The Cosmic Intervention Of SAUL STEINBERG

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Twenty-three years

after his death in 1999, 

the art of Saul Steinberg 

 appeared on a magazine cover

 

________________________________________________________________________________________________

The GodFather Of Math When He Was 20-Years-Old

________________________________________________________________________________________________

!!!

Photographer = R. Arsenault

________________________________________________________________________________________________

The One + Only Time A Salinger Story Was Read To ME

________________________________________________________________________________________________

The story was

A Perfect Day For Bananafish

and it was read to me aloud

by an adopted cousin

who read it "perfectly"

from start to finish

despite his mother believing

that her son

—born in Mexico—

was a Special Ed student

with serious reading disabilities

 

The date was October 15, 2011

 

We were driving from

Massapequa to Flushing

to honor the 40th anniversary

of my Mother's passing

 

His Mother, 

a Special Ed teacher

for thirty years,

was incapable of realizing

that her son had

an IQ superior

to most of his well-bred

Caucasian Nassau County classmates

but the boy's constant winking

at his adopted Uncle

in the presence

of his parents

was a secret pleasure

I will treasure 

for a lifetime

***

________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Maternal Translation Of The Word S-U-D-O-K-U

________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Maternal Translation 

of The Word S-U-D-O-K-U

is

Look Ma, No Drop-Ads

© !!! ©

________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Dedicated To Salinger's Story DeDaunier-Smith's Blue Period

________________________________________________________________________________________________

***

HOODblue          © Photoverio #670.5

________________________________________________________________________________________________

One Week From Today Exactly Fifty Years Ago

________________________________________________________________________________________________

NINE STORIES

by

J.D. Salinger

was first published

 

***

On average, 

I have read each story

nine times

On average,

I have "stolen" from each story

nine times

The next page 

is dedicated to

a particular story

of the anthology _______________________________________________________________________________________________

Photoverio #670: Shadowed Shopping Cart

________________________________________________________________________________________________

*

© Oliverio

________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Existential Chicken (Comic Relief #4970)

________________________________________________________________________________________________

GARY LARSON

 _______________________________________________________________________________________________

Hooda Helami Explains How To Ignore SELF-LOATHING

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Target a hatred of

parent/neighbor

employer

or

all of the above

while professing

christian love

Dig deep down

into your soul

to intensify

that hatred

into a fiery hole

 

Then  it will eclipse

the neglect and ruination

of your own

body and soul

***

© HOODA HELAMI ©

Alter Ego #142857

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Introducing PEBBLO GARDINO And His Tchotchkes

________________________________________________________________________________________________

*

© Photoverio #679.5

________________________________________________________________________________________________

An Extremely Rare Treatment Given With No Hyperlink

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Posting quotes from books

I am reading

is partly why

The GodFather of Math Trilogy

is longer than 6000 pages

The book presently being read is

THE STORY OF A COUNTRY BOY

and irony is wearing

high heel sneakers

when the printed title above

is larger than the one

on the actual book cover

featured below

But Dawn Powell's novel 

is being given the extremely 

rare treatment

of being put aside

before finishing it

 

I intend to return to

The Country Boy

 but only after reading

a handful of books by

fellow members

of GAS*

including Atwood, 

Trevanian,  Salinger

and Natalia Ginzburg

 

Within the past five years,

this Dawn Powell novel

had been read

from start to finish

and left deep enough

psychic and spiritual 

impressions on me

 

Thus,  

I feel guilt-free

about this interrupted reading

:::

 

*GAS is an acronym for

Genius Author Society

________________________________________________________________________________________________

MARCH MADNESS And My Literary Pretentiousness

________________________________________________________________________________________________

The NCAA Basketball Tournament

synonymous with the phrase

March Madness

rarely gets my attention

until most of the schools involved

have been eliminated

 

But Princeton University

always gets my attention

because of the transvestite

in the following image

He is better known as

the author of THE GREAT GATSBY

and his name is

Scott Fitzgerald

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Absolutely Nothing In Our Lives Has Ever Brought Us Closer

________________________________________________________________________________________________

 Conversations about

her husband and four children

a/k/a

my brother-in-law, 3 nieces 

and a nephew

cannot be measured

ditto

for what we have shared

of our deceased parents

and older sister

 

BUT

if you regard this page

as something to soak up

your sympathy,

you'd be

way off the mark

HOWEVER,

her "children"

are now all responsible adults

with families of their own

Numerous pictures of her

six grandchildren

—and numerous phone calls—

are bountiful

in their Uncle's

email folders

BUT

like all wordy pages

posted in 

The GodFather of Math Trilogy,

I must have

specific reason

for being so verbose.

