Happy Haiku

                                                year's end
                                                the to-do list
                                                in pencil

                                                     Ann K. Schwader

       So glad I found this today (and through it, other interesting things) at the blog for Lilliput Review located here.

       (And for Robert Hass's wonderful reading of several Issa haiku in a similar spirit to Ann Schwader's, please click on this.)

Yes, I'm a Blog Rat

Please click on cartoon to enlarge

       All of us rats just want to be a star; which we all know is "rats" spelled backwards!

            (Dan Piraro's work is bizarrely but joyfully accessible here.)

"Chifforobe"

       I hadn't used that word in a long time.  Probably many younger folk will wrinkle their eyebrows.

       I referred to the chest of drawers that's in my bedroom.  Was I using it accurately? 

       The AHD calls "chifforobe" "a tall piece of furniture typically having drawers on one side and space for hanging clothes on the other" [behind a "closet door" that is like a cabinet].  Mine is only the tall, wide chest of drawers, which I sometimes call the "dresser."

       A "chiffoniere" is a high narrow chest of drawers, sometimes with a mirror on top.

       "Chifforobe" is from French chiffon, deriving from chiffe meaning "rag" + (ward)robe.

       So I wasn't accurate about mine (can't hang clothes).  Pronunciation?   iPhone had it right in its unique way when it converted my voicing into text:  "Schiffer Robe."

End-of-the-Week Rumination: "Homonym" Revisited

       I decided it was pretty confusing what I wrote on Saturday, December 13th; so I hopped on to another dictionary or two, and I like what American Heritage Dictionary (AHD) had to say for "homonym."

       "One of two or more words that have the same sound and often the same spelling but differ in meaning."

       That definition allows for the "raised"/"razed" and "naval"/"navel" pairings I brought up because it says "often the same spelling" but doesn't exclude different spellings.

        But yes,  dog "bark" and "bark" from a tree are also homonyms with the same spelling and sound, and they differ in meaning.

        There is a use for the word "homograph":  one of two or more words spelled alike, with different meanings, that sound different like "lead" (conduct) and "lead" (metal).

         Done ruminating.

      

"Plethora" Cartooned

Click on cartoon to enlarge

     
       And in case you could use a mnemonic device for recalling the definition of "plethora," it comes from the same Greek, ultimately Indo-European, root as the word "plenty."

       (The "Argyle Sweater" official website may be found here.)

Hand-Me-Up

       Gift season again.  I wore this yesterday at an annual family gathering.  A discarded item from my son's wardrobe, a nice vest that fit, looked good, and also could keep me warm in moderately cold circumstances.   He offered, and I accepted.  I call it a hand-me-up!

click on photo to enlarge

 

I'm for grabbin' rhyme any ohl time.

       'Tis the season for gifts, and I'm indebted for a pair of books I received from a friend with a neat bonus "attached."

       From two different categories came gifting through to me:


                          Lunch Poems by Frank O'Hara

                                                 &

                            The Yogi Book by Yogi Berra

                                                 
Seldom, if ever, have the names Frank O'Hara and Yogi Berra appeared this close together.

What's the name of that coffee shop?

       I've previously confessed forgetfulness of people's names.  The same holds true of names of stores and other things.  Even though I try to go to Starbucks once weekly to read, listen to lectures, and listen to music, and even though I make notes like the word "Starbucks" on schedules I am wont to produce for myself each day, I can lose the word "Starbucks" from my memory.

       How do I proceed to get the name of the coffee shop back?  I know it's named for something.  What is it?  Oh, yes, it's a character in Moby Dick, which I've read.  And then, finally, Starbucks will come back to me, and I can jot my note.

       Connections, synapses, repetitions, use it not to lose it.   Got to get to Starbucks again next week.

When does Chanukah Begin and End?

       The very last words in a calendar I otherwise cherish are "All Jewish Holidays begin at sundown the previous day."

       Sundown "the previous day" isn't just idle information you want to learn about the next morning.  Most Jewish holidays start the observance at that sundown time, maybe a temple service, maybe an observance at home like the lighting of candles with Chanukah.

       For Chanukah, calendars should have noted on December 16th this year "Chanukah begins at sundown."  That was the lighting of the first candle.  And so as not to miss the lighting of the last candles, December 23rd (today) should read something like "Final day of Chanukah begins at sundown."

       I know there are people still waiting to light eight candles tomorrow evening when the holiday's officially over!   

      
      
      

         

      

"The Menorah in the Palisades"

Son David took this photo in Pacific Palisades a few nights ago and posted it on Facebook.  The Large Menorah is located at a gas station there.   Wonderful caption on the photo itself is David's.

Click on photo to enlarge.

End-of-the-Week-Ruminations: Use It or Lose It.

       The Wednesday film documentary Connie and I saw on Alzheimer's patients does seem to re-embrace the popular saying on physical health but this time regarding mental health and stability.

       And you have to go back to "elementary" school in your eighties or nineties, one way or another, to start "using it" again.

       As I re-read the Wednesday blog post, I realized the name of my blog Living with Language can mean, amongst other things, staying alive and healthy by employing language (and numbers) every day!  

      

No Immunity from Clogging in the Verbisphere

       As beautiful and well written as Joff Gottlieb's obituary is in yesterday's L.A. Times, journalistic thoroughness sometimes poses nearly insuperable challenges.

       I speak of a paragraph consisting of a long single sentence, which concluded with "said Rabbi Bradley Artson, the Abner and Roslyn Goldstine Dean's Chair of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles."  There's nothing there to actually fault despite Rabbi Artson apparently being within all that verbiage, as I understand it, a "Chair" and the last part being exclusively "of," "at," and "in" prepositional phrases, four in a row.

       It does get to be crowded, and what's most awkward is the use of several names and a possessive noun "Dean's" to modify that innocent noun "Chair."

       Oh, were it only somehow avoidable.  

How to Use Speech and Language: Make the Call!

       I am thinking of a wonderful rabbi who just died, Harold Schulweis of Valley Beth Shalom Synagogue.  He advocated for and did powerful things, sermonizing, writing, and founding organizations that helped hundreds and thousands of people in need worldwide.

       When Connie and I first joined Temple Judea just a mile or two from VBS, we had a new rabbi, Steve Jacobs, and the first week of his tenure, Rabbi Schulweis got ahold of him not only to congratulate him but to invite him to lunch.

       Rabbi Akiva Annes became our leader several years later, and Schulweis again made the invitation during the first week.  And upon Annes's retirement a few years after that,  Don Goor took over as senior rabbi, and he too received the invitation. 

       I knew of these lunch invitations because all three of our rabbis spoke of it from the pulpit with a sense of pride and appreciation; another rabbi, and Conservative not Reform like our rabbis, had made that welcoming gesture.  And a relationship was begun.

