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Google This! Search Term Haiku #3

August 24, 2013 by 17 Comments

“The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.”–Gilbert K. Chesterton

While poems about cheese may be few and far between, there is no shortage of cheesy poetry, especially on the web.  Far be it for me to not to jump on that band wagon.  So, until some cheese-related phrases start turning up in my search terms, I’ll have to settle for cheesy.  You, like the chickens at left, are more than free to ignore me. The rules, once again, for search term haiku, are as follows:

  1. Every phrase must come from search terms actually used to find this blog, per my WordPress stats page.
  2. The poems must follow the accepted Anglicized format of the traditional Japanese art form: three lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables respectively.
  3. Each line must constitute an actual individual search term phrase, verbatim.  The only changes allowed are punctuation and truncation.  (Phrases may be taken from within search terms).
  4. Words may not be changed or rearranged. Typos and misspellings must not be corrected.
  5. Phrases may be combined or extended to multiple lines, as long as the previous four conditions are met.

When you are done ignoring the haiku below, you can ignore more of them here.  These were a bit harder to construct, folks.  Cheesy search term haiku requires cheesy search terms queries;  get out there and throw me some Gouda.

Tacky Education

Vinyl lettering

education wallpaper

of Mark Twain quotes

.

Three Course Meal

Dog swallowed brillo,

a veterinarian

and Schrödinger’s Cat

.

Meow vs. Woof

How to count like cat?

My schipperke is clever

physics equation.

.

Existential Stench

I am alone in

Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub blog

with Pepe Le Pou*

.

Equation #2

Real life example

of Lindsay Lohan cup size

celebrity meme.

.

*SIC

.

Signature   @MarkSackler

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Time Out: Remembering My Dad on Father’s Day

June 16, 2013 by 17 Comments

“It doesn’t matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was.”–Anne Sexton

Albert Allen Sackler
October 8, 1919-April 27,2012

The word serendipity usually conjures up images of inventors or scientists shouting “eureka” when they stumble upon some unexpected discovery.  But serendipity–the so-called happy accident–has its place in art and life as well. On this second father’s day without my beloved dad, here is a story of fond remembrance that might make you smile.

It was the fall of 1967 and my father had just installed some custom cabinetry in our large family den.  It was state of the art for the era: bookshelves, bar and a media center with a stereo and a color TV, the latter which he assembled himself from a Heathkit.  He was, after all, an electrical engineer.  What he never was, before or since, was an artist.  But he was about to become one for just a brief shining moment.

Overspray #1

The bar consisted of a fold down counter which revealed the spirits in the compartment behind it, and above it a cabinet with doors for glassware.  The doors had clear plexiglass window panels, which somehow did not suit my mother’s taste.  My father dutifully removed them to the basement, where he proceeded to spray paint them bright, solid colors.  He replaced the panels, and was prepared to discard the plywood square that had been the drop cloth for the paint job.   But our neighbor, physician and author Jack Shiller, just happened to stop by and call a halt to the demolition.

“Don’t throw that out!”  Dr. Shiller exclaimed

“Huh?”

“Put a frame around it!”

He did.  And he entered it in a local art show.   And it won an honorable mention prize; boy, were the judges pissed when they found out the story behind it.

Serendipity or not, I’m glad he was my dad and will love him forever.

Happy Father’s Day to all.  Be sure to hug your dad if he’s still alive.

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Google This! Search Term Haiku #2

April 27, 2013 by 21 Comments

“Anything too stupid to be spoken is sung.”–Voltaire

www.cartoonstock.com Used by permission

http://www.cartoonstock.com
Used by permission

If Voltaire were alive today, he would have said “anything too stupid to be spoken is Googled.”

And with that missive, folks, it’s time for another thrilling rendition of Search Term Haiku.   To recap,  this feature was inspired by blogger  Elkement  when she created search term poetry on her blog, Theory and Practice of Trying to Combine Just Anything.     She suggested I try my hand at it, and I did her one better.   I created search term Haiku,  which must abide by the following rules:

.

  1. Every phrase must come from search terms actually used to find this blog, per my WordPress stats page.
  2. The poems must follow the accepted Anglicized format of the traditional Japanese art form: three lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables respectively.
  3. Each line must constitute an actual individual search term phrase, verbatim.  The only changes allowed are punctuation and truncation.  (Phrases may be taken from within search terms).
  4. Words may not be changed or rearranged. Typos and misspellings must not be corrected.

