CLXXI-CLXXX

Whoops, I fell off the ball for a few weeks there. But don't panic. I was just busy compiling the Limericks into a more logical order. Unfortunately the blog is still just chronological, but the Manuscript has been carefully organized into categories, like history, litereature, philosophy, etc. But in the meantime, here's a random selection.

#171 – Felix Wankel
There’s a master mechanic from Lahr
Who wanted to speed up the car
Wankel’s new rotor
It cranked up the motor
By pressing the red line so far

#172 – Hester Prynne
In Boston’s a harlot named Hester
Whose broken heart tended to fester
The mark of disgrace
Brought red to her face
Like the shame of a guilty molester

#173 – Gregor Mendel
There’s a pesky pea-farmer named Greg
Whose chicken came after his egg
An obsession with beans
Would uncover his genes
You’d’ve thought he was pulling your leg

#174 – The Dreyfus Affair
There’s a Jewish commander named Dreyfus
And what a disaster his life is
The details I’ll spare
Of his sordid affair
For it’s worse than a case of the typhus

#175 – Ludwig van Beethoven
There’s a crafty composer from Bonn
Creating from dusk until dawn
Symphonic productions
And joyful eruptions
Well after his hearing was gone

#176 – Marilyn Monroe
There’s a modeling Misfit Monroe
Who Kennedy wanted to know
Sweet Norma Jeane
The celluloid queen
Had assets to make herself go

#177 – 007
There’s an agent from over the pond
Of whom Penny was terribly fond
The drink he preferred
Was shaken not stirred
And everyone knew him as Bond — James Bond

#178 – Martin Luther
There’s a runaway cleric called Martin
Reformation he’s best known for startin’
In the name of sweet Jesus
He posted his Thesis
Then his face appeared on a milk carton

#179 – Merchant of Venice
There once was a Merchant of Venice
Anti-Semites they called him a menace
Though Shylock hath eyes
Hands, organs and thighs
He was judged by the shape of his penis

#180 – Sherlock Holmes
There’s a mighty fine Scottish detective
Who liked to put things in perspective
His efforts were hearty
To catch Moriarty
For that was his major objective

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#161 – Syd Barrett
There’s a Meddling rock star named Syd
Who shone like a diamond, he did
Took mushrooms at tea
And dropped L.S.D.
Till one day he just flipped his lid

#162 – Brian Jones
There once was a young rebel rocker
A singer as well as a talker
Too bad for the Stones
They lost Brian Jones
And found him in Davy Jones’ locker


#163 – “Standing on the shoulders of giants”
There once was a pithy expression
That left a long-lasting impression
On centuries of science
We live in reliance
Their knowledge is in our possession

#164 – Jerry Garcia
There’s a band that could play for the head
As they glorified Tennessee Jed
So forget about fishin’
And with my permission
Let the Dead go and bury the dead

#165 - Pinocchio
A puppet behaved himself horribly
Speaking to elders ignobly
But everyone knows
To look at his nose
For they say that he's prone to hyperbole

#166 - Rick Santorum
The right wingers’ plan was iniquitous
To outlaw the queer and promiscuous
They'd like to have said
Who sleeps in your bed
Too bad that the gays are ubiquitous

#167 – Hamlet
There’s once a vindictive Prince Hamlet
Who said to his mom “I can’t stand it!”
The play was the thing
To carry the sting
And capture his uncle the bandit

#168 – Macbeth
There’s a covetous general Macbeth
Who butchered King Duncan to death
Although he resisted
The Lady insisted
And tomorrow he drew his last breath

#169 – Denis Diderot
Diderot worked so hard to enlighten
His volumes took decades of writin’
Resigned to research
In spite of the church
As the clergy were easy to frighten

#170 – Johannes Kepler
There’s a sprightly star-gazer from Graz
Who was tied in celestial knots
` With the Sun in the middle
He answered the riddle
Revolution connected the dots

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#151 – Superman
There’s a mild-mannered hero Clark Kent
Whose exploits were such an event
Put your mind to it
You too can do it
When you give it a hundred percent

#152 – Titian & El Greco
There once was an artsy Venetian
And everyone knew him as Titian
Though very provincial
He’s quite influential
On folks like Rembrandt and The Grecian