       Harold Schulweis lived his values and put them into action.  He made the call.

       (Please see Rabbi Schulweis's remarkable obituary in the Los Angeles Times today here.)

When Language can be Intimidating, then Humanizing

       Jogging today, "Press Play" from KCRW pressed to my ears.  Madeleine Brand interviewing two restaurant critics. 

       Each has a 10 best list for 2014 in L.A.  THE restaurants to go to according to one female, one male critic.  Their lists overlap but are also considerably different.

       How many large incomprehensible names of restaurants and the food they serve can one disgruntled jogger put up with?

       Then Madeleine, the host of the daily show, noon, 89.9 F.M., asks, "Now what are your favorite guilty pleasures?"

       "Norm's," says he, "I love to sit on the stools and watch the cooks work.  Love to eat there."

       "A hot dog from the street stands," she says, "Or food truck food."

       Bless you, Madeleine, for that final question.

      

          

"Do You Know What My Name Is?"

       Connie and I saw a documentary of that title today, Alzheimer patients taking very elementary arithmetic, reading, and writing lessons a half hour each morning to help them regain skills and social attributes they'd in major part lost.

       These elders couldn't recall the name of a person who introduced himself to them five minutes before.   With the repetition of the lessons over six months, progress became evident, and the name would be rememberable.  Interest in things long since left behind, like knitting, self-grooming, plus sociability with others started shining through.

       I am TERRIBLE with names, at age 84, not far from these Alzheimer patients' ages, trying to maintain my own faculties.  As Connie works with "Lumosity" brain program daily and I keep this blog about language each day, we may be on the right track.

What's "wrong" and "right" in language.

       When we ponder what's "right" and "wrong" in language, we have to consider things like this:

       "Properly" speaking, "education" "should" be pronounced [EHD-you-KAY-shn].  Only trouble is, when you put syllables together in connected speech, those syllables influence one another. And when you are putting the tip of the tongue on the upper gum ridge to say [d], you are already anticipating the move toward the position for the letter "u" made high in the back of the mouth, which takes you  THROUGH the position for [zh] as in "azure."

       The sound  that comes out is neither [d] nor [zh] but a splicing of the two as in the sound we usually find spelled with the letter "j."  As in "judge."  [d] + [zh] = [j].

       There's no "j" in "education," but there IS.

Clearly words are sounds; no, clearly words are letters.

       A morning headline held a name I was stunned by:  ABE.  Seems he was the leader of a country.  Wait a minute, Abe was a president of our country, but that doesn't mean you "first name" him in newsprint.

       Writer Susan Sontag told of when she first went to Berkeley.  She'd been a bright and voracious reader from an early age but couldn't find anyone to talk with about her reading.

       Now, on her first day at UC, she mentioned the author of a book to a fellow student who said, "'Proost,' not 'Prowst.'" And instantly she knew she was in the right place.  She'd never heard anyone say Marcel Proust's name before.

       In my reverse experience,  I'd heard [AH-bay] but not seen it in print and had no idea how it looked.    

      

Streep by Any Other Name Would Be as Sweet.

       Stephen Sondheim tickled me today in a Times interview about Into the Woods.

       The lyricist-composer was alongside Meryl Streep talking about the movie version of the stage musical opening Christmas Day.  Streep was saying she never could have imagined when she first saw the show on Broadway many years ago that she would be able to play the witch role.

       Sondheim said, "You were ordained for the part.  The last name of the woman playing the witch on stage that day and your own are anagrams of each other."

       Perhaps you recall that the person who did the part on Broadway was Bernadette _ _ _ _ _ _?

       Love that Sondheim, master of words in all their incarnations.  
         

End-of-the-Week Ruminations: "Homophones" / "Homonyms"

        I don't think I've ever used the terms, but the whole blog is replete with them: "razed" / "raised" on Wednesday, December 10th; "naval" / "navel" yesterday December 12th.  These are "homophones."

        "Homophones" ("same sounds"), words that have the same pronunciation but different spellings and different meanings.

       "Homographs" ("same writing"), words that have the same spelling but different meanings ["bear" animal, "bear" carry; "lead" conduct, "lead" metal].   

       "Homonyms" ("same names") are like homophones with same pronunciation, but like homographs with same spelling, and have different meanings "bark" of tree, "bark" of dog; "cast" of a play, "cast" a fishline.

       But now I'm told::  both homophones and homographs can be considered, loosely, to be forms of the third, homonyms.  I'm breathing easier already.

       All I know is cartooning punsters and I would be much worse off without them.

"Naval" / "Navel"

       Got a letter today from the college I taught at for thirty years; it was bragging that our engineering students in a challenging design contest had beaten out students from the U.S. Naval Academy.

       Here's what I was thinking when I read that:

       "Well, it's no wonder we beat students who sit around staring at their navels."

"Regarding Susan Sontag"

       The following is taken from the film "Regarding Susan Sontag."  Nancy D. Kates made the film, and it premiered over HBO last Monday, December 8th.  Susan Sontag was the American writer and cultural critic, and the film documents her life and work.

       LOVE WORDS,
       Agonize over Sentences.
       Pay Attention to the World.

"What I love, what draws me very much to writing, is, it's a way of                                         paying attention to the world."


The trailer for the film with further information can be found here.

"Tower of fire RAZES complex"

       For as long as I can remember, the occasional meet-up with the fourth word in that headline I saw yesterday has set me off-kilter.

       You hear the word "raises," and yet you know it means "lowers" or "levels" or "destroys"--just the opposite kind of import from rising, ascending, building.

       "Raze" or "rase" began by meaning "scratch" with some of the notion of scraping away surface material, and that meaning is now archaic (though "erase" is still with us), and "raze" now extends the "scratch" to the demolishing of large quantities of material (often by fire).    A  common use of the word is "razed to the ground."

                                                                                                                   lift.
       It still makes my chin tilt a little.  I want to give that word a  

       

Wit and Honesty can Make the Day!

       In a set of tennis Sunday morning, after we lost 6-0 to the mixed doubles team on the other side of the net whom I'd congratulated by saying "Well, you two came to play!" because they'd been awfully good and consistent, my partner Jeanette followed up with a wonderful finish line, "But in our defense, we sucked !" which was right as rain, true as truth, and made me smile and laugh and feel good despite it all.  Didn't appear the other team thought it was funny, but I didn't care.  Thank you, Jeanette!

       I was giving maybe too much credit, but Jeanette was telling the other half of the story.  I don't know what kind of "defense" it was, but.. ...that line made great sense to me!

"Coccyx"

       I've been curious about the word "coccyx" for its peculiarity and its sound.  It's another word for what is often called the tailbone.  The Greeks have it in this case because the origin is the Greek word for "cuckoo."  And why should that be the origin of the tailbone?  Because the bone itself, the "tail" end of the spine, a more or less triangular fusion of the four final vertebrae, resembles the shape of a cuckoo's beak!  So there you have [COCK-six] "coccyx."

