) DEC 25 (2020) singable satire: 'IN DAYS OF YORK', (public school reunion)

ORIGINAL SONG:  "The Maple Leaf Forever", by Alexander Muir, modified
lyrics by Vladimir Radian 1997.

PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, September 2013, updated 2015, 2017, and 2018.

(FURTHER SONGS ON THE SAME THEME: For other nostalgic takes on Canada's national hymns, you can view (and sing along with) ...
 (January 2015)  Flight of the Loonie

(June 2018)  Something to Groan About 

            

 

Grade 8 classes
Cedarvale Public School, 1958.

You can also view these lyrics and commentary (without images or chords)  displayed on a parody-lyrics website at AmIRight.com Post "Canadian Reunion". 

CANADIAN REUNION

(to the tune of "The Maple Leaf Forever")

While young and frail at Poplarvale

Our mentors taught Muir's stirring song;

It eulogized forefathers’ feats,

Didn’t help us to belong.

As baby-boomers, second-gen,

Homes shaped by cookie-cutters;

Its patriotic sentiments

Maple Leaf Gardens
Carlton Street, Toronto

Dismissed those of our mothers.

No copyright, no fleur-de-lys;

Of insight only traces - 

Muir's “Maple Leaf” excluded half

Our country’s founding races.

       

Though reg’ments touted it their tune,

And Anglo journals ranted,

Decades ago, “O Canada”

Muir’s time-worn chant supplanted.

More recent play: ere Y-2-K,

Ann Murray sings
Maple Leaf Gardens

February, 2013

The C-B-C a contest ran;
So flourished a new pluralist "Leaf"
By songwright Vlad Radian. 

Its fabled British glory tamed,
No heaven or hegemony;
Olympic Closing half-time showed,
While "O (Canada)" did Ceremonies. 

Its reassembled mission clear, 
A newfound "Feuille" quite clever --
Anne Murray sang, The Gardens closed: 
The Maple Leafs forever.        

Five decades late, we congregate,

Our Grade Eight class remembered,  

No “Maple” hymn heard in the gym  - 

The song’s appeal now severed.

Reprise:

Last year Muir's ancient fabled tree

Was felled by stormy weather*.

Still sometimes heard, but seldom hymned -- 

The Maple Leaf Forever. 

* an ancient maple, that presumably had inspired

 Muir’s lyrics, was destroyed by a storm in July 2013.

 

TOURISTS' PALINDROMIC GUIDE: The Old World #1-#6

This post represents a new direction, based on Tourists' Palindromic Guide: The Americas #1.

SATIRE COMPOSED: Dr. G.H. and Giorgio Coniglio (registered pseudonym), 2018. 
WORDPLAY LINK: Geographically focused concoctions are among the many palindromic treasures honored and displayed on this site. Check out the list of entries for "The Palindrome Suite" in the slide at the bottom of the initial post. 

Click HERE to continue to panels #7 through #12.

(Or, switch horses, and check out the palindromes from the Americas, HERE!)

GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR WEB-EXPLORERS: 

To resume the sequence of daily titillations on our related blog "Daily Illustrated Nonsense", click HERE. Once you arrive, you can select your time frame of interest from the calendar-based listings at the bottom of the page, and check the daily offerings for any month from the start of 2020 until December 2024. 

As of December 2024, there are 1800 unique entries available on the daily blog, displaying individual poems (often illustrated) and wordplay, but also with some photo-collages and parody song-lyrics. Most of their key elements are also presented here on "Edifying Nonsense" in topic-based collections, such as this one. The "Daily" format also has the advantage of including some song-lyrics, videos and other material that are not shown here on this topic-based blog.

) DEC 15 (2020) singable satire: 'STEM-CELLS, DON'T LET YOUR DAUGHTERS ... '

 ORIGINAL SONG: "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys", 1975,  (covered by) Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson

PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, August 2013. 

To find ukulele and guitar chord-charts to help you accompany "STEM CELLS, ..." on your favorite instrument, click HERE.

