the simpsons, word fun

Stiglets

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I come from a long line of intentional mispronouncers. A favorite catchphrase of my dad’s is “Hope to sh*t in your mess kit!” spoken in the same context and tone of voice as “Have a nice day.” I still have no idea what the hell it means.

My dad is also big with the spoonerisms, and permanently scarred my older brother by having him learn the phrase “Chi Chi Boo Boo” when waving goodbye to a train. Needless to say, I did not fare much better than my brother.

So, I am now stuck with a habit of intentionally mispronouncing words in casual conversation.

I couldn’t find any word to describe this concept, so I’m making one up. A stiglet — an intentionally mispronounced word.

There’s really only one stiglet that I can use quite a bit, and believe me, I use it quite a bit. Click on the word to hear how it sounds coming out of my piehole.

money

The rest I use when I can, but they don’t come up that often.

fajitas
psychiatrist
pneumonia (you see where this is going don’t you?)

On very rare occasions, I’ll hear a word mispronounced and adopt it as my own. Here’s a favorite of mine:

saxophone

movies, stuff-you-may-have-missed

Isolation

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Okay, here’s another one of those things I just somehow happened to notice which you may or may not have noticed.

I have seen The Shining in the theater once, and have seen it on DVD four or five times. During my last viewing of the film, a line of dialogue popped out at me for the first time.

So, in my last viewing of the film I happen to notice that a line spoken by the Stuart Ullman character (the character Jack Torrance goes to interview with for the job of the Overlook Hotel caretaker) has a strange change in it. The word ‘isolation’ sounds very slightly different — louder, with more force, having a slightly different quality (music snobs would call it timbre, but I’m not a music snob, folks).

Stanley Kubrick, to put it mildly, could be called a detail-oriented kind of guy. One could even go so far as to say he is somewhat of a perfectionist. The chance that this use of ‘isolation’ somehow slipped in unnoticed by the man to me seems pretty slim. He could have easily re-recorded the line of dialogue so this difference wouldn’t be there. But he wanted it to be there.

What? You say you can’t hear the difference? Close your eyes and play the clip again. Still nothing? Okay, put on headphones, close your eyes, play the clip again and concentrate.

Now, you say, okay, I hear it. So what?

So what? You ungrateful bastard.

blogging about blogging

The Blogger’s Hyperbola

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Back in ye olden days I enjoyed putting up the odd webpage when a certain topic struck my fancy enough to do so, but I found the whole process of presenting page(s) devoted to a new topic, what with all the accompanying homemade images, font choices, color schemes, etc., to be nauseatingly time-consuming and dull. I didn’t want to do things half-assed (not to say that the results still didn’t often appear half-assed), so I eventually chose to do nothing at all.

Consequently, my webpage just sat there like an old chair, letting the digital cobwebs gather.

Flash forward to years later, where I began pretty regularly checking in at Bubs and MizBubs’ darling l’il compound. I got inspired to start a-postin’ again.

As I don’t need to tell you (but nevertheless am, by gosh), blogging is a nice catalyst for throwing thoughts straight from your brain onto the INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY.

The one problem I have with blogging is that it seems to me to be a pretty time-sensitive medium. “New” is good, “sorta new” is sorta okay, and “old” is disregarded — which brings us to The Blogger’s Hyperbola:

Note how high the reader interest is when one’s post is as fresh as a baby’s recently-filled diaper! Sadly, as that diaper gets older and older, no one cares anymore. Throw that diaper away.

Now, sometimes my posts are relevant to the time they were written in, but other times I am sharing timeless nuggets of wisdom. Sadly, these posts will end up in the diaper pail of history, unless I proactively do something.

Oh! That reminds me! Did you ever wonder what songs I would sing in a crowded elevator?

meme, music, rock 'n roll

Seven Songs Shaking My World

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Continuing the chain, the last link being Johnny Yen

List seven songs you’re into right now … no matter what they are. BUT they must be songs you’re presently enjoying.

The New Pornographers – The Bones Of An Idol (from Twin Cinema)
Any song that Neko Case sings in the New Pornographers invariably is their best. When the instruments kick in overdrive after she sings “but something keeps turning us on” it is head-bobbin’ time.

Lou Reed – Halloween Parade (from New York)
This song from his New York album is achingly beautiful, simple and sad, and filled with lots of affection. One of my favorite songs of his, I’d also match it with any songs of the Velvet Underground. It’s that good.

Pylon – This, That (from Chain)
Man, I am digging Pylon. They were contemporaries of R.E.M. way back when in Athens, GA. Not to be confused with some recent band from the UK also calling themselves Pylon. Great guitar, singing, drumming. This just happens to be the Pylon song that is getting the most airplay these days for me.

Donovan – There Is A Mountain (from a Greatest Hits collection)
I heard this song emanating out of the PA speakers in a store called Hobo, which is basically a cheap version of Home Depot. I had never heard it before, but really, really liked it. As soon as I got home I popped some lyrics I was able to make out into a search engine. Minutes later I was grooving out to it. Fantastic song.