       Thus the "tail" ends with my curiosity being satisfied.  And if the "cuckoo" can be imitatively named for the sound of its own monotonous call, why can't the coccyx of both humans and tailless apes be imitatively named for the shape, not of their missing tails but the beak of the cuckoo?!    

End-of-the-Week Ruminations: Bumper Stickers

       On Wednesday, I spoke of my daughter's growing supply of stickers on the back of her car.  But she isn't the only one in the family.

       Wife Connie has a "War Is Not the Answer" sticker that's getting difficult to read from exposure to the elements and a Gay Rights = sign in yellow against a blue background.  And both her car and mine display this:

       I don't see too many cars these days with thoughts their owners would like to promote or share displayed on the back of vehicles. 

End-of-the-Week Ruminations: "Superannuation"

       "Superannuation" is the title I gave yesterday's post, and it made me ask myself, "Was this an appropriate title?"

       It means "old-fashioned" or "obsolete," and I guess I thought it referred to Uber being too "old," at something like four years old, to be called a "start-up" any longer.

       The word origin is Medieval Latin [superannuatus] meaning "over one year old."

       Egad.  That's about it.  A company older than a year these days is probably beyond a start-up, and has to be ready for the competition from  all the other "up-starts."  It's "superannuated."

Is there an app for superannuation?

       Here's a paragraph from today's L.A. Times about Uber:


              Still, Uber is ahead of the competition, racing past established          car rental services and other ride-sharing up-starts.


Yes, many other "get-a-driver-and-a-ride-by-digital-app" companies have arisen since Uber began it.  Still this is a very recent phenomenon.  Uber a handful of years ago was a start-up.  Now the others can already be called "up-starts."

Therapy by any other name would smell as sweet.

       Returned for a second physical therapy session today.  Had a new therapist, but he'd read the notes for me and followed up effectively.

       My first therapist's name was Timothy.  His face was of Asian descent, and I saw his last name was Peng.  Arriving today I see a another Asian face, but this therapist's first name was Calvin; his last was Lum.

       Two young men with distinctly non-Asian first names.  I'd guess there was a parental desire to put an American imprint on their future lives in this country, so they could feel at home, less "foreign."

       And then I recalled my parents, both of recent immigrant background, who chose "Donald" for me, not a Central European nor Jewish sound to it.  Assimilation; an understandable goal, but not necessarily easy nor without its ironies.

Having Children, Making History

       My daughter drove up here from Tucson for Thanksgiving with our grandson.  I took a look at the back of her car, and it's getting as full with signs as her old one, well, not nearly, but it's striving to be the next major depository of protest.

       There are several peace symbols, a bumper sticker: "READING IS SEXY," and a prominently located strip in the middle of her hatchback door-window:

         WELL-BEHAVED WOMEN     RARELY MAKE HISTORY  

"Buffaloed"

       I had used it in a letter and wondered how the word originated.

       First, it has nothing to do with the city of Buffalo.  Further, it seems that meanings of being  overcome by fear or being outwitted or taken advantage of as based in a buffalo's size or strength or high IQ are far less persuasive in the final analysis than, from observations of buffalos' behavior, BUFFALOS are the ones more likely to not be too smart, easily led to just mill around aimlessly and become vulnerable targets for killing.  THEY are "buffaloed," confused, stymied, easy marks, and this is what is analogized to human states of mind and behavior.

       For interesting tracing of this word as derived from various good sources, I recommend a look at the "buffaloed" entry on wordwizard.com  

"Spoken" for in "Spokane"

       Sometimes writers choose a word influenced by another word "in the neighborhood."  This can be to good effect or, more often than not, lazy and mindless word choice.  I have called it the "echoic" effect.

       Fortunately in the instance of Picture Legends Writer Abbe Pascal's description of a photograph, she has a winner in beginning this way:

           "Frost crystals spangle leaves in Spokane, Washington."

You can see and hear the echo in the words "spangle" and "Spokane."  It's the [sp] and the [an] in both words. 

       My point is "spangle" is musical with "Spokane" whether consciously chosen or not, but may have been unconsciously selected from a multitude of possibilities due to the anticipated sound of the city name just ahead!  And "spangle" fits the photo perfectly.

Portion of Charles Gurche's Photograph.  Click on it to enlarge.

(From the Dec. 1st through 7th page of the National Geographic Society's 2014 engagement calendar Beautiful Landscapes.)

Is "Sightseeing" redundant?

       The lead story in today's  L.A. Times Travel Section about poems that have inspired readers to want to travel led me to dropping a line to the letters column of the section.  Some readers cited poems that dealt with the "stress of a journey" as well.   Here's what I wrote:

I had to smile at “the tension" and "stress" of travel, plus "the longing for home" (re “Poetry in Motion” by Peter Mandel, November 30).  Toward the end of a wonderful 4500 mile West Coast, Southern Canada road trip, I experienced for the very first time the redundancy built into the word “sightseeing.”   It had become something of an "eyesore."   I didn’t want to “see” another thing that kept me from a straight line home:  pedal to the metal!
   ( Find the interesting article here.)

What, "Mad Libs" again?

       Well, unlike yester-DAY,  yester-EVENING was full of fun words with family as I somehow resurrected the Chanukah Mad Libs from last year, and we engaged with it after dinner.

       As you know, the authors supply stories, but with blanks; the group fill in the blanks with their own nouns, adjectives, etc., but don't yet know the story.  Then the leader reads it with our words filled in.  Grandson Micah and Grandpa Don were especially overcome with hilarity by this one:


                                      HANUKKAH AT MY HOUSE

         In my family, each person gets to light one   belly-button   on the menorrah.  Then we sing songs like "  Bananas   of Ages."  Afterward Mom serves   psychotic   treats like potato   porch swings   and doughnuts, and we all eat until our   kidneys   are full.

         Along with   burning    gifts, it's traditional to give money on Hanukkah, so each night my father gives all us kids   17   dollars!  We play games like dreidel and "Toss the   Sushi  ."

         Then comes my favorite part:  We open all the beautifully wrapped   pills   that we bought for one another.  This year I gave my sister some   bar bells   to go with her dollhouse, and I got some   swishing   blocks for my brother.  I can't wait to see what I got this year.  I hope it's a pet  Dubai  . 

(from HANUKKAH MAD LIBS, Price Stern Sloan publisher, 2012) 
For a previous family effort at this madness, go to this site.  

When the Words Run Dry

        What can you do when the words go dry?  Play a bit with the ones you do have, the ones you're using now.  Do they have potential?  Significance, suggestion?  Capability for sense or sensuality or use?

