Thursday, April 21, 2022

The snot catcher haiku

   

Silver horseshoe 
dangling from mademoiselle’s
dainty little nose.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2022)

Note
I occasionally wonder whether there is a practical reason for this facial jewelry...

Friday, April 8, 2022

All the Old Knives - brief film review

 


A brand new spy movie just out on Amazon Prime – All the Old Knives (USA 2022, directed by Janus Metz Pedersen), based on the eponymous novel by Olen Steinhauer (2015).

Couldn’t say anything bad about this movie. Filming and acting – the stars include Chris Pine, Thandiwe Newton, Laurence Fishburne und Jonathan Pryce – are competent, and the plot, convoluted and meandering between past and present as it is, ultimately makes sense and keeps up the suspense. However, the film is more a somber, ponderous drama – with some sex and nudity thrown in for good measure – about the consequences of a highjacking gone wrong in the past than an action-packed thriller.

Product placement is quite obvious – I wonder how much a particular car brand had to pay for everyone to drive shiny new vehicles with the three-pronged star.

Would I recommend watching this film? It’s all right, but there’s no need to rush and get Amazon Prime just to see it. It strikes me as one of the many that come and go without leaving much of an impression.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2022)

Friday, April 1, 2022

Slow March


When I posted the preceding haiku, I realized that I had not posted a single thing in all of March.

Guess I didn't have anything to say that couldn't wait 😃. 

However, I also went on a trip for a week, being on the road in Italy, Switzerland and Germany. Of which the above photo is witness.

Taken in Chur, Switzerland. Leica R4 with 50 mm Summilux-R on Silberra Color 100 film, scanned from negative.

Much more of my photo work can be seen here (Tumblr) and here (Unsplash).

The unfashionable haiku

    

 
Dedicated to my dear wife

“No-one except you
wears wide cord pants – I don’t want
to be seen with you!”

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2022)


Monday, February 21, 2022

How to become a Bitcoin millionaire

It’s actually quite easy! 

Have faith in the Bitcoin mails in your spam folder that arrive from all the generous and anonymous benefactors that miraculously deposit amazing amounts in your account – every day without fail! 

Why are they doing that? No-one knows. Maybe they’re just lovely people, unlike most that send spam.

Simply have faith and look for Bitcoin in the mouth of every gift horse that gallops along.

Here’s one of these wonderful notifications that make you rich (in Spanish no less – ¡Ay caramba – quĂ© maravilla!):



Sunday, February 20, 2022

One of us is lying

 

Melissa Collazo as Maeve in One of us is lying (2021)

Mystery drama from 2021 (developed by Erica Saleh, based on the young adult novel of the same title by Karen McManus), currently showing on Netflix.

Suspenseful high-school whodunit with well-developed characters, decent acting and good cinematography.

Now that we know (or think we know) who done killed loathsome Simon at the end of episode 8, a Simon says text message throws a cloud of smoke that announces more to come in future series 2.

Thursday, February 10, 2022

The don’t take toilet breaks haiku

Went to the toilet. Came
back – a job had come and gone.
Lucky someone else.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2022)

Note
Once again: the truth and nothing but.
In today's fast-paced always-on environment, going to the toilet for a minute or two can make the difference between getting and losing out on a job.
And I didn’t even go golfing! (Reference to Gary Kildall of Digital Research, developer of CP/M, an early PC-age rival of MS-DOS. Supposedly he turned down a meeting with IBM because he preferred to go golfing. The lucky winner was Bill Gates of Microsoft, who did have time for IBM and sold them on his operating system. This is the story as I remember hearing it in the 1980s - veracity not guaranteed.)

Monday, January 17, 2022

The quarantine haiku

 


Cat’s going crazy
from being cooped up. So am 
I – in inner ways.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2022)

Note
My own personal quarantine is over, thank God. However, all the restrictions still apply – mask, green pass, uncertainty, rules that keep changing at the drop of a hat without much rhyme or reason. Will this ever be over?

