What did this say. . .?

       Sometimes a music review doesn't quite add up.

       Three worthy artists were playing a program of trios for violin, piano and cello.  One sentence from the review reads:

       "Shostakovich, the great poet of 20th century anxiety, was also a folklorist.  Bell and Isserlis [the violinist and cellist] conveyed the sad intonations of his dancelike Jewish themes in the Allegretto finale with bittersweet urgency and a gripping life-affirming anger."

       It may not be too surprising, therefore, to find in the sub-headline that leads the review these  words:

       ". . . this ensemble's stirring and thrilling playing inspires quiet respect."


("All-star trio and argumentative couple," Los Angeles Times, May 10, 2019, Calendar Section, p. E3)

  

Unwrapping an Unconscious Rap

       For too long, I was without the map on my iPhone home page.  I needed it and somehow got it again--pulled it down, uploaded, downloaded it--I don't know.  And I suddenly, joyfully, found myself proclaiming:

"I got my Apple Map App Back!!"
 

Simple word: "Dashboard"

       I was wondering about the word "dashboard."

       You may not be surprised to know it comes from the days before "horseless carriages" (later  shortened to "car" when the "horseless" was presumed and "carriage" was too long a word for this new fast-moving motorized vehicle of maybe 30 miles an hour).

       From 1846, says etymonline, when carriages were still "horsefull" the dashboard was on the front of the carriage, not where the passengers were,  a "board or leather apron" "to stop mud from being splashed ('dashed') into the vehicle by the horse's hooves."

       Remember the wonderful Oscar Hammerstein lyrics from Oklahoma's "Surrey with the Fringe on Top":

              The wheels are yeller, the upholstery's brown,
              The dashboard's genuine leather
              With isinglass curtains you can roll right down
              In case there's a change in the weather.

Krazy Senior Reading Can Get Sticky

       I found  Krazy Glue does more than just put together balsa wood parts on a model airplane, which I learned years go; it manages to hold together plastic and metal parts as well, as so it proved today in helping repair my sunglasses.

       What Krazy Glue also made me realize today is my regular prescription glasses may need some "repair" too.  Either that, or I'm guilty of "creative," perhaps neglectful (?), misreadings.

       We all knew too Krazy Glue can get fingers to stick to one another, but I was surprised even more to see under "PRECAUTIONS":  "Avoid indigestion." What!!  I don't swallow this stuff.  A belated re-look turned the word into "ingestion." 

       Then I relaxed through more directions until I came upon " . . . contact a prison [LINE BREAK]."  WHAT again!  Rereading produced " . . . contact a poison / control center."


       

       
      

Cute twenty-something with blond curls

       Tongue-twisters come from many different places, including a random newspaper story.  A baseball player is making his first entry to the major leagues, and as the son of a former great player for the same team, he's of interest, anything about him, including Vladimir Guerrero, Jr.'s

                                     "bleached-platinum dreadlocks."

       Well, they're not so much a tongue-twister as a "mouth drencher."  Get in all those syllables distinctly, say it ten times, at moderately fast pace, and I could almost guarantee your lips will churn up a mouthful of moisture.  Not too easy to say without fumbling either. 

"Just Fill In the Blanks"

       One of the least likely to be successful telemarketing campaigns: 

       A phone call came.  There was no sound, no voice              
                    for a number of seconds


       and then, "Just fill in the blanks."


       And that's all that was said.

"Waldorf Salad for Taurus Study"

       This title appeared among the voice memos on my iPhone, dated 10/2/18.  In looking back recently, I asked myself, "What the heck was this?"

       Oh.

       Periodically, I bring part of the repast we provide ourselves at Temple on noon Wednesdays.  I recorded the note while eating a Waldorf Salad at a restaurant, listed the ingredients I saw before me so I could put them together for such a salad.

       iPhone made no mistake as I dictated the title of the memo orally.  The pronunciation would have been no different from what I uttered, but what Apple chose to hear was quite different from what I was saying:  "Torah Study."

       "Taurus" being from Greek through Latin:  "Bull"

Who Says Birds Don't Have Home Addresses?

 I would have knocked, but I was afraid it might frighten them.

And who am I to upset a household?


But I heard them.





      

A Selfish Post?

 

 I told my daughter Elizabeth, who is standing by the poetry peddler bicycle (Elizabeth started and leads the community organization Urban Poetry Pollinators in Tucson) that the bottle, her hand, and the decorated red flag on the poetry mailbox make her look like a sylph.  In fact, you could call the photo a sylphie.

