The Ice Saints Haiku

Coldest mid May in
decades, thunder rolling,
endless, endless rain

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2019)

Note
All true, nothing to add. Who are the Ice Saints?

The jomo haiku

Dear John, enjoyed not
being there among dfs
slurping aperol

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2019)

Note
As you (all 3 of you constituting my dear audience) know, JOMO stands for “joy of missing out.” It is with that emotion that I missed out on yet another apero party organized by a well-known expat yuppy organization in yet another umpteen star hotel bar in that capital of apero parties of the land of aperol spritz. As to what “dfs” may mean, give free reign to your imagination.

Paul, Apostle of Christ (2018)

A solemn solid bore.

(4-word movie review)

This refers to the 2018 movie Paul, Apostle of Christ written and directed by Andrew Hyatt and starring James Faulkner as Saint Paul and Jim Caviezel as Saint Luke. Could not bring myself to sit through this, presented by Sky in time for Easter 2019, for more than the first 20 minutes. Only die-hard Bible drama lovers might get something out of this.

The instagram profile haiku

Lives in Japan, has
Japanese name, takes pictures
of his aging cats.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2019)

Notes
What do you really know about your numerous social network friends (apart from the ones you actually know in person)? Sometimes just some surface facts – as in the above haiku – that don’t amount to much. They remain, in E. M. Forster’s terminology (cf. Aspects of the Novel), rather flat characters that can be (insufficiently) described by one or two or three features.

Hell hath no fury

greater than a 
next door neighbor with a 
hammer drill

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2019)

Note
The truth and nothing but, first hand. This man won't stop until there's a zillion holes in every wall. Here’s to William Congreve who is misquoted here.

A winter variation

Run the water for
a minute, step in, avoid
touching the cold walls.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2019)

Note
The truth and nothing but about taking a shower in winter.

The can’t trust bird shit haiku

Got shat on today,
but all of the numbers I 
drew were shitty duds.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2019)

Note
Razor edge of time reporting from the truth front. I was debating with myself whether to make the haiku prettier by using “pretty” instead of “shitty”, but prettiness lost out. After all, it was shit that made me buy two lottery tickets.

Mektoub, my love: canto uno

 If you're ready to sit through 180 minutes of a multitude of characters - most of whom are hard to distinguish from one another -, endless banal gab reminiscent of the worst Eric Rohmer talkies, a drawn-out voyeuristic sex scene right at the beginning, an equally drawn-out sheep birth scene towards the end and never-ending bar, beach and restaurant scenes in between, then I would definitely recommend this French/Italian movie by Abdellatif Kechiche.

Refers to the movie Mektoub, My Love: Canto Uno from 2017, which for incomprehensible reasons won two awards at the 2017 Venice International Film Festival. After watching the film, I was so puzzled why it was ever made that I read synopses and articles about it on the Internet and wondered whether they were about the same movie or whether these articles were copied from something someone had written without seeing it.

The supersonic haiku

The TV talks, the radio 
talks, the people talk, the
pizza would if it could.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2019)

Note
Based on a real pizzeria/bar experience. I decided to call this “supersonic” because the atmosphere created by the competing sound sources was definitely more than just sonic.

A bead of Chinese wisdom

“You never hear lambs complain about sheep’s milk.”

Note
I’m not sure what exactly the significance of this bead of Chinese wisdom is even though it is entirely true.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2019)