The poems below have all been created using search terms that have appeared on my WordPress stats page since the last Search Term Haiku post in January of this year.  It should be noted:  adding stories to this blog about my life as the husband of a veterinarian has opened up a whole new world of gross search terms.  I did not make these up, I swear it.  Enjoy.



YUCK


What does poop look like?


Images found on Facebook


When you have pinworms


 


Science Class




Why is the sky plue*?




To Teach Physics to Your Dog




Erwin Schroedinger


 


 


Ah, Me




Mark Sacler* part 3




When you have enough quotes




Rat and pig cartoon




 


 


Canine Crazy


Dog eats brillo pad




At subatomic level




Mental enema




 


 


Zoophilia




Small lazy black dog




Veterinarian spouse




The wife of Luffy




 
* SIC (typos reproduced accurately.)




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Winter rerun: This is Not a Pipe
 

February 5, 2013  by  3 Comments 
While I’m out photographing the Spanish countryside today, here’s an apropos rerun of one of my back posts.  What else can I say–other than “this is not a blog?”  




“I am two with nature.”–Woody Allen




This is not a pipe
The Treachery of Images, by Rene Magritte, 1928-29
Ceci n’est pas une pipe. This is not a pipe.


René Magritte’s message is rather unambiguous.  An image of a “thing” is not the thing itself.  But don’t worry, I’m not headed toward a heavy ontological discussion here.  I have a simple question which, believe it or not, my overly opinionated philosophical mind has virtually no idea how to answer.   Maybe one of you out there can help.


I love nature photography.  Flowers, birds, wildlife, oceans, lakes, clouds, mountains, landscapes–you name it, I like looking at these images and they are my favorite to photograph.  Good grief, I’ve even photographed mud puddles and insects.  And yet I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, what one would call a nature lover.  I hate gardening and yard work.  I won’t even mow my own lawn as I am allergic to grass pollen. I haven’t been camping in 30 years and only rarely go hiking.  I do spend a good bit of time outdoors, but this is almost entirely involved with playing or watching sports.  It seems that I prefer a well framed image of nature to the actual experience of nature itself.  And to add to the conundrum, this only applies to photographic images.  My preferences in other visual arts tends towards styles or schools–Surrealist (Miró), Social Realist (Hopper), Post-impressionist (Seurat, Rousseau, Van Gogh), Geometric Abstraction (Klee, Mondrian).  (Here is a link to my favorite contemporary artist, Yanick Lapuh.)


I have only just realized this–and really have no strong ideas about why this should be.  A preference for a well-composed image?  Remnants from a childhood anxiety of physical reality?  Or, like Woody, am I just at two with nature?   All you amateur psychologists please provide your opinions by email, snail mail, or pony express.  (Comments herein are OK, too)


Below, three of my personal favorite landscape photographs from my own travels, as well as a couple of representative pieces by Monsieur Lapuh.


(Click on images for full size)


Sideways tree
Sideways Tree. Looking out from the Great Wall of China. Copyright 2006, Mark Sackler


coastline
Costa Rica Coastline. Copyright 2008, Mark Sackler


Loch
A Scottish Loch. Copyright 2010 Mark Sackler


Objection Your Honer, Yanick Lapuh, 1993


Envisioned Solution, Yanick Lapuh, 2006




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Time Out:  Google This! Search Term Haiku
 

January 18, 2013  by  28 Comments 


“If it isn’t on Google, it doesn’t exist.”–Jimmy Wales




funny_google_search_result_-722978


The last thing you want to do is throw down a challenge to this blogger.  Ever.  But that’s exactly what Elke Stangl did when she created search term poetry on her blog, Theory and Practice of Trying to Combine Just Anything.  First of all, Elke has a resume that reads like a character from The Big Bang Theory. She describes her self as a physicist turned IT security consultant turned renewable energy engineer–all this plus a stint with Microsoft.   But that aside, her big mistake was suggesting that I try my hand at search term poetry.  I will not be outdone.   Be careful what you wish for Elke, cause here comes Search Term Haiku.  The rules are simple, but the creation is anything but easy.


    

  1. Every word must come from search terms actually used to find this blog, per my WordPress stats page
    2. 

  2. The poems must follow the accepted Anglicized format of the traditional Japanese art form: three lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables respectively.
    3. 

  3. Each line must constitute an actual individual search term phrase, verbatim.  The only change allowed is punctuation.
    4. 



