7:40 PM Sept 15.
Writing outside by candlelite, sun went down 1/2 hr ago and the moon is damn near full, missing a sliver of illumination on its left side. Opposite the sun in the next nite or two for a Full Moon – I could google it and find the exact info in a fucking heartbeat – but I’ll do it the old fashioned way and surmise it myself – close enuf for 2nite. ‘Nuff said. Fuck me, Im tired. And its been another great day.
Fuckin, eh!
I got me a PhD, so I ain’t ‘sposed to write or talk so vulgarly (in the true sense of the word).
Vulgar – from the Net definition:
“lacking sophistication or good taste; unrefined”
Ha, gotta luvit. Screw that. Txt abbreviations and evolving slang are efficient. Communication is all about information transfer – not fashion. And language changes thru time, and like everything else in the 21st century- it changes goddam fast as hell now. And how the elite sounding colleagues of mine speak today would be appallingly crude to a Victorian academic from the late 1800’s. Steven Pinker, the cognitive psychologist and linguist has pointed out the absurdity of past language watchdogs from the 19th century who tried to keep language proper and unchanging – as to them it was the way it should always and forever be as it stood at that moment it time – a typical Victorian attitude of perfection having been solely achieved once again by white Protestant Europeans.
So it goes. (God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut)
Here’s some more tidbits on vulgar from Merriam-Webster:
“lacking in cultivation, perception, or taste : coarse
generally used, applied, or accepted – understood in or having the ordinary sense
of or relating to the common people: plebeian”
Plebeian, I like that. Your mom used to use that word when she had a cold:
“Plebeian on time!”
(It was there I HAD to take it!)
Plebeian, the Romans gave us that one too – as in the derivation of vulgar:
“The term ‘vulgar’ comes from the Latin ‘vulgus,’ meaning ‘common people,’ highlighting its use among the general population rather than educated elites.”
(library.fiveable.me on the Net clued me in on that one). Thnx guys!! Whoever the hell you are.
I donate to Wiki all the time – information on ANYTHING – written by people in any given field with plenty of references to verify where the data came from-
AND AT LIGHT-SPEED IN the PALMS OF YOUR HANDS!!!
It’s just tits. – as in “that’s just “tits!”… meaning damn good.
More vulgarity. (“OMG, what kind of PhD are you?)
Something really good can be not only “tits” but even
“the shit” – which makes no sense in its abbreviated form – leaving out the “good” part (literally)- as in “that’s some good shit.”
Who the hell IS Merriam Webster anyway? Sounds like the hot high school girl from a bad Diceman joke – just like Mother Goose –
“Hey yeah, I fucked her!”
Andrew Dice Clay turned vulgarity into an art form, but I suspect his NY tough guy sexist talk would not be nearly PC enuf for today’s comedy market.
I don’t know WHERE the fuck this is going tonite- this was unplanned. Too tired to play guitar and polish up some arrangements – music is breath itself, but it is work. After a Sunday of grading, chores like minor household and car repairs, errands, cleaning my skylite window on the roof finally, and driving to p/u dinner – I had nothing left for a practice session – depleted as my behavioral-personality colleagues would say – so I grabbed the laptop and headed out here to the patio on a ridiculously beautiful Indian Summer nite to see what I might read about, and lit the candle in the old 1700’s tin lantern I got – and here we are. This is what fell out. I did not come out here to do DONE post.
So it goes (thnx Kurt).
Being incredibly non-elitist in language once again, this aint the first time. A more classically trained PhD read some of my 1st book once and said;
“This was written by a PhD?”
Most of my colleagues would agree – not supposed to talk in the vernacular. And I can speak in the dry, active voice, painstakingly clear sentences we are taught to construct when writing for science publication and its definitely apropos and effective in that realm, but fuck that (and those large technical jargon words) if I’m just trying to tell y’all something while observing the world.
Ill just speak plainly, maybe colorfully as well, dig?.
I did spend some years in a biker band and my Boomer generation broke all the cultural rules we could find in the 60’s and 70′ including accelerating and vulgarizing (sounds like some dastardly and secret industrial process) the language to an extent unheard of before, but carried on nicely here in the 2020’s – MILF, GILF, DILF, and Demure (sounds like a Jewish law firm) (thnx Lenny) and the like – gotta love it. It’s hip! Just tits, in my view. Language is fluid and ever-evolving as Pinker points out.
Its actually getting a tad chilly out here, I had a fan on to keep the last remaining die-hard mosquitoes at bay, but I think Im good now.
