Secrete

Secrete
So I'm adding a new feature!! (I heart new features!) For your convenience, I'm going to put the word at the top of the post linked to the definition. But what I want you to do is read the title in your normal reading-to-yerself inner voice and then read the link in a softer inner voice like you're getting ready for some kid to spell it. Try it now!!

Isn't that fun?? (You're welcome.)

As many people who know me know, I hate hate HATE the whole corporate-speak turning nouns into verbs. However!! Add an 'e' to the end of a word and it's a completely different story. I heart the word secrete! Plus, it's so fun to use! "I'm going to secrete a bunch of baked beans in my saferoom in preparation for the zombie uprising."*

Another one is envelope - so great! "Look at the sweet poor young thing - enveloped in her/her own angst and ennui."  Do your best Edward Gorey: "Aaaaaahh, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, ennui...!" quoth the woman on the roof. 

 Wow, did that get me off topic. So anyway, your task dear reader (Hi, Joan!) is to think of more words that are nouns that can have an 'e' put at the end to turn them into cool verbs! Then we'll get them printed around the nets and force the OED to include them in their little dictionary. And when the list of  new words comes out, you can say "I made that word! I'm just like Shaikespeere.** And Sarah Palin."***

 *Hhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmm...secreted baked beans...
**Please see entry for March 14, 4012.
***Please note, you do not have to compare yourself to Sarah Palin when it happens. I would never force anyone (unless they were actually like her, but I doubt very many of Those People will be reading this post) to say that.

Instauration

Here's the definition if you don't know it. (I certainly didn't.)

You know what needs to be instaurated?  Binaural recording, that's what. If you don’t know what it is (I certainly didn't), it's "created using a technique known as "Dummy head recording", wherein a mannequin head is outfitted with a microphone in each ear." (Thanks, Wikipedia! We heart you!) So it's like the sound is right inside your ears! Ooooooh, spooky!! And of course, since we think we invented everything, I need to point out that it goes all the way back 1881(!).

I found about binaural recording because I'm doing contract work for a radio station (short-term – why yes, I'm looking for permanent employment. Your help is appreciated!) dealing with their archival materials and came across a box that stated: “Ives: Three Places in New England (The 'St. Gaudens' in Boston Common [Col. Shaw and His Colored Regiment]; Putnam's Camp, Redding, Connecticut; The Housatonic at Stockbridge).” Oh wait, that's the wrong one. (I wish there was an easy way to erase mistakes.) It said: "A radio drama produced in ‘binaural’ sound. (Listen with ‘stereo’ (2-channel) headphones only." Yea, it totally sounds like it should be from the '50s, but is, in fact from 1983 (I’d love to hear it).

Thankfully, the Nets being what they are, someone posted an amazing (if not a tad freaky) example on YouTube. (Yes, you will need “stereo” [two channel] headphones.)

This reminded me of the time I was talking to someone and said I wish I had lived a hundred years ago for the beginning of film. How great to be freaked out by - "Oh my God! The train's comin' right into the theatre!!" And dude looked at me said "Yea, cuz going to see Star Wars sucked." Oh yea, that is my generation, isn’t it…and IMAX and Pixar and the new 3D...

I know I veered from audio to audio/visual, but you get my point. Oh, and between “The Artist” and “Hugo,” there's been sort of an instauration right there. (Hurray!*)

*To be cried aloud in falsetto.

Volplane

(Link to the Word of the Day archive, though Volplane is not yet listed.)

Volplane (which is a not a word according to the Blogger*.com dictionary - it wants me to write "vol plane" "vol-plane" or "sailplane") means to glide, as in a plane. So I'm thinkin' to myneself, I'm thinking, "myneself, what the hell are we gonna write about when it comes to gliding, as in an airplane?" Trust-fund babies (wish I was one)? And that was about it. Then I read the description:

 "Around the time Orville and Wilbur Wright were promoting their latest 'aeroplane' in France…"

 "Aeroplane." I LOVE that spelling!! It's like the book The Faerie Queene by  Edmund Spencer. It woulda been so freakin' cool to have written at a time when you just sorta spelled stuff how you thought it should be. Seriously, "queene" is one syllable, but has four vowels - how freaking cool is that?? But then stupid Samuel "I'm feeling rather retentive today, I am" Johnson came along and ruined all the fun (look at the picture from Wikipedia…what do you see?).

 Dig all the different spellings of "Shakespeare." How fun is that? I think my favorite is Shaxpere. Oh wait, maybe not. It seems to foreshadow "snax" which would be cool, but it's been way over used by marketers. (I dislike them even more than Ben "Not only am I gonna ruin everyone's fun, I'm a racist as well!" Johnson.)
Lookit this sentence I found: "And we defende the that thou be not so hardy for euer to do vyolence vnto the holy token of the crosse the whiche we put in his forhede." Man that just makes me want to burst into bloom. There are all kinds of great sentences here. (Thanks Edmund Weiner, deputy chief editor, OED, you rock!)
Love that English language!

*Neither is "blooger," though it should be. Crap, shoulda known, good ol’ Unbandictonary.com. Look at your own risk - definition’s sort of nasty.

