DAILY PHOTO: Miniature Taj, Kolkata
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PROMPT: Mars
Daily writing prompt
Do you think humans will ever colonize Mars? What would life there actually look like?
Probably, and life will probably be short and toilsome for quite a while. Short because there’ll be loads of unintended consequence and we will probably learn there are many more aspects of Earth that are consequential to our wellbeing than we ever understood. Toilsome because, as European explorers in Africa thought that everything was trying to kill them, Mars colonists will find that there is not one thing there that wants them alive. Every task involves pushing a boulder uphill.
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DAILY PHOTO: Agartala Jaganath Mandir
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PROMPT: Meme
I have meme-blindness. It’s like ad-blindness (which I also have) and is probably caused by the same state of mind. If you want my attention, pony up some dough or produce something worthwhile — vaguely clever regurgitation of pop culture references and cliched slang ain’t gonna cut it.
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Monsoon Green [Haiku]
what passed for desert
before monsoon is now
green and waterlogged.
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BOOK: “A Thousand and One Limericks” Anthologized by Rosemary Gray
A Thousand and One Limericks by rosemary-grayMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher Site
As the title suggests, this book consists of a thousand and one limericks (I didn’t count them, but at three a page, the math works -ish,) a few are well-known, most are groaners, but some are brilliant by virtue of being clever on multiple levels. I will offer two warnings by way of clarifying for whom this book is not. First, it ventures into all those corners of depravity with which the limerick is well-associated — i.e. it’s not a collection for prudes. Second, the collection shows the limerick’s unabashed joy in poking fun at the English language. There are many “misspellings” as poems use one spelling regime for all rhymes (i.e. highlighting English’s complete lack of phonetic consistency.) There are also a lot of slant rhymes and false rhymes… long story short, if you’re a grammar / spelling Nazi, this book will raise all the hackles.
Who is it for? Readers with a sense of humor who are not easily offended.
I have seen a few of these poems attributed to specific authors (e.g. Edward Lear or Ogden Nash) in other collections, but — oddly — this book offers no attribution or discussion thereof. The byline listed, Rosemary Gray, is actually in an anthologist / editor role. (She may have written some of the pieces, but I’m fairly sure I’ve seen a few published in earlier anthologies. Maybe these are all in the public domain, but — as I’ve said — I’ve seen some attributed (and I’m pretty sure some to individuals who died less than 70 years ago.) Long story short, if you can’t find a copy of this, it may be because there was a huge copyright infringement case or threat thereof.
I’d recommend this collection for limerick lovers.
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BOOKS: “Four Quartets” by T. S. Eliot
Four Quartets by T.S. EliotMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Available online
Four Quartets is a collection of four long poems by T.S. Eliot, written over several years before and during the Second World War. The poems are: “Burnt Norton,” “East Coker,” “The Dry Salvages,” and “Little Gidding.” They share a theme of metaphysical inquiry, particularly regarding time and man’s relation therewith. The book came out about five years before Eliot won the Nobel Prize for Literature, and was the last of his major poetry collections, and so it reflects a mature phase of his poetry writing.
I loved this collection, which combines food for thought with beautiful turn of phrase. As far as I could see, most of the disgruntlement with the collection had to do with Eliot’s religious / spiritual references, which offended the sensibilities of some of the most stridently atheist / agnostic individuals in the poetic community. Besides reflecting his own Christian worldview, Eliot had clearly been moved by reading the Bhagavad Gita and makes a number of references to Krishna.
Four Quartets is a pleasant read and I’d highly recommend it for poetry readers.
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DAILY PHOTO: Garden Statues & Greenery, Kowloon Walled City Park
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PROMPT: Cultural Tradition
Daily writing prompt
What’s a cultural tradition from another country that you wish existed in yours?
The Langar Hall (found in Punjab, Haryana, and wherever else Sikhs are found) is an excellent tradition. They are places that serve free communal meals every day. It’s not like a soup kitchen that attracts only poor, nor is it like the many institutions that make meals (implicitly or explicitly) only for one particular ingroup (e.g. members of a particular religion.)
Tiger Riding for Beginners 