The Everly Brothers – Illinois (from Roots)
I really love the Everly Brothers. I immediately went for this song, ’cause I am sucker for all things Illinois. A really pretty song, with nice piano and their great, inimitable voices.

Leonard Cohen – The Captain (from Various Positions)
I love this song, it’s really bouncy. And I love the lyrics, particularly the lines:

“Complain, complain, that’s all you do
Ever since we lost
If it’s not the Crucifixion
Then it’s the Holocaust”

The Magnetic Fields – I Don’t Want To Get Over You (from 69 Love Songs, Vol. 1)
Nice synthy song. Like a lot of Stephin Merritt’s songs, the lyrics are really clever. He drops a nice lyrical bomb at the end.

“Or I could make a career of being blue
I could dress in black and read Camus
Smoke clove cigarettes and drink vermouth
like I was seventeen
that would be a scream
But I don’t want to get over you”

Consider yourself tagged if you haven’t done this yet.

comix, movies

Rory’s First Kiss Update!

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There is a gargantuan old US Post Office building off of Van Buren Avenue in downtown Chicago that, to my knowledge, has sat dormant for at least 10 or so years.

A week or two ago I noticed some people building this wooden “gateway” at the service entrance of this building. I was curious as to what its intent was. The fact that it was just a wood frame made me think there wasn’t anything permanent about it.

Later, the facade was painted to match the stone of the post office building. It matched surprisingly well, I thought, but still, what the hell were these people doing?

Last week, I had lunch with a friend who knew someone in the “Industry” who said they were building a set for the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight.

Sure enough, this is true…

Latest on The Dark Knight Filming
Dark Knight Set Pics

To not stir up the comic book geeks, they have all the Production signs referring to the film as Rory’s First Kiss. Of course, by having all these ‘RFK’ signs everywhere, they don’t even realize the amount of buzz they are creating for fans of the Kennedy family, a far more rabid group of people than your average comic book gaggle.

Seeing this cool set in person (I walk by it every day to get to work) reminded me of the time I was walking downtown when I saw a parking lot full of police cars that said “Gotham” on them during the time they were filming Batman Begins in Chicago. I was only mildly interested, due to the fact that the Batman movie franchise up until then was absolute garbage (yes, even the Tim Burton ones). I figured, oh wonderful, they are making another crappy Batman movie.

Now with the realization that Batman Begins was such a good film (up there with Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films, even), it’s fun to be excited about Rory’s First Kiss.

Go Rory!

word fun

Ringdinging

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What does somebody have to do to be a permanent fixture in one’s culture? And what’s the least amount of effort one can put forth to get this to happen?

Here’s an idea… introduce a new word into your language. “Truthiness,” for example. Right now, the Blogger spell-checker is marking “Truthiness” in this typed post as an error, but, if this word somehow survives its novelty as a satirical concept promoted by a TV comedian, and enters into the holy halls of Regular Usage, perhaps someday the spell-checker will nod, yes, no problem with that word. That seems like a pretty amazing accomplishment to me.

So, now, I present… my word that will spread like a filthy little virus — hell it might even enter the OED with balloons and party horns:

Ringdinging

So far, two definitions.

1st Definition — The act of an actor in a film or TV show, who in a line of dialogue mentions the name of the TV show or film he/she is acting in (e.g. “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.”).

Character actor Dick Miller is a notorious ringdinger, and has ringdinged in at least two films that I have seen.

He uses the word “gremlins” in the Joe Dante film Gremlins, and says the words “after hours” in Martin Scorsese’s After Hours. Even when he isn’t ringdinging, I am on the edge of my seat expecting it. He played the gun shop owner in The Terminator, and when Arnold asks for a “Phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range” I always expect Dick Miller’s character to reply, “What are you, some kind of Terminator?”

2nd Definition — The act of promoting one’s self through the introduction of some lazy conceit, or a feeble twist on a preexisting novel concept.

So, by the second definition above, I myself am ringdinging in attempting to introduce the word “ringdinging” into the language.

Wow, I am the coolest loser on the planet!

rock 'n roll, youtube

A Tropicália Video Primer

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I have much affection for Tropicália, a wonderful musical movement that started in the late 60’s in Brazil.

Here’s some choice video clips from artists of that movement.

Os Mutantes – Panis Et Circenses(1969) – Ain’t they cute?!

Tom Zé – Hein? – The song is from the 70’s. The performance is from 1991. From my favorite album of his, Estudando o Samba.

Gilberto Gil – Expresso 2222 – From the album of the same name. Fantastic!

I couldn’t find a decent clip of Caetano Veloso, so I present another Brazilian clip, not really associated with the Tropicália movement, but a wonderful song nonetheless.

Elis e Tom – Aguas de Março – Prolly my favorite Antonio Carlos Jobim song – take that, Girl From Ipanema!