Definitions:
1. The highest point, as of excellence or achievement; the acme; the pinnacle; the ultimate.
2. The most profound degree of a quality or condition.
Arnold aspired to greatness. He worked long and hard at perfecting his craft and even harder at self promotion. His single minded obsession to gain fame earned him a reputation and notoriety amongst his peers. He longed for more, for recognition from the everyday man, the person in the street who mixed in circles other than his own. The ne plus ultra was for Arnold DiSilva to be a household name like Da Vinci, Picasso and Van Gogh. But his peers could see what he could not. If he achieved fame for anything, it would be for his arrogance and ego, not for the talent that he lacked.
Tuesday, 13 April 2010
Monday, 8 March 2010
BR: Immortality (Milan Kundera)
A friend loaned me this book, confiding that it's one of her favourites and taught her a lot about the meaning of life.
The back cover reveals little about the novel, instead -- as is the modern style -- it features snippets of reviews as if to say 'these people think the book is great, so will you.'
I found an overview online, At least this gives part of an impression of what will come.
Synopsis (http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/k/milan-kundera/immortality.htm):
Part two began to bog down, but I persevered, aware that the fictional nature of the work had crossed over into the realm of non-fiction, yet without going all the way there. I felt that the author held strong views about life, love, human connectedness and the ongoings of select historical figures but lacked the determination to pursue them other than in idle daydreams.
As the book progressed, I laboured forward. I felt trapped inside the author's head, locked in a theatre of his mind with his theories, his values, his moral questions and hypotheses. The characters lusted and toyed with each other in a bitter orgy of misplaced emotions and deviant motivations.
Yes, in places the author's insight impressed me. I thought outside of the square, but as the chapters laboured on and the same themes repeated in different ways, I grew bored.
This novel best suits academia where students can pore over the words, compare the text with other masters and engage at great length in discussion about the meaning and intent. It is well written and obscure enough to appeal to intellects who long to unearth its secrets. As a writer, however, I approach reading from another angle, not from the intellectual challenge it might bring but from the emotions it can evoke. This story tells a story and offers up a paradigm shift in how the reader might view their relationships and lives, but it doesn't offer an experience, a sensory world between the written lines. I seek that.
I acknowledge that I wouldn't make a good academic intellectual. I don't read to learn, I read to feel, and through feeling, to become more than I am. This isn't my type of book, but that doesn't make it bad. In fact, it's not. Maybe in another time I'll give it another try. Maybe.
The back cover reveals little about the novel, instead -- as is the modern style -- it features snippets of reviews as if to say 'these people think the book is great, so will you.'
I found an overview online, At least this gives part of an impression of what will come.
Synopsis (http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/k/milan-kundera/immortality.htm):
Milan Kundera's sixth novel springs from a casual gesture of a woman to her swimming instructor, a gesture that creates a character in the mind of a writer named Kundera. Like Flaubert's Emma or Tolstoy's Anna, Kundera's Agnes becomes an object of fascination, of indefinable longing. From that character springs a novel, a gesture of the imagination that both embodies and articulates Milan Kundera's supreme mastery of the novel and its purpose; to explore thoroughly the great, themes of existence.The book started well; the prose poetic, longing, rich and detailed with a tainted worldiness that hooked me in. Divided into seven parts, I worked through part one with a heady sense of wonder, luxuriating in the complexity of the author's mind and delighting in the philosophical wanderings of a writer whom blends himself into his work. The female character engaged me and I sympathised with her. She wasn't around long enough for me to connect.
Part two began to bog down, but I persevered, aware that the fictional nature of the work had crossed over into the realm of non-fiction, yet without going all the way there. I felt that the author held strong views about life, love, human connectedness and the ongoings of select historical figures but lacked the determination to pursue them other than in idle daydreams.
As the book progressed, I laboured forward. I felt trapped inside the author's head, locked in a theatre of his mind with his theories, his values, his moral questions and hypotheses. The characters lusted and toyed with each other in a bitter orgy of misplaced emotions and deviant motivations.
Yes, in places the author's insight impressed me. I thought outside of the square, but as the chapters laboured on and the same themes repeated in different ways, I grew bored.
This novel best suits academia where students can pore over the words, compare the text with other masters and engage at great length in discussion about the meaning and intent. It is well written and obscure enough to appeal to intellects who long to unearth its secrets. As a writer, however, I approach reading from another angle, not from the intellectual challenge it might bring but from the emotions it can evoke. This story tells a story and offers up a paradigm shift in how the reader might view their relationships and lives, but it doesn't offer an experience, a sensory world between the written lines. I seek that.
