Repetition Is a High Order Use of Language

       In traversing by car from Sylmar to my house, I'm moving on one freeway very quickly to another freeway and then going under two other freeways before arriving home.

       It's a new route to me, and because I'm not only switching freeways but have to avoid exiting onto two other freeways while remaining on the second, I find myself talking to myself about which lane I should be in at each stage for best and safest driving.

       Maybe it's my age, but I need this kind of self-talking to reenforce choosing the correct turns and eschewing the wrong ones.

       Sometimes one feels dumb or nutty trying to learn something new and repeating and even rehearsing it to oneself to set it in memory.

       But for me it's a high order use of LANGUAGE!

Distraught . . .

       When a patient is leaving a hospital, he or she goes through dis____?

       Funny how the other day the word I came up with was "dispatch."  Well, one is being dispatched into another state regarding one's health.  But I knew that wasn't the word I was looking for.

       The next thing I came up with was "disgorge."  Wait a minute.  Though that might be what's happening, someone's kind of being "spit out" of the system, that wasn't right either, and it sounded horrible.

       (Need I go back to my post connecting "gargle" and "gargoyle" as both coming from the same root meaning "throat"?  And "gorge" too.)

       But of course, of COURSE.  The word I was looking for was "discharge."  Why do I need to go round Robin Hood's Barn to get where I'm going??

Simple question: What do you call someone who has committed a misdemeanor?

       Mm-hmm . . . mm-hmmm . . . Clock's ticking . . . clock's ticking . . . all right, one who commits a misdemeanor is . . .  a misdemeanant.

       Sounds funny to me.  But host Warren Olney on KCRW's "To the Point" wouldn't use a word like that without knowing it was right.

       Olney was speaking with several law enforcement folks, including police chiefs and former police chiefs, and when they started using the word too, I knew it must be correct.

       Either that or Olney's erudition had them buffaloed, and they copied him, not wanting to appear dumb.  But the latter's not true; they sounded quite bright themselves.

       Nevertheless, if one who commits a felony is a felon, why isn't a person who commits a misdemeanor  . . . a misdemean? or as son David said, a misdemeano? ( Or, as I thought of later, misdemeanie.)

A Fortunate Shortening

       I had fun with KCRW's program called "Morning Becomes Eclectic," certainly a strange title for a daily music broadcast, but also appropriate.

       Yesterday I realized more fully why its host doesn't mind using its initials to refer to it:  "MBE." 

       The whole title is not only an unusual combination of words, but taking "eclectic" alone, the [k] sound of the three "c'"s  is produced in the back of the mouth, all other sounds in the word are produced in the front; hence a "mouthful" to say.  Try it aloud s-l-o-w-l-y to see.

       But the very shortened MBE flows swifter than a mountain stream:  Say "M" and your mouth ends with lips closed, "B" begins with lips closed and ends with the sound of "ee," which is the last initial.   

         

      

Film School--the Dream Lives On!

       Ah, the blacktop is so fresh and smooth, the white lines so sharp and contrasty, as you head into Hollywood on the Hollywood Freeway.

       Before you enter the famous capital of U.S. cinema, there's a road sign put up by the city, I believe, announcing that "New York Film Academy" is just off the next freeway exit.

       Couldn't help wondering what appeal that might have here in the heart of Hollywood, especially considering the two coasts' competition, if not enmity.

       Not much further along, just inside the actual Hollywood limits, another road sign displays itself:  "Los Angeles Film School."    If you didn't get sucked in by the first sign, maybe here you would find "the real thing."

       I'm presuming "Hollywood Film School" had already been taken.

       

It's His Industry, All Right

       Granted there's limited time for getting words about the Oscars accurately onto paper when the show happened Sunday eve, and the L.A. leading newspaper has to get oodles of quotes, photos, and observations into the public's hands only a few hours later.

       A little muff here and there is almost inevitable.  But it's nice when the uncaught mistake also reenforces the intentions of the statement.

     
       "Reese Witherspoon was all smiles as she stopped to chat on the red carpet.  The best actress nominee for "Wild," a film she also produced, said that at this stage in her career, her priorities have changed.  'It's about creating strong women's roles in his wonderful industry.'"


       "This," was no doubt intended, but women's relative lack of power in Hollywood was later a target during the ceremonies as well.      

"Home" has seldom meant so much.

