A bartender who looks like Sandra the Hawaiian from Superstore mixed my drink this evening.
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2023)
Note
The year’s about to end, so I decided to treat myself to one of those Italian bitters, and the above Japanese sentence renders the event as concisely as possible. No picture of the bartender – that would violate privacy laws.
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2023)
Note
Let’s leave it at that, shall we? More of a question about memory and what one remembers about one particular moment. Thank God for photographs – they greatly help with the task of reconstructing things gone by.
The photo taken from a chair lift above Campo Imperatore in Abruzzo, Italy, is by my real me, Johannes Beilharz. Leica R4, 50 mm Summilux, Adox CMS II 20 film.
Girl on metro is recording a voice message: “Sorry there were no advent calendars with 31 doors, so I had to get one with 24. Is that okay?”
My name is Luka
Now playing
Note For those not familiar, here's the song by Suzanne Vega from 1987 this alludes to:
A grinder
is digging into the wall
painfully
And there’s
nothing
I can do about it
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2023)
Note
The reported truth and nothing but. I could have added “except write a pedestrian poem about it”, but then it would have been more than 6 lines. And we wouldn't want that, would we?
We are moths and can
infest everything! We then
lay a zillion eggs.
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2023)
Note
A grim reality report from the afflicted kitchen.
Me and Loretta, we don't talk much now
She sits and stares through the backdoor screen
And all the news just repeats itself
Like some forgotten dream that we've both seen
(John
Prine, from the lyrics of Hello In There)
This song has a story for me. I came to know it when I bought Diamonds & Rust by Joan Baez around 1975, the year it was released. Hello In There instantly struck me as one of the best songs on the album and made me aware of its composer, John Prine. As a result, I started listening to Prine and bought several of his albums.
was wrong:
July is the cruellest month,
sandwiched between June
and August, which are
almost as cruel if measured
by the unbearable heat here
in the Roman stone desert
which comes immensely
close to a waste land
every day from nine to five
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2023)
Note
A facetious shot at the beginning of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land (1922). Otherwise razor edge reporting from the global warming front in Rome, Italy, on July 11, 2023.
Had a dream last night
in which, try as I might,
I could not remember
what George Harrison
looked like.
This greatly upset me
in the dream, him
being my favorite
Beatle and all. 10-foot
pole taste of memory loss.
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2023)
Photo: Ed Caraeff/Getty Images
Jackie and Jilly, who used to be friends and colleagues while both lived in L.A., are finally meeting again at a bar in Boise, Idaho, for the first time in years.
“I hear you went on a trip last year?”
“Yes, we did Europe in five days. It was great.”
“What do you mean by you did Europe?”
“Well, we looked up What to see in Europe on the Internet and planned accordingly.”
“I see.”
“It worked perfectly. We did France, Spain, Italy, Germany and England.”
“And saw them in five days?”
“Yes! And the beauty of it is we’ll never have to go back there.”
“Because you’ve seen all there is to see?”
“Everything worth seeing!”
“Good for you and your blessed little eyes!”
“Are you being sarcastic by any chance?”
“Never! Europe and the wisdom of the Internet would never recover!”
Photos
Top left: Paris, France; top right: Rome, Italy
Center right: Heidelberg, Germany
Bottom left: London, England; bottom right: Madrid, Spain
Kiss your own palm
ecstatically while LOL
and jumping up and down
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2023)
Notes
Gestural cloning is an essential part of (aspiring to) social media popularity. The above poem is based on one such gesture observed today. Do it, post it on tiktok (or wherever) immediately and get popularity!
For anyone unfamiliar with messaging abbreviations: LOL does not mean “lots of love” but “laughing out loud”. Seems to happen all the time in messages.
For purists: No, I did not quite follow the syllable count and don’t really GAFF.
A haiku and I
were having coffee at Star-
Bux. You pay! it said.
– Leonard Blumfeld
Painting by J. B. with a little help from Artifice. As can be clearly seen, the haiku is only present in spirit.
AI art is a hot item in the crypto art collection scene and currently creates an enormous amount of hype. To investigate this hoopla a little bit myself, I went to one of the online generators that can be used to create such art.
You enter a text description, press the GENERATE button and wait for the piece of art to emerge on the screen in front of you.
The prompt I entered for the masterpiece above was “Portrait of a seamstress bent over a sewing machine”.
What I got from the machine was – lo and behold! – not only one but two seamstresses and two sewing machines.
While this idyll looks quite realistic in its 19th-century charm, you will notice some interesting anomalies when you take a closer look. Three of the hands, for example, are disfigured and/or have missing or superfluous fingers, and there are two fingers to the left of the front sewing machine that do not originate from any hand.
Did the artificial intelligence decide to play a trick on me because I did not pay for its services?
We shall never know.
– Yours artificially, Leonardo Blumfeld
– Leonardo Blumfeld (© 2023)
Nota
Hoy me he metido en vena castellana, inspirada por el libro de Octavio Paz con el título arriba.
A solid bore
of blood and gore
– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2023)
The two lines tell it all in a nutshell. This 2022 Brad Pitt starrer and Kill Bill derivative is to be recommended if you like to spend 127 minutes of your time listening to incessant claptrap about fate and karma, including shrink advice about good and bad luck from the voice of Sandra Bullock (who fortunately remains mostly unseen), yawning at endless twists and turns cropping up at every bend of the railroad track towards Kyoto and watching lots and lots and lots of blood and gore inflicted in the most various ways. Hallelujah! Another masterpiece delivered by stars desperately trying to hang on to past glory.
Photo above (still picture from the movie): Brian Tyree Henry as Lemon (one of the highlights, has some truly funny moments)
Two peas are rolling along on the floor.
Says one to the other: Watch out! There is a step
ep
ep
ep
“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?
 |
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.
