Ladies and gentlemen, Reginald Russtucket, inventor of the dog hat.
(Original photo via Retronaut.)
Sunday, February 3, 2013
A Thousand Dogs!
Increasingly specific snapshots of the celebrations following the 1933 London dog license amnesty, the details of which I’m not totally sure about but the gist rather obvious.
Ladies and gentlemen, Reginald Russtucket, inventor of the dog hat.
(Original photo via Retronaut.)
Ladies and gentlemen, Reginald Russtucket, inventor of the dog hat.
(Original photo via Retronaut.)
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Surprise! It’s Onomatopoeia!
Some sound words are obviously onomatopoetic — whack, pow, pretty much anything you’d see during a fight scene on the Adam West Batman show. But here is a list of words that you may be surprised to learn are imitative in origin. Or possibly are. Or partly are. Or at one point were.
- squelch
- peewee
- drone
- barbarian
- whippoorwill
- didgeridoo
- mosquito
- flip
- hurdy-gurdy
- poop
- gong
- frou-frou
- Tartarus
- pachinko
- strum
- balalaika
- gooey
- boffo
- spank
- titillation
- yodel
- tick-tack-toe
- gecko
- grackle
- toucan
- puke
- borborygmi
- kiwi
- pizzicato
- garrulous
- dandle
- bouffant
- mumps
- fart
- canard
- lisp
- rinky-dink
- pogrom
- marmoset
- baboon
- partridge
The jury is still out on whangdoodle, but you have to admit that that is the noise that whangdoodles make, more or less. And yes, there’s more etymological wonderment in my previous posts.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
St. Bartholomew, a.k.a. Captain Flaps
Hi. Do you work in the leather industry? Are you perhaps a butcher, a bookbinder or a purveyor of Florentine cheeses? If you said yes to any of these, then the saint to whom you should be praying is Bartholomew. And he’s not just any saint. He’s one of the twelve apostles that formed Jesus’s famed gang of bachelors. But this post isn’t so much about St. Bart’s biography as it is about the last sentence of his biography: He was skinned alive, or at least that’s what the most popular story says and that’s consequently how St. Bart is portrayed in art.
Have a look. Please note some artists make the odd but strategic decision to depict him holding his skin but also still wearing his skin. (Drawin’ guts is hard.)
I really want St. Bartholomew to also be the patron saint of footie pajamas.
Previous saintly oddness:
Have a look. Please note some artists make the odd but strategic decision to depict him holding his skin but also still wearing his skin. (Drawin’ guts is hard.)
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Previous saintly oddness:
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Revenge of the Reverse Toilet
Not that I’m going to make a habit of blogging about bidets, but I’ve already posted about them once today, so why not twice?
I suppose most of you haven’t wasted energy wondering about where we get that word from, and perhaps many of you thought that a better use of your brain juice was trying to figure out how to use this mysterious bathroom presence. That’s fair. I wondered, however, and I found out. Bidet, according to Etymonline, is of uncertain origin, but we know at least that it was previously French for “pony” or “small horse.” That is all.
So the next time you’re abroad and in a fancy evacuation chamber, don’t think of the bidet as an intimidating bathroom appliance. Think of it as a pony! A porcelain bathroom pony! That wants to shoot a high-pressure stream of water into your butt.
There, now don’t you feel better?
I suppose most of you haven’t wasted energy wondering about where we get that word from, and perhaps many of you thought that a better use of your brain juice was trying to figure out how to use this mysterious bathroom presence. That’s fair. I wondered, however, and I found out. Bidet, according to Etymonline, is of uncertain origin, but we know at least that it was previously French for “pony” or “small horse.” That is all.
So the next time you’re abroad and in a fancy evacuation chamber, don’t think of the bidet as an intimidating bathroom appliance. Think of it as a pony! A porcelain bathroom pony! That wants to shoot a high-pressure stream of water into your butt.
There, now don’t you feel better?
Beyonce in the Bathroom
I realize that I'm about six years late on this one, but give a break to a guy who doesn't listen to Top 40 music and appreciate my astonishment at learning that Beyonce's second solo album was titled B'Day. This is why we have editors. This is why people who work with words should probably get a second, third or fourth opinion before an assemblage of text is finalized and then printed several million times.