#153 – Salvador Dalí
There’s a starry-eyed dreamer Dalí
Into wondrous worlds he could see
With sensuous rocks
And watery clocks
And tigers being chased by a bee

#154 – Rembrandt van Rijn
There’s once a Dutch master van Rijn
Whose portraits were perfectly fine
His powerful stroke
Exuded baroque
His paint had the power to shine

#155 – The Bröntes
There once were three sisters from Haworth
The novels they wrote were devoured
Though given poor care
As told in “Jane Eyre”
With language the girls were empowered

#156 – Bobby Fischer
There was a boy genius named Bobby
Playing chess was much more than his hobby
From out of his bubble
Went fishing for trouble
At airports he’s held in the lobby

#157 – Hannibal
There once was a general from Carthage
Who fought with indelible courage
By crossing the Alps
To fetch a few scalps
He left the Republic in carnage

#158 – Wm. R. Hearst
There’s a mogul who dreamt of a castle
To build it he went through a hassle
His number one chore:
Providing the war
Bill Hearst was the worst kind of asshole


#159 – Attila the Hun
There’s a warlord Attila the Hun
Who kept Romans well on the run
A murdering savage
Who knew how to ravage
He toppled an empire for fun

#160 – Thomas Robert Malthus
There’s a doctor who dealt in the dismal
In the science of everything fiscal
To check population
Through war and starvation
The Malthusian outlook’s abysmal

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#141 – Fibonacci
Fibonacci had numerous theories
So much better than Timothy Leary’s
As he carefully counted
The figures amounted
To a crucial mathematical series

#142 – Alfred Hitchcock
Old Hitch had a heck of a skill
Depicting the mentally ill
A leap from a tower
A freak in the shower
As mad a three-dollar bill

#143 – Cecil B. De Mille
He’s Hollywood’s king of the hill
World famous from here to Seville
Cooper and Heston
Acted their best in
The pictures of Cecil De Mille

#144 – Moses
There’s a prophet who freed up the Jews
Out of bondage with nothing to lose
Atop Mount Sinai
Came word from on high
A list of Commandments to use

#145 – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
There once was a man from Geneva
At odds with Señor Acquaviva
Rousseau put his trust
In man to be just
He must have been smoking sativa

#146 – Ambrose Bierce
A comical critic named Bierce
He struck with a meaningful pierce
Swiftly sardonic
And dryly ironic
His wordbook he wrote something fierce

#147 – Niccolo Machiavelli
There once was a fella from Florence
Whose politics were an abhorrence
To fear more than love
The Prince up above
You may as well pray to Saint Lawrence

#148 – Benito Juarez
There once was a man from Oaxaca
Who drank a whole lotta milk chocla’
He gathered his henchmen
To fight off the Frenchmen
Imperialists are all full of caca

#149 – Hernán Cortés
There once was a cad from Castile
Montezuma’s land he did steal
But what a disgrace
He wiped out their race
His virtues were less than ideal

#150 – Susan B. Anthony
There once was a gal from New York
Who ate up the men with a fork
She fought for the cause
To rewrite the laws
And delivered the vote like a stork

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#131 – Edgar Allen Poe
There’s a paranoid poet named Poe
Who was frightened by forces below
The beat he could hear
Excited his fear
And his phobia started to grow

#132 – Rupert Murdoch
There’s a media monster named Murdoch
Who can cast eerie spells like a warlock
Espousing his views
By way of Fox News
Is like poisoning people with hemlock

#133 – El Cid
There’s an uppity Spaniard El Cid
Who fought Muslims wherever they hid
He’d kill Christians too
And maybe a Jew
He was an unstoppable kid

#134 – Cassandra
Cassandra could speak to the Oracle
Her questions all mainly rhetorical
Apollo controlled
They fate she foretold
The future to them was historical

#135 – Holden Caulfield
There’s a fault-finding Catcher in a cap
Who said the phonies were all full of crap
And he should know best
He’s just like the rest
Yet another hypocritical sap

#136 – Malcolm "X" Little
There’s an outspoken African Little
Who replaced his last name with a riddle
X marks the spot
It’s where he was shot
When Islam put Malcolm in the middle