Coal Train and Coltrane, 2 Different Tracks

       In November, 2017, there was news about Canada wanting to carry coal they'd dug at home over U.S. soil to reach a port on our West Coast to ship to China.  This was the fastest and shortest route for them.  But it was encouraging fossil fuels, and environmentalists were disputing the use of such "coal trains."

       My head of a sudden knew that I had both coal train and Coltrane rattling around in there. Pronounce them exactly alike, and everyone would know exactly what or who you meant in either case!  But one was a much honored jazz saxophonist, and the other was . . . a coal train!

       Our tongues and minds don't blanch in the least at such tasks--they're proud multi-service organizations.


        

Sign-age

       Rough Roads 
                  Loose Gravel 
                            Uneven Lanes


 --three signs right next to each other at the side of the road in such a way as to not be applicable to anything within sight.

       But they certainly seemed to apply to my life, at times.

I MUSICI

       I pulled up to a red light behind a car with a license plate that caught my eye.  It said IMUSICI.  

       A vanity license plate that honored the great Italian classical music ensemble "I MUSICI" [eee-MOOZ-ih-chee]?  I've heard their wonderful recorded performances, notably Italian works such as Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons."

       The car ahead was worn, but the musical taste--excellent.  I fumbled for my cell to take a photo, but the light was changing; one last look instead to assure myself of what I saw.

        I realized then those first and last letters were really the number 1, "No. 1 music No. 1."  I was deflated, and I wasn't sure what the meaning was for the driver.

       But oh, well, good to see the great things honored even if only a passing figment!
       

A.O.Sea?

        Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is one of the newly elected Members of the House in Congress and is having an impact with her probing questions in committee and her "Green New Deal" proposal.   She's even already known by her initials only, A.O.C., maybe partly because her full name has a lot of letters and syllables to cover. 

      A side-light moment on my car radio--I heard it dialing by, I think, a comedy oriented talk show--referred to her as "A. O. C. of Cortez," which I thought was a funny play on those initials:  the "Sea of Cortez."  But where is that again on the map??  Oh, just about directly south of me down Mexico way;  I'd actually slept in soft sand and collected sand dollars there; it's also called the Gulf of California.

  

Excess Orange Juice Admonishment

       After grudgingly pouring Connie a refill for her already consumed 16 ounce glass of morning orange juice, I was moved to remark:

         "You've had enough orange juice for a ship-load of sailors
                               circumnavigating the globe!"

Shout out; Call out

       "Shout out" and "Call out" sound alike, but they're just about the opposite of each other..  If you "shout out" to somebody, you want to recognize or acknowledge, call attention to, praise in some fashion, somebody whom you want to name; you "shout out" to them and usually in front of an audience.

       To "call out" in front of an audience or in print or electronically is to point out somebody who needs reproval and needs attention called to them because of something disturbing or not good about them.  That's "calling out" somebody.  It's really the opposite of "shouting out."
 

The NAGgy adVOCATE

       We have a friend who recommends things that she loves and believes that we will love too:  TV programs, documentaries, movies, etc.  She's a real booster for what she admires.  We appreciate that because she has good and elegant taste.

       More than that, she's insistent, so if you haven't watched her recommendations by the next time she sees you, she'll keep after you!

       I mention this because I love the name she came up with for what she does and who she is when she does this:  our friend Gena Bleier is a NAGVOCATE!

       That is a great portmanteau word.  It has something of the Yiddish word "yenta" in it too for my money; that word, like this, carries both highborn, genteel echoes AND the slightly coarser resonance of a busybody.

       She's coined it!  

                               

"100 % Recycled . . ."

I don't like seeing the phrase
"100 percent Recycled"
on toilet paper!

Somehow it gives me the creeps.
My imagery gets working.

And I don't want to give this paper
any access
to my . . . (posterior).

Does Trump Have his Wits about him--Oh, Maybe it's his Jester's.

       On the "Reliable Sources" program Sunday, March 24th, over CNN,  I heard the redoubtable journalist Carl Bernstein of Watergate coverage fame use some words that had my head snapping to attention.

       Bernstein  speaks with a good degree of objectivity when he comments on "the week in Trump news and coverage."  He's learned the hard way and earned the capacity to observe with fairly cool and detached eyes the behavior of wayward presidents.

       I've tested my memory and come up with close to the exact words Carl used, especially the three crucial ones that had my head snapping.  Bernstein said that when we're listening to President Trump talk, we have to decide "whether he's being sharp-witted, dim-witted, or half-witted."  He kept a pretty even tone while saying this.
 

Songs Attach Themselves to You: "send in the clowns"

Tone? Fox Circling its Prey

       My wife likes to scratch and get rid of things on the skin.  It doesn't limit itself to her.

