Thursday, May 28, 2015

The Virginia Woolf dismisses James Joyce haiku

... a dog that pisses,
a man who farts ... the topic
is monotonous.


– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Elucidations
Watched about one half of The Hours (2002) last night, which is about 1/3 or more about Virginia Woolf and two incarnations of Mrs Dalloway. Read up on Woolf today, including the bit about the Woolfs turning down James Joyce’s Ulysses in 1918. Apparently, it did not find favor in Mrs. Woolf’s eyes ... among the reasons for this being those outlined in the poem above.

Friday, May 15, 2015

The state of the art in subliminal advertising haiku

Oh give me one film
that does not show a bitten
apple product somewhere.


– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
Have you noticed how many movies show people (mostly cool, of course) with electronic products from one particular vendor nowadays? I hereby declare that particular vendor the king of subliminal advertising.

The jury was announced haiku

It is composed of
members with a proven track
record of bad taste.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Inevitable note
One's good taste is the next one's bad taste.
And the notion of good taste changes with time, that's for sure.
For example, in the second half of the 19th century it was considered good taste to paint stuff derived from biblical and other mythical sources, all loaded with heavy symbolism and executed in a realistic manner. This also gave painters an excuse to paint busty nudes in an otherwise puritanical environment.
Most of the resulting art is considered bad taste nowadays.
Just to elaborate on the fickleness of taste.
On the other hand, it could be said that the state of current taste is that everything goes.
But beware: not just anywhere.
It's like an American highschool with its cliques: the expensive ones, the trashy ones, the weird ones, the geeky ones, the minimal ones, etc. You must to remember in which corner to sit and which lines not to cross.

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

The MLA comma correctness haiku

Dedicated to the moronic inventors of the comma, and rule

, and, or, and, and, or,
, and, with, with, out, and, or, and
, so, what, and, the, eff

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Saturday, April 18, 2015

Un Rothko

Tu es rouge,
même noire parfois,
grise très souvent.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

The NaPoWriMo prompt at Poetry Super Highway for today, April 18, was:
Write a Rothko.
1. A Rothko (poem) can only be written while standing in front of a Rothko (painting).
2. A Rothko is three lines, three words per line.
3. Three of these nine words must be colors, and their position in the poem must be a tic-tac-toe.
4. Like all rules of poetry, break at your own risk.
For some strange reason, it instantly occurred to me to write this in French. Rule no. 1 was violated because I had no Rothko around to stand in front of. (The one we keep on the floor next to the bed is currently at the cleaner's.) But I pictured myself in front of one.

Friday, March 13, 2015

The ivory tower haiku

No complaints about
this abode. Comes with Buddhist
emptiness. That’s good.


– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
Inspired by an incredibly poetry-informed and informative quote from German magazine Der Spiegel, which might read like this in translation: “Those who write poetry do not always sit in their ivory tower, but sometimes simply in their own garden or at a table.”

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Apple joins the luxury fashion item market

As revealed today, you can now buy an Apple Watch for as much as $ 16,000 or so. Pure umpteen karat gold or whatnot.

This might make it the world's most expensive stopwatch or gadget to keep track of your heartbeat. Not to mention that 50 millisecond time accuracy – anywhere in the world!

But I'm sure this is just the beginning of Apple's entry in the high-end fashion market.

I bet the iBag or iPurse is just around the corner. With fingerprint user identification, theft GPS and artificial intelligence content management system.

Can't wait to gift one to someone who doesn't have any other needs.

– Leonard Blumfeld


Friday, March 6, 2015

The if I could haiku

If I could, I would
turn the I.S. destroyers
of Nimrod to stone.


– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

The Islamic State has been destroying more than 3000 year old Assyrian monuments in Iraq. The intolerance and bigoted narrow-mindedness of these self-righteous, self-appointed guardians of inhuman faith is unsurpassed.

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

The concrete haiku

This one is very
concrete – deals only with stones,
rocks, flint and pebbles.


– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
The counterweight to the recently composed abstract haiku.

The abstract haiku

Shake and melt and shade
do not I repeat do not
(mis)represent me.


– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
The battle between abstract and representational rages mostly in the art field, but here it is extended to poetry and, in particular, the haiku.