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I’ve recently been going through the UK’s daily papers and finding one or two weird news items and giving you links to them but I’m now finding myself in a position where I can’t keep up with the weird and wonderful so I’m trying a change of tack and just give you a brief rundown of what I found intriguing or amusing!

Here’s my top four for today.

Image by Jim Linwood via Flickr

I was checking out the Daily Telegraph and came across something particularly odd.  It seems that, in order to try and keep swine ‘flu at bay in H M Prison The Verne in Dorset, the governor sanctioned the purchase of a goodly supply of anti-bacterial hand gel.  As soon as it was distributed amongst the prisoners apparently one of the inmates decided it’d be a good idea to drink it rather than shove it on his hands.  I’m not sure how much the prisoner actually drank but he became a tad tiddly and started a fight.  Before anyone knew it, there was a full blown behind bars brawl.  Oddly enough, the staff at the prison took away what remained of the hand gel, presumably considering it would be easier to deal with a swine ‘flu epidemic than an alcohol poison one!

It just begs the question, who was the prisoner who actually tried the hand gel in the first place?  I’m just wondering what I’ve got under the kitchen sink that I could try?  How about a Mr Muscle Margarita for starters?

The second news item that interested me was again from the Daily Telegraph.  It gave details of some of the strangest items that had been taken from hotel rooms.  Amongst those that caught my eye were a marble fireplace; a whole room – the contents were completely stripped; a mounted boar’s head; a hotel owner’s dog; a grand piano and a selection of sex toys. 

Once again, my brain went into overdrive, particularly when it came to the sex toys.  I can’t  imagine even using sex toys provided by a hotel let alone stealing them – you don’t know where they’ve been!!

Image via Wikipedia

My next story which was reported in several papers, relates to a tortoise that was found walking along the M25 motorway (freeway).  Thankfully, for once, most of the drivers were obviously keeping their eyes on the road and the tortoise was rescued by a tortoise loving driver who, having taken a little detour to the supermarket to pick up some lettuce and tomatoes for the traumatised turtle and then took him for a check up at the local vet where it was discovered that he was chipped so hopefully owners and family pet will soon be reunited.

Quite what the tortoise was doing on the M25 I have no idea.  Maybe, like many travellers before him, he couldn’t find the right junction off the circular motorway to reach home or another alternative could be that he’d been visiting The Verne Prison and had a drop too much of anti-bacterial hand gel!!!

And finally, what would you expect a badger to eat?  I’d always considered they spent their evenings rummaging around the woodlands looking out grubs, insects, worms and the odd mouse or two but it seems it’s now been discovered that the latest badger delicacy is hedgehog.  How can a badger who normally eats small and relatively ’smooth’ food cope with the prickles?  What motivates a badger to even consider tackling a hedgehog.  Maybe their lives are so mundane that they decided they wanted more of a challenge.  It’s a mystery to me but I’m sure that some night wildlife watcher will come up with a bit of video footage to enlighten me!

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I was there at the beginning.

Yes, soon after Dr. Schaller (my favorite mad scientist) captured the bird, I blindly selected one of my favorite tommy guns and slaughtered the creature with panache.  I gutted it with my teeth.  I deconstructed it with a gulletful of Derrida.  I chugged a shot of ennui and belched sentences of purple bile into the airspace of downed jetliners.  I wouldn't call it a beautiful sight, but it was what I had.

Jeff VanderMeer called me a "smart ass", but I was used to that.  He'd called me worse ("cretinous wombat", "illiterate dirigible", "barbaric yawp", "Dick Cheney").

It all led to a chain reaction of words, words, words.

And now those words have been packaged and frozen with flash, waiting for you to take them out of the freezer and stick them in the microwave of your soul.

All for charity.

Go now, my minions.  Pre your order.  Feed the Wyrm and its whimsical Ministry.  Bring back souvenirs and relics and tchotchkes of the damned.  You're doing something good for the world.  Tell your friends.  They'll never believe you, but you're used to that, ever since the UFO and the sasquatch and the death panels.

The Bird Head took his last drink and I no longer have any tommy guns.  But why should that stop you?  There are mad scientists and realpolitiking consiglieri who claim sovereignty over the rest of us, but you -- you're free.  Suck in your gut.  Join the abjection.  Flay your dreams.

