Comma Chameleon

The Power of And. The key to great improv: Yes and . . .

Bread & Cup, Beaker & Flask, Abe & Arthur's, Pies & Thighs, Pies & Pints

I say it is time for another punctuation mark to get some respect. The comma is really great. So very useful.

Naturally, it has all the handy functions in grammar, which yields the metaphorical applications. There's the pause (some mumbo-jumbo about how taking a break and slowing down is even more important in our break neck paced modern society. "The Sabbath is God's comma.") It frames ideas in a supportive and elucidating fashion that a period just can't pull off. Then there's the meaning that it adds through its pacing of words: Eats, Shoots, and Leaves; "Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise." I even like how it sets off who's speaking or being addressed or the tone/mood/feel of the subsequent sentence (see first sentence of paragraph).

The Blogging Month

I hate, hate, hate the insult douche or douche bag or douchebaggery. I don't pretend to know anything about actual douches. I'm fairly certain they are a part of feminine hygiene. But I understand the insult to imply that one of the worst things you can be is the waste of said feminine hygiene process. My guess is that that waste is not a pleasant thing at all, and maybe I'm out of line and confused, but to link such a crude insult to females seems to me to be an insult to those females as well.

The only thing related to males I could see as a parallel would be smegma, yet you don't see this as an insult nearly as pervasive as douche and its kin. Sure, you'll get the occasional "dick cheese" crack, but not all over the media like douche is.

So help me on this. Am I misguided? Am I forcing that implication there, revealing my own confused view of women? Or am I kinda close on this thing?

"And that makes everything right"?

Gene Autry wrote "Here Comes Santa Claus." I like Elvis' version, but my favorite might be Willie Nelson's. Regardless there's a line I've puzzled over, sometimes admiring the ability to blend the commercialism of Santa and gift giving with "the Reason for the Season," sometimes appalled at that same fact.

"Santa knows that we're God's children; that makes everything right."

That was the line that jumped out at me, though most all of it is a mash-up of Santa and God. I guess part of it hearkens (I wanted to type "harkens" but the dotted red line says no.) to the Saint Nicholas of Christmas lore, and a Conservative audience, but it seems odd considering what Christmas has become. I think I've unburthen'd myself of Christmas song musing for a while anyway, so thank you for your forbearance. For some reason, like those that place great authority in the printed word, I treat songs/lyrics as the gospel truth. Because it is in a song, it must be so. Though the reality of the matter is setting me up for some serious reckoning.

In other news, unlike last year when I tried to do a twelve baking days of Christmas, this year I just want to make some things I haven't before. One of those things are truffles, another is a créme anglaise (maybe for my annual figged bread pudding), and a third might be a roasted bird that isn't a turkey (maybe some Cornish game hens, like my newlywed couple friends do for Thanksgiving, or a duck; goose is too expensive--I couldn't touch a frozen one for less than 50 bucks.).

I was looking up varsity in one of my bedside dictionaries (British shortening of university) and stumbled across vegete. It is an archaic word that means full of life. I found this interesting considering "vegetable" is now an adjective for the exact opposite.

He Puts What in What?

British reality host (Simon Cowell or Gordon Ramsey): Demean in demeanor.

sad Mexican: Sombre in sombrero.

scorned lover: Fuse in refuse.

erectile dysfunction: Eager in meager.

a linebacker: Tack in tackle.

Vatican Hotel: Amen in amenities.

for an ex: Oath in loathe.

Oat in oath.

bigwig: Lout in clout.

From The Simpsons: "We put the fun in funeral."

just inappropriate: Cont in continue.

Please share any you've thought of, or improve my applications of these memes.

You Say Aubergine . . .

and I say eggplant. Of course everyone knows these are interchangeable terms for that nutritionally vapid purple racial epithet of the nightshade family.

But did you know what courgette refers to? I've been reading a lot of British food blogs and it is mentioned quite frequently. I had a hunch after the first recipe or two, and then I confirmed my suspicions with my resident food scientist at work. I'll put the answer in the comments.

Ahh, Sweet Squalor

I've long been of the opinion that my room is a place of squalor. It's been this way for a while now, and while I really want to clean it up so I can do yoga in the morning and sit in a chair and read in the evening. Alas it is not any better. I finally looked up squalor in my Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, and I was quite delighted with the definition.