Nugatory

So the other half and I were watching the art film (not to be confused with an "art" film. Although some might call it an "art" film. I think the other half would say it was art. I get art and "art" so easily confused.) Pink Narcissus starring Bobby Kendall who was surprised that he was chosen because "he had never considered himself to be attractive" (from IMDb). How, I queried myneself, could someone that beautiful think himself nugatory (I'm not going out to far in the definition suburbs for that usage, am I?) in the looks department? Obviously (and we all know this) it all has to do with ego. I'm not pretending I know anything about Mr. Kendell - I have no idea what his psychological make-up was- but I do know if you don't like yerself, yer not gonna feel attractive.

On the other hand, there are certain famous-for-being-famous people - who shall go unnamed (it's not that kind of blog) - who think they're the proverbial bee's knees (or is it bee's proverbial knees?) who, well, aren't. Has nothing to do with the outside, has all to do with the inside (and helped out by constant paparazzi).

It got me thinking again how, if you're different, society, or at least certain factions, try to make you feel bad about yourself. I read online that Mr. Kendell was/is straight, but for any GLBTer who lived through the pre-Stonewall years, life woulda been obviously even more hellish than now with a constant bombardment of put downs and out right lies from the government. Thing that really burned me up, last night there was a guy - a gay guy, mind you - who said that he didn't understand all the ballyhoo about bullying because "it's been around forever." Up yours, big guy. When I was a teenager I got bullied and pushed around and crap, but no one every told me that I deserved to die. When I think of that stuff I'm glad we didn't have the Nets when I was a young-un. Holy crap. When I was a kid, gay people all lived in big cities and were hair dressers, so in a way it was almost easier for me, because people didn't think about it as much. But now, shit, every time a good looking guy walks past a group of teen girls, they wonder if he's gay. So yes, bullying has been around forever, and much of it was produced by the government, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be doing something about it now. Thank goodness Dan Savage didn't think that way.

And maybe it's cuz I'm spoken for, but when a hot guy walks by me, I didn't give a rat's patootie if he's gay or straight - I just enjoy the view.

Upbraid

Pre-code humor from, of all people, Ted Healey and his Stooges.
Larry: What would you do if a woman walked up to you and kissed you?
Moe: I'd kiss her back.
Larry (extending his hand over his head): What if she was yay tall?

So last night when, thanks to frigging Daylight Savings Time, I was vainly trying to get to sleep (that is I was trying to get to sleep in vain, I was not being vain about doing it - "Man lookit me trying to go sleep. I so totally rock when I'm doing this. So much more cool at it than most people.") I was thinking about the above joke, and it brought back memories of when I was in college...

Picture it, Collegetown USA. Some relative of one of the three stooges writes a book, and goes on a tour with it and some Stooges films. The show is free and starts at 10.00pm, giving us all just enough time to get half wasted before going to the theater. They start with a feature-length, but, to everyone's utter chagrin, it's not really our belov'd Stooges, but is, in fact, a review of some singers or something or other, with the Stooges just coming in to sort of tie things together...sort of. Needless to say it does not take long for the catcalls to start. Not sure how much my dorm mate and I joined in, but I do remember at one point there was a beautiful dame sitting on a stage with her dress all billowed out around her singing her song, and I hollered out "E.T. phone home!" I have no idea what it meant in this context, either then or now, but my dorm mate thought it was stupefyingly hilarious.

After the feature was over, but before the shorts, the manager came out and said we were acting like shit. Seriously, his upbraiding included cursing. No one cared, of course, but they gave away a copy or two of the book, started the shorts, and all was well.

But it got me thinking that "E.T. phone home" is a great catch-all phrase to holler whenever a movie or other performing art pieces sucks. For example, there you are, it's June and you got suckered into the weekend-long retrospective of Mariah Carey on film. Suddenly, in the middle of "Glitter," you realize that the sun is shining, it's 80 degrees (F) outside and you really hate this freekin' movie.* "E.T. phone home!"

Or perhaps someone says "You wanna see Phantom of the Opera?" And you think, "Cool! I love Lon Chaney!" But it's not Lon Chaney it's freekin A L Weber. There they are, the phantom and Christine in their boat being pushed across the stage..."E.T. phone home!"

Seriously, "E.T. phone home" such an interesting quote - suitable for every occasion.


*Please excuse me, I've never actually seen the freekin movie "Glitter," so for all I know it rocks. But I'm thinking not.

Nondescript

Today's word is pretty easy. Nondescript. I knew that was the word of the day when I when created the blog, so I used "Nondescript" as the background design. It was only when I viewed the blog that I saw it was some weird pink design with humming birds. Seemed pretty frigging descript to me. In fact the only thing that woulda made it more descript is if there was some brown foliage. Yeech. Pink and brown. Can you think of a worse color combo? I didn't think so.

I'm thinking, then, that from now on when I see an object d'art which I find, shall we say, aesthetically unappealing, or am forced by the b&c to watch performance "art" of any sort, I think I'll just say "It certainly was descript." With all the nasty nouns-as-verbs corporate speak going around, people won't even question it. Plus, I think Miss Manners would approve. I've always wanted her approval.