Thursday, January 13, 2022

The Tender Bar

 

The Tender Bar (2021, directed by George Clooney, starring Ben Affleck, Daniel Ranieri, Tye Sheridan, Lily Rabe, Christopher Lloyd)

Whatever rode George Clooney - whom I generally respect both as a director and an actor - to direct and produce this seemingly endless bore of a movie?

Nothing about it feels original or genuine - it comes off as a refurbished parts store. When you enter, you know you've seen all the parts (people, situations, locations) somewhere before, many times, in a variety of places and constellations from Hollywood or TV.

A collection of stereotypes and a waste of acting talent (it's not like Affleck etc. don't perform well).

I did not last through to the end. Maybe I've seen too many movies. But go ahead and see for yourself.




Monday, January 10, 2022

The corona haiku

 


Life dictated by 

fever and saturation 

readings – sheer terror.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2022)

Note
Some reality from my battle with the virus. A bloody oxygen reading of less than 90%, so the doctors say, means you should be hospitalized.

Sunday, January 9, 2022

I’m doing nearly nothing


Ab Har Ho Bhola Nahin Bane - Pandit Mallikarjun Mansur

Fourth day of dreamily
listening to Mallikarjun Mansur -
always the same songs.

Nothing much is happening – 
I’m not listening attentively.
The music is flowing into me.

It feels like a conspicuous momentary
constellation – Mallikarjun Mansur singing
and me doing the equivalent of happy nothing.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2022)

Friday, January 7, 2022

Labordeta - AragĂłn


José Antonio Labordeta

AragĂłn

   
Polvo, niebla, viento y sol,
Donde hay agua una huerta.
Al Norte los Pirineos:
Esta tierra es AragĂłn.

Al Norte los Pirineos
Al Sur la tierra callada.
Pasa el Ebro por el centro
Con su soledad a la espalda.

Dicen que hay tierras al Este
Donde se trabaja y pagan.
Hacia el Oeste el Moncayo
Como un Dios que ya no ampara.

Desde tiempos a esta parte
Vamos camino de nada.
Vamos a ver cĂłmo el Ebro
Con su soledad se marcha.

Y con él van en compaña
Las gentes de estas vaguadas,
De estos valles, de esta sierra,
De estas huertas arruinadas.

Polvo, niebla, viento y sol,
Donde hay agua una huerta.
Al Norte los Pirineos:
Esta tierra es AragĂłn.

**********

Aragon

   
Dust, fog, wind and sun,
Where there is water an orchard.
To the North the Pyrenees:
This land is Aragon.

To the North the Pyrenees
To the South the quiet land.
The Ebro flows through the center
With its solitude at its back.

They say there are lands to the East
Where there’s work and they pay.
To the West the Moncayo
Like a God that no longer protects.

Since time immemorial
We are on our way to nothing.
Watching the Ebro
Carry away its loneliness.

And with it go in company
The people of these meadows,
Of these valleys, these mountains,
These ruined orchards.

Dust, fog, wind and sun,
Where there is water an orchard.
To the North the Pyrenees:
This land is Aragon.

English translation by Johannes Beilharz.

Thursday, December 2, 2021

Rainy December Day


It’s
as
if a
chasse d’eau were
continually 
being pulled today, and all grey.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2021)

Note
So I’ve come back to a form (fibonacci) I used to practice a lot for a while and then didn’t for a long time. Nothing but the truth in this one – the waters of the sky are coming down on Rome in varying degrees of mercilessness, and it’s so dark you can hardly call it day.

Tuesday, October 26, 2021

Current trends in spam

 


An excerpt from my gmail spam inbox

Brand new: funeral plan offers! Wow, can't wait to get one of those plans from a surely entirely trustworthy source.

Old faithfuls for the last year or so: Bitcoin! As you can see from all the mails I've received, I'm filthy Bitcoin rich by now. Bitcoin spammers - such benefactors to mankind. And not just in English - I've also been identified as a Spanish-speaking Bitcoin aficionado. ¡Ay, caramba!

Apply and receive funds today (Just remember to include the asterisk next to 'today') - That one day was the one that went by me, so did not receive the funds. Ouch!

I also failed to track that package from Royal Mail I never ordered. Ouch again.

