In my search for more bad Leonard Nimoy poetry...

I have found a kindred blogger who also appreciates the danger of "crossing the beams" of Star Trek and Tolkein elements with that dancing and singing Hobbit video by our friend Spock -- that I blogged about 2 weeks ago. Sorry about adding a Ghostbusters reference to that volatile mix.

This apt observer of culture has a blog that is classified by Google as "Recreation > Humor > Bizarre > Farts" -- another obvious reason you should check out the spiffiness that is Mr. Pants.

I have so far failed to buy a copy of or find online anything worth mocking from Come Be With Me, but I have found another Nimoy video clip, of him performing his song "Highly Illogical." I also present to you The Leonard Nimoy Estrogen Brigade (LNEB). I am disappointed the page doesn't include seem to include photographs of its "18 and over" female members.

Now, to close, I'm going to join Joan Houlihan, a poetry snob, in quoting some bad U.S. American poetry from a book by Ellen Bass, a book lauded by the popular U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins.

"They pulled you from me like a cork

and all the love flowed out. I adored you

with the squandering passion of spring

that shoots green from every pore. "

Human parasite extractions! Popping noises! Green lasers shooting out of every pore! It's a Sci-Fi thriller stanza! "But if this be pleasure, in what does torture lie?" moans Ms. Houlihan. The article (and poem) in its entirety is linked at The Arts & Letters Daily but can also be read in its original context in her column "The Boston Comment" at Del Sol - "locus of the new literary art."

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"Removing All Sorrow"


I'm a 29 year old kind-of-widow whose lesbian partner died last October, and as my dear-departed's 51st birthday approaches- and the 1st anniversary of the shitty event that happened on the day after her birthday, 9/11 - I've been noticing a word turning up in lyrics of the sad songs I listen to that seems to beg to be examined: Nepenthe. I'm not a lyrics-listener usually (I'm still sometimes shocked to find out what Led Zeppelin's songs are talking about even after playing the tapes ragged for years), but sometimes a word gets stuck in my mind like a catchy tune. Don't ask me what kind of music I listen to that uses words like Nepenthe. I can't remember what albums I'm listening to-- I'm a widow: I have griefheimers.

From Webster's as found on Bibliomania...


"Nepenthe: (Ne*pen"the) n. [Fr. Gr. removing all sorrow; hence, an epithet of an Egyptian drug which lulled sorrow for the day; not + sorrow, grief.] A drug used by the ancients to give relief from pain and sorrow; — by some supposed to have been opium or hasheesh. Hence, anything soothing and comforting. Quaff, O quaff this kind nepenthe. -- Poe ."

Poe's quote is part of the wish for forgetfulness from the narrator of "The Raven" who couldn't bear to live with the memory of a lover who had died.



The herb the ancients called Nepenthe was probably actually borage, a weed often found in garbage heaps and at the edge of gardens. Borage may be descended from a word meaning a couragous man in a Celtic tongue- "barrach." It may also come from a corrupted version of the Latin "cor" (heart) plus "ago" (I bring)- or courage, "I bring heart." Roman soldiers were given borage-steeped wine before battle. It makes you absolutely forget sadness and fear, and dwell only in the moment. Borage oil, something you can buy in any health food store, is sold as a source of healthy fatty acids, for heart trouble.

What my widow friends call griefheimers, absentmindedness due to grief, is the opposite of Nepenthe's state of mind-- it is dwelling so completely in the past that you forget the moment absolutely. It makes you lock your car keys in the car while it's running. It is a constant state of un-heartedness, humiliation-- spoiled food, stained clothes. Nepenthe is mental bleach.

Some mental bleach, as recommended by a widow friend:

equal measure boiling water and whiskey

a spoonful of honey

a squirt of lemon juice.

(a traditional English hot toddy)