It began as the GODFATHER OF MATH, evolved into the GOODFATHER OF MATH. Now this. Go figure...

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The kind of humor I like is the thing that makes me laugh for five seconds and think for ten minutes = G. CARLIN...Stain glass, engraved glass, frosted glass
–give me plain glass = JOHN FOWLES ... Music is the mathematics of the gods=PYTHAGORAS ... Nothing is more fluid than language = R. L. SWIHART
I cannot live without the oxygen of laughter = DAWN POWELL ... !!! ... But laughter cannot survive without the hydrogen of gravitas = PAUL OLIVERIO
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Thursday, July 30, 2015

Missouri Blues

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We gave you Mark Twain
We gave you Langston Hughes
Stan the Man and the  St. Louis Blues

Show me a Missourian
who isn't a good egg

If only our Ferguson 
were named  Craig
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________________________________________________________________________________________________


Street Art In Beverly Hills

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Banksy's Bomb Hugger
Estimate: $25,000-$35,000






Juliens, the auction house 
to the stars, has announced 
its annual Street Art Auction 
taking place Sept. 30, 2015, 
in their Beverly Hills gallery 
at 9665 Wilshire Boulevard.












© artdaily.org

The text above is
98.6% verbatim






The next BANKSY page is  here.
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The Elephantine Equation

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Elephantine EGO + Elephantine WEALTH 
+ Elephantine STUPIDITY =  DONALD TRUMP
 
The image is from  here
but the equation is 
the copyrighted property of LCSoL.

The next Trump page is  there. 

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Wednesday, July 29, 2015

A Homonym Poem

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_______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

Grammatic rule requires
crossing your t's
and 
dotting your i's

but

Poetic license permits
dotting your tease
and
crossing your eyes

However, 
be sure to call it 
"Stream of Consciousness"
  
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________________________________________________________________________________________________
Footnote
A HOMONYM POEM is the copyrighted property of LCSoL.
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For Mrs. CarPeo (Comic Relief #548)

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Mrs. CarPeo never met a dog cartoon she couldn't love.
Charles Barsotti
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Tuesday, July 28, 2015

A James Thurber Page (Comic Relief #547)

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A drawing is always  dragged down to the level  of its caption. 


The actual caption  of Mr. Thurber's classic cartoon is:
"All right, have it your way–you heard a seal bark!"


The next New Yorker cartoon is  here. 
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Monday, July 27, 2015

Another 2.0 CarPeo Letter

________________________________________________________________________________________________


Sam Oliverio
≈ 1932


Dear Dad

Please thank Grace and Eleanor
for their role as guardian angels:

Were I to have left Long Beach
as originally intended, my car 
might have been the automobile
featured in the Joshua Tree
freeway collapse.

 


As it was, I traveled on 
that stretch of Interstate 10
at approximately 3AM 
on the morning 
of July 19:

Three hours in advance 
of the collapse.


All I saw of Joshua Tree National Park was as pitch black 
as everything else in the desert. At 3AM, the surface 
of the I-10 was solid asphalt and problem-free. 

It was not a matter of luck. 

It was a matter of the two most important women 
in the 2.0 CarPeo Galaxy assuring that 
I completed the cross-country drive
without any disastrous event.

But this letter is addressed 
to the most important man 
in that Galaxy: YOU 

Little did I know that your influence would be withheld
until I passed into the Eastern Standard time zone.

It would have been 
a dreamy experience 
were I to encounter
a roadside image 
such as this



It would have meant
my primary source
of driving energy
was immediately
and conveniently
available.

During their operating hours,
of course.

It also would have meant that Starbucks 
was using a copyrighted photograph 
I took in 2008.

But in 2015, after driving pure Interstate roads
through ten states, I saw more signage for 
Pawn Shops than for Starbucks.

Most of the Pawn Shop signs, lurked high above
Interstate 40 in  Amarillo, Texas.

My primary caffeine source through the first ten states
was McDonalds Senior Coffee, never costing more than 
eighty eight cents with a free refill.