Because no one with an understanding of spoken English would look at that album title and pronounce it as "Bee Day." No, that would be rendered as B Day or B. Day or maybe even B-Day, in the style of V-Day or D-Day. As it stands now, the instinctive way most people would pronounce B'Day, I'd guess, is more like g'day, which is what Australians say to each other in the morning. And that's hilarious, because it sounds pretty much exactly like bidet, which is not a glamorous pop star's music album but a bathroom fixture you use to unsoil the filthiest parts of your body.
But how is it possible that no one involved in the creative process behind this album raised their hand and pointed out that that B'Day would be pronounced like those European anti-toilets? Or was that the point the whole time?
This, I'd wager, is worse than the difference between "Paint It Black" and "Paint It, Black."
Because no one with an understanding of spoken English would look at that album title and pronounce it as "Bee Day." No, that would be rendered as B Day or B. Day or maybe even B-Day, in the style of V-Day or D-Day. As it stands now, the instinctive way most people would pronounce B'Day, I'd guess, is more like g'day, which is what Australians say to each other in the morning. And that's hilarious, because it sounds pretty much exactly like bidet, which is not a glamorous pop star's music album but a bathroom fixture you use to unsoil the filthiest parts of your body.
But how is it possible that no one involved in the creative process behind this album raised their hand and pointed out that that B'Day would be pronounced like those European anti-toilets? Or was that the point the whole time?
This, I'd wager, is worse than the difference between "Paint It Black" and "Paint It, Black."
Friday, January 25, 2013
Yeah, the Day the Fucking Angels Cried
I couldn’t tell you why I was driving west across Los Angeles the day Whitney Houston died, because I lived in Brentwood then and, as a result, most of my existence in this city revolved around Brentwood and its whole fogged-in, J. Crew aesthetic. Now I live in Los Feliz, where I don’t feel so very awkward and out-of-place, and it’s surprising how much of a difference it makes to move from one neighborhood to another. Anyway, some business drew me east of the west side that day, and I was driving right by the Beverly Hilton less than two hours after Whitney Houston drowned in her hotel bathtub there. I didn’t realize it at the time. I don’t think the general public knew at that point.
Anyway, traffic poked along that evening, and it had started to rain. Trapped in my non-moving car, I had an opportunity to witness this glorious end-of-day period where the transition from late afternoon to evening was accentuated by those late-in-the-day colors you only see when it’s raining. I took some photos, and you can see them throughout this post.
Uncharacteristic rain notwithstanding, I can’t imagine a more representative snapshot of Los Angeles — palm trees, traffic, brake lights, sunset hues and, just beyond the frame of the photos, the corpse of a famous person whose life was ruined by celebrity. She died naked and floating in a hotel bathtub of questionable cleanliness.
I like the idea of showing people these photos and then explaining the context and then telling them, “I like to think that the raindrops where the angels crying because they’d lost one of their own.” And then I’d examine their faces and see how they react: with earnest tears, because this troubled woman truly was an angel in their perspective, or with eye rolls, because they see the shuddering, shit-gobbling sentimentalism in this statement — because they reject the culture that my old job pushed.
Having said all that, I do think my photos capture something. And I’m glad I no longer have to pretend like the Grammys aren’t an artless, meaningless exercise.
A short aside: Whitney Houston is not a major figure in my life. I never listened to her music, and I never saw a single movie she appeared in — no, not even The Bodyguard. I only remember her for that one Christmas episode of Saturday Night Live that Rosie O’Donnell hosted. Houston was the musical guest and I think she sang Christmas songs. She also appeared in a Mary Katherine Gallagher sketch alongside O’Donnell and Penny Marshall. Given the rumors about Whitney Houston, that seems noteworthy. I suppose my lack of love for Houston should underscore the fact that my job at the time — writing for the kind of people for whom Fergie and Kat Von D rank as famous celebrities — was not a great fit for me. As a result of this fact, Whitney Houston’s death didn’t strike me as more of a tragedy than would the death of any other person I didn’t know and didn’t have an attachment toward her. Her death was sad in the same way that that it’s sad when anyone anywhere dies young, minus the fact that she lived large and maybe hastened the end with drugs.
Anyway, traffic poked along that evening, and it had started to rain. Trapped in my non-moving car, I had an opportunity to witness this glorious end-of-day period where the transition from late afternoon to evening was accentuated by those late-in-the-day colors you only see when it’s raining. I took some photos, and you can see them throughout this post.
Uncharacteristic rain notwithstanding, I can’t imagine a more representative snapshot of Los Angeles — palm trees, traffic, brake lights, sunset hues and, just beyond the frame of the photos, the corpse of a famous person whose life was ruined by celebrity. She died naked and floating in a hotel bathtub of questionable cleanliness.