Squalor: 1 The state or condition of being physically squalid; a combination of misery and dirt. E17.

Victory!

That is the answer to the previous post's cliffhanger. The oak branch on the dime symbolizes victory.

I was looking up the word fritter, to reduce or squander little by little, and came across frith. While it can be a woody place, or an alteration of firth, an inlet of water, the definition I gravitated to was peace, security, protection.

I really like the moral ambiguity of greys and pinks.

Last week my grocery store had like 6 varieties of pear on sale. So after trying Forelle, D'Anjou, Red D'Anjou, Comice, and Bosc pears, I have decided that my favorite was Comice.

Running dangerously low on Irish whiskey, for my Irish coffee (what can be better than alcohol, coffee, sugar, and cream?) on Sunday morning, I grabbed a bottle of Jameson. This allowed me to compare it to the other (I know they aren't the only two anymore, but really why bother with any others) Irish whiskey I already had, Bushmills. I first got Bushmills last year sometime, because it was cheaper and had been the first distillery to receive a license from England back in 1608. My main use for it has been Irish coffees. But comparing it on the rocks with the Jameson helped me to realize it is pretty solid all alone, and I prefer it to Jameson (actually Scottish distillers who moved to Ireland).

My favorite commercial right now is for Skittles. I love how the Skittles bag is appropriately reflected, and the tailor is in all three mirrors. I think from concept to execution the whole thing is brilliant.

My favorite Shepard Fairey picture is this.

Going through my "name" dictionary (the one that has lots of entries for first names), I came across Mary, from Miriam--to rebel. I like that Jesus was born of rebellion. Then I was looking up Maroon (name for group of people from escaped slaves in the Caribbean) and came across marid -- a powerful and evil djinni in Arab and Indian lore. It also comes from Aramaic -- to rebel.

Lincoln has been fortunate enough to have temps in the upper 40s and lower 50s the past few days (don't worry our projected high for the next few days is in the 20s), and I had some boxes of shirts at work sitting on the dock in the sun. It has been a while since I've worked with something that was warmed by the sun, and it is nice. Plus it helps me to remember how powerful and hot the sun's energy is.

Some more names that have caught my fancy: Linus, Olyphant (not Oliphant)

Real Movie Magic

Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman, Lana Turner

Last week I watched a double feature of the 1932 and 1941 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from Netflix. The 1932 version has Fredric March in the title role, with Spencer Tracy in the same role in the 1941 version. The two films have the same plot (1941 executing its better), both differing from the original tale by adding a love rectangle with Dr. Jekyll and his fiancee, Mr. Hyde and his barmaid, and the barmaid and Dr. Jekyll.

1941 has the three actors from the top and they all share the screen only once, that I can recall. But do I ever enjoy recalling that moment. It takes place when Jekyll first tries his potion. After taking it, there is a dreamlike sequence of various images--waves, explosions, shots of his fiancee (Lana Turner) and the barmaid (Ingrid Bergman), then there's a shot of him whipping two horses, one white and one brown. It cuts to him again and when it cuts back to the "horses" it is the two women being whipped, presumably naked. I was quite taken by the scene, from surprise, and the willingess of the actors to partake.

In other news, my latest trip through the dictionary to find out why fritz is used in the phrase "on the fritz" to mean something isn't working (no explanation in the OED) surfaced the word frisesomorum, a mnemonic (I first typed pneum-) device used by those in Logic for a first-figure syllogism using i, e, and o to represent two minor positives and a major negative, or something along those lines.

A subsequent search for the history of cretin (Latin Christian) turned up another Logic mnemonic, darapti. My frustration is that I have the definition of these words, but no examples.

New Weekend New Filler

Imagine a world in which generations of human beings come to believe that certain films were made by God or that specific software was coded by him. Imagine a future in which millions of our descendants murder each other over rival interpretations of Star Wars or Windows 98. Could anything --anything -- be more ridiculous? And yet, this would be no more ridiculous than the world we are living in. -Sam Harris, author (1967- )

My latest coining is a co-opting of organized to mean a piece of music played on a Wurlitzer.

Filler for the Weekend

Earlier this week I was trying to say "battered and bruised" and instead said "bruittered." I really like it. So if you could start using it to talk about a vanquished opponent, I would appreciate it. There is even a bit of the lingering over wounds or brooding, so it has that going for it, which is nice.