STEM-CELLS, DON’T LET YOUR DAUGHTER-CELLS GROW UP AS MEATLOAF
(to the tune of "Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys") 

 

Intro:
Cowboys have shortened lifespans, and unhealthy lifestyles -

They won’t heed diet or pills, yet give you their smiles.

Smoking in pool-rooms and tinned sloppy-Joes and a breakfast of chicken-fried steak

They won’t understand cloning, why the dogies have gone - 

 Steers and cowboys may both fade away.

Cow-cells in vitro don’t moo, but they ain’t hard to clone.

Myocytes [1] can be lined up, much like neurons or bone.  

Conveyor-belt ‘Dolly’s, on packing-house trolleys might frighten consumers like you.  

PETA surely will grouse if calves have to die young

To make BSE-free [2] beef Ragú.

Stem-cells, don’t let your daughter-cells grow up as meatloaf;

Don’t let ‘em be Big Macs or mulligan stew,

Make them be sirloins or prime ribs ‘au jus’.

Stem-cells, don’t let your bovine genes morph into burgers;

They’d sure land up bunned, and likely be shunned by

Lovers of côtelettes-de-veau.

Foodies like trendy new bistros and fresh local produce

But this Steak Tartare from the lab shouldn’t get 'em uptight.

Abattoir workers feel threatened,

But coliform runoff and tainted meat lessened,

'Gene cuisine' - it’s all protein; for the future a blessing

To feed 8 billion souls every night.

Stem-cells, don’t let your offspring get smothered in goulash;

Don’t let ‘em be Big Macs or mulligan stew,

They’d feel more ‘mignon’ as prime ribs ‘au jus’.

Stem-cells, don’t let your progeny flower into burgers;

They’d sure land up bunned, and likely be shunned by

Lovers of châteaubriand.

[1] myocyte = (isolated) muscle cell

[2] BSE = bovine spongiform encephalopathy, “mad-cow” disease

MISSING ENTRIES:

  5,10,15 -- ( illustrated poem); 25 = song-lyrics. For 2020, month15 = song. For 2025, 2006, 2007, month20=song. FOr 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 - only 1 song per month 

Dec 15, 2020 - song 

March 25, 2021 - song

Dec 15, 2021 - poem

March 5, 2022 - poem

Dec 5, 2022 - poem

June 5, 2023 - poem

Jun 15, 2023 - poem

DEC 10, 2020: Staving off neoplasia: ONCOLOGY VERSES, first growths [5]

CURRENT CONTENTS:

Benign tumours
Malignant tumours
Cancerophobia
Image-guided biopsy
(Pat's) adenoma

Authors' Note: Readers should be aware that the guidebook deals primarily with the lexical aspects of benign tumors, and is therefore of interest primarily to word-nerds and Scrabble-players, rather than pathologists or other health professionals.

  Also, visitors to the online site OEDILF.com might note that close to thirty verses dealing with benign human tumors already grace the 'pages' of that dictionary-in-progress. One-third of these were written by the prolific SheilaB, a retired physician,including  acoustic.neuroma, angioma, cementoblastoma, chemodectoma, cystoma, dicytoma, hamartoma and lipoma.

Authors' Note: The above verse panders to the jargony use of the medical term biopsy,as a verb. The position mentioned in the verse would apply specifically to fine-needle biopsy of the prostate, a procedure discussed in a verse HERE.

Authors' Note:   Absorption of rays by body tissues complicates the interpretation of medical imaging with Positron Emission Tomography (PET). In equipment development since the year 2000, 'hybrid' scanners combine the nuclear camera with a CT x-ray unit that provides maps of attenuation; this technique for correction of attenuation (known to workers in the field as A.C.), makes PET more accurate in the detection of cancer. A potential limitation, the much lower energy of the photons used for x-ray CT, turns out to have little degrading effect in practical usage.

   Moreover, anatomic localization of the lesion can be obtained at the same session, enabling techniques such as superposition of the ‘hot’ focus on a 3D anatomic body-map. This technique has been given  the difficult and somewhat redundant term ‘PET-CT’.

