November 2011
3 posts
Encounters with time in smell & word
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:...
The thief-guest was not any wiser for having...
Word of the Day for Thursday, November 17, 2011
bibliophage \BIB-lee-uh-feyj, noun:
An ardent reader; a bookworm.
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which of course leads my mind to:
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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...
It really puts the 'pus' in 'opuscule'
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?
October 2011
1 post
Some Library Carrel Smells
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...
September 2010
8 posts
Endless summer 2
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.
Endless summer 1
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...
Crappy Junkfood for Grad Students
The smell of cheap pizza in boxes stacked one yard high:
another semester, another University Writing orientation.
Crappy junkfood for cannibals
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!”
On nuts, nutshells, irony and language
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...
Before Earl Wasn't
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...
Way Back Machine
Just to get things going, a few choice selections from the blogs’ past lives:
February 1, 2007:
Two words it would be funny to intentionally mix up and see who notices homily ..HAH-muh-lee.., noun: 1. A sermon; a discourse on a religious theme. 2. A moralizing lecture or discourse. 3. An inspirational saying; also, a platitude. hominy [hom-uh-nee] –noun whole or ground hulled corn...
The Reincarnation
Once upon a time there was a Word of the Day Blog. And it was good. But it was all alone, and so a companion was created for it. And the companion was called The Changing Smells of My World Blog (aka Smells Blog, to its friends). They lived together in a beautiful old fashioned land called the Garden of MyspaceandFriendster. But one day they were tempted by the two-headed serpent named...