Remember: it's all for charity.  All the children who don't learn to read, I'm sending them to you.  It's time to ask yourself: Do you really want that weight to rend the fabric of the last vestiges of your conscience, punk?

Do it for the Bird Head.  One day, you, too, will take your last drink.  But that day is not today.  Go now, so you can say you did one good deed in your life.

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Like many British people (and I suspect many other people around the world), it’s a real treat to crunch on a biscuit when enjoying a cup of tea or coffee.  So you can imagine my surprise, when having my early Sunday morning imperfectly made cuppa (see http://purpleslinky.com/offbeat/the-complicated-cuppa-cup-that-cheers-or-mug-of-misery/) that I discovered I was amongst those idiots who have managed to suffer a minor injury at the hands of the humble hobnob.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/125767/Crumbs-half-of-us-have-been-injured-by-biscuits

I regret to admit that I’m one of the 29% of adult Brits who have managed to splash themselves with hot tea when dunking my digestive.  For those of you who’ve never dunked or heard of dunking let me enlighten you.  Once you’ve made your tea (or coffee) (beverage) and taken the biscuit of your choice from the biscuit tin (dunkee), you then proceed to dip a bite size piece of the dunkee into the beverage while holding onto the remainder to use as a ‘handle’ .  Once the dunkee has been dunked for a couple of seconds you bring it to the surface of the beverage and then manouevre the dunkee together with beverage as close to your chin as you can before biting (or sucking) the dunkee.  The skill is in getting dunkee to lips before it drops back into the beverage.  More often than not the dunkee drops its load back into the beverage thereby splashing the dunker with hot beverage!

If you’re lucky enough to dodge the hot beverage if the dunkee drops, don’t believe for one minute that the danger ends there.  You then have the job of taking a teaspoon, delving to the bottom of the beverage and trawling the cup to retrieve the errant dunkee to prevent choking.  This is no mean feat as, more often than not, the dunkee slips back into the beverage like an eel through a fishing net, which again can cause the dunker injury from splashback!

Having overcome the hazards of dunking, I have also regularly fallen into the 28% of Brits who have choked on biscuit crumbs and at times I’ve fallen into the 7% of Brits who have dropped a biscuit tin on their foot and the 7% who’ve been nibbled by a pet while feeding it with a biscuit (obviously I’m so sweet they can’t tell the difference between a biscuit and me), but thankfully none of my injuries have required the services of the A&E Department of the local hospital.

So there you have it – the Great British Biscuit Bite Back!!  I’m now going to get my mid morning coffee and I’m just pondering on whether to risk having a Bourbon (the UK version of the Oreo) biscuit – could be a nice treat or could end up as ‘death by chocolate’!!!  If it turns out to be the latter then at least I will have died happy!

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That’s right. The Swine Flu toy is for sale, and it’s a big hit! The CDC (Centers for Disease Control) have created this plush, pink toy to give your child hours of entertainment, available to buy now in their Atlanta gift shop! (who would have even thought the CDC had a gift shop?!)

This may be the perfect gift for children actually infected with Swine Flu and stuck in bed with nothing to do.

But if the toy based on the Swine Flu (aka H1N1 virus) isn’t what you’re looking for, than might I suggest the gonorrhea toy? How about the chlamydia toy? This is not a joke. These toys are for real!

Each toy comes with a tag that describes the illness, along with “fun facts” about it. Turns out people are buying these toys for various reasons. Some parents and doctors are getting these plush toys to help explain certain diseases to children, while some people are buying them because this is just about one of the funniest gag gifts there is!

And for you sophisticated types looking for something a little less childish, do not fret. There are disease-themed scarves and ties for sale, too. According to the CDC, the microbes of some very deadly diseases can make a very “stylish pattern” (Ooh! I know what will be on my Christmas wish-list this year!)

All images from giantmicrobes.com

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    Do you suffer from Coulrophobia? If you do, then you are not alone. The fear of clowns is listed as one of the top ten fears among people. If you suffer from high levels of anxiety and panic attacks when you are at the circus, then you might be Coulrophobic.

