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Tuesday, June 16, 2020

June 16, 2020

|| || suede, bliss, feline, shroud, beside herself.
Image from the Internet.

The opening poem contains all the words (or variations of them) from today's Jumble.
Comments are welcomed!
Do not explicitly reveal any of the actual answer words until after closing time, but embedding them surreptitiously in comment sentences is encouraged.

10 comments:

OwenKL said...

Oh, to be a cat for a day,
Nothing required except to play.
I'd sleep till noon in my bed of suede
Then get up and leave it unmade.

My feline body would be so lithe
I could fit into anywhere nice.
In fact, it comes into my thoughts
I'd find my bliss curled into a box!

But on my day would hang a shroud
If going outside were not allowed.
Still give me wet food, and treats beside,
And like Bast herself, I'll stay inside.

Ol' Man Keith said...

Your poem is an excellent evocation of cats and feline attitudes, Owen. You remind me that, although I count myself a dog person, I was raised with a succession of cats--mainly but not exclusively Siamese.
I appreciate their beauty & marvelous adaptability while respecting their arrogance and aloofness. You capture their complex spirit well.
(You also introduce me to "Bast" as the name of the Egyptian cat goddess, an appellation I did not know.)

Today's solution:
In this modern era, a time of re-valuing animal parts and pelts based on moral scruples and a general empathy for hairy mammals, one wonders whether to withdraw market investment in such items.
I mean, who can predict what will betide fur wealth in just the next quarter?
~ OMK

Ol' Man Keith said...

I posted this little poem on my F'Book page yesterday.
I apologize if anyone is offended by it. It is one of those unstructured pieces I usually can't abide. But I have noticed that when we have occasion to turn to agitprop, we often throw traditional form out the window.
This was addressed to myself and my white friends.
I self-censored it to blunt the political edge a bit.

A Definition
Systemic means
You don’t have to bother,
You don’t have to make the effort
To be racist.
It is all handled for you.
In advance.

If you want to make a difference
It’s going to be tough
On you.
And on all for whom the system
Cut a deal.

You need to turn on yourself.
Not because you ever did anything wrong.
But, just as Tr**p benefited from R***ian intervention,
You didn’t have to collude to take your unfair victory.
~ OMK

Wilbur Charles said...

Thanks OMK, I just couldn't get the riddle-solution for this one. Very clever. "Seeing doubled" was as close as I could get. I couldn't get it from Owen's cat paean either.

Your unrhymed piece reminds me that blank verse is actually harder. And...

That eight years of progress has been reversed by one election . I think I mentioned elsewhere that I was prompted by a xword clue to re-read Speer's "Inside the Third Reich".

Shirer had a number of books on the general subject but Speer's account, being so personal, is eerie.

WC

Wilbur Charles said...


Lefty's origins are shrouded in mystery
Ask him and he'll tell you story after story
"I was a teammate at the Cross* of Sockalexis"
The Truth: He saw him once at practice.

He'll persuade you he was a master of feline cunning
His outrageous lies were absolutely stunning
Stories and lies he'd be blissfully crafting
But hearing them I was beside myself laughing

WC

Wilbur Charles said...

Sockalexis, was a famous athlete who attended holy Cross in Worcester and for whom the Cleveland Indians were named. Legends abound of his prowess as an athlete and a drinker

Sandyanon said...

My best to to all. Back here in a day or two.

Ol' Man Keith said...

H A P P Y
B L O O M S D A Y
to Misty!
~ OMK

Ol' Man Keith said...

Wilbur ~ I agree with your assessment of both Shirer and Speer's books.
I read them back in the early '70s, but maybe it is time to re-read both.
I think the world will always be interested in Speer's account because, of all the Nazi criminals, he was the one who appeared most "normal," at least to polite, educated, middle-class first-world readers.
The thinking will always be, "If he could fall for the Führerprinzip, who can be immune?"
~ OMK

Misty said...

Delightful cat poem, Owen--with all the Jumble words and solution worked in beautifully.

And then a move to modernity with Ol'Man Keith's complex and thoughtful political poem at this problematic political time--very moving.

And then we get Wilbur's sweet funny Lefty poem.

The art on this blog is just astounding--thank you all, everyday, for surprising and pleasing and jogging our thoughts a bit. A great gift.

And happy Bloomsday to you too, O'Man Keith. Thank you for reminding me to offer a brief explanation on the crossword blog.

The Jumble this morning was sweet and funny, I thought. Got all four words without any problem, and the solution popped right up and gave me pride in myself.

(How lame is that, she asks herself, lamely.)