The I feel bad in unison fib

I

feel

bad. She's

turning her

eyes away and slinks

by. My mood slumps and time slinks by.

– Lenny B., from the office front

Love of the common people

I was going to write a fib on the theme of little sister crying (because my wife's little sister cried for hours after losing a computer password), when the memory of this song popped up in my mind. I'd first heard it sung by Nicky Thomas (a reggae number that came out in 1970), then had it on a record in the version performed by Waylon Jennings, which is much weaker. Anyway, it's a great song about little sister's tears, and I scrapped the idea of writing a fib about it.

Love of the common people
Livin' on free food tickets
Water in the milk from the hole in the roof
Where the rain came through
What can you do?

Tears from little sister cryin'
'Cause she doesn't have a dress without a patch
For the party to go
Oh, but you know she'll get by.

She is livin' in the love of the common people
Smiles from the heart of the family man
Daddy's gonna buy her a dream to cling to
Mama's gonna love her just as much as she can, she can.

It's a good thing you don't have the bus fare
It would fall through the hole in your pocket
And you'd lose it in the snow on the ground
A walking to town to find a job.

Trying to keep your hands warm
But the hole in your shoe let the snow come through
And it chills to the bone, boy
You'd better go home where it's warm.

Where you can live in the love of the common people
Smiles from the heart of the family man
Daddy's gonna buy her a dream to cling to
Mama's gonna love her just as much as she can, she can.

Livin' on dreams ain't easy
But the closer the knit the tighter the fit
And the chills stay away
You take 'em in stride family pride.

You know that faith is your foundation
And with a whole lotta love and a warm conversation
And plenty of prayer
Making you strong where you belong.

Where you can live in the love of the common people
Smiles from the heart of the family man
Daddy's gonna buy her a dream to cling to
Mama's gonna love her just as much as she can, she can...

(Written by Ronnie Wilkins and John Hurley)

Here's the song performed by Nicky Thomas on Youtube – good sound quality, but only a static picture:

From the office work province

1. The blinds are down, there's a welcomingly mild sun out there. Most people have gone out for lunch. It's peaceful here in the outpost of a gigantic company.
2. I suffer from time elapse anxiety syndrome (TEA).
3. Do many people suffer from this disease?
4. Symptom: feeling that time is slipping by without you getting urgent things done.
5. This symptom makes me nervous.
6. Until I succumb to the next "what's so important that it really needs to be done in the overall scheme of things" mood.
7. Those moods are philosophical and soothing,
8. but they don't get anything done.

Yours from the office grind Len B.

Inspired by a chanteuse

A

nerv-

ous lithe

slip of a

singer – small titter

monkey, cheeks clenched, on swaying branch.

– Len B.

A painting

To-
day’s
will be
three-colored:
grey, ox blood, sleet. It
will feature rain, people cooped up
inside, the mood of
endurance,
no
spark.

– Len Sparkles B. (© 2007)

More green, more pastoral

All in green my love went riding

All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.

four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the merry deer ran before.

Fleeter be they than dappled dreams
the swift sweet deer
the red rare deer.

Horn at hip went my love riding
riding the echo down
into the silver dawn.

four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the level meadows ran before.

Softer be they than slippered sleep
the lean lithe deer
the fleet flown deer.

Four fleet does at a gold valley
the famished arrows sang before.

Bow at belt went my love riding
riding the mountain down into the silver dawn.

four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the sheer peaks ran before.

Paler be they than daunting death
the sleek slim deer
the tall tense deer.

Four tall stags at a green mountain
the lucky hunter sang before.

All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.

four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
my heart fell dead before.

e. e. cummings

From Tulips and Chimneys, 1923

Cf. Still life with tulip and chimneys written by my alter ego.

Pastoral fib

Moo
waits.
She does
not stray, not
one bit. One sylla-
ble words do it simply better.
Oh but she has strayed.
By one blade,
one shade
of
green.

– Len Blumfeld (© 2007)

Not only elegies can be pastoral. The blues can be ("Milk Cow Blues"!), and so can fibs.

Afterthought
Had this in green originally to go with the pastoral theme and the blade/shade of green. Changed it to Allgäu cow color because green on black is a harsh contrast that did not match the meekness of the intended cow.

An immodest proposition

Shouldn't you, like, show some involvement in the real world? Like occasionally at least?

This could have been said by my friend Karraine, a confirmed Californian, even though it's me saying it now while muzing – once again – about the purpose of writing in general or my writing in particular. You see, I'm one of those occasionally self-destructive, morbid, tormented souls* who go back to point zero at times to question the very ground they stand on, aka the validity of it all.

Like, shouldn't we all be working and earning something instead of doing useless stuff like writing?

What do you mean by writing anyway? Are you like some published guy? Like Dan Brown?

– Len B.
... in a somewhat grey Sunday morning mood on an overcast Sunday.

*This again could have been a quote from Karraine.

Rebuttal
But I did situate myself in some reality recently, by watching last night's soccer match between VfB Stuttgart and 1. FC Nuremberg. To see (Jeronimo Baretto) Cacau cry on the bench about his team losing, perhaps as a consequence of his red card removal from the match.

Blogger & Firefox

Blogger and the Fire Fox
Play ring around the rosies.
What a bunch of posies!

Put together Mother Goose, Blogspot and Firefox, and you get this ... or an endless cycle of log-on attempts. It's very much like watching the window of a front-loading washing machine. So, sorry to say, I've been forced to use MS IE Explorer to log onto this blog for several weeks.

Anybody out there who knows why this is happening and how it can be stopped???

Masks

Prompt from Sunday Scribblings:

Masks. Literal: making or wearing masks for Halloween, Carnival, Mardi Gras, the theater, any other masky occasion. Or, you know, psychological: a mask you wear, that you hide behind; the face you present the world, or that you present just to one person. Happy scribbles!

M. asks
crazy but wily Marianne
who says she knows such sadness
behind masks,
the perfect housewife, for example,
the perfect mother,
she cannot run far enough
when she gets that queasy feeling
around the kidneys
that somebody’s tailoring a mask for her

M. answers
NO MORE MASKS
I’m sick of hiding
It’s tough enough coming into myself

Pipes in cheerful Maurice,
who just the other day
first wore his ski mask,
then his diving mask
and finally his chameleon mask at a party

Why wear that last one?
M. asks
You are a chameleon in real life,
take on whatever color surrounds you,
reflect any mood,
mold yourself to anything

Why not?
says Maurice,
masks are perfect mirrors
of whatever’s going on
at the time

And that can never be avoided

I am a permanent mask,
perfect incarnation of circumstance and time

– Leon Blumfeld (© 2007)