Ah, Latin;
“Salve! Mihi nomen est” – we had that on our name tags in place of “Hello – my name is____” at some Latin comference way back when. 1970 probably – I was a sophomore at a Catholic Hi-School and we were the last Latin class – they dropped teaching it over 50 years ago. I imagine its only taught in high level language – linguistics programs, maybe law?, and graduate-level Catholic religion courses where one needs to learn it to read the Catholic Bible – the “Vulgate” first written for the masses in Latin in the 14th century. I could wiki it and learn all about that too.
ALL the world’s knowledge at the speed of light in the palm of my hand.
What a phenomenal time we live in.
Frank Zappa used to say “It’s a great time to be alive” (back in the 70’s) and another musical hero of mine – who could not be more opposite of Frank – Charlie Daniels, used to say:
“Aint it good to be alive and be in Tennessee!
And hell yeah, It is a GREAT time to be alive!
Fuckin,eh, goddam right, boyz. Thank you both for years of musical enjoyment, fellas!
Years?, fuck me.
70? WTF?!!
Turned the big 7-0 last month – unreal. Borrowed time now, fersure. Maybe 10 or 15 more, prolly not 20. Could happen, 20, even 25 more years breathin’ and above ground, but not likely. And could drop dead 2mrw. Weird feeling. Whatever age you are becomes your new normal.
“Latin is a dead language, as dead as it can be, first it killed the Romans and now it’s killing me!” (thnx, pops).
My old man, who told me that limerick (uncharacteristically of him) had his one and only heart-attack at age 49. In 1977 we lost him, Elvis, and Ronnie van Zant, all within a couple of months – not the best of years to be sure.
Hiked a few miles yesterday of up and down terrain thru restored prairie ablaze with varying colors of flowers, mustard, tall grass, – u name it- just beautiful, and a drying up creek (we aint had much rain since a very wet summer), rolling hills, blazing red sumac and a cool breeze up on the high spots – and damn, at this age you freaking pay for it the next day!
Sore as hell all day. It was 2-3 miles tops, not a 10 mile excursion or anything. I mowed lawn pushing an un-propelled mower for about 40 minutes earlier the same day, so I got a couple of good aerobic sessions in, with the heart-rate up, but even if you stay in shape, you still get sore.
Of course, I had also changed oil in the wife’s car and rotated the tires – so crawling around under the vehicle yesterday, then mowing, then hiking, and then up and down the ladder today might have something to do with it.
It does suck in some ways getting old. Just still being here is marvelous, tho.
My son told me 5 years ago to stop going up on the roof – he works in a hospital and sees old farts like me come into the ER – from falling off the damn roof. Yeah, yeah.
Mick Jagger at 81 running up and down the runway out into the audience and then launching right into a song is my fucking inspiration.
You go, bro. So maybe I got a few years of mobility-activity left.
70 is the new 40 I tell people now, cuz I wanna teach for another 10-15 years and rebuild our retirement (lost it all nearly 30 years ago- a whole other story) and to get a damn agent for the 2 books I still want to write before I croak.
We shall fucking see, eh?
Q:“What’s it gonna be then, eh?” (thnx Stanley).
A: Damn, as much more of the same as I can cram in. I wanna be a writer as well as a teacher – and paid for it.
Teaching is the best, but so is music (as Frank would say), and so is writing.
10PM now, And I wanna come back around to a few thoughts I started here, but Im losing it. Pick it up in the AM.
11AM – At school (my work) BZ morning as usual, got a few minutes to finish this.
“Tinnitus, tinnitus, semper tinnitus – Oh tantum est gaudium in vehemur in traha!”
Yes, boyz and girlz that’s “Jingle Bells” in Latin. No shit. Might have some of the spelling off a bit, but hey, its been well over 50 years memorizing that stuff. Ridiculous. No wonder it killed the Romans….
Languages come and go, but human creativity and the widening our empathy for our fellow man and other critters aint perfected yet, but it is greatly improved over the ubiquitous barbarism of most previous times.
It IS a great time to be alive. Democracy broke out after WWII, we have yet dodged WWIII ever since. We have a shot at a truly inter-connected global culture, and the advance of science is going exponential. Tits.
I cant give credit to whomever first stated one of my favorite, tho anonymous memes:
“We are one species, We could be one tribe”
And I’ll add the tag line – WITHOUT RELIGION!
Any ideology that puts mere human fantasy and archaic behavioral proscriptions from some ancient book above human rights and flourishing, be it political, nationalistic, or religious, only divides us and is the cause of most if not all human suffering. Like trying to keep language from changing it is absurd to try to maintain old, useless, and often ugly explanations for how the world works.
Watching the New Enlightenment and the advance of science move us further and further away from old, bad ideas – making us incomparably less religious than any previous time in human history is a beautiful thing.
Fuckin’ eh.
end religion now.
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