Self-accounting

Perhaps it's not such a bad idea for a blogger to once in a while muze over whether blog objectives have been reached or where things are going. An unedited interview with Jackie Shannon from the Bloggo Times sheds light on these and other issues.

JS: With a pretentious title like "World So Wide" your blog definitely invites scrutiny.
LB: I didn't intend it to be pretentious. Just wide.
JS: What? Oh. Haha. ... Let's see. Yes: With a title like that, one would expect something comprehensive, something that covers lots of areas. One thing that seems to be missing is razor edge reporting on political events.
LB: Sorry. I live on the edge of town, and the razor cuts off the news before it gets to me.
JS: What? Oh. Haha. I see.
LB: Also, I must say that there are lots of people out there who do a terrific job of reporting. There's no need for another poor job from me. Take, for example, Quirky News from Ananova. Where they recently reported on a swan in China that is friends with fish and regularly feeds them.


JS: You read that column regularly for news?
LB: No. Discovered it just this morning in search of quirky news.
JS: Thank you for these kind words, Mr. uh ...
LB: Blumfeld. That's all right, sometimes I forget it myself. Thanks for stopping by, Jackie de Shannon.
JS: There's no "de" in there.
LB: Sorry! Confused you with somebody I used to listen to.
JS: Anyway: toodleloo.
LB: One last thing. I do cover a wide variety of topics that are both pertinent and relevant. Like pastoral elegy, going back to Old Greek times. If you want me to, I'll go back even further. Babylon, Atlantis, you name it – I'll deliver the pastoral elegies. I do fibonaccis, that's leading edge technology.
JS: That's all nice and well, but –
LB: I mix (up) classical Indian music with poetry I write, report on the weather sometimes. Perhaps not often enough. But in sharp edge fashion. I write about coffee, warm-ups, rumors, sighs, wind-downs, even quoting García Lorca and Robert Bly.
JS: Gotta go. Bye!
LB: I added a haiku in Hindi the other day, for God's sakes! That's India for you, an old and upcoming nation. It's a wide world out there, and I take my nibbles. By the way: I can report that the weather looks very promising today! Blue sky, cherry trees in bloom, lots of pollen in the air making me dread hay fever ...
JS: (sound of door slamming)

Rule breakers

The
fine
weather
continued.

A
breeze
livened
up dull heat.

– Lem B.

Inevitable note
A 4-line fib double pack in contravention of the “do not a or the rule” (see previous post).
The dull heat, at this time of the year in this particular geographical region, is not reality but wishful thinking. May come to regret this wish later on in the year.

Concrete poetry reports on today’s unpromising state of weather

cold as to the weather it was
as to the cold weather it was
to the cold weather as it was
as to the weather it was cold
to the weather cold as it was
as to the cold it was weather
cold it was as to the weather

– Yours playfully Len B.

What else?

You: Now that you've told me about your various unhappinesses.

I: Oh!

You: No need to pout.

I: Thank you, thank you. Well ...

You: Come on, don't feed me that slowpoke stuff you've acquired when traveling God knows where. This is a fast-clipped society here.

I: Sorry.

You: Get it out.

I: Yes'm. About to. If you let me get a word in edgewise – in my naturally slow way.

You: Don't you DARE BLOG FOR BLOGGING'S SAKE!

Elucidating notes
The beginning of an imagined dialog. [Could go on endlessly.]
However, I don't think she quite knows what she's talking about when she spits out that FOR BLOGGING'S SAKE!
Setting: workplace, sun pouring in, work won't go away by itself but is, neutrally put, not quite stimulating.
No other characters.

We could be

... talking about the weather,
not meteorological facts,

the weather
as it affects us.

We could be sitting
inside,

enjoying the rays
of a sun

that is just a bit
too anemic

today
to sit outside.

– Weatherman Len the Pt.

All work, no blog

Oh life
could be
so much
blog w/o
work

In this cyber day and age we have finally come to realize that we were meant to do one thing: blog.

How I pity those umpteen million years manwomankind had to suffer through without access to blogging. All they had back then was blabbing.

Your always pilosopically meandering L.B.

BTW: The weather angels have put on another smiling face.

Chewin' n' bloggin'

I'll say!
Maximum efficiency, multitasking, whatnot!

Utterances of existence spat out, so to spit, on the run.

