20150731 (attachment)

Frederick II was not a good guy

Holy Roman Emperor, 1194-1250 AD

No other way to say it he was a bum

A bum scientist if we dare call him that

With way too much power for sure

But just as the cause of science 

Was advanced by Nazi experiment

We owe Freddie Two for his research

About our God-given language

Was it English, French, Italian

He got him some babies at birth

Don’t ask how I don’t know

But I suspect the worst

Left them in cribs comfortable enough

With foster mothers and nurses

Instructed to suckle and bathe them

But not make a sound nor smile

To learn which language

They would speak on their own

As they grew well they didn’t

Given the silent treatment 

All of them failed

At speaking at anything at growing

They withered and died as if they had 

Taken a pledge to frustrate cruel Fred 

Not do his bidding

Harry Harlow of 1940s Wisconsin

Used baby monkeys to explore 

The parameters of mother-love 

Of contact and deprivation

Imagine having two mommies

One made of wire equipped 

With a bottle for nursing

The other a towel wrapped like

A monkey mom with monkey face head

The infants would cling to the cloth mommy

Except to nurse from the bottle then

Zoom back to the soft mommy

Wouldn’t you overall Harlow showed 

That baby monkeys raised 

Under these deprivations

Grew up quite cockeyed never

Developed a proper monkeyness

Harry Stack Sullivan wrote a lot about

How personhood depended on 

Being with others not just being

But forming relations interacting

Remove them and crippling loneliness

Takes over shunning induces horrible pain

Nobody needed much more explanation

Visit a dungeon of Freddy’s time

If you want to make a raving maniac of a man

Ignore him keep him in the dark

Pretty soon they can’t tell time

Their brains cease to work

Solitary confinement keeps you out of a fight

Makes you less able to manage

Brings you back to infancy

If all you had then was a wire mommy

You’re in for it Jack

When they set you free

c. J.S.Manista, 2015

20150730 (poor excuse for falling down on a promise)

Muse's day off





c. J.S.Manista, 2015

Review of Old Movie-Greatest Movie Ever Sold

Morgan Spurlock (Supersize Me), gadfly of the American commercial scene, takes on product placement as an only slightly hidden force ($) in film and video entertainment by producing a documentary about product placement paid for entirely by product placement. He films the process entirely: the telephone wheedling, the demo presentations and negotiations, and only in the very last image does he reveal that he did not permit the requested "final cut"
authority by the major sponsor.

What is most revealing is the degree of what I would term claim of authority on marketing (which I personally regard as only one step away from alchemy and bald hustling itself) which the numerous brand consultants assert they have. The lawyers on the other hand emerge as the power players in the game of swaying consumers to part with their funds.

Quick & Dirty: You must know this stuff before you touch your money. Funny and illuminating, even poor Morgan frights that he's being taken in by forces unleashed and Ralph Nader gets a pair of free shoes. Is no one beyond reach?



c. J.S.Manista, 2015

Naming Rights for Sale

This basement commode is situated in the "open plan" cellar with views of the shower and boiler. There's plenty in the area to lean on for added effort and the plunger stands at the ready to complete any particularly large flush

This first floor feature is offered with newer plunger and the added opportunity of advertising to those who need to wash dishes or feed the cat

And last this throne-like seat makes available to you especially reliable flushing as the drain pipe and the tank valve have been replaced in the last few months/weeks. What else would you expect for a penthouse jake?

After years of unrealized potential income I have decide to offer 

the NAMING RIGHTS to my three bathrooms. Long enough 

known as Jim's EXCRETAL BASINS/VOMITORIA they can 

each now be recognized with your personal/corporate 

NAME/LOGO by a hand-lettered sign I will post either on the 

door or in the case of the basement facility will hang from a pipe 

nearby. Bidding begins at $500/commode effective today for a 3-

yr contract, ending 07/31/18. Remember this cost can be written 

off as advertising on your taxes. Let the bidding begin! (No 

reasonable offer refused) 10% cash with each bid submitted.





c. J.S.Manista, 2015

Review of Old Movie--Robin Hood Men in Tights

Sometimes when you're in a funk you just need to apply a Mel Brooks' movie to the affected area. I tried last night with Dracula Dead and Loving It but the DVD from the library was so damaged most of what I saw was "skipping over damaged area."