       That's where I am right now, folks.  Daughter and grandson visiting, and I'm fresh out of words for my blog.  On a walk we three took, I had to call for quiet without words from anyone for one full block--there was just too much excitability from a parent a child and an animated animal, their dog.

       I got my peace for a block, the end of which was loudly announced by my grandson.

       And now I am without words.

       So end of block, but not end of writing block, and yet end of blog!

Are Words Things?

       Rabbi Lawrence Kushner reminded me in his book God was in this Place and I, i did not know that the Hebrew word dvar means not only "word" but, surprisingly, "thing."

       Words and things seem  opposite, or at least very different.  Things are of the "real" world, and words are "about" the real world amongst other realms.  Kushner notes that for the ancient rabbis, "Primary reality is linguistic."  The word is the thing.

        Jews do, maybe especially but not uniquely, like to interpret words, play with words, study words, find whole worlds in words.

       Words are for investigation, celebration, creating fireworks, and are eternally chameleon-like, comedian-like--"belly button"--, they do hand-stands and ham-stands, and stand-ups.

       And they are "things" whole blogs can be written, spoken, sung, and visualized about! 

Words to Try to Live Up To

       I came across this saying of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel today, an appropriate one as we approach Thanksgiving Day tomorrow:


      "It is gratefulness which makes the soul great."

Don, the Weather Forecaster

       My weather supplier online, localconditions.com, allows for those who take its services to supply their own neighborhood forecasts.

       Last week I took them up on it after a condition peculiarly horrific had occurred, as it periodically does, in the San Fernando Valley.

       I wrote my forecast, a good deal with tongue in cheek, assuming they'd not print it. 

       When the air has dried to near zero humidity as a result of shouldering, barreling, buffeting, unrelenting Santa Ana winds, ants will pour into our house from madness with the winds, or dryness and no place to quench their thirst.  Fantastic cleaning spray is our best antidote to the inundation.

       My forecast for our neighborhood, which they DID PRINT, was "Santa Anas followed by house ants."

With Apologies to Longfellow

       Between the dark and the daylight
       When the night is beginning to lower,
       Comes a pause in the day's occupations
       That is known as ... the Solar Hour.

    
       Exactly when they should, between sunset at 4:46 p.m. today and darkness at 5:43, the solar lights rimming our front yard and driveway came on, but oh, so symphonically!

       As I finished bringing up the weekly trash barrels from the curb and headed back inside, the three nearest the house were already on.  Would I be able to stand and see the others light up?

       The fourth in line lit up; next the fifth; the sixth and last; with intervals of about a minute, completing the concert on cue, in order! 

       I hadn't ever before seen even one go on. 

      
(You may find Longfellow's "The Children's Hour" here.)

"Marti(it)al Arts"

       Why do I keep reading "martial arts" as "marital arts"? 

       I much prefer love to war, that is for sure. 

       I think also I see the two as somehow linked.  The marital arts may at times urge either partner to ponder the need for martial arts.   And do the martial arts at times depend upon all the grace and finesse that the marital arts can muster?

       Mixing the two indeed suggests there are arts to the marital state and to sustaining it.

       And raising the skills of combat to the level of "arts" has granted mayhem a luster and finish to take pride in?

       "Marit(ti)al Arts."

"Fillip"

       Yesterday's post found me using a word I hadn't in a long time.   A "fillip" is a small stimulus, perhaps a trifle, an embellishment.

       What I didn't know is what it came from.  It is imitative of either of two things according to different sources:  1.  curling a fingernail up against the thumb and releasing suddenly, a flip or flick against someone's arm, for example, or to propel a small object; or, 2.  a snap made by pressing the flesh of the fingertip against the thumb.

       So the "extended," more abstract meaning derives from something quite concrete and physical and the sound(s) it makes.

       Most delightful was a quote from Byron that the OED was clever enough to find and give us:  "Eat, drink, and love; the rest's not worth a fillip."   

END-OF-THE-WEEK: "Rumination" 1 More Time

         I thought I'd said enough about "rumination" and "cud" on Saturday, November 15 and Sunday, November 9, but this adds a nice fillip to the topic:

Click on comic to enlarge.

(You can find Chad Carpenter's Official Tundra website here.)

"Second Game in a Row"

       To my way of thinking, two games do not constitute a "row."  Even the AHD gives as an example for "row":  "won the title for three years in a row."

       So I have to say nay when the L.A. Times tells us the L.A. Lakers "win their second game in a row."

       But you do have to sympathize with the writer and/or the editor because, though the Lakers have managed to LOSE several "in a row," When they get two consecutive wins for the very first time in a season, you have to be cocky and confident to virtually brazen it through your humiliation as an editor, writer, headline writer or fan.  And if it is the first two in succession, isn't it already leaning toward three,  maybe you should just christen it with an assumed third and call it a "row."

         

"Worshiping Graven Images"

       Thinking of recordings, thinking of recordings of readings of poetry, or performances of music.  I remember believing that there was one best recording of a work of music, say a symphony, knowing in your heart and experience and understanding that THIS was the top...the definitive recording of this work.  No one, no one else, need try, SHOULD try.

       And then I heard Michael Tilson Thomas, now long serving the San Francisco Symphony as its conductor, when posed with this idea about definitive performances, say, "Anybody who thinks there's only one best recording of a work is worshiping graven images!"

       That put thoughts to the contrary I may have had, including about performances of literature or drama, to REST.   PERIOD.

Nonsense Language: 1. Yahk & Tseepy

"The Fifth Season"

       Talking with relative and friend Michael and somehow got onto the clothing business.  I asked Michael if he'd heard of "the fifth season."  He hesitated but thought he knew what it was:  "It's the Christmas holiday season."

       "Well, clothing and other businesses do make a third or 40% of their profit for the whole year at that time, but no, that's not it."

       "What is it?"

       "There's winter, spring, summer, fall . . . and slack."  I told Michael it was the entire joke of a play called The Fifth Season about the "shmata" business I'd seen on Broadway while I was in the Army and attending Information & Education school near NYC.    It was really a show that visiting tired businessmen might have found entertaining.

       But I remembered the joke!  And Michael was laughing at it now.

Joy in the Sounds of French

       Connie's working on a jigsaw puzzle.  I couldn't recall which French painter did the painting.  I thought it was Seurat, but it turned out to be another Frenchman, Renoir. 

       Suddenly I was sounding off with Seur-AT...Ren-OIR...De-GAS!  Surprisingly, though those accented last syllables all end with different consonants, they are all effectually silent, and though the vowels in these final syllables differ, all effectively have the same sound; so it comes out like this:

                      sir-AH   rin-WAH   day-GAH

Engage with the French pronunciation, exaggerate a bit, and have some fun saying them!

