Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Special Guest Misanthrope

Update: Happy birthday to Semisweet1!


This week, a hale and hearty welcome to Anomie-Atlanta. Anomie was asked to define Bonhomie.

BONHOMIE, n. 1. An attribute carefully cultivated by those whose livelihood depends on the good opinion of the ignorant masses (eg. politicians, homecoming queens, ministers.) 2. Urbanity for profit.

About Anomie: Anomie, recently Anonymous, is a clever blogger with a beautifully dark worldview who turns her jaundiced eye on her own life in my former hometown on the banks of the Chattahoochee. The home of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the capitol of Jimmy Carter needs its cynics and I'm confident I've left the town well-tended. Anomie's blog, False Consciousness, is currently on hiatus but there is plenty worth reading there so long as you don't need cheering up. An explanation for her pseudonym and the blog title is in her first post, here. At least one of her eyes and eyebrows is lovely. On the other side I suspect a patch as well as a bloody saber in one hand and a Ginsburg collection in the other.

Anomie first showed up at this site in May, and her career here has been marked by esoteric quotations and a willingness to make fun of the Waking Ambrose editor-in-chief delightful to contemplate and not too terrible to experience. Since putting her blog on hiatus she wears many shapes, like another famous misanthrope, but I'm usually pretty confident when an anonymous commenter quotes Émile Durkheim it was her. Between May and the temporaryish suspension, Anomie wrote not often but very well. Like many of us who take a dim view of our neighbors, she is often very funny (also here), surprisingly thoughtful and vulnerable, and very creative. Before any of you all go read any of Anomie's writing one warning: Anyone who has made fun of your host for using three-bit words will come back owing me an apology.

Now, a person has to ask themselves: Why would someone name themselves Anomie and then blog? I will make the case that Anomie is, in fact, a misanthrope worthy of her pseudonym.

1. She rarely responds to comments on her site but responds on other blogs.
2. Her non-fiction is compassionate and thoughtful but her fiction always ends with a corpse or a bleeding lover.
3. She finds neuro-scientists attractive.
4. She has her hair done by a Frenchman who despises Americans.
5. Anomie goes to IKEA for the same reason her hairstylist lives in Atlanta.
6. Anomie has suggestions for spammers.
7. She accepts career counseling from volunteer lexicographers.
8. Anomie prefers insomnia to dull literature.
9. She once had an argument with the late Noah Webster over the definitions of "Irritations" and "Alone" and shared.
10. In her profile she declares herself a paradox and then goes on to explain.

Thanks to Anomie for her continued participation here, for a perfect guest definition and for being above it all. Are you ready for your close up?

How to be a guest on this site: To be anointed, I will need your email address and permission. So, were you to send an email to dpascover at mac dot com and say in the subject line something like "OK, ok I'll do it," that would definitely work unless I thought it was spam and deleted it. On an upcoming Wednesday, after posting that week's guest I would then send you an email with a word not in The Devil's Dictionary which you could then spend the next three days writing a definition for and return to me with a graphic or two of your choosing. The only rules are no profanity, no novels and anything else I make up. If you've done this before, I may ask you again if you're around a lot. If you've done this before and not been heard from since, just let me know that you want to be a guest and then disappear again.

41 comments:

TLP said...

Being first has so many obligations!

Welcome Anomie, recently Anonymous. Doug makes you sound fascinating. I will check you out.

Unknown said...

I'm second that's why I try harder

TLP said...

Back after looking over Anomie's site. I read about the French hottie who cuts her hair. The way she writes about him makes me want to slap him. Right after I kiss him.

Anonymous said...

oh, i really like this word, and i love this guest! that big blue eye? beautiful! well done on that wonderful intro, Doug, and *bravo* on your definition, Anomie. now, much as i'd enjoy hanging around to chat, i can't. i mean, those links have me itchin' to do some reading... and based on the rather large number you've provided, this may take awhile.

Bonhomie: proclivity for hanging out by the hors d'oeuvre table, in order to hog all the dips.

Anonymous said...

While I love company, one of my favorite quotations is from Conrad's Heart of Darkness: "We live as we dream - alone."

Go figure.

OK, I will.

I don't believe at all that the world which surrounds me is natively absurd. Yet, I love reading the work of those who (perhaps?) do. From the bit I've read, Anomie-Atlanta's posts feel like home: a home I enjoy visiting, but dread admitting to ever having lived in.

So, Conrad, Bierce, - and Pascover, and Anomie - dare us all to prove them wrong. But, logically, we can't. We can only believe, hope they're wrong. As they sometimes privately do, at least when they're not writing.

So, "Giddily we spin, on a tiny bright rock, paying no mind to the lethal black vacuum that surrounds us." See how seductive that mood is? Love it!

I wish I could stay. But, Maury Povich is coming on. Paternity tests today! "Who's the Daddy?" Woo hoo!

Anonymous said...

On a Doug enthausasim scale of 1-5 this was a definite 10

Anomie I checked the links, and post cynically enjoyed them

Hiatus--a word not in my vernacular

Anonymous said...

in my haste haste to comment, i almost forgot to say Hase, Hase. what can i say? i'm friendly, but forgetful.

Anonymous said...

Yes, Doug's enthusiasm is brimming...which makes the Wednesday guest bit all the more festive! And for good reason, Anomie is a fine addition to the South. Have you seen the Fuqua orchid conservatory, Anomie? Saludos!

The amoeba said...

Evidently "hiatus" isn't in Anomie's either ... or maybe Herr Doug slipped her something stimulating?

I know I've tuned in late, but ... Atlanta ... southern California ... Australia ... Chicago White Sox ... I'll get all these pieces fit into a coherent picture someday.

[meditating on Doug 'cause he saw the line "bleeding lover" and decided on discretion. In extremis.]

BONHOMIE, n. The Bonhomme Richard and her crew after a successful broadside.

Anonymous said...

Rabbit, Rabbit...

Bon-homie: colloquial reference to one from the northeastern coast of Tunisia;

Anonymous said...

Oo! Oo! Can I do "Hiatus"?

Pl-EA-se?

Anonymous said...

pl-EA-se?

Anonymous said...

hey Al! will you please define Hiatus?

Anonymous said...

pl-EA-se?

Anonymous said...

Ok Ok Ahem...

Hiatus: (Ummm... I forgot...)

mireille said...

Because all my affairs end with corpses and/or bleeding lovers, I am prepared to really like Anomie. We seem to have something in common. Hello, A. Also Rabbit, Rabbit. xoxo

jillie said...

lovely, on my way over there now. thanks.

Charlene Amsden said...

I read every link -- and a few other posts as well. It was well wirth the hour spent. Of course, I am now an hour behind on my "completed report card" deadline, but since I don't approve of report cards (like we can actually measure learning -- these kids are much brighter than pen and paper will ever prove) my deadline can take a flying .... And maybe this isn't my attitude at all, and I am just under the influence of Anomie.

Doug The Una said...

TLP, I think you'll find it's right up your alley.

Karma, we all need a muse.

TLP, help yourself either way.

Puppybrose, it is a trait of the hungry.

Al, absurdity is comforting. The alternatives are stupidity and malice.

Pia, my enthusiasm scale runs from 0 to .1, so this must be a .2.

Puppybrose, you got it done last night. Alles güt!

Mule, a party in the darkness is almost as good as one in the silence.

O Ceallaigh, my Maine, Massachusetts, Kiwi, Berkeley friend, there's nothing better than a warship named for a quaker.

Joel, that may be the first Barbary joke on this site. Well done and rabbit, rabbit!

Have at it, Al.

Thanks, Puppybrose. I was just going there.

Ba-dump-bump.

Mireille, who knows, maybe she's a perfume fan. Wouldn't surprise me.

Jillie, welcome. Any friend of Jodes is a friend of mine.

Quilldancer, at least you do your homework.

Semisweet1 said...

Doug, I can't tell you how touched I am that you remembered.

Doug The Una said...

You bet, S. You haven't changed a bit in all the years we've known each other.

Kyahgirl said...

I love meeting Doug's blogging friends and especially enjoyed reading more about the gorgeous blue eyed Anomie. I have a particular fondness for misanthropes. Doug, between Anomie-Atlanta and our newly decloaked Al, I think you could even take a holiday someday and ask these two witty, cynical people to back you up! I'm sure Ambrose would approve.

Oh, was it just me or did I hear Al volunteering to do a special guest Wednesday post? :-)

Happy Birthday to the Candyman and Rabbit Rabbit the rest of us.

G said...

bonhomie: The necessary pleasantries extended before the "Are you going to eat those cookies?" question.

I love Anomie's place and just had a few chuckles (maybe not what she intended) reading through the linked posts. I'll be one of the first to disagree with the French, but when you're right, you're right.

Anonymous said...

Doug: my point, exactly.

uh...we're talking the same thing, right? otherwise, nevermind, and unless G wants 'em all for herself, i'll just help myself to one of those cookies and sit back down in my corner.

dddragon said...

rabbit rabbit

robkroese said...

The virtue of the unsuspecting.

Sar said...

Bonhomie: Mirror mirror on the wall...

Well done Anomie & Happy B-Day Semi!

TLP said...

Happy Birthday to the chocolate boy!

Doug, you're right about Anomie being right up my alley. Good stuff. I've been reading and reading!

Minka said...

Bonhomie??? I seriously havenæt heard thsi word before. If its meaning were up to me I´d name a happy homeless person a bonhomie! I said, if it were up to me!!!

But I see B and H and I think of our Bohemian...where is she by the way?

oh and

a) Happy birthday Semisweet, you almost bitter choclateer!

b)Hase, Hase to us all!

Anonymous said...

anomie-atlanta = bitterbierce? Its, like, Sybil and Eve are blogging. Can the universe of cynics really be that complicated? Ouch, my head hurts, like, real bad.

And now, I can't get this damn song out of my head:

It sounds funny, I know,
But it really is so,
Oh, I'm my own grandpa.

I'm my own grandpa.
I'm my own grandpa.
It sounds funny, I know,
But it really is so,
Oh, I'm my own grandpa.

Now many, many years ago, when I was twenty-three,
I was married to a widow who was pretty as could be.
This widow had a grown-up daughter who had hair of red.
My father fell in love with her, and soon they, too, were wed.

This made my dad my son-in-law and changed my very life,
My daughter was my mother, cause she was my father's wife.
To complicate the matter, even though it brought me joy,
I soon became the father of a bouncing baby boy.

My little baby then became a brother-in-law to Dad,
And so became my uncle, though it made me very sad.
For if he was my uncle, then that also made him brother
Of the widow's grown-up daughter, who, of course, was my stepmother.

Father's wife then had a son who kept him on the run,
And he became my grandchild, for he was my daughter's son.
My wife is now my mother's mother, and it makes me blue,
Because, although she is my wife, she's my grandmother, too.

Now if my wife is my grandmother, then I'm her grandchild,
And everytime I think of it, it nearly drives me wild,
For now I have become the strangest case you ever saw
As husband of my grandmother, I am my own grandpa!

I'm my own grandpa.
I'm my own grandpa.
It sounds funny, I know, but it really is so,
Oh, I'm my own grandpa.

Doug The Una said...

Kyah, that's a great point. Al? Did I hear you offer to be a guest here?

Yep, G. Bonhomie is the symptom of an appetite.

Puppybrose, you and your NBFF are thinking like NBFFs today.

Rabbit, rabbit, Dddragon.

Diesel, yup.

Sar, good one.

TLP, would your blogson ever steer you wrong?

Minka, it is a rare word and seemed like a good provocation.

Anomie, it's bad when the voices learn to type.

Al, a good friend of mine back in Iowa was convinced that was his song, after he married his daughter's husband's sister it pretty much was. On behalf of all Iowans, I would like to make clear that this is not considered normal behavior in prairie states. Except maybe Kansas.

Anonymous said...

Intriguing write-up! Hi, Anomie, I will definitely check out your blog this weekend:)

Rabbit, rabbit, and happy birthday to SemiSweet!

Anonymous said...

Doug: All I could think of was: "I'm my own blog guest." That, and "I'm Doug! And so's my wife!"

That friend of yours in Iowa wouldn't have been Tom Arnold, would it? He's from Ottumwa, and he performed the (awful) song in the (awfuller, even) 90's film "The Stupids".

After its release, Town Council painted out "Home of Tom Arnold" on their "Welcome to Ottumwa" sign. For the record, I've never seen it. I swear.

Doug The Una said...

Rabbit, rabbit, Actonbell. And thanks.

No, the Arnold's aren't acquaintances of mine, although I've driven through Ottumwa many times. A dream of mine is to eat at their restaurant and then levitate at Maharishi University in Fairfield. Was that a yes, by the way? To being a guest, not to marriage.

Anonymous said...

Can't. I'm on hiatus. :-)

(Thanks, Doug. After I start blogging, I'd consider it a real honor.)

Kyahgirl said...

Al, you said it in front of a lot of witnesses. I now expect to be reading your blog at some time in the future. You remind me so much of G!

Anonymous said...

bonhomie: a wolf in sheeps ...you know the rest.

Too much talk of a tables full of food here, making me hungry.

G said...

Whos' getting married?

Doug The Una said...

OK, Al, I'll take you up on that when the time comes. What's the hold up, anyway?

Kyah, you're absolutely right. Now look at her.

Cooper, I'd like to hear more. That phrase always makes me hungry for lamb.

Why, g? Did someone drool and babble?

Cie Cheesemeister said...

Finding neuroscientists attractive would go over well here in the Netherworld, where much bonhomie is found at Ugly Grace's and directed at the likes of Death Cheese. Anomie might like it here!
Dr. Schitz is looking for a date to the mad scientists...ahem!...neuroscientists ball!

G said...

Something like that, Doug.