    I bet you are asking yourself what on earth is a Nomophobia? I am laughing myself because I didn’t know what it was, and I consider myself to have an expanded vocabulary. If you can’t live without your cell phone, and you panic the minute you have only bar left then you are a Nomophobic. And what about a vidigameaphobia? A vidigameaphobia fears video games. If you fear logging on to the Internet, then you have Inter phobia. Do you fear anything to the right of your body? Are you constantly looking to the right of your shoulder? Then you have Dextrophobia. If you fear anything to the left of your body, then you are a Levaphobic. Are you familiar with the word Alektorophobia? If you fear live chickens, then you might be an Alektorophobic.

    Are you a sequilpedalophobic? A sequilpedalophobic is one who fears long words. As you can see, I am learning about the different types of phobias. Although I do remember a few such as xenophobia, which is the fear of foreigners and agoraphobia, which is the fear of being in a situation that might provoke anxiety or panic disorder. For example, these sufferers will avoid being inside an elevator by themselves or other situations that might trigger this fear. And last but not least, is the fear of puppets or pupa phobia. If as a child you were scared of Oscar the Grouch or Cookie Monster, then you probably were a pupa phobic.

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia

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    Do you suffer from Coulrophobia? If you do, then you are not alone. The fear of clowns is listed as one of the top ten fears among people. If you suffer from high levels of anxiety and panic attacks when you are at the circus, then you might be Coulrophobic.

    I bet you are asking yourself what on earth is a Nomophobia? I am laughing myself because I didn’t know what it was, and I consider myself to have an expanded vocabulary. If you can’t live without your cell phone, and you panic the minute you have only bar left then you are a Nomophobic. And what about a vidigameaphobia? A vidigameaphobia fears video games. If you fear logging on to the Internet, then you have Inter phobia. Do you fear anything to the right of your body? Are you constantly looking to the right of your shoulder? Then you have Dextrophobia. If you fear anything to the left of your body, then you are a Levaphobic. Are you familiar with the word Alektorophobia? If you fear live chickens, then you might be an Alektorophobic.

    Are you a sequilpedalophobic? A sequilpedalophobic is one who fears long words. As you can see, I am learning about the different types of phobias. Although I do remember a few such as xenophobia, which is the fear of foreigners and agoraphobia, which is the fear of being in a situation that might provoke anxiety or panic disorder. For example, these sufferers will avoid being inside an elevator by themselves or other situations that might trigger this fear. And last but not least, is the fear of puppets or pupa phobia. If as a child you were scared of Oscar the Grouch or Cookie Monster, then you probably were a pupa phobic.

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia

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When I was a kid, I listened to the "Dr. Demento Show" religiously. It played on the local radio station on Sunday nights. A couple of friends of mine would also listen, and the next morning at school we would compare notes about which songs made us laugh the most, which ones we thought were just stupid, etc. I often taped the shows so I could collect the funniest songs, and I spent hours copying the best songs from each week onto a single tape.

Thus began a certain passion for weird music. Partly, my father is to blame -- he had been a DJ at a couple Massachusetts radio stations in the 1960s, and took home many of the 45's the station didn't want. Some of my earliest musical experiences were with these 45s, and there's some pretty bizarre stuff in there. Just like marijuana leads to heroin, those 45s led me to my current situation -- all sorts of stuff in my iTunes library that is utterly without redeeming social importance.

I was going through some of my father's records last weekend, and discovered the stash of 45s. What I really wanted to find was one that had remained in my memory as just about the worst record I'd ever heard in my life. I couldn't remember the singer, but I knew it was a rendition of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" by someone who, I remember my father telling me, was a rabbi trying to get young people to realize that rabbis can be, you know, cool. (Later, I would spend a year teaching at a yeshiva, so got to know plenty of rabbis. Some of them can, indeed, be pretty darn cool.)

I found the record. A 45 with four songs on it sung by Sam Chalpin. It was as hilariously awful as I remembered. Now that we have this internet thing, I decided to see if anybody else had heard of Chalpin, and if the LP mentioned on the 45 (My Father the Pop Singer) actually existed. I also wanted to see if there was an MP3 of the song, because I really wanted some other folks to hear it.