       Last night she asked me,"What's that little thing on the side of your face?"

       I said, "It's a thing the dermatologist is going to take off at the end of March, don't come near it."

       "I wasn't going to come near it."

       I left the room in a huff, but I spoke through the doorway again, "Then why did you sound so greedy!'

"Upmost"; "Utmost"

Photo taken November 26th, 2018 in a local grocery store

       Seems to me it's an easy thing to do.  You hear it that slightly different way, and you can tell it means about what we know as "utmost."    The notice is worded appropriately, you'd spell it the way you heard it, and would rightly think you'd conveyed its meaning.

       Similar to the person who I heard pronounce the word "awry" [uh-RYE] as [AW-ree], and from the context it was clear he knew what it meant.  He probably had read it silently, hadn't heard anyone say it, and figured he knew the pronunciation.

       So probably the reverse situation of the person who wrote "upmost."  That "upmost" person heard the word, understood it, but had never seen it in writing.  The [AW-ree] person read the word, understood it, but had never heard it spoken!
   
       

Large Finger; Small Cellphone

       A call came from my son while I was talking to a doctor during an office visit.  Among the suggested quick text responses, I touched "I can't talk right now." The phone stopped ringing as soon as I did that.

       David texted me back, and I didn't know why at the time, "To the phone?"

       Yes, iPhone 5 is small; my finger, while not large, was big enough to miss the intended message and hit one of the five others which are in pretty small print.  Only when I talked to David later did I learn that I had hit

                                        "I'm on my way!"

"Have To"; "To Have"

       I recently had occasion to recall an essay I wrote about the expression "have to."  Typically we think of the words as implying obligation, responsibility.  Something impels us because of family, job, friendship, etc.  "I have to go to work."

       When the wave of existentialism left Europe's shores and splashed down post-World War II in America, suddenly, it seemed, the words could have different meaning.  Just change the word order:  "I have work to go to."  Now the obligation from outside oneself is reduced and the sense is of something one possesses; it's a part of one's own life, an option one has chosen.

      Sometimes changing word order can change your whole philosophy.
    

"Apocalipstick"

        I learned about this rock album on the radio a couple years ago.  I never heard any of the music or words on it, but the title amuses and provokes me.

       The interviewer told Cherry Glazerr, the female singer and band leader on the recording, "I like the word play, but any other particular significance?"  She said "No."  "OK," he said, "Fine."

       But that perfect binding of the two words "apocalypse" and "lipstick" says it all, or at least suggests plenty!  The end of the world yoked to something specific, personal, intimate, feminine, the opposite of horrendous world-ending images.  Or maybe not?  Who will bring about the apocalypse?  Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmmm!   Some say after that cataclysm, evil will be defeated, good triumphant.  Possibilities?  Nice.  Challenging.  "Apocalipstick."    

Straining for a Metaphor

        Sometimes they speak of a close political competition as a horse race.  But when the race is very close, twice I've seen reporters in print calling the race "neck in neck."

       There's a disconnect there.   Maybe the reporters have never been to a horse race or seen one on TV or film.  Maybe they've only heard the expression, not actually seen it in print before.  But that's where the expression originated:  Two horses fighting it out down to the wire, necks straining in synchronous forward motion.  Only a photo-finish can decide the victor!

       Since the metaphor is a horse race, the journalist today in the L.A. Times should have had it that Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz in Israel were "neck and neck"; how else will the expression make sense?

Is Time Circular, Linear, or Cubic?

     I have two black cube radio clocks; I got them cheap.  All the language on them explaining the many buttons and switches is imprinted into the plastic itself and therefore also in black.

     It's hard to read black on black, especially when it's on all 6 sides.  One of the cubes thankfully changed to DST by itself.  The other in another room didn't budge; the next morning inscrutable symbols and words occasionally came into view as I twisted my Rubik's Cube.  I manually entered correct time.

      Connie exclaimed, "What time is it!" today as her head swiveled between a third clock and this one.  The cube had finally caught up with the signal, thus making time wrong again in the other direction.  Another clumsy resetting with Rubik. 

     The two illegible clocks serve their master, reluctantly.
 

The Duke and the Duck

     I do get mixed up on the titles in English royal families.

     The American actress married the English prince and became what I heard as "The Duke and Duck of Suchex."  Drum rolls please for Their Royal Highnesses.

     Of course, when I sorted it all out, I found their actual monikers were "The Duke and Duchess of Sussex."   Unless that was "The Duke and Duchess of Suffix."  The last word is something of a caboose to the title, isn't it, just appended to it like a suffix?

