ghazal (Pronounciation: “guzzle”)  Originally an Arabic verse form dealing with loss and romantic love, medieval Persian poets embraced the ghazal, eventually making it their own.  Consisting of syntactically and grammatically complete couplets, the form also has an intricate rhyme scheme.  Each couplet ends on the same word or phrase (the radif), and is preceded by the couplet’s rhyming word (the qafia, which appears twice in the first couplet).  The last couplet includes a proper name, often of the poet’s.  In the Persian tradition, each couplet was of the same meter and length.  English-language poets who have composed in the form include Adrienne Rich, John Hollander, and Agha Shahid Ali; see Ali’s “Tonight” and Patricia Smith’s “Hip-Hop Ghazal.”  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/ghazal

buffoon  noun  A rude or vulgar fool.  A person who amuses others by ridiculous behavior.  Find etymology, synonyms and antonyms at https://www.synonym.com/synonyms/buffoon  Find out who was called the "chief buffoon of the professional class,” in this May 13, 2020 article at https://thehill.com/homenews/coronavirus-report/497569-tucker-carlson-labels-fauci-chief-buffoon-of-the-professional

Edna Ferber (1885–1968) was an American novelist, short story writer and playwright.  Her novels include So Big (1924), Show Boat (1926; made into the celebrated 1927 musical), Cimarron (1930; adapted into the 1931 film which won the Academy Award for Best Picture), Giant (1952; made into the 1956 film of the same name) and Ice Palace (1958), which also received a film adaptation in 1960.  Initially going to study acting, Ferber abandoned these plans to help support her family at age 17.  When recovering from anemia, Ferber's first short stories were compiled and published along with her first novel, Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed, was published in 1911.  In 1925, she won the Pulitzer Prize for her book, So Big.  Following the award, the novel was made into a silent film starring Colleen Moore that same year.  An early talkie movie remake followed in 1932, starring Barbara Stanwyck and George Brent, with Bette Davis in a supporting role.  A 1953 remake of So Big starring Jane Wyman is the most popular version to modern audiences.  Riding off the popularity of So Big, Ferber's next novel, Show Boat, was just as successful and shortly after its release, the idea of turning it into a musical was brought up.  When composer Jerome Kern proposed this, Ferber was shocked, thinking it would be transformed into a typical light entertainment of the 1920s.  It was not until Kern explained that he and Oscar Hammerstein II wanted to create a different type of musical that Ferber granted him the rights and it premiered on Broadway in 1927, and has been revived 8 times following its first run.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edna_Ferber

Tom Papa is a busy man.  In addition to publishing his second book, You're Doing Great!  And Other Reasons To Stay Alive, he co-hosts the radio show What a Joke with Papa and Fortune on Sirius XM, hosts the podcast Come To Papa, is a frequent panelist on NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me and is also a writer and performer on Live From Here—formerly, A Prairie Home Companion.  Link to 40-minute interview with Jesse Thorn at https://www.npr.org/2020/04/02/826409548/comedian-tom-papa  See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Papa

The Rose Family by Robert Frost (1874-1963)  

The rose is a rose,
And was always a rose.
But the theory now goes
That the apple's a rose,
And the pear is, and so's
The plum, I suppose.
The dear only knows
What will next prove a rose.
You, of course, are a rose--
But were always a rose.  https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-rose-family/ 

Find poem The Rose by William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) in English and Hungarian at https://www.babelmatrix.org/works/en/Williams,_William_Carlos-1883/Poem_(The_rose)

Whole Roasted Pineapple by Gaz Oakley   https://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/whole-roasted-pineapples 

Roast whole pineapple with black pepper & rum byTom Kerridge https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/roast-whole-pineapple-black-pepper-rum

Brazilian Grilled Pineapple by SoccerNut  https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/235932/brazilian-grilled-pineapple/

The proverbial saying 'There's no fool like an old fool' is first found in a place we might expect to find it, that is, an early and comprehensive collection of English proverbs.  There are a few of such but, in this case, it is John Heywood's 1546 glossary A dialogue conteinyng the nomber in effect of all the prouerbes in the englishe tongue:  But there is no foole to the olde foole, folke saie.  https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/there-is-no-fool-like-an-old-fool.html

From before Shakespeare’s “There was a lover and his lass, / With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonny no”, right down to the present day, nonsense words have been a regular feature of song lyrics.  You might think that it’s a stretch to suggest another meaningless la-la lyric filler is the origin of this usefully dismissive word.  However, that indeed seems to be its origin, although the usual form until relatively recently was falderal rather than folderol.  There are many traditional rhymes and songs with variants of “fal-de-ral” in them somewhere.  For example, Robert Bell noted these words of an old Yorkshire mummer’s play in his Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry Of England of 1857:  “I hope you’ll prove kind with your money and beer, / We shall come no more near you until the next year. /Fal de ral, lal de lal, etc.”  And Sir Walter Scott included a few lines of an old Scottish ballad in The Bride of Lammermoor (1819):  “There was a haggis in Dunbar, / Fal de ral, etc. / Mony better and few waur, / Fal de ral, etc.”  Charles Dickens had gentle fun with this habit in his Sketches By Boz of 1836-7: “Smuggins, after a considerable quantity of coughing by way of symphony, and a most facetious sniff or two, which afford general delight, sings a comic song, with a fal-de-ral—tol-de-ral chorus at the end of every verse, much longer than the verse itself.”  It was around 1820 that this traditional chorus is first recorded as a term for a gewgaw or flimsy thing that was showy but of no value, though it had to wait until the 1870s before it started to be widely used.  http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-fol1.htm

June 8, 2020  After sitting undisturbed for more than 10 years, a treasure chest holding gold nuggets and precious gems has been found in the Rocky Mountains.  The box was hidden by millionaire art dealer Forrest Fenn; his only clues included a map and a poem.  But after countless quests, the search is over.  "The treasure has been found," Fenn wrote in a statement to a blog run by Dal Neitzel for discussions among Fenn treasure seekers.  "It was under a canopy of stars in the lush, forested vegetation of the Rocky Mountains and had not moved from the spot where I hid it more than 10 years ago," Fenn said.  "I do not know the person who found it, but the poem in my book led him to the precise spot."  The successful seeker has not come forward.  For some, it became a dangerous obsession:  In the process of looking for the trove that was said to be worth as much as $2 million, at least four people have died.  "The ornate, Romanesque box is 10-by-10 inches and weighs about 40 pounds when loaded," as NPR's John Burnett reported in 2016.  "Fenn has only revealed that it is hidden in the Rocky Mountains, somewhere between Santa Fe and the Canadian border at an elevation above 5,000 feet.  It's not in a mine, a graveyard or near a structure."  Bill Chappell  https://www.npr.org/2020/06/08/872186575/hidden-million-dollar-treasure-has-been-found-in-rocky-mountains-art-dealer-says

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2282  June 9, 2020