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father, son, and donkey: when they carry the donkey, it falls off the bridge

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Earlier this week I shared an Egyptian version of "you can't please everyone," a Middle Eastern Nasruddin story that later became popular in Europe where it was considered an Aesop's fable. You can read different Aesopic versions here... there's even a limerick with an illustration by Walter Crane in The Baby's Own Aesop:

Through the town this good Man and his Son

Strove to ride as to please every one:

Self, Son or both tried,

Then the Ass had a ride;

While the world, at their efforts, poked fun.

YOU CANNOT HOPE TO PLEASE ALL: DON'T TRY.

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Goha carrying a basket while riding on a donkey

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Here's another Goha story... this time from a beautiful book with EMBROIDERED illustrations for 15 different Goha tales: Goha the Wise Fool by Denys Johnson-Davies.The needlework artists are the "Fattouh Sons," Hag Hamdy and Hany, who have their shop in the Street of the Testmakers in Cairo's old Islamic quarter; I hope they are still there (the book was published in 2005). You can read more about the Fattouh Sons in the book. If you did Readers Theater with us this week, you will recognize this story as a variation on the story of Nasruddin carrying wood on his head to help the donkey: Goha and the Basket (that link will take you directly to the page with that story).

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a man carries a donkey on his shoulder while a boy holds the halter

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In Egypt, there are stories told about the wise-fool Goha which resemble the stories told about Nasruddin, as in this children's book: Goha and His Donkey: An Egyptian Folktale retold by Amany Hassanein with art by Valeri Gorbachev. Maybe when you see the final illustration (above) you will be able to guess which folktale this is! (It is a famous one that also became incorporated into the Aesopic tradition in Europe later on.)

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"Innocent Thief" shows a thief stealing the donkey

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In this book from Turkey, Nasreddin Hodja by Alpay Kabacalı, with art by Fatih Durmus, you will find some classic Nasruddin stories involving his donkey... and the art is wonderful!

Why Did He Ride on the Donkey Backwards

You Believe the Donkey

Innocent Thief

Do As You Please

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You can read this book at the Internet Archive: A Donkey Reads, adapted from a Turkish folktale by Muriel Mandell with art by André Letria. This is a story about Nasruddin set in the time of the Mongolian ruler Tamerlane, a historical ruler of the 14th century; you can read more about Tamerlane at Wikipedia.

(Heather, I think you will like how this story is set up!)

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Bookreader Item Preview

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A donkey reads : adapted from a Turkish folktale : Mandell, Muriel;Letria, André, illustrator : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

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To learn about "The Merry Pranks of Till Eulenspiegel," click on the PDF preview above.

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This is a folktale from Russia, with some beautiful illustrations. Click on the PDF preview to learn more.

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This a children's book about Juan Bob that is available both in English and in Spanish at the Internet Archive. Click on the PDF preview to learn more.

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This is a very inventive retelling of one of my favorite stories about the "fools" of Chelm. Click the PDF preview above to learn more.

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I enjoyed reading the short stories about Pedro in Pedro Fools the Gringo. I especially liked how Pedro made fools out of greedy individuals, sometimes multiple times. (Heather)

#LoveIt #BookBrowsing

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Pedro fools the gringo and other tales of a Latin American trickster : María Cristina Brusca : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

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A line drawing of the Internet Archive headquarters building façade.

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By Heather Kretschmer

I hope you enjoy this story about Till Eulenspiegel visiting the townspeople of Schilda. This is the first readers theater script I've ever written, and I'm looking forward to people trying it out at one of our MYFest readers theater sessions. Any feedback about the script is very welcome, so feel free to add comments to this post. 😊

#ReadersTheater

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gif by Mark Corbett Wilson

Steamboat Willie is now in the public domain!

https://archive.org/details/steamboat-willie-mickey

#WiseFool

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Cowboys around a campfire Generated w/ Midjourney

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By Mark Corbett Wilson

The sun decamped below the vast expanse of the Western sky, revealing stars glittering like gemstones on black velvet. Three grizzled cowboys, their leathery faces a trail map of frontier life, huddled around the warmth of a campfire. A battered transistor radio perched on a rock played country songs as they swapped tales of bygone days; epic cattle drives under pitiless skies, rowdy nights in tumbledown border towns, and narrow escapes from corrupt lawmen. The fire hissed and popped as shadows danced across their weather-beaten faces. The old cowboys savored this rare moment of camaraderie in a world that had left them behind.

I needed some text for another project so I edited it down to 100 words. I used Claude.ai to make the draft. All mistakes are mine.

