"Down in Albuquerque way where the cactus grows / she gave me a kiss and took off her clothes ... "

[larryhammer]

" ... down in Albuquerque way where the desert is dry / she called me a name and spit in my eye"

Random jottings, none of them about Japanese language or comics. La!

---

Despite the pretty good word of the day, the drops on the cars are not dew but rain. Not fog, because the patches persistently fail to patch here, but rain from low-flying clouds nonetheless.

---

Department of Learn New Slang Every Day -- from a song by Thomas Durfey (1653-1723, published before 1700) about the country pleasures of youths and lasses:

They laid the Girls down, and gave each a green Mantle,
While their Breasts and their Bellies went a-Pintle a-Pantle

Other poems from the same collection (The Penguin Book of Restoration Verse) show that pintle was used at the time for penis. So the pantle would be a euphonic distaff counterpart, perhaps? OED is not helpful here, as neither the senses of a synonym for to pant or a kind of fowling snare would apply here, which suggests a nonce word or a need for a specialized glossary.

---

Not quite words of one beat, despite the protestations of the preface (she allows herself "a-way," "mam-ma," and "7," to name a few), but still postable under the bad poetry criterion: stevendj points out the Project Gutenberg version of Aunt Fanny's First Little Pet Book with Ten Short Stories in Words of Three and Four Letters (New York: 1867). Some of which stories are in verse -- narrow verse with short words only. Even by the admittedly lax standards of Victorian children's verse, it's not very good. As for what she was thinking:

Now, I wonder if these good mothers can conceive what it is to write a story in words of one syllable, and make it interesting, sensible, and grammatical? If they can not, I entreat them to try a page or two of this utterly distracting style of composition; they will very soon have a realizing sense of the pleasing emotions of a lunatic confined in a strait-jacket.

Words of truth, Fanny -- words of truth.

---

I rarely dream of real people I don't know in person, but when my underbrain tosses one into the Morphean cinefantastique, it tends to be memorable. A particularly vivid example was Arnold Schwarzenegger leading a chorus line of high-kicking male bodybuilders in a chant of "I must! I must! I must increase my bust!" That was a while ago -- the past few years, there's been only one RP character, in a single repeating role:

Sometimes in the sort of dreams where I-and-others are searching for the McGuffin but have wandered off into distraction, the underbrain signals it's kicking things back! on! track! by having Alan Rickman show up to sneer, with full Snape-alicious disdain, "Oh, look. A clue," then shimmer off again. Which usually is so discombobulating that we sheepishly agree to return to the task at hand.

It's almost as discombobulating as high-kicking Arnie.

---L.

Comments

[coffeeem.livejournal.com]

Gratuitous sneering Alan Rickman FTW!!!!

[larryhammer]

But he doesn't stick around!

[coffeeem.livejournal.com]

Only as long as you need him, man. He's a superhero. *g*

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Good old smutty Durfey!

"A-Pintle a-Pantle" is rather glorious. I wouldn't dismiss the other two senses so lightly. I mean, "a bird-snare made of hair"? Ask any snipe who's been caught in one. As for the other, "My heart! O my heart! if it does not go pantle, pantle, pantle I am no honest woman" (1632) suggests "I'll have what she's having." Even if it's a nonce word here it's damned clever.

My favorite frequentative is still "swivel" from "swive."

Nine

[larryhammer]

My favorite frequentative is still "swivel" from "swive."

!!

I'd not met that one before. I must remember it post-haste.

There's some interesting smut in this anthology -- Rochester, sure, but I'd not met Durfey before.

---L.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Best known for his collection of bawdy songs, Pills to Purge Melancholy. The best of them are wickedly witty (if decidedly incorrect) (http://sniff.numachi.com/pages/tiYNGVIRG;ttHEARTMAN.html), and there's even a proto-feminist anthem to self-determination (http://sniff.numachi.com/pages/tiTHINGOWN;ttLILIBURL.html).

There 's a good selection of them on My Thing Is My Own: The Bawdy Songs of D'Urfey by Hesperus.

Nine

[larryhammer]

"Touch but her smicket," eh? I don't know what that means, exactly, but I don't think I need to.

---L.

[sovay]

by having Alan Rickman show up to sneer, with full Snape-alicious disdain, "Oh, look. A clue," then shimmer off again. Which usually is so discombobulating that we sheepishly agree to return to the task at hand.

I can totally see that.

[larryhammer]

:-D

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

Lunatic confined in a strait-jacket? Cat in the hat!

[larryhammer]

We who do dare such works are in truth quite mad -- most of us end up tied and trussed in a soft walled room in a mad house, seen to by nice men in white coats. "Yes, yes," they say, "words of one beat are fun, we know. But please, try to stay calm."

And then, as it so oft turns out, one says, "Argh! He bit me! the ---- " and then he says a bad word.

---L.

[salyey-marya.livejournal.com]

I Love Propp.

[larryhammer]

I find myself nodding vigorously and arguing strongly with at least one thing each per page. And wish that the translators had chosen a title that reflected the restricted range of the study.

---L.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Saw this via a friend and immediately thought of you. How to say "My hovercraft is full of eels" in dozens of languages: http://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/hovercraft.htm

[larryhammer]

I can't imagine why you'd think of me ...