What is the opposite of fear?

I had to google this question. There really is no word that is the opposite of fear, if fear is used in a general sense. Courage may or may not be the opposite of fear. It's a dictionary antonym, but one can be fearful and courageous at the same time, so I don't buy it.

Come to think of it, all emotions are like this. Our language is so inherently dualistic that we don't believe this is true. One either loves or hates, likes or dislikes, approves or disapproves (etc. ad nauseum). But, it's not either/or. There is always both and sometimes they occur simultaneously.

I decided to post, not to discuss language, but to rant a bit about my evening. I was somewhat disturbed to see that there was not one Obama lawn sign between the 18 miles from my house to the town where I was going. There may have been twice as many McCains signs as last week. I'd guess that at least half the houses on this road now have these signs up, and that's a lowball estimate.*

I heard a well-spoken woman state unequivocably that she suspects Obama is secretly in league with the Taliban.

I was told by someone who knows everyone that Obama signs are disappearing in the night on every rural road around my area, and that most people are sick of replacing them. Shock was expressed when I stated my sign is still intact, after three nights.

Then I idiotically listened to Sean Hannity on the radio, where I heard Rudy Guiliani state that the Obama campaign was waging dangerous class warfare. If anyone is doing that, it's McPalin.

And to top it all off, as I was trying reassure myself that things are going to turn out alright, I get online, only to read that McCain said today, about Joe the Plumber, that he is “an American hero, a great citizen of Ohio and my role model.”

Are the good folks of Canton, Ohio really lapping this stuff up?

So, I'm nervous.

Listening to Hannity, Limbaugh,Glenn Beck and the rest of the hate mongers on talk radio or TV, I am increasingly appalled. I used to listen to this stuff for entertainment. Well, that was then.

Now? I can't understand why people choose fear and hatred over whatever the opposite of fear and hatred is. The opposite of hatred is love, and perhaps that's what the opposite of fear is, too. Hey, all you radical Christianists (who are not reading this, I would imagine), what do you think Jesus would say? What happened to "love thy enemy"? And I know that there's something in the bible about not speaking ill of others, but I can't place it right now.

I know I'm a bit over my limit of ethical boundaries, given posts like this one. But what's it driven by? Fear.

Case closed.

*Yes, I've been told that lawn signs don't win elections.

Image note: Hmm. Picasso again! Read this short bio to learn more about this simple drawing. It's got an intriging history.

I wanted to use an image of the "dove of peace" but by page four of google results, I got sick of looking at ugly new-agey art. Hence, Picasso. Maybe I should rethink my attitude towards him.

Markov chain "poetry" number three

The old down coat
with a heating pad, too.

It’s not going to get hot enough.

That’s poverty.

When we
could use a landslide.


Note: I used the same rules as before.

Bitter at the root: more fun with Markov

I'm fascinated with subjecting my text to the Markov Text Synthesizer. I took the same text from yesterday and subjected it to four more runs through the engine. It still reads about the same, but the grammar becomes a mess.

I like good grammar!

I spent a good deal of time today playing with this. It produces a lot of total garbage. But, what interests me is that if there is a subtext in the text, it still comes through. It's the essence of the stream of consciousness spew, stew or whatever one wants to call it.

I don't like absurdity for the sake of it. But I want to play the game fairly and not change the grammar or eliminate words from the product. So, when the text becomes so garbled that there's nothing left but its essence, it winds up like this (and again, the only way I rearranged the text is visually, not the order or the tense):

It was all this:

Regret.
Will.

I can not let myself
lapse into bitterness.

Markov chain generated "poetry"

Oh sure, I’m exactly like me
I wrote I was a bitter old women, didn’t I?

I feel the sadness of the time.

(I do bring their wives flowers for no reason
or gaze at them after twenty five years
with absolute
adoration.)

I never thought I hated it
I never thought I am.

It doesn’t change
It doesn’t change the first place.

I just wrote a bit
romantic.

Does it mean something or not? Is it any "good"? I don't know those answers. I do know I enjoyed creating it, for it was not entirely random. First, I wrote very quickly, in stream of consciousness (yes, even more than I normally do!) Then, I subjected the text to chopping. I recycled it four times. I was surprised how little it changed as it moved further away from the original. The topic wouldn't go away, for one thing. The only thing that I did as an editor of the text was to look at the final product, find a passage that I thought looked like it held together and then re-set it so it reads better, but I did not change a word.

Language, butchered

Here's a link that may be hard to pass up:InterviewPalin.com, which uses a Markov text generator to convert Palin's actual words into new text(and if you click this last link, good luck to you, unless you're a high level mathematician).

I'm not posting this to be snarky to Palin. I find this type of thing very interesting. If you look at my links list, you'll see "Chat with Jolie Kleine Praten", which is my neglected web bot. Last winter, I got interested in Artificial Intelligence Markup Language because of the fantastic "conversation" I was having with Celia Gray, the late great Dr. Stein, and the Mirror over at the Websafe Times (also on my links list, but I'm making it easy on you).