After driving through  Oklahoma City  which was 
vaguely pretty (compared to the rest of the state),
I ventured north through Missouri to segue 
onto Interstate 70. 

This was an alternative to driving to Virginia:

Instead of visiting my sister, I got to spend
a god-awfully happy night in Maryland 
with a pair of nieces.

That is, I was with two of your grand-daughters plus 
your new-born Great-Grandson, who was responsible 
for the most-glowing smile ever directed at me.
Carol(a/k/a, Mrs.CarPeo) notwithstanding.

En route to  Maryland  on I-70, I drove through
a portion of  Pennsylvania  at noon time 
without intention of stopping anywhere. 

However, an exit sign read  Belle Vernon.


It was immediately followed by
the first traditional STARBUCKS
sign I saw since the first interstate road I traveled 
upon 2800 miles ago 
in Long Beach, 
California.







Slightly more than 99 years ago, 
YOU were born in Belle Vernon.

Of course, I stopped there!

Despite that hamlet being developed
into an industrial park, I felt your presence
everywhere, especially when I saw pretty young ladies. 

I could not help but think how you might have known 
their grandparents but I said not a word 
to any of the ladies.

I had much to say to Carol, telephoning her 
from the STARBUCKS patio, while slowing
sipping my Vente Bold java.

I believe it was our 99th phone conversation
of the journey. 

She loves it when she can hear me cry
over the phone.

This happened on Thursday, July 23, 2015.
It is now Monday, July 28.  

I have had sips of that sacred cup of Vente
in four different states on five different days...

including in the sterling 
presence of your (and Grace's)
grandchildren.

But that cup of coffee tasted best
in the presence of Carol.

It is as if that paper cup,
purchased in the town 
where YOU were born
in 1916 could say,
in 2015:

Mr. Demille, 
I am ready for my close-up


Sincerely and Everlovingly,
Your son, 

Paul Oliverio
Katonah, NY
1:43PM     
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Sunday, July 26, 2015

If My Travel Plans Were Different

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Had I northed, instead of easted
my traveling eyes might have feasted 

On every frame...piece-by-piece
the wonders of Amy 
never cease.


The "Amy Winehouse, A Family Portrait" exhibit
makes its U.S. debut at San Francisco's
Contemporary Jewish Museum
along with companion exhibit
"You Know I'm No Good"

From July 23  through November 1

Photographs by  Justin Sullivan



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It Is Pronounced OBTUSE-TIT-TOOT

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Are you an obtustitute?
Wha? Hunh? 

 Excuse me.    
I don' unistan the kweshun.

I think that means your answer is "yes."
Dat also means the kweshun be made of  ice.

Made of ice!  I didn't say you weren't creative.
Whateva.         

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How Flat Is it?

________________________________________________________________________________________________



Along Interstate 40,
North-western Texas 
is so flat...

It is a great place 
to grow up if you 
are a tumbleweed.


________________________________________________________________________________________________
Footnotes
The image is from a watermarked source.

The text is the copyrighted property of LCSoL.
________________________________________________________________________________________________


Saturday, July 25, 2015

Photoverio © (#116): Arizona Sunrise

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© Oliverio
Quartzsite
6AM 
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Thursday, July 23, 2015

When Clouds Retire

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© Oliverio
Sky City, New Mexico
  
  When clouds retire
  where do they go?


 "Beyond the bramble
  of New Mexico."


  So sayeth a chief
  of the Navajo...
     
   (Her name is
  Chief Acoma Fountain)
    
  They make eternal love 
  to the mountain.


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Footnote
WHEN CLOUDS RETIRE is the copyrighted property of LCSoL. 
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Wednesday, July 22, 2015

EnterTwainment

________________________________________________________________________________________________


 Next to the sink
(I think)
        
 I know what 
 to do
        
 But what is 
 He doing
 in my 
 shoe?
    
