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Thursday, May 12, 2016

Honoring the Artist/Writer Edward Lear AND Albert Youngquist, who was oh so dear!


According to Wiki, Edward Lear, was born on May 12th or May 13th in the year 1812.  He was evidently a man of many talents including the ability to create illustrations. One of his works can be seen in the image posted atop this blog entry. Lear's illustrations are worth checking out, but I'll leave that to your digression, dear reader. I chose to include this one due to my appreciation of birds.

In any event, it is today's date, May the Twelfth, that Holiday Insights associates with Lear. And they deem it to be Limerick Day. This is because another part of Edward Lear's repertoire is his limericks, which he popularized in The Book Of Nonsense.

But it is Lear's creation, The Owl and the Pussycat, that seems to be the one which made him more of a household name. This narrative of his includes a "salad-inspired" limerick which I wrote about in 2011 here on Blogger. I have posted the aforementioned limerick below for easy reference.


"There was an Old Person of Fife,
Who was greatly disgusted with life;
They sang him a ballad,
       and fed him on salad,
Which cured that Old Person of Fife."



Limericks go with the fun atmosphere that visiting birds create in my urban (NYC) garden. I confess that I am not proficient writing in this format, however, I have written one in my lifetime which can be found below:

"There once was a little grey mouse
Who lived inside of my house;
a tiny fellow
with eyes of yellow,
He scared me right out of my blouse!"

I wrote it in elementary school (and my father, the late Albert Loth Youngquist, helped me with the last line). I'm thinking of my father a little more than usual on this day as tomorrow, May 13th would've been his birthday had he not died in 1995.

Like Lear, my father had a quick wit, which is a fact Cam mentions in the ePub (Kindle) version of her book, Words In Our Beak Volume One.


Moreover, in a recent entry here on Blogger, I discussed how Cam and I came to dedicating this particular version of our book to  Albert Youngquist. Part of what I said in that entry is,  "Seeing (a) father and daughter bird spending time alone, prompted Cam and I to include the importance of a father to his daughter (in the avian community, as well as among humans), in our ePub version of the book."

And with that, dear reader, I'll end it here, 
My dedication to my Dad and Lear;
They had a great wit,
and never did quit,
Even if it caused them to sneer!


FALL 2018 ADDENDUM: 

I no longer actively produce event program covers, invitations and the types of greeting cards described here or on my website but arrangements might be able to be made under certain circumstances. My focus is on the Words In Our Beak book series, pictured below...

WORDS IN OUR BEAK BOOK SERIES

...whose stories are told from the point of view of Cam, a female cardinal, whose photo is on the cover of each book. Words In Our Beak’s goal is to open readers to a simple understanding of the winged world and their environment. Set in my rooftop urban garden in New York City. Words In Our Beak is directed to children and adults who are curious about birds, and want to learn about them from a unique perspective. The books include hundreds of images of flora and fauna, links to movies, as well as to informative narratives that have been created by the author. 

Please click here to go to my blog post that provides details as to where you can get these books.

Additionally, I have rendered some images from these books into other formats and they are available via Fine Art America (FAA). Some of my other photographs (Black & White Collection, Kaleidoscopic Images and the famous Mandarin duck who visited NYC) can also be found on my FAA pages.

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