Dear Reader

please allow your patience

to go into overdrive

because we are getting closer

to a conclusion

 

My age is north of seventy

and my sister is slightly south

of that mark

 

Yet, her elegance,

carriage and beatitudes

far surpass her handsome brother's 

ability to turn heads,

so to speak

 

But nothing in our existence

has ever brought us closer

than a word puzzle

appearing seven days a week

 

I am humbly convinced

that my only immediate blood relation

has an intelligence superior 

to my own

 

Like all the paranoid survivors

of planet Earth in 2023, 

    I will provide no hyperlink   

for this page

but 

WORDLE 

is a word I repeat

with way-too-much 

frequency

 

Thankfully,

Mrs. CarPeo

and my sister

repeat the word 

just as often

but with more wit,

wisdom and intelligence

than I could ever 

wish for

QED

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Seeing Double ... HER Fiftieth Page

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Once you saw two sides,

you saw four

then eight,

and after a while,

decisions became impossible.

***

DAWN POWELL

The Story Of A Country Boy

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Variation On A Theme ... Another Variant

________________________________________________________________________________________________

***

Let he who is without sin

find a woman who needs it.

***

© PAUL OLIVERIO  ©

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Photoverio #679: Let The Dance Begin

________________________________________________________________________________________________

© Oliverio

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Pengweena

________________________________________________________________________________________________

This is Pengweena,

a weather-beaten monument

and centerpiece

of my rock garden.

It is dedicated to

TERRY MOSELY,

a friend and former roommate

who had a dual doctorate 

from Purdue University:

a Ph.D in philosophy

and another in

Vodka Consumption.

 

Wherever he is today

—intoxicated or otherwise—

I hope my 

penguin-loving friend

is well.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Photoverio #678: Parking Lot Impressionism

________________________________________________________________________________________________

© Oliverio

________________________________________________________________________________________________

O Captain, My Captain ... Rest In Peace, WILLIS REED

________________________________________________________________________________________________

😢

***

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Photoverio #677: The Astaire Way

________________________________________________________________________________________________

A studio for magic feet

© Oliverio

________________________________________________________________________________________________

WOUKing

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Everything about a hero is magnified

and a joke uttered by him

is much funnier than if

it comes from

ordinary flesh and blood.

*

*

*

True sorrow is painful.

Sham sorrow compares to it

as riding a roller coaster compares

to falling off a roof.

The thrill is there

but not the cost.

***

HERMAN WOUK 

________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Baseball Units Of Poetry

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Outfielder ... Shortstop ...You're out

can be re-written as

—with accented syllables—

Outfielder ... Shortstop ... You're out

 

Accented or unaccented syllables

have hard or soft sounds

—so to speak—

then

Outfielder ... Shortstop ... You're out

becomes

hard-soft-soft ... hard-soft ... soft-hard

 

I would not blame any reader

for dismissing all of the above

as pure nonsense

but if understanding 

how to 

write a poem

is your choice

then 

the baseball "units"

serve as mnemonic devices

for remembering how

to write formal poetry

with each syllable

in the correct place

 

the dachtyl ... the trochee ... the iambic

  are the most common

structural units

for the placement of

hard and soft sounds

the dachtyl ... the trochee ... the iambic

represent

hard/soft/soft ... hard/soft ... soft/hard

combinations of three or two

syllables

Outfielder ... Shortstop ... You're out

are three easy examples

of the above

***

Now, however, Mr. Oliverio

must interject 

(1) a universal truth:

HUMOR

makes the learning process

easier to swallow

and 

(2) a factual truth:

As a writer,

I am not fit to shine

the shoes of 

HERMAN WOUK

whose equally

hysterical/sad/profound

novel

City Boy

states all of the above

with pure clarity

and much laughter

 

Wouk wrote the novel

in 1948,

the year my mother

was inseminated

with what would become

her only son

***

 

I have only twenty more pages

to finish reading 

City Boy

and have said

much more than enough 

on this page

***  

________________________________________________________________________________________________

The 182nd Bullet ... Cousin Of SmallTalk

_________________________________________________________________________________________________   

 The smallest print

is best understood

by the biggest minds.