I acknowledge that I wouldn't make a good academic intellectual. I don't read to learn, I read to feel, and through feeling, to become more than I am. This isn't my type of book, but that doesn't make it bad. In fact, it's not. Maybe in another time I'll give it another try. Maybe.
Wednesday, 24 February 2010
WoTD: arcanum
definition:
1. A secret, a mystery.
2. Specialised or mysterious knowledge, language, or information that is not accessible to the average person (generally used in the plural).
Pop once said that the secret of life lay not in the living of it, but in the study of those who came before. He lived that advice, reading volume after volume of historical text in preference to stepping out to live his own. I long thought he did it because he could not walk, but then I saw him hurry down his back steps to shoo the neighbour's cat from out of the yard. Then I figured he did it because he feared life beyond the safety of his front gate, until I happened across him at the local library, chattering away to the librarian as though he had known her his whole life. In the later years he hosted clandestine meetings in his basement for men who wore dark clothes and carried dusty old tomes. I wondered if he were a cult leader, but what kind of cult would my grandfather lead?
As I grew into adolescence and my grandfather into old age, I wearied of trying to figure him out. He was an arcanum and I lacked sufficient wisdom and persistance to figure him out.
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
WoTD: fructuous
definition: fruitful, productive
The stakes, over two metres high and set into the ground at regular intervals across the length and width of the paddock, supported an intricate trellis of wire and netting. One foot high seedlings dotted the tilled earth like an army of forest green cow pats. Twenty thousand dollars and the future of two familes rested on those herbaceous clumps and so very much could go wrong.
George leaned on the strainer post and rubbed his back. Eddie did the same to his own though no amount of rubbing could ease the deep ache.
"Should have hired someone," George said.
"Couldn't afford it."
George bent a little as though the weight of the field and all it represented rested on his shoulders. He nodded, resigned. In the distance as two tanned, slow moving dots, Norma and Eloise finished the last of the stakes.
"If this is anything other than a fructuous endeavour, we lose everything. You know that."
Eddie's skin prickled. "Yeah. I know it."
Monday, 22 February 2010
WoTD: fractious
definition:
1: tending to cause trouble, unruly.
2: irritable; snappish; cranky.
My moods take me, at random, to squarish places in windowless rooms. Inside those confines, I war against a fractious enemy, a despicable, angry warlord consumed by venom and spite. It wages against me, tireless and irrational, ever yapping like a rabid Chihuaha on a monster's leash, all fangs, froth and torment. Respite, heavy and numb, comes with slow regard, unwrapping leaf by leaf, strip by strip, taking me apart in pieces, separating and reassembling, making me whole again. I am savoured -- saved -- until next time. Random.
Friday, 19 February 2010
WoTD: duplicity
definition:
1: deliberate deceptiveness in behaviour or speech; also, an instance of deliberate deceptiveness; double dealing.
2: the quality or state of being twofold or double.
I saw her on Tuesdays and Thursdays, a waif-like creature camped out by the city market, two bags by her side, a dog in her lap. Each week she wore the same t-shirt, faded black, long-sleeved, the cuffs torn and frayed. Her presence, ritualistic and shameful, struck a sympathetic chord in me. Whenever I walked past I dropped some coins or a five dollar note onto the footpath beside her. Not too much money, I thought, for fear she would use it for drugs, but enough to buy a meal, or some socks, or food for her dog.
Months passed and I developed a habit, a need, a ready discharge of my societal guilt. Never once did I ask if she needed more, nor did I offer it.
Then, she disappeared.
I dismissed her absence on the first day, comforting myself that even vagrants had responsibilities, but by the next Thursday the vacant place by the wall distressed me. I lingered for a long time with coins warm in my hand; needing answers, an explanation. I felt cheated. She and I had a deal, an unspoken agreement, a passing of financial fortune to one less fortunate. She had no right to reneg. Eventually I accepted that she had.
It's been weeks now and she has not returned. I am helpless to uncover the truth. I satisfy my curious turmoil by tarnishing her memory, slating her as a deceptive cheat, a trickster who feigned poverty to exact a complex and measured duplicity. Probably she was affluent and bored, testing society's generosity by behaving like a homeless person. If I never learn otherwise, that is how I will remember her. It's easier that way.
