Quoting Author LINDSEY DAVIS About The Mourning After

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Bereavement does not 

improve anybody's morals.

It just gives them more excuses

to slam doors in the faces

of more ethical people.

***

 

LINDSEY DAVIS

______________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Who Owns The Zebra ... The Story Is Finally Complete ... BUT ...

______________________________________________________________________________________________

YOU

can attempt

to solve the puzzle

on your own

(or find someone who can)

The story begins  here

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Black History Month Honoree: HARRY DUNN

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Read all about it

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Honestly, We ARE Roses But Mr. BlackenWhite Corrupted Us

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!!!

© Oliverio

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Photoverio #545: When Trees Take Psychedelics

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Groovy!

© Oliverio

 ______________________________________________________________________________________________

Photoverio #544: Am I Blue Enough For You?

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Blue descending a staircase

© Oliverio

 ______________________________________________________________________________________________

The Forty-First Page In This Series ... Silhouetting

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

We can't go on

meeting like this

© Oliverio

 

***

The next page 
in this series
is  here 

 _______________________________________________________________________________________________

DANCY McBOOKSTAK ... With No Text Below The Title

______________________________________________________________________________________________

 

______________________________________________________________________________________________

This Is NOT A "Cute Cat" Image

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

The cat is guilty of trespassing:

He is violating the space

where I need to dock (and re-charge)

my MacBook

without which none of these pages

would exist 

But I love him

more than 

I love the sunshine

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

An Open Letter From FRANCES STEERLING

______________________________________________________________________________________________

To Whom It May Concern

I recently met

an AIDS patient

who was undergoing

Chemo therapy.

 

He told me

the only good thing

that happened to him

in 2020

was the Covid-19 virus:

"To anyone 

who tests positive,

I say

'Welcome to the club'"

***

 

Sincerely,

FRANCES STEERLING

 

 

The next Frances Steerling page

is here

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Quoting An In-Court Jester (Formerly A Card-Carrying Atheist)

________________________________________________________________________________________________

I had recently

come to believe

in a Supreme Being

after thumbing through

a Victoria's Secret catalog

***

WOODY ALLEN

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Photoverio #543: Shady Downtown With Right-Turning Car

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© Oliverio

 

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Question + Answer About The Published Word

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Question:

Should every author

include a glossary?

Answer:

NO

Every reader should be equipped

with a good vocabulary

and a dictionary.

 

If that means

having to read

the book twice,

that doubles the chances 

of understanding

the author 

 

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

A Court Jester Quote About Her Grandmother

______________________________________________________________________________________________

My Grandmother

was a very tough woman.

 

She buried three husbands 

and two of them

were just napping.

***

RITA RUDNER

______________________________________________________________________________________________

A Court Jester Quote About The Ubiquitous Thin Line

______________________________________________________________________________________________

There's a thin line

between 

to laugh at

and

to laugh with

***

RICHARD PRYOR

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Factual Matter (Comic Relief #3708)

________________________________________________________________________________________________

JOE DATOR

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Quoting The Influencer Of The Godfather Of Google

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Lofty ecstatic laughter

is worthy to stand beside

the lofty lyrical impulse

and a whole abyss separates it

from the antics

of the street-fair clown

***

NIKOLAI GOGOL

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Photoverio #542: Power Lines With Foliage

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Bleached

© Oliverio

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Black History Month Honoree: PARIS DAVIS

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Read all about it

 _______________________________________________________________________________________________

The World's Greatest Short Story

________________________________________________________________________________________________

We start at the beginning

(which is here)

and continue

to the end

(which is not here)

it will be somewhere

after the middle

words will stick together

(like crazy glue)

and the subject is

YOU

 

a memory will burst

from your head

but give it a color:

blue, yellow, or red

 

or go downtown

and paint the memory

brown

 

one day my father said

or was it my mother

(pick one or the other)

(or sister or brother)

 

anyway,

what was said was

 

".... /////..... ////... ////...."

 

but I didn't believe

one single word

 

rather than cut them

down to size,

I let them think otherwise

 

"that is so perceptive"

I proclaimed,

being deceptive

and appearing receptive

 

the response was gratitude:

(creating the right mood)

 "We'll take care of it tomorrow"

but I was full of sorrow

after their exit

tears filled my room

and I was drenched

in gloom

until a white rabbit

appeared in my head

 

I followed him

under my bed

 he turned yellow and brown

then blue and red

he crawled into a hole

where I could not fit

my heart or soul

the rest of me

fit into a bowl

the rabbit warned

"don't be rude or lewd"

but my story is

to be continued

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Footnote

This page is

the copyrighted property

of LCSoL

________________________________________________________________________________________________

When Laughter Has Legs

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

When laughter sneaks out

the back door

and gravitas is

the order of your day

then the joke

is on you

***

© PAUL OLIVERIO

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

A Visit To The GILMORE MUSIC Store

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

GILMORE MUSIC

Long Beach

© Oliverio

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

On Her Centenary... Looking As Youthful As I Want Her To Be

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Happy 100th Birthday,

Mother

Born in Harrisburg, PA on February 15, 1921

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

 

