Is there anything more culturally inappropriate than the tomahawk chop? I can’t think of much that makes me cringe more than watching a stadium full of Braves fans do its rendition of a Native war chant while some yahoo with a drum and Aboriginal feathered headdress beats on.
This month Chel’s Terrible Poetry contest asks us to write a terrible poem about cultural appropriation using the triolet form. I have chosen the English iambic tetrameter model. To heck with my French heritage, I say let them eat cake! Now let the terribleness begin…
Aah wah aah wah wah a warriors hum, Back and forth the tomahawk chop. Warpaint, feather headdress, and drum, Aah wah aah wah wah a warriors hum, From what century did you come? Ratta tat tat tat, make it stop! Aah wah aah wah wah a warriors hum, Back and forth the tomahawk chop.
It is the start of another baseball season and I say “go, anyone but Atlanta, go!
Welcome to Four Line Fiction, a pix-to-prose challenge. Each Tuesday, at 9:00am Eastern Time (Canada/United States) I will post an image I have captured myself, featured from another blog or plucked from one of the Interweb’s many royalty-free image sites. You as the writer are to use that image as a point of inspiration to craft a masterpiece of fiction in four lines.
The image for this week is a person holding a yucca plant to look like spiky hair above the image of a skull on the front of the black t-shirt they is wearing. The subject’s face is hidden behind the plant.
Be creative and have fun. I look forward to reading the tales you spin. Don’t forget to show your fellow bloggers some love -❤️- take some time to read, like, and comment on their masterpieces.
Note: Sunday DIgest is a bit late this week. I had set it to publish last night but not being able to read the WordPress calendar or just having zero concept of the days of the week accidentally scheduled it for Monday at 9:00pm. My standards have been slipping lately but I say, better late than never…
2312 – Sunday Digest: The Week in Review
Trump in ’24. It seems highly unlikely and at odds with every fibre of my being that Trump would be anything other than in jail by 2024 however how can I even think of supporting Joe Biden after his visit to Canada this week. I’ve said it before, being Canadian I have no horses in the next race for the White House. That said the incumbent President felt the need to tell our pretty boy Prime Minister and his merry band if cohorts in Ottawa that he liked our sports teams, but then added except the Toronto Maple Leafs. His reasoning was even more bizarre than fiction itself.
Unknown
The quote below taken from his speech to the House of Commons:
“Our labour unions cross borders. So do our sports leagues — baseball, basketball, and hockey. Listen to this, hockey. I have to say, I like your teams, except the Leafs.
I’ll tell you why. They beat the [Philadelphia] Flyers back in January, that’s why. If I didn’t say that, I married a Philly girl; if I didn’t say that, I’d be sleeping alone, fellas. I like you. I don’t like you that much.”
Joe Biden to Canadian Parliament
@GMGCreative
Sure Trump may ruin the United States. He is a bigot, a buffoon, and a creepy orange-coloured sexual predator who admires the likes of Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and any other autocratic despot he can latch onto. It is clear by the company he keeps and by his actions that he would dismantle democracy and crown himself the supreme ruler of Panem, errr… America. Seems like a fair trade-off against a senile old man who chooses his marital bed over the Toronto MAGA Leafs. I mean I think all the Canadian teams have beaten the hapless Flyers this year. Biden, you’re FIRED!
Sure the two politicians got some other work done on Biden’s northern jaunt. They agreed to strengthen the safe third country agreement regarding asylum seekers (I guess ‘refugee’ is no longer considered politically correct) that says refugees must make a claim in the first safe country they arrive in and can be returned to that country if they didn’t. Perhaps this will put an end to New York State’s free public transit route for asylum seekers that busses claimants to a point just across from an illegal border crossing and points them northward as they disembark, a clear violation of international law. They also talked about China/Asian Pacific policy and strengthening Arctic defence, the Russkies and coming you know, but does any of that really matter after Biden’s jab at the Leafs?
With my tongue firmly planted in cheek I’ll stick with the hockey theme. Here’s a little of the late Stompin’ Tom Connors performing The Hockey Song at the closing of the old Maple Leaf Gardens in 1999.
And now for the weekly summary…
Five Word Weekly Challenge
The Noisy Spindle is an AI-generated tale where Fandango at This, That and the Other set the parameters as poetry using the five challenge words. As one commenter said it had a Poe feel to it and I found it entertaining right up until the bot used the word clobber. By strict definition, it fits but didn’t really work. Click the link and see the future at work.
I’m guessing this week’s bug porn grossed everyone out! The image was outstanding macro work though, and I couldn’t pass it up.
Your responses… 💤ip, 💤ilch, 💤ero! Nothing 2️⃣ 👀 here.
More highlights from Greg’s Blog…
Love Assassin | A tale about shots fired written for Carrot Ranch’s #99WordStories (that I then forget to submit through the Carrot Ranch form) that also incorporated several of Fandango’s #fowc word prompts.
