Around ten thirty this morning I once more crossed an imaginary line in my mind and find that I have now listened to 119,000 unique iTunes ‘songs’.* The 119,000th track was a fairly pedestrian effort by Glenn Miller’s band, with vocals by Ray Eberle, “And the Angels Sing”. It was on a Reader’s Digest compilation …
Continue reading “One Hundred and Nineteen Thousand (119,000) Songs”
1. matutinal — of or occurring in the morning He grabbed the newspaper for his matutinal visit to the smallest room in the house, there to await the results of his first cups of coffee. 2. ringent — gaping, grinning But the lip augmentation was a failure, leaving her mouth looking like a ringent …
1. telluric — of or related to the earth; of or from the soil; of or containing tellurium Zircon turns out to be an unreliable source of data about the telluric history of the earth’s magnetic field, leaving a mystery at the heart of paleomagnetism. 2. curate — assistant to rector or vicar I …
1. adumbrate — to outline; to foreshadow; to faintly indicate; to overshadow, to partially conceal Whereas some biographies illuminate their subjects, Mr. Parker’s paean to the late colonel merely adumbrates what should have been an interesting figure. 2. beck — [North England] swift running brook He knelt alongside the beck and read her letter …
1. pismire — ant He strode the city like a bull, but he was felled by the prattling pismires of this toxic town. 2. inviolacy — freedom from violation or desecration As we met more of our neighbors, I realized that this small trailer park was somehow untouched by the sordid changes that seemed …
1. scarehead — newspaper headline printed in huge type As the scareheads of every European daily proclaimed the approach to the very brink of war, events in this tiny Balkan town conspired to slow the fevered sale of the screaming newspapers. 2. saltatory — characterized by or adapted for leaping or dancing movement Suddenly …
1. spile — large wooden piling; wooden plug used as a spigot; to tap (a tree, a keg) by means of a spile Even with the dark lantern I could hardly make out the body beneath the pier, so dense was the forest of tarry spiles. 2. piacular — making atonement, expiatory; requiring atonement, …
1. sesquipedalian — long-winded, given to using big words; polysyllabic I finally was able to decipher the doctor’s obfuscatory and sesquipedalian oration and learned that my car had been stolen. 2. plexus — network of nerves or blood vessels; web-like structure of networked complexity Somehow over the years this one small block of the …
1. bunt — [nautical] reinforced part of fishing net where the catch is concentrated; bulging middle part of a sail When the sails were well furled, the bunts triced securely, the bosun let us take a short break. 2. spissitude — density, thickness Away from the lake, the miasmic air of the swamps seemed …
1. treen — made wholly of wood Our current age may best be judged by the label attached to a decorative rabbit-shaped bowl that I found at the store: “Our treen products are made of resin and is not for use with food.” 2. pillock — [British informal] stupid person I always thought that …
