Tag Archives: illusions

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’25 A To Z Challenge – S

It’s tough, sittin’ around doin’ nuthin.  You’re never sure when you’re finished.

While you’re sitting around on your assets, not doing much, here are a couple of words about not doing much, for you to study.  Scrim is a piece of loose-weave cloth, used in theaters to either create the illusion of solidity, or of haziness, depending on the lighting.  Therefore….

SCRIMSHANK

1885/90 British slang, origin uncertain
to avoid one’s obligations or share of work, especially in the military; shirk.
American: to goldbrick

And its cousin….

SCRIMSHAW

a carved or engraved article, especially of whale ivory, whalebone, walrus tusks, or the like, made by whalers as a leisure occupation.
The act of doing so

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This is MY definition of ‘Griffonage.’

Thanx for stopping by and reading this post, which my friend Eric Idle helped me compose.

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Poetry Pavilion

For your viewing pleasure today, I present a couple of small pieces of poetry.  I have published these before, but felt that they warranted being repeated. These came from the British pop group, The Moody Blues – small bits of verse, not large enough to be set to music, as a song – probably written by Justin Hayward, or John Lodge.

MOODY BLUE

Breathe deep the gathering gloom.
Watch light fade from every room.
Pensitive people look back and lament,
Another day, uselessly spent.

Impassioned lovers wrestle as one.
Lonely man cries for love, and has none.
Senior citizens wish they had some.
New mother picks up and suckles her son.

Cold-hearted orb, that rules the night.
Removes the colors from our sight.
Red is grey, and yellow, white,
But we decide which is right.

And which, is an illusion….

 

MOODY CONTEMPLATION

Between the eyes and ears there lie
The sounds of color
And the light of a sigh
With thoughts of within
To exclude the without
The ghost of a thought
Will exclude all doubt
And to name this thought
Is important to some
So they gave it a word
And the word is ‘OM’

Give them some contemplation and meditation.  Sometime in the future, I will probably republish “Tale Of The Great Northern Knight”, and wonder how its author, White Lady In The Hood, is doing.

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Some Fine Humor

One day, a man says to his wife, “It’s a fine day.”
The next day, he again says, “It’s a fine day.”
This continues for about a week.  Finally she demands to know why he keeps saying it.  He replies, “Last week we had that big argument, and you said that you’d leave me one fine day.  I’m just reminding you.

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A vampire bat arrives back at the roost, with his face, mouth and teeth covered in blood.  All the other bats get excited, and ask him where he got it.  “Follow me,” he says, and off they fly, over the hills and the river, into the forest.  “See that tree over there??” he asks.  “Yeah, yeah.”  “Well, I f**king didn’t”

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Alzheimer’s goes to the doctor

A guy is in a doctor’s office. His doctor is there with him.
“I have two pieces of bad news,” the doctor says.
“What are they?”
“Well, the first piece of news is that you have cancer.”
“What’s the second piece of news?” he asks.
“Well, the second piece of bad news is that you have Alzheimer’s.”
The man laughs and says, “Well, at least I don’t have cancer.”

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A homeless man approached me as I was leaving a sandwich shop and he asked me if I had $5 to spare. I felt bad for him, and was just about to give him the money.

But then I realized I was holding a $5 foot long I had just bought, so I held up both the cash and the sandwich and told him he could have whichever one he preferred.

He stared at the sandwich. Then his eyes shot over to the $5 bill. He looked at the sandwich again, then back at the cash. After a moment his eyes were darting back and forth between the two, and he threw up his hands in despair, let out a scream of anguish and then turned and ran away from me.

At first I was totally confused, but then it dawned on me: Beggars can’t be choosers.

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Judge: Members of the jury.  Before we began, the Plaintiff’s lawyer gave me an envelope containing $5000 cash.  Then, the Defendant’s lawyer handed me an envelope with $10,000 cash.  So, I’ve decided to return $5000 to the Defendant’s lawyer, and we will try this case on the merits.

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What’s the difference between a good lawyer and a great lawyer?
A good lawyer knows the law. A great lawyer knows the judge.

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I love bacon!  Sometimes I eat it twice a day.  It helps take my mind off the terrible chest pains that I get.

I choked on a carrot this morning.  All I could think was, “I bet a donut wouldn’t do that to me.

Nothing spoils as good story like the arrival of an eyewitness.

It only takes one slow-moving person in q grocery store, to destroy the illusion that I’m a nice person.

I hate it when people act all intellectual and talk about Mozart, when they’ve never even seen one of his paintings.

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’22 A To Z Challenge – Z

Our old mix-tapes had sides A and B.  It is only reasonable that their replacements should be CDs.

I used last year’s A To Z – Y post to babble about watching old black and white films on YouTube, an old and already, almost obsolete platform.  I thought I might close this year out by writing about an older system of watching even older moving pictures.  Ladies and gentlemen, Thomas Alva Edison Presents his fabulous

ZOETROPE

[ zoh-ee-trohp ]
a device for giving an illusion of motion, consisting of a slitted drum that, when whirled, shows a succession of images placed opposite the slits within the drum as one moving image.

ORIGIN OF ZOETROPE

1865–70; irregular <Greek zōḗ life + tropḗ turn

Western society has come so far, so fast, perhaps nowhere quite much as in Entertainment.  For centuries – millennia – a flickering candle was the zenith of amusement and attention-holding.  Technology has changed entertainment, particularly the visual arts – films, television, and videos.

A century ago, Lon Chaney – Senior – the great makeup genius and actor, played a Jekyll and Hyde type role in a film.  He walked around a ‘tree’ as Jekyll, altered nothing but the way he held his body and face, and came around the other side as the evil Hyde character.  Some women watching the movie actually fainted.  Play today’s Alien, or Predator, or even The Matrix, and we’d have the entire audience aswoon.

My attempts at entertainment are definitely spinning, and often best viewed through a narrow slit.  I’ve got to get out of this heavy white jacket.  I’ve got the month of April to put into motion.  😉

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Flash Fiction #253

PHOTO PROMPT © Jennifer Pendergast  

FREE BIRD

It is so comforting to Know – to know no doubts – to have all the answers, even when they are not the right ones.

People feel safe when they can identify – apply labels to others – politics, religion, gender, language, nationality.  It gives the illusion of control of their lives.

Other folks, and their related social problems, are complex, and fully-formed.  They are not easy, one-dimensional, cookie-cutter simple.

It is usually better to make decisions and form opinions based on reality, rather than preconceived notions.  More people should try it.  They might find those feared – and hated – Others…. are quite sweet.

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Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

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WOW # 28

monitor

For all you either/or, bits and bytes, take it or leave it, coming or going, ones and zeros lovers, the Word Of the Week is

UNARY

Adjective – consisting of, or affecting, a single element or component; monadic

Word origin for unary – 1923, from Latin unus “one” (see one ) on model of binary, etc.

You just knew that, if there’s the word ‘binary’, for ‘two,’ guys like me mean that there’ll be a “My way or the highway” word for ONE.

Actually, it’s not even a Hobson’s Choice word between a poor option and nothing. It shows a mandatory, single course of action.  ‘Free Will’ is an illusion when unary is in town.

In my teens, one day my Mother told me to perform some chore. Trying to show some I’m growing into an adult spunk, I asked, “or else what?”  She calmly replied, “There’s no ‘or else’.  It needs doing.  It’s your job. Do it!”

Much as many of us value our independence, freedom, and options, there are times that life just throws one of these, It’s gotta be done, and there’s only one way to do it curve-balls at us.  Now there’s a word for it that you can throw back.   🙄