Beneath a boiling
sky, aflame with yellow, orange and red, an androgynous figure stands upon a
bridge. Wearing a sinuous blue coat,
which appears to flow, surreally, into a torrent of aqua, indigo and ultramarine behind him, he holds up two
elongated hands on either side of his hairless, skull-like head. His eyes wide with shock, he unleashes a
bloodcurdling shriek. Despite distant
vestiges of normality--two figures upon the bridge, a boat on the
fjord--everything is suffused with a sense of primal, overwhelming horror. This, of course, is The Scream, by the
Norwegian artist Edvard Munch--the second most famous image in art history,
after Leonardo’s Mona Lisa. Or, to be precise, it is one of four versions of The
Scream that Munch created in his lifetime.
The earliest painted version, from 1893, is in Oslo’s National
Gallery. Elsewhere in the city, the
Munch Museum boasts the other painted version, from 1910, as well as a
rendition in pastel from 1893. Alistair
Sooke Read more and see graphics at http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160303-what-is-the-meaning-of-the-scream See also https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/later-europe-and-americas/modernity-ap/a/munch-the-scream
and https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/edvard-munch-beyond-the-scream-111810150/
"Earth is here so kind, that just tickle her with
a hoe and she laughs with a harvest". “A blessed
companion is a book--a book that, fitly chosen, is a lifelong friend . . . a
book that, at a touch, pours its heart into your own.” “Humor is the
harmony of the heart.” “If slander
be a snake, it is a winged one-- it flies as well as creeps.” Douglas William
Jerrold, English playwright and humorist (1803-1857) Jerrold
achieved success in the theatre with Black-Eyed Susan (1829),
a nautical melodrama that draws on the patriotic tar (sailor) while critiquing authoritarianism in the British
Navy. He also mastered a special brand
of Victorian humour in a series of articles called “Mrs. Caudle’s Curtain
Lectures” (1845) for Punch magazine,
to which he was a regular contributor.
A prolific journalist, he wrote much that is bitter and
personal, in sharp contrast to the geniality of his “Curtain Lectures,” which
appeared in book form (1846) and were regularly reprinted. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Douglas-William-Jerrold
What
we know as “curry” has a long and curious history by Michael Snyder The first American cookbook, 1824’s The Virginia Housewife,
featured a curry recipe. That word
“curry,” now as then, has a meaning as vague and inclusive as its ingredients. It can mean any stew made with “Indian”
spices, as well as the yellow spice powder (usually a mixture of turmeric,
coriander, cumin, and fenugreek) used in raisin-studded chicken salads. The Portuguese first came to India’s
palm-toothed southern shores in 1498, in search of cardamom, cloves, and black
pepper, each among the world’s most valuable commodities. Lacking a word to describe the spicy,
coconut-thickened stews they found there, they went ahead and made one up: carel, taken from the Tamil word kari. Read more and see pictures at https://thetakeout.com/what-we-know-as-curry-has-a-long-and-curious-history-1798252495
A New York minute means an instant. It is also the title of a 2004 teen comedy
film.
The first recorded use of
"Philadelphia lawyer"
occurred in 1788, in the form of "It would puzzle a Philadelphia
lawyer." That was in "The
Columbian Magazine" of Philadelphia in a letter written from a man in
London to a correspondent in Philadelphia.
Another parallel saying came out of New England as "any three
Philadelphia lawyers are a match for the devil." Today, the term is more likely to describe an
attorney whose dealings are somewhat questionable. Jim Willard
In the 1830s, in Boston, there was a fad of making
abbreviations; also of using jocular
misspellings. So “all correct” became of
“oll korrect” which became abbreviated to OK.
The word would have ended as a fad, but along came US President Martin
Van Buren (1782-1862). During his
re-election campaign of 1840, his supporters adopted the word OK as a nickname
for him (short for Old Kinderhook; he was born in Kinderhook, New York) and the
word has lived on ever since, not only in the English language, but most of the
languages around the world. Earliest
documented use: 1839. OK is an all-American word. And like many things made in America, it’s
used everywhere. Not bad for a
two-letter word. It can work as an
adjective, noun, verb, adverb, interjection, and probably anything else that
your imagination can conjure. It’s not
often that a whole book is written about a single word. Check
out OK:
The Improbable Story Of America’s Greatest Word. Today is Presidents Day in the US. It’s observed to commemorate two of the most
popular US presidents: George Washington
(born Feb 22, 1732) and Abraham Lincoln (born Feb 12, 1809). Until 1971 both of these birthdays were
observed as public holidays. Then, with
typical American efficiency, we took the average of the two dates and marked a
single day--third Monday of February--to honor not only Lincoln and Washington,
but all US presidents. This week we’ll
look at a few words with presidential connections. During the last 230 years of presidenting, we
have had 45 presidents. "Were it
left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or
newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the
latter." - Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect, and author
(1743-1826) A.Word.A.Day with Anu
Garg
Ken Nordine,
died February 16, 2019 in Chicago at the age of 98. Listen to whatever you can find at
www.wordjazz.com. What you will discover
is the one-and-only voice of Ken Nordine, one of the few people in the history
of radio to use the medium to its fullest potential, rather than as a forum for
blather, confrontation, inanities and noisy nonsense. He made a kind of vocal music as the voice of
thousands of commercials and as the force behind a new art form he created and
called “word jazz.” He was often
referred to simply as “The Voice,” and you will read elsewhere that he
possessed “the voice of God.” As
complimentary as that may be, it is hyperbole. Nordine’s voice was as distinctive as any, but
it also carried a palpable and unforgettable humanity. For the Chicago Blackhawks, he gave voice to
these four unforgettable words—“Cold steel on ice”—that remain firmly embedded
in local minds. Nordine was born on
April 13, 1920, in Cherokee, Iowa, the son of Theresia and Nore Nordine. His father was an architect/builder, and some
of his work sparkled along the lakefront during our 1933-34 World’s Fair. This is where the family settled and where Ken
attended what is now Lane Technical College Preparatory High School and the
University of Chicago. He started work
in 1938, making $15 a month running a mimeograph machine at the studios of
WBEZ, when that radio station programmed exclusively for the public schools. He then moved on to announcing jobs at
stations in Florida and Michigan before returning to Chicago, becoming a staff
announcer for WBBM-FM and to start making radio commercials. One writer described his voice as an
instrument that "muses and oozes like molten gold." Rick
Kogan https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-ent-ken-nordine-dead-0217-story.html
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 2045
February 18, 2019
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