discardingimages:

flying penis monster 
Decretum Gratiani with the commentary of Bartolomeo da Brescia, Italy 1340-1345.
Lyon, BM, Ms 5128, fol. 100r

flying penis monster auto-reblog enabled.

discardingimages:

flying penis monster 

Decretum Gratiani with the commentary of Bartolomeo da Brescia, Italy 1340-1345.

Lyon, BM, Ms 5128, fol. 100r

flying penis monster auto-reblog enabled.

May 21, 2013
check out this selfie that i just took (i’m the one on the right).

check out this selfie that i just took (i’m the one on the right).

May 9, 2013

words wholly unrelated

humble and humble pie

i’m still out rollerblading so i don’t have much time to tell you things today, but i will tell you this… even though “to eat humble pie” is an english idiom that means something like, “to bring down one’s pride” or “to humble oneself,” it is not related to the word humble.

according to omniscient lexicographers, humble pie is a corruption of umble pie, a mediæval pie made from the umbles (internal organs) of a deer. it is not exactly certain which—deer offal pie or offering a humiliating apology—is actually easier to swallow. 

April 29, 2013
tags
i’ve been live tweeting* the boston mayhem on the twitter service for much of the morning.
*note: live tweets are on a time delay to protect the young ones from profanity.

i’ve been live tweeting* the boston mayhem on the twitter service for much of the morning.

*note: live tweets are on a time delay to protect the young ones from profanity.

April 19, 2013
tags
and in what outfit does mr. r. ganan dress his little dog (muffin man) when they cruise around town in their bronx book wagon?
a: steampunk roadster goggles and a hooded cape designed by the house of gucci out of old 49ers jerseys.
__
from: a gay dog: the story of a foolish year (1905) written and illustrated by cecil charles windsor aldin.

and in what outfit does mr. r. ganan dress his little dog (muffin man) when they cruise around town in their bronx book wagon?

a: steampunk roadster goggles and a hooded cape designed by the house of gucci out of old 49ers jerseys.

__

from: a gay dog: the story of a foolish year (1905) written and illustrated by cecil charles windsor aldin.

April 18, 2013
tags

the word for ‘we’ in the aboriginal language of martuthunira is…

nganajumartangara

in honor of national poetry month, i present the following macaronic verse in english/martuthunira. i call it “raynor’s big day at the pool hall.”

Nganajumartangara real cool. Nganajumartangara
Left school. Nganajumartangara
Lurk late. Nganajumartangara
Strike straight. Nganajumartangara
Sing sin. Nganajumartangara
Thin gin. Nganajumartangara
Jazz June. Nganajumartangara
Die soon. 

granted: this is only one way of saying we in martuthunira. specifically, it is a first person plural disharmonic and is used when the speaker of the we group is in a different generation from the listener. therefore if you are not in my generation and you don’t have lurking late skills or you can’t relate with thinning gin, then this gwendolyn brooks/raynor ganan 50-50 collaboration stands.

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source: us and others: social identities across languages, discourses and cultures, edited by anna duszak (2002).

April 11, 2013
tags
a further correction: the w and h is for wystan hugh and not—as i have long maintained—walrus handjob auden. 

a further correction: the w and h is for wystan hugh and not—as i have long maintained—walrus handjob auden

April 8, 2013
the allahakbarries
if you were like me growing up and populated all of your fantasy sports teams not with famous athletes but famous writers, then you will derive a modest amount of non-sexual arousal from the allahakbarries—a super group of edwardian literary cricketeers.
j. m. barrie founded the sports club in 1890, naming it a bizarre portmanteau of his surname + allāhu akbar. its membership consisted of:
arthur conan doyle, a character in several sherlock holmes stories
jerome k. jerome, a person notable for his his name
a. a. milne, who was obsessed with pooh
p. g. wodehouse, [p. g. stands for pussy gangster]
paul du chaillu, the “discover of gorillas*”
charles tennyson, a lesser tennyson
as well as a bunch of editors from punch, a humor magazine acquired by rupert murdoch in 1919
barry wrote a book on the team (allahakbarries c.c.) which was published via vanity press in 1899. there is also this recommended account by modern author, kevin telfer.
in conclusion: the allahakbarries were the rock bottom remainders of the literary cricket set.

the allahakbarries

if you were like me growing up and populated all of your fantasy sports teams not with famous athletes but famous writers, then you will derive a modest amount of non-sexual arousal from the allahakbarries—a super group of edwardian literary cricketeers.

j. m. barrie founded the sports club in 1890, naming it a bizarre portmanteau of his surname + allāhu akbar. its membership consisted of:

  • arthur conan doyle, a character in several sherlock holmes stories
  • jerome k. jerome, a person notable for his his name
  • a. a. milne, who was obsessed with pooh
  • p. g. wodehouse, [p. g. stands for pussy gangster]
  • paul du chaillu, the “discover of gorillas*
  • charles tennyson, a lesser tennyson
  • as well as a bunch of editors from punch, a humor magazine acquired by rupert murdoch in 1919

barry wrote a book on the team (allahakbarries c.c.) which was published via vanity press in 1899. there is also this recommended account by modern author, kevin telfer.

in conclusion: the allahakbarries were the rock bottom remainders of the literary cricket set.

April 4, 2013
tags
everytime i shake somebody’s hand, i think of this undated oskar andersson cartoon from 1902.
__source: mannen som gör vad som faler honom in (1902)previously.

everytime i shake somebody’s hand, i think of this undated oskar andersson cartoon from 1902.

__
source: mannen som gör vad som faler honom in (1902)
previously
.

April 3, 2013
tags

flea-fly-flu: know your spanish flill in the blanks

i asked my local witch doctor for a little spanish fly (to lace muffins with) and instead received a little spanish flu and now all my guests are very sweaty and throwing up their denver omelets. what a brunch!

subsequently, take note:

  • spanish flea - a 1965 #1 hit by herb alpert and the tijuana brass. it became the bachelor theme on the dating game.
  • spanish fly - a beetle. its dried carapace is said to be an aphrodisiac. if you consume it, you’ll be a dog in heat, a freak without warning. 
  • spanish flu - a 1918 influenza pandemic which infected over 500 million people including lavinia swire from downton abbey.

__

other distinctions

March 27, 2013
tags

today in intriguing german loanwords:

urlaubsmuffel • a person who does not believe in taking vacations

its literal translation is “vacation muffle” and it describes either someone who really loves work or really hates holidays.

i went on spring break with an urlaubsmuffel last year (orson) and he spent the whole time complaining that the sun was too hot, the tequila was too strong, and the wet t-shirts were too wet. he occupied himself by working on his 2011 personal income taxes and eating melba toast. i, on the other hand, went kite surfing around mælstroms and did body shots off the fissures between my own ab muscles with the use of a bendy straw. mom was there; she took instagrams.

March 22, 2013
tags

3 things i did not know this time yesterday

  • orangutang is more correctly spelled (and pronounced) orangutan
  • doctor henry heimlich (of the heimlich manœuver fame) is still alive and living in one of those ohio cities that starts with c
  • chipotle peppers are not a pepper variety—they are jalapeños that have been smoke dried

it takes a brave man to admit ignorance about peppers and abdominal thrusts and whatnot—so if you knew all this stuff already, please do not judge me. i am typically pretty well informed and mom says that i know more about law & order (the t.v. show, not the political systems) than most casual watchers of the dick wolf masterpiece.

__

other things i did not know at various times.

March 20, 2013
tags

words wholly unrelated

rose & rosemary & mary

did i ever tell you about the time i was having a ménage à quatre with these three chorus girls named rose, rosemary, and mary? at one point i was like, “ooh la la, rose—your special cayenne balm is making my mucus membranes shriek—in a good way.”  

and she was like, “i’m rosemary, not rose.”

and i was like, “what’s the diff? it’s just a nickname.”

and she was like, “perchance, but the names—as well as the referents—are not etymologically related.”

“indeed,” chimed mary (who was working the fly swatter), “my name is not related to rosemary either.” it was at this point that we climbed down from the trapeze and sought out the nearest etymological dictionary.

it turns out that rosemary was right. she was named after the herb (which tastes great with braised goat by the way) and the herb name is actually an alteration of rosmarine from the latin rosmarinus “dew of the sea.” rose on the other hand comes from the greek rhodon “rose,” and mary probably comes from the hebrew miryam.

i was so excited about this discovery that i spent the next three hours alone in a walk-in closet with nothing but an etymological dictionary and rosemary’s special cayenne balm and i regret nothing.

March 19, 2013
tags
for herbal: the chasteberry
once upon a time, i was freebasing an aphrodisiac in the changing room of a j.c. penney in one of those ohio cities that starts with c. all of the sudden some idiot clerk opens the door and gets up in my grill about freebasing an aphrodisiac and then has the nerve to bounce me from the place without even letting me buy the loafers i was there to buy in the first place. so i spent the next 18 weeks plotting a fitting revenge when all the sudden it struck me: if this idiot clerk was cockblocking me from my aphrodisiac, i could slip her an anaphrodisiac—which instead of inciting one’s libido would  quell it.
i never did get around to tricking the clerk into freebasing an anaphrodisiac (married her instead) but i did investigate a long list of supposed anaphrodisiacs. it was my old pal, pliny (the elder) who suggested that the chasteberry was the very revenge for which i was looking. consider »

Pliny, in his Historia Naturalis, reports the use of stems and leaves of this plant by women as bedding “to cool the heat of lust” during the time of the Thesmophoria, when Athenian women left their husbands’ beds to remain ritually chaste.
At the end of the thirteenth century John Trevisa reports of it “…the flowre…maketh men chaste as a lombe”. Chaucer, in “The Flower and the Leaf,” refers to it as an attribute of the chaste Diana…
More recently, this plant has been called monk’s pepper in the thought that it was used as anti-libido medicine by monks to aid their attempts to remain chaste. There are disputed accounts regarding its actual action on libido, with some claims that it is anaphrodisiac and others that it is aphrodisiac. Because of the complex mechanism of action it can be probably both…

so is the chasteberry an aphrodisiac or the opposite of one? let us grab the skeleton key to all j.c. penney changing rooms and find out. 

for herbal: the chasteberry

once upon a time, i was freebasing an aphrodisiac in the changing room of a j.c. penney in one of those ohio cities that starts with c. all of the sudden some idiot clerk opens the door and gets up in my grill about freebasing an aphrodisiac and then has the nerve to bounce me from the place without even letting me buy the loafers i was there to buy in the first place. so i spent the next 18 weeks plotting a fitting revenge when all the sudden it struck me: if this idiot clerk was cockblocking me from my aphrodisiac, i could slip her an anaphrodisiac—which instead of inciting one’s libido would  quell it.

i never did get around to tricking the clerk into freebasing an anaphrodisiac (married her instead) but i did investigate a long list of supposed anaphrodisiacs. it was my old pal, pliny (the elder) who suggested that the chasteberry was the very revenge for which i was looking. consider »

Pliny, in his Historia Naturalis, reports the use of stems and leaves of this plant by women as bedding “to cool the heat of lust” during the time of the Thesmophoria, when Athenian women left their husbands’ beds to remain ritually chaste.

At the end of the thirteenth century John Trevisa reports of it “…the flowre…maketh men chaste as a lombe”. Chaucer, in “The Flower and the Leaf,” refers to it as an attribute of the chaste Diana…

More recently, this plant has been called monk’s pepper in the thought that it was used as anti-libido medicine by monks to aid their attempts to remain chaste. There are disputed accounts regarding its actual action on libido, with some claims that it is anaphrodisiac and others that it is aphrodisiac. Because of the complex mechanism of action it can be probably both…

so is the chasteberry an aphrodisiac or the opposite of one? let us grab the skeleton key to all j.c. penney changing rooms and find out. 

March 15, 2013
tags
thaumatrope party
one relationship of interest which i failed to mention during a previous post dated 12 march is that the greek word θαυµατ has also found its way into the english word thaumatrope—with a literal meaning of “wonder-turning.”
before there were gifs, indeed before there was even the phenakistiscope there was the thaumatrope »

A disk or card with a picture on each side is attached to two pieces of string. When the strings are twirled quickly between the fingers the two pictures appear to combine into a single image due to persistence of vision.

above is my effort to reanimate an undated thaumatrope disc from 1876. watch along as sir wimber clownpants is like “dat ass.”

thaumatrope party

one relationship of interest which i failed to mention during a previous post dated 12 march is that the greek word θαυµατ has also found its way into the english word thaumatrope—with a literal meaning of “wonder-turning.”

before there were gifs, indeed before there was even the phenakistiscope there was the thaumatrope »

A disk or card with a picture on each side is attached to two pieces of string. When the strings are twirled quickly between the fingers the two pictures appear to combine into a single image due to persistence of vision.

above is my effort to reanimate an undated thaumatrope disc from 1876. watch along as sir wimber clownpants is like “dat ass.”

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