1. pouter — domestic pigeon, noted for puffing out its crop In contrast to Jack, whose beer belly could be seen before the man himself, Bert had an almost inverse shape, with a narrow waist and overlarge barrel chest, puffed up like a pouter in full distention. 2. fons et origo — source and …
Author Archives: mysterious6030
Friday Vocabulary
1. procrustean — producing conformity or uniformity through severe means without regard to natural variation The sentencing guidelines have created a procrustean nightmare which prevents state judges from exercising discretion in even the most egregious cases. 2. winklepickers — shoes with long pointed toe The Leningrad Cowboys are known for their winklepickers and overlong …
112,000 Songs
Nearly four months after reporting one hundred and eleven thousand songs heard, I’ve just listened to my 112,000th unique iTunes track, a Mysterious Traveler radio episode from 1950, “The Man Who Tried To Save Lincoln”. It’s a little bit of Science Fiction, a little psycho-thriller, and a fair bit of fun. Check it out. 112,000 …
Friday Vocabulary
1. flapdoodle — nonsense Certainly the collapse of that Colorado savings and loan during the ’80s had plenty of suspicious circumstances, but Bill was always peddling some flapdoodle about satanism and child abuse being involved so we just learned to tune him out. 2. lusus naturae — freak, sport of nature, deformed creature Palmer’s …
Friday Vocabulary
1. titivate (also tittivate) — to spruce or smarten up We stopped shaving once it became clear that no rescue was forthcoming, save for Harker, who maintained an almost manic hygiene, titivating and preening each morning as if expected a bevy of bachelorettes to stumble into our rude camp of lean-tos and hovels. 2. …
400 Books (not really)
Today I finished the 400th book since I began tracking my reading back in 2016. Of course, I generally do not count towards my ‘Books Read’ total those volumes belonging to the Comics & Graphic Novels category, so in my self-approved count, this book is #351. The slim staple-bound almost-a-pamphlet in question is Life on …
Book List: 4th Century, 2nd Quarter
Continuing my ongoing listing of books most recently read, and continuing the practice just lately begun of presenting such listing in convenient (to me) twenty-five (25) book chunks, for reasons touched upon in the first such set (viewable here), I herewith present the most recent twenty-five (25) books read, #326 – #350 in my count …
Normative Social Theories
“Normative social theories, which are the only relevant answers to problems of value in the social sciences and the humanities, differ radically from this. No normative theory, neither Anglo-American democracy nor Russian communism, neither the Christian ideal nor the Mohammedan ideal for life, could ever hope, nor does it ever pretend, to be completely in …
Friday Vocabulary
1. indefeasible — not liable to be annulled or voided, not forfeitable Any arguments for the indefeasible rights of an author to control his writings are undercut by the works of Franz Kafka, most of which were saved only when his friend Max Brod famously ignored Kafka’s final wishes that his unpublished works be burned …
Friday Vocabulary
1. panentheism — belief that God and the universe interpenetrate and influence each other In contradistinction to the identity of God with the universe described by pantheism, panentheism affirms a deity which exists within the universe but is not identical with it, yet which is not entirely separate from that universe as is the case …