The "aim" of good AIML programming is to make the conversation seem as natural as possible. The Markov text generators don't do this, but they certainly produce interesting results. I put two posts about body image into the Markov text synthesizer at Beetleinabox and got this:

I was already quite "other", I played it up. I instituted this new eating policy in the world. But, it did not work. I have limp brown shoulder length hair. Ugh.I was anorexic for a boy. And for someone like me, who doesn't feel all that gendered, this feels almost as strange as wearing a sleeveless latex top and a friend's teenage daughter said to me, "Are you really going into the restaurant dressed like that?!" Yes, I was living alone Monday through Friday and share meals with Dick and friends on the weekends unless something special came up. I wore stiletto boots or Doc Martens. And not only was I blind to the person engaging in them?
I did not know. Sure, I had lost my butt. My hip bones stuck out so far that I have limp brown shoulder length hair. Ugh.
I loved it when I became middle aged, I'd develop a huge ass just like his sisters, so I thought. And when I cinch in the world. But, it did not work. I have no idea if this is an important topic. Weight and size are huge issues for women, and theses issues, in my family was thin in their eyes. "Where did you put that?", someone said, with the afterthought, "Aren't you full??!"
I am overweight and everything looks like crap on me. I assume that by your reading of my experiences and feelings. I may be big, but I'm nowhere near a size 6 is not such a big deal. I was a bunch of nonsense. How could alcoholics, drug addicts, anorexics and all the sense in the world. But, it did not work. I have a size 38! I've always been thin when I hit the double digit number of 10 and decided to eat like I was sick! Now, the fisherman whom I worked in a hurry while fighting sleep. I think many people projected their sexual fantasies upon me. It didn't help that I write about myself instead of writing theoretically. I may wind up taking down this post in a tattoo shop and because of this, I came up with a strategy, not a speck left. Once, I went shopping, I could not turn off these sorts of thoughts.

To me, that was not only interesting, but absolutely fascinating. I played around with this interface for nearly an hour. Setting the field "word groupings" to 2 makes it sound more coherent than the default. Try it and have fun. Now, you too, can write like Brion Gysin.

Painting note: Didn't mean to use Brueghel yet again, but it's the best painting of the "Tower of Babel" that I could find.

Addendum: I'm still playing with that program. I had to share this with you, for it is random - I kid you not:

We go about our everyday business, like washing clothes, with the expectation that we must make sense out of nonsense or adversity. It's not that it's been given to us for a reason. It's that we might be wearing them tomorrow.

Boing!

How do you say the title of this post? I presume you thought "boyng" (with an almost silent g). According to the rules that I was taught in elementary school, we should pronounce this word "bowing".

The Spelling Society ((amongst other groups) advocates all sorts of spelling reform. On their main page they decry the fact that the words comb, tomb and bomb do not rhyme but that weigh, say and they do. In addition, they spell rhyme "rime" and now I'm slightly confused as to the real spelling.

There's all sorts of ideas floating around about what to do about English's quirky spelling "problems". Personally, I hope these so-called problems never get solved, for I love them.

I find the fact that bomb, tomb and comb don't rhyme to be downright fun. They'd make good clues or answers to a word puzzle. Their non-rhyming makes me want to look the words up and find out their origins.

One of the reasons English has so many quirks is that it is derived from many different sources. By analyzing a word, we can learn a bit of history. I'd hate to see the language become so modified that a mere encounter with a confusing word doesn't hold the possibility of investigating it further.

But, I am what they call in school (skool), a "good reader". I think spelling bees, crossword puzzle and Scrabble tournaments are exciting. Reading the Oxford English Dictionary entries are a source of delight to me.

People say English is hard to learn. Is it harder than German with its long words? Is it harder than Japanese, with its Chinese character set (over 2000 base characters and who knows how many combinations), two sets of phonetic characters and the the English alphabet? Not by a long shot.

I don't wish a hard time on anyone who's learning to speak, write or read English, but. . .

Language is not just a form of communication. It is also a reflection and a product of the cultures it originates from. Languages (and their dialects) have so much personality!

I am not a scholar on this, but my gut tells me that stripping the English language of its quirks is like forced normalization of people who are quirky and difficult to pigeonhole. In fact, we say of these people, oftentimes, that they are "hard to read".

So, of course, putting aside my love of words for themselves, I am terribly wary of anything that normalizes anything. Yes, some words, books and people are hard to understand. We can either live with that or try to standardize everything. I'd prefer the former. I still can't read Proust, but I don't want to read some Cliff's notes phonetic rewriting of him.

Painting note: Portrait of Samuel Johnson by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1772
His "A Dictionary of the English Language" was published in 1755. Doesn't he look likes he needs a good antacid?

The first English dictionary was Robert Cawdrey's "A Table Alphabetical", written in 1604. You can read the entire text on the University of Toronto's website.

The history of dictionaries, in themselves, are fascinating. Some have speculated that being a contributor to the writing of the Oxford English Dictionary drove William Chester Minor mad. I have always meant to read "The Professor and the Madman: a Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary".

Addendum: Just for amusement, I thought I'd try "translating" some Emily Dickinson into phonetic English:

Hope iz thuh theeng with fetherz thaht purchez in thuh sole and seengz thuh toonz withowt thuh wurdz and nehver stops at awl.

Wuht doo yoo think?

Check out fanetik.org. Here's the introductory sentence on their home page:

"Welkam tu a nu wae uv rieting Ingglish — a raashanal wae."

Here's my version of this sentence (after spending more than the normal amount of time figuring out what it actually said, which rather defeats the purpose of this supposedly "rational" way of writing): Wellcum 2 uh nu wey uhv riteeng eenglish - a rashunul wey". Are we moving towards are pre-Websterian rending of our language?

Am I being a knee-jerk language snob? Perhaps.

To boot, both explained and not

Often, I use some cliche and wonder where it comes from. Earlier, I wrote this comment: ". . .misery doesn't love company. It needs company and plenty of conversation to boot."

I then thought (and wrote), what the heck does "to boot" mean?! Ah, what did I do without Google?! Well, I did have a fairly large library of reference books (and still do). But there was never enough. I often wished for a 24 hour/7 day a week library that I could walk to in under five minutes. Now, I have it, and I don't even have to budge from my sofa.

Here's the explanation of "to boot", courtesy of the Phrase Finder:

To boot
Meaning

Moreover; in addition to.

Origin

This term has nothing to do with footwear. The 'boot' is thought to be a derivative of the earlier 'bat' meaning 'good or useful'. This is also the root of the word 'better'.

