The Unified Code of Morning Measurements (aka A Little Something I wrote)

Wherein we measure the earliest hours of the day by the list of figures found on the inside flap of a Trapper Keeper.

 

• 4 smooth sheets to an Oversleep

• 2 cold hands to a FanOn

• When speaking of stomachs, 1 LateSnack is said to equal 9 stone.

• Laundry as obstacle is only considered such when it can be measured in cubic feet like a snow drift or landfill. Otherwise, please refer to as “a hillock of laundry”

•  Trips to the bathroom may be measured in feet (bare or socked), yards (hopefully not back or front) but only rods or gallons if you’re being really gross.

• The number of pints input is directly proportional to number of Regrets (Chemical Symbol OhNo) output.

• Good Intentions (Gis) decrease as Snooze Bars (Sbs) increase. A dozen or more Sbs is commonly referred to as a Pathetic.

 

• 8 hours = 1 Success 

          7 hours = 3/4 of an Adequate

 

          6 hours = 1 basket case

 

          5 hours = 1 bushel (i.e. 2) bakset cases.

 

• In olden times a “Sundown” was equal to a null set of Work. All that has changed.  

 

Classical Music and Cinema: Wagner and Apocalypse Now

I'm going to be writing occasional short pieces on classical music in cinema for Salon97.org. The first one explores the use of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" in Francis Coppola's Apocalypse Now.

 

In his 1979 review of Apocalypse Now, Roger Ebert called the scene above “simply the greatest movie battle scene ever filmed.” I’m with him on that one and not because of its pacing, photography or that you could watch it 15 times in a row and not bore once. Try muting the sound and it’s still great cinema. Now turn it back up and the music takes a great battle scene and gives it another life–as historical double entendre and a microcosm for the film’s thoughts on war itself. In a hail of strings we all recognize, the triumphant arrival of our military becomes a ironic anti-climax, a white horse dragging a chariot piled with corpses.

Full post at Salon97.org

DYK: Why "The White Album" is Redundant...

When The Beatles released their ninth studio album in November of 1968, its proper name was simply "The Beatles." The all-white cover was designed by pop artist Richard Hamilton, an admirer of the provocative minimalism of Marcel Duchamp.

The name "The White Album" was probably first dreamed up by journalists and fans to avoid confusion, just as Peter Gabriel's first three solo albums (all named "Peter Gabriel") are nicknamed "Car", "Scratch" and "Melt" according to their sleeve designs. How soon the more wordily nerdy intervened, I don't know, but I've been listening The White Album for nigh on 20 years now before realizing the following..

The name "White Album" is redundant. The word "album" comes from the Latin route word "albus" which means "white."

Early uses of "album" were colloquial variations on "albus" and meant "blank" instead of white. Thus the first uses of the word "album" as a thing, rather than a description of a thing, were used to describe blank things to be filled like sheets of paper. As technology progressed, so did adaptations of the word "album" which adopted to mean something used to hold memorabilia, writings like poems and essays and photographs. 

It's easy then to see how "album" again transformed itself to mean "a collection" of songs when that definition first showed up in 1957. As it turns out, "album" became the term of choice for a record due the appearance of a record jacket resembling a blank book, to be filled by the music inside.

(Learned with gratitude, from Podictionary "The Podcast for Word Lovers" (subscribe) that I recommend highly.)

Word (and what to do with it) of the day: "Wended"

Wended (verb): "To direct oneself, to proceed, to go"

Source: Jonathan Lethem's novel You Don't Love Me Yet, which I just finished, used this word an awful lot. I felt like an imbecile not knowing what it meant.

Your challenge and mine: Use this word in casual conversation with someone other than your lover or spouse and see if they know what you mean. 

Word of the Day: "Sybaitric"

Sybaritic (adjective): Luxurious, voluptuary.

Seen: In all places, a book about Celine Dion.

Word of the Day: "Punctilious"

Punctilious (adjective): "Careful, demanding, precise."

Use: "One would not describe a kick in the teeth as punctilious. Unless it managed to remove only the left incisor."

Word of the Day: "Patois"

Patois (noun): "Regional dialect or provincial speech. Jargon."

Seen: In a Salon article about gender and the recession. 

Word of the Day: "Ingot"

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

Heard: On the most recent episode of Radiolab.

Word of the Day: "Enervate"

Enervate (verb): "To deprive of force or strength, to weaken."

Usage: "Will the honeymoon around Obama's inauguration enervate the angry spirits of conversative talk radio? Somehow I doubt it."

Seen: In a recent New York magazine article about loneliness.

Word of the Day: "Lacuna"

Lacuna (noun): "Missing part, gap."

Source: X Saves the World, which I'm reading as research for my next book project.