

mig — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 09:42:59 +0000

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!!!
The 2019 metamorphosism.com Valentine’s Day Limerick Contest is now closed and we have a winner!
In the words of entrant KayO:

A blogger named Mig posed the query,
“Are limericks really so scary?
“A prize must be granted!”
His readership chanted
In unison, “Give it to Perry!”

Once again, on the basis of his exceedingly clever entries that spited all my efforts to complicate the process with sudden theme changes, poet Perry Iles takes the prize, which this year is one (1) unit of “4“, the new album by Orp, the ambient noise band I am in along with Horst. Perry, please send me your mailing address via the medium of your choice and I will get your prize in the mail ASAP. Congratulations Perry, and thanks to you and all the other entrants (i.e. KayO) for entering. See you again next year.

Welcome to the 2019 edition of the metamorphosism.com International St. Valentine’s Day Limerick Contest.
Please leave your entries in the comments to this post.
Enter as often as you like.
Please note the following: this year’s contest image, at the top, combines images of H.P. Lovecraft and Johnny Cash. This is because extra points this year will be awarded to entries that mashup two or more genres, such as country-western and horror, inspired by a recent social media meme and even a video of a woman singing ‘Jolene’ with Lovecraftian lyrics (I would post a link but the only link I can find goes to a Facebook post and I’m trying to reduce my FB usage).
Please also note that your entry needn’t state which genres you are mashing, but it should be obvious from the entry.
This year’s themes:
(Tough crowd this year.)
(Also check further down the rules for more specific prompts/themes)
World politics
Nutrition
Sex
Popular culture
Obsolete technologies

JEFF BEZOS’ SEXTS (I suggest mashing them up with science fiction and/or horror because I like low-hanging fruit, but genre choice is up to entrants)
LOVE AND SEX
HORROR,
APOCAPLEXIA,
plus bonus themes to be added as the contest progresses
All participants, young and old, are encouraged to consult the combined FAQ/rules below BECAUSE THEY CHANGE WHILE THE CONTEST IS GOING ON.
Like every year.
It’s just that way.

FAQ/Rules

Does it have to be a limerick? YES. This is strictly enforced, and non-limericks will not be accepted. Google proper limerick form if you are not sure.
How do I enter? POST YOUR ENTRY OR ENTRIES in the comments to this post. Click on comment, or whatever is down there, and add a new comment.
When is the deadline? THE DEADLINE is 14 February 2018
Do you mean 12 midnight on the night of the 13th or midnight on the night of the 14th? And which time zone shall have seisin of jurisdiction? We have had considerably confusion in the past! NINE AM (CENTRAL EUROPEAN TIME) 14 February 2017.
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Summary, in limerick form, of movies based on Cormac McCarthy novels
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Tennis umpires reportedly considering boycott of Serena Williams’ matches

mig — Fri, 14 Sep 2018 08:39:12 +0000

I recently had a conversation about works of art that stick with you. At different times in my life I have been absorbed by various sculptures, compositions or images.

Once it was a stone lakshmi sculpture in a museum (I can’t remember which one) in Pasadena. I was strolling around looking at stuff in the museum, and had to stop and stare at it. I stood there for at least half an hour, sketching the ancient sculpture.

Once I walked into the Museum of Art History in Vienna and was gobsmacked by Rubens’ ‘The Little Fur Coat’ hanging on the wall.

Or Bach’s cello suites.

Anyway right now it is this photograph. Together with the title, which I have used as the title of this post and which is also the headline of the article the photograph is originally from, it strikes me as no different in any important way from, say, Renaissance paintings along the lines of ‘Bacchus and Ariadne’ by Titian or maybe Jan Steen’s ‘Argument over a card game’.

‘Tennis umpires reportedly considering boycott of Serena Williams’ matches’ by Julian Finney (Getty Images) is currently hanging right at the front of my mental museum. I can’t look away. It’s perfect.