Friday is Poet's Day

Well, as I've learned that quite a few amongst those inhabitants of the United (?) Kingdom who still have a job do think of Poet's Day as 'Piss off early, tomorrow's Saturday', I decided to post this on Friday night.

Of Petrarca I was thinking, of Hafis and - ha ha, of course: Dafydd ap Gwilym, but although I tried (relatively) hard I did not (yet) find in English what I love in German.

So help me Ringelnatz!

And if it were to prove that not only some caterpillars, but also some ants are pretty clever.

Enjoy:

In Hamburg lebten zwei Ameisen,
Die wollten nach Australien reisen.
Bei Altona auf der Chaussee,
Da taten ihnen die Beine weh,
Und da verzichteten sie weise
Dann auf den letzten Teil der Reise.
Joachim Ringelnatz

And here's the glorious free translation by John Brough which I found at Brian Cole's Brindin Press website.

Two ants who lived in London planned
To walk to Melbourne overland,
But, footsore in Southampton Row
when there were still some miles to go,
They thought it wise to not extend
The Journey to the bitter end.

Tricky caterpillar: Dining like an ant-queen

Now, that's clever:

A kind of European caterpillar can garner royal treatment from ants by mimicking the ch-ch-ch-ch of their queen, says an international research team.

Ants of the species Myrmica schencki can be fooled into carrying certain caterpillars into the colony nurseries where the fakers enjoy full care and five-star dining, explains Jeremy Thomas of the University of Oxford in England. An interloper caterpillar gains most of its body mass while luxuriating in ant care, and then turns into a Maculinea rebeli butterfly.

Learn more 'antazing' details at ScienceNews.

And don't miss hearing the caterpillar and ant sounds

Njam njam njam: Living like god in Ants.

Laughing Lhursday

Typo in the title?
Nah. It's just that I would not let a tiny T spoil an avantgardistic alliteration.

Hard news first.

According to Tetrapilotomos a most reliable deep throat of his eminent trustworthy source has off the records been told by General İlker Başbuğ, the Commander of the mighty Turkish Armed Forces (TAF), that the Turkish military is going to marginally change its device, by changing 'at home' to 'in bed'.

Peace in bed, Peace in the World.

Asked for the reason, after sipping a drop of coffee and reaching for a fig the Commander reportedly said: Sorry, I am urgently awaited at home. You'll find all details at Internation Musing.

Another good news:

Ardent has not got lost in The Numinous Vacuum.

Well, and all good things come in threes:

Especially Asterisk- respectively *-afficionados will enjoy Bock the Robber's 'very open letter' to the PC-Brigade.

I am sure, even if you happen to be a most sensitive contemporary like I am, you'll be *ucking amused.

Personal note to my various Nonsanto watchdoggies: Choose the attributes you like best at Bock's and let me know, so that I may be able to address you in the way you like best.

Closed book opened

Thanks to Tetrapilotomos since yesterday the mechanisms of bourse respectively stock exchange to me no longer are a riddle wrapped up in enigmata:

You buy one hen, one cock,
and sooner or later you have 100 hens.

Then there comes a torrential flood,
and all your hens get drowned.

When in this moment you sigh:
'Ah, if only I had bought ducks', - that's stock exchange.

Felicitous jubilee

Nothing much to be written. Today's the 200th birthday of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy who died early, whose music, though, is still alive.

Enjoy the 13 year old Itzhak Perlman performing the Violine Concerto ...




... and the 17 year old Felix' Midsummer Night's Dream

James Joyce - Walking into Eternity

It's been said he would have written like Flann O'Brien had he not been crackbrained; and who am I to disagree.
On the other side, what James Augustine Aloysius Joyce put on paper is not the worst one could find in the realm of letters, would you agree?
And: It's Jim's 127th birthday today.

So, what about a(n informative and entertaining) 'walk into eternity' and - who knows? - on the very tower in Sandycove we might get served some pints of plain so that we can raise our glasses on Mr. Joyce and his protagonists.


Part one



Part two





For those who did not have the pleasure yet, and those who couldn't get enough of it - voilà:

Pitch'n'Putt with Joyce'n'Beckett:

Molly Bloom's Soliloquy


Enjoy(ce)! :)