On The Ning Nang Nong

Discussion in 'Education & Personal Growth' started by Iravati, Apr 5, 2017.

  1. Iravati

    Iravati Platinum IL'ite

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    As gay as a mavis

    JM Barrie inspired Michael Jackson to name his ranch Neverland. Have you ever what-iffed, Mr Barrie hadn't written Peter Pan, what would MJ name his ranch? You don't, but I do. Surely, MJ would borrow other fantastical names but Neverland has a ring to it, doesn't it? When Barrie isn't inspiring pop artists to name their sprawling ranches upon fictional landscapes he created in jest, he was writing short stories, one of which is of interest to us: Cree Queery and Mysy Drolly.

    Whilst reading the story, I stumbled on the line: "Here Cree worked, whistling “Ower the watter for Chairlie” to make Mysy think that he was as gay as a mavis."

    Mavis? What is that? A bird? I am no bird watcher. But for a sparrow and a crow I could hardly identify even the most common birds. They all look alike to me when they take to flight. I feel elated when I see bird ignorants like me who further fine-tune their ask: what is a mavis, female or male thrush?

    Mavis is indeed a colloquial name for the song thrush but but can refer to both male and female birds. It appears to have been used in East Anglia, Ireland and Scotland and is certainly a name for this thrush which I have heard before. The name Mavis appears in Chaucer and was used by other Middle English poets. It comes from the French word mauvis and may be of Celtic origin.

    It was used by Shakespeare, as was the word throstle for song thrush, which, in East Anglia, refers to the mistle thrush. Just to confuse things, in southwest Scotland Mavis is generally the word used for the mistle thrush with throstle referring to the song thrush.


    Gotcha! There's song thrush and mistle thrush, and throstle for both. No-gotcha! Forget about gender, what kind of thrush is a mavis? Eastern bird-watchers designated throstle to be a mistle thrush, whereas, Western bird-watchers felt throstle is a song thrush. Shakespeare flouted the scrappy feathers and declared that mavis is as he commands the bird. Don't we love this dude. Straddled between a song thrush and a mistle thrush, mavis is still an endearing name.

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    Last edited: Apr 3, 2018
  2. Iravati

    Iravati Platinum IL'ite

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    'Let me tell you something about you ...'

    'About me?'

    'You are someone who can scratch a fiction on a toilet bowl or even about a toilet bowl. You need no mood or inspiration or the traditional sweet spots of writing. You can talk about anything and anywhere. That is your asset! That is your inalienable gab. You understand. Even in the most inhospitable conditions, you can jabber away utter nonsense. Even in the middle of a cross-fire or brimstone or apocalypse, you can spin your thoughts into writing so glibly. Even waiting for dentists or eyeing candies in a store, you can scratch off on the back of your palm. I have never ever seen you down, ever, in the months that I have known you, you are ...mad and mad ..outright chirpy mad ..in your mad world'

    'I don't understand'

    'You are an imaginative bird.'

    'Slightly cuckoo and wound-up bird.'

    'No, just an imaginative bird who never drains in expression. Take my word , I have never befriended a woman like you.'

    'Is that a good thing or a bad thing?'

    'Cannot we just leave it as a thing. Listen, the people I know including me cannot talk like the way you talk. You are mad and inventive and spoiled and utterly zesty and maniacal. Trust me, you better stay the way you are ...'

    'But I cannot talk serious.'

    'Shut up! And stop your obsession with serious'

    'Stay put. Stay the way you are ..I prefer it that way.'
     
    Last edited: Apr 3, 2018
  3. Iravati

    Iravati Platinum IL'ite

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    Current affairs savvy

    Every once a while, I delight in lofty ambitions, esp. in the early morning hours post a lush dinner from last night when my mind whirs into extraordinary plans as I transition from nightly whims into sunny day dreams. I will start afresh!

    Today, I awakened to a reformed me who shalt follow the world affairs from now on. I will watch broadcast news, read a news feed, and read a science feed. All these savvy activities ought to be folded up between 7-8 am alongside brushing and bathing. Wow! I am onto something beeg this time! I am severed from the world happenings. Unless someone calls me on the breaking news, I am out of touch with the world around. But everything is going to change soon, I tell myself.