#100WordStory

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Three cowboys around a campfire, with their horses, at night in Monument Valley.

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From Heather Kretschmer

#100WordStory #OldJoke

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From Laura :-)

Click on the thumbnail view to access the PDF.

#100WordStory #OldJoke

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Click on the thumbnail to view the PDF.

#OldJoke

retold by Laura :-)

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#Limerick

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by Mark Corbett Wilson

Why did the fish cross the road?

#PicturePunchline

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From Heather Kretschmer

Q: Why did the book join the FBI?

A: It wanted to go . . .

#PicturePunchline

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A person is smoothing the cover on a bed. An arrow is pointing to the cover.

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From Heather Kretschmer

A wise fool might spraypaint a wall with the message "don't deface me" and sign it "The Wall." What other messages might a wise fool spraypaint on a wall? 🤔

I used this easy tool to generate the image. #Graffiti

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The message, "Don't deface me," is spraypainted on the wall in cute letters with little flowers. It's signed The Wall.

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by Mark Corbett Wilson

In 1852 Joshua Norton gambled a large part of his fortune on a shipment of rice from Peru to take advantage of wildly fluctuating prices in San Francisco and lost not only his money, but his sanity as well.

Click to read more...

#MeetAFool

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(from Laura G.) I wrote this 100-word story inspired by one of my favorite Zen parables; you can comment at the GoogleDoc, or open the PDF here in the post by clicking on the thumbnail above. To see the animated gif, I think you need to open the GoogleDoc. :-)

#KoanStory #100WordStory

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(from Laura G.) I wrote this 100-word story about Nasruddin inspired by an old joke about a little boy and his grandmother. You can comment here (click on the thumbnail above to open the PDF) or you can comment at the GoogleDoc. I hope you like it!

#100WordStory #OldJoke

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(from Laura G.) I wrote this story about an optimistic wise fool from Tamil folklore. You can comment here (click on the thumbnail above to open the document) or you can comment at the GoogleDoc. I hope you enjoy the story! :-)

#Optimism

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woman watches while child tightly closes eyes

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A limerick from Laura:

Nasruddin — sometimes fool, sometimes wise —

At a mirror he stared with closed eyes,

His wife says to him, "Hey,

What can you see that way?"

"How I look when I sleep!" he replies.

I based this limerick on a famous story told about Nasruddin and other fools who stare at a mirror with their eyes closed because they want to see what they look like when they are asleep. Yes, it's foolish, of course, but I think it can also have a hidden message for us about mindfulness and how hard it is to "see" ourselves fully, even if we do have a mirror.

I couldn't find a good picture of a man staring into a mirror with closed eyes that was CC-licensed, but then I found this lovely picture at Flickr that even has a woman laughing in the background... and in many ways, Nasruddin has a child's pure curiosity about the world; it's one of the best features of the wise fools. So that is the picture I chose. :-)

Thanks to Heather for inspiring me with her limerick!

#Limerick

Photo: "Eyes Wide Shut" by Nikky Stephen at Flickr.

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From Heather Kretschmer

Today's Daily Create showed the cover of a book that had some old-fashioned keys under the title, "Life: A User's Manual." The Daily Create prompt instructed people to "create a poem that might describe a nugget of advice inside" the book. As I'm sure wise fools have plenty of nuggets of advice about keeping track of keys, I wrote a wise fool limerick.

There once was a man called Lee

who recklessly tossed his key.

He looked up and down

all over the town

to find it in his vitamin C.

#Limerick

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The photo shows something splashing into a glass of orange juice. Some cut-up citrus fruit and a jug with juice are nearby.

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From Heather Kretschmer

Sometimes, we just don't feel like attending work-related workshops. Here's one wise fool's solution.

I modernized a Nasruddin joke and used the tips and Google Drawing template from Ditch That Textbook to create the comic strip.

Teacher thinks: "Oh, no! We've got that Revising Your Rubrics workshop after school today.

Teacher types on cell phone: Regret I can't attend PD today. Will email complete lie later after generating it with AI.

Teacher thinks: "Schedule cleared for Dungeons & Dragons.

#Pedagogy #OldJoke #ComicStrip

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Comic strip shows a male teacher typing out a message to his boss to skip PD to play Dungeouns & Dragons.

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From Heather Kretschmer

Here's what a wise fool in charge of designing safety signs might come up with.

Today's Daily Create is the perfect way to express advice from wise fools using this fun generator of safety signs.

#SafetySigns

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The image shows a safety sign. Next to an icon of a person wearing a gas mask, the text reads, "Run behind a car, get exhausted." Next to the icon with a person being run over by a large wheel, the text reads, "Run in front, get tired."