1: deliberate deceptiveness in behaviour or speech; also, an instance of deliberate deceptiveness; double dealing.
2: the quality or state of being twofold or double.
I saw her on Tuesdays and Thursdays, a waif-like creature camped out by the city market, two bags by her side, a dog in her lap. Each week she wore the same t-shirt, faded black, long-sleeved, the cuffs torn and frayed. Her presence, ritualistic and shameful, struck a sympathetic chord in me. Whenever I walked past I dropped some coins or a five dollar note onto the footpath beside her. Not too much money, I thought, for fear she would use it for drugs, but enough to buy a meal, or some socks, or food for her dog.
Months passed and I developed a habit, a need, a ready discharge of my societal guilt. Never once did I ask if she needed more, nor did I offer it.
Then, she disappeared.
I dismissed her absence on the first day, comforting myself that even vagrants had responsibilities, but by the next Thursday the vacant place by the wall distressed me. I lingered for a long time with coins warm in my hand; needing answers, an explanation. I felt cheated. She and I had a deal, an unspoken agreement, a passing of financial fortune to one less fortunate. She had no right to reneg. Eventually I accepted that she had.
It's been weeks now and she has not returned. I am helpless to uncover the truth. I satisfy my curious turmoil by tarnishing her memory, slating her as a deceptive cheat, a trickster who feigned poverty to exact a complex and measured duplicity. Probably she was affluent and bored, testing society's generosity by behaving like a homeless person. If I never learn otherwise, that is how I will remember her. It's easier that way.
Friday, 12 February 2010
WoTD: coquetry
Definition:
1. dalliance, flirtation
Marion danced with the lustful, uninhibited vigour of a gypsy temptress. Her hair, earlier coiled and knotted at the crown of her head, now flicked and trailed, a glorious russet mane as bold and liberated as she. Her dance partner, a solid gentleman with an unfortunately protruding chin and unflattering rim of stomach fat, lumbered in false step behind her. He lasted one waltz – attributable to her generous nature – before she fell out of sync and wafted into the arms of another. Her manner and allure might have been interpreted as blatant coquetry, a threat to any attached women who dared to allow their men to fall prey. Yet the women offered no challenge and the men knew better.
Later, when the dance ended and the couples went home, Marion stayed behind and danced in the silence, her footfalls a quick step on polished boards. No man waited for her. No woman lingered to defend her territory. Marion danced alone.
1. dalliance, flirtation
Marion danced with the lustful, uninhibited vigour of a gypsy temptress. Her hair, earlier coiled and knotted at the crown of her head, now flicked and trailed, a glorious russet mane as bold and liberated as she. Her dance partner, a solid gentleman with an unfortunately protruding chin and unflattering rim of stomach fat, lumbered in false step behind her. He lasted one waltz – attributable to her generous nature – before she fell out of sync and wafted into the arms of another. Her manner and allure might have been interpreted as blatant coquetry, a threat to any attached women who dared to allow their men to fall prey. Yet the women offered no challenge and the men knew better.
Later, when the dance ended and the couples went home, Marion stayed behind and danced in the silence, her footfalls a quick step on polished boards. No man waited for her. No woman lingered to defend her territory. Marion danced alone.
Monday, 1 February 2010
WoTD: mondegreen
Definition: a word or phrase resulting from a misinterpretation of a word or phrase that has been heard.
Seated against the wall, pinned flat by the music, my spinal fluid oscillating to the pounding pop beat, I mimed songs from my adolescence and bobbed my head to a rhythm long forgotten. Alone and off to the side, I blended into the faux brickwork and maintained just enough motion so as to guarantee invisibility. Over the crackling speakers and vacuous hiss of forty year olds reliving their youth, Cyndi Lauper screeched and whined about how girls just wanted to have fun. Back then, like now, I struggled to unravel the definition of the three letter word. While my peers had danced, sang and kissed their way through their high school years, I, in comparative solitude, read books, wrote stories and imagined freedom. Not a lot had changed in those intervening years.
"C'mon, get up and dance. You're missing all the fun."
I smiled at the owner of the voice, a woman I hardly recognised. We had been friends once, long ago. I had a hazy recollection of school hallways, lockers and whispered words. She fitted in there somewhere.
