DYK? "Dumbbell"

DYK? The word "dumbbell" is a compound of the words "dumb" and "bell" which originally just meant a bell that didn't make any noise. Dumb bells were first used to train novices church bell ringers on how to sound the intrument properly without annoying parishers and passerbys.

The connection between dumb bells and exercise showed up as early as 1711. Back then, you rung church bells by yanking on a long rope and in the process, drew your body from the extended to crouched position, an ecclesiastic version of "the squat." Nowadays, church bells are played via a keyboard, as part of an intrument called a carillon. The players are no longer referred to as ringers, dumbbells, first generation gym bunnies or Quasimodo but rather "carillonneurs."

Back to exercise: Contemporary dumb bells are thought to have received their shape from the handbell instrument like so...

Which here look like a fine way to strengthen the wrists. Turned on its side, though, and you're ready for bicep curls.

(via the wonderful endlessly addictive Podictionary).

Mythological concepts of paradise and the rappers who represent them...

I've been having great fun reading McSweeney's Lists that last few days so decided to try one of my own.

And it would seem I've caught some sort of bug. Below is attempt #2.

MYTHOLOGICAL CONCEPTS OF PARADISE AND THE RAPPERS WHO REPRESENT THEM...

Vahalla Back

L Dorado

Jannah Z

Mag Mellie Mell

Naughty by Nirvana

Elysium Skeekium

Aaru D2

Thought of the Day: "Crisis"

"Any idiot can face a crisis; it is this day-to-day living that wears you out."

--Anton Chekhov (via The Writer's Almanac)

One Sentence Movie Review: "Seven Pounds"

Seven Pounds (2008): "An act of sacrifice can be as selfish and aggressive  as an act of greed."

Extras:

• Rotten Tomatoes Rating

• Black Men, The Movies and the making of an Obama presidency. (NY Times).

• "13 Movies Featuring Magical Black Men" (AV Club). 

Thought of the Day: "Gravity"

"So if you care to find me
Look to the western sky
As someone told me lately -
Everyone deserves the chance to fly."

--Wicked

Word of the Day: "Ingot"

Ingot (noun): A mass of metal in convenient shipping size.

Heard: On the most recent episode of Radiolab.

Understanding the Health Care Crisis: The one-stop guide...

I've never quite understood our contemporary health care crisis, save "Health costs too much and employers/insurance companies/health care providers have an incentive to provide less of it because it costs too much." And even that insight comes fully digested from Sicko, admittedly one strand of a very complicated knot of issues.

Then I picked up last week's New Yorker. In it was a terrific article called "Getting There From Here" by Dr. Atul Gawande that outlines precisely what can and will need to happen to lift the American health care system out of the mess it's in. It contains no political agenda nor easybake maxims. Instead, the article is an elegant docent tour of the world's healthcare systems and the historical circumstances that brought about their creation. All dialectical roads then lead back to the same conclusion: Something as vast as a healthcare system must be reformed incrementally and not with the stroke of a pen. Too many lives depend on its functional existence, however poor, to hit the reset button. There is no do-over. There is only do-a--little-bit-bettter, as often and quickly as we can.

Dr. Gawande won't answer all your questions here (I still don't get why the single-payer ystem has this name. Who is the single payer? The government? You? Isn't just a nice way of not saying "government run") nor will he sratch your political itches with a screaming defense or condemnation. He has instead presented what we see too little of around this debate-perspecitve, thoughtfullness, calm--and why I hope is a sign of things to come.

Also:

• Dr. Gawande answers reader questions at New Yorker.com

Thought of the day: "What One Liked"

"To read what one liked because one liked it, never to pretend to admire what one did not."

--Virginia Woolf (via The Writer's Almanac)

Thought of the Day: "Pessimism"

"Pessimism is a luxury of good times … In difficult times, pessimism is a self-fulfilling, self-inflicted death sentence." (via TED Talks).

--Evelin Lindner

One Sentence Movie Review: "Tex"

Tex (1982): "Assuming the audience knows your source material, if it's a classic young adult novel, is almost always as it turns an adaptation into a recital."

Seen: As part of my next book project which I'm being a little cryptic about on purpose.