       I always liked the contrasting ways of saying "Julius Caesar":
                      Latin:  YUHL-ius KIE-sahr (harsh to my ear)
                      French:  JHOOL say-ZAHR (oh by far the slickest, coolest)
                      English:  JOOL-ius SEE-zir (somewhere in between).   

END-OF-THE-WEEK: "Rumination" Once Again

       Still ruminating over the word "rumination" from last Sunday's post, I wondered whether I really understood the cow's digestive process the word's based on.  Reading the authoritative sounding account given in Wikipedia, I thought I had not misrepresented "rumination" last Sunday--it would be a word-man's ruination.

       But I also discovered, somewhat alarmingly, that you and I are "monogastric animals."  Or would you rather be a pig, also monogastric, like us, the cow having several compartments to its stomach to top both the pigs and us, but which also means several stages in digestion.  Certain enzymes to break down cellulose are available only in the first compartment, and some food needs to make a trip back up to the mouth for further chewing and full assimilation.

       Let's ruminate on the marvels of nature's ways.

Teenage Shorthand

Click on cartoon to enlarge.

     
       What I love most about this "Zits" strip is Jeremy's muttered teenage abbreviations:  "k" for "OK" many times over.

"Morning Becomes Eclectic"

       "Morning Becomes Eclectic"?  What kind of radio station would gamble to have that kind of title for a music program?  The associations are wonderfully ... high order, you might say:  a play that's probably little known by many, and a word that's probably known by people with some vocabulary, but not by most.  Put 'em together in a crazy, punning, awkward, master-pastiche; they spell KCRW.

       A Santa Monica FM station, public radio.  It produces extraordinary music and talk programming throughout the day.


       Mourning Becomes Electra,  Eugene O'Neill's 1931 modern version of Aeschylus's Oresteia, Electra being a female character.
       "Mourning" loses its "u" to identify an early a.m. radio program.
       "Becomes":  "is suitable to," but also here, "comes into existence."
       "Eclectic"-- (Greek ex, "out," legein, "gather") 1. selecting out from various sources what's best; 2.  heterogeneous.

"Heard Any Good Newspapers Lately?"

        We're back on the air with Los Angeles Radio Reading Service, reading for the blind and print impaired over FM radio.  Reading the newspapers in a two hour daily broadcast.

       We three readers sounded rusty after being off-the air for two to three months in our shift to a new location.  But it was great to be back.  Amazing the lost facility that occurs with disuse of voice and mind. 

       Bravo voice that carries words to ears that listen.

       The title of today's post is the motto of the Los Angeles Radio Reading Service, or, as we say it, LARRS.

Thanks, "Life's Little Instruction Calendar"

      
       "The future comes one second at a time.  That's a quantity of time that most of us can handle."


       (Thank you, H. Jackson Brown, Jr., for your 2014 18th Day-to-Day Calendar.  This and the 2015 calendar can be found here.)

Cartoonist Sem-ANTICS

They may be ending up with fine, funny drawings and comics. . .

click on cartoons to enlarge

. . .but they're starting with wordplay.


       (You can find Chad Carpenter's Official Tundra website here.
         Bizarro can be located at Dan Piraro's "New Bizarro Site.")

"END-OF-THE-WEEK-RUMINATIONS"

       I like these oases at the end of the week.  Nothing really new added.  Just something that may bear on, perhaps amplify, give another bit of texture to one of the week's topics.  A sense of pause and reflection.  Letting there be something of a sabbath from language's never-ending push for attention and understanding and action.

       Of course, "rumination" itself comes from what the cow does with its cud, "chewing the cud," which perhaps comes from a similar Sanskrit word meaning exactly the same thing.  What a good comparison:  to let a topic, a word, go round and around inside one before peacefully, satisfyingly, digesting it.

     

      

Best Pun in the World

       Just recalling the other day, out of nowhere (it seemed), the camping and backpacking store I stopped briefly at to admire its wondrous and welcoming gear and signs when I was going through Flagstaff, Arizona, some years ago.  (The "Peace Surplus" store I find online I think it was.)

       And I'm pretty sure THAT was the backpacking and camping store I read about later which had this wonder-super-wonderful-sign in its window one January:

        "Now Is The Winter of Our Discount Tents"

       (For a reminder of what's being punned on, please click here.)

"And do make it a great day."

       A call from the nurse by answering machine to remind of a doctor's appointment.  The nurse's final words surprised one to hear::  "And do make it a great day."

       OK, it's a medical appointment; a positive closing statement is not necessary or expected.  "Have a great day" is a cliche and out of place in any case.  But a sign-off that's a thoughtfully different twist warmed me to hear and brought a smile.

       I think the main reason is the contrast between "have" and "make," a reminder that I'm the one who's responsible for causing the great day to occur!

"Coming Back Like a Song," Part 6

       As I said several days ago, it could be the big splash that performers like Bennett and Gaga have made with their recent album or the PBS special they did together around a week ago, but I've been thinking again of how old songs come back to us, what exactly prompts their recall to us, and  an obvious way I haven't precisely mentioned is hearing that song sung by a great singer.

       So thanks, Lady Gaga, and maybe especially, thanks, Tony Bennett:

The music by Jimmy McHugh and lyrics by Dorothy Fields were composed in 1928, one year before the "official" beginning of the Great Depression.  That likely had something to do with the popularity and sustained appreciation of the song "I Can't Give You Anything but Love, Baby."  And today too?

(Now if you want to watch Tony and Lady do their studio video version of the song, click here.)

"Coming Back Like a Song," Part 5

       Whether by verbal, visual, or rhythmic association, all of these times that I caught the moment which engendered the song were relaxed occasions:  getting ready for tennis, eyeing food in the grocery, on a pleasure trip, taking a hike, at home while opening the refrigerator door or after running, or at ease with my wife.

       And I’m retired.  It helps to be relatively carefree for those good old songs to find their way back and come welling up into voice.  But when they do, it's also good to remember that we owe it to the great songsters:  composers, singers, lyricists, the ones who created the songs of our lives!

"Coming Back Like a Song," Part 4

       Maybe the most surprising song prompter is rhythmic association, not the exact word itself, but the rhythm of a word.

       While looking in the fridge to see if I had enough frozen yogurt:  “This’ll do,” I said out loud.  The rhythm of it (pitches too?) reminded me of “Over There,” and I was off singing it.  I wouldn't have recalled this  even five minutes later had I not purposely tried to catch it.

       After a morning run, I noticed a book of Connie's, and something happened when I mumbled the author's name:  "Lovesy."  “Kiss me once and kiss me twice and kiss me once again, It’s been a long, long time.”  The rhythm of “Lovesy” transferred itself by the alchemy of memory and association to “Kiss me,” and I was suddenly singing with great delight!


            (Click on this post for a good instance of rhythmic association.)   (I even sing it for you!)