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY To Everyone (Especially HER)

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

My Special Valentine

© Oliverio

Link has quickly deletable advert

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Viewer Discretion Advised (Comic Relief #3699)

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

DAVID SIPRESS

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Black History Month Recipient: JOE RELIFORD

________________________________________________________________________________________________

This is  JOE RELIFORD  in 1952

MUST READING for Lovers (or Haters) of the USA

________________________________________________________________________________________________

To Make A Quatrain ... Number Forty-Two

 _______________________________________________________________________________________________

 

To make a quatrain about

being hip or uncool

  

Better a third-rate artist

than a first-class fool

   

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Footnotes

TO MAKE A QUATRAIN
...

is the copyrighted property

of LCSoL

Some italic couplets
were originally written
in the 20th Century
and copyrighted
under the title
The Neither/Nor Journal

 

The next page
in this series
is  here  ________________________________________________________________________________________________

This Page Is Dedicated To RAY PETERSSEN

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Gilmore Music

(90813)

For Raymond

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Slightly Tilted Free-Verse With Gusto But Without Punctuation

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

ARCHIE and MEHITABEL

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

To Make A Quatrain ... Number Forty-One

 _______________________________________________________________________________________________

 

To make a quatrain before 

exaggeration goes out of fashion

  

The biggest cause

of blindness is passion

  

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Footnotes

TO MAKE A QUATRAIN
...

is the copyrighted property

of LCSoL

Some italic couplets
were originally written
in the 20th Century
and copyrighted
under the title
The Neither/Nor Journal

 

This page was inspired

by a quote from

Nikolai Gogol

The next page
in this series
is  here

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Photoverio #531: Unified, Utilitarian, Undergrounding ...

________________________________________________________________________________________________

© Oliverio

________________________________________________________________________________________________

It Sits On An Island In A Shopping Center

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Willow/Cherry Starbucks

© Oliverio

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Pixilated But Profound Quote From NIKOLAI GOGOL

________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Spiritual GodFather of GOOGLE

***

For more Gogol quotes, click here

________________________________________________________________________________________________

MAN RAY: Curvature And Coatlessness

________________________________________________________________________________________________

RAY is the MAN

________________________________________________________________________________________________

NYTimes.com Front Page 20 Days After Biden's Inauguration

________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

 

When enlarged,

you will see

the word President 

 five times

but nowhere does it mention

President Biden

________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

The Most Influential Fan Of NIKOLAI GOGOL

 _______________________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

 In his free time,

this Mathematician 

at Columbia University

liked to watch 

Marx Brothers' films

and to read comic literature

 

While doing research in his library 

(and baby-sitting for his nine-yr-old grandson),

Professor Kasner discovered an extremely large number 

that needed a name

 

He asked his grandson for suggestions, 

three of which were rejected

(Groucho, Harpo, and Chico) 

but the fourth suggestion was a winner:

"Gogol" which was pronounced  Go Ghoul

Professor Kasner spelt the name of this number GOGOOL

 

It represented a 1 followed by one hundred zeroes

 

Years later, two enterprising young men in Silicon Valley

changed the spelling to GOOGLE and the rest is history

 

Meaning, every time anyone anywhere 

uses a Google search engine,

they are paying unconscious gratitude 

to NIKOLAI GOGOL

He is the author of  the greatest comic novel

ever written about Russia  

 _______________________________________________________________________________________________

 

The Cabbage Singers' Lament ... Second Verse

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

We're just sitting 

© Oliverio

on a page 

A man with cleaver

is called "The Sage"

Let him slice

and dice us

(If that's within

the law)

Then people will

hail us as cole slaw 

***

© PAUL OLIVERIO

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

The Cabbage Singers' Lament ... First Verse

 _______________________________________________________________________________________________

We're just sitting 

© Oliverio

on a page

People make noise

about our age

Boil us in water

and then, no doubt,

People will hail us

as sauerkraut

***

© PAUL OLIVERIO

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

The Poetry Of What 'Cha, What, + What's

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Whatcha See is Whatcha Get

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Twenty Years Of Intensely Hating TOM BRADY Ended Yesterday

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

 

His SuperBowl heroics

are exactly what

the USA needed

Read all about it

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

A WELCOME Sight ... For The First Time In Almost A Year

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

A WELCOME SIGN

ON A STARBUCKS PATIO

the photographer (not the floor) was tilted

© Oliverio

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Photoverio #530: From Hiatus To Rorschach Orgy

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Orgy At The Cabbage Patch

© Oliverio

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

We'll Be Back Very, Very Soon, I Promise

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Please don't

hate us

But we need

a hiatus

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Alt-Reality Solution For The M.T. Greene Congressional Problem

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

If

the Greene Lady 

were a Green Leaf,

we could deny her

anything resembling water

 

 Then

She would turn brown

and tear down

her fears of anything

associated with

that skin color

 

In other words

let her sit

on Congressional Committees

with handsome brown-skin

men and women

until their teamwork

fuels her head

with unified

brain cells

 