Forms of 'to boot' in Old English date from around 1000AD. Robert Manning of Brunne included a version of it in Langtoft's Chronicle, 1330:

"A hundreth knyghtes mo... and four hundreth to bote, squieres of gode aray."

I don't think, however, that I'll be reading Langtoft's Chronicle any time soon. Not that this has to do with anything. . .

I wondered if "booting up a computer" and other forms of "boot" have anything to do with this expression, but I would doubt it. But we shall see. I will commence my search for the answer now. In fact, I'll time it. It's 10:06pm right now.

Okay, it's 10:09pm. Here's what happened in the last three minutes:

I found an answer on this site: Take Our Word For It
Since it's an online magazine, I didn't want to copy it. I also found the explanation, while certainly plausible, not explained all that well, or in a scholarly enough fashion to suit my sensibilities (oh, my fine sensibilities!) and so, I checked another page. What did I encounter? A site that told me "You are not currently authorized to access this article." Okay. How do I get authorized? This website looks good! It's called Jstor: Trusted Articles for Scholarship. And yes, one has to pay for it. I did not look into how much this would cost. It looked expensive. Really. It has fancy schmancy fonts and everything.

So, if you're curious, don't take my word for, check out the link above. But don't try Jstor, or if you do, please tell me all about it.

Image note: This is a hint.
Cover of Oct. 1941 Astounding Science Fiction magazine (I need to include this to be in compliance with copyright law, though I'm not sure I'm doing it properly).

Addendum: This morning it occurred to me that there was yet another usage of the word "boot" that I didn't know the reasons for, namely, why the back enclosure space of a car is a trunk in the United States and the boot in Britain. Surprisingly, this one took me far longer than three minutes to find an answer to. For you who are curious (and those who are not, but somehow wound up here, asking yourself, "Why am I reading this?"), here it is:

At the back of horse-drawn stagecoaches were big boxes that held passengers' luggage. They were called boots. This is believed to come from boite, the French word for box. So, why wasn't it just called the box? After all, it was a box. One could postulate that some folks called it the boite and some called it the box and over time, it came out as boot. So, why do Americans called it the trunk? I didn't look this up, but trunk is indeed another word for a large box that holds things.

The amount of uses for the word "boot" is quite large. Check out dictionary.com and see for yourself.

Giddy

I am giddy. Thinking this a funny word, I looked up the definition and found its history to be quite apropos to the way I'm feeling today:

gid·dy
adj. gid·di·er, gid·di·est
1.
a. Having a reeling, lightheaded sensation; dizzy.
b. Causing or capable of causing dizziness: a giddy climb to the topmast.
2. Frivolous and lighthearted; flighty.
intr. & tr.v. gid·died, gid·dy·ing, gid·dies
To become or make giddy.
[Middle English gidi, crazy, from Old English gidig; see gheu()- in Indo-European roots.]
giddi·ly adv.
giddi·ness n.
Synonyms: giddy, dizzy, vertiginous
These adjectives mean producing a sensation of whirling and a tendency to fall: a giddy precipice; a dizzy pinnacle; a vertiginous height.
Word History: The word giddy refers to fairly lightweight experiences or situations, but at one time it had to do with profundities. Giddy can be traced back to the same Germanic root *gud- that has given us the word God. The Germanic word *gudigaz formed on this root meant "possessed by a god." Such possession can be a rather unbalancing experience, and so it is not surprising that the Old English descendant of *gudigaz, gidig, meant "mad, possessed by an evil spirit," or that the Middle English development of gidig, gidi, meant the same thing, as well as "foolish; mad (used of an animal); dizzy; uncertain, unstable." Our sense "lighthearted, frivolous" represents the ultimate secularization of giddy.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

By all standards of our society, I should be miserable. I filed for bankruptcy last week. I am unemployed. I don't have the money to pay my property taxes or gas for my car. I imagine that this coming winter Dick and I may be huddling around the oven, living on ramen and wearing three pairs of gloves indoors. We wore hats this past year, so how much lower can you go?

Now, most people would keep bankruptcy a deep dark secret, for we don't talk about money or sex, especially if there's a problem. I figure I'm just on the cutting edge of a big trend, the way things are going in this economy, so I might as well speak the truth. I'm broke.

But look, I'm not living in Burma or Darfur. I have a roof over my head. I have food to eat and occasionally it'll be steak. I have access to books and music and the internet (for I'd rather give up my phone service than that).

I have proven the aphorism that "money doesn't buy happiness". Or maybe it's the other way around - poverty doesn't breed misery (which isn't something I do hear).

What's the cause of my outrageously good mood? Well, the winter's over, for one. But that can't explain it entirely. There have been many Springs, Summers and Falls in which I was miserable. A nice day? Oh no - I couldn't hack it, for it made a mockery of my depression. The warm sun would only make me feel obligated to enjoy something and I could not. I wished for rain and clouds, so I could stay inside, to sleep or just provide cover from that dreaded happy sun.

This winter, I had a grueling depression. I considered suicide in a cold, intellectual manner that, frankly, scared the crap out of me. I thought it was time to go, that I'd had enough, that I was old enough to justify it and it made good sense.

But I'm a survivor and, besides, I truly feel suicide is immoral and a very cruel thing to do to ones' loved ones. I got some help, which didn't put much of a dent in my depression.

Then, one day it ended. Poof! What ended it? I started to draw silly drawings. It's all here: click on "EIIIProducts" in the tags section to the right and you'll find them. Did my depression return when I stopped drawing? No.

I was going to say that I have no idea why this little thing made me snap out of it. But I suspect is was only this: I re-found my sense of humor. Without it, I'd be dead. No joke.

Adding to my outrageously good mood is a new development. I have found a wonderful Sangha (a community of Zen Buddhist practitioners). They are warm, welcoming and very serious. And so, my meditation practice has been reinvigorated. Meditation has been another life saver for me.

