The Sow Joan Industrial Average

A quick preface for the uninitiated: Nintendo’s Animal Crossing is a game in which you, a human, move into and proceed to customize a small town populated by animals. I have the Wii version of this game and enjoy it as an occasional respite from what I do during my non video gaming hours, real-life simulator though Animal Crossing might be.

In the game, the player’s little human counterpart may have occasion to run into Sow Joan, an elderly female boar who sells turnips. The turnips are notable in that they can be sold at varying prices from day to day. If the player buys the turnips at one price, he or she could potentially make a profit on them by selling them when they’re priced above what they were initially bought for. However, if the player chooses to hang onto the turnips in hopes that the buying price goes up, they could eventually be screwed, either because the price could then plummet or because the turnips spoil. In the game, characters refer to this system as the “Stalk Market.”

sow joan, circa her 2002 debut

sow joan as she is known in japan: “kaburiba,” which
probably means something punny to someone

All that being said and with full knowledge that most character names in Animal Crossing are puns, it wasn’t until today that I realized that “Sow Joan” is a pun on “Dow Jones.”

I’m not yet sure if my embarrassment at not realizing this sooner outweighs my delight at finally decoding this particular pun.

Felicity Schickfick

As the result of aimless Wikipedia-wandering, I somehow ended up on the page for Heather Graham’s character in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. Why she warrants her own Wikipedia page, I couldn’t tell you, but the article includes an interesting section in which it lists the various ways her name — “Felicity Shagwell,” a pun in the classic Bond girl fashion — was translated into other languages. Some good ones:

• In Danish: Felicity Bollergodt, with boller godt literally translating to “fucks nice.”
• In Dutch: Felicity Neuktgoed, with neukt goed meaning “fucks well.”
• In French: Felicity Felicity Bonnebez, with bonne baise meaning “good fuck.”
• In French-speaking parts of Canada: Félicité Chaudolit, with chaud au lit meaning “hot in bed.”
• In German: Felicity Schickfick, meaning “Felicity Fucknice.”
• In Italian: Felicity Ladà, with the last name translating as “(she) gives it.”
• In Portuguese-speaking Brazil: Felicity Façobem, meaning “Felicity (I) Do It Well.”
• In Portuguese-speaking Portugal: Felicidade NaCama, translating in full to “happiness in the bed” and the only one of the translations that uses her first name in the sense of happiness.

There’s a few others that aren’t translated on the Wikipedia page, and I suspect Babelfish would not prove especially useful: Estonian (Õnnelik Kargaja), Finnish (Unelma Panopuu), Latvian (Felisitija Labdrāte), Polish (Felicity Robidobrze), Russian (Фелисити Добротрах), and five different ones in Spanish (Marifé Lación, Felicity Buenfollón, Felicity Revueltas, Felicity Revuelcabién, Felicity Lación).

“It’s tough being a globe-trotting pun,” says Heather Graham.

EDIT: Of course, I meant to say "Bond girl," not "Bong girl," though I suppose a bong girl would think sex puns are hilarious.

The Easter Egg of Easter Eggs

On this day of miracles both Christian and chocolate, I feel I should say something Easter-related. But, being feeble-minded and increasingly secular, I think I’ll stick to old reliable: pointless pop culture nothings, especially those not yet well-documented elsewhere online. I know, I know. “Way to celebrate a holiday with more of the same,” you say. (Jerk.) Well, allow me to set you up for an even greater disappointment: This post is Lost-related, too. However, if you wait it out to the end, you might just get to experience something that’s entirely Easter-appropriate, not to mention an example of the kind of punny wordplay that generally only smartypants know-it-alls waste their time with.

Here we go.

Remember Juliet? Juliet Burke? Maybe you don’t. I’m actually not sure that I’ve ever mentioned her on this blog before, but she’s been a major player on Lost since last season, when she figuratively jumped ship and left those sinister Others and joined up with the main castaways — the main Lost cast, whom I think should be referred to as the “Losers.” It should surprise nobody — whether island-bound or couch-bound — that Juliet eventually had to pay for her misdeeds. The Others are as powerful as they are mysterious, and they don’t take kindly to being dumped for the sexier new group of Four Toe Island inhabitants. Juliet was put on trial by the others, in a public ceremony officiated by the imperious Isabel — a never-explained authority figure played by Diana Scarwid, of Mommie Dearest and Wonderfalls fame. Others bigwig Ben commutes the initial death sentence that Juliet gets for her betrayal, the trade-off being that Juliet must be permanently marked. The Others brand Juliet. We eventually see it. It looks like this:


Like a lot of things on Lost, the symbol itself has yet to be explained. I somehow don’t think it ever will be, for two reasons. First, the fact that Juliet was branded means more than the symbol that was branded on her. Second, I don’t think the symbol means anything. (And here’s where the Easter part comes in.) Anyone who’s wandered through a grocery store or pharmacy in the last few weeks has no doubt seen the displays for Cadbury’s Creme Eggs — the chocolate-on-the-outside, sweetened-lard-on-the-inside annual wonders that we Americans get Lent, when we should theoretically be denying ourselves such pleasures. (God, you bastard.) Peel back the foil from a Cadbury’s Creme Egg, and you’ll notice that the side of the egg is emblazoned with a mark. It looks like this:


Get it? Like so many other allusion, off-topic asides, hidden bits of trivia and inside jokes, it would appear that Juliet’s mark is merely an Easter egg, in the non-holiday sense, that references an Easter egg, in the holiday-related sense. It’s a pun, a small practical joke on the people that try to read meaning into every stray comment and bit of set dressing on Lost. Other theories abound, of course. The Lostapedia page on which I found the Cadbury’s explanation also posits that Juliet’s mark could be the Five-Fingered Hand of Eris, the sign for the zodiac sign Pisces, the alchemy symbol for ammonium salt, or the Red Hot Chili Peppers logo. However, none of these look as much like Juliet’s actual mark as the Cadbury’s symbol, so I’m inclined to think that this is the correct answer.

And then meaning ate itself.

And then I ate another Cadbury’s Creme Egg.

And then I wondered whether the casting of Diana Scarwid in an episode involving ritual scarification was coincidental.

A Terrible Pun

Ahem.

Of course, I'm calling it "Regina Dentata." I couldn't resist.