  

"Coming Back Like a Song," Part 3

       Beside verbal association, there's just seeing things, visual association, that brings a song back.  Spying chestnuts in a grocery store leads to "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire."  (Thank you, Nat King Cole.)

       I look up one night on a pleasure trip and there's a very good moon up there, not full yet, but very bright and shining, hanging all by itself in the sky:  "Full Moon and Empty Arms."  (Actually, thank you Tchaikovsky, originally.)

       While taking a banana out of the fridge, a singing commercial comes back:  "Never put bananas in the refrigerator, no no no no."  (Little thanks to Chiquita Banana who I think misled us with that one.  I leave 'em in till the day before I use them, to preserve 'em, then bring 'em out to regain their warmth and flavor.)

"Coming Back Like a Song," Part 2

       I discovered three associations that bring back songs to me:  verbal, visual, and rhythmic.

       Driving along, hot sun coming through window on an early May day,  I say, "Oh, that feels SO NICE."  I hear myself saying it, then suddenly I'm singing, "You'd be SO NICE to come home to."

       Connie asks me what's wrong with the pants that need sewing.  I say, "The seams, the seams, it seems."  Then I'm off singing, "Seems like old times, having you to talk with."

       One day Connie mentions she thought she'd heard rain, but it wasn't raining.  A couple minutes later I'm singing, "Soon it's Gonna Rain."

       Dressing for tennis one morning, I muse "only five hours sleep," it transposes immediately into "Only five minutes more, give me five minutes more, only five minutes more in your arms."

          (For another verbal example I posted, including the song itself, please click here.)

      Red letter day.  Blog's 2nd anniversary.  Happy Birthday, Blog. 

"Coming Back Like a Song," Part 1

       Maybe it's because some pop singers are hitting it big at the moment--Tony Bennett with Lady Gaga,  Taylor Swift--that I'm thinking about what makes songs suddenly pop into our memory.

       I first started noticing a flood of songs coming back to me shortly after I retired.  "I catch myself singing these days," my journal says.  "It feels good."

       "Sentimental Journey," "There's a Small Hotel," "I've Grown Accustomed to Your Face," "Who Wouldn't Love You?" "An Irish Lullaby."  Journal:  "I'm loosening up the memory trails." 

       "You Do Something to Me," "Blue Moon," "Amapola," "It Had to Be You," "Get Me to the Church on Time."  These all in one day!  There were so many I decided to try to capture what triggered a song coming into my head.

                             (Continued Tomorrow)

END-OF-THE-WEEK-RUMINATIONS: "Do Not Go Gentle" (about the other night's post)

       I had memorized it previously but needed to refresh for sure.  I always think it will take only one recording for a poem performance.  Hah!  Screw a word.  Do over.  Next time, what was that awful noise during playback?  My grandson Micah had replugged in the ballclock I have behind me.  Steel balls go rattling down a slide on the hour!  Something made me a little uneasy during the next take, but I thought it had gone OK.  "Do not go gentle..." and "Rage, rage..." alternate as final lines of each successive stanza.   Had done two "Do not go gentles" in a row!  Fussing with the hardly professional lighting and look of things takes time too.  Thought the last take had made it.  Seemed good on replay.  Haven't had the courage to watch since.

       (See this page about the villanelle form Dylan Thomas chose, plus the poem itself.)   

"All the troubles you have will pass quickly."

        How artful the wording, Fortune Cookie.  If you had said, "The troubles you have will pass," one might have taken it as a harmless bit of encouragement.  With "All" it's the whole sum of troubles, and with "quickly" not just gone, but "snap of the finger."

       Yes, and the word "pass":  a euphemism for "die"?  Especially with "quickly."  Nice touch, Fortune Cookie.  And even if we didn't think we had too many troubles, we DO, you say, F. C., and LOTS of them,  maybe just the burden of LIVING?  It'll be gone, "Don't you worry."

       I am amused, and actually a little relieved.  I can feel the weight lifting already.

       That's the way it should be.

       You nailed it, Fortune Cookie, you nailed it.

                          "All the troubles you have will pass quickly."

"Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night"

       In honor of and thanks for Tom Hollander's wonderful performance as Dylan Thomas in tonight's airing of "A Poet in New York" on BBC America.

"Bedspread" vs. "Comforter"

       Making the bed the other day, I wondered again what to call the thing on top.  I asked Connie.  She thought either word would do.  My dictionaries tell me that the kind of distinction I was reaching for may actually exist, the cloth covering for a bed  being adequately called a "bedspread," whereas the layered pieces of cloth with some kind of filling, like down, in between is apparently more accurately called a "comforter," which sounds reasonable to me.

       I guess either item could have a decorative as well as protective function for the bedclothes beneath, and that's OK with me.  But I guess too I've always felt I'm doing something a bit more for the bed (and possibly the inhabitants of said bed) with the "comforter" we have than if it were a "bedspread."

"Re-up"

       I spontaneously (and thoughtlessly) said this when speaking to the executive director of our temple about our having rejoined the temple later than usual this year.  Why I should care whether it was an untoward word or not since this makes the 45th year in a row that we are members, I don't know!

       But I did wonder afterward whether it was really in the dictionary.  Yes, it was.  After my two years of service in the Korean thing, old sergeants asked me, "Are you going to re-up?"  "Why sign up for an organization in which I see no foreseeable future?" I would say.

       An informal military word begun early 20th century, "re-enlist"; now, also wider applications.  The Oxford English Dictionary designates it U.S. Slang.  Heaven forbid anyone British should use it! 

      

END-OF-THE-WEEK-RUMINATIONS: "LATEXTRA"

       A couple of the great young female journalists who made the LATEXTRA section sing (see Friday) are Nita Lelyveld and Kate Linthicum.  The kind of living stories of people in L.A. they told I don't want squeezed out of the renewed California section the Times is starting up.

       We need the down-to-earth identifiable reality of those stories for the reporters to grab ahold of and us readers to sink our hearts into.  I suggest reading this Judy Woodruff piece to get my view but from a true reporter; it's called "The News in Our Backyard."

       Yes, "California" shows promise with its widening scope to include heretofore undercovered, important regional and state-wide news.  Just leave room for the the soul of L.A. so we can recognize ourselves.
      

END-OF-THE-WEEK-RUMINATIONS: "Composed"

       Doing last Monday's post reminded me of my Dad's favorite poem "If" by Rudyard Kipling, which begins:


If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;


       If you can meet this and the good further prescriptions Kipling makes, then you too can "have the world and everything that's in it," and (skirting by the actual last line that challenged me)

And - which is more - you'll be composed, my son!


Find the poem here.

LATEXTRA Gone! Read All About It!

