SparkNotes and Homer

The man for wisdom's various arts renown'd,
Long exercised in woes, O Muse! resound;
Who, when his arms had wrought the destined fall
Of sacred Troy, and razed her heaven-built wall,
Wandering from clime to clime, observant stray'd,
Their manners noted, and their states survey'd,
On stormy seas unnumber'd toils he bore,
Safe with his friends to gain his natal shore:
Vain toils!

Say what?

Students who think that SparkNotes make life easier have another think coming when it comes to Homer's Odyssey. Here's what Spark offers as a reading text to accompany its plot summaries: Alexander Pope's translation in heroic couplets. Vain toils indeed!

All Homer posts (Pinboard)

The car as oikos

Chrysler chairman Robert L. Nardelli, in a New York Times article on the trend to outfit cars with elaborate entertainment technology:

"I think a vehicle today has to be your most favorite room under your roof. It has to bring you gratification; it has to be tranquil. It's incidental that it gets you from Point A to Point B, right?"

Thus the car as oikos. Note that those who are to dwell in this house of the future are deemed incapable of finding gratification in low-tech endeavors: reading, drawing, singing, talking, telling stories, playing "I spy," looking at scenery. All pleasure must be mediated — and, as the Times article details, dangerously distracting to the driver.

More High-Tech Invitations to Take Your Mind Off Road (New York Times)

Like hope, but different

A parody of will.i.am's "Yes, We Can" song, short and to the point:

john.he.is (YouTube)

Bafangool!

Part of what makes Orange Crate Art exciting for me is the chance to share what I learn and to learn, in turn, from readers. Manicule? Who knew? George and Lesle's comments on that post point to further beautiful curiosities in the language of type: dingbat, pilcrow.

Something I just learned: the meaning of bafangool, via a piece in the New Yorker on Beppe Grillo, a comedian fighting political corruption in Italy. Reading about the word vaffanculo, I realized that here was the word I heard kids saying in Brooklynese Italian forty years or so ago: Bafangool! I never knew what it meant, only that it was "bad."

As you may know or suspect, this post has come to focus on an Italian curse. Click at your own risk:

Beppe's Inferno (New Yorker)
Bafangool (WordReference.com)
Vaffanculo (WordReference.com)
Va Fangul! . . . And Have a Nice Day (Time)

And one more, risk-free:

You Say Prosciutto, I Say Pro-SHOOT (New York Times)

"I ain't talkin' Greek"

I just taught Langston Hughes' "The Cat and the Saxophone (2 A.M.)," a poem that incorporates the first lines of Jack Palmer and Spencer Williams' 1924 song "Everybody Loves My Baby (But My Baby Don't Love Nobody But Me)." And now I'm wondering about these lines from the song (which don't appear in the poem):

She's got a form like Venus, honest,
I ain't talkin' Greek.

I don't know about the lady's form, but it's true that the singer ain't talkin' (or singin') Greek. If he were, he'd be speaking of mighty Ἀφροδίτη (Aphrodite). Venus of course is her Roman equivalent.

But is there a Greco-Roman joke there that the listener is meant to get? That indeed, the singer ain't talkin' Greek, because the name he invokes is Roman? Or is the lyric just a bit careless, the point being that the lady is beautiful, like a goddess? (Greek goddess? Roman goddess? Who cares!)

Wit or a mistake: it'd be nice to have a name for this kind of uncertainty. I began thinking about it when I saw a T-shirt with the name Helvetica printed in a serif font. That was wit, not a mistake. I also thought about it in relation to a T-shirt that alters the standard sequence of Beatle first names. I'm still not sure about that one.

If your computer can play RealPlayer files, you can forget about all these questions by listening to "Everybody Loves My Baby" right now, by Fats Waller and His Rhythm (John Hamilton, trumpet; Gene Sedric, clarinet; Al Casey, guitar; Cedric Wallace, bass; Slick Jones, drums), from November 6, 1940:

Everybody Loves My Baby (Jazz Old Time on line)

A sentence beginning with "My mom"

Re: Chelsea Clinton, from today's New York Daily News:

"She's the only person in the world who can start a sentence about Hillary Clinton with 'my mom,' . . . said Philippe Reines, a Clinton aide who travels with Chelsea Clinton.

Not so: My mom voted for Barack Obama, not Hillary Clinton. My dad too.

(Hi Mom and Dad!)

Jesús Malverde

Not from The Onion, news of an unofficial patron saint of drug dealers, Jesús Malverde, the "narco-saint":

Mexican Robin Hood Figure Gains Notoriety (New York Times)
Jesús Malverde (Wikipedia)

Julia Ringma wins juice challenge

The challenge of The Three Juices has ended. Julia Ringma correctly guessed all three Platonic liquids: pineapple, loganberry, and tomato. Well done, Julia!

Thanks too to Ben and Stephen for playing.



This Libby's ad appeared in the April 29, 1940 issue of Life.

About loganberry juice (which I'd never heard of, and which would make breakfast really different): Wikipedia helps out.

The Three Juices

Yes, this grapefruit juice is marvelous. It's also economical, "table-ready," and "refreshing any time o' day."

But Mommie has a secret! What is she keeping from us? Reader, are you ready to meet the challenge of The Three Juices?

Here are two hints:

1. Each juice's name begins with a letter found in the name Plato.

2. Orange juice is not one of the three.

Leave a comment with your best guesses. You can guess again and again, and I'll give more hints (in the comments) as needed. You're on the honor system here: no looking online for the rest of this ad. (I don't think it's out there anyway.) The prize: undying fame in the form of a follow-up blog post. I'll also post the rest of the ad when (if?) there's a winner.

Update: We have a winner.

Manicule

Did you know what the hand-with-pointing-finger symbol is called, other than "hand-with-pointing-finger symbol"? Neither did I.

Manicule isn't in the Oxford English Dictionary, but it is a name for this symbol.

Related reading and viewing
Toward a History of the Manicule
Flickr manicule group