Welcome to Four Line Fiction, a pix-to-prose challenge. Each Tuesday, at 9:00am Eastern Time (Canada/United States) I will post an image I have captured myself, featured from another blog or plucked from one of the Interweb’s many royalty-free image sites. You as the writer are to use that image as a point of inspiration to craft a masterpiece of fiction in four lines.
The image for this week is a macro shot of an insect sitting on top of another insect of the same species, the pair is most likely mating.
Be creative and have fun. I look forward to reading the tales you spin. Don’t forget to show your fellow bloggers some love -❤️- take some time to read, like, and comment on their masterpieces.
This is the first time I have put pen to paper on Greg’s Blog this week. This was not the plan. It was going to be an active week while I was compiling last week’s Sunday Digest. It was March Break here and my son was already with his Nonna, Nonno and Zia. Freedom I thought, he wanted to see his grandparents and we’d get a short break from a wonderful but very active seven-year-old. Even better I was only scheduled at work a couple of days during the week.
It seems nature had other plans…
Monday, I woke up with a sore throat, low-grade fever and a pounding headache. Even the sensation of my heart beating like a hammer felt like it was driving a stake through my temples, the light from my device screens like daggers through my eyes. Lots of fluids and a few trips to the loo were all this broken body could muster for the next four days. The good news is it does not appear to have been COVID-19.
The stress points that registered on my Garmin watch were crazy. I don’t know how accurate these devices are at determining heart rate, sleep, stress, etc… but I know that some universities have used the results from these devices in long and short-term studies. I actually participated in a sleep study run by Harvard in conjunction with sleep (CPAP) specialists in the field. Either way, once the watch has established your baselines it is a great comparative health tool. For example, my resting heart rate jumped from an average of 50 to 52 bpm before the illness to 60 to 62 bpm starting late in the day Sunday, the evening before the symptoms appeared. That is eight to ten beats more per minute. The other interesting measurement is the one looking at stress levels. It uses heart rate variability and other factors to determine physical stress levels in the body.
Wednesday, March 8, 2023 | Five days before health event.
The image above shows a timeline for March 8th, a sample of my normal stress response over a typical 24-hour period. Although the graph does vary from day to day this is a reasonably accurate depiction of a normal day for me going back through at least three months of data.
Wednesday, March 15, 2023 | Day three of health event.
As you can see stress levels were through the roof during the illness. Monday to Thursday looks almost identical to March 15th shown above and Friday through Sunday start moving towards normal although even today is still elevated compared to the March 8th graphic.
This week’s song link is a Metric classic that fits right in with my heart beating like a hammer…
All of this spells disaster on the blog front. Ignored, neglected and forgotten are the best descriptions. Not much to highlight that is for sure.
Five Word Weekly Challenge
Sorry to everyone. Due to my illness, I have not had a chance to read anyone’s Five Word Weekly entries for this week as such there will be no links to this week’s entries on Sunday Digest. Thanks to everyone who participated, it is my goal to read everyone’s entry this coming week.
Sorry, Four Line Fiction will suffer the same fate as Five Words and will not have links here this week. On a good note, it looks like there are several entries this week and I will endeavour to get to all of them. I just hope my absence hasn’t killed the momentum that has started to pick up. Thanks to everyone who participated!
More highlights from Greg’s Blog…
💤ip, 💤ilch, 💤ero!
Around the Blogosphere…
Lots of great stuff I’m sure but I’ve read none of it! playing catch-up this week for sure!
Next week…
Another Five Word Weekly and Four Line Fiction challenges are on the way and I hope to get some writing and reading done before next Sunday’s wrap-up.
Note: Four Line Fiction has moved. It will now post on Tuesdays at 9:00am. This move is being made for a couple of reasons. First, I started Four Line Fiction because my first foray into fiction “Forgotten” was written for Three Line Tales hosted by Sonya at Only 100 Words. Sonya’s challenge disappeared at the end of 2021 and I thought I’d do something similar with #GB4LF. I am happy to say TLT has returned to Thursdays. Second, I produce a Sunday Digest post that highlights the past week on Greg’s Blog including links to (currently all but if the challenges continue to grow) some of your submissions. The move will provide a longer window of opportunity for submissions to be included in the Sunday evening post.
Welcome to Four Line Fiction, a pix-to-prose challenge. Each Tuesday, at 9:00am Eastern Time (Canada/United States) I will post an image I have captured myself, featured from another blog or plucked from one of the Interweb’s many royalty-free image sites. You as the writer are to use that image as a point of inspiration to craft a masterpiece of fiction in four lines.
The image for this week is a mixture of colours, possibly paint with shades of yellow, green, blue, grey and white on a black background. The image is cropped so that the drop appears as a semi-circle on the right of the image.