       
       The most touching thing said tonight on the Academy Awards was during the acceptance speech for best lead actress in a film.

       Julianne Moore said several very good things including that people who have Alzheimer's Disease "need to be seen" so that "we can find a cure."  But I speak of what she said to her husband at the end:  "I thank you for giving me a home."

       It was very simple, but somehow replete with meaning.  What might have been questioned in several ways . . . "You're thanking him for giving you a house to live in?"  "Wait, he can't just give you a home, you have to contribute to that; don't you make a home together?" . . .

       All that seemed to dissolve in the openness, directness, and sense of fulfillment that enveloped it.

"Speaking in Tongues?"

       Daughter Elizabeth is in town.  This morning, I let her finish a text message she was sending before I would tell her what I wanted to.

       She pummeled on swiftly both thumbs flying, and it was a LO-O-O-N-N-G message.

       When she finally stopped, I found myself saying, "You have speaking thumbs."

       Her return to me, I think, surprised us both, and it was slick as they come.

       "Speaking in thumbs," she said.

"CPAP" Looks and Sounds a bit Soviet, Doesn't It?

       Son David called today, and I asked him, "Did you try on and use your C-SPAN"?

       Now I knew that was wrong, but it was something like that and C-SPAN was as close as I could come.  It's CPAP, a machine with a mask you wear which helps you breathe better and improve your sleep.

       David said, "Yes, C-SPAN, those politicians, that'll put you to sleep."

       And, he added, you can't help when you look at the letters themselves seeing  the word "CRAP," one short diagonal line different.

Want to Name a Lipstick Color?

       My wife asked me today to bring her a "red" lipstick, choose one at a drug store for her.

       I found a red bunch grouped together by a single manufacturer and proceeded to choose, trying each with just a touch on a finger or hand for looks.  The name "Tropical Coral" caught my eye (maybe my ear too, I just realized "coral" is embedded in "tropical"), and when I touched it to me, it looked like "Connie's color."

       Taking it to the register, I looked at what I had, and it said "Volcanic."  Confused, I went back and discovered someone put this one in the "Coral" column.  I tried the real "Tropical Coral" and didn't like it.

       So "Volcanic" it was.

       Connie approved!

       She should only be happy I didn't bring her "Flamboyant Flamingo."

     

      

Poet Philip Levine Dies at 87, 1928-2015

        Philip Levine was most noted for his poems about work and working class people who, he said, were hardly present in poetry.

        His obituary by Steve Chawkins in the L.A. Times today says that for years, Levine expressed bafflement over poetry without people in it:


       "There's a lot of snow, a moose walks across the field, the trees darken, the sun begins to set, and a window opens," Levine told a Paris Review interviewer in 1988.  "Maybe from a great distance you can see an old woman in a dark shawl carrying an unrecognizable bundle into the gathering gloom."

       When people do appear, he said, "their greatest terror is that they'll become like their parents and maybe do something dreadful, like furnish the house in knotty pine."


       That's a critique of certain poetry that reveals what room there was for poems of the kind Levine himself would and did create. 

Where the Caption and the Photo are a Perfect Match

       From the joyous L.A. Times series on the Los Angeles Philharmonic.  This part on YOLA, started not only by the Phil for Gustavo Dudamel but to help entice him to become the Phil conductor, makes you proud of the orchestra and of Los Angeles.

       This particular picture gives "in the flesh" the full meaning of the caption that underscores it.

Click on photo to enlarge

Where the Letters DO What the Word MEANS

Cover of UCLA EXTENSION Catalog

                                    Please click on image to enlarge.                  

LA Phil Musicians Speak Up in Images

       An orchestra's language is music, but the musicians have a way of using words to evoke the orchestra's character.

       Tympanist Joseph Pereira says, "The percussion is sort of the orchestra's backbone.  The strings are the beauty and the face, the brass is the soul and the woodwinds are the heart."

        David Howard recalls the "physical feeling" that attracted him to the clarinet when he was thirteen:  "I love the way the instrument takes air from me."  Howard says his bass clarinet is "more of a character actor than a leading man."

         Principal bass player Christopher Hanulik says "The job of the bass section is to lay down a sound as plush as a carpet for the rest of the orchestra to float upon."    

