Chuck'sBlog

sorry. i got nothing today. what can i say?

What a day today. Surprising phone calls, touching revelations. I'm stunned.

Gorget (noun, Fr.) A piece of armor to protect the throat

Usage:
That s.o.b. tried to punch me right in the Adam's Apple; thank God I had the foresight to wear my tartan gorget today.

Today, I worked constantly. I taught two classes (Graphic Design IV and Graphic Design II), did office hours, some administrative work (sheesh) and then some freelance design work for an American tour of the Dino Merlin band ( http://www.plima.com ). Pretty full. Didn't really think of anything bad to say about any specific species. Still working on it, though.

Tastes like chicken, eh?

I actually had my heart set on taking a clandestine trip to the zoo with an empty backpack, slip on home and try out a batch of penguin jerky.

So, I've learned something. Nothing elicits responses like dissing animals.


I pose this question:
Anyone know what penguin tastes like?

and I remembered, of course, because that's how it happens, and right after I posted that I couldn't think of the poet, but who else would it have been but Oscar Wilde?
So, if you're wondering, the rest of the poem goes like this:

The Harlot's House

We caught the tread of dancing feet,
We loitered down the moonlit street,
And stopped beneath the harlot's house.

Inside, above the din and fray,
We heard the loud musicians play
The 'Treues Liebes Herz' of Strauss.

Like strange mechanical grotesques,
Making fantastic arabesques,
The shadows raced across the blind.

We watched the ghostly dancers spin
To sound of horn and violin,
Like black leaves wheeling in the wind.

Like wire-pulled automatons,
Slim silhouetted skeletons
Went sidling through the slow quadrille,

Then took each other by the hand,
And danced a stately saraband;
Their laughter echoed thin and shrill.

Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed
A phantom lover to her breast,
Sometimes they seemed to try to sing.

Sometimes a horrible marionette
Came out, and smoked its cigarette
Upon the steps like a live thing.

Then, turning to my love, I said,
'The dead are dancing with the dead,
The dust is whirling with the dust.'

But she - she heard the violin,
And left my side, and entered in:
Love passed into the house of lust.

Then suddenly the tune went false,
The dancers wearied of the waltz,
The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl.

And down the long and silent street,
The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet,
Crept like a frightened girl.

--Oscar Wilde

I heard this poem, first, excerpted during a scene from Eugene O'Neil's "Long Day's Journey into Night," and it's haunted me ever since.

Involucre (noun, Fr) A membranous covering or envelope

Usage:
The gelatin Josip had poured over his body earlier now congealed into a sticky, dull involucre.

A poem I just remembered:

Then, turning to my love, I said,
"The Dead are dancing with the Dead --
The dust is whirling with the dust..."
But she -- she heard the violins,
Left my side and entered in;
Love passed into the House of Lust.

I have forgotten the poet. Help?

I'm pretty sick and tired of hearing that dolphins are more intelligent than humans. How far has a dolphin ever gone in a spelling bee? Grade school kids could give the smartest dolphin a shellacing. "It's 'I' before 'E,' Flipper." So shut up about dolphins.

Squamous (adj, L.) of, or covered with scales

Usage: He skinned the dead armadillo and placed it, raw and moist, upon his head like some revolting, squamous cap.

so tell me, please, why do i write these epistels? am i mumbling in a dark room? producing electronic grafitti? i really don't know. but each post seems more and inane in that i'm not really talking to anyone, but tying notes to balloons and letting them go into the desert sky.