       A section of the L.A. Times is gone as of this week.  I rhapsodized over it a couple of years ago.  It was called LATEXTRA, and it would give more late-breaking news than the Front section could.   A response to television's and the Internet's timeliness.

       I loved that the "E" was red and served both words, which were butted up against each other like a website or emailaddress on your digital device.

       But more important, the section also sent fresh Metro reporters, mostly female, out to find human interest stories in L.A.  It got to be my favorite section; I'd read it first, as a kind of secret vice--interesting, well-written, local. . .articles done with a reporter's personal passion.  We need that to keep us grounded!

       I'm nostalgic for LATEXTRA. . .already.

I'm going to get a TSHATSHKE

       The Yiddish Book Center wants help, and it's hard to resist a four page letter that is packed with good reasons to send along some gelt.

       Can a guy interested in language turn down an outfit that's rescuing one?  Rescuing books themselves written in it, scanning those books for online perpetuity,  teaching the language to youngsters, translating these books into English for those who can't read Yiddish.

       Yes, it isn't only that they're rescuing a language, but my grandparents spoke it in my hearing, my parents spoke it somewhat, I know a few words, and some Yiddish is even English now (gelt).  It's too close to home not to help.

       Besides, I get a tshatshke (tchotchke), a commemorative Yiddish Kitchen Magnet, and it's useful! 

So Be Warned, Everybody

Click on comic to enlarge.

                                      theism                belief in deity

                                      a theism             belief in no deity

                                      a gnosticism      not knowing


                                    
 (non sequitur     not following)     
                                                
                                                       The official site for Non Sequitur is here.

A Promising Use of iPhone Language Capability

       Last Sunday's New York Times tells how iPhone's Siri is helping an autistic boy with communication problems.  Here's a sample exchange the boy's Mom overheard between 13 year old Gus and the female voice of Siri:

Gus:  "You're a really nice computer."
Siri:   "It's nice to be appreciated."
Gus:  "You are always asking if you can help me.  Is there anything you want?"
Siri:   "Thank you, but I have very few wants."

       Siri is endlessly patient, non-judgmental, has a sense of humor, and can even fend off naughty speech aimed at her:  "I'll pretend I didn't hear that."

       Gus's Mom says this is carrying over to longer exchanges with adults than Gus has ever had.  The article by Judith Newman is "To Siri, With Love," and you can find it here.

"Composed"

       Frank Gehry has a new building in Paris, and a critic yesterday described it as "eager to look...composed."

       It made me think of the wonderful malleability of language.  "Composed."  You start with "put" or "placed" (posed) and "together" (com), and you can end up with

            
"To make or create by putting together parts or elements.  To create or produce (a literary or musical piece).   To arrange aesthetically or artistically.  To make (oneself) calm or tranquil.  To arrange or set (type or matter to be printed)."  (AHD)


All this from "put together." 

       In  a letter recently to a relative about a dear cousin who died, I could say, "Some have their mental makeup with them so completely till the end. . .and Shirley was able to compose herself and compose indeed her life. . .to the end."
 


  
 

END-OF-THE-WEEK-RUMINATIONS: "My Cup Runneth Over"

       The Wednesday blog this week suggested keeping "my cup runneth over," rather than translating simply to get rid of "eth" endings, marked outmoded, OLD, "nobody speaks that way any more."

       A thought one might ponder is, does anybody have trouble understanding what "runneth" means?  Another is, what does "overflow" do to clarify/enhance the understanding or appreciation of the line?  or "runs over," "is running over," or other similar wording, compared with the time-honored and still-accessible "runneth"?

       The Hebrew itself offers no particular help, it being a verb that suggests "saturation."  So "full" might suffice too or even my rather snarkily suggested "filled to the brim."  Any variation on "overflows" or "runs over" is, perhaps, more an attempt to render the King James translation than the necessary literal meaning of the Hebrew.
       

END-OF-THE-WEEK-RUMINATIONS: "Apotheosis" and "Anathema"

       In last Sunday's post on "The Giving Tree," I surprised myself a little by those two big words at the close of it.  The surprise was, I guess, that I don't think of someone as moving into big words when emotions are aroused, usually more simple and direct language, maybe images or metaphors, but not large Greek and Latin words, which are often abstract.  And I was angry there.

       But only a "little" surprised because I am an academic (who learned those 365 words when a freshman in college--see post of October 2, 2014) and am wont to move into vocabulary mode as well.

       Struck by words.  It's a little like being electrocuted by lightning.


       (Succinctly:  "apotheosis"--deification
                               "anathema"--formally, ecclesiastically banned)

      

END-OF-THE-WEEK-RUMINATIONS: "Embed"

       Monday's post featured "embed," "em" being a form of "in," "n"s are sometimes easier to pronounce as "m"s; hence the spelling gets changed due to the mouth and tongue "asking" for it.  Here the "b" sound influences--it's a "two-lip"  sound; "n" is a tip-of-tongue-on-gumridge sound, while "m" is a two-lipper like "b"; "embed" is easier to say than "enbed."

      "Bed" is simple but has lots of uses, as in "flower bed," a post "embedded" in concrete; the reporter was an "EMbed" (changing from verb to noun with accent shifting to front syllable).

       DOES the use of "embedded" for Iraq reporters increase the likelihood or popularity of using "embed" for "tucking" files into a blog?

       Or perhaps I shoulda just stood "embed."
      

A Confusion of Sayings

       I first thought the sign on the store window had distorted a famous line from a poem by John Milton.
   

       The Milton line:  "They also serve who only stand and wait."

       But then there's a traditional proverb:   "Everything comes to he who waits."

       The actual line on a "Jamba Juice" store window?  "Good things come to those who juice."


       Well, in any case, the company has remedied the gender discrimination.

"My Cup Runneth Over"

       Conversation in the car:

Don:  What's that sound?  Kind of a high sound.
Connie:  My cups hitting each other.
Don:  Oh.  My cups tinkleth over.
Connie:  (Chuckle.)
Don:  Why did they change that!
Connie:  What?
Don:  "My cup runneth over."
Connie:  Oh.
Don:  From the 23rd Psalm.  They had to modernize it, didn't they?
Connie:  What's the modern version?
Don:  I don't remember.  "My cup's filled to the brim."
Both:  (Chuckling)
Don:  That does sound awful.  What's wrong with keeping those wonderful translations from the King James version?!      

Finding it on the "Rundown"

       The anchors at PBS make me salivate for a story that didn't get into the newscast.  All I have to do is "find it on the Rundown."   But this means getting up > going to the computer > finding PBS.org > the Newshour > the story.   The  ANCHORS can go after an hour's work and RELAX, but I have to rouse myself and "find it on the Rundown."

       If it was interesting enough, PUT IT ON THE DARN NEWSCAST!  Don't tantalize me when you and I both need a change from news anyway, maybe some entertainment?  Maybe you and I could meet outside ISIS and Congress and Ebola and drown our sorrows in a good drink!

