En-Uk, parroting Mama, . . .

. . . offers . . . apparently . . . a parrot:

Parrot Offered Here
En-Uk Sequoya Hwang

What sort of parrot? Nuh, dyuh, I dunno. Maybe the rigor mortis kind used on Monty Python in a sketchy skit concerning a recently deceased parrot?

Arrival of "Crow"

Crow

Sun-Ae Hwang

I really like this sketch of "Crow," whom I'm treating as a real crow with A.P.T.I.T.U.D.E. Or maybe A.T.T.I.T.U.D.E. Or A.L.T.I.T.U.D.E. Something highfalutin, anyway . . .

A Reader's Progress Report . . .

Collected Verse

Brother KimoNoZe reports:

PS Enjoying Radiant Snow. Nice work.

Good words to hear from an erudite, literary fellow like Brother KimoNoZe.

Gypsy Scholar as Brother AgNoZetic

Gypsy Scholar in 1984

Photo by Mike Smith . . . maybe

Yes, that's really me under those furry glasses and that Groucho Marx nose, as you surely already recognize, for even these elements of disguise cannot prevent the true, shining radiance of my great and glorious, big old pleasure-domed head of ugliness to poke through!

The year was 1984, which we were celebrating daily in honor of George Orwell. I even flew in from San Francisco, California to Dallas, Texas, where I was picked up in one of the NoZe limos and conveyed to NoZe headquarters for this Waco event, and you see that I made a good decision, else such joy would have had to have been restrained!

Assuming, of course, I would have had such joy if I hadn't attended.

By the way, that fellow over my left shoulder is my brother Tim, who drove all the way down from the Ozarks just to drive the NoZe float!

Birds do it, bees do it, even constipated fleas do it . . .

My Uncle Harlin spent the last decade and a half of his life going birdwatching nearly every day - "birding," they call it - and these feathered bipeds do have something fascinating about them, probably their ability to fly (most of them, anyway), a capability that fascinates us bipeds of the featherless sort.

My wife is now getting into birds, not yet birding, but finding birds online and drawing them, as below:

This first one's an Eastern Oystercatcher, but I don't know what this second one is:

Is it a fat little wren? I don't actually think so. What do readers think? Feel free to comment.

The Tangle Dance?

Tangled

Google Images

It takes two to tangle? Or just one long one? (As in photo?)

Actually, the word is "tango," which is probably from the Niger-Congo language, according to the Online Etymological Dictionary (compare Ibibio tamgu, "to dance").

As for "tangle," it has an interesting history:

mid-14c., nasalized variant of tagilen "to involve in a difficult situation, entangle," from a Scandinavian source (compare dialectal Swedish taggla "to disorder," Old Norse þongull "seaweed"), from Proto-Germanic *thangul- (source also of Frisian tung, Dutch tang, German Tang "seaweed"); thus the original sense of the root evidently was "seaweed" as something that entangles (itself, or oars, or fishes, or nets).

Perhaps these two words can tango . . .

"Works like a charm!"

Charming

That's what they say. But the meaning? Well, if it works like a charm, it doesn't work at all.

Brothers of the NoZe Persuasion

NoZe in Re-Rehab

This time, they mean it!

As Brother KimoNoZe has wisely observed:

"The sooner you get behind, the more time you have to catch up."

Try it sometime!

"Am I gonna have to cut that head thang off?"

Didn't I warn you about bedwetting?
(Next time, use the Jihadi John!)

Let the punishment fit the rime: Beheading for Bedwetting!

A NoZe for Satire: Question and Answer with the NoZe Brotherhood

NoZe Brotherhood with its Homecoming Float

Baylor Line Foundation

Most readers know that I attended Baylor University as an undergraduate and that I joined an anti-fraternity fraternity known as the NoZe Brotherhood, which was recently (September 6, 2017) asked by the Baylor Line Foundation about the role of such a 'fraternity' at Baylor, and what follows is part of the answer offered by the NoZe:

We view ourselves as a gadfly, sitting on the wall observing all of Baylor. Sometimes a story pops up or a comment gets traction, and like flies to honey (or honeys to someone's fly), we go straight at it, making a fuss, drawing attention, and starting a conversation. We don't always have solutions, and we don't think that's our role either. Simply put, we seek to be a loud, obnoxious voice among many on campus. Often we consider our opinions and views to be the best ones and many times that isn't the case, but so long as we maintain this outlet of nonsense and satire we will continue spouting off and spurning the administration[, as we have been doing for several decades now, apparently] . . . . The view that current Brothers have of the past is shaped by the legends, folklore, and police reports that have been passed down from generation to generation from Exiles (alumni). Every Homecoming we'll have a couple trickle in, having escaped the confines of their hospice care, and they'll regale us all night about "the good ol' days." Since we started our underground resurgence following the alleged bridge burning back in the 60s, our approach has roughly stayed the same: get kicked off [campus], hide for a while, come back quietly, build up our confidence, become arrogant, and get kicked off again. We imagine this cycle will continue for quite a while, at least until the icecaps melt and the oceans die.

The rest of the response is too long and integrated for excising by Gypsy Scholar, so go and read it already, at this place online: "A NoZe for Satire."