You asked for it, Elke.  So here they are.  (Note:  I may have to bestow a BLAHS on Elke for inspiring this idea.  But not the next one, as that has already been determined and will be posted soon.)


 


HAHA


Siri lacks humor.


Did Schroedinger’s Cat Blow up


Albert Einstein’s hair?


 


Non Sequitor


Stupid search engine:


16 Times 4 equals what?


Lawn bowling cartoons


 


 


What’s in a name?


 


Mahatma Gandhi


Luna Rosa Pirana


Lindsay Lohan meme


 


 


Canine Crazy


 


Are Dogs Chaotic?


If you roll the dice enough times


I’m part schipperke.


 


 


Quixotically Quantum


 


Haldane conjecture:


Many worlds are around us


so why don’t you leave.


 


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Time Out:  Pearls Before Swine
 

October 26, 2012  by  13 Comments 


“When in doubt, kill cute things.”–




Stephan Pastis, Pearls Before Swine creator


This is Stephan Pastis


This is Stephan Pastis on Drugs


More than once in these pages, I have asserted an aversion to thinking “inside the box.”  But I must admit, I’m an amateur at thinking outside the box compared to Pearl’s Before Swine cartoonist Stephan Pastis.  His thinking, as implied by his daily comic strips, is somewhere between “outside the box” and completely sick.  You might deem it closer to the latter; he almost certainly does.  What else can you say about a guy who draws himself into his own strips, usually representing himself as being abused by his own characters?   He even draws outside the box literally. In one strip–which I unfortunately could not find a reproduction of online–he depicts two of his characters sitting on the bottom border of the last panel, feet dangling down from it, derisively tossing sunflower seeds at the strip below them on the comics page.  His characters know they are in a comic strip, and they milk it for all its worth.


The Players


The regular characters are anthropomorphic animals that go by the names of their species.  Pig. Rat. Goat. Zebra.  Here is a rundown.


Rat–The nastiest, most cynical and self-centered comic strip personage this side of Lucy van Pelt.  Rat is egotistical, superior, overbearing and mean.  He gains amusement at the expense of everyone and everything that isn’t him.   But his primary target is his roommate, Pig.


If you can’t figure out why I like this particular strip, you haven’t been paying attention to this blog. (Click for larger image)


Pig–Simple-minded and literal to a fault, Pig is the polar opposite of Rat.  That he lives with Rat, and puts up with constant verbal and physical abuse from him, is the source of many of the strip’s jokes.  Pig most reminds me of Gracie Allen.


Goat–If pig is Gracie Allen, then Goat is George Burns.  Intellectual and reflective, he is the perfect straight man to Rat and Goat.  It is, as you can see from the strip above and the one below, a toss-up as to what exasperates him more: Rat’s arrogance or Pig’s naivety.


Goat is a man after this blogger’s heart. Pig, not so much. (Click to see enlarged image)


Zebra–A neighbor of Pig and Rat,  Zebra is a man on a mission.  And that mission is?  To avoid being eaten by his next door neighbors, the crocodiles of Zeeba Zeeba Eata fraternity.   This is not too big a problem, because the Crocs, though scheming and conniving, are incompetent, downright dumb, and they also talk funny.  Unlike the other characters in the strip, some of these crocs actually have names.  Most frequently, that name is Bob.  Either there have been several crocs named Bob or Pastis has killed Bob more times than South Park has killed Kenny.  A  typical interaction between Zebra and his neighbors below.


This one reads like it was written for this blog! (click for larger image)


Guard Duck–I’m a bit reluctant to admit it, but this is my favorite Pearls character.   Rat and Pig wanted to buy a guard dog to protect their house.  They couldn’t afford one, so they bought a guard duck instead.  What they got turned out to be a cross between Elmer Fudd and Rambo.  I’m a peace-loving kind of guy, but GD is so over the top I just have to laugh.  A lot.




Stephan Pastis–Yes, Pastis is a character in his own strip.  He interacts with the other characters, fights with them and, most often, is abused by them.  The last scenario–abuse–most frequently occurs in the last panel following an agonizing pun.


Ouch!! (Click for larger image)


Add to all this a variety of running gags which sometimes include characters from other popular comic strips (Pastis is particularly fond of poking fun at Cathy and Family Circus), and you get the idea.  He used to be a lawyer; now he is completely nuts.  He seemed to have two options in life when he decided to leave the legal profession:  Looney Toons, or the loony bin.  He could still go either way, but I’m glad he chose the former.