     No?  Well, all right then.

     May they live happily ever after!           

    

Should Such a Threat Be Prohibited Public Utterance?

     Writing about swastikas and Nazi salutes yesterday reminded me that gestures, symbols, words can be predictive forerunnrs of violent acts.

     And that in turn reminded me of what Stephen Smith, the executive director of the USC Shoah Foundation, wrote in the Jewish Journal of November 2-8, 2018, something that shocked me.  Speaking of those who proclaim publicly that the Holocaust never happened, Smith said:

                       "[S]peech denying the Holocaust carries with it
                        the inherent threat of the original crime itself."

"Normalizing Hate"

     That's a recent pair of words.

     Last weekend about a dozen high school kids made a large swastika out of Solo party cups,  gathered around it and gave the Nazi salute.   A photo went out on social media.

     It happened not in Nazi Gemany but "right down the street" in Costa Mesa, California, United States of America, and maybe near whereever you are too.

     Peter Levi,  regional director of the Anti-Defamation League of Orange County,  says in yesterday's L.A. Times he hasn't seen any evidence the students in the photos were Nazis or Nazi sympathizers, but said their actions "normalize hate." 

     "They normalized swastikas.  They normalized Nazi Salutes."

     "What starts as jokes then becomes discrimination," Levi said, "No hate crime murder started that day.  That person started years ago peddling in jokes and stereotypes."

    
    

Looking Askance at a TV Host's Squint

     Watching Chris Matthews on MSNBC, I noticed the eyes of the "Hardball" host narrow as he introduces a video, wanting to see the video himself and thinking he'll see it better if he squints.

     Then it occurred to me, the utterance of the word "squint" has its own squint within it.  

     The mouth is imitating the eye movements of a squint as one utters the word "squint."  Just as the eyes narrowing help bring the screen into sharper focus for the near-sighted, the lips tighten into a smaller, tense pursing as one utters the sounds of [skwihnt]. 

     I only wish Matthews would wait when he says, "Let's watch this," until the camera is off him and onto the video before he begins his squint.   Squinting is unbecoming to an anchor/host! 
     

I'd Rather Have a Twisted Tongue than One of These

     From the annals of baseball failings and ailings come this one, and you've got to wrap your tongue around it at least 7 times fast:


                     TORN GROIN
   
     "OUCH!"  And if you said it fast, your lips might also need a stretcher!
 

Whiling Away the Morning

     One day I said this to myself, and then I thought, "What a funny expression--one while after the other."


          while,
          while,
          while,
          while,
          while,

          just whiling away the morning.


     To better feel the morning going by, when you say it aloud, try to utter the breath sound [h] first and merge with the sound [w] following.  It takes a while longer to say.
                                                           
     The Proto-Indo-European root is kweie-, "to rest, be quiet."

"Feed a Cold, Starve a Fever"

    A nice antithetical device, right?  Opposites or contrasts facing one another.  Feeding versus starving; a cold's mild, a fever...?  Yet "device" is almost a demeaning word to me when it comes to literature and language.  Yes, it's a way to make words memorable.  "Ask not . . ." You can say the rest.   

     BUT REALLY, it's a way of conceiving and relating, of noticing things in tension with one another in real life, in one's experience and sight.  So "device" is small-minded compared to the capacity to see, understand, and express one's world with language that illuminates it.

     Word and Phrase Origins by Robert Hendrickson says that the Greek "father of medicine" Hippocrates is credited with the "prescription" but that "several doctors" have recently doubted its scientific truthfulness.  Personally, I'm with Hippocrates.

I Failed a Course in Speed Reading

     I've finally decided it was a blessing in disguise, perhaps.  Language is so juicy and fun that it's a shame to race through it.  And slow reading goes deeper oft times.  It certainly gives you a chance to savor and contemplate. 

     And reading aloud plays around with all of those advantages and offers the opportunity to share them with others.

Just a 20th Century Hangover?

     Texting when you can make a phone call is being in touch without really being in touch.

"An Unfathomable Amount of Rain"

    You  know when even Noah would be praying for his life from too much water?  I think I heard a forecaster come up with it on the radio program, “The World.”

     The weatherman spoke of  “an unfathomable amount of rain.”  That REALLY caught my ear, and would have, I think, caught Noah’s if he happened to be tuned in to FM.
 
     The word “fathom” roots itself in the Indo-European meaning “to spread,” grew into Old English and other tongues to be the measure between two outstretched arms, solidified to become exactly 6 feet, and is ordinarily the measure used to plumb the depth of water bodies.