Tonight, a dog joined us during zazen. The teacher asked me a question, to which I gave a rather bumbling answer (I am not used to talking about Zen much, if at all). After I spoke, the dog came up to me and licked my nose. I thought "Who could ever ask if a dog has Buddha nature or not?!" I said nothing, but I smiled, a smile of such pure and unadulterated joy.

On my way home, winding through the back roads, the full moon seemed bigger than round. It called to me to wake up to life, even more than I have been doing. I followed the moon and it followed me.

The moon sung to me, the evening gatha:

Let me respectfully remind you,
life and death are of supreme importance.
Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost.
Each of us should strive to awaken... awaken...
Take heed.
Do not squander your life.


Image Note: Yoshitoshi Taiso (1839-1892) "Itsukushima Moon" from the series "One Hundred Aspects of the Moon"

DIagnosis of the day

I encountered this one in my studies today:

Balanitis xerotica obliterans

If I was only guessing at this diagnosis, I would think: "Hmm. Some kind of inflammation causes balance problems, duplicates itself, and then totally destroys the afflicted." But I'd be wrong.

For the sake of nicety, I am not including the meaning of this bit of nastiness. If you're truly curious, click here.

I'm not posting this because it's naughty, but because of the words. Xerotica is a beautiful word, no? At first, when I found out its meaning, I thought "Why did xerox use that?" But after a moment, I realized why: the Xerox machine replaced the mimeograph machine, which is a "wet" copy process. Xerotic means dry, not a copy of anything, as this modern person assumed it did.

Image note: This is a pantograph, a very old copying device.

More political whining

I'm still angry. I'm so tired of hearing about people in demographic terms. There's "white women", "black women", "downscale voters", "blue collar". . .Need I go on? You've heard all of this, too, if you've been reading any political analysis.

How many of us fit neatly into any of these categories? I question these definitions every time I fill out a survey. I tend to check the "prefer not to say" box if there is one. Of all the categories, I fit into the "white/caucasian" box, but even though I am quite pale, I am not truly white nor caucasian.

In the last election cycle, I realized after I was polled over the telephone, that certain assumptions were probably based on my answers that bared no resemblance to my internal reality. I was asked, "How important are social issues when you vote" and "How important are values when you vote?" I gave both the highest answer possible, for social issues and values are important to me. But what I didn't realize until I saw the results of this particular Zogby survey (who should know better) was that "values voters" were assumed to be anti-choice (amongst other things). Was I asked what values meant to me? No. It was only assumed.

But back to the boxes that Americans are supposed to fit into so neatly: we do not. That is what makes this country what it is. Unless you have just recently immigrated here or your family has been particularly insular, you are not 100% pure anything. We are indeed a melting pot, though this expression has gone out of favor.

I resent the fact that I am assumed to feel and vote a certain way based on my gender, sex, education and locality (am I leaving anything out?) According to these labels, I should be a huge supporter of Hillary Clinton. I am not. I never have been nor is any one I know who falls into the same categories as I. Are my friends that different from the norm? It's difficult to believe.

So, when I read about the resentment between black women (who vote for Obama) and white women (who don't) I feel angry. Every time a pollster divides us in this manner, we become an inarticulate mass. It also stirs up the pot.

When did polling become so damned important, anyway? Someone, please google this for me! I'm feeling lazy at the moment.

I know. I know. Strategies are built on demographics, whether it's for a new soft drink or a presidential candidate, but really, do we have to hear so much about it? I suspect one reason this has become so popular in the media is because we have become a nation of very impatient people. We can't wait until the results are in and counted. We need to predict the outcome, bet on it, suffer through all the mounting tension (and yes, I enjoy this pastime myself).

In the long run, I think many of these polls only hurt us as a nation. Newsweek tells us this week that there are "high resentment white voters". People are easily influenced. If a study says that you "should" vote a certain way, based on all the categories you fit into, it is certainly possible that this information may make you think twice. Perhaps without this labeling, people wouldn't fall so easily into these categories. Will someone do a study about this?

Moving away from theoretical concerns, I am angry that we've gotten to this point. The republicans should not be in any position to win this coming election. George W. Bush has the lowest approval rating of any president ever. McCain, though he protests otherwise, will continue Bush's legacy. How did it come to this?

Depending on whose side you are on, it is because either Clinton or Obama is the spoiler. Of course, I think it's Clinton. Granted, she has had the right to keep on fighting for the nomination. Many have voted for her. But when the situation looked hopeless, she had an opportunity not to keep going and perhaps heal the rift that was forming. She may have gotten the vice presidency and even though I personally loathe her, I think this would have been a very good idea - the "dream ticket". But no, we've had months and months of infighting, including yesterday's debacle at the DNC. This only makes folks think the democrats are incompetent, whiney, and don't know how to play by the rules, even their own.

Resentment is now high. Democrats for Clinton seem to have forgotten what they're voting for. It's not just about Clinton or Obama. It's about this country, the war, the economy. . .you would really vote Republican or not vote just because your candidate didn't get the nod? Please! This is insane.

And for my last bit of personal whininess, I really hope that people wake up to who the real "elite" is in the country. It is not people like Obama who have been educated at Harvard. Yes, he had a posh education, but he is not one of the elite. He doesn't sit on the board of Enron or Halliburton. His great grandparents didn't vacation in Kennebunkport, Martha's Vineyard or the like. He had a good education. Is this elite? Let me look up the word.

Okay: the American Heritage dictionary defines elite as "A group or class of persons or a member of such a group or class, enjoying superior intellectual, social, or economic status". This would put pretty much any politician into this class, wouldn't it?