    I switch on my rusty TV that hasn't been in use for months. I tune to the news channel. Winnie Mandela is dead; Pope is visiting Ireland mired in legislature on divorce, abortion and contraception; Syringes, doping and Commonwealth Games; Trump and China skirmishes. I swipe my tablet news feed: Grindr, ThinkGeek, Sinclair, Mark Zuckerberg, bird video on a passenger flight, Symphony of the Seas, political memes, Pixar releases their new 'neo-hookean flesh simulation'. Now that last article interested me in that raft of bulletin news. I don't understand a hoot about 'quasistatic scramble' but the graphic hone in the video is amazing.



    I swish science articles. Amidst the cognitive sciences and evolutionary biology and quantum science articles, the only thing that cheered me is that galaxy with missing dark matter. Rewrite science rules? Ho ho ...cannot dupe me with Betteridge question mark.

    My resolve wanes with the overload. I am better off following weekly feed rather than daily feed. I have no clue about the game-changing and flashpoint moments around me but then I am not alone as I have company in Ogden Nash, who once said: 'Just when you think that at least the outlook is so black that it can grow no blacker, it worsens, And that is why I do not like the news, because there has never been an era when so many things were going so right for so many of the wrong persons'.
     
  4. Iravati

    Iravati Platinum IL'ite

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    What's your book?

    Not so long ago, a friend was frustrated with the dating apps. He moaned: There isn't one good dating app in the market that enables you to meet a girl with the prospect of dating her. I heard him loud. Tinder is for hipsters, eHarmony vets your patience with its ever-scrolling questionnaire, and the traditional Indian matrimony sites are naive with horoscopes and parental interference. After an hour of condemning these ineffectual sites, he and I decided to launch a revolutionary app that gets down to the vital details down pat. But what are those details? Religion and eating habits and other biographical facts are donkey facts, they don't assist a dottle in matching your perfect partner. I told him, 'look we need only three fields: favourite book, favourite movie, holiday destination. Our algorithm should match based on these pointers. Got it?' It is a different matter that the next day we blotted out on this ingenious proposal of the previous night when we resumed the workday grind of our lives.

    Last night, the aforesaid memory resurfaced. Strike off that movie and destination! Evil grin: I only need book to determine whether the man in question is further datable or not after the first date. Imagine a scene in a restaurant.

    She: What is your favourite book?
    He: I like classics like that of Mr Dickens and Hemmingway and Edith Wharton.
    She: Have you paid the bill, it was nice meeting you. By the way, next week I am away.

    She: What is your favourite book?
    He: Well, I prefer books with substance..you know ...like catchy substance ...like good substance ...like crazy substance ...like outstanding substance ...like ...
    She: substance?
    He: yeh yeh ..something mind-blowing substance, you know, like heart tugging substance ...
    She: What book?
    He: Something mighty substance ...like ...
    She: Like?
    He: Like ...so much of substance like Chetan Bhagat.
    She: Actually I forgot, I have an early appointment tomorrow. May I take leave now?

    She: What is your favourite book?
    He: I like the soft poetry of Rabindranath Tagore and Keats my favourite book is 'Monk who sold his Ferrari' and 'Siddhartha'.
    She: Can I go to the powder room?

    She: What is your favourite book?
    He: I wept when I read Erich Segal's 'Love Story'. I still go for fiction of Khaled Hosseini. It was painful for me to finish 'Of Mice and Men'.
    She: I am sure you were scarred when you read 'The Scarlet Letter' in school.
    He: I was traumatised for weeks after reading that book.
    She: Should we ask for more tissues, just in case.

    She: What is your favourite book?
    He: Bit of Douglas Adams and David Foster Wallace.
    She: Your place or my place.

    See, simple!

    Savarin might have asserted: Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are, as in, whether your skin is dewy and your cheeks peachy. I say: Tell me what you have read, and I will tell you how compatible we are.

    You want to know a man, ask him for a book, ask, ask, and extract his visceral profile from that singular source. These dating sites should tweak their strategy to cater to bring people together rather than irresponsibly grouping them up against non-essential facts. Members should be able to search and match profiles based on books and movies, a vital denominator than religion and herbi or carno diet. Humph!
     
  5. Iravati

    Iravati Platinum IL'ite

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    Versace - was shot?