 

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Footnotes

THE 182rd BULLET

is the copyrighted property

of LCSoL

________________________________________________________________________________________________

The 181st Bullet ... Absolute Murder

________________________________________________________________________________________________   

 If 

United States Mail Carriers

acted the same way as

corporate e-mailers,

half of them would be

murdered.

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Footnote

THE 181st BULLET

is the copyrighted property

of LCSoL

________________________________________________________________________________________________

From Whence Comes My Linguine?

________________________________________________________________________________________________

According to

The Institute of Inane Research,

it comes from 

The Spaghetti Tree

© Photoverio #676.5

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Photoverio #676: Rock Concert

________________________________________________________________________________________________

I can hear the music

© Oliverio w/deleteable advert

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Quote-UnQuote #857142

________________________________________________________________________________________________

If Sanity 

looked me in the eye,

I would probably ask it

for identification

***

© PAUL OLIVERIO ©

This should be 

the sixth in a series

with the others 

numbered cyclically:

142857

285714

428571

571428

714285

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Photoverio #675: Elementary Dance

________________________________________________________________________________________________

© Oliverio

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Quoting A Commentista On The Subject Of GEORGE SANTOS

________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

 ADD YOUR OWN IMAGE

***

George  Santos 

is certainly a true artist: 

a sculptor who uses words 

to shape whatever 

fits into the end result,

which is a statement befitting 

his audience of one, being himself

Truth has nothing to do 

with the end result 

and getting votes becomes 

nothing more than

art appreciation of people 

who believe "Michelangelo"

is the name of a pizzeria

that delivers 24/7

© *** ©

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Infernal Racetrack (Comic Relief #4948)

________________________________________________________________________________________________

GARY LARSON

________________________________________________________________________________________________

An Audience Screening Nominees For Best Animated Short Film

________________________________________________________________________________________________

A fortnight ago at

Long Beach ART THEATER

***

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Georgie Boy + The Art Of Lying (Comic Relief #4946)

________________________________________________________________________________________________

***

BARRY BLITT

 _______________________________________________________________________________________________

A Deferential Equation ... Not To Be Confused With ...

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Not to be confused with 

"Differential Equation"

and that mathematical miasma

known as CALCULUS,

 

a Deferential Equation

allows me to equate myself

with cultural godheads:

 

Harry Houdini and Charlie Chaplin

lived in Whitestone

where there is a bridge

connecting Long Island

to continental United States

 

I lived in Whitestone

for thirty-two years

 

Mr. Houdini and Mr. Chaplin

were accomplished artists

of the highest order

and they lived in Whitetone

for maybe

thirty-two weeks

(combined)

 

Did either of them

ever hitchhike across

the Whitestone Bridge?

 

NO

but I did

 

Did Houdini or Chaplin

ever run across 

the entrance ramp

to the bridge?

 

NO

but I did it en route

to a Catholic Church,

thinking that were I

to be run over,

my chances of getting 

into heaven

were significantly improved

because I was on my way

to church

 

Neither Chaplin nor Houdini

ever put a complete proof

of the Pythagorean Theorem

to rap music

 which, of course,

Paul Oliverio did

with national media coverage

 

But his boundless 

and suspect ego

is hereby muted

Thankfully

 _______________________________________________________________________________________________

What Fiction Writers Have Always Known To Be True

________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Lying 

is an Art

that will never die

***

© Paul Oliverio ©

≈THE 181th BULLET≈

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Twelve Fourteenths Of A Silly Sonnet By HOODA HELAMI

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

The way you arch your

eyebrow

can make you look

high brow

 

The way you blow your

nose

draws attention from your

toes

 

Maybe you should

go now

before I get too

low brow

 

***

 

 

© HOODA HELAMI ©

Alter Ego #142857 

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Photoverio #674: What Could Have Been

________________________________________________________________________________________________

This could have appeared

in a PDR

(Physician's Desk Reference)

© Oliverio

________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Novelist Who Could Have Cured Asthma Without Hyperlink

________________________________________________________________________________________________

 The first two boys named in

William Golding's novel

are Ralph and Piggy

The former does headstands

the latter has asthma

If the author enabled Piggy

to do headstands, his asthma 

would have been cured

because the headstand

(also known as Inversion Therapy)

widens the respiratory area,

improving blood flow

and allowing more 

airspace

 ***

 

© Mr. CarPeo ©

________________________________________________________________________________________________