First, the song. An MP3 of it can be found at this extraordinary collection of links -- scroll down to "Oytunes". (And while you're there, check out some of the others. 2 Live Jews! Oh, how I loved them when they were on Dr. D!)

Now to Sam Chalpin. The first thing I discovered with the Google was this article from Spectropop about the making of My Father the Pop Singer -- yes, it does exist as an LP, and the legendary Ahmet Ertegun apparently signed it to Atlantic himself! It's a somewhat sad story, though, of an obnoxious son forcing his unwitting father to make a fool of himself. But some more digging led me to this Batman message board (the album includes Chalpin's rendition of the TV show theme) where Sam Chalpin's grandson says, "As for the album itself, it was recorded as a comedy. A gag. My grandfather believe it or not WAS a good singer. He used to be a cantor for his temple. That album was basically clowning around." Some interesting conversation ensues.

Further googling didn't turn up much, but I did find this excellent collection of strange MP3s, where Sam Sachs is compared to Chalpin (though I don't find him quite as humorous). Don't miss the two songs there by the medical glee club The Four Skins. Really. You can download the whole collection as one big zip file ... and, of course, I did....

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By Anatoly Liberman

I received many questions from our correspondents and from those who listened to my talk show on Minnesota Public Radio (“Midmorning”), January 1. (Is 9 AM on such a day really midmorning?) Some questions were not posted on OUP’s blog but came to me by email. Those I will repeat or summarize. Today I’ll be able to touch on less than one third of what I have. More next Wednesday.

Etymology and Etymologists. In my post on serendipity and luck in etymological studies, I noted that researchers’ conclusions are sometimes influenced by their knowledge of one group of languages. Those who are well versed in Scandinavian linguistics tend to find the etymons of English words in Icelandic and Norwegian, specialists in Romance discover the etymons of the same words in French dialects, and so on. Miracles of omniscience turn up rarely, and because few people display the mastery of even one foreign language comparable to that of their mother tongue, solutions about the origin of obscure words depend partly on our limitations. A correspondent calls my attention to Hester Thrale Piozzi, who traced all words to Welsh. He concludes his letter so: “Some of us once thought of bringing out a book entitled Etymology by Hester Thrale with nothing but well-known, but quite false derivations, including hers, of course. Others, before us and after us, have accomplished that without trying.” He also writes: “I hope you will one day devote a blog to the etymologists whose narrow focus caused these people to overlook more compelling solutions…. I would be interested in seeing these people collected in one place, perhaps with examples and your solutions.”

I would love to write such a book, rather than a blog, on this subject (I devoted only a few lines to etymology and obsession in Word Origins… and How We Know Them; the subject has been explored more fully in my dictionary). Such a book with a coy title like Matchless Incendiaries or Convicted by Their Convictions would be a joy to write and become a national bestseller. Here a few remarks will suffice. Ernest Weekley, the author of several excellent books on English words and of an English etymological dictionary, called those who attempted to trace all words to one language monomaniacs. Not all of them have been tarred with the same brush or cut out of the same cloth. For many centuries it was customary to derive one language from another: Latin from Greek, German from Gothic, and so forth. All of them were supposed to go back to Hebrew, the language Adam and Eve allegedly spoke in Paradise. No one remembers hearing Adam and Eve; consequently, opinions regarding their language differed. Perhaps the most famous guess (famous for its craziness) identified it with Dutch. The curious thing is that enough similar-sounding words exist in Dutch, Latin, Greek, and even Hebrew to boost the most bizarre hypothesis of origins.

Later, political monomaniacs, inspired by patriotic feelings, moved center stage. In English studies, Celtomania flourished for a long time. John Cleland wrote not only a memorable book about Fanny Hill, a woman of pleasure, but also a learned work on English etymology. Unlike his novel, it is unrewarding reading: English words are derived in it from fanciful Celtic roots. Even more notorious was Charles MacKay, an erudite 19^th-century scholar, the author of good books on English vocabulary, but a slave of the idea that most words of English and other languages go back to Irish Gaelic. Monomaniacs who believe that the bulk of the vocabulary of modern European languages is traceable to Slavic, Arabic, or Hebrew are still active and have a sizable following. Singleness of purpose and ignorance form durable and dangerous unions.

A last group is comprised of excellent scholars who make worthwhile discoveries but overuse their expertise and tend to search for the sources of obscure words in the material they know best. This is where Scandinavian and Romance come in. It is not hard to dig up a specious ancestor of an English word in some neighboring language, be it Welsh, Irish, French, or Icelandic. There is no recipe against blunders in this area, and perhaps only an instinct akin to the instinct that saves an experienced chess player from making a wrong move can rein in an etymologist’s enthusiasm. On the other hand, as I mentioned in my blog on serendipity and luck, familiarity with some language, especially a good grasp of one’s native language, can provide valuable associations closed to others. All in all, an author planning a book about the etymologists who went astray will not run out of material. A tragedy in five acts with an interlude and an epilogue is also possible.

Spelling. A correspondent from India asks why English spelling has not been made strictly phonetic if a close sound to letter correspondence is possible for other languages. Many books have been written on the subject of English spelling. At one time the written image of English words did reflect their pronunciation with some accuracy. After 1066 (the Norman Conquest), French scribes imposed their rules that ran counter to the phonetic reality of English. It took centuries for a writing system obligatory for all to be accepted, and the norm that emerged turned out to be inconsistent and conservative. No radical reform of English spelling has so far gained enough public support. As a result, we often spell words according to medieval rules, and English abounds in homographs like bow “bend” and bow (to play a string instrument) and homophones like slow and sloe. It is hard to find another language in which four words are spelled differently—write, rite, right, and Wright/wright (as in playwright)—but pronounced the same. This blog has existed for nearly three years, and eleven posts have dealt with what I called “The Oddest English Spelling”; two more addressed Spelling Reform.

English versus German. An argument arose in which one side insisted that German was a better medium of thought than English because English, with its multiple homophones, often obscures the message, while in German such cases are nonexistent. How true is this statement? I don’t think it is true, even though English has numerous words like sloe and slow. Punning is indeed easier in English and French than in German. Other than that, homophones present no danger to communication because context disambiguates them (to use a technical linguistic term). Even in a piece of constructed nonsense like not everything is right in the drama on the rite of spring that Mr. Wright, a rightwing playwright, promised to write hardly anyone will misunderstand the meaning despite the cacophony. And some homophones also exist in German, for example, denen (a pronoun) and dehnen “prolong, lengthen,” Rhein (the river) and rein “clean,” and so forth. I would in general object to any statement to the effect that a certain language serves it purpose inadequately. Language is a self-regulating system, and especially in the vocabulary sphere it borrows from various sources, gets rid of deadwood, produces synonyms, and develops new ways of derivation, so that at any moment it is both “perfect” and open to change.

Shakespeare’s pronunciation. How should the word eisel be pronounced? This question came one day after I submitted my previous set of gleanings, and I hope that someone getting ready to play Hamlet or read out loud excerpts from the play will still be able to profit by my answer. The word eisel “vinegar,” from Old French (ultimately from Latin), was recorded as early as the 13^th century but barely survived Shakespeare’s well-contented day. We remember it because it occurs in Hamlet’s passionate questions hurled at Laertes in the churchyard: “’Swounds, show me what thou’lt do: / Woo’t drink up eisel? Eat a crocodile? / I’ll do’t” (V, 1: 295-99). And in Sonnet 111, we read: “Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink/ Potions of eisel ‘gainst my strong infection.” In old editions, the word also occurs in the forms esill, esile, and eysell. Today no one knows how it was pronounced (this is the reason the OED gives no transcription), but the spellings suggest that two variants competed (assuming that Shakespeare’s vowels had more or less the same realizations as today): one must have been homophonous with our easel, the other began with ay as in ay, may, nay. Both can be heard. It seems that in the United and Canada eezel predominates, while in England actors usually say ayzel.