    'Versace was shot dead, do you know that?'

    'Yes'

    'Shot dead'

    'Long ago ...'

    'I didn't know that.'

    I am never downbeat in life, but the closest disturbing emotion that I bring upon myself is confusion in life. I am ever-confused. Any time I am wrought in confusion, I punch in random contacts and inquire from at least three of my zany friends if they knew what I have just discovered. Versace was shot dead, I repeat.

    What is this all about? Let me tell you upfront, this isn't about Versace. Though I didn't know up until few weeks back that Versace was assassinated, this isn't about that assassination also.

    It all started when I recently stumbled on The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story. That was when I realised that the fashion designer Versace was shot. I had no intent to watch the drama series in full. But as the episode rolled, and the drama unfolded into killing of Versace by Andew Cunanan, and the police interrogated his family, and his partner Antonio D'Amico, that was when my intrigue surged. The actor who played the role of Antonio was janah-pehchana. I raked my brain. I was lost. Who is he? Who is that actor? I know him. I don't know him. I fetched my laptop and searched for the cast of American Crime Story. My eyes popped out! That is RICKY MARTIN! I didn't recognise him. What is this strange affliction that I didn't recognise that man? You know that ...that ...that .. I typed in 'don't recognise faces anymore' and hit enter. Yes, that prosopagnosia!

    How could I not have recognised Ricky Martin? He looked familiar yet not in hundred years would I have identified him as Ricky Martin. He looked like Ricky Martin but I didn't see him as Ricky Martin ..(if you know what I mean) ... and I didn't know that he was an active actor or incipient actor. Since I had always identified him as a singer, I failed to recognise him in the context of acting. Hmm, that was how I consoled by indisposition to recognise celebrity faces.

    I demurred. I paced for some time. I won't. I will not. No, no, no. This time, I won't.

    Still I called up a friend and inquired: Do you know that Ricky Martin acts?
     
  6. Iravati

    Iravati Platinum IL'ite

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    Degrees of friendship

    This recollection is ancient. Yes, from that period when spunky Ira bounded in snap waist and short skirts. That vignette seems distant now.

    When I talk about my friends with other friends, I usually attribute them as friends of friends of friends. The times were different and we were group hippies, but it was common that friends were introduced to the next order of friends. That was how I was introduced to friends of my friends.

    The guy says: You should meet my friend. You will go crazy. I reflect, crazy over him or about him. Such determinate craziness was tantalising. I met him. We initially exchanged smiles then exchanged confidences ..so you are Ira ..I heard so much about you ...he chews away my ear ..and says you both should meet because you will go crazy. You too, he said, crazy.

    We crackle initially and then flare up into ..that x-files and paranomal activity and Dexter's laboratory and I too hate poetry (well, I hated back then) and Amul chocolate is the best and we should definitely go to that new restaurant and try chicken malai kebab. The facilitating friend retreats. I warned you both were crazy people.

    When I recollect these past-friends to the now-friends I stutter, no college, no work, no neighbourhood association, but friend of a friend of a friend. We were wont to collapse degrees of friendship into unitary bonds. Paranormal activity and food could be binding? well, it was back then.

    I have no clue of the whereabouts of these people now. A click away. Create FB account and login and tap their names and I am sure they will pop up. I wonder if they ever recollect the fun back then as I am typing about them here ...then we went to have that chicken malai kebab and she ate like a ravenous pig.
     
  7. Iravati

    Iravati Platinum IL'ite

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    English Attention: Nose and Teeth

    Not so long ago Thagu wrote a post in IL about witty repartees in political assaults. He cited a famous instance on wordplay on 'delivery' and 'conceive' where the opposition strikes a minister on his recursive image.

    In London parliament - ruling sidemember - “I conceive I conceive I conceive .....” loss for words . Opposition member rebuffs, “you had conceived already three times but yet to deliver..”

    Wit is essential in arguments. If you cannot do with wit, settle with customary idioms at the least. Many times in online altercations, posters resort to bland wordings to express their anguish. Damn! You are angry, you should wave medusa-styled hairy curses. At times, I wish to ply them with bone-rattling and nose-twitching and teeth-grinding phrases to assist in their expressions. One such common emotion during squabbles is when a poster wants to convey: I don't give two hoots to what you say. I am least bothered. I don't care. Whatever you say will not affect me. I am least bothered (and then she will exit in a huff with more repetitive 'least bother' and 'don't care' terms). Tsk tsk ..they need: that's no skin off my nose/teeth.