        

      

"Scampi"

       Made a very good shrimp scampi dinner by Bertolli this evening (from an aluminum bag, with very nice sauce) but wondered what "scampi" meant.  Connie thought it was "garlic."

       Not too  clear from different sources, but I like etymology online dictionary by Douglas Harper's origin as the plural of Italian scampo meaning "prawn," but ultimately from Greek kampe "a bending, a winding," from the Proto-Indo European root kamp- "to bend."

       Those prawns, those shrimp, those scampi, they do bend!

"Wolfgang"

       Of course, most of us have come across the name "Wolfgang," but it hasn't before occurred to me to wonder what it meant, German, but . . .

       In a piece in the N.Y. Times Sunday Magazine for February 8, 2015 by Alex Hoyt, a weekly "last words" page under the rubric Lives, Hoyt wonders about a strange and interesting uncle of his who passed away named "Wolfgang."

       As Hoyt comes to know more about his mysterious uncle, he writes "the more appropriate the name Wolfgang seems--his solitude; his status as our family's Mozartian genius; his lupine, booze-fueled midnight mood swings."

       The word means "wolf" "going."

       It is sometimes chosen by English speakers to honor the musical genius Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.  It is not among the 1000 most commonly chosen names for a boy.

"____ en Costa Rica"

       My underwear says on it "Hecho en Costa Rica."  I knew right away that it should be pronounced [ETCH-o].

       Someone asks, "How did you know?"

       Because in Spanish the "h" is Shilent!


                         [Somehow I think this post was influenced by Mutts                                    the comic strip.]

End-of-the-Week Rumination: Brevity, Abbreviation, Even Initials Only

       The previous week reveals me not coming close to my usual limit of 135 words per post.

       More things to do around house with assuming some obligations Connie typically takes greater part in:  shopping, meal making, cleaning up, picking up.  The back is holding her back with healing the first order of the day.  I'm glad to be doing these things, but shorter takes, I suppose, on the blog, for now, seem to be the result.

       Shorter may be better; and shortest may be best.  Look over the past week.

What's BLT to you?

       To me BLT is a "bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich."

       To my wife Connie after yesterday's mnemonic lesson to help her painful back, BLT means NO "Bending, Lifting, Twisting."

       Thanks, physical therapist Randy, for those letters to heal-by.   

Don't ask . . . don't tell.

       Did you know that the word "alumni" is just one letter short of . . . "albumin"?

       If you're caught by words, this kind of observation can happen to YOU.

       .

     
       

As I remembered it . . . (Yesterday's Haiku)

                         Hokushi's Haiku
                        (my remembering)

                      Moon on the pine tree
                   I hang it . . . and take it off
                      And I smile each time


                           Hokushi's Haiku
                      (translation found online)

                       The moon is on the pine:
                   I keep hanging it--taking it off
                        and gazing each time.

My Remembering of Hokushi's Haiku

Prf and Phb: Optional surgeries?

       Prefrontal lobotomy and  Phlebotomy.   It's probably a good idea to figure out the difference between these two before you have either one done.  

       
      

What is the password for your ID; no wait!

       Codes and passwords and ID numbers.  We have such a pile of them sitting before us at the computer that, having just gone through it to find more info online about a bill to us, I had to pour through every 3"x5" scrap of note paper and STILL couldn't find it---the needed one.

       "Aw, heck, let's wait till the bill comes in the mail," I say to Connie; she agrees.

       

XLIX

       OK, so our great local sportswriter beat me to it in text.

       "Super Bowl XLIX--the game whose Roman numerals make it sound like a laxative--" Bill Plaschke wrote in The Times today about the Big Game.

       Yessss.

       But isn't it ridiculous?  These pretentious Roman Numerals that must be summoned each year, and refigured--let's see, "L" is 50 and since the "X," which is 10 is before the L, that means take 10 away--so 40--and then X with an "I" which is one before it, takes away one, leaving 9:  49.  

       It's like the game is carved in stone, which, I suppose isn't too different after all from Gwyneth Lewis's Welsh/English poem on Friday seemingly carved in stone or brass in the side of a building to celebrate two great languages.  

End-of-the-Week Ruminations: Living with Words and Wonder

       I guess that's it.  Just finding these, words and wonder and, yes, even worry all clung together in life, bound around your daily existence and the new things you find each day as well, such as the doc "Language Matters," opening out and folding in the world, and there you are surprisingly bundled right along with it.