“Author Simon Hewitt has unearthed a little-studied image held in Germany, a “comic strip” design made in 1495 to illustrate a poem, that showed how Leonardo was once ridiculed. In one of its colourful images, An Allegory of Justice, a ginger-haired … court lawyer is shown seated at a desk, mesmerised by other young men, and represents Leonardo da Vinci. ‘The identity of Leonardo as the red-headed scribe is totally new,’ Hewitt told the Observer…” —The Guardian
Does everybody know the star from Vinci,
The naughty genius with the Judas hair—
The one whose face is sort of puffed and pinchy?
I found him in a comic strip. So there.
I spied him scrawling rubbish on a table,
Too stunned with lust to regulate his pen;
Meanwhile his father stuck him with a label
About his taste for better-looking men.
Who says he doesn’t look exactly lustful?
Who says the label might be just a text
To copy, and that no one seems distrustful
Around a court-recorder over-sexed,
And steamy as the quattrocento sewers?
His ginger hair revealed it at first sight!
They all look ginger? Maybe, to mere viewers;
But not to learned clerks with books to write.
“Neutrino Experiment Reveals (Again) That Something Is Missing from Our Universe” —LiveScience.com
“Again” is right. Those books we loaned,
The dollars we have spent
On fruitless efforts to look toned,
On vino, and on rent
(Plus keys that simply disappeared)
All obviate the need
To show once more the world’s not geared
To keep our stuff. Indeed,
Evaporation is the rule:
Experiments go poof!
Hard facts and paradigms unspool . . .
Why seek for further proof?
“Pope Francis has taken aim at adjectives while giving his views on language to the Vatican communications team, saying: ‘I am allergic to those words’. … [T]he pope took particular aim at the word ‘authentic,’ especially when describing ‘authentic Christians’. ‘We have fallen into the culture of adjectives and adverbs, and we have forgotten the strength of nouns … Why say authentically Christian? It is Christian!’” —The Guardian
With all the sins the Pope forgives,
He draws the line at adjectives.
The faithful must endure his frowns
If they contaminate their nouns
With fillers like “authentic,” which
Provokes a papal rash, or itch.
“Why add,” he scolds the Vatican,
“‘Authentic’ to plain ‘Christian’?
We have forgotten more is less!
We’ve fallen,” snaps His [- – – -]ness.
In a French cuisine till lately hung an icon (Christ on gold)
Which has just been viewed and valued and is shortly to be sold.
Long it watched its aged owner stir ragout and tend the grill;
Now it’s locked inside a showroom, dollar-priced at seven mill.
Kitchens now from Tarbes to Arras are sustaining piercing looks.
What a gain for art and beauty! What a turn-up for the cooks!
Cuisiniers and cognoscenti are bilaterally rocked
To conceive above a hotplate Cimabue’s “Jesus Mocked.”
On his faded golden background Christ is standing in a scrum:
Nineteen strangers, arms extended, mark Him out for martyrdom.
Still, it seems a lot of silver. Will this sell for seven mill?
With allowance for inflation, very probably it will.
“To mark the release of the Downton Abbey film, the Earl and Countess of Carnarvon have posted their residence of Highclere Castle in Hampshire on the Airbnb booking website.” —The Guardian
[Contains TV series spoilers]
Good But Not Great. The house was nice,
But not enough to do it twice.
The family was strange. The Earl
Seemed pleasant, and the youngest girl,
But Carson squirmed while serving food,
And Lady Mary acted rude.
Of course, we half expected that,
But not some Turkish diplomat
Finishing up in madam’s bed—
Not just embarrassing but dead.
Enough excitement, so you’d hope!
Then Lady Grantham slipped on soap.
As for old Lady G—the sneer
When Wayne (my husband) asked for beer!
And how she smirked when, over tea,
That nasty footman squeezed his knee!
Still, we liked Mrs. Isobel
(Not Downton class, though—you can tell)
And Mrs. Patmore did her best
With Bolonaise, at our request.
Were there some things we’d change? There were.
We found him pushy, their chauffeur:
He outright whizzed us down that drive!
Overall rating: 3.5.
(David Cameron’s recently published memoirs use such expressions as “foam- flecked Faragist,” “bilious,” and “cauldron of toxicity” in describing his opponents.)
That’s more than just a well-slapped wrist—
Gove as a “foam-flecked Faragist.”
B. Johnson too is booed and hissed
With “Bilious” Cummings, on the list
Of those that Cameron’s now dissed.
The backs they’ve stabbed! The arses kissed!
A country led towards a tryst
With Trump the tweeting egotist!
May polls provide a purging twist—
No toxic Tory will be missed!
“Pennsylvanians Combat an Invasion with Their Feet …
‘Kill it!’ a state website blares by way of advice to residents who encounter the [lanternflies].
‘Squash it, smash it … just get rid of it.’” —The New York Times
Beset by spotted lanternflies
Endowed with no appeal,
The Keystone State’s defense applies
Firm toe tip, instep, heel,
And, at the fatal crunch, relies
On tempered nerves of steel.
“When Milton met Shakespeare: poet’s notes on Bard appear to have been found Scott-Warren … [points out] the work the annotator did to improve the text of the folio—suggesting corrections and supplying additional material such as the prologue to Romeo and Juliet … ‘The book is absolutely covered with lines in the margin of passages …’ [said Scott-Warren:] ‘they echo with [Milton’s] work …’ One highlighted section in The Tempest is the song: “Come unto these yellow sands, / And then take hands: … [which] is echoed in Milton’s ‘On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity.'” —The Guardian
Two houses both alike in dignity
—Added, J. Milton, 1623.
Mark, Give him heedful note. Append, “I do.”
Query, The text is foolish. Score it through. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
Ring first word. Query: add “new pastures”—borrow? I have nothing with these words. They are not mine.
Annotate, query, dog-ear, underline. Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world Like a Colossus. Now the page is curled.
Note: envy not. O that way madness lies.
Add: “solitary way”? A prize! A prize!
Mark, copy. Come unto these yellow sands, And then take hands. Mark that. And then take hands.
“I read a lot of poetry, and that gives me a wide range of permission to say anything in a song—they’re more twisted than I’ll ever be.” —the late Ric Ocasek of The Cars, quoted in The New York Times
I hear a lot of pop and rock,
And that gives me a range
Of things that spout and twist and shock
(De Sade might find them strange)
To choose from in my poetry,
If I’d a mind to say them.
But I’m content to leave them be
And let the DJs play them.
