I'm a lasagna boy!

vatic

From Latin vates, vatic means "prophetic". Merriam-Webster's Word-of-the-Day comment notes: "Some people say only thin lines separate poetry, prophecy, and madness. We don't know if that's generally true, but it is in the case of "vatic." The adjective derives directly from the Latin word "vates," meaning "seer" or "prophet." But that Latin root is in turn distantly related to an Old English word for "poetry," an Old High German word for "madness," and an Old Irish word for "seer" or "poet." "

In which brevity is the soul of wit

787 Cliparts by Oliver Laric.

ordure

Reading an article on beetle armament and sexual selection, I found ordure, a cognate with Latin. It comes to contemporary English from the Middle English, from Anglo-French, from ord dirty, foul, from Latin horridus horrid. The article also contains this colourful, editorial remark:

People have pathetically puny teeth and claws compared with the armaments of other dominant species. This is a sign not of pacific intent but of the fact that they manufacture their weapons. The manufactured weapons, just like biological ones, have assumed a display function — think of the fearsome appearance of samurai helmets or armored knights, or the menacing tanks and rockets that paraded through Red Square in Moscow in the days of the Soviet Union.

... which, upon re-reading, calls to mind a Gary Larson cartoon -- not any one in particular, but the notion of one.

Muto, a wall-painted animation by BLU

Muto is an animated film with public walls for cels, drawn and photographed by Bolognese graffiti artist Blu.

S[c]hluffing

Provides a splendid opportunity for picking off inane cyclists. I am somewhat embarrassed that Robert Sullivan, whose journalism I enjoyed in Rats, his account of New York City's most popular rodent (the bird is the most popular finger), endorses such pablum. I do not think that the Thoreau I know would have encouraged use of a push-cycle on a roadway shared with the fair sex.

The folksy fiddle music adds a ludicrous air to the proceedings.

A Subway Tale

This man tells a tale of his humble heroics:

“I was waiting for the C to go downtown to a reading,” he said from his office on West 30th Street, where he works as a proofreader. “I’m an actor — shocker.”

He said most everyone seems to be an aspiring actor nowadays, but in this case, it is a critical point to the story: Mr. Lindsey currently appears in an Off-Broadway show called “Kasper Hauser,” in a role that requires him to repeatedly lift a character who cannot walk.

[ ... dramatic rescue as train approaches ... ]

Then I sort of freaked out, and I was nervous and shaky. These five women opened their purses and gave me Handi-Wipes. I was covered in blood and dirt from the subway tracks. One woman was a nurse, and said, ‘Don’t have caffeine or cigarettes for an hour and a half,’ because of the adrenaline in my heart.”

James and Madison

James Street is also known as "Ancient Order of the Hibernians Way". It meets Madison Street (not Madison Ave.!) in a down-at-the-heels stretch of Manhattan just aft of the Brooklyn Bridge.

In which a turk sings a bicycle

A bicycle built for two thousand.

Time Piece

One of my favourite shorts, Time Piece received an Academy Award nomination in 1965. The staccato paces combines with the visual and aural effects for an amusing and thoughtful film. I was glad to find this online, finally; the DVD copy I have no longer plays reliably.

In which they lack a sense of humor

Update: I changed both Lolita from 'Erotica' and 'Pride and Prejudice' from 'Chick Lit' to Classics. You Literature majors all lack any sense of humor. was the precursor to Virgil Griffith's Music That Makes You Dumb. I am off to listen to The Counting Crows.

PHOTO YES!!!

but NO.

Exactly.

In which the streets have no name

Today, the City Room blog of The New York Times offers a pop quiz:

... what, exactly, is a flat bush? “The English word Flatbush is likely a corruption of the Dutch ‘vlackebos,’ meaning ‘wooded plain.’”

The accompanying picture is an old postcard of the Rialto Theater on Flatbush Avenue. There are dozens of entries like that. That got us to thinking about street names all around the city, which seemed to be a good excuse for a quiz.

So here it is: 20 unidentified images of people, places and things; most accompanied by a hint or two. Tell us which streets bear their names. The reference may be direct or a bit oblique. The streets are in every borough of New York City."

This by way of announcing Brooklyn Revealed, a site about the streets of Brooklyn.

In which we make a joyful noise

Or, The Mother of All Funk Chords (and then some).

Avenue B and 2nd St

I want to see this picture, published Friday, November 9, 1990:

Photo: A sculpture made from scrap materials now occupies the corner of Avenue B and Second Street in Manhattan. "If you live in the country, you use wood if you're a sculptor, but we live in the city sowe use the materials around us," said Ruben Garcia, who describes himself as curator of the open-air gallery that is home to "Space 2B Gas Station," which was crafted by Johnny Swing and Linus Coraggio. (Jack Manning/The New York Times)

which predates this photograph.