The kind of elitism that worries me is the power elite, defined here: "A term used by the American sociologist (see sociology) C. Wright Mills to describe a relatively small, loosely knit group of people who tend to dominate American policymaking. This group includes bureaucratic, corporate, intellectual, military, and government elites who control the principal institutions in the United States and whose opinions and actions influence the decisions of the policy makers."

Do we want more Dick Cheney-types running our country? This, I think, is the bottom line. I, for one, do not.

Painting Note: President Teddy Roosevelt Signing Statehood Proclamation by Mike Wimmer Look at all those men in suits!

Spelling bees, words, childish anger, with a bit of art thrown in at the end

This evening, having the terribly exciting life that I do, I am sitting in the dark watching the National Spelling Bee finals. I am having a very good time watching these children spell words that less than one percent of the population (probably) know. The highlight of the evening was the word "numnah" (A pad that goes under the saddle to keep the saddle clean and to cushion the horse's or pony's back), which the young boy thought was numbnut, didn't believe it could be, asked for clarification and got right.

Hey, this is live blogging at its most exciting! There are three kids left. I'm typing during the commercials. Do I feel stupid? No! I haven't been studying etymology for years with a couple of supportive parents at my side (yes, it appears all these children have two parents).

If things had been different for me in pre-adolescence, I could have been one of these kids. Dick doesn't believe that. He says "those kids have IQs of 180!", but I know differently. No, I don't believe I have an IQ that high, but I also do not agree that one needs to in order to spell well. Okay, (in a hushed tone), it's back on!

There's still three kids left. I'm playing along. I got sinicize (even though my spell checker didn't) and I goofed on aptyalism, which has a silent P (oh, that kid is good!)

This is really exciting to me because I am a nerd. I love words. I have always loved words, not necessarily sentences, but just words. I have been told that I could read at the age of two, but no one thought much of it. I still look at words the same way: I love encountering words that I don't know and trying to figure them out. We didn't have the best dictionary in our house when I was a kid. We had a 19th century dictionary, which was beautiful and smelled great, but it was missing many a word.

Cut off mid-thought - it's all over now. Sameer Mishra wins it with two easy words, esclandre and guerdon. Poor Siddharth Chand got prosopopoeia and missed the I, of all the letters to miss, poor boy must have been nervous. I missed the O. He also had the word aptyalism, which has a silent P. He was cheated for he had much harder words, hands down.

For pictures of these kids, click here. They are my heroes for the evening, and perhaps for days to come (though I'm obsessed with Russell Brand at the moment, but more on that in another post).

I suppose I must supply you with the definitions of the winning words:
Esclandre: My spell check doesn't recognize this word, nor does any online dictionary. I found it in a legal dictionary:
[Anglo-French esclandre, from Old French escandle esclandre scandal, from Late Latin scandalum moral stumbling block, disgrace, from Greek skandalon, literally, snare, trap]
1 : defamation of a person by unprivileged oral communication made to a third party
also
: defamatory oral statements

Guerdon: guer·don (gûrdn)
n.
A reward; recompense.
tr.v. guer·doned, guer·don·ing, guer·dons
To reward.

Prosopopeia (yet another word the spell check thinks is wrong)
n.
1. A figure of speech in which an absent or imaginary person is represented as speaking.
2. See personification.

and lastly:

Aptyalism :
n.
: absence of or deficiency in secretion of saliva

Oh, I forgot:

Sinicize:
transitive and intransitive verb
make or become like Chinese: to acquire a Chinese idiom, form, or cultural trait, or give somebody or something a Chinese idiom, form, or cultural trait

Well, now that we've learned words it's doubtful we'll ever use, we can move on. But I'm not entirely moving on, for I'm still stuck on the fact that Dick doesn't believe I could have been one of those kids. Am I insulted? Yes. Is it because he thinks I'm stupid? No. But he doesn't think I'm that smart. Really, this isn't about being smart. It's about being obsessed. Loving words is a hobby like any other. No one thinks a person who has memorized all the baseball stats for the every single world series is a genius, do they? No, they're just an obsessed person, a bit of crackpot who ought to get out more.

Obsession with spelling is the same thing. Sure, some of these kids may know many languages, but learning language, especially while very young, is not difficult. Once you know a few, they start getting easier. As a lover of words, and a kid who refused to use a dictionary until she was totally stumped, I started to see that words had similar beginnings and endings and discovered the concept of derivation. This lead me to try to read French, Italian and Spanish without studying anything. And surprisingly, I discovered I could, though what tense I was reading was always a mystery. I wasn't that self motivated!

When I was in the seventh grade, Latin was offered and I was all excited. Here's where I get whiney about my childhood (as per usual). For some unknown reason, one needed permission from ones parents to study Latin. Why? Did one learn dirty words or something? I have no idea why this was the case and am still pissed off to this day. My mother absolutely refused to sign the permission form for Latin. "Why do you want to learn a dead language", she asked me. I was aghast! My mother loved words, too. She and I used to play "pretend French" where we spoke in words that seemed to be French but had no idea what we were saying. We had a French-English dictionary and sometimes we'd look up the nonsense we'd said and find that some words were indeed real. I learned quite a bit of French this way, and those words are now part of my vocabulary (see? learning foreign language is fun and easy!)

Well, my mother had other plans for me (or rather, for herself, for she didn't make much of a distinction, poor woman). She said, "Don't you want to go to Paris and speak French? Or how about Barcelona, it's a great city! If you knew Spanish, it'd be even better!" No, I wanted to learn Latin and I was disappointed that ancient Greek wasn't on offer, too. They both are in English schools! What's wrong with this country??!!

No, my mother would not sign. So, I picked the most useless language that you could learn without a parental note: Russian. I do not remember cyrillic to this day and only know how to say "put the pencil on the table" and "you go to Siberia". Any other Russian I know comes from reading and watching A Clockwork Orange one too many times.

Urgh. Childhood disappointments. They are many.