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From Heather Kretschmer

Here's a pun portrayed as a variation on a rebus puzzle. Did anyone else get worksheets in grade school where you had to solve rebus puzzles?

#PicturePunchline #OldJoke

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A man says, "A friend of mine annoyed me with bird puns. But toucan play that game." There are images of a man, toucan, and a board game.

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From Heather Kretschmer

Two true friends experience a bit of a language mishap with two "false friends."

You can hear the German proverb pronounced here: link.

#100WordStory #Multilingual #MeetUp #Proverb

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From Heather Kretschmer

Here's one for pun lovers!

#100WordStory #OldJoke #WordPlay

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Nasruddin Gladdens the Sandbot’s Stomach

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Nasruddin Gladdens the Sandbot’s Stomach

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From Heather Kretschmer

A recent Daily Create prompt invited people to peruse the "Small Robot" mastadon account where I discovered the Sandbot. Naturally, Nasruddin could use a sandbot!

(includes photo of a pristine beach on a clear sunny day)

#100WordStory

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From Laura Gibbs. I wrote a little play about Juan Bobo going up and down a hill for Readers Theater!

Here's a link to the latest version at GoogleDocs: Juan Bobo Goes Up and Down the Hill.

I also uploaded a .docx version here to the Padlet so you can read it right here in the post; just click on the thumbnail view to access the full view of the post.

#ReadersTheater

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From Heather Kretschmer:

This blackout poem is made from Laura’s Why Nasruddin Rides Backwards as the text source.

Glancing backwards,

Scampering backwards,

Face-planting forward towards a viper.

Inching backwards,

Counting backwards:

3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .

Best not to breathe.

(includes picture of green rattlesnake staring right at you with mouth open showing big fangs)

#BlackoutPoetry

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From Laura Gibbs / I asked ChatGPT (free version) to chat with me like Nasruddin. Here's what happened:

Who is more intelligent: a person, or a donkey?

ChatGPT

Ah, that's a classic Nasruddin question! Well, let me tell you a story about that.

Once, Nasruddin was asked the same question: "Who is more intelligent, a person or a donkey?" Nasruddin thought for a moment and then replied, "It depends."

Confused, the person asked, "It depends on what?"

Nasruddin grinned and said, "Well, if you ask a person, they'll likely say a person is more intelligent. But if you ask a donkey, they might have a different opinion!"

The moral of the story? Intelligence can be subjective, and it often depends on one's perspective and the context in which you're considering it.

#AIConvo

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From Laura Gibbs. This is an export of my Google Doc file as a PDF, uploaded here to the Padlet. If you want to make comments at the Google Doc, you can do that, or you can comment here at the Padlet; just click on the thumbnail above to open the PDF. Thank you for your feedback!

#OldJoke #100WordStory

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Wikipedia Trail: From Juan Bobo to Scorpion Pose

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Wikipedia Trail: From Juan Bobo to Scorpion Pose

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From Laura Gibbs. Here is my Wikipedia Trail document (PDF). Click the thumbnail to open.

#WikipediaTrail

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I read some of Laura Gibb's 100-word Nasruddin stories 🩷 and thought about what Nasruddin might do if he worked as a teacher today. That inspired me to write my own 100-word story, which I uploaded here as a Word document.

- Heather Kretschmer

#100WordStory #Pedagogy

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From Laura Gibbs. I wrote a little play about Nasruddin and his donkey for Readers Theater!

Here's a link to the latest version at GoogleDocs: Nasruddin and His Neighbor.

I also uploaded a .docx version here to the Padlet so you can read it right here in the post; just click on the thumbnail view to access the full view of the post.

#ReadersTheater

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This is a space for people to share their creations and contributions to the "Wisdom of Fools" track at MYFest24. That might be a story you've written, or thoughts you have about something you've read or seen, some foolish wisdom of your own you want to share... whatever you want to contribute that will help us as we are learning together. See the Activities Padlet for ideas. And please comment! You can comment on a post, and you can also "like" posts here.

Name optional: The Padlet itself is anonymous, so if you want people to credit you as the author, remember to include your name.

Adding a post: You can create a new post by clicking anywhere in the blank space or by clicking the plus button in the lower-right. Padlet allows you to upload all kinds of materials here, including documents, images, etc. You can also just link to your contribution if you have published it somewhere else (blog, social media, etc.)

Ask Laura :-) If you have questions or are not sure how to create your post, contact Laura at laurakgibbs@gmail.com.