I'm making my first strawberry-rhubarb pie this weekend.

I'm going to bed now.

Charles and Jeremiah , Chupacabra of the Antipodes

Where is the Mason and Dixon line?

What is the diet of the kea?

I learned the answers to these and other riveting questions by flipping through my dictionary and letting my eyes wander, instead of just looking up one word and no more.

From my bedside dictionary:

Mason-Dixon line [Charles Mason English astronomer and Jeremiah Dixon English surveyor]: the southern boundary line of Pennsylvania -- called also Mason and Dixon's line

kea [Maori]: a large predominantly green New Zealand parrot (Nestor notabilis) that is normally insectivorous but sometimes destroys sheep by slashing the back to feed on the kidney fat

I thought I'd share what I learned about the Mason and Dixon's line because it was news to me. I'd always figured it was the line that was the northern or southern border of Tennessee (Tenneseein' is Tennbelievin'). Placing the traditional North-South demarcation line so far north really shifts my Weltanshauung.

I think what I love most about the second entry is that they kinda shared a bit too much information. It's like if they were defining me and said Daniel: a brunet male found in the Great Plains that normally wears collared shirts and blue jeans but sometimes wears his mother's dresses

I'm Gonna Getcha, Succor!

Tonight after leaving work as early as possible to get a good spot at Jazz in June for Hot Club of San Francisco, a nod to Django Reinhardt's group Hot Club of France, I watched Julia! America's Favorite Chef.

I really enjoyed the Hot Club of San Fran (note the bass player and the violinist tonight were different from those on the website. The violinist tonight was actually an original member that is now back; the bassist was named Clint). They were everything I'd hoped they would be from reading about them in the promo material. They have a solo guitarist, violinist, upright bass player, and two rhythm guitar players. I enjoyed the virtuosity of the first three, but what intrigued me most was the role of the last two. The lead of the group, the solo guitarist, frequently referred to them as the Gasoline Brothers, who fuel the "Hot" in Hot Club, or the engine; and he's right, without a percussion section (drums or piano), the rhythm guitarists were the engine and fuel that kept the songs together and hopping.

It might be in We Are Still Married that Garrison Keillor has an essay about which part in an orchestra is best suited for a Lutheran. My memory fails me as to which part he settled on, but I think that second violin was in the running. The point is that it isn't a flashy role that they needed but one of support and steadiness.

The hour long documentary on Julia Child was nice, not because it revealed any particularly new information (I'm reading The United States of Arugula now, which has more than enough to say about Child, James Beard, and the rest of the Food Establishment of the first part of the 20th century.), or had rare archival footage, but for how it brought to light Paul Child, the man 10 years Julia's elder, who met her in Kandy, Ceylon while each was working with OSS (precursor to the CIA).

They fell in love, and eventually married, a day after they were in a serious car accident (him with a cane and her full of glass). Julia was a socialite whose exuberance was unchanneled. Paul was a world-wise man who not only inspired a love from her that fueled her desire to become the woman he would love, but also loved her in a way that made his moulding a gift she gratefully received.

After the publishing of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, she did a book talk show on Boston's public channel which grew into 200 episodes of The French Chef. All the while, Paul was there 'happily serving as her pot-scrubber, factotum, bodyguard [he had a black belt in judo], and de facto manager, schlepping her all-important "sacred bag."'-- from The United States of Arugula by David Kamp

This brings me to my title (if you've made it this far, thank you for hanging in there.)

Succor comes from the Latin for "run underneath," as precursor means "to run before." Succor has come to mean to provide assistance or relief, not to far from its origin.

I think it is a great thing to serve the world like Jason Vanderford, Jeff Magidson, and Paul Child. I wish that I had as much talent, humility, and integrity as they.

Still Magnolias

The trees in front of our apartment are still magnolias. They didn't change over the winter or decide to die after it was nice and they were rewarded with 10 inches of snow. Maybe Scott will post some pictures when they get really pretty.