     From the weatherman’s tone, I don’t think he was being consciously ironic in the expression, but only thinking metaphorically:   unable to comprehend so much rain, it was “unfathomable.”
   

Words Travel on Beasts of Burden

     Finally, another English word that comes from Hebrew, so rare, so hard to find. 

     Now "camel" comes to my notice and, like "sack" from Hebrew, it's a word that gets around.  Sacks in which goods were held were on camels' backs on the trading routes of the ancient world, from Southeast Asia through South Asia, to the Middle East, including Israel, and even reached Europe by trade with Greece and Rome; Rome traded with Germanic tribes and brought these words from Latin into Germanic tongues, and thence Old English.

     Yes, CAMELS got around that way, and so did SACKS, sacks of goods that people wanted along all those trade routes. And the people of other tongues heard the words: 

     "If that's what they call this awesome beast of burden, then we must too!"

                    Please see the "Word History" of "sack" in the American Heritage Dictionary!



  

Souvenir Romance

     Still wearing my gondolier blue-and-white-striped shirt from Venice, I kissed Connie goodnight from the bedside, and her slightly decollete nighty drew my attention.

     Connie said, "I like your gondolier shirt."

     I said, "I do too," and my hand went down to caress a breast.

     Connie said, "The gondolier never did that."

     I said, "I just thought I'd fondle a bit.   It's because I'm kinda fond o' you . . . and it's kinda fun."

     

What's Left After We're Gone?

     Speaking, as I was Friday in the blog, of California's killer wildfires, I reminded myself of a noun met often enough in the news accounts of those horrific events, "remains," a body after death.

     Terrible as it is to contemplate someone's death of suffocation, or any other mortal blow, what it is that remains of the body after a racing inferno takes the living person in one's tracks a few steps from one's own front door is a totally consumed body, just ashes.

      And for that common enough occurrence in the town of Paradise, CA., during the wildfire, there is now the word (since 1947) "cremains," the blending of the words "cremation" and "remains," though "blending" seems just too inexcusably mellow a term to describe this particular neologism.

      For those who choose cremation, the harshness disappears.    

Imagine it on the Lips, Minds, and Hearts of Those Affected

     The names of two California fires make me lift my head and grimace my brows every time I hear them; no matter what, I can't resist, when I read 'em or listen.  One is the "Camp" fire, it's a wildfire in California.  A campfire?   It's destroyed hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles of trees and  homes and people, and it's called a campfire.

     And the other one is "Holy Fire," the "Holy Fire"!  What?!  My eyebrows again.  I have to, when I read that.  It's horrendous.  California wildfires.   One of them is called the "Holy" fire?  These are unholy fires.  They destroy, taking, immolating human lives.

     I know they get their names from something identifying them near the place the fire was incited.

     But please, pause a second and listen . . . before you choose.

For Connie

                                                                              

Siri and I Had an Exchange

     Siri (who will answer your questions on Apple's iPhone) said that one of the questions I could ask was, "Where's my sister?"

     So I asked, "Where's my sister?" 

     Siri responded that she couldn't find a listing for my sister, what was her first and last name?

     I said, "No, you're right, I don't have a sister.  I don't."

     And Siri responded, "Who am I to say otherwise?"


     In all this, I spoke; and Siri texted.
 

And Cummings is Still Coming at You

     This is the whole passage that precedes my previous entry. 


A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feelings through words.

This may sound easy. It isn’t.

A lot of people think or believe or know they feel — but that’s thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling. And poetry is feeling — not knowing or believing or thinking.

Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself.


      Cummings also has a poem that begins (and is titled) "Since feeling is first."
 

EEK, E.E. Cummings is Coming at You

  
     It currently graces the splashy TV tube in our living room, not only in word, but in voice, of inimitable poet E. E. Cummings.  Yes, it's on a car commercial, but if the recorded voice weren't recognizable, (as it is to me), the words in their form, in their manner, would be.  Not to mention their dignity, their intensity, their "hold off the world" insistence, their truthfulness:

To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

         I found the source of the Cummings quote at a wonderful website called "Brain Pickings"; you can find it too at brainpickings.org, "The Courage to Be Yourself."   

      

Is it never too late to use the old words?

 You really are getting up there in years when you mention in conversation something is "Newfangled" and realize just how oldfangled that word sounds.

Actually "newfangled" IS the older word (14th century), and "oldfangled" is first found in 1842 as patterned after"newfangled."
 
Merriam-Webster tells us both words derive from Old English fangen, "to take or seize."  

My 2019 entries pick up tomorrow on Feb. 7, 2019.