1. Smell:

My first Christmas tree lot of the season.  That pine smell is one of those smells that opens up a kind of atemporal memory space of other smellings.  Or at least, it reminds me of going to church as a kid to watch the Christmas Bear pageant, in which the sanctuary was filled with trees and there was a sound effect of crunching snow.

2. Word:

John Lydgate in the 15th century writes: “myn auctour axith” (“my author asks).  Proving that metathesis is not a modern form of linguistic degeneracy but a normal feature of language that has given us the ability to say the very important sentence “the bright bird wrought a third nostril.”

Word of the Day for Thursday, November 17, 2011

bibliophage \BIB-lee-uh-feyj, noun:

An ardent reader; a bookworm.

*

which of course leads my mind to:

*

Riddle 45

Moððe word fræt    me þæt þuhte 

wrætlicu wyrd     þa ic þæt wundor gefrægn

þæt se wyrm forswealg    wera gied sumes 

þeof in þystro,     þrymfæstne cwide 

ond þæs strangan staþol    Stælgiest ne wæs 

wihte þy gleawra    þe he þam wordum swealg 

http://www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/english/oldenglish/45.html

Word of the Day for Wednesday, November 16, 2011

opuscule \oh-PUHS-kyool, noun:

1. A small or minor work.
2. A literary or musical work of small size.

Okay, I know, Latin roots and all, I get it, but is it just me or does this word sound like it should mean something that you really ought to show your doctor?

While I don’t particularly enjoy the stale cigarette smell from the music grad currently sitting behind me, nor the decaying food smell that occasionally sits lurking around the trashcan by the door until maintenance remembers us, both are at least more understandable as grad student smells than the old-lady-powder-perfume smell of the girl I like to think of as Stinky McGee.  I have had several notable olfactory encounters with Ms. McGee, including knowing she’d gotten to the carrels before me because I could smell her in the stairway to 7w, knowing it was her who had entered the room, because her smell wafted up the cubicles ahead of her, and knowing she was in the bathroom on the 6th floor because I could smell her halfway down the hallway.  Smelly McGee is not my favorite person.

I love the smell of lighter fluid in the morning.  Another Saturday, another endless summer street fair.  I anticipate that this afternoon will smell like mozzarepas.

On Wednesday, outdoor concert smells: cigarettes, hipsters, funny cigarettes, wet hipsters when the thunderstorm started.  The best part was that they played “Stereo” just before the rain delay, and that when they announced the rain delay for fear of lightning hitting the band, Stephen Malkmus came back to the mic to assure the audience that it wasn’t that they didn’t care if we got hit by lightning, it was just that the band had all that electrical equipment.

The smell of cheap pizza in boxes stacked one yard high: 

another semester, another University Writing orientation.

jejune  

adjective  

  1 : lacking nutritive value
  2 : devoid of significance or interest : dull
  3 : juvenile, puerile


Example sentences: “Are you eating jejune again, Marty?  You know, you are what you eat!”

It seems like an interesting irony—in a book about the restructuring of medieval thought into bookish modes that are imperfectly reliant on classical traditions, and that involve a devaluing or a least a sharp distinguishing of vernacular/oral/popular culture from latinate/textual/high culture—that the author should choose to use the phrase “in nuce,” which is not, I think so wildly popularized and recognizable as your “e.g.” or “n.b.”, instead of just “briefly” or even “in a nutshell.” 

From in + nuce the ablative singular of nux meaning “nut”. Literally meaning “in a nut”.

 Adverb

in nuce

1. in a nutshell; briefly stated
2. in the embryonic phase; said of something which is just developing or being developed

It is also interesting (though not ironic, despite what Alanis might say) that he should choose to use this term while I am eating almonds.

Yesterday we didn’t experience hurricane Earl.  But the day before yesterday, before Earl wasn’t, the air all around Columbiaville was filled with the anticipation of devastation and disorder.  The air was filled, in other words, with the smell of pier and algae, as though you were taking a scenic stroll down at the docks.  As though, at any moment, sea lions, and star fish would start falling from the sky or would suddenly pop out from around the corner and mug you.