#137 – Guy Fawkes
There’s an English aggressor Guy Fawkes
Wanted Protestants knocked off their rocks
He crept ‘neath the Thames
To murder to King James
With eight tons of bomb in a box

#138 – Iraq
A ruthless dictator has fallen
And Dubya says freedom is crawlin’
He helped get Iraq
Back on the right track
Like Auschwitz was freed by Joe Stalin

#139 – Pythagoras
There’s a Grecian who pulled out his hairs
For the theorem your math teacher shares
The very first rule
They teach in school
By adding the sum of the squares

#140 – Franz Kafka
There’s a writer beyond all reproach
With a strange and disturbing approach
His famous six-legger
Who called himself Gregor
One morning turned into a roach

CXXI-CXXX

#121 - Thomas Alva Edison
There’s a wizard at Menlo Park
Whose mind could flicker and spark
The work of T.A.
Turned night into day
His lightbulb extinguished the dark

#122 – Cicero
There once was a Roman orator
Who’s also an expert debater
His rock solid reason
Amounted to treason
Marc Antony marked him a traitor

#123 – J.C.
There once was a fine Roman Kaiser
Who thought himself ever the wiser
Like Jesus and Judas
Caesar had Brutus
Who made of him fresh fertilizer


#124 – Judas Iscariot
There’s a two-faced back-stabbing apostle
Who acted suspiciously docile
Although Jesus Christ
Was hardly surprised
The outcome was rather colossal

#125
There’s a mountebank Marshall McLuhan
Who could sense a new village a-brewin’
Then he flopped on T.V.
But who could foresee
Alvy Singer would save him from ruin?


#126 – Muhammed
There’s a prophet who came from Medina
Where the tea tastes like lemon verbena
You can’t see his picture
But they all read his scripture
From Iran all the way to Burkina


#127
There’s a great Dane they call Kierkegaard
To be Christian he tried very hard
By God was deceived
But in dog he believed
So he trusted an old Saint Bernard


#128 – Eli Whitney
There’s a farmer you may have forgotten
His device did a job that was rotten
By separating seeds
From the fibrous weeds
Eli Whitney gave life to King Cotton

#129 – Don Quixote
There’s a frantic crusader Quixote
Who could charge like a rabid coyote
Attacking the mills
He took a few spills
It’s as if he were high on peyote

#130 – Oedipus Rex
There’s a king in a far away land
With a destiny written in sand
Confronting the Sphinx
He sealed his jinx
Awarded with his own mother’s hand

CXI-CXX

#111 – Shaka
There once was a bold Zulu chief
Whose terrors evoke disbelief
Unusually cruel
His methods of rule
Brought his enemies scanty relief

#112 – Lucy
There’s a fossilized Frau from Afar
Whose about twice as old as a star
With bones pearly white
And manners polite
Held the door to the stone age ajar


#113
Mona Lisa wore an impudent smile
With the power to charm and beguile
But nobody knows
Just why Mona glows
After smiling for such a long while


#114 - Albert
There’s an atheist author Camus
A north African parvenu
His essays had vogue
Though he thought like a rogue
He refused to be told what to do

#115 – Jesus
There was once a newborn Nazarene
With a mother who’s perfectly clean
Was he the messiah
Or just a pariah
On the cover of a magazine?


#116 – Dick Fosbury
There’s a jumper who leapt to the top
To world record heights he could hop
By turning around
One foot on the ground
And doing the Fosbury Flop


#117 – Bush & Cheney
There was once an executive pair
Who directed a war against terror
With nothing but lies
And NSA spies
Made Buchanan look like Voltaire

#118
There’s a doubting Thomas called Hobbes
Who had little faith in the mobs
Said nature is brutal
And freedom is futile
‘Cause man simply murders and robs


#119 Brothers Grimm
There’s two brothers from Hanau in Hessen
With a German vocabulary lesson
Mixed legends and lore
Grim grammar and gore
Like a cultural delicatessen

#120 – Pierre & Marie
There’s a quizzical couple called Curie
Who were curious and worked in a hurry
In finding the answer
They came down with cancer
Never thinking they needed to worry