Sunday, January 12, 2025

The Master Poses with a Terrifying Creature


I’m happy and honored to report that my 42-word story The Master Poses with a Terrifying Creature is part of the anthology Book of 42² published in November of 2024. The anthology was compiled by B. A. Mullin and comprises 1764 ultrashort stories in 42 genres, such as Alternate Reality, Apocalyptic, Crime, Culture, Romance, Steampunk, Tragedy, Vampire and Western, to name just a few.

My story is story #6 in Chapter 5, Culture.

My biography (also 42 words long) says:

Leonard Blumfeld, a character sprung from a story by Franz Kafka, is the only contributor of the World So Wide blog and has published a book of poetry and short prose, Best of Meme (2008), and 101 (2014, haiku and fibonacci poems).

The story was inspired by the following photo by French photographer Robert Doisneau (1912-1994) from 1952:




Saturday, January 11, 2025

Instant recognition


Meryl Streep with the
most outlandish hat ever
and Klaus Maria Brandauer,
white-hatted colonial style,
among black people
speaking Italian on TV 
in a Roman bar. Well,
if it ain’t Out of Africa!

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2025)

Notes
Based on genuine recent experience during a walk.
Refers to the 1985 movie Out of Africa starring Meryl Streep as Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen), Klaus Maria Brandauer and Robert Redford, which won 7 (!) Academy awards. It's weathered a bit – somehow I don’t believe it would win that many awards nowadays.

Tuesday, January 7, 2025

The Rose of the San Joaquin


Tom Russell, The Rose of the San Joaquin

Retrieved from my CD shelf and enjoyed listening to it immensely.

Saturday, January 4, 2025

Versos sencillos

Was going to listen to I want you
by Bob Dylan

Then was offered Mañana
by Sílvia Pérez Cruz

And that one’s going by my ears
right now

That’s what’s happening thanks to 
electricity, electronics and YouTube

On this fourth day of January in 2025,
a Saturday with time to spend on things

Much more pleasant than work

– Leonardo Blumfeld (© 2024)

Afterword
Guess what’s next? I want you ... so baaad.

Monday, December 30, 2024

Friday, November 22, 2024

Any other suggestions?



What should we name the band?
Retards?
Petards, like that old British band?
Or Leetards,
like leotards?
Raise your hands!

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Notes
That came seemingly out of nowhere. I was reading poems by Kenward Elmslie which had nothing to do with music or bands, put the book down, and this minipoem arrived. As I found out slightly later, The Petards was not a British band but a German one, whose lyrics were all in English. The song Lazy Moon above is from 1967.



Tuesday, November 12, 2024

So one night we did that


Nico and I were walking around in the neighborhood with our cans, around midnight it must have been, looking for a good empty spot to decorate. All we had along that night was white, black, two shades of red and some weird mix of grey and blue. And this is part of what we did on the wall of an open staircase. What's it supposed to mean? Don't know. That's not the point at all. The point is that this ugly grey piece of concrete wall now looks a lot better. Don't you think?

Tuesday, October 8, 2024

Giacomo – Love For Ever

 


Seven years later, the tattoo was still there, while Giacomo, including her love for him, was long gone. And Jimmy, the new flame, wasn’t too keen on seeing Giacomo around whenever he looked at her arm. Would she really have to have it removed? How long was Jimmy going to last? Frankly, her belief in eternity had been shattered – a bit.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Notes
Photo art courtesy of AI but based on a true story.

Tuesday, October 1, 2024

Sub

Oh come to me!
What is sub? the Siberian said
(from what I’d understood
before he was from some place
around Lake Baikal, which,
he’d managed to tell me some-
how, was not only the world’s
oldest but also its deepest lake)

In my incorrigible tendency
to speak the many-faceted truth
whenever called for or uncalled
for, I went into the multiple
meanings of sub – and noticed,
after having said about five
words, that this was overkill
and way beyond what was
wanted or needed

I broke it off, but then added:
– could be short for submarine
– could be short for submarine
sandwich, a sandwich resembling
a submarine
– could be short for substitute,
as in subbing for a teacher who
is sick or absent for some other
reason
– could refer to ...

What was I doing? The
look in the Siberian’s face
was half pain, half wonder,
adding up to full incompre-
hension. Sub, I pointed
at the building across,
and mimicked eating.
He said Is good? Upon
which I nodded. That
should be universal
enough, right? Shook
hands and left.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Note
The prompt was substitutions, so a teacher would give me an F for this. Oh dear, I have been known to ramble occasionally!

Thursday, September 19, 2024

The Original Zengela Band (Kenya)


Pamela by the Original Zengela Band

While going through my CD shelf (yes, I still have tons of CDs), I rediscovered an old treasure I hadn't listened to in years - an album by the East African Original Zengela Band I'd bought on eBay in 2003. The album itself dates from 1997 and was distributed by a German company named p&g media service gmbh in Staufen im Breisgau. 

Nothing much can be found about this band on the Internet - it looks like the CD I have is about the only release there is, even though it seems to have been released several times with different covers.

Anyway - it's great music, and I've been listening to the CD over and over again, particularly while running on the treadmill. There's nothing better to make this rather boring act more exciting than the swinging rhythm produced by this marvelous band. Highly recommendable!