 I will quote Him from page twenty-two:

Grief can take care of itself
But to get the full value of joy
You must have someone to divide it with
                       
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Footnote
The MARK TWAIN quote is from  Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.


Mrs. CarPeo's sometimes humble servant submits this entry
from the Lamplighter Inn of Springfield, Missouri.


In CarPeo-speak, that location is twenty-four hours south of Owen.

The photograph is the evidentiary property of the Hannibal, MO, State Police. 
________________________________________________________________________________________________


Monday, July 20, 2015

The Same Thing Was Said About Jesus Christ

________________________________________________________________________________________________

HOW POPE FRANCIS  DESTROYED

THE GOP’s RELIGIOUS
CON ARTISTS

Republicans love to flaunt their religion, but only if it conforms 
to their politics. 

Francis just made that harder.



Over the past few weeks, we’ve heard the initial cannon volleys
from the parapets of the GOP hurled in the direction 
of Pope Francis. 

But as of yesterday, when the Pope delivered a major encyclical
on the climate crisis, there was a thermonuclear freakout, 
from not just Fox News and AM talk radio, 
but nearly every Republican 
with internet access. 

Already, Greg Gutfeld from Fox News Channel’s 
The Five referred to the Pope as the  
"most dangerous man in the world."


The format is mine but this page 
is  verbatim from salon.com 

Written by  Bob Cesca

Reuters photo by  Dado Ruvic


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Saturday, July 18, 2015

Mr. Twain Said This About His Father:

________________________________________________________________________________________________

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______________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________________


Somebody Said This About Somebody Else's Mother:

________________________________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________

Your mother knows how
to push your buttons
because she installed them
______________________________________________

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Friday, July 17, 2015

Is He Or Isn't He Part Of The Exhibit?

________________________________________________________________________________________________




The answer is  here.

© artdaily.org

AFP PHOTO/  Oli Scarff
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Thursday, July 16, 2015

Sally On The Ground

________________________________________________________________________________________________


© Oliverio
Walk and Click Saturday
Sidewalk Sally
bouqueted in a row
   
Without healthy hosing, 

she never would glow

Without a loving hand,
she never would grow

Sidewalk Sally
Thank you for the show
________________________________________________________________________________________________


This Is Not...This Is (TIN/TI #10)

 _______________________________________________________________________________________________




⬆ 
THIS IS NOT  Jefferson Airplane



     THIS IS  Jefferson Airplane 
 ⬇



The first image is Jefferson High School,
where my heart and soul will always be.

The second image is where my head will rest
whenever it needs a Surrealistic Pillow
and a vision of Mrs. CarPeo.
 *************


Her neon mouth with the blinkers-off smile
Nothing but an electric sign
You could say she has an individual style
She's part of a colorful time

Secrecy of lady-chrome-covered clothes
You wear cause you have no other
But I suppose no one knows
You're my plastic fantastic lover

 *************

The next page
in this series
is  here.   
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The Modern Mandala [Midnight Photo # 857142]

________________________________________________________________________________________________


© Oliverio
The Front Wheel of Life
Random acts
of kindness
    
Random acts
of darkness
   
Random acts
of imagination
   
Take your place on 
the Modern Mandala 
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Wednesday, July 15, 2015

A Poem By R. L. Swihart

________________________________________________________________________________________________

A Sequence of I's Contrives to Describe a Locus

R L Swihart
The Last Man
Cover Art by K. Swihart 



I thought you were Euclidean 
so I put you in a box

I built the box of linden 
and lined it with straw

I patterned the lid 
with a rosette of holes

I painted the outside gold






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Tuesday, July 14, 2015

What FSF Might have Said In 1916

________________________________________________________________________________________________

At the age of nineteen,
I dream of being with Shakespeare in  Stratford-Upon-Avon...
I would be his favorite actress 
 
F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Evil Eye
Princeton
1916



As beautiful as 
I am handsome

The prose
that flows
in my 
veins

Shall burst
upon the 
page

But now 
the stage...


