Antiquity

I look at pics posted online (Dirty Old Boston) and think “oh, that looks like a million years ago” only to read the caption stating it’s from the late 70s/early 80s. Jesus, I was in my 20s then—late college, carnival and then my first years in Boston. I did the math, 1980 was 42 years ago. Christ I’m old!

Just to make me feel even more antique—I was born in 1958, 64 years ago. A person who was 64 in the year of my debut on planet earth would have been born in 1894. The crew includes:

• Actress ZaSu Pitts, (love the name)
• Norman Rockwell
• Comedian Moms Mabley
  
• Bessie Smith, Empress of the Blues
• Jack Benny
• James Thurber, my first favorite cartoonist/writer 
  
• Nikita Khrushchev
  
• Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s Deputy Führer
• Choreographer Martha Graham was born in 1894. She died in 1991. Just imagine all the horrors and innovations she saw!

What happened in 1894?

• New England Telephone and Telegraph installed the first battery-operated telephone switchboard, in Lexington, Massachusetts.
• Coca-Cola was sold in bottles for the first time.
• New Zealand enacted the world's first minimum wage law,
• Women in South Australia become the first in Australia to gain the right to vote and the first in the world to be elected to Parliament.

Nothing astoundingly earthshaking but in the last decade of the 19th century:

• The Wounded Knee Massacre went down in 1890.
• 1891—In New Orleans, a lynch mob storms the Old Parish Prison and lynches 11 Italians who had been found not guilty of the murder of the local Police Chief.
• 1892—Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite premièred.
• 1893—New Zealand becomes the first country to grant women the right to vote.
• 1894—the Swiss Army knife was invented.
• 1895—Volleyball was invented (without which I would not have broken my leg, jumping up to spike a ball at the same time as a big guy who landed on top of me).
• 1896—Marie Curie discovered radioactivity.
• 1897—Bram Stoker wrote Dracula, inadvertently giving birth to sparkly vampires.
  
• 1898—H. G. Wells published The War of the Worlds.
• 1898–1900—The Boxer Rebellion in China.
  

And my grandparents were born. Grandpa lived to be 99 years of age. In his near century of life he saw the invention of:

• radio and television
• windshield wipers
• the Model T
• fortune cookies and cornflakes
• insulin and penicillin
• the pop up toaster
• Band-aids
• Technicolor
• canned beer and aerosol spray cans (without which we wouldn’t have spray cheese to put on crackers to munch with our canned beer)
• LSD was synthesized on November 16, 1938

  

  illustration by Sharm Murugiah

• helicopters
• Emile Gagnan and Jacques Cousteau invented the aqualung.(without which we wouldn’t have the brill song and album by Jethro Tull)
• the atomic bomb
• Tupperware
• Frisbees
• Velcro

And a whole fuck-ton of other good and/or execrable shit (like freeze-dried coffee…YECH).

There were also two World Wars, all before 1949, the year Grandpa turned 50.

So, what were we talking about? Oh yeah, oldness. Did you know, in 1972, the year my mother was diagnosed with neurofibromatosis type 2, the disease had only recently been discovered. Much of my own early treatments (evals and surgeries) were based on what the docs had learned from examining and operating on my mother and an older cousin.

And Now We Are Four

Huh, I seem to be four years old now—this blog anyway. It was Thanksgiving day, four years ago (the 24th in 2011) that I began rambling and I've not shut up since.

Waddya know.

I’ve blathered on about my carnival days, being deaf and how I got that way, cats (endless cat tales!), travels with Jen, cars (!!!) and triking. There’ve been *cough* a few *cough* rants about clueless flatworm brained cretins, asswipes, feces headed fuckwads and grifters (not always the same exact thing). I've gone on about books, books, more books and feminism.

Hells, there've been rants about books AND feminism AT THE SAME TIME!

I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.
~Rebecca West

I've actually let other people take the helm on occasion (invited—cajoled 'em even!). Brenda Rock's had a few things to say. Heike, my cousin Della in Berlin. author Kevin Tudish, Steve, The Amazing Bob AND his son The Green Miles—other important others too.

There've been interviews with artists and authors, love stories, art reviews and travel talk (categories which often overlap).

And, of course, there's been some navel gazing as in Why Do We Create. Pics too!

So then, obvs I'm not gonna stop yapping anytime soon (and there'll be more fabulous guest posts!), so stay tuned!

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Words for Today

Today we have more lingua franca fun brought to you courtesy of my Scrabble and Words with friends buds. Thank youse all!

Zol (plural zols). (South Africa, slang)

• A marijuana cigarette.

