Joy

Joy, n. An emotion variously excited, but in its highest degree arising from the contemplation of grief in another.

2005 Update: The sensation of having avoided detection. Often wished on that or those we could stand to hear less from.

Special Guest Maven

You know her, you love her, she loves you. My guest this week is the lovely and fashionable, Mireille.

In honor of the holiday season, Mireille has written this definition:

Mistletoe, n. A semi-sanctioned means of snagging some unsanctioned snog.


Mireille also offers the following Mistletoe history:
Mistletoe lore (with many thanks to Jonathan Briggs and The Mistletoe Pages):

• Hanging mistletoe and kissing loved ones, or complete strangers, beneath it is the pervasive Christmas custom defined above
• "The Ballad of the Mistletoe Bride" in which a Christmas bride plays hide and seek and gets suffocated in a trunk. *festive!*
• The 1948 Alfred Hitchcock film classic Rope uses the ballad as a plot base.
• Catching 'em and kissing 'em may be a remnant of an ancient fertility tradition: "European mistletoe, a parasitic plant growing on deciduous trees, can be seen as a symbol of the continuing 'life-force' -- vitality/fertility -- of the tree through the winter ... a fertility image completed by mistletoe’s shape and form: forking paired branches, paired leaves and berries full of white sticky juice hint of sexual imagery." *Have a Christmas cookie under that one*
• Druidic priesthood valued mistletoe as a peace symbol and in medicine. They harvested it with a golden sickle, never letting it touch the ground. Mistletoe on oak, the druids sacred tree, was especially valued.
• In Greek myth, Aeneas must search for his father Anchises in the abode of the dead. The Sibyl advises he must first seek and pluck the 'golden bough' (mistletoe) in the forest. Guided to the bough by doves sent by Venus, his mother, he found the branch, successfully visited his father, and returned.
• BUT WHAT DOES IT SMELL LIKE? *It's a stretch, but the word is from the Middle English mistilto, which has some relationship to basil ... so, like an herb? I doubt it.*

About Mireille: First, what's obvious- that Mireille alone is the reason that Seattle and not Saint Augustine is the warmest place in the United States. Mireille grips more people in a day on the blogs than the flu will all winter long. Let's see how many of us can hug her back just today. Mireille can handle it.

Her blog, C'est Chic is a place for five senses in a visual medium. Filled with scents and sounds and textures and memories, every post is an embrace. I suspect I'm not alone in admiring Mireille's eloquence, elegance and enthusiasm. For a guy who has a mnemonic that reminds him to use the pointy side of the comb, the perfume and make-up are just platforms for following Mireille's message that beauty belongs everywhere. xoxo.

How to be a future guest in this site: Just send an email to dpascover at mac dot com. On a future Wednesday, after posting that week's guest, I'll send you an email with a word to define. You'll be expected to return your definition along with a graphic representing either your definition or yourself by the following Saturday. The only rules are no profanity and no novels, please. And whatever I make up at the last minute.

Aesthetics

Aesthetics, n. The most unpleasant ticks afflicting the race. Worse than wood-ticks.

2005 Update: A meticulously designed lens through which to view disorder.

Fraud

Fraud, n. The life of commerce, the soul of religion, the bait of courtship and the basis of political power.

2005 Update: The substitution of perfume on the neck for a head.

Sleigh The Course

Or, Of Ice and Men. Story #23, in which three magi survive a Pennsylvania blizzard only to confront the rigid social norms of New Jersey.*

To hear the story, ask Santa for directions.












To read the story, check Santa's list.

*Preceding telic clause dedicated to Monika.

This story is cross-posted on Doug Drones On,

At Alice's request

Here is the van before we painted it red.
And, below, from the Deep Springs 1986-1987 Yearbook.




Top to bottom, Doug, Robert and Neal

Mercy

Mercy, n. An attribute beloved of detected offenders.

2005 Update: The appreciation of the strong for the simplicity of the eager.

A Curmudgeonly Christmas

T’was the night before Christmas and there at his blog
A misanthropist sat, just him and his dogs.
The houselights were dim with no sounds of labor
And a bucket of acid awaited the neighbor

The children nearby were locked up in their rooms,
To keep the old rascal from shouting their dooms.
And he sat by his keyboard putting out his seditions
Mocking all that was wholesome with new definitions.

Suddenly what in the sky did appear?
But a jolly old elf and eight flying reindeer.
The dogs caught the scent and ran outside barking
While the man inside shouted “A roof’s for hanging not parking!”

The intruder just laughed and took out a list.
“No whiskey, no laughter no women you’ve kissed,
No dancing nor prancing, no payments were late.
And your victims won’t read you ‘til they reach heaven’s gate”

“Your intent notwithstanding you’ve done little harm
And I brought you a present, here under my arm.”
But the sour homeowner stood up and protested,
“Reach into that bag and I’ll have you arrested!”

“I write for satire and mangle the words
And darkly imply that religion’s for turds!
I mock the well-meaning and demean them their stations
And make grammar complicit in great obfuscations!”

“Gift is a noun that refers to the taking
of toys from the store shelves for children for breaking.
And while we’re on the topic one more thing I would say:
Jolly, the adjective, simply means 'Gay.'”

“I’m pretentious, sarcastic and delphic in fact!
Self-righteous, self-centered and stingy with tact!”

But a present was left for the man with the glare,
Brightly colored with bows and a soft teddy-bear.
If ever it’s opened, here’s what is inside:
A Radio Flyer that's stable to ride.

Saint Nicholas shouted getting back in his sleigh
“Merry Christmas I bid you but have it your way!”
-Ambrose Bierce, appearing in a vision as The Ghost of Cynics Past.

Avoids Definition No More

This week, it's my pleasure to feature my friend, the beautifully miscegenated, generally elevated and reliably opinionated Miz Bohemia as guest. Miz Bohemia offers the following definition:

Multi-cultural, adj. 1. The creative interchange of numerous ethnic and racial subcultures. e.g. Grandpa BoheMia is Danish-Icelandic and he falls in love with Granny BoheMia who is Iranian with some ancient African-Iranian blood in her. They get married and have babies. One baby grows up to be Mama BoheMia who falls in love with Daddy BoheMia. Mama and Daddy BoheMia get married and have two babies, the first one being Miz BoheMia. What a true creative interchange of numerous ethnic and racial subcultures! Well done Grandpa and Granny BoheMia!
2. Strongly influenced by or having prominent characteristics of several cultural groups or peoples. e.g. Mama BoheMia leaves Daddy BoheMia as well as Iran when Miz BoheMia is all but 2-years-old. They move a lot. Miz BoheMia lives in Spain, Denmark and several US cities, travels extensively and attends Spanish, British, Danish and American schools. In her first high school, her closest friends are Armenian, Zimbwabwian and Vietnamese. She is accepted with open arms into the African American Community at her second high school and her closest friends are Slovenian and Mexican. By college, Miz BoheMia hangs out with Tibetan Buddhist Monks, dances her Sundays away at the local Hare Krishna temple, meditates with New Age Group Hippies, attends animals rights rallies with the likes of Def Leppard's Phil Collen, starts a chapter of Amnesty International at the college where she makes Muslim, Catholic, Buddhist, Christian, Jewish and even Republican (gasp!!!) friends. Mama BoheMia! You have allowed Miz BoheMia to be strongly influenced by or have prominent characteristics of several cultural groups or peoples! Kudos to you!
3. Personal Definition: A term attempting to capture a cultural phenomenon born out of the mixing and intermingling of different ethnic and racial subcultures but that falls short of capturing the emotional, social and educational complexities that arise as a direct result of this phenomenon. e.g. Miz BoheMia is Iranian-Danish and raised between Spain and the US. She leaves out the Icelandic. Simplifying the long intro is best and she has had no Icelandic influences in her life.

Danish and Iranian... yes.

Spanish and American... yes.

Miz BoheMia has curly hair, hazel eyes, a normal stature, skinny frame and an olive complexion. She looks Iranian, Mediterranean in a petite Scandinavian frame, minus the height.

Looking the part of her Middle Eastern heritage, she speaks the language, albeit in an accented Farsi, and is mistaken many a time for the "real thing". This gets her in hot water friends for she does not cook, is not crazy about serving men, or anyone else for that matter, does not like boisterous family reunions nor decorum and ettiquette attached to words such as "tradition" and "obligation" and does not believe virginity to be a virtue. Yes, she looks the part of an Iranian girl but after that there is not much common ground for our Miz BoheMia.

She is liberal, mostly a loner unless the company she keeps is her choice, likes her space, her privacy, her activities, her schedule, her territory and her boundaries. Her actions and her petite frame are truly Scandinavian as are her liberal sexual views but the olive in her skin, the curl set against the backdrop of brown hair are typically met with resistance and her claims of Danish blood in her veins with skepticism.

Her looks and her accent fit right into the heart of her Spanish province but before there is a beginning we come to the end. With heavily pierced ears, a pierced nose, non-smoking, juice-drinking, veggie eating and yogic habits Miz BoheMia is out of her element in this smoker's, meat eater's, bullfighter's, heavy drinker's, non-exerciser's South.

Multicultural... often viewed as exotic, enriching, unique... all true. However, there is a reality of pain attached to being multicultural as it entails a constant need, by society, for a neat and tidy definition of what cannot truly be boxed into one word and set in stone. The multicultural individual is one who learns that nothing is 100%, that fitting in ain't gonna happen... multicultural... you know what, perhaps we should take another look at the word...

4. A term coined out of a need created by the cultural phenomenon born out of the mixing and intermingling of different ethnic and racial subcultures in order to create a much-needed and broad niche for those individuals that fall short of a definition. Multicultural... that's me.

About Miz Bohemia: See Multi-cultural. A mother of two, poet essayist, yoga instructor and purveyor of fine fashion accessories, Miz Bohemia has been a generous new contributor to the blogosphere. She is the author of Miz Bohemia's Rhapsody a site as well-traveled as its creator. Miz Bohemia excels at bringing an adventuresome spirit to an electronic medium, something not easy to do. Miz Bohemia also offers two fashion-sales blogs, BoheMian Funk, and BoHo BouTIQue on which she describes the purses and bags she sells, an ancient and honored tradition in the Persian-Danish-Icelandic-Spanish-Californian community. I very much enjoy her writing and think the products she sells are cool-looking. I admit, though, your humble editor is as fashion-backward as Miz Bohemia is fashion forward so judge for yourselves. Thanks to Miz Bohemia for being a guest here and for inventing Autobiographical Lexicography. Remember, friends, it happened here first.

How to be a future guest in this site: Just send an email to dpascover at mac dot com. On a future Wednesday, after posting that week's guest, I'll send you an email with a word to define. You'll be expected to return your definition along with a graphic representing either your definition or yourself by the following Saturday. The only rules are no profanity and no novels, please. And whatever I make up at the last minute.

Haughty

Haughty, adj. Proud and disdainful, like a waiter.

2005 Update: Holding one's head catlike except in plummet.