“Got to keep your eyes
on the ground, Ala!” – “Why? Are
there snakes?” – “No, dog shit.”
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2023)
Note
This year's first haiku published here, and on such a pertinent subject no less. It might not hurt, though, to occasionally remind a child that glides on wings (“Ala” means wing) of what's on the earth.
A true story from the AI age
On the machine, it said in big writing and with many illustrations, “Print photos from your Instagram.” There were no instructions, so I thought maybe the thing wanted cash first, and threw two 50 cent coins in the slot. It readily showed that now I had a credit of 1 €. No instructions on how to proceed, though.
Eventually, I got tired of waiting for nothing and pressed the red button to at least get my money back. No such luck!
I looked around for someone who looked like a competent contact person. No such luck, of course. There are no contact persons in the machine age.
Then I thought I heard some click and turned my attention back to the machine. There was, lo and behold, something in the output slot! I pulled it out and saw, much to my amazement, the two photos shown above.
I have no idea who these people are.
It’s like the machine communicated, after all, saying something like “Gotcha! I’ll keep your money – would never dream of giving anything back! – but you get something in return. Now don’t you complain!”
Lesson learned: Never trust vending machines pretending to be Instagram!
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2023)
Ever since there’s a cat in the house
everyone responds to his calls in meows.
Now, if it all were a bit clearer
true communication would be much nearer.
– Felix Morgenstern (© 2023)
(The photo shows the source of inspiration of this silly rhyme.)
Bla ble bli blo blu.
Foreign: blé blö blä blò blù.
And so are you too.
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2023)
Note
Undoubtedly not a good start. Or is it? Symbolisms galore in the photo: something in the mirror while getting passed by the future.
“Huh?”
“I get ‘em mixed up, that’s all.”
“What? They’re worlds apart.”
“But they sound similar.”
“Get your ears checked, my dear.”
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2022)
Note
You might guess from the video above which between the two I prefer.
Fox's joy is rabbit's cry.
Note
Remembered from some not-so-long-ago fortune cookie. Perhaps more direct and comprehensible than some I've previously posted.
Lenelio turned
seventy-seven today –
work, like every day
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2022)
Note
The truth and nothing but. Like many old people in the so-called rich countries of the West, my friend Lenelio must keep working to supplement his government pension, which is too little to live on – even though it is too much to die, as the saying goes.
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2022)
Note
First-hand experience in Rome this afternoon as the whole city is getting ready for the carved pumpkin festival.
Photo by David Menidrey on Unsplash
Bombairiya is a 2019 Hindi film set, as the title implies, in Bombay - a combination of comedy / black comedy and crime -, directed by Pia Sukanya and starring Radhika Apte, Akshay Oberoi (shown in the screenshot above, the movie's romantic couple - even though the romance is mostly one-sided), Siddhanth Kapoor, Ravi Kishan and many others.
Much of it is screwball comedy, but the red thread that runs through is a crime story. The plot is somewhat hard to follow because of rapid changes of scene and the sheer number of people involved. I'd seen the movie before and finally managed to put things together during the second viewing, which was no less enjoyable due to the multitude of local details and interesting characters that make it charming and funny.
Irritable sky
then a classy big blues run
because of the greens
Lolling in her seat,
right hand hung out the window
like a wilted leaf.
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2022)
Note
Everything wilts in this seemingly endless summer heat.
Find out in this extended ghost story for a young audience by Anne Adeney (illustrations by Yannick Robert, Pocket Chillers series by Harcourt Education)
Some programmer got
busy – made a box smaller,
saving room for adz.
– Leonard Blumfed (© 2022)
Note
The ugly truth and nothing but. Now that the Congrats box has been shrunk, Microsoft can not only display one ad but two at the same time! Pure genius! Just as we were getting undersugared from too few adz.
Terminology explanation
What are adz? Same as ads (advertisements), only much cheaper! It's like the difference between music and muzak.
Tamil thriller series (season 1, 8 episodes), released in June 2022 on Amazon Prime Video. Written, produced and created by Pushkar-Gayathri, directed by Bramma G. and Anucharan Murugaiyan. The stars are Kathir, Aishwarya Rajesh, R. Parthiban and Sriya Reddy.
Set in the fictitious town of Sembaloor in Tamil Nadu, the series revolves around a police investigation in a missing person case as well as a fire at the local cement factory. All against the backdrop of a Hindu goddess festival, in the course of which the case gets solved.
Suspenseful, good acting, decent plot and dialogues. What more could you want?
if I sound naive,
but is baited breath like bad
breath? Would like to know.
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2022)
Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash
Dear Melinda, stop
putting your label on all
the apples you sell.
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2022)
Note
Melinda is probably Italy’s best known producer of apples and pears. Its products can be found in most supermarkets throughout the country. And each fruit comes with its own little sticky plastic Melinda label. The company’s website goes on and on about sustainability, bio, etc. How about really doing something good and leaving off the damn labels? Not only are they a nuisance to remove but they also create waste. How important can fruit branding really be?
Most mornings I wake up with music going around in my head. Sometimes it's a piece I've heard the day before, but mostly these songs crop up out of the blue. Like many of the dreams I have, which are mostly weird and inexplicable.
The song this morning was Luxury Liner, written by Gram Parsons and performed by Emmylou Harris, and I have no explanation why this particular song and the particular line from it came to me. She and the Hot Band performed it during the 1977 concert of hers I attended in Munich, Germany. Well, that was a long time ago, no recent association there!
You think I'm lonesome?
So do I, so do I.
- Gram Parsons, Luxury Liner
Of this aerial view
Almost nothing remains
The ghost of the steeple
No longer smiles
Gliding over the ancient hills
Again and again
You meet nothing
But worn-out straw hats
The glasses are empty
But no one notices
The glasses are empty
And no one notices.
And you
What will you do tomorrow
And you
What will you do tomorrow
Of this season gone I won't forget anything
Unless September insists
On erasing it
Talking again and again
About what has just been
I unwillingly wipe the salt
Off my hands
The glasses were full
And someone emptied them
The glasses were full
But someone emptied them
Now I know
What you'll do tomorrow
Now I know
What you'll do tomorrow
– Gianmaria Testa (1958-2016)
Title of Italian original: Veduta aerea. Translated by Johannes Beilharz (© 2022). The song is from the album Altre Latitudini of 2003.
The following video shows Gianmaria Test performing the song at another venue in the same area of Germany (Baden-Württemberg), the Franz K. in Reutlingen (May 4, 2010).
Silver horseshoe
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2022)
Note
I occasionally wonder whether there is a practical reason for this facial jewelry...
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)
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).
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)
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 – qué maravilla!):
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.
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.)
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?
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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.
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.
– 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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?
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.
The photo is an instant picture taken from the TV screen.
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...