Now off they go - there's that handy Delete forever button.

Upon which Google Mail proudly crows "Hooray, no spam here!" like a rooster on a missing pile of manure.

Monday, October 11, 2021

The umbrella flight haiku

 


Rain, umbrella and
wind conspire to lift me up
like Flying Robert.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2021)

Note
Pretty much that kind of weather here in Rome this morning of October 11, 2021. Inspired by a poem in Der Struwwelpeter (1876) by Heinrich Hoffmann, a book of more or less moral tales everyone in Germany knows. The illustration is by the author (Hoffmann) himself.

Saturday, October 2, 2021

The perils of having a pet haiku

Can’t tie my shoes – 
cat’s playing with the strings.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2021)

Note
A seriously underfilled specimen of the form, but based on nothing but real events.

Friday, September 17, 2021

The sad truth haiku

Can’t bring myself to
read poems that are longer
than ten lines or so.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2021)

Notes
First of all – why should this truth be sad? Only for myself, I must admit. Others may concur, disagree or simply don’t give a flying fog. It’s a free world, peotry included. (Think I just created a word! Peotry ... like poetry mixed with peyote.) Anyway, all rubbish. What brought about this rubbish? I was looking for enjoyable poetry in the famous Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry (famous because – at least in my days at the university – it was a standard book to carry around for English and Creative Writing courses). I started at the back of the hefty volume, thinking those poems had to be by the most modern and least stuffy poets. I believe in brevity in general, so I was really looking for something short, but nothing doing! Even James Tate’s “The Blue Booby”, which starts at the bottom of page 1387 with 3 promising ultra-short lines but rolls on for most of the next page, ending with “like the eyes of a mild savior” – a line I actually like. It really packs a punch. If only there weren’t so much in between. Well, pardon me, it’s the old grouch speaking again, having accrued more than 10 lines of negatively ranty prose by now. I know for a fact that long poems exist. I even know one person personally who wrote a long poem (thankfully it was still in the making when I knew her) and said she loved long poems! The sad truth actually is that people who like poems (period!) are a very, very tiny minority.

Saturday, September 4, 2021

Desperate heroine

 


Film still from the Tamil thriller Aadai (2019), which can be streamed on Amazon Prime.

Despite the trite synopsis (something like "A young woman finds herself naked in an empty building after a night of hard partying"), this gripping film starring Amala Paul has some surprising depth, twists and turns and even a message.

Thursday, August 26, 2021

Disjunct

A gadget, a card,
several USB cables.
Hot, tedious hours.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2021)

Note
Had nothing specific to say (seems to happen often ... I’m speechless in view of what’s happening in the world) but nonetheless felt the need to assert my cyber presence. Drastic change is needed – but who’s going to do it? 100,000 poets alone can’t. 

Thursday, August 5, 2021

Green-eyed

I called my fly
Prezzemolo because
it has one green eye

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2021)

Note
“Prezzemolo” is Italian for “parsley”.

Photo by Phillip Larking on Unsplash

Saturday, June 19, 2021

The bark haiku

A bark echos an-
other bark, joined by more bark,
two more – a chorus.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2021)

Note
Now you know what’s happening around here at 9 o’clock on a Saturday morning. Could be any day, though, any time. What is it with dog owners sequestering their beloved pooches on the balcony so they can vent their jealous anger at anything that moves freely below?

Thursday, June 10, 2021

Mare of Easttown

 


Watched the first two episodes of Mare of Easttown, an HBO crime series released in spring of 2021. It is directed by Craig Zobel and stars Kate Winslet (who is also one of the executive producers) as a detective investigating two similar murders in a suburb of Philadelphia, PA, called Easttown.

So far my impression is favorable – a solid, reality-steeped drama with credible characters that is well-filmed and well-acted. And it is suspenseful – can’t wait to see the next episodes. Hope they'll live up to the excellent start.

More details about the series

The photo is an instant picture taken from the TV screen.


Proverbs from the Chinese XV

It is foolish to expect a cat to lay eggs.

Source: fortune cookie. 

