Photo of the Week

For Halloween tonight, I went as a big headache. I went around deliberately annoying people at the party, asking everyone for Tylenol. A woman reached into her purse and gave me Midol instead. She said I looked bloated.

Actually, I just made that up. This is a picture of an artist friend at the JCAST opening party earlier this month. I was lucky to get the shot, since he didn't keep the behemothic noggin on too long. (He quit while he was ahead.) Click the pic for closer examination. Yes, for free.

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

bloviate [BLOW-vee-ayt] (verb)

To write or speak windily and verbosely

"'I am reluctant to question Horace,' Natalia said, glancing nervously at the cuckoo clock. 'He has such a tendency to bloviate.'"

TWITO, page 22!

Random Sequence

Ivan didn't mind doing the dishes. In fact, he enjoyed it. There was something soothing and almost meditative about immersing his hands in the warm water, squeezing the sponge and wandering through the white clouds of soap suds, searching for sunken forks. Even the greasy pans and plates didn't bother him. He liked transforming their dirty faces into smooth, clean circles of porcelain and steel. It all seemed to take a lifetime, but he didn't mind.
--from "The Man and the Watch" (by me), originally published by Hudson Current

Link Mania: Mugwump?

Are you a mugwump? Well, don't "uhtceare" about it.

10 Old English Words You Need to Be Using

The T&T List

Perlan II
Jacques Monod
the sinoatrial node
Abdellatif Kechiche
Out of Hand: Materializing the Postdigital
Santo Spirito
Boomerang Nebula
Jingpo Lacus
Hayabusa-2
Horace Higginbotham
Apache MyFaces
Maenohama Station

Word of the Day: animadvert

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

animadvert [an-uh-mad-VERT] (verb)

To remark or comment critically, usually with censure or strong disapproval; used with "on" or "upon"

"'If you are going to animadvert upon my nose ring, Mother,' said Mariellen, 'allow me to critique your collagen injections.'"

Random Sequence

He didn't believe in prayer, but he did believe in intuition and a higher self, or whatever it was.

"Tell me what to do," he thought, addressing the cosmos. "Tell me if I should structure the deal or shoot it straight, the fancy or the plain...."

Just then, he felt something cold in his lap. He looked down and saw a lump of something glistening and white, a blank blob of undifferentiated frozen creaminess oozing between his legs.

The kid was looking up at him with a solemn expression. "Vanilla," he said.
--from "Vanilla" (by me), originally published in Hudson Current

Random Acts of Poetry

I received an unexpected gift today: a poetic piece of non-sequitur spam in my email.

~~~

A heaven, yet unseen.
From where he stood to preach and pressed a path

We have learned its lessons in life, and learned from our experiences;
Shells for guns in Flanders! Feed the guns!
(Children in boxes at a play

Pinched up the atom hills and plains)
THE OLDEST SONG

~~~

It makes weird pictures in my mind. And yes, nonsense probably is "the oldest song".

Link Mania: Zombie Word Attack!

"There are a number of different ways to refer to the living corpse."

The good folks (and obsessive logophiles) at Wordnik have blogged about zombie-related words, which you may want to spook your friends with while conversing at the Halloween party.

They've also posted quite a howler about werewolf words.

Word of the Day: suilline

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

suilline [SOO-il-line](adjective)

Of or relating to pigs

"Little Freida’s suilline appetite surprised everyone at the table."

Link Mania: cliché

You can say that again

Is there anything so popular as a cliché? The Cliche Challenge tracks the voguishness of overused words and phrases, based on the number of references to them found by Google over a three-month period. Bottom line? At the end of the day, visiting this state-of-the-art site could be an historic opportunity, if you're monitoring the situation.

Random Sequence

"Gonna rain soon, I'm afraid," the man said in a wistful voice, to no one in particular, though Marcus was the only person nearby. Then he turned and spoke to Marcus directly: "Gonna get wet," he said.

Marcus shifted his weight from one foot to the other. It was the wrong thing to say to someone who had to pee.

"I'm not sticking around," Marcus said. "I gotta go. I really gotta go."

The man smiled. He had a kind, crinkly face. "You know what they say," he said.

"No, what do they say?" Marcus asked.

The man pointed to toward a thick clump of bushes and trees at the edge of the graveyard. "All the world is a man's urinal."
--from "Scattered to the Winds" (by me), originally published in Hudson Current