The taste of victory is egg nogg and cinnamon ice cream from Ivanna Cone. That was what the winner of the NCAA Championship Tournament Bracket Challenge in the Shipping Department of AdventSource received. That winner happened to be me. Going into the final game, I was tied with one of the student workers, so I thought we should bet on something. So the winner got a gift certificate to Ivanna Cone. I retrieved the booty this evening after work. It was raining and because Colorado blows and Iowa sucks it was windy too, really windy, there was even some small hail a few times.

gound

1:02:03 04/05/06

I thought it would be good to blog on this day of ordinality. I have mostly been focussed on running the last while. Monday I ran 5 miles at a 7:27 pace. Today I ran three miles at 7:18; I would have ran more, but when I was pausing to check my heart rate, I accidently hit the stop button, which ended my workout. I suppose I could have done the other two from the start, but I lost my flow, I guess. Friday I'll make up for it with 6 miles at the 7:18 pace, and now that I've told y'all, I hafta. The challenge will be transfering my running to the out of doors and to distances longer than 6 miles. I woulda this last Sunday but it was rainy and I slept in, and I was scared, get off my back will ya.

taquiner

Namaste

That word came into my head inexplicably yesterday morning. I like it though, kind of a spiritual aloha.

Last night I was taking a flyer from one percent productions off my dash and noticed that Rocky Votolato was performing at Knickerbockers. Ellen had mentioned she liked him, so I downloaded him and liked him too. The concert was fun and Damien Jurado was fine too. J. Tillerman was fine, just not too creative or energetic.

Namaste

Be. Wear.

The Ides of March.

The fifteenth is also the Ides of May, July and October. The 13th is the Ides of the other months. There are also the Nones which are the 7ths of March, May, July, and October, and the 5th of the others. The first of each month is Kalends.

Asdrubal Groschel

Maunday, Maunday. Can't Trust that Day.

In order to follow FCC laws about educational content, I'll share what I learned this evening.

Yesterday, which I called Fat Tuesday and Mardi Gras, is also Shrove Tuesday and Pancake Tuesday or Pancake Day. It is the last two in Great Britain. This is because people needed to use up their milk and eggs, which were also part of the Lenten fast. This is the reason IHOP offers free short stacks on that day. In Ireland, Canada, Australia, and Great Britain, the traditional pancake is thinner and served with powdered sugar and a fresh squirt of lemon juice. In Sweden they eat a pastry called a semla, paczki in Poland (it is Fat Thursday in Poland), and berliner in Germany.

Maunday Thursday is the Thursday before Good Friday. "Maunday" comes from mandatum from the Latin phrase for "a new commandment I give unto you," which Jesus apparently said the evening that he washed the disciples' feet.

I mentioned foie gras earlier. The pristine pineapple of civilization, Egypt, first fattened geese for consumption with hieroglyphs depicting people holding geese by the neck with a table full of pellets next to them. The first or only surviving Roman cookbook talks about the "fig liver" of the goose (because the goose was fattened with dried figs). This Latin word for fig lives on as the source of the word for liver in French, Spanish and Italian. This is the first mention of the goose liver specifically. Then it fell out of consciousness with the fall of Rome. But thankfully, the Jews continued the tradition and brought it with them north from Israel. This was a convenient grease for the Jews who couldn't use dairy butter with meat, or lard from pigs. Renaissance gormands knew the place to go for the delicacy was the Jewish ghettos. A chef for the German nobles wrote Kuchbuch which mentions two to three pound goose livers.

If it is the first of the month for you: Rabbit Rabbit. If it is the second, which is more likely: Aardvark Aardvark.

Ceri and Scott

meet Mike and Melanie. Ceri, you are the only person who craves Danish pastries when hearing about cultural wars that endanger poor embassy workers. Scott you are denying your heritage.

Mike and Melanie are my dealers for etymology. After quite a hiatus they are back at it. I've been with them since issue 64 or so, they're now on 201.

GZUSROX

That was on a license plate behind the East parking lot at Union.

Last night I had a two hour nap, and then I got up since I couldn't fall asleep for good. I watched a couple episodes of a Kiwi TV show Mr. Gormsby. Tonight though, the Racquet Club again.

fyrdncr

So is it "fire dancer" or "Fyrd Knocker"? This is why I hesitate to get a license plate for my silver car, nicknamed the Silver Fox. I could either go with slvrfox or silvrfx. The former could be sliver fox and the latter could be silver fix. That is why I would want to go with rhubarb, no misunderstandings there.

Stay Classy San Diego.