Where boys 
are boys

And girls 
and girls











________________________________________________________________________________________________
Footnotes
One hundred years ago, Scott Fitzgerald co-authored
a college theatrical production at an all-boys
school in New Jersey.

By the time The Evil Eye was ready for presentation,
his academic grades at Princeton had sunk so low,
he was not permitted to perform in the show.

However, when Scott posed for this publicity still on January 2, 1916,
the New York Times  called him "The most beautiful girl" in the show.

The next Fitzgerald page is  here.
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Photoverio © (#115): Bonsai Oranges Speaketh

________________________________________________________________________________________________


© Oliverio
Actual Size

Our diameter is equal to 

one-third the diameter 

of an American penny.

We believe we are 

The World's Smallest Oranges.

If you can prove otherwise,

please contact this website.




________________________________________________________________________________________________


FSF...I Am The Great... "I Will Say It Thrice"

________________________________________________________________________________________________

 I am the great...I mean...
F. Scott Fitzgerald
(1896-1940) 

My His next page is  here.

  
I am THE GREAT GATSBY
[author of]

 I discovered Antartica
 [not really]

 But I did discover Hemingway 
    in Paris and helped him    
 get published in America.

 I was the first person
 to read his manuscript
 for THE SUN ALSO RISES
 and I took an axe to
 the first twenty pages.

 In private, Ernest thanked 
 me profusely.  

 But, in public, he denied 
 I helped him.

________________________________________________________________________________________________


The Caption For This Photograph Is A Lie

________________________________________________________________________________________________


I live on the second floor of  this building  
with a cat named Emci Asher.

________________________________________________________________________________________________


How To Write A Story With 1,353 Words

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She was a large woman with a large purse that had everything in it but hammer and nails. It had a long strap, and she carried it slung across her shoulder. It was about eleven o’clock at night, and she was walking alone, when a boy ran up behind her and tried to snatch her purse. 

The strap broke with the single tug the boy gave it from behind. But the boy’s weight and the weight of the purse combined caused him to lose his balance so, instead of taking off full blast as he had hoped, the boy fell on his back on the sidewalk, and his legs flew up. The large woman simply turned around and kicked him right square in his blue-jeaned sitter. Then she reached down, picked the boy up by his shirt front, and shook him until his teeth rattled.

After that the woman said, “Pick up my pocketbook, boy, and give it here.” 

She still held him. But she bent down enough to permit him to stoop and pick up her purse. 
“Now ain’t you ashamed of yourself?”

Firmly gripped by his shirt front, the boy said, “Yes’m.”

The woman said, “What did you want to do it for?”
The boy said, “I didn’t aim to.”
She said, “You a lie!”

By that time two or three people passed, stopped, 
turned to look, and some stood watching.

“If I turn you loose, will you run?” asked the woman.
“Yes’m,” said the boy.

“Then I won’t turn you loose,” said the woman. 
She did not release him.

“I’m very sorry, lady, I’m sorry,” whispered the boy.

“Um-hum! And your face is dirty. I got a great mind 
to wash your face for you. Ain’t you got nobody home 
to tell you to wash your face?”

“No’m.”

“Then it will get washed this evening,” 
said the large woman starting up the street, 
dragging the frightened boy behind her.

He looked as if he were fourteen or fifteen, frail 
and willow-wild, in tennis shoes and blue jeans.

The woman said, “You ought to be my son. 
I would teach you right from wrong. 
Least I can do right now is to wash your face. 
Are you hungry?”

“No’m,” said the being dragged boy. 
“I just want you to turn me loose.”

“Was I bothering you when I turned that corner?” 
asked the woman.

“No’m.”

“But you put yourself in contact with me,” said the woman. 

“If you think that that contact is not going to last awhile, you got another thought coming. When I get through with you, sir, you are going to remember Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones.”

Sweat popped out on the boy’s face and he began to struggle. Mrs. Jones stopped, jerked him around in front of her, put a half-nelson about his neck, and continued to drag him up the street.