Art note: Cy Twombly "Roman Notes IV" 1970 Lithograph 34.1x27.4 Currently being offered at auction in France. Estimated price: $50,000

I like Cy Twombly. The first time I saw one of his paintings, at the Museum of Modern Art, I believe, I fell in love. It was a bewildering experience, for I had no idea why I felt this way. I still do not. I do not understand abstract expressionism intellectually. It's a wonder I went to art school. I have no words to express my feelings about Twombly. I'm just like any imbecile who says, "I may not know a thing about art, but I know what I like." Now, most folks who say this are referring to someone like Norman Rockwell (no offense to those who do, or go ahead and take offense, for I am a snob and don't give a toss, really).

I react to art in exactly the same manner that I react to music (though I actually may know more about music). I have to feel it in my gut. It's visceral. I can not like something because it's "important". I can appreciate something because it has had an impact on what was to come or how people see (or hear) things or because it's making a good statement, but I don't really care for such things. I find most installation and conceptual work a complete sham. If you've something political to say, write it down or run for office.

Let me tell you this: I dropped out of art school because of this kind of thing. I was consistently being told that my art work was facile but lacked meaning. I liked to draw. I loved the beauty of a good line. I enjoyed still life and nudes; I strived to capture as much as possible with the least amount of fuss. Sketching, to me, was a dirty word.

I also liked to draw tools, for they had interesting shapes. I was also told, over and over again, that I was mimicking Jim Dine. The truth is, I didn't know who he was! Finally, I saw his work and was shattered: it was true, though completely innocent. My paintings looked like near-duplicates of his.

So, I was pushed. Do something that expresses your self, I was told.

I had some boxes of plaster impregnated bandage (I have no idea why). So, one day I took them and made a mold of my tenement bathroom. After it dried, I took a box cutter and cut it into manageable sizes and dragged them into my studio at school. "Ah", said my instructor, "Now you're getting somewhere." Utter bullshit, thought I. I was just messing about.

It made me quite angry, really. So, I decided to push it. I called a friend with a camera and asked him to stand in front of the school. I also asked him to clear the sidewalk. This was 23rd Street in New York City so that was no mean feat, but he did it.
Then, I threw the bunch of plaster bathroom crap out of the window of School of Visual Art's 7th floor studio.

My instructor was in heaven. I then ran down the stairs with two buckets of paint. I poured red paint on the mess. Cllck. Click. Cameras taking pictures. Artist at work! I poured black paint on the mess. More pictures. A crowd!

Then I threw the lot in the dumpster and went home.

At the end of the semester we had a review of work. I took the contact sheet pictures and cut them up. Then, I pinned all the pictures of the "event" around the huge room. The students gazed upon them, walking in awed silence. I sat there, dressed in my pre-goth finery, probably staring at the floor with a look of utter disdain on my face. I was asked questions, many of them, to which I said "no comment".

I got an A+ from the instructor who thought I had a promising career as a performance or installation artist. Fat chance. I quit school on the spot. I can not tolerate bullshit. This is why I am a complete failure.

Now, spelling words is an honest thing to do. You are either right or you are wrong. End of story.

Polyphagia

Next time I eat too much, I'm gonna say, "Boy, I was really suffering from a case of polyphagia". And if my stomach hurts afterwards, I will proclaim, "Darn, now I've got gastralgia!" After a second night of polyghagic eating, I will grumble, "Ooh, this is a case of gastrodynia."

Well, those are just your plain ol' stomach aches, but the actual disturbance of digestion is called dyspepsia, which I always thought meant having an acid stomach. However, that's indigestion resulting from hyperchlorhydria! Pyrosis is the term for that burning sensation which originates in the epigastric region of the abdomen. Not the stomach, mind you. The stomach is a very specific organ with some fascinating functions.

The stomach has these folds called RUGAE which unfold when food enters. I don't know why, but this sounds nice to me, like the rugae are some lovely velvet curtains on a stage. Enter: food!

The food mixes with hydrochloric acid and pepsin to break it down into something called CHYME! Never heard of chyme before, but I believe it'll stick in my head, for it's another lovely word. Enter: food! Exit: Chyme! Ding! Ding!

And out the chyme goes. . passing through the pyloric sphincter and into the small intestine. . .

ps. I thought perhaps I have made up the adjective from of the word polyphagia, but it is indeed a word. However, hyperphagic might be more suitable. Overly hungry! Insatiable. Voracious. I AM hungry right now, but I don't think I'm hyperphagic. I'm just hungry. I may be orexic, as opposed to anorexic, which, incidentally, means NOT HUNGRY, not starving to death 'cause I want to look like a supermodel.

pps. There is no such word as orexic.

Pas de commentaires parfum de moi

Yesterday I wore two scents I had never tried before. I adored one of them, but it was fleeting, lasting only forty five minutes, at best, on my skin. The other, I didn't like at all, and it lingers still. No, it was not a sick-making scent that caused me to run to the sink and scrub, but I shall never try it again.

I haven't told you the names of these scents to prove a point: I am not a reviewer. When I write about fragrance, it is because I am "having an experience" of some sort. A scent may evoke a memory or it might delight me to the point of feeling near obligated to sit down and sing its praises. Or it may be so wretched or interesting that I need to analyze it.

Yesterday's fragrances did none of those things. So, I say nothing. What's the point? I am not writing to convince anyone of trying any perfume, nor am I any sort of authority and I certainly don't want to steer anyone away from a fragrance that may be what my grandmother called the "bee's knees" for them.

Why am I writing this? Just to remind you.