The roving, raging, ranting reporter.

So why's this so lame & tame?

I'll tell you, Lem, because it don't have nothin' to tell!

Said some critical alter ego with a firmly grounded eye.

By the way: the weather is laudable, even though a bit reticent with warmth.

Sunday morning coming down

Some pets seemed to love this sunny Sunday morning just as much as I did.

On my walk I counted at least eight cats lounging in windows, plus one dog, a pekinese stretched flat to look like a spotted rug.

Something irked him about me standing there and looking at him, and he wouldn't quit barking even after I'd left his field of vision.

As opposed to the various cats, who took my presence more philosophically, even though a bit quizzically, like this one.

Shorty snuck in

He did, before I had to leave for work.

This be said, though, in all haste:

• The weather angels put on shiny garb today. Hooray!
• For those who don't care about weather: try a whole season with rain.
• Heard about such a season today, which lasted from October till March 2005, from one who had to endure it close to the coast of Croatia.
• Everything wet, no electricity because solar power can only last so long with rain.
• Cooped up in a room.
• Night falls at 5:30 p.m.
• Lots of opportunity for involuntary candlelight dinners.

This is how one turns chance conversations into blogs, which then become ... what? Evanescent? Pubescent? Nascent?

Up-to-the-second state of mind

What they call "zeitnah" in German, "close to time" – blogging on the razor edge of time.

• The weather is doing its thing – rather on the gray, cloudy side – and isn't really dying for my input as far as I can tell
• There, I've paid homage to the weather angels
• I tried reading poetry to look for a quote which might lend itself to being blogged right now, on the razor edge of time and with some cohesive relevance, but nothing on the pages I skimmed stuck
• I'm afraid this has more to do with my current burnt-out state than the state of poetry in general or in particular
• Ramble, ramble
• Did I manage to say anything useful, pertinent or essential that will go down in the annals of whatever?
• I don't believe I did
  
• Would I wish this onto many readers?
• Frankly or unfrankly, I don't know
  

Your cheap neighborhood philosopher and hang-out artist Lem B.

Thank you, weather

Weather is arguably man's and woman's most dependable companion. There's never a day without it. So here's to weather!

Perhaps the British have known about the importance of weather the longest, hence their famed weather conversation intros like "A bit nippy today, ay?"


An animal factor is added in Germany; here, the weather is made – or at least predicted – by frogs that climb ladders. Up is good, I believe.

I've been told that frogs in the wild are accurate to a tittle* in their predictions provided that they can find a ladder. Another problem is that they're hardly ever seen.

So the weather stations make do with ladder-equipped jarred frogs, which explains some of the inaccuracy of German forecasts.

* This expression dates back to at least 1607 (see World Wide Words). A simplified form is generally in use today, which will most likely be further simplified in the future.

Wind, wind, wind

The weather angels today are swift movers that make stairwells howl and shutters rattle.

Apology

I'll have to apologize to the weather angels for my previous post. There's blue sky out there now, with some fast-moving white clouds and some wind.

It's an "i" day in the vowel rating system.

The next NRWQ:

It comes as a surprise again and again
that dark skies
that linger
will eventually give way to blue.

Weather continues

The grayness today is such
that it could be said
that a consonant
has been added

If I were a certain creative character out there, I would now claim to have originated a new poetic form.

Maybe I have. It could be called the non-rhyming weather quatrain, for example, abbreviated NRWQ.

By the way: One of the main rules of the NRWQ is that the 2nd and 3rd lines have to start with that.

Nothing to say no. 3

There might be more to say than nothing (be warned). It has been said about me that I hardly ever run out of words, and that, if I do, that's a very bad sign.

Today's list of events (non-exhaustive):

• The rain gods meant well and opened their buckets.
  
• The chill gods meant equally well.
• Today's light was mostly grey. No, gray. One vowel grayer than grey.
  
• Some primroses for sale at the grocery store brightened things.

• I treated myself to some super expensive chocolate, the wrapper of which was more expensive than the taste.
• I got work done slightly after the deadline, and then felt it was too late to get started on more work.
• Failed miserably again in the fields of morning yoga & fibonacci.
  
• What am I going do about that fall vacation with scooters that Blogger keeps suggesting for tabs?

Today was good,
today was fun,
tomorrow there will be
another one.

– Dr. Leon Seuss