The track changed, on came Madonna with her swooning Spanish ballad, la isla bonita. The woman sat beside me, her thighs touching mine. She held a glass with shimmering, bubbling liquid and her breath smelled sour. We sang together, fumbling the words.
"... a young girl with eyes like potatoes," I sang, loudly. The woman leaned in, laughed, her forehead momentarily resting on my shoulder as she mimicked the words. The deliberate lyrical mondegreen built a bridge between us and I remembered then what had connected us as children. I smiled.
Seated against the wall, pinned flat by the music, my spinal fluid oscillating to the pounding pop beat, I mimed songs from my adolescence and bobbed my head to a rhythm long forgotten. Alone and off to the side, I blended into the faux brickwork and maintained just enough motion so as to guarantee invisibility. Over the crackling speakers and vacuous hiss of forty year olds reliving their youth, Cyndi Lauper screeched and whined about how girls just wanted to have fun. Back then, like now, I struggled to unravel the definition of the three letter word. While my peers had danced, sang and kissed their way through their high school years, I, in comparative solitude, read books, wrote stories and imagined freedom. Not a lot had changed in those intervening years.
"C'mon, get up and dance. You're missing all the fun."
I smiled at the owner of the voice, a woman I hardly recognised. We had been friends once, long ago. I had a hazy recollection of school hallways, lockers and whispered words. She fitted in there somewhere.
The track changed, on came Madonna with her swooning Spanish ballad, la isla bonita. The woman sat beside me, her thighs touching mine. She held a glass with shimmering, bubbling liquid and her breath smelled sour. We sang together, fumbling the words.
"... a young girl with eyes like potatoes," I sang, loudly. The woman leaned in, laughed, her forehead momentarily resting on my shoulder as she mimicked the words. The deliberate lyrical mondegreen built a bridge between us and I remembered then what had connected us as children. I smiled.
Friday, 1 January 2010
WoTD: vicissitude
Definition:
- Regular change or succession from one thing to another; alternation; mutual succession; interchange.
- Irregular change; revolution; mutation.
- A change in condition or fortune; an instance of mutability in life or nature (especially successive alternation from one condition to another).
Tuesday, 29 December 2009
WoTD: hauteur
Definition:
1: haughty manner, spirit, or bearing; haughtiness; arrogance.
In the balcony seat elevated above the stage, Madeleine arranged herself into the pose of a royal princess, her gloved hands prim atop her skirted knees, her feet smart in spit shiny shoes. Pantomime light gathered on her face, seeking to lighten and engage. It failed. Though only twelve years old, Madeleine's upstart manner, stiffly raised chin and aloof gaze betrayed burgeoning arrogance. The child emulated her mother, a woman with the inbred hauteur of third generation aristrocracy leavened on a shoestring budget. Worse than a true blue blood with wealth to their name, the Carson's affluence bought only so much. It did not buy respect.
1: haughty manner, spirit, or bearing; haughtiness; arrogance.
In the balcony seat elevated above the stage, Madeleine arranged herself into the pose of a royal princess, her gloved hands prim atop her skirted knees, her feet smart in spit shiny shoes. Pantomime light gathered on her face, seeking to lighten and engage. It failed. Though only twelve years old, Madeleine's upstart manner, stiffly raised chin and aloof gaze betrayed burgeoning arrogance. The child emulated her mother, a woman with the inbred hauteur of third generation aristrocracy leavened on a shoestring budget. Worse than a true blue blood with wealth to their name, the Carson's affluence bought only so much. It did not buy respect.
Saturday, 26 December 2009
WoTD: embonpoint
Definition:
1: plumpness of person; stoutness
Her embonpoint, so massive that she turned sideways to walk through the door, failed to bother her as it did her husband. Ray, himself so stout that he sat on the toilet seat to urinate because he could no longer reach his genitals by hand, glowered at her from across the room. She cast him a vagrant smile then wafted -- well, lumbered actually -- over to the couch. Steering herself around like a huge double decker bus, she lined up her massive behind with the cushions and lowered herself down. Partway there her knees gave out and down she went like an out of control truck. Her buttocks collided with a meaty thunk that punished the couch cushions and tortured the springs. Wheezing out a breath, she settled herself comfortably, deliberately ignorant of Ray's condescending stare.
"Two can play this game, dear," she said. "Remember who started it."
His grumbled response made her laugh.