       The idea of "Rundown" evokes too much energy at this time of night.  I don't think I can even "Walkover" to the "Rundown."

      

"Embed"

       I must now send my videos up to Youtube to receive a code; otherwise, I can't "embed" them on my blog such that smartphones can also see them.

       Until I learned this the other day, "embed" mostly meant to me a journalist staying with and following a military unit in Iraq. 

       Being embedded, I suppose, can be a tight fit or a cozy one depending on the circumstances; in any case a close one, for sure. 

       I found I could manipulate code and insert it in my blog without difficulty; "embed" is a pretty good word--the new code is tucked right in there midst other text and symbols--a foreign element--a video--among other text and instructions.  

       It worked!  I saw a video on my iPhone that had been a blank space before!

      

Oi, "The Giving Tree" by Shel Silverstein

       Teaching performance of children's literature to budding teachers for two or three years, I read and re-read this story, hoping to find something different each time, but it always said, "It's all right to take and keep taking, and you never have to give back."

       I once heard "The Giving Tree" used as the backbone of a Jewish Friday service, parts of the story alternating with parts of the service.  In a discussion afterward,  all in the room tacitly accepted that this was a quality story, and my regret to this day is that I did not speak up to express my dismay and anger.  Was the tree's endless giving anything less than the apotheosis of being a "Jewish mother"?  Was the boy's total selfishness anything less than anathema in a Jewish religious setting!! 

 

     

Accounting for Attractions, Relationships, Partings

       A much anticipated TV series called "The Affair" begins tomorrow night on Showtime.  Apparently it's about two married couples who don't know one another, but one member of each couple has an affair with the other.

       A psychologist was hired as consultant to the series, and a co-writer paraphrased a principal lesson the psychologist provided the show's writing team:  "[I]nfidelity is a lot more about who you are than about the person you're with."

       For some reason, this prompted me to conjure a formulation imperfectly connected and in another situation:  "If you're single, having a relationship is an infidelity to who you are as an individual."

"Cheek by Jowl"

       One of the pleasures of writing is finding words coming forth from your finger tips that you had either never used before or very seldom.  In the case of "cheek by jowl" in yesterday's post, I wasn't even sure of the first word in the expression.  I started putting down "teeth by jowl."  Maybe I used teeth because I'm talking about food, but maybe, I just so seldom use the phrase (or see it used), it wasn't until I looked it up that I found cheek showing up more regularly and pretty much the main choice.

       It's a colorful expression and a perfect fit.  When you're surprised at words' appearance that are  yet an exact characterization of what you observed, only gratefulness and delight are in order.

 

Chicken "Pop Eye"

       Right NEXT to one another at eye level in the freezer window at Ralph's Grocery Store while I was shopping yesterday:


                             "Chicken Pot Pie"   "Chicken Pad Thai"


About as American a dish as you can get, cheek by jowl with about as Thai a dish as you can get.

"Pitcher" by Robert Francis

       It's all over for the Dodgers.  The touted "Freeway World Series" between the Angels and Dodgers is a smirk in the eye of the baseball gods.   Three and out, four and out for the two respectively, in a five game series.

       My own analysis?  Vaunted Pitcher Kershaw for the Dodgers could have used a little more of what 2nd ranked pitcher Greinke of the Dodgers evidences at a higher level still:  the "art" of pitching.

       Robert Francis says it about as well as anyone I know:

     
Pitcher
 by Robert Francis

His art is eccentricity, his aim                                                      How not to hit the mark he seems to aim at,

His passion how to avoid the obvious,
His technique how to vary the avoidance.

The others throw to be comprehended. He
Throws to be a moment misunderstood.

Yet not too much. Not errant, arrant, wild,
But every seeming aberration willed.

Not to, yet still, still to communicate
Making the batter understand too late.

Christopher Columbus Transcontinental Highway

       There's always a certain air of excitement when we leave friends in Santa Monica, get on the 10 Freeway and see a sign announcing something challenging, adventurous, fundamentally American.  This is how it looks:


Coming closer, I glimpse more clearly the words that turn me on, and make me smile:

We've just put the Pacific behind us; the 10 will take us all the way there, to the Atlantic.  I'm ready to explore, my sense of discovery aroused.  So's my wife's I hope, because we're GOING, and the motor seems to gun itself!

OK, OK, so in a couple of miles , we take a left turn, and the 405 shoots North to the San Fernando Valley.  My great reverse traverse of American vastness West to East has been cut unmercifully short!

But we can still see our Santa Monica friends again, AND...renew the glorious stimulus of this imagined adventure.  It begins HERE!

An Important Scrap of Paper

Please click on comic to enlarge

       I so identify with him.  I keep a daily 3" x 5" scrap of paper with my "list" for that day "to do."  I'm lost without it.  Sometimes it escapes to the "other" pocket.  Sometimes I leave it next to the phone where I've been calling.  Sometimes I've pulled it out of my tennis shorts while reaching for a Kleenex and never seen it again.  I've changed clothes and forgotten to shift it to a new pair of pants.

       I'm lost without it...Sometimes, I remember what it was I haven't done yet, and do it.  Or more often, spend endless time looking for it and when I find it, find I've done everything on it already.  What a waste!  But nevertheless, I'm VERY relieved I found that scrap of paper!  

"Amen"

       A word uttered often during the High Holidays, just completed.  "Amen" is a word that takes one back to an ancient tongue, the language of origin of the Jewish people.

       Tracing a not totally unfamiliar course into the past, the American Heritage Dictionary follows the word from Middle English to Old English to Latin to Greek to Hebrew "amen, certainly, verily."  The OED adds "from base 'mn be firm, be certain."

       But of the different possible translations, including "truly" and "so be it," I think I like best what I remember Rabbi Don Goor once using:  "May it be so."  That has about it for me humility as well as resolve.
      

A Tale of Two Rabbis

       I recently heard a sermon.  The  conclusion I could endorse and accept, but I had no idea how the rabbi got to it.   The body of the sermon seemed to be heading in (an)other direction(s) entirely.   I was puzzled and dizzy with the twists the sermon took down dark alleyways, making sharp turns at high speed, endangering "life and limb" of those the rabbi had taken along for the ride.

       In other respects I thought this rabbi showed clear signs of being a good, reliable congregational rabbi.

       When we were first married, Connie and I heard great sermons for several months of a rabbi near our home in N.Y.C.   He gave literate, thoughtful. well constructed sermons every week, with point and value, smiles and tears, beautiful imagery,  colorful examples, inspiring anecdotes.  The congregation fired him, and I was told, to my astonishment, that's ALL he had time for each week:   "No, I'm sorry, the rabbi is writing his sermon."  He was never available for any needs of his congregants.