When she got to her door, she dragged the boy inside, down a hall, and into a large kitchenette-furnished room at the rear of the house. She switched on the light and left the door open. The boy could hear other roomers laughing and talking in the large house. Some of their doors were open, too, so he knew he and the woman were not alone. 

The woman still had him by the neck in the middle of her room.

She said, “What is your name?”
“Roger,” answered the boy.

“Then, Roger, you go to that sink and wash your face,” 
said the woman, whereupon she turned him loose, at last. 

Roger looked at the door, looked at the woman, looked at the door,
and went to the sink.

"Let the water run until it gets warm,” she said. 
“Here’s a clean towel.”

“You gonna take me to jail?”

“Not with that face, I would not take you nowhere,” 
said the woman. 

“Here I am trying to get home to cook me a bite to eat and you snatch my pocketbook! Maybe, you ain’t been to your supper either, late as it be. Have you?”

“There’s nobody home at my house,” said the boy.

“Then we’ll eat,” said the woman, “I believe you’re hungry,
or been hungry, to try to snatch my pocketbook.”

“I wanted a pair of blue suede shoes,” said the boy.

“Well, you didn’t have to snatch my pocketbook to get some suede shoes,” said Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones. 
“You could of asked me.”

“M’am?”

The water dripping from his face, the boy looked at her. 

There was a long pause. A very long pause. After he had dried his face and not knowing what else to do dried it again, the boy turned around, wondering what next. The door was open. He could make a dash for it down the hall. He could run, run, run, run, run!

The woman was sitting on the day-bed. After a while she said, 
“I were young once and I wanted things I could not get.”

There was another long pause. The boy’s mouth opened. 

Then he frowned, but not knowing he frowned.

The woman said, “Um-hum! You thought I was going to say but, didn’t you? You thought I was going to say, but I didn’t snatch people’s pocketbooks. Well, I wasn’t going to say that.”

Pause.

Silence.

“I have done things, too, which I would not tell you, son, neither tell God, if he didn’t already know. So you set down while I fix us something to eat. You might run that comb through your hair so you will look presentable.”

In another corner of the room behind a screen was a gas plate and an icebox. Mrs. Jones got up and went behind the screen. The woman did not watch the boy to see if he was going to run now, nor did she watch her purse which she left behind her on the day-bed. But the boy took care to sit on the far side of the room where he thought she could easily see him out of the corner of her eye, if she wanted to. 

He did not trust the woman not to trust him. 
And he did not want to be mistrusted now.

“Do you need somebody to go to the store,” asked the boy, 
“maybe to get some milk or something?”

“Don’t believe I do,” said the woman, “unless you just want sweet milk yourself. I was going to make cocoa out of this canned milk I got here.”

“That will be fine,” said the boy.

She heated some lima beans and ham she had in the icebox, made the cocoa, and set the table.

The woman did not ask the boy anything about where he lived, or his folks, or anything else that would embarrass him. Instead, as they ate, she told him about her job in a hotel beauty-shop that stayed open late, what the work was like, and how all kinds of women came in and out, blondes, red-heads, and Spanish.

Then she cut him a half of her ten-cent cake.
“Eat some more, son,” she said.

When they were finished eating she got up and said, 
“Now, here, take this ten dollars and buy yourself some blue suede shoes. And next time, do not make the mistake of latching onto my pocketbook nor nobody else’s—because shoes come by devilish like that will burn your feet. I got to get my rest now. But I wish you would behave yourself, son, from here on in.”

She led him down the hall to the front door and opened it.
“Good-night! Behave yourself, boy!”
she said, looking out into the street.

The boy wanted to say something else other than “Thank you, m’am” to Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones, but he couldn’t do so as he turned at the barren stoop and looked back at the large woman in the door. 

He barely managed to say “Thank you” 
before she shut the door. 

And he never saw her again.

Langston Hughes
Thank You, M'am


Something in Common
1963

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