Here's a LIST OF LINKS to collections of intriguing poems (over 200 of these!) on medical/dental topics, updated to December 2024. 

GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR WEB-EXPLORERS: 

To resume your review of the sequence of daily titillations on our related blog "Daily Illustrated Nonsense", click HERE. Once you arrive, you can select your time frame of interest from the calendar-based listings at the bottom of the page, and check the daily offerings for any month from the start of 2020 until July 2025. 

As of July 20, 2025, there are 2,000 unique entries available on the daily blog, displaying individual poems (often illustrated) and wordplay, but also with some photo-collages and parody song-lyrics. 

Most of these key elements of our work are assembled here on "Edifying Nonsense" in topic-based collections.

The "Daily" format, a formidable mix of genres has the advantage of including song-lyrics, videos and other material that are not shown here on this topic-based blog.

DEC 5, 2020: TOXIC VIGNETTES, #1 [6]

CURRENT CONTENTS:
Antifreeze poisoning

Chemotherapy drugs, cardiotoxicity

Chelation

Danbury shakes (mad hatter syndrome)

Digitalis toxicity

Drugs of abuse

Authors' Note:   Poisoning with sweet-smelling ethylene glycol is a common toxic problem for humans and pets owing to its wide commercial distribution in products including antifreeze and windshield washer fluid.

 Discovered in 1958, denatonium benzoate (sold under various tradenames, including Bitrex), tastes unbearably bitter to most mammals, even in low concentations, but is not apparently harmful otherwise. It has been used to prevent ingestion of a variety of consumer products. In 2012, all American manufacturers of antifreeze voluntarily agreed to add denatonium to these liquids in order to reduce fatal poisonings.

Learn more about this topic on the web at these sites:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethylene_glycol_poisoning

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatonium

http://www.petmd.com/dog/emergency/digestive/e_multi_antifreeze_poisoning

Author's Note:   Anthracycline antibiotics, e.g. doxorubicin (adriamycin) are among the most effective chemotherapy agents; they have been profitably incorporated in multidrug chemotherapy treatment routines for many types of cancer. These advantages are partially offset by a relatively unique adverse effect — the possibility of cardiotoxicity, permanent impairment of the systolic (contracting) function of ventricular heart muscle. 

   Development of this side effect can be minimized by pharmacological manipulations and by monitoring cardiac function periodically during longterm treatment.

   Nuclear medicine techniques have classically been used, but echocardiography may also be of value (see the verse ‘Ejection Fraction’) in monitoring cardiac function.

Authors' Note:

(KEE-layt) / (kee-LAY-shun) Treatment with chelates or chelating agents, has several well-recognized uses in medicine. These include removal of toxic metals from the body, e.g. lead in cases of acute or chronic poisoning, and treatment of iron overload in patients who have received repeated blood transfusions to treat their chronic anemias. The search for drugs of this type which are safer and easier to use is ongoing.

    

  Authors' Note: Erethismus (irritation) mercurialis, synonym for mercurialism, was well-known by Lewis Carroll's time, as signs of chronic poisoning had become common among workers in the hatting industry in which salts of mercury were used in the felting of furs; his character, the 'Mad Hatter' reflects the prevalent stereotype.

In the US, hat-making was centered in the Connecticut town of Danbury, where the majority of long-term workers were subject to the 'Danbury shakes' as well as other neuropsychiatric manifestations. The plant continued in operation, including the dumping of wastewater effluent, until the early 1940s. It closed at that time due to staffing shortages and the need for mercury in the armaments industry.

   In 2020, a study of fish populations in Danbury's Still River showed alarming levels of mercury; the persistence of this toxic residue reflects, in part, the concept of biomagnification. 

Authors' Note: 

(di-JOK-sin)

Digoxin, a cardiac glycoside derived initially from the garden plant digitalis (foxglove), has been used to treat chronic congestive heart failure and to control the heart rate in atrial fibrillation. During the author's professional lifetime, there has been a major reduction in the death-rate and in the incidence of hospital admissions for digoxin poisoning, also known as digitoxicity. This improvement is due to more judicious assessment of factors, e.g. decreasing kidney function, that may result in increasing blood levels of the drug, but also to limitation of the drug's use as alternatives have become available.  