1: plumpness of person; stoutness
Her embonpoint, so massive that she turned sideways to walk through the door, failed to bother her as it did her husband. Ray, himself so stout that he sat on the toilet seat to urinate because he could no longer reach his genitals by hand, glowered at her from across the room. She cast him a vagrant smile then wafted -- well, lumbered actually -- over to the couch. Steering herself around like a huge double decker bus, she lined up her massive behind with the cushions and lowered herself down. Partway there her knees gave out and down she went like an out of control truck. Her buttocks collided with a meaty thunk that punished the couch cushions and tortured the springs. Wheezing out a breath, she settled herself comfortably, deliberately ignorant of Ray's condescending stare.
"Two can play this game, dear," she said. "Remember who started it."
His grumbled response made her laugh.
Friday, 25 December 2009
WoTD: lambent
Definition:
1: playing lightly on or over a surface; flickering; as "a lambent flame; lambent shadows"
2: softly brightly or radiant; luminous; as "a lambent light"
3: light and brilliant; as "a lambent style; lambent wit."
We hid in the shadows, Hester and I, our skirts over our knees, our socked feet itching from the cold. We should have been in bed but not even the fear of father finding us stopped us from being there. From our vantage point atop the stairs, we watched the men seated around the table. There were five of them, Shannon O'Dwyer the youngest at seventeen, a carrot top with eyes too big for his head, and his father, Matthew, the oldest at a number I couldn't remember let alone imagine. Father sat with them, his dark hair long around his face, his shoulders stooped as though weighed by a burden I could not see. The men were there for him, to help him, that much I knew. They sat in the near dark and talked in low tones, conspiring. The only light came from the fireplace, orange flames that tossed lambent light into the room, an ineffective panacea to the dark gloom and famished desperation. The light didn't reach my father. I doubted anything now could.
1: playing lightly on or over a surface; flickering; as "a lambent flame; lambent shadows"
2: softly brightly or radiant; luminous; as "a lambent light"
3: light and brilliant; as "a lambent style; lambent wit."
We hid in the shadows, Hester and I, our skirts over our knees, our socked feet itching from the cold. We should have been in bed but not even the fear of father finding us stopped us from being there. From our vantage point atop the stairs, we watched the men seated around the table. There were five of them, Shannon O'Dwyer the youngest at seventeen, a carrot top with eyes too big for his head, and his father, Matthew, the oldest at a number I couldn't remember let alone imagine. Father sat with them, his dark hair long around his face, his shoulders stooped as though weighed by a burden I could not see. The men were there for him, to help him, that much I knew. They sat in the near dark and talked in low tones, conspiring. The only light came from the fireplace, orange flames that tossed lambent light into the room, an ineffective panacea to the dark gloom and famished desperation. The light didn't reach my father. I doubted anything now could.
Wednesday, 23 December 2009
WoTD: clinquant
Definition:
1: glittering with gold or silver; tinseled
2: tinsel; imitation gold leaf.
When I returned home summer had turned to autumn and the trees were beginning to lose their leaves. I spent much time outside, working the garden, pulling weeds, emptying bag upon bag of junk from dad's garage. The more I took away the more there seemed to be there as though a part of him refused to let go of all he had amassed -- refused to give way to my need to grieve. When I had done all I could, which was much less than I had wanted, I started the long walk back to Ron's house. The sun set before me, running beams through the trees like blades through crystal. Twinkling light, a clinquant cast on dying leaves, offered an ethereal beauty that would bewitch if I so allowed it. I wouldn't, not anymore. I had grown wise.
1: glittering with gold or silver; tinseled
2: tinsel; imitation gold leaf.
When I returned home summer had turned to autumn and the trees were beginning to lose their leaves. I spent much time outside, working the garden, pulling weeds, emptying bag upon bag of junk from dad's garage. The more I took away the more there seemed to be there as though a part of him refused to let go of all he had amassed -- refused to give way to my need to grieve. When I had done all I could, which was much less than I had wanted, I started the long walk back to Ron's house. The sun set before me, running beams through the trees like blades through crystal. Twinkling light, a clinquant cast on dying leaves, offered an ethereal beauty that would bewitch if I so allowed it. I wouldn't, not anymore. I had grown wise.
Tuesday, 22 December 2009
WoTD: collude
Definition: to act in concert; to conspire; to plot.
"How did you get it done?"
"I had help."
"From the big guns?"
"Maybe."
"I wouldn't say maybe. I'd say definately. You don't get this kind of thing done in two days unless you've had help. Big help. This reeks of some serious conspiring."
