Banned words, banned books, etc.

Unrelated, but I'm sure Billy Bragg would have something to say about banning words. Billy Bragg & Mavis Staples at Royce tonight. Pretty fab. James Spader and Tom Morello were there. And some other guy that all the ushers were trying to place but couldn't. Perhaps you can help: he's about 5"10 or perhaps a little shorter, very pale skin, dark black hair, sorta greaser-y. Probably plays a villain, but in a not muscular way. That's how far we got in the recognition.

Also, Bragg and Staples TOGETHER doing "The Weight" was definitely awesome. Bragg didn't, however, play "Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key," which for sure would have made my week.

Bragg's shirts, also silly-ly known as "Bragg Swag," were of course printed on Union Made or some other brand like that. As way too many patrons pointed out to us, he would have to after playing "There is Power in a Union." BUT, if I am going to spend $25 on a tshirt, it has to be soft. These were shirts were soooo not even close to buyable. Get your act together, unions!

Listomania

Awesome. Louis Armstrong.
Buy me this book please.
I now know what a pot walloper is.
Nancy Pelosi, the Anna Wintour of Congress!
"Bank Failures Strike a Blow to City's Art"
DO clap between movements!
Y'all know how much I love maps. Here's an interesting one. All of USA could fit into New Hampshire!
The Yet-But

Zombie!

Me and Sahr from Fela dancing from Terry Richardson on Vimeo.

Duck tape or duct tape? Is there a difference?

Y'all know how much I love the L.A. River. WSJ discusses the Pasadena Museum of Art's current exhibit (Lillian, we still have to go!)

Can freeways have character? Do they deserve to be preserved?

Pretender, contender, or defender? I don't like any of them.

In other news, I encountered one of the kids from that newish Parenthood show at Royce last week, and she was not cool. As I guess I sorta expected. The show was alright but now I'll just think about her ridiculous eye rolling and expectation of preferential treatment.

Caspar Milquetoast

To start out the 2010 book list, I just finished Webster Unabridged, a compendium of comic panes and strips by H.T. Webster, published in 1945. The humor is SO outdated, which is humorous in itself. It's so America 1940s. I checked this book out of the library, however, because of Caspar Milquetoast. 

Some of you long-time readers of this blog, if you exist, may remember the blog subtitle: "It always comes back to David Niven." I had to take that down because it hadn't been coming back to him in a while (Although the title and url both stem from Niven film Around the World in 80 Days (1954)). Well, now it has! I first heard the word milquetoast when I professed my love of David Niven to my mother. She responded: "That milquetoast?!" His foppish top hat and umbrella cane probably irked my mother, while these accessories are probably what I liked best about him. Consequently, I began to associate the term with formal, serious people. 

In case you don't know, it actually means timid or bland. And it is purely an American word, appearing in American English dictionaries but not British English ones. So, it turns out my mother's description of Niven, the ultimate Brit, was not quite ironic, but whatever is the appropriate term here, coincidentally incorrect? The word comes from the aforementioned character in H.T. Webster's series of The Timid Soul single-pane comics. In turn, he got the name from milk toast, a food often eaten at the time by people with ill or sensitive stomachs, a calming, mild food. Caspar is always afraid, worried, and meek (Check out the page I scanned in for you). Exactly what David Niven isn't. 

A more appropriate character would be Mr. Limpet of the children's classic, The Incredible Mr. Limpet. Don Knotts! Such a great movie. (Edit: I was spot on. I just checked Netflix and they even describe him as "a bespectacled, milquetoast bookkeeper.")

Anyways, the book linked in the list is not this book, because Amazon doesn't carry it, but a similar looking collection and one that is only 50 cents! You should definitely get it or find one at your library.

If there is an adjective I really hate, it's "directional." What kind of useless word is that? Ummm, it's going in a direction? Yes, I know in fashion it is supposed to mean "pointing toward the future," but it is stupid and silly, and its usage should cease promptly.

Not redacting.

I was only writing this post because, for no reason, I really wanted to use the word "redact." Then I realized it's a totally inappropriate word for this post. Anyways, I am addending (blogger doesn't think this is a word but it is the verb form of addendum, believe me), sadly not redacting, the post entitled " Josh Heller doesn't read my blog, but he'd probably enjoy this truck," in which I wrote "P.S. Kim chi quesedilla! Oh my god." with "P.P.S. Kim chi quesedilla! Stop putting too much cheese in it and letting it get too cold and congealed before you serve it!" (In fact, I exactly did not redact that post; I did not edit it before publishing in such as I am editing it after the fact with this here additional post).

Hey, I don't know what the deal is with this post being all kinds of crazy font sizes. When I edit it, it looks and says it is all one size. Sorry.

Things I learned yesterday

1) Apparently, it took only 12kb to get to the moon on Apollo 11. (I didn't do any research to confirm this). This got me thinking a lot. I find it hard to believe that if, today, we tried to send a man to the moon on only 12kb we could still do it. Have we lost the ability to do things the way they were done pre-new technologies? By the way, Andrew Dawson is performing at UCLA's Little Theater tonight through Sunday; I highly recommend it!

2) I always knew what the "Twinkie defense" was, but now I know where it came from! Yay movies teaching you things.

3) The 800 block of Pico Blvd. in Santa Monica is actually pretty sketch. Surprising. Watch for the establishments named "Cash N Run" and "Sober Inn."

Vocabulary Lesson

So amazing. Real word:

palinode

PRONUNCIATION:

(PAL-uh-noad)

MEANING:

noun: A poem in which the author retracts something said in an earlier poem.

nonpareil

So, it is always sad when I can't rate movies on Netflix. One movie that I watched in 2006 comes to mind, in particular. Raffles, with the nonpareil David Niven. It is so great. You should watch it today. That is the end of this post.

-fin-

Roommates and Supertramps

Sometimes I wonder if my roommate thinks I am as crazy for watching so much Murder, She Wrote and Law & Order as I think she is for watching so many Lifetime Movie Network and what I like to call Judge Phil (Judge Judy, the People's Court, and Dr. Phil).

I know dandelions are, but I am have no idea about this pretty tree.

In other news, I am in the process of (intermittently) reviewing my notes for tomorrow's biogeography final. My professor, by the way, is basically David Hasselhoff as a lacrosse athlete who for some reason ended up studying geography in China. Anyways, several weeks ago we learned about "supertramps"--species that spread widely and easily. Oh, Professor Zackey!

Edit: Upon some quick googling, it turns out that the "supertramp" was coined by the one and only Jared Diamond, the UCLA professor who makes his students write essays to get into his classes. According to Wikipedia:

The name was coined by Jared Diamond in 1974, as an allusion to both the itinerant lifestyle of the tramp, and the then-popular band Supertramp.

This is kinda hilarious.

I am going to use this word in some future post and I just thought you might like to know what it meant beforehand.

Friar's lantern (FRY-uhrz LAN-tuhrn) noun

A phosphorescent light seen over marshy ground at night, caused by spontaneous combustion of gases emitted by decomposing organic matter. A synonym if foxfire (not Firefox), especially for luminescence by fungi.

[The first use of the term is in John Milton's 1632 poem L'Allegro: "She was pinched and pulled, she said/And he, by Friar's lantern led."]