 

Authors' Note:  Occasionally, the shock of reality may help a victim of substance abuse, like Seth, to focus on his plight. A more professional discussion of drug addiction by SheilaB may be enlightening.

DEC 5, 2020: EDIFICATION about Word-Pairs -- "The BINOMIALS", A Linguistic Lesson

EDIFICATION about SINGABLE WORDPLAY

LESSON COMPOSED: Dr. G.H. and Giorgio Coniglio, 2015. This explanation is required for the reader to understand the collections of short poems about binomials that summarize the day-to-day work displayed on our daily blog, and provide material on Word-Pairs that underlies the details in this song cycle of parodies.

BINOMIALS: We are dealing here with a linguistic device discussed by Wikipedia as “Siamese twins” or ‘Irreversible Binomials”. These 

phrases include some of the most colorful expressions in English. There are probably a thousand binomial expressions in the English language. To enhance interest for those who review both humorous poetry and song-lyrics, we have skewed our creations dealing with  binomial pairs here, to emphasize those that have some more appealling aspects. These include alliterative binomials (e.g. kith and kin), rhyming binomials (e.g. shake and bake), reduplications (e.g. helter skelter) and legal jargon (e.g. last will and testament).

Some of you may already have favorite expressions (e.g. yours and mine) that are not covered by these categories; we apologize that the potential volume of material does not allow us to be all-inclusive. 

POETIC LYRICS: Our verses about various binomial expressions have, for the most part, been submitted to the online site OEDILF (the Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form), where rigorous collaborative editing proceeds in a process that may take as long as a year (approval by 5 writer-contributors is required as a part of the protocol).

These verses are then editorially considered here at this unrelated website by Giorgio Coniglio, registered pseudonym, who recommends illustrative pictorial material and other addenda for prompt release to the audience of "Daily Illustrated Nonsense". On further review, this material, and similar poems not part of the original process, may be collated here for topic-based collections, as you will now find on these pages.  

UKULELE and GUITAR-FRIENDLY SONG-LINKS: As of 2024, our whole series of song-lyrics (9 songs to date) is displayed under the rubric "singable satire" on our main blog "Daily Illustrated Nonsense".

The links for each of these blogposts is diaplayed at the bottom of this post.

We have also provided chord-charts and playing suggestions for acompanying musicians to make these outpourings singable.The keys are targeted principally at ukulele-players, but easy transposition is possible if you play guitar, banjo, mandolin, or other stringed instrument. Follow the links that accompany each post to get to "Silly Songs and Satire" !

 can be found in a friendly format for ukulele- and guitar-players on our sister blog "SILLY SONGS and SATIRE, along with performing suggestions. 

loonie and toonie: rhyming coins

#1

#2

#3

 

#4

#5

#6

#7

HOT LINKS to the WORD-PAIR parody lyrics 

(these are the links that take you to "Daily Illustrated Nonsense". Follow further links, once there, to find the chord charts and other suggestions for playing the songs on ukulele (or other stringed instruments). 

Pairs
Alliterative Binomials, part #1
Alliterative Binomials, part #2
Reduplications - Lesson
Reduplications - Lexicon A to K
Reduplications - Lexicon M to Z
Rhyming Binomials, A to M
Rhyming Binomials, M to Z
Legal Doublets

GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR WEB-EXPLORERS: 

To resume the sequence of daily titillations on our related blog "Daily Illustrated Nonsense", click HERE. Once you arrive, you can select your time frame of interest from the calendar-based listings at the bottom of the page, and check the daily offerings for any month from the start of 2020 until December 2024. 

As of June 2025, there are 2000 unique entries available on the daily blog, displaying individual poems (often illustrated) and wordplay, but also with some photo-collages and parody song-lyrics. Most of their key elements are also presented here on "Edifying Nonsense" in topic-based collections, such as this one. The "Daily" format also has the advantage of including some song-lyrics, videos and other material that are not shown here on this topic-based blog.