Visiopoetics

MORTARS +
MORTARS +
MONA
————–
LEONARDO

Leonardo da Vinci’s resume, revealed.

Artwork is oils and mucho mixed media on 12″ x 24″ stretched canvas.

Money can’t buy you — oh, never mind. Do enjoy this Guardian poetry workshop on commodification if you can (ahem) spare the precious time.

From the marvelous mini-Annals of Improbable Research (”mini-AIR”), January edition:

2010-01-09 Mad Honey Sex Poet

The judges have chosen a winner in the Mad Honey Sex Limerick
Competition, which asked for a limerick to honor the study “Mad
Honey Sex: Therapeutic Misadventures From an Ancient Biological
Weapon,” Ahmet Demircan, et al., Annals of Emergency Medicine,
2009. http://bit.ly/7OgfWn

The winner is INVESTIGATOR LESLIE ROSENBLOOD, who wrote:

Alternative “doctors” use honey
To part middle aged men from their money.
“It’s not poison,” they say,
“You’ll have sex every day!”
As though fainting and barfing were funny.

Here’s the offering from LIMERICK LAUREATE MARTIN EIGER:

It wasn’t for love or for money,
I had me some badass mad honey.
The sex was fantastic,
Orgasmic and spastic.
The symptoms thereafter? Not funny.

The judges note that the honey/money/funny troika figured in more
than half the submitted entries. See some of the runners-up at
http://improbable.com/2010/01/21/mad-honey-runners-up.

———————————————————-
2010-01-10 Four-Horodecki Entanglement Competition

Quantum entanglement and four Horodeckis inspire this month’s
limerick competition. To enter, compose an original limerick that
illuminates the nature of this report (suggested by investigators
David F. Austin and David Pendlebury):

“Quantum Entanglement,” Ryszard Horodecki, Pawel Horodecki,
Michal Horodecki and Karol Horodecki, Reviews of Modern Physics,
vol. 81, no. 2, 2009, pp. 865-942. http://bit.ly/4ENWEo The
authors, at the University of Gdansk, Poland, report:

“All our former experience with application of quantum theory
seems to say that what is predicted by quantum formalism must
occur in the laboratory…. However, it appears that this new
resource is complex and difficult to detect…. The basic role of
entanglement witnesses in detection of entanglement is
emphasized.”

RULES: Please make sure that: (1) your rhymes actually do; and
(2) your poem is in classic, trills-off-the-tongue limerick form.

PRIZE: The winning poet will receive (if we manage to send it to
the correct address) a free, perhaps entangled, high-res PDF
issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. Send entries (one
entry per entrant) to:

FOUR-HORODECKI ENTANGLEMENT LIMERICK COMPETITION
c/o marca AT chem2.harvard.edu

NADA

+ NADA

+ NADA

+ NADA

+ NADA

+ NADA

————-

BING

Best.  Viral video.  Ever.  If you don’t know what a decision matrix is, how to discuss global warming with skeptics, or who Greg Craven is, watch it now.

Then, buy the book before it melts.

I shall call it:  “Water Lilies with Periscope.”  Where’s my monocle?  Artwork is oils on 16″ x 20″ stretched canvas.

BREAK

+ BREAK

+ BREAK

+ BREAK

—————

QUAKE

Here are some ideas for helping Haiti:  rebuild better, cancel debts, make a call supporting Temporary Protected Status for Haitians.
And for the click and donate type of help:

For emergency humanitarian relief:  Oxfam, Christian Aid, Red Cross, Catholic Relief Service, and more.

For community assistance outside Port-au-Prince (areas also hit by the effects of the quake) and to help arrest the decline of the agricultural sector which has driven hundreds of thousands of young people to search for a livelihood in the capital’s now-stricken shanty-towns:  The Lambi Fund of Haiti.  Links and explanatory text (except Red Cross, CRS, & more) gratis the Haiti Support Group - a British solidarity organisation supporting the Haitian people’s struggle for participatory democracy, human rights and equitable development.

Finally, a reminder of why American owes a debt to Haiti.

Artwork is oils on 16″ x 20″ stretched canvas.  Coming soon:  updated layer of “Water Lilies,” with 100% more submarine periscope.  No, really.

It has occurred to me that food is both artistic and scientific, with great potential for creativity and beauty.  And also that I can take a picture of it and blog it.  Badabing.

To make almond custard, combine:

2 eggs
1 cup milk, warmed (if you forget to warm it, it doesn’t come out as pretty but is just as tasty)
1 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tablespoon sugar
shy 1/4 tsp nutmeg
a pinch of salt per egg

Beat with a fork and pour into two dishes.  (You don’t have to worry about it rising, so coffee cups or little bowls will probably work.)  Sprinkle more nutmeg on top as desired.  Place dishes in a brownie pan with about 1/4-1/2 inch of water in it, and bake on 350 for 45 minutes.  Turn off oven and let sit for another 5 minutes before turning out on plates.  Makes two servings.

This dish is very nutritious, because eggs have protein, milk has calcium, and baking extracts have alcohol (but it cooks out).  Cut up some baking chocolate on top, and you’ve added magnesium in a vegetable form – making easy almond custard a well-balanced meal unto itself.  Also, it repels dragons.