    As there are several disputed origins of the phrase 'no skin off one's nose/teeth' -- to mean, I am not affected by what you say -- I don't want to put down any preferential source of that funny phrase. Even that body part, nose or teeth, is disputed.

    Next time you want to unleash a walk-out on your online opponent, do that with skinned off nose and teeth and not with unimpressive and stuck-up phrases.

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  8. Iravati

    Iravati Platinum IL'ite

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    Entrechats and Pirouettes

    While reading the essay 'On the Marionette Theatre' by Heinrich von Kleist here, I came across the line

    What would our good Miss G. give to be sixty pounds lighter or to have a weight of this size as a counterbalance when she is performing her entrechats and pirouettes?

    I had no clue what entailed in a entrechat. Pirouette is employed often in common parlance and is a trope in quiz shows. What is that swirl in ballet called? Thus, asked once Derek O'Brien. Ballet or no ballet, pirouette has made inroads into popular consciousness. But 'entrechat' was new to me. When it came to that mystic French, everything right from pronunciation is a challenge. Its pronounced ahn-truh-SHAH.

    Entrechat is a classical ballet term meaning “interweaving” or “braiding.” It describes when a dancer jumps into the air and beats their legs by changing the position of their legs and feet to the front or back of each other. This beating action with the legs could be described as looking “braided” since each leg crosses over the other for each beat.

    Here's a video.



    Wait, did he beat his feet four times in a quatre? That looked like two to me. So did entrechat six. Further explanation is provided here on the strangeness of the count of those beats. I am super-confused, then I realised why the flouncy pirouette crossed but the perplexing entrechat anchored firmly only to the ballet world.
     
  9. Iravati

    Iravati Platinum IL'ite

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    A silky intersection

    I am sensitive to nuances in language which does not necessarily translate to wielding impressive language. I merrily eat, but only grudgingly cook. That said, what attracts me to people or texts or even casual speech is the finesse to bore one's amorphous thoughts into smart verbal expressions. I enjoy a good word play or a mixed metaphor.

    I recently chanced on the line 'shot-silk texture between philosophical discussion on one hand and imaginative narrative on the other'.

    A proverbial usage would have been 'interwoven' or 'entangled' or 'enmeshed' or similar variant. But shot-silk was a visual!

    What is shot silk? Shot silk (also called changeant, changeable silk and changeable taffeta) is a fabric which is made up of silk woven from warp and weft yarns of two or more colours producing an iridescent appearance.

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    That's beautiful. Both, the cloth weave and the linguistic warp — the writer exhibited.
     
  10. Iravati

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    English Attention: Stalk/Mosey/Tear

    The words appear like they were picked randomly and dumped in Ira's muse-box.

    Well, yes and no. Those words reflect a sense of gait when joined with adverbial sense of direction.

    Stalk: walk in a way that shows you feel angry or offended. stalk off/out/away etc
    Usage: He was so angry he stalked away without saying goodbye.

    Mosey: walk or move in a leisurely manner.
    Usage: We decided to mosey on up to Montgomery

    Tear: move very quickly in a reckless or excited manner.
    Usage: she tore along the footpath on her bike

    Those are random words that my scattered brain recalled. I once read an article that PG Wodehouse avoided the humble word 'walk', in turn, preferring other emphatic words to denote walk. Since then, every time I had come across unusual expressions for 'walk', I made a mental note.

    Few weeks ago, I was watching an episode in Trollhunters when the audio description flashed: Draal stalks off.

    I blinked. I have to squeal the spoiler narrative here to explain why I blinked. Draal is a good troll until he was hexed by Gunmar, the bad troll. In that episode, Draal, now possessed by a bad spirit, was ordered to enslave the good trolls. So, you see, he could not have stalked off because he was not resenting the command of his Evil Master under the spell. He happily followed the command. Hence, how can he stalk off?

    When I complain such confusions to my friends, they chide me: Ira, you are being fussy. Though Draal is under the spell, the inherent good soul in him stalked off. There you go!
     

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