"Maybe."
"Who'd you collude with? No way did you organise this on your own. It was Sheena, wasn't it? She's well connected. She could get this done."
"I'm not saying."
"You don't need to. I'll figure it out. You're not that smart."
"How did you get it done?"
"I had help."
"From the big guns?"
"Maybe."
"I wouldn't say maybe. I'd say definately. You don't get this kind of thing done in two days unless you've had help. Big help. This reeks of some serious conspiring."
"Maybe."
"Who'd you collude with? No way did you organise this on your own. It was Sheena, wasn't it? She's well connected. She could get this done."
"I'm not saying."
"You don't need to. I'll figure it out. You're not that smart."
Monday, 21 December 2009
GB: Avatar
Avatar is different. It's not a movie, it's an experience. Or as one reviewer recently wrote: 'it's an EVENT'. For $16 and the small discomfort of wearing 3D glasses for two hours and forty minutes, I traveled to another world, a place never imagined but so real, so tangible, so convincing that I accept it into my understanding of all that exists as true.
The story is captivating and engaging. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic war veteran, adopts his dead brother’s avatar in an attempt to win the trust of the indigenous people (the Na’vi) so that he can negotiate their relocation. Their village rests over an immense and valuable mineral store. Either the Na’vi must be moved or be killed – the latter being an acceptable final option. Jake’s reward for a successful infiltration will be surgery to restore the use of his legs. The prize is personal and he is highly motivated to bewitch and betray. I cared for him. I cared about the outcome, about what is at stake for him and the physical and emotional toll of the work. Moreover I cared about the people he is charged with displacing.
The events unfold at a kaleidoscopic pace and though the story is not new – really, what story is – the presentation knocks this film out of the ball park. The people, plants and creatures are so realistic, magnificent and awesome that it contorts my mind to remind myself that they are fantasy. Ordinarily, CGI work, regardless of how well crafted, is unable to trick the mind. I watch and engage but do not believe beyond the adventure that plays out before me. The deception fails to endure. This was not the case with Avatar.
The environment is depth perfect; finely rendered with light, colour, contrast, movement, perception and contour. Forests are rich from the upper canopy to the soil and shrub layer. Sky islands tower and cluster, suspended by a force beyond our known physics. Trees, monumental in size and height, form branched bridges hundreds of feet above the ground. Beautiful, fragile jelly-like illuminated floating seeds waft and throb with a life force barely imagined, and flying, pterosaur-like creatures with skins of stunning mosaics soar and glide as though woven to the sky. Height features heavily in many scenes and acrophobics may need to buckle themselves in.
The Na'vi are as stunning as their environment. These people, so very human and yet distinctly not, bewitched me. Tall, lithe and agile, they are sculpted humans with cat-like ears and sweeping tails. They live as one with the forest, trusting and accepting the right of all to life and liberty. They accept Jake’s avatar as one of their own and train him to communicate and bond with the animals. Eventually they make him a Na’vi warrior though they know he is one of the sky people (a human imposter). Not all humans have been so accepted and it seems to me that, despite his conscious deception, they knew him better than he knew himself.
An environmental, sociological and philosophical message throbs deep within the narrative. One reviewer suggested that the story was written by an ‘aging hippy’, and maybe that’s the case but the beauty of this film is that the viewer can choose to be affected (and changed) by the subtext or to be innocently entertained. The delivery is the magic.
The climax, catastrophic and demanding, is long, enduring and emotionally draining but oh so deliciously daring and visually wrenching. Played out in unparalleled 3D, I dare anyone to watch and hold their popcorn steady throughout.
I can’t wait to see it again! I just have to save up another $16 and find someone who wants to come with me. Any takers?
Saturday, 28 November 2009
WoTD: gourmand
Definition:
1. One who eats to excess
2. A lover of good food.
Usage note: A gourmet is one who has discriminating taste in food and wine. A gourmand is one who enjoys food of fine quality, and also one who enjoys food in great quantities. Glutton signifies one who simply eats to excess, without reference to the quality of the fare consumed.
Kevin ate with the aloof discrimination usually reserved for a gourmet. From appetizer to dessert, the man allowed only the finest foods, the rarest wines, the most delectable morsels to grace his palate. He cared not at all for price, for scarcity, for the toil involved in preparation -- which most often he paid vast sums of money for others to complete -- he cared only for quality and quantity, especially the latter. He wolfed down meals with the ferocity and speed of a Texan at an eating contest. No one could match the gourmand's abilty to consume so much food in such short sittings. If it weren't for his fine taste he would have earned the lesser tag of a common glutton.