Another definition of what fools might expect, I guess. Along the lines of the commonly quoted (and usually misattributed to Albert Einstein) “Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

With the difference here being the point of view. This proverb does not claim that the cat might think it’s stupid. A true cat couldn't care less anyway...

Tuesday, May 11, 2021

The flowers of speech haiku

Have been throwing kind
regards with every e-mail.
Please return in kind.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2021)

Notes
None (the truth and nothing but).

Wednesday, April 21, 2021

Three Madlib Haiku

In the shweet shugar
These sour mullein
A tall bravery

✧✧✧✧✧

In the silent query
This mute abyss
A menacing sweep

✧✧✧✧✧

In the stupid bitches
This impudent loftiness
A dry swirl

All by Basho & Joanna (© 2021)

Want to create Madlib haiku of your own? Click here.

Friday, April 9, 2021

Example of a 3rd person biography

 


“A windy and somniferous birdwatcher, Lean Mean Moran is an ambitious young dynamic emerging writer who roams the high and low lands and some more or less dubious neighborhoods of a lesser known Balkan country. On warm summer days you can find him in somebody’s backyard with his bong. He enjoys short and mindless hikes in the company of his I-Pod, expired USSR army outlet biscuits and reading Sylvia Bletch. One day, he is sure that he will die and hopes so. He has bled and published profusely in the realms of desktop perpetrators.”

The above recent photo shows Lean striking a favorite pose on the way to his Italian podologist.

Note
All aspiring writers looking to have their outpourings published are faced with the demand for that 3rd person biography that makes editors gasp. The above is a good example of what to write if you want to (not) get published. Of course, a hard-hitting bio such as this must go hand in hand with the proverbial poetry that contains fresh imagery and surprises even the most inured editor.

Wednesday, March 17, 2021

The onset of dementia haiku


Could not remember
Alka Yagnik. Thought her name
started with an S.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2021)

Notes
Managed to remember this super-important piece of poetry for several hours after composing it in my head in the car on the way to the dentist this morning. Not bad for an ageing memory, if I may say so myself. However, this should not detract from the alarming fact that it took me more than a day to remember the name of Alka Yagnik after hearing her sing in a Hindi movie a few days ago. Whereas I could easily remember the others whose voices graced the same film: Kumar Sanu, Udit Narayan and Lata Mangeshkar (who is impossible to forget anyway, right?).

Sunday, February 14, 2021

Happy Sunday!

Some nasty little
yapper is spitting venom
outside and loves it.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2021)

Note
That too on Valentine’s day – when everything’s supposed to be lovey-dovey.

P.S:
You know me – when I come up with a title like ‘Happy Sunday’, it most likely won’t be all that happy. But there’s ‘loves’ in it after all.

LoL. – The Old Grump.

Thursday, February 4, 2021

Baghdad Central: We Leave Tomorrow

 


Still picture from the British crime thriller series Baghdad Central (2020), based on the novel by Elliott Colla from 2014. 

The gripping and beautifully filmed series follows Iraqi policeman Muhsin al-Khafaji (shown in the screenshot above, played by Waleed Zuaiter) as he searches for his missing daughter in dysfunctional Baghdad. The series is set in Iraq in 2003 in the aftermath of the Second Gulf War.

Monday, January 18, 2021

A pretty haiku

Look at its eyes! Their
sparkle! Its luscious lips! Its 
cheeks! Their modest blush!

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2021)

Note
Nothing to be added. Could have made it even prettier if I hadn’t limited myself to haiku size.

Sunday, January 10, 2021

A multilingual rain haiku

Rain. Regen. à€Źाà€°िà€¶.

Pioggia. All day long il

pleut. ¡Para, lluvia!

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2021)

Note
Let’s hope this multilingual admonishment will help to put an end to the endless rain.

Sunday, January 3, 2021

Today’s weather haiku


Rain. Rain. Rain. Rain. Rain.
A little lull. Rain. Drops. Rain.
Puddle. Rain. Rain. Rain.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2021)

Note
That is the poetic razor-edge-of-time report on the weather in Rome on this 3rd day of 2021.