Famous First Words: And now, particularly on account of these things... The Edict of Worms
93 years ago today, the Supreme Court voted against prohibition... Once, during prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water. --W C Fields / Three conspiracy theorists walk into a bar. You can't tell me that's just a coincidence.
..........a drunkard's dream, if I ever did see one..........The Band with Levon Helm …..Up On Cripple Creek
Virtue can only flourish among equals. --Mary Wollstonecraft
It is a beautiful Friday morning. A 67°F temperature and a sky without a cloud set the mood. Breezes from the east gusting at 10 mph set the trees to dancing and the willow branches to a frenzy. Birds singly and in groups come and go – on the shed roof, on the mulberry bush, to the utility wires; they sing songs and make shadows across the yard. In the distance a dog barks lazily and does not get a response; Puck sleeps through it. There is a young bird settled onto a branch in the middle of the mulberry. She has not moved for quite a while and is so dappled by shadows of leaves that I am not sure of her species. Perhaps it's a game of hide and seek or a morning meditation or just waitin' for a friend. I sip my flavored coffee which has cooled considerably since I sat down. But it still smells chocolatey and tastes delicious...as delicious as this morning.
Hope your weekend is 180 proof, ePistliers
First Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: I keep hitting the escape key...but I'm still here. --Submitted by PsyDe
Prohibition has made nothing but trouble. --Al Capone / There's a new Tom Cruise movie about making moonshine during prohibition. It's called Whiskey Business.
..........I'm feelin' mellow.........George Thorogood & the Destroyers …..One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer
Trivia Questions: Best of Luck to the O'Henry Pun-Off in Texas this weekend.
- ^ How would you define “pun”?
- ^^ What are the three basic pun types?
- ^^^ What makes a pun good?
- ^^^^ And where in the brain does the pun reside? No , seriously.
- ^^^^^ What is the O'Henry Pun-Off anyway?
Big Hello: Sälem – Kazakh https://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/hello.htm
Second Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Maturity is realizing how many things don't require your opinion. --Submitted by ma of va
Image of the Week: I went looking for a celebrity holding a Writers Guild on Strike sign.
Fake Library Statistics of the Week: 16% of librarians are really just a cat in disguise. https://www.facebook.com/FakeLibStats/?fref=ts
For every prohibition you create, you also create an underground. --Jello Biafra / Remember, both the French Revolution and Prohibition got rid of the Bourbon.
..........and one more for the road.........Etta James …..One For My Baby
Moonbeam: What my mother believed about cooking is that if you worked hard and prospered, someone else would do it for you. --Nora Ephron
Question of the Week: How much effort does it take to achieve nothingness?
Puzzle of the Week: From Ed Pegg Jr., who runs the website mathpuzzle.com. Think of an animal in which the singular form of the female and the plural form of the male sound like synonyms. What animal is it? NPR Sunday Puzzle 5/20/23
Next Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: I told CHATGPT to write a sign and it sucked --Writers Guild on Strike
Prohibition didn't work in the Garden of Eden. Adam ate the apple. --Vicente Fox / From the Period: A man had a bottle in his back pocket. When he fell down, he heard something break and reached to find the back of his pants were wet. Before he looked to see what it was, he fervently prayed, “Let it be blood”.
..........a total stranger to myself.........Jeff Beck …..I've Been Drinking
^Pun definition: A play on words. By experimenting with the sounds and/or meanings of a word, the author of a pun uses language in a novel, surprising, and often humorous way. Another word for pun is “paronomasia,” a Greek word translated as “to call something by a slight change of name.” If two wanderers saw a really witty pun, then would a pair of nomads see a paronomasia?
Almanac: It is Friday, May 26, 2023. The moon will go into the first quarter tomorrow (5/27) and is in Leo. It is National Blueberry Cheesecake Day, and National Chardonnay Day. Because it is the Friday before Memorial Day, it is National Don't Fry Day and National Wig Out Day. Because it is the last Friday, it is also National Heat Awareness Day and National Title Track Day.
Among those born on this day were Pope Clement VII (Giulio de'Medici, 1478), Dirck Janszoon Sweelinck (1591), Mary Wortley Montagu (1689), Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (1759), Alexander Pushkin (1799), Felipe Gutierrez y Espinoza (1825), Monroe Althouse (1853), A E Houseman (1859), Queen Mary (Great Britain/North Ireland, 1867), Isadora Duncan (1877), Al Jolson (Asa Yoelson, 1886), Gerard Bertouille (1898), Estes Kefauver (1903), John Wayne (Marion Morrison, 1907), Peter Cushing (1913), Jay Silverheels (1919), Peggy Lee (Norma Egstrom, 1920), James Arnesss (1923), Victor Herbert (1924), Miles Davis (1926), Levon Helm (1942), Stevie Nicks (Stephanie Lynn, 1948), Hank Williams Jr and Pam Grier (1949), Bobcat Goldthwait (1962), and Lenny Kravitz (1964).