Took that back and obtained Robin Hood, Men in Tights. I think if I allowed myself to dream it would be to co-write a comedy screenplay with Mel Brooks. I remember  seeing a special PBS interview with him from which I concluded--this man is a mensch--and I wish I could be like him. That's one of the good things about perceiving goodness--you want to incorporate it into your world, even yourself. 

Enough of this enduring admiration. We'll leave it at the whole world is wonderfully better for there having been a Melvin James Kaminsky. Unfortunately I shall probably never meet him and had I the opportunity I would do it though fearful of being just another fan.

Quick and Dirty: Hey, it's Mel Brooks, wildly and unevenly funny. Only note, while the movie includes numerous black characters--David Chappelle the most prominent but also a scene of the tomahawk chop which is today prominently controversial as offensive to Native Americans. Hopefully they would see it as not mockery of them but as mockery of the mindless choppers.



c. J.S.Manista, 2015

20150729 (the lucky universe made us)

Not at all the right image (as no one has one--no cameras, no phones--duh!

I’m grateful for the confluence of forces

In the universe which led to our being 

As we explore for exoplanets even vaguely

Like ours we by comparison grasp how many

Circumstances had to be just right else our 

Home would have been a bare stone

The right distance from the right sun

Even the right size improbably large moon

To rake the waters against the shores

And contribute the felicitous churn

That birthed oxygen but even beyond

That how the muons came to make protons

And protons crushed became fiery stars

The engines of the higher elements

I know I’m getting a lot of this wrong

I’ve tried before but science keeps changing

I’m old enough to have read books relating 

A once stable universe never changing

How Hubble’s spectrographic study

Blew that to hell though he still has 

Halton Arp nipping at his ankles

Is there a scientific fact which is not

Somewhere in dispute but of exoplanets

They can’t be too big or we’d never

Get up from the ground and 

They can’t be too small

Or everything we needed to breathe

Would float away we’d need it to wobble

At the right time have a magnetic field

To keep us from cancerous rays not to consider

How many errant butterflies we’d need to place

Hurricanes on the other side of the earth

Exactly when needed I tell you it’s a boggle

But the theorists claim however many factors

It would take there are ample galaxies with

Sagan’s billions of stars 

To make the likelihood

Of creatures like us somewhere 

A pretty good bet

Either before us or after we fade

If you throw in alternative forms of life

Based on methane or crystals or 

Who knows what even more friends

Whom we’d never think were at all

Similar slower/faster thinking some unable

To conceptualize kept as pets

In pressurized gaseous tanks who’d 

Look through observation ports to plead

For freedom and we’d never know 

We were stepping on souls 

I’m particularly pleased

I appeared now when we think we have

Progressive medical care not

Blood-sucking leech cures or 

Unanaesthetized amputations I guess 

It all depends on what you are used to

So looking around I’m still kind of glad

For it all I’ve enough imagination

To think of things better

But you must work with what you’ve got

Which I think is ample if not

Quite a lot

c. J.S.Manista, 2015

20150728 (trophy wives)