1. One who eats to excess
2. A lover of good food.
Usage note: A gourmet is one who has discriminating taste in food and wine. A gourmand is one who enjoys food of fine quality, and also one who enjoys food in great quantities. Glutton signifies one who simply eats to excess, without reference to the quality of the fare consumed.
Kevin ate with the aloof discrimination usually reserved for a gourmet. From appetizer to dessert, the man allowed only the finest foods, the rarest wines, the most delectable morsels to grace his palate. He cared not at all for price, for scarcity, for the toil involved in preparation -- which most often he paid vast sums of money for others to complete -- he cared only for quality and quantity, especially the latter. He wolfed down meals with the ferocity and speed of a Texan at an eating contest. No one could match the gourmand's abilty to consume so much food in such short sittings. If it weren't for his fine taste he would have earned the lesser tag of a common glutton.
Friday, 27 November 2009
WoTD: provender
Definitions:
1. Dry food for domestic animals, such as hay, straw, corn, oats, or a mixture of ground grain; feed.
2. Food or provisions.
They packed the wagons, he and Tom, while storm clouds darkened the sky and a fierce wind whipped the yard. Getting everything on board took two dozen trips back and forth from the store shed, carrying everything on foot across the yard and over the fence because they couldn't find the key for the lock on the gate and Dash wouldn't let them break it. His arms ached, his legs the same. Tom looked worse, grey and weak, his hair sweat-plastered to his forehead and a palsied tremor that wobbled him when he walked.
"Take a rest," he said. "I'll get the rest."
Tom nodded, grim faced, and kept working. The animals, three horses, two cows, several goats and a pig, young but showing the massive size it would become, grazed the temporary paddock. The provender, a mix of grain, hay and pellets, took up most of the space in the wagon. The food for the men, pitiful in quantity and worse in variety, stood in boxes by the wheels. He wondered how they would fit the boxes on board, then cast the problem aside. Dash would figure it out, that was his job.
1. Dry food for domestic animals, such as hay, straw, corn, oats, or a mixture of ground grain; feed.
2. Food or provisions.
They packed the wagons, he and Tom, while storm clouds darkened the sky and a fierce wind whipped the yard. Getting everything on board took two dozen trips back and forth from the store shed, carrying everything on foot across the yard and over the fence because they couldn't find the key for the lock on the gate and Dash wouldn't let them break it. His arms ached, his legs the same. Tom looked worse, grey and weak, his hair sweat-plastered to his forehead and a palsied tremor that wobbled him when he walked.
"Take a rest," he said. "I'll get the rest."
Tom nodded, grim faced, and kept working. The animals, three horses, two cows, several goats and a pig, young but showing the massive size it would become, grazed the temporary paddock. The provender, a mix of grain, hay and pellets, took up most of the space in the wagon. The food for the men, pitiful in quantity and worse in variety, stood in boxes by the wheels. He wondered how they would fit the boxes on board, then cast the problem aside. Dash would figure it out, that was his job.
Thursday, 26 November 2009
WoTD: brobdingnagian
Definition:
1. Of extraordinary size; gigantic; enormous.
Webber's eyes boggled, his hands flapped. "It's... it's..."
"It's what?" O'Toole smoothed the paper, set the fountain pen on the desk, the ink still drying. He stood. "What's out there?"
"I've never seen such a thing. It's girth is inconcievable. The breadth and height are such I've never witnessed in my entire life. It's gigantic, massive, stupendously ginormous."
"What on earth are you talking about?" O'Toole moved around the desk, walked to the window. Drawing the curtain aside, he looked out. The sight rocked him backwards and his mind blanked.
"It's brobdingnagian," Weber said, awestruck.
"Yes," O'Toole managed after a long moment. "Yes, it is."
I'll let you decide what it is the two men saw.
1. Of extraordinary size; gigantic; enormous.
Webber's eyes boggled, his hands flapped. "It's... it's..."
"It's what?" O'Toole smoothed the paper, set the fountain pen on the desk, the ink still drying. He stood. "What's out there?"
"I've never seen such a thing. It's girth is inconcievable. The breadth and height are such I've never witnessed in my entire life. It's gigantic, massive, stupendously ginormous."
