The Con Is On (2018)

“An unfunny comedy about assorted murderous, scamming, drug and booze consuming sleazoids; it may work if you consider it to be a far-fetched satire on the scummy oligarchs that are currently in charge of some major countries.”

Refers to the 2018 movie The Con Is On, directed by James Oakley and starring Uma Thurman, Tim Roth, Alice Eve, Sofía Vergara and Maggie Q. Anyone can safely skip this one without missing anything worthwhile.

Knock Knock (2015)

An exploitative piece of Hollywood trash that doesn't even deserve fast forwarding.

One-line review of  Knock Knock (2015), directed by Eli Roth and starring Keanu Reeves (definitely one of the lows of his acting career).

The punishment haiku

I’m being punished
by having to watch ads for
not wanting to pay

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
Whenever I want to play a silly game of solitaire in Windows 10, I get to see a bunch of silly ads for other silly games from Microsoft. Years ago, solitaire was a freebie Microsoft threw in with earlier Windows versions. Everything, including the most insipid stuff, is becoming increasingly monetized in this brave new world. And I mean brave in Aldous Huxley’s sense.

The about H. haiku

Takes pictures of his
girlfriend wherever they go – 
strictly analog.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
The truth and strictly the truth about H. Only the initial was changed to avoid any risk of identification. Follows the William Carlos Williams rule of “no ideas but in things”. But are there any ideas? 

The trap haiku

The greatest trap in
haiku is to milk trite stuff
for trite symbolism.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
See thousands of haiku for examples. But is it bad to derive trite symbolisms from trite stuff? That is the question! Millions of flies might disagree.

Oh sweet lord

Dear mom, as you go on to complain,
there's a delicious food on my brain

If I could have that apple crumble
I swear I'd instantly cease to mumble!

Contrary to present dismay,
this would result in a very happy day

– Felix Morgenstern (© 2018)

Note
For the longest time, this was an orphaned draft consisting of these words: "She was drawn to the apple crumble and could not resist. Having eaten it, though, left her" and had the draft title "Diet problems." As you can see, it was drastically rewritten and now ends on a happy note.

The endless summer haiku

Oysters and summer balm
night and drunk
tequila on love

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
A permutation of somebody else’s haiku using the same words. Seemed a bit too obvious, so I moved things around. Feel free to try and reconstruct the original!

The Tom and Jerry haiku

You take the cats out
with you and shut the door. That’s
it for a long while.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
The first two lines are pretty much stolen from someone else's 14-line poem that started this way. The remaining 12 lines were full of details I didn’t quite feel like bothering with, imagining that the most exciting event had been described (that of letting the cats out), so I kind of skimmed through the rest (back asleep, rain forecast, sugar the strawberries, canceled, drift back beneath, to list a few) and then decided to name the unnamed cats Tom and Jerry to pep the whole thing up. How’s that for genesis?

The before kissing haiku

Already thinking how
her decidedly long nose
might get in the way

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
Pure fiction inspired by a photo portrait I came across about 12 seconds before I wrote this. And why is decidedly so hard to type without typos?

The poised haiku

It is sovereign
in weight distribution, bright
ease and breeziness

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
Most haiku (at least the ones that come to my eyes) are pretentious – in insinuating they have to offer something worthwhile – as well as flat sprat on their face in attempting to create a moment of instant recognition – that special haiku specialty – that usually is neither instant nor recognition. So, once again, I decided to add to the mass with a haiku that is definitely pretentious as well as completely devoid of any instant recognition.