Dante had it right about sins of the flesh

Least of the errors to stick one in hell

Even less than gluttony which could be

Viewed as a fleshy affront these were

Not perverts just what today we’d call

Promiscuous the carnality of sodomites

Was placed deeper in and the Gaceys

The BTKs further in yet just your

Garden variety of vow-breakers souls

Who couldn’t control their lusts

Seducers like Hollywood actors  

Who for their daily bread are forced to kiss

Fondle screw others for our enjoyment

Quelle surprise that they wander they

Can’t say lead us not into temptation

It’s their job or a good part of it

Evolution made certain a preference

For sex to ensure procreation the 

Excess well do what you will keep it

In check as a mutual promise as a sign

Of loving someone so treasured

You would resist what every fiber 

Of your natural being screamed for

That would mark it as special

Special for some is not special for all

If you’re off to a war and you’re

Assigned a comely secretary that’s

Not exactly like boarding a ship to chase

After whales for a year or two or sail

To China but if you’re off to Harvard

Studying law and your wife who stuck

With you for years in the desert studies

At Cleveland-Marshall don’t expect

Holiday visits phone calls to suffice

To fool her of your new friends

Or finally when your factory or practice

Starts to bring in some bucks the slim

Girl you’ve hired to do every bidding

Is so more accommodating than the

Harridan at home with those pesky kids

For her you can’t do anything right

You can dress her up 

But you can’t take her out

Not to the country club you’d like to join

If she talks to your friends it’ll

Be a regrettable mess 

Bad for business besides

Your new aide however 

Can book the best lunches

To break up your day 

Ease the pressure why not reward her 

With a lobster claw a drink or two 

By the time you’re regularly having dinner 

Together your shabby partner

The one you can’t remember why you 

Ever liked her is catching on and 

Feeling like hell for which you’re

So sorry but things happen just not 

For her it’ll cost you plenty but it

Will be worth it to shed the old hag

And get to bed regularly

The well-practiced and lovely

Thirty-year old

c. J.S.Manista, 2015

20150727 (house clearing)

Not an unusual sight in the suburbs. Cars parked outside all year.

The house should feel a lot lighter

Now that so much has been removed

I won’t go into the facts

Somebody left me a lot of their stuff 

After three and a half years 

Has finally gotten all of it out 

Which is not true they admitted having 

No more space what’s left here is yours 

To do what you will grateful

The end had been reached still a task

To haul out the rest I gave a breadbox

Of brand new but old unopened tubes 

Of acrylic paints to an art student wandering

Near the Cleveland Institute of Art

Glasses to the Society for the Blind

Art tracing papers cardboards gessoed 

For work stretchers to Art House

On Denison office goods vases

To Unique Thrift on Lorain 

There’s still much to discard I can’t 

Throw expensive paraphernalia 

In the trash when somebody clever 

Can use them if they want to buy

Wedding party novelties at a penny a piece

Took surplus greeting cards all very

Lovely to the church to send to the home bound

I asked at the Flea if anybody wanted 

The fabrics not at all dusty or ruined

Got some leads years ago 

When my sibs and I were garage-saleing 

My mom’s personal effects

We called an auction service who 

Have recyclers remove the unsold

Dispirited they looked at the stash 

Announced they needed to clear two hundred bucks 

For themselves old gold Royal Doulton 

Antiques we had none a service for the rich

Not a family struggling to cross 

To the other side of the median 

For middle class after we’d set out 

Everything anyone might give money for 

An old gent stayed all day 

Looking through the barrels we’d set 

At the curb for rubbish collection

He asked if we minded he took things

Help yourself just see it all gets 

Back in the barrels when you’re done

Another variety of the illness why

People buy this crap in the first place

His joy is that it was free 

When I did route exams for the post office

Time-studies of the mailman’s day

I followed the carrier on his rounds

In the suburbs it was nothing to find

Two cars parked on a driveway and

The garage clearly packed with 

What I’ll graciously call acquisitions 

Some neatly sorted most heaped 

Opinion holds the population obese

Because food is less costly

Course there’s also the unadmitted

Conspiracy of food suppliers to cram us

With lethal volumes of salt sugar fat

It’s the nature of capitalism to grow expand

Profit whether it’s in things food drugs travel movies

Satisfied with your old car you can’t be

Not if you’ve seen the new Oldsmobile

Watch out though if you drive the wrong streets

You’ll come square up against folks

Who haven’t got squat find a reason

To blame them for not being like you

Struggling to get to a better place

You’ve got a job they’re lazy

Is what everybody says 

Just look at their raggy old clothes 

You wouldn’t let your kids on the street

Looking like that 

Still even they produce garbage 

God how bad must it be

If they throw it away

c. J.S.Manista, 2015