Idiom note on the Bee's Knees:

1. alt.usage.net
A bee's "corbiculae", or pollen-baskets, are located on its
tibiae (midsegments of its legs). The phrase "the bee's knees",
meaning "the height of excellence", became popular in the U.S. in
the 1920s, along with "the cat's whiskers" (possibly from the use
of these in radio crystal sets), "the cat's pajamas" (pyjamas were
still new enough to be daring), and similar phrases which made less
sense and didn't endure: "the eel's ankle", "the elephant's
instep", "the snake's hip". Stories in circulation about the
phrase's origin include: "b's and e's", short for "be-alls and
end-alls"; and a corruption of "business".

2.The San Diego Bee's Knees (I don't even know what that is)
The Bee's Knees" is a term indicating excellence - the highest quality.
Because bees carry pollen back to the hive in sacs on their legs. The allusion is to the concentrated goodness to be found around the bee's knee.

The horse named Degeneration pulls into the lead

When I was looking for an image of a horse drawn carriage with the horses rearing up, I found this Currier and Ives print. Nothing like the bucolic scenes of a perfect Christmas time here. I had no idea that Currier and Ives indulged in such bigotry (click on the picture to see it in detail to get a full impact). Here is a link to a scholarly site about the "dirty secret" of Currier and Ives, along with plenty of images, and this disclaimer at the top:
Disclaimer:
"Be aware that the words, descriptions, and images from Currier & Ives Darktown Comics series are considered racially offensive by today's standards."

In the horse drawn carriage of my imagination I'm sitting in, we suddenly come to a huge crevasse in the earth. If the driver didn't pull back on the reins hard enough, we would plummet to our deaths. He does, and the horse rears up, whinnying. It is all so very classic. Just like in a movie. I've never seen this in real llife.

No matter. It is a mental picture of the feeling I'm having that this blog is quickly degenerating into a place where I come to unload my crapola.

Slang break:
crap·o·la (kr-pl)
n. Vulgar Slang
Rubbish; nonsense.
[crap + -ola (probably modeled on trade names like Shinola, a brand of shoe polish).]

This is not what I wanted to happen, but it's an easy chasm for me to fall into. Thus, I am pulling on the reins, for I don't want that horse named "Degeneration" to win this race (or to fall to its death, along with its passengers, which includes this blogger and perhaps a reader or two).

As a respite from my crankiness, I offer you the following: In spite of the snow on the ground, spring is evidencing itself in the sound of birds. I heard the distinctive call of the Red-winged Blackbird a few days ago. DIck reports that he saw a few Robins across the road from us.

I saw some greenish grass in my back yard for the first time in at least five months.

And that is the end of my post. You get a beautiful Japanese wookblock print,"Camellia in Snow and Sparrows" by Utagawa Hiroshige, as a bonus for this post that started with such distasteful imagery.

It's all in the translation

I was wondering if French had more words for scent than English. What I discovered is that all our words for scent are pretty much the same as in French. This is the extent of my investigation for the evening. I could track down the origins of these words, but. . .

parfum smell, scent
odeur f noun
scent, perfume
senteur f noun

. . .there is another word that came up on the Google translation page: Piste. It means a scent trail or track (of an animal, I presume, but understanding this means more investigation. . .

And now, on a completely different topic, but one that will not be in English, here are some of the cranky (and absurd) thoughts that I allowed myself to indulge in earlier this evening, after a particularly disturbing day:

Deutsch scheint wie eine gute Sprache, um meine Gedanken in den meisten hässlich. Das ist schrecklich. Ich vermute, es ist, weil ich die Sprache assoziieren mit Nazis.

Auf der anderen Seite, wenn ich ein Kind war, meine Mutter zu mir ins Bett tuck während sagen: "Gute Nacht und süße Träume".

Das ist einer der wenigen schönen Erinnerungen habe ich von ihr als Zahlungsmittel.

Aber das ist nicht relevant. Frühere diesem Abend, ich habe diese wild absurden Gedanken in der deutschen Sprache. Hier sind ein paar Beispiele für Ihr Vergnügen:

Die meisten Menschen sind insgesamt Idioten, und ich bin krank.

Wenn Frauen in der Gruppe, es gibt einfach viel zu viel Östrogen. Ich kann es kaum stand.

Ich bin krank und müde von Machismo und die fragile männliche Ego.

Manchmal denke ich, wir sollten doch einfach mal vorbei eine neue, spezialisierte Neutronenbombe dies bedeuten würde, dass nur die schöne Architektur.

Rid den Planeten von allen Menschen, die können nichts tun, außer zu töten und Vergewaltigung einander und den Planeten, und lassen die Erde zu flicken und neigen dazu, sich.

That's quite enough for one night.

I don't know him from a hole in the wall

I have just spent at least an hour trying to find the origin of this phrase. I gave up.

Today I did a bit more searching. I still can't find anything.

I get frustrated when I can't find an answer on the web or if I discover I actually have to buy a book to find the answer. Isn't that rather archaic?

Oh, but I still love the library!

Never mind that. Here's what I have found, thus far:

Brewer's Dictionary of Modern Phrase & Fable posits that the expression "hole in the wall" was originally used in the United States, in the late 1900's, to denote places of illicit drinking. We all recognize the phrase "hole in the wall" as a shabby place, though it's often coupled with some discovery, as in "You know that awful little hole in the wall we pass by every day? A friend told me that the food is really heavenly, but don't tell anyone."

So, I'm thinking that "I don't know him from a hole in the wall" may mean that a person doesn't know someone from an illicit setting, but why would you admit having been there in the first place? So, it doesn't quite add up.

More later. And I need this like a hole in the head.

Human Existence

This is the name of a perfume.

I quote from Thierry Mugler's website:
"How can something so ugly become so beautiful?
Why do we all need some dirtiness to find addiction and love?
The everyday struggle in perfumery.

To emulate the absurd blend, the duo of perfumers has selected a natural malt absolute containing notes reminiscent of cheese. They added a laboratory-created reconstruction of civet, and some cumin for acridness."

Why do we all need some dirtiness to find addiction and love?

