As I mentioned earlier this week, I recently finished reading book #400 since I started keeping count in 2015, and, since I’ve already caught you up with lists of the first 75 books in the last hundred books, here I’ll catch you up with the remaining twenty-five books making up the full hundred. (As usual, …
Author Archives: mysterious6030
Friday Vocabulary
1. poioumenon — metafiction in which the process of writing or creation is the primary subject He liked Barton Fink as a wonderful example of poioumenon, while I just liked it for John Goodman screaming in a burning hallway. 2. hotