{"id":24142,"date":"2014-01-30T16:50:09","date_gmt":"2014-01-30T20:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madkane.com\/humor_blog\/?p=24142"},"modified":"2014-01-30T16:53:45","modified_gmt":"2014-01-30T20:53:45","slug":"odes-to-roger-ebert-ed-koch-van-cliburn-dear-abby-columnist-pauline-phillips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.madkane.com\/humor_blog\/2014\/01\/30\/odes-to-roger-ebert-ed-koch-van-cliburn-dear-abby-columnist-pauline-phillips\/","title":{"rendered":"Odes To Roger Ebert, Ed Koch, Van Cliburn, & “Dear Abby” Columnist Pauline Phillips"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week’s Style Invitational features the witty winning entries in its contest for poems that commemorate people who died in 2013<\/a>. Here are my non-winning ditties about Roger Ebert, New York City Mayor Ed Koch, concert pianist Van Cliburn, and “Dear Abby” columnist Pauline Phillips:<\/p>\n

Roger Ebert:<\/p>\n

For films that were plums,
\nWay up went his thumbs.
\nWhen downward they’d roam,
\nYou’d know to stay home.<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

Mayor Edward Koch:<\/p>\n

This mayor rescued NYC
\nFrom near-financial ruin;
\nEd Koch his name, his fav’rite game
\nWas asking “How’m I doin’?”<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

Pauline Friedman Phillips a\/k\/a Abigail Van Buren:<\/p>\n

“Dear Abby” was her column
\nTelling readers what to do.
\nGive your friends that very counsel?
\nThat’s an act you’ll surely rue.<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

Van Cliburn: <\/p>\n

In a world-wide Moscow contest
\nVan Cliburn sure impressed.
\nBut this USA pianist
\nHad the piano judges stressed.<\/p>\n

They felt that he deserved to win
\nAnd so with trepidation
\nThey asked Nikita, “Can we please
\nGive Cliburn top ovation?”<\/p>\n

Mr. Khrushchev gave an answer
\nThat surprised them. It was wise:
\n“If Van Cliburn played the very best,
\nThen give that man first prize.”<\/p>\n

So a classical musician
\nHelped achieve a cold war thaw:
\nAn American in Russia
\nPlaying piano past a draw.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week’s Style Invitational features the witty winning entries in its contest for poems that commemorate people who died in 2013. Here are my non-winning ditties about Roger Ebert, New York City Mayor Ed Koch, concert pianist Van Cliburn, and “Dear Abby” columnist Pauline Phillips: Roger Ebert: For films that were plums, Way up went […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105,56,42,24,2991,3993,71],"tags":[1855,4945,3997,3995,2781,248,3999,4000,3998,3049,4001,3994,304,3996],"class_list":["post-24142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advice-humor","category-celebrity-humor","category-limericks","category-music-humor","category-music-poems","category-obit-verse","category-television-tv-humor","tag-annoying-advice","tag-celebrity-humor","tag-dear-abby","tag-ed-koch","tag-musician-humor","tag-new-york-city","tag-obit-humor","tag-obituary-humor","tag-pauline-phillips","tag-pianist-humor","tag-piano-humor","tag-roger-ebert","tag-television-humor","tag-van-cliburn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.madkane.com\/humor_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.madkane.com\/humor_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.madkane.com\/humor_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.madkane.com\/humor_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.madkane.com\/humor_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24142"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"http:\/\/www.madkane.com\/humor_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24551,"href":"http:\/\/www.madkane.com\/humor_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24142\/revisions\/24551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.madkane.com\/humor_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.madkane.com\/humor_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.madkane.com\/humor_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}