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)