I like the idea of showing people these photos and then explaining the context and then telling them, “I like to think that the raindrops where the angels crying because they’d lost one of their own.” And then I’d examine their faces and see how they react: with earnest tears, because this troubled woman truly was an angel in their perspective, or with eye rolls, because they see the shuddering, shit-gobbling sentimentalism in this statement — because they reject the culture that my old job pushed.
Having said all that, I do think my photos capture something. And I’m glad I no longer have to pretend like the Grammys aren’t an artless, meaningless exercise.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
“I’m Reba!” (The Strangest of Lennay Kekua Stories)
Full disclosure: This is not really a post about Reba McEntire.
With what I’ve written here lately about Nancy Cartwright getting eaten by cartoons and the weirdness between Sharon Stone and Wes Craven, I seem to be creating a little series out of the weird parallels between people and the creative things that make them famous. And I know that over-reading is a bad habit to develop, but here I go again.
Yesterday, the woman who was recently surprised to learn about her side career as Lennay Kekua came forward in an interview with the Today show that more or less amounted to “Hey. Yeah. This was messed up.” Her real name is Diane O’Meara, and may Diane’s story be a lesson to us all that watching college football maybe may be useful under very specific circumstances. When I learned Lennay’s real name, the reaction I had (but which probably 99.99 percent of the world did not have) was this: “Why did the guys who wrote the Deadspin article give this woman the pseudonym ‘Reba’?” No, I don’t know why either. That’s just how my head works, and I’m convinced anyone creating a given narrative names characters for a reason, whether consciously or unconsciously. So I tweeted this thought. It got a response from one of the guys who wrote the Deadspin piece. He said the name came from one of my favorite SNL Digital Shorts, of all places.
You should watch this, if you’ve never seen it, but here’s the joke: Andy Samberg thinks he’s hooking up with Reba McEntire, but it’s actually some random black guy wearing a red wig, but that fact is obvious to everyone but Andy.
Keeping in mind Kenan Thompson’s penis, I asked the Deadspin guy if that “Reba” was a nod to the fact that the person acting as Lennay was (most likely, apparently) a dude. He said this:
So whatever, but re-watching the SNL clip — you know, for the hundredth time, because I still think it’s funny — I’m getting a little more out of these Kenan lines: “I’m a guy too,” “Your friends are smart,” and “Hanging like my nuts.” And for the first and only time, right now, Andy Samberg and Manti Te’o are as one.
Speaking of creating narratives and inventing characters, who the fuck would pick “Lennay” as the name for the character they want to seem unremarkably real and existent and totally not fake? And spell it that way? Did he think that, like, “Lisa” was taken?
With what I’ve written here lately about Nancy Cartwright getting eaten by cartoons and the weirdness between Sharon Stone and Wes Craven, I seem to be creating a little series out of the weird parallels between people and the creative things that make them famous. And I know that over-reading is a bad habit to develop, but here I go again.
Yesterday, the woman who was recently surprised to learn about her side career as Lennay Kekua came forward in an interview with the Today show that more or less amounted to “Hey. Yeah. This was messed up.” Her real name is Diane O’Meara, and may Diane’s story be a lesson to us all that watching college football maybe may be useful under very specific circumstances. When I learned Lennay’s real name, the reaction I had (but which probably 99.99 percent of the world did not have) was this: “Why did the guys who wrote the Deadspin article give this woman the pseudonym ‘Reba’?” No, I don’t know why either. That’s just how my head works, and I’m convinced anyone creating a given narrative names characters for a reason, whether consciously or unconsciously. So I tweeted this thought. It got a response from one of the guys who wrote the Deadspin piece. He said the name came from one of my favorite SNL Digital Shorts, of all places.
Keeping in mind Kenan Thompson’s penis, I asked the Deadspin guy if that “Reba” was a nod to the fact that the person acting as Lennay was (most likely, apparently) a dude. He said this:
So whatever, but re-watching the SNL clip — you know, for the hundredth time, because I still think it’s funny — I’m getting a little more out of these Kenan lines: “I’m a guy too,” “Your friends are smart,” and “Hanging like my nuts.” And for the first and only time, right now, Andy Samberg and Manti Te’o are as one.
Speaking of creating narratives and inventing characters, who the fuck would pick “Lennay” as the name for the character they want to seem unremarkably real and existent and totally not fake? And spell it that way? Did he think that, like, “Lisa” was taken?
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