Be creative and have fun. I look forward to reading the tales you spin. Don’t forget to show your fellow bloggers some love -❤️- take some time to read, like, and comment on their masterpieces.
I am sitting in the same place as last week and it is again snowing. Not nearly as bad as but truth be told any amount is too much now – ENOUGH ALREADY!
This upcoming week is the March/Spring Break for elementary and high schools here. My little guy is spending the week with Nonna and Nonno. A break for us but I also miss him. He loves going there as his Zia spoils him
My daughter is making her annual trip to Florida with her fastpitch team. They go to the Jackie Robinson complex to get ready for ball season, meet college reps, and play a few exhibition games. This is the first year she has gone on her own with just the team but I am not worried. She is a bright young woman who amazes me every day.
For this week’s musical inspiration, I’ve gone back to one of my favs from Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness plus I’ve added his latest release as well. Enjoy.
Five Word Weekly Challenge
Another great week at Five Word Weekly. Thanks to everyone who participated.
Note: Four Line Fiction is moving. This week it will post on Wednesday, one day early and will transition to its new Tuesday slot next week. This move is being made for a couple of reasons. First, I started Four Line Fiction because my first foray into fiction “Forgotten” was written for Three Line Tales hosted by Sonya at Only 100 Words. Sonya’s challenge disappeared at the end of 2021 and I thought I’d do something similar with #GB4LF. I am happy to say TLT has returned to Thursdays. Second, I produce a Sunday Digest post that highlights the past week on Greg’s Blog including links to (currently all but if the challenges continue to grow) some of your submissions. The move will provide a longer window of opportunity for submissions to be included in the Sunday evening post.
Welcome to Four Line Fiction, a pix-to-prose challenge. Each Tuesday, at 9:00am Eastern Time (Canada/United States) I will post an image I have captured myself, featured from another blogger or plucked from one of the Interweb’s many royalty-free image sites. You as the writer are to use that image as a point of inspiration to craft a masterpiece of fiction in four lines.
The image for March 8th, 2023 is a long-haired woman standing outside wearing a black coat, grey beret and pale pink knitted gloves while it is lightly snowing. She is using both hands to hold an old 35mm film camera up to her eye. The subject of the photograph she is taking is unknown.
Be creative and have fun. I look forward to reading the tales you spin. Don’t forget to show your fellow bloggers some love -❤️- take some time to read, like, and comment on their masterpieces.
I find myself sitting in my office looking out the window. I feel like a little boy watching a construction site. The only real excitement this week was two, yes two major snowstorms. The first one on Monday saw 15-20 cm (6-8 inches) of snow and ice fall. On Friday night while I was working the heavens opened up again and dumped another 25-30 cm (10-12 inches) on us the majority of it between 9pm and midnight, although the snow did continue until morning. In fact, Friday night was so bad I stayed at my inlaws. They live about 15 minutes from the office and it took closer to the hour it normally takes to drive home just to get there. The only thing visible was the red lights of the cars ahead of me.
I can see the airport from my window and it is fascinating to watch the snow removal apparatus in action two days afterwards. Giant snow throwers, front-end loaders, plows, melters and ice spreaders are slowly removing any traces of winter on airport property. It might be the one thing the airport authority does well.
Greg Glazebrook @ GMGPhotography
Like I said, I’m a kid in a candy store. Reminds me of summer days spent watching heavy machinery scar the field behind my childhood home so that rows of houses could be built on the lush farmland.
Earlier in the week I ranted about big cable and my internet issues. The piece “Coincidence, I think NOT!” was written as a response to The Monday Peeve presented by Paula at Light Motifs II. Hours after a door-to-door salesman tried to sell me Big Cable Internet my independent ISP, who purchased bandwidth from that very same Big Cable company, internet service went down and had been out intermittently (think Yo-Yo) ever since. The cable company finally came out Saturday morning to check the lines and the tech removed a line attenuator that had been inserted between the modem and the incoming cable line. He was certain it was the cause of all our connectivity problems and not funny business from the Dishonest Ed Corp.
What I find interesting is the last time (about six months ago) a door-to-door salesman came to my door to sell me Big Cable internet my service went down hours later (just as it did this week) and the cable tech who came out on that occasion was the one who inserted said line attenuator and insisted that it would solve the problem. I call bullsh…
This week I have been listening to some new Barns Courtney. Talk about an earworm. I haven’t been able to get this song out of my head since I first heard it last weekend. Catchy and the video is pretty good too.
It has been a busy week in the real world this week and so Greg’s Blog has been on the back burner. Here are a few of the highlights…
Five Word Weekly Challenge
Another great week at Five Word Weekly. Thanks to everyone who participated.
Because of my busy week, I only glanced at a few pages and did not get any serious reading in. Sorry to have missed so many great blogs. I do hope to catch up on everyone’s posts.
Next week…
Look for Five Word Weekly, and Four Line Fiction challenges.
Greg's Blog 