Otherwise

this growling Greene

Trump/pet trick/puppy

outgrows her seat

and climbs

to the top of

the Capitol 

  

And

subsequently 

the events  

of January 6, 2021

would look like

a kibble hor d'oeuvre

***

 

 

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Footnotes

ALTERNATE-REALITY SOLUTION

FOR THE GREENE 

CONGRESSIONAL PROBLEM

is the copyrighted property

of LCSoL

 

Writing this page 

is my alternative 

to posting what

my mentor

had to say

about the same subject

 

The difference being that

the Borowitz Report

is succinct and stellar satire

while my page is desparately

in need of an animator

If you combined

the cannibus/alcohol consumption

of MTG and AOC,

we could neuter 

both of them

 

Thank you for reading this far

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

He Also Put Those Big, Luscious, Floating Lips In The Sky

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

MAN RAY

***

________________________________________________________________________________________________

The 2021 Super-Spreader Bowl Superbowl And TOM BRADY

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

He doesn't just cheat Father Time.

He cackles at him.

A 43-yr-old quarterback on the football field

is equivalent to

A 129-yr-old human being on planet Earth

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Belated Birthday Wishes [#119] To The GodFather Of BHM

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Happy Birthday

LANGSTON HUGHES

Langston was born on February 1, 1902

 February is Black History Month

________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

The Bartender In Blue Mode ... Who owns The Zebra?

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Before reading this,

please read  Chapter 1

of Who Owns the Zebra
 

 

The Bartender believed

in table service

only when Prometheus

gave him a sign

In the first chapter of this story,

the big topic of discussion

—at the skating-rink-adjacent bar 

in Rockefeller Center—

was a logic riddle

with fifteen sentences

of information

and twenty-five variables

 

The year was 1962 and Sam, the bartender, 

guaranteed a solution the next day

 

None of the lunch-time crowd

at the bar believed he could do it

 

The crowd consisted of

some familiar faces from

the NBC network and

high-powered executives

of every stripe:

 

None of them had any idea

how to solve the riddle

and they were convinced

Sam couldn't either

 

He bet them $100

he would do so

 

After the lunch crowd cleared,

the  bartender made one phone call:

to his wife.

"Would you please put a pack of index cards

and a pair of scissors on his desk"

She did so and that evening,

their son was excused from the dinner table

with a copy of the logic riddle

that asked two questions:

Who drank the water?

Who owned the zebra?

 

The boy spent twenty-five minutes

cutting  twenty-five short, thin strips

of index card paper

then labeling each one

with a single word

 

Five of those "words" 

identified ethnicity

(Norwegian/Japanese/Spaniard...)

five identified the colors of their homes,

five brands of cigarets, five pet animals,

and five favorite drinks

 

In all, this five-by-five riddle

had twenty-five "variables"

 

Within the next hour,

the twelve-year-old boy

solved the riddle.

 

He needed an additional 10 minutes

to accurately scotch-tape 

the index card strips

onto a sheet of "typing paper"

The next day, Sam was given $100

collected from his favorite drinkers

A Shell Oil executive threw in

an extra $40 for the handmade solution

so that his name would be listed

in Life Magazine as a solver

 

The other patrons of the bar

were given Xerox copies

of the solution

***

 

Chapter 3

When the bartender

telephoned his wife

about the solver's supplies

he didn't say that 

there was a bar bet

 

Not a word about the $140

was spoken in his home

but sometime after 1962,

his son was told 

who was first to know about

his proud father's winning bet.

Thus solving another—

albeit very simple—

two-part riddle:

What is the bartender's last name?

Who is the twelve-year-old boy?

 

Sam is the older brother

of Tony and Paul Oliverio,

after whom his son was named

 

As to what happened with

the $140, I know exactly:

 

The first thing he did

was go to his favorite 

subterranean gift shop:

 

Underneath Rockefeller Center

where only very deep-pocketed 

people shopped

 

(Sam was not one of them

but the woman who owned

the shop gave him

"special discounts") 

 

He bought another gold charm

for Linda's bracelet

 

This was the fifth charm

—all miniature animals—

and it was a pony

 

My then-fifteen year-old sister

had a feature unique

to girls her age:

 

She expressed gratitude

with enthusiasm and hugs

and kisses for BOTH

father and mother

 

When I first showed 

the family the solution

to the logic riddle,

Linda's response was

—cryptically—

"I want the Norwegian's

phone number."

 

Christmas of that year,

I found what I believed

was the same $20 bill

in a pants pocket five times

 

It was not until 1973

that I realized a smuggler

had placed five different 

twenty dollar bills

in my pockets

 

My gratitude for

the bartending smuggler

cannot be measured

but my father had died in 1971,

six months before being

reunited with my mother 

***

 

Chapter 4

I tell this story for more than 

nostalgic reasons

 

The primary reason

is to justify how forty-nine years

after solving the Zebra riddle,

every day of my life 

begins with a logic riddle

from the New York Times 

 

It is more commonly known as

a Sudoku puzzle and whenever 

I finish it, all I can think is

What is the Norwegian's phone number 

***

 

PAUL OLIVERIO

©©©

 

The epilog is  here  

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