"What on earth are you talking about?" O'Toole moved around the desk, walked to the window. Drawing the curtain aside, he looked out. The sight rocked him backwards and his mind blanked.
"It's brobdingnagian," Weber said, awestruck.
"Yes," O'Toole managed after a long moment. "Yes, it is."
I'll let you decide what it is the two men saw.
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
WoTD: martinet
definition (person):
1. a strict disciplinarian
2. one who lays stress on a rigid adherence to the details of forms and method
"You will not learn, stupid girl!"
Startled upright, Georgia's body assumed a rigid posture before her eyes focussed on the speaker. Mr Jewel filled the doorway, his arms folded over his chest in a military pose that suited the uniform but not the wearer. The lapels on his shoulders stood upright like beaten wings seeking to take flight and depart the ill-worn costume.
"Polish with your left hand, buff with your right, clockwise motion," he said as though speaking with a stone in his mouth and an equally unrelenting hard object stuck up his ass. "The fabric must contact the surface twelve times clockwise and twelve times counter-clockwise."
It sounded even more ridiculous when he said it like that. "Yes sir, but--"
"No buts. Would you prefer to be outside with the others, running drills?"
"No."
"Then polish properly. Do it again until you get it right."
With aching limbs, a throbbing head and a creeping desire to do away with Mr Jewel in a most untidy manner, Georgia moved past the grossly authoritarian martinet, knelt and applied a thin smear of polish to the door knocker. He stood over her, head cocked to the side, observing like a hawk scanning a field for mice.
1. a strict disciplinarian
2. one who lays stress on a rigid adherence to the details of forms and method
"You will not learn, stupid girl!"
Startled upright, Georgia's body assumed a rigid posture before her eyes focussed on the speaker. Mr Jewel filled the doorway, his arms folded over his chest in a military pose that suited the uniform but not the wearer. The lapels on his shoulders stood upright like beaten wings seeking to take flight and depart the ill-worn costume.
"Polish with your left hand, buff with your right, clockwise motion," he said as though speaking with a stone in his mouth and an equally unrelenting hard object stuck up his ass. "The fabric must contact the surface twelve times clockwise and twelve times counter-clockwise."
It sounded even more ridiculous when he said it like that. "Yes sir, but--"
"No buts. Would you prefer to be outside with the others, running drills?"
"No."
"Then polish properly. Do it again until you get it right."
With aching limbs, a throbbing head and a creeping desire to do away with Mr Jewel in a most untidy manner, Georgia moved past the grossly authoritarian martinet, knelt and applied a thin smear of polish to the door knocker. He stood over her, head cocked to the side, observing like a hawk scanning a field for mice.
Tuesday, 24 November 2009
WoTD: benison
Definition: blessing, benediction.
On his knees, hands bound behind his back, feet grazed and bare, Joshua accepted the malevolent benison with uncharacteristic demurity. His eyes were closed, his expression slack, a listless slump to his shoulders that I had never seen before. Falconer stood over him, tall and proud, victorious, his forearm extended as though holding a gun. His hand was empty of a weapon, still my heart beat fast, and I struggled against my bonds as Joshua should have struggled against his. As I watched, Falconer formed a symbol with his thumb and touched it to Joshua's forehead. My pulse spiked, hands fisted and a bitter taste flooded my mouth. I choked on my response, aware that unless Joshua fought back soon, it would all be over.
This is my first attempt to use the word of the day in a sentence or paragraph of writing. Let's hope I didn't get it completely wrong. I trust someone, one day, will tell me if I have.
On his knees, hands bound behind his back, feet grazed and bare, Joshua accepted the malevolent benison with uncharacteristic demurity. His eyes were closed, his expression slack, a listless slump to his shoulders that I had never seen before. Falconer stood over him, tall and proud, victorious, his forearm extended as though holding a gun. His hand was empty of a weapon, still my heart beat fast, and I struggled against my bonds as Joshua should have struggled against his. As I watched, Falconer formed a symbol with his thumb and touched it to Joshua's forehead. My pulse spiked, hands fisted and a bitter taste flooded my mouth. I choked on my response, aware that unless Joshua fought back soon, it would all be over.
This is my first attempt to use the word of the day in a sentence or paragraph of writing. Let's hope I didn't get it completely wrong. I trust someone, one day, will tell me if I have.
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