On May twenty-sixth Otto II crowned king of Germany (961), Edict of Worms outlawed Lutherans (1521), Lewis and Clark saw their first Rocky Mountain (1805), Napoleon was crowned (1805), the Portuguese civil war ended (1834), Nicholas II was crowned (1896), the Archaeological Institute of America was founded (1906), Actors' Equity Association was formed (1913), Lenin suffered a stroke (1922), the Socialist Workers Youth International formed (Hamburg, 1923), Lebanon adopted its constitution (1926), the Supreme Court ruled against prohibition (1930), the Gold Gate Bridge opened (1937), a patent for the H-Bomb was filed (1946), The Freedom Ride Coordinating Committee was established (1961), the Apollo 10 astronauts returned to Earth (1969), SALT accords signed (1972), and Star Wars debuted (1977).
Night Sky, 5/26: The Moon, very nearly first quarter, shines in the Sickle of Leo after dusk. It's almost between the Sickle's two brightest stars: Regulus, lower left of the Moon, and fainter Gamma Leonis or Algieba, to the Moon's upper right. http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/sky-at-a-glance/
Fraternal Picture of the Week: Cotton candy. Like eating a cloud of diabetes. --Dana Gould
This Week: Saturday, May 27 – Joe Cool Day & National Learn To Swim Day
Sunday, May 28 – Slugs Return From Capistrano Day & National Hamburger Day
Night Sky, 5/28: Have you ever seen Alpha Centauri? At declination –61° our brilliant, magnitude-zero neighbor is permanently out of sight if you're north of latitude 29°. But if you're at the latitude of San Antonio, Orlando, or points south, Alpha Cen skims just above your true southern horizon for a little while late these evenings. When does this happen? Just about when Alpha Librae, the lower-right of Libra's two brightest stars, is due south over your landscape. At that time, drop your gaze straight down from there.
Monday, May 29 – Memorial Day & National Alligator Day
Tuesday, May 30 – Mint Julep Day & National Marina Day & World MS Day
Wednesday, May 31 – National Smile Day & World No-Tobacco Day & World Otter Day
Night Sky, 5/31: Bright Capella sets low in the northwest fairly soon after dark these evenings (depending on your latitude). That leaves Vega and Arcturus as the brightest stars in the evening sky. Vega shines in the east-northeast. Arcturus is way up very high toward the south. A third of the way from Arcturus to Vega, look for semicircular Corona Borealis, the Northern Crown, with 2nd-magnitude Alphecca as its one moderately bright star. It's the jewel on the front of the tiara.
Thursday, June 1 - Heimlich Maneuver Day & National Go Barefoot Day & Say Something Nice Day & Oscar, The Grouch Day
Prohibition is better than no liquor at all. --Will Rogers / If drinking alcohol makes you alcoholic does drinking Fanta make you fantastic?
..........the carpet needs a haircut.........Tom Waits …..The Piano Has Been Drinking
^^ There are three basic categories of puns: those that play with sound, those that play with meaning, and those that play with both.
Preantepenultimate Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: I may not be your cup of tea but I'm totally your 10th shot of tequila.
Moonbeam: So long as little children are allowed to suffer, there is no true love in this world. --Isadora Duncan
Video of the Week: Three Drunken Maidens with Tim Hart & Maddy Prior (2:15) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W45HnwhDZB0
Not So Late Night Snacks of the Week: The NYT, paper of record, the gray lady, they finally said out loud what we were all thinking, spring is just impossible to dress for. This is what we get for trusting a groundhog to tell us what to wear --Peter Sagal Wait Wait Don't Tell Me 5/20/23
The divine right of husbands, like the divine right of kings, may, it is hoped, in this enlightened age, be contested without danger. --Mary Wollstonecraft
Prohibition makes you want to cry into your beer and denies you the beer to cry into. --Don Marquis / I'm on a whiskey diet. I've lost 3 days already.
..........Makes the spirit more willing.........Punch Brothers …..Rye Whiskey
^^^ A good pun should be appropriate for the audience and context, and not be offensive or hurtful.
Did Schrödinger have a closed casket funeral?
Antepenultimate Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: I've been a woman for a little over 50 years and have gotten over my initial astonishment. --Nadia Boulanger ..on being asked how it felt to be a woman conductor.