Separate words

Weird. Long ago it was a noun meaning “fate.” It had cognates (also nouns) in all the other Old Germanic languages. In the middle period, English lost a verb related to this noun but preserved, for example, in German (werden “become”; originally “happen, come to pass”). Its trace exists in the formula woe worth the day, but today few people will recognize this formula and even fewer will guess that worth is the ancient subjunctive of the once common verb (“may woe befall the day,” that is, “let the day perish”). Since Fates were supposed to control our destiny, the phrase werde sisters arose in the 14^th century. It would probably have been forgotten but for Shakespeare’s weird sisters in Macbeth. Nowadays weird turned into slang for “odd” (“he is so weird”), and the noun weirdo was coined, a far cry from the dignified wyrd that dominated Old English poetry, with its fatalistic view of life and death. Schadenfreude. This German word meaning “joy felt at someone’s misfortune, vindictive glee” has become so common that like angst it is no longer italicized in our books and can be found in English dictionaries. It is made up of two German nouns: Schaden “harm” and Freude “joy.” Willy-nilly. This is a contraction of the phrase wil I nil I “I am willing, I am unwilling”; nyl goes back to Old Engl. nyllan, that is, wyllan “will” preceded by ne. Cater-corner ~ kitty corner. Most probably, from a Scandinavian word for “left” (hence “not right, not straight; going across”), rather than from French quatre “four” (see a long entry on this word in my dictionary). Dickens “devil.” From a proper name (Dick, Dickon, Dicken), a common case (compare Old Nick, Old Harry, and Rob/Hob), with reinforcing -s.

To be continued.

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Anatoly Liberman is the author of Word Origins…And How We Know Them as well as An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction. His column on word origins, The Oxford Etymologist, appears here, each Wednesday. Send your etymology question to [email protected]; he’ll do his best to avoid responding with “origin unknown.”

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I love happenstance and serendipity with music, so am quite attracted to a music meme Andrew Wheeler just shared:

1. Put your iTunes (or any other media player you may have) on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!

Here we go...

IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY?
Izakunyatheli Afrika Verwoerd (Africa is Going to Trample on You, Verwoerd) -- from This Land is Mine: South African Freedom Songs

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
Six O'Clock News -- John Prine

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
Another Man's Vine -- Tom Waits

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
Pagan Poetry -- Björk

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine -- Bob Dylan

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
I Kill Children -- Dead Kennedys

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Humdrum -- Peter Gabriel

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Brother Flower -- Townes van Zandt

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Cataracts -- Andrew Bird

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Straight -- Amanda Palmer

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Honey in the Rock -- Blind Mamie Forehand

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Steam Powered Aereo-plane -- John Hartford

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Television Man -- Talking Heads

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
Drifter's Escape -- Bob Dylan

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Castles Made of Sand -- Vance Gilbert

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Soul Mining -- The The

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
Sweet 16 -- Bob Peck

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
Aim to Please -- TV on the Radio

WHAT'S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
Onions -- The Mountain Goats

HOW WILL YOU DIE?
Killer Queen -- Queen

WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
Demento -- Kill Memory Crash

WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
Echoes -- Pink Floyd

WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
Two Good Men (Sacco & Vanzetti) -- Woody Guthrie

WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
Nice Work if You Can Get It -- Billie Holiday

WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?
Nightswimming -- REM

DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?
Floe -- Philip Glass

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
Peter -- Marlene Dietrich

WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground -- Bascom Lamar Lunsford


Wow. Those really are random, but a lot of them are oddly appropriate.

Now a fun challenge would be to write a story from all those. If I weren't already trying to write a story based on a stray comment about a group of songs I mentioned to Brian Slattery, I'd give it a try.

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Always one to be behind the times, I'd not heard of Improv Everywhere until today, but a quick scan of the website explained an event I'd unwittingly witnessed a few weeks ago: No Pants 2k8, where hundreds of people in seven cities around the world took off their pants (that is, trousers -- in London I once made what I thought was an innocuous comment about "pants" and everybody thought I was making a ribald comment about underwear) and rode the subways. I'd ridden a train with one of these groups, and assumed they were participating in some sort of marathon. Or something. I don't know. You see weird stuff in NY all the time.

But the latest Improv Everywhere event is marvelous -- be sure to watch the video of Frozen Grand Central. Hilarious and beautiful. Long may they improvise!

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