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.

Journalistic Conundrum

       Concert honoring John Williams, music-maker extraordinaire.  At the end of the review:


                    "Williams, who is a vigorous 82, has been                                                         lauded for ages.  More celebrations are                                          evitable."


       I made the proofreader's error and figured the word was "inevitable," then...read what was actually there.  Did you fall for the phantom word?  Then see and self-correct while laughing at the mistake in print?  I did.

       But did you wonder whether it was, in fact, a word?  Yes, it is.  This word means "avoidable."

      Now does the context tell you that the intended word was the one that means "unavoidable" (still "vigorous" at "82") or the word we see in print (after all he's been "lauded for ages")? 

       (Also, another example of a word that spell-check would never have questioned.  It's in the dictionary.)

        

I Ran Away with Language, Staying Right at Home

       Every good long-term habit I've had has been a daily practice pertaining to language.

       *  V-mails I wrote to my older brother Dick during World War II, blue, light-weight paper, a single thin sheet folded.  Mailed weekly, but I wrote daily and fit the meager things I had to report in my early teens into seven carefully printed entries.  Through North Africa, Italy, and into the South Pacific Dick went.  Two, three years, one packed page a week from me.

       *  Learning  one new word a day for meaning and one for pronunciation my first year of college, 365 days.  Creating a sentence in which the new word could be used and reviewing the word from yesterday and the week preceding.

       *  Now this blog, 135 word limit, almost two years of daily posts.

      

His Words and Voice Echo Still

       Watching and listening to the Ken Burns work on the Roosevelts, I certainly recalled those twelve years of Franklin Roosevelt's presidency from 1933 to FDR's death in 1945.  Well, I was three when he became president, 15 when he died.

       It was a period when somebody who found he was interested in speech could hear good speeches--Roosevelt, Churchill--and hear them well spoken.  And somebody interested in radio could hear in Roosevelt's fireside chats a man who knew that radio spoke to one or two, not millions.

       And with FDR--that cultured, Eastern accent, just natural to him, and clear and self-confident and full of noblesse oblige as any average Midwesterner might take pleasure in looking up to--the whole image of a President, the only one you'd ever known, was there complete.