Weird Word of the Week: Pyknic – a short and fat person. A body type associated with short, fat people. http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-pyc1.htm
Dragon of the Week: Dragon Decanter
Wacky Uses for Common Products: Fry Bacon. After frying bacon, drain the excess grease from the strips by placing them on a sheet of Bounty Paper Towels (or between two sheets), allowing the quicker-picker-upper to absorb the fat. https://www.wackyuses.com/wacky/bounty.html
I knew San Francisco when it was a wild place during Prohibition. There were more speakeasies than churches, and you could always get a drink. --Jackie Coogan / Raising children takes a village, preferably one with many vineyards.
...........Lord, I drink all night but the next day I still feel blue.........Janis Joplin …..What Good Can Drinkin' Do
^^^^ Although it can seem like punny people aren’t using their brains at all, it actually takes both the right and left hemispheres of the brain to tell a joke, researchsuggests. The left side, or the linguistic hemisphere, processes the basic language of the pun, and then the right side kicks in right after to reveal the surprise double-meaning — the punchline.
Penultimate Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: When I lived on the gulf of Mexico, the seasons were: Mosquito, Love bug, Horse fly, and Sand crab. --Mike Shimko --Submitted by FNOG
Science Fiction Convention of the Week: Fargo CoreCon (25-28, Fargo NC) Portals to Fantastic Worlds... https://www.fargocorecon.org/
Actual Science Conference of the Week: International Energy & Environment Fair: (24-26, Istanbul) Our Energy market is now in the development and maturation phase after having made investments totaling 95 billion dollars, https://www.cantonfair.net/event/6185-international-energy-environment-fair-and-conference
Answer to Puzzle of the Week: Deer (doe, bucks --> dough, bucks)
It is certainly accurate, as it has often been said and as his letters reveal, that Grandpa supplied his tenth college reunion with alcohol in 1922 at the height of Prohibition. --Jean Kennedy Smith / Friends bring happiness into your life. Best friends bring wine.
..........But ev'rything's cool 'cause they's just tight.........ZZ Top …..Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers
^^^^^ The O. Henry Pun-Off World Championships is a yearly spoken word competition that has taken place every May since 1978 at the O. Henry Museum in Austin, Texas. A support group of former and current contestants was formed in 1990 to formalize the unwritten rules of the competition(s) and provide guidance and support for future events. It goes under the umbrella title of "Punsters United Nearly Yearly" (a.k.a. PUNY).
My Own Writing of the Week: Last week was the end of the second memoir and my own writing mostly. I'm not sure what to put here instead.
Quote of the Week: Never forget justice is what love looks like in public. --Cornel West
Final Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Until a drag queen walks into a school and beats eight kids to death with a copy of “To Kill A Mocking Bird”, I think you're focusing on the wrong shit. --Wanda Sykes
Today's Peace of History, May 26, 1991: 20,000 Israeli Jews and Palestinians participated in a peace rally in Israel’s capital, Tel Aviv.
Stop trying to make everybody happy. You're not beer. / The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind. --Humphrey Bogart
..........But I was never gonna be the same.........Frankie Valli …..Oh, What A Night
Masthead of the Week: Friday ePistle May 26, 2023, dRy ePistle. Online at: http://fridayepistle.blogspot.com/ Exclusive editor: Christine Smith. Lawrence, KS.
Moonbeam: And malt does more than Milton can to justify God's way to man. --A E Housman
Cost of War:
- As of 05/25/23 State Department War Costs since 2001: $207,790,249,357.
- As of 05/18/23 State Department War Costs since 2001: $207,244,231,101.
- As of 05/25/23 Interest on War Debt since 2001: $1,139,483,258,671.
- As of 05/18/23 Interest on War Debt since 2001: $1,137,958,106,863.
- As of 05/25/23 Homeland Security since 2001: $1,137,410,215,336.
- As of 05/18/23 Homeland Security since 2001: $1,136,817,073,927.
- As of 05/25/23 Veterans Care since 2001: $3,062,838,123,356.
- As of 05/18/23 Veterans Care since 2001: $3,051,276,239,278.
- As of 05/25/23 Military Costs since 2001: $3,024,848,655,576.
- As of 05/18/23 Military Costs since 2001: $3,023,690,601,511.
- As of 05/25/23 Total Cost of Wars since 2001: $8,572,372,374,138.
- As of 05/18/23 Total Cost of Wars since 2001: $8,556,988,264,356.
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/
It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world. --Mary Wollstonecraft
Famous Last Words: ...to reduce the risk of outbreak of nuclear war. --SALT (II) Accords
..........you gotta thrill my soul, alright.........The Doors …..Roadhouse Blues
Here's to alcohol, the rose-colored glasses of life. – F Scott Fitzgerald / Alcohol is a perfect solvent: it dissolves marriages, families, and careers.
May Peace relax your mind
And Joy unwind your soul
prairie mama
christine
Last Laugh:
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