Used in a sentence — from the 2001 book The Quiet Violence of Dreams by, K. Sello Duiker

Look, you can't smoke four hundred zols a day...

A fine and sage bit of advice, I’d say.

Zol

• A Zol is a recurring gelatinous enemy type creature appearing in The Legend of Zelda series, generally found in dungeons. Attacking one usually splits the Zol into two smaller jelly-like enemies called Gels. Gel made their first 3D appearance in Phantom Hourglass.

You're welcome.

Zol may also refer to the fashion house of Mongolian designer Zoltsetseg G,  
Katya Zol., A Mongolian fashion house. From the About page on their website:

Mongolian fashion designers endeavor to bring an excitement and modern aesthetic to the global scene, while employing the fine craftsmanship of Mongolian traditional costumes and raw materials, such as wool, cashmere, leather and felt. One of the most current and successful designers based in Mongolia, Ms. Zoltsetseg G., strives to capture the distinctive and exotic culture of Mongolia with her brand KATYA ZOL

Mongolian fashion design — who knew? Now, of course, my desire to ride the Trans-Siberian from Moscow to Vladivostok is rekindled. Oh look — 68º and party cloudy in Ulaanbaator tomorrow. Let's GO!

 Piu
pronounced such that it rhymes with -iw.

In the language of Catalonia this is the colloquial word for penis.

In the language of the Dinka people of the Sudan however, this is a noun meaning water.

Huh. Interesting. Bet that'd lead to some big fun, misunderstanding times when a Catalonian is visiting the Sudan and vice versa. You know, along the lines of my “Ich bin Traube...” pratfalls only, ya know, with an R rating.

Dyad
From Wikipedia

Dyad may refer to:
Dyad (sociology), a group of two people
Dyad (music), a set of two notes or pitches
Dyad pedagogy, students working together in groups of two
Dyad (biology), a pair of sister chromatids
Dyad symmetry, in genetics
Dyad product, in mathematics
Dyad (Greek philosophy), Greek philosophers' principle of "twoness" or "otherness"
Dyad (video game)
Dyad (novel), 1989 novel by Michael Brodsky
Dyad 1909 also Dyad 1929, ballets by Wayne McGregor

I thought a dyad was a fairy type creature. Huh. Oh wait, that’s a dryad

From Dictionery.com:

Dryad, noun, plural dry·ads, dry·a·des
Classical Mythology .
a deity or nymph of the woods.

never mind

Nemophilist (from Dictionery.com)

Ne*moph"i*list\, n. [See Nemophily.] One who is fond of forest or forest scenery; a haunter of the woods.

Klondike Sushi

Sadly, larger than life size

All I feel like eating, in this vilely depraved heat, is sushi and mint chocolate chip Klondike Bars. I blame The Amazing Bob -- he turned me on to them. The Klondike Bars not the sushi. My long time pal, Cynthia Quilici revealed the glories and wonders of sushi to me. I wasn’t sold at first but, boyhowdy, I’d eat it every day/every meal now if I could.

Here’s the prob with both: they’re small.

That fabulously minty, frozen chocolate treat? It’s a mere, a piffling, three inches square. I finish one and want another RIGHT NOW. Do I raid the icebox? Do I snarf onward and upward? At 240 calories per, no I do not. With sad, joy-free wistfulness I force myself to stop at one. I deserve a medal, eh?

Their tag line, teaser ad copy? What would you do for a Klondike Bar? That ditty's an ear worm of the first order.

As for sushi -- I can pick it up, ready made in the grocery store deli section now. Awesome plus, huh? Problem, it comes in these wee trays. Sure, there’s 12 of them in there BUT they’re tiny as hell. For dog’s sake, I’ve seen bigger M&Ms! OK...no but it’s really bloody close.

I try to eat only a few, maybe four, at any time but this requires insane levels of will power. I mean, seriously folks, this is Spicy Eel Roll! At, roughly, 290 calories for a mere 6 rolls, I must be strong -- I WILL RESIST that siren song of rice and seaweed wrapped raw fishie.

Going forward I will resist, that is. This is mega hard. It’s the adult version of hot buttered movie theater popcorn (the kind from my long ago youth, not the shit they pass off as butter and popcorn now). Also too, how about some brown rice sushi? Where can I get that all fast and easy?

My other hot weather indulgence? Smoothies. TAB makes the most amazing strawberry/banana/raspberry/whatever’s left in the fridge smoothies. He uses non fat yogurt and no milk. I don’t have to feel guilty about these but, of course, I do.  Guilt is one of my more fluorescent traits.

I'm thinking today might be a good day to try a raspberry/spinach combo. Oh yeah, DEF!