Let's take a look at this sentence: . . . "we all need". . .
Who is this "we" that Thierry Mugler is speaking to? I suppose one could make the argument that anyone who shells out 700 bucks for a box of weird fragrances might fit the description of someone in the throes of an addiction. But mostly, I think it's just rich people who will buy this. Though I can imagine stealing to obtain the money to buy the Comfret. . .but I won't. I promise. I don't do that.

Yet.

I really want that box.

Okay. . .let's look at the sentence again: "Why do we all need some dirtiness. . ."
So, um, you're assuming we all need dirtiness. What is dirtiness? I read somewhere that this "Human Existence" is redolent of a woman who is unkempt. The cheese is the scent of the inside of a young girl's navel. And as a former body piercer, I will attest to the fact that even the loveliest, sweet smelling, well dressed young woman's navel does not smell "nice". It is an acquired taste, one that I never acquired.

And this unkempt woman, what does she really smell of? I will say the unspoken words: pussy and cum. Isn't that what we're talking about here? The real smell of sex. The two scents that come together to make life, thus, human existence.

Is human existence inherently ugly and sex inherently dirty? Are we scent obsessed because of some basic existential disgust for our bodies. . .these dying things that they are, with all their awful needs and excrements. I can feel my mouth curling and my nostrils flaring while I'm writing this.

I have, at times, felt this way. The horror of the body. The days when I don't want to take off my clothes and bathe, for I don't want to see this body, naked, raw, and imperfect.

So, why would I want to buy this in a bottle? Curiosity. Lots of it. I'd like to know what they think this horrible life smells like.

Odd footnote: I wanted to find a Rubens painting for this post. Obviously, I did; "Rape of the Sabine Women". And where did I find the image, just by chance? On a discussion about this:

March 07, 2007 05:31am
Article from: Agence France-Presse
"(Rome) A CONTROVERSIAL ad by fashion designers Dolce and Gabbana suggesting gang rape has been banned from Italian publications. . ."

Come to your own conclusions. . .

Another sticky note snippet

About eight years ago, I attempted to learn to read classical chinese on my own. I am insane. I wanted to read poetry without translation. I memorized about 150 characters and got to the point where I could read a little bit. . .such a little bit! Here's what a poem, translated by this ignorant dilettante may have sounded like in my translation:

Mountain
hmm
i dunno know
I dunno know
maybe a gate?
mountain
big mountain
i dunno
I dunno
I dunno
path
mountain mountain
moon

Here's a sticky note, which is not from that time (for this computer is not that old) but shows I'm still thinking about this subject:
language also shapes thought or is it the other way around? it's not either/or but both/and. . . consider the translations of chinese poetry and the assumptions western writers imposed upon the language

The book pictured above was the culprit that started my folly.

Sticky notes on my dashboard

I have a Mac laptop. Before I go any further in this post, I want to say that I am an Apple loyalist of the highest degree and so is my entire family (including engineers and physicists, which proves Macs aren't just for "creatives" nyah nyah). A few years back I bought a Dell laptop and my aunt was so shocked, you'd think I had told her I was converting to Islam.

The odd thing is that the computer made me nauseous. Literally. I had to lay down on the floor because I thought I was going to faint or throw up. I have no idea why. An LCD screen has no flicker, so it wasn't that. Was it purely emotional?! Anyway, I spent 150 bucks by owning it for a few days, because when I returned it to Best Buy, they told me there was a restocking fee. The salesman said I had two weeks to "try it". No problems! By the way, if one writes a letter of complaint to Best Buy, you will not get a response.

Okay, I digress. I always digress.

The Mac has this thing called the "Dashboard" for those who don't have one. It has widgets on it; stuff like a google link, the weather, a calendar, a tiny dictionary link (and much more), but what I love is the virtual sticky notes. When I have a little thought, I write it on one of these, just like I used to do in the so-called real world.

But my dashboard is overflowing with the things. Perhaps one reason I've started this blog is to clean up my dashboard. Yes, indeed - it's true. I will now put my little notes on this blog for everyone (all two of you, probably) to read.

Here's an example, which is apropos of nothing I've written about thus far:
I was taught in grammar school that our language was "superior". not so. different. chinese language shaped and was shaped by taoism/buddhism. difficult to understand in our concrete language.
language limits thought: slang and illiteracy limit thought, undoubtedly but we as a society do not want to admit this. it appears elitist

Now I can go and remove that sticky note. More to come.

The way I write about fragrance

Please be advised: I will not be using words like "sillage", "top notes" and other traditional terms when I write about scent. There are two reasons. The first one is that I am not an expert. I make no bones about it. There are fantastic sites where you can read very well informed reviews of perfume and learn all the jargon. When I'm not feeling lazy, I'll post some links.

The other reason is this: I may like to analyze scent (and I will), but even though I can often identify a particular "note" (uh oh - perfume term alert!) like bergamot, vanilla (etc etc). . .the important thing for me about scent is what it evokes and how it makes me feel.

For instance, right now as I'm wearing the Bulgari, which I've written about below, I'm "feeling nothing". Yes, it's evocative of a box of tea. It even made me think of a wonderful tea that I'd forgotten about and hope to find next time I'm grocery shopping.

But what really interests me is the emotional component of smell.

Fragrance, scent, smell, odor, aroma. . .all are words that are olfactory, but they conjure up such different images and associations.

If I wrote that Chanel No. 5 had an odor you would probably assume I didn't like it, wouldn't you?

Here's a dictionary definition of odor, with an example of its usage:
"A strong, pervasive quality: An odor of sadness permeated the gathering."

That is what I want to write about. And I will. Disregard the medical illustration above! It's there 'cause I wanted a graphic and I like medical illustrations but I am no Luca Turin and will not be telling you anything about the molecular structure of perfume.