(Click for larger image)


If Pearls Before Swine does not appear in your local newspaper, you can follow it online  on GoComics or Yahoo Comics.  Pastis also has a WordPress blog.  A typically sick post example is here.


All cartoons in this post ©2012 Stephan Pastis;  Pastis portrait photo from Wikipedia;  all other content in this post ©2012 Mark Sackler


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Timeout: This is Not a Pipe
 

August 23, 2012  by  47 Comments 


“I am two with nature.”–Woody Allen




This is not a pipe
The Treachery of Images, by Rene Magritte, 1928-29
Ceci n’est pas une pipe. This is not a pipe.


René Magritte’s message is rather unambiguous.  An image of a “thing” is not the thing itself.  But don’t worry, I’m not headed toward a heavy ontological discussion here.  I have a simple question which, believe it or not, my overly opinionated philosophical mind has virtually no idea how to answer.   Maybe one of you out there can help.


I love nature photography.  Flowers, birds, wildlife, oceans, lakes, clouds, mountains, landscapes–you name it, I like looking at these images and they are my favorite to photograph.  Good grief, I’ve even photographed mud puddles and insects.  And yet I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, what one would call a nature lover.  I hate gardening and yard work.  I won’t even mow my own lawn as I am allergic to grass pollen. I haven’t been camping in 30 years and only rarely go hiking.  I do spend a good bit of time outdoors, but this is almost entirely involved with playing or watching sports.  It seems that I prefer a well framed image of nature to the actual experience of nature itself.  And to add to the conundrum, this only applies to photographic images.  My preferences in other visual arts tends towards styles or schools–Surrealist (Miró), Social Realist (Hopper), Post-impressionist (Seurat, Rousseau, Van Gogh), Geometric Abstraction (Klee, Mondrian).  (Here is a link to my favorite contemporary artist, Yanick Lapuh.)


I have only just realized this–and really have no strong ideas about why this should be.  A preference for a well-composed image?  Remnants from a childhood anxiety of physical reality?  Or, like Woody, am I just at two with nature?   All you amateur psychologists please provide your opinions by email, snail mail, or pony express.  (Comments herein are OK, too)


Below, three of my personal favorite landscape photographs from my own travels, as well as a couple of representative pieces by Monsieur Lapuh.


(Click on images for full size)


Sideways tree
Sideways Tree. Looking out from the Great Wall of China. Copyright 2006, Mark Sackler


coastline
Costa Rica Coastline. Copyright 2008, Mark Sackler


Loch
A Scottish Loch. Copyright 2010 Mark Sackler


Objection Your Honer, Yanick Lapuh, 1993


Envisioned Solution, Yanick Lapuh, 2006




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Remembering My Dad
 

June 17, 2012  by  5 Comments 
Remembering My Dad


Albert Allen Sackler
October 8, 1919-April 27,2012


The word serendipity usually conjures up images of inventors or scientists shouting “eureka” when they stumble upon some unexpected discovery.  But serendipity–the so-called happy accident–has its place in art and life as well. On this first father’s day without my beloved dad, here is a story of fond remembrance that might make you smile.


It was the fall of 1967 and my father had just installed some custom cabinetry in our large family den.  It was state of the art for the era: bookshelves, bar and a media center with a stereo and a color TV, the latter which he assembled himself from a Heathkit.  He was, after all, an electrical engineer.  What he never was, before or since, was an artist.  But he was about to become one for just a brief shining moment.


Overspray #1


The bar consisted of a fold down counter which revealed the spirits in the compartment behind it, and above it a cabinet with doors for glassware.  The doors had clear plexiglass window panels, which somehow did not suit my mother’s taste.  My father dutifully removed them to the basement, where he proceeded to spray paint them bright, solid colors.  He replaced the panels, and was prepared to discard the plywood square that had been the drop cloth for the paint job.   But our neighbor, physician and author Jack Shiller, just happened to stop by and call a halt to the demolition.


“Don’t throw that out!”  Dr. Shiller exclaimed


“Huh?”


“Put a frame around it!”


He did.  And he entered it in a local art show.   And it won an honorable mention prize; boy, were the judges pissed when they found out the story behind it.


Serendipity or not, I’m glad he was my dad and will love him forever.


Happy Father’s Day to all.


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