Michael Gates's Blog, page 19

Quote of the Day: Unusual Usage

"A usage dictionary is one of the great bathroom books of all time. Because it has the appeal of trivia, the entries are for the most part brief, and you end up within 48 hours — due to that weird psychological effect — actually drawing on exactly what you learned in some weird, coincidental way."
—David Foster Wallace

Photo of the Week: Marblehead

From my visit to Barrow Mansion. I like her hat.

Random Sequence: Fustian

"Drunk? And speak parrot? And squabble? Swagger? Swear? And discourse fustian with one’s own shadow? O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil!"
--William Shakespeare, Othello, Act 2. Scene 3

fustian (adjective) = bombastic, absurdly pompous

Do you know any political figures today who could be described as fustian? Think hard, now....

Story Cubes 17: Keys (fiction)

I walked to the middle of the bridge, slow as a turtle. Then I dropped my keys into the water, perhaps startling the fish down there. They were my the keys to the old house, the one we lost in the fire. I guess I was saying goodbye, in a way, to that life. I looked up at the sky. No rainbow there. Then my phone rang. "It's six o'clock", she said. "Where are you?" "It's only early morning on the other side of the globe", I said. And I wished I was there.

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(The bold-faced words are interpreted from the images on Rory's Story Cubes)

Fire up your e-readers! My two Kindle editions on Amazon ...

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The Word I'm Thinking Of
The Iron Box

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Strange Days Indeed

So I'm at the "Celebrate Mother Earth Festival" at the Historic Jersey City and Harsimus Cemetery today. I'm sitting among the headstones, listening to a live rock band play a song called "Zombie Jesus". The lead singer is dressed in a goat costume. I turn around and a chicken is about to peck me. I shoo away the chicken, and then a strange woman sits down next to me and says "Haven't we met before?" Strange days indeed.

Story Cubes 16: No Place Like (fiction)

"Help me understand," I said. "What's the story?"

"Let me give you some pointers, mister journalist. Think about snoozing in a wigwam every night. It ain't rainbows and rose buds. Once you cross a bridge into my kind of life it's masks and demons. And a cold moon at night. I just want to get on a jet and fly to Costa Rica. Where it's toasty this time of year. Put your pity under a magnifying glass. It's not compassion. If it was, you'd be on the street too. You call me 'homeless'? The world is my home."

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(The bold-faced words are interpreted from the images on Rory's Story Cubes)

Photo of the Week (by me): Urban Buddha

OM....

Random Sequence: rampallian

"Away, you scullion! you rampallion! You fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe."
--William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2, Act 2. Scene I

rampallian (noun) = a scoundrel, a wretch

These days, you could call someone a rampallian and they would think you're complimenting them.

Fustilarian? That's a fat lady.

Word of the Day: pasticcio

What's the word I'm thinking of? Today it's...

pasticcio [pa-STEE-cho] (noun) [TWITO, page 107]

A work or style consisting of borrowed fragments, ingredients, or motifs assembled from various sources; a potpourri

"What did it matter if the work were a spurious thing, a pasticcio, a poor victim which had been pulled this way and that, changed, cut, added to?"
--Robert Smythe Hichens, The Way of Ambition (1913)

"On one occasion an old man sang quite glibly a tune which was in reality a pasticcio of three separate shanties all known to me."
--Sir Richard Runciman Terry, The Shanty Book, Part I, Sailor Shanties (1921)

Hey, all you wordcatchers, I know this sounds like something you might order in an Italian restaurant, but it appears in the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, so I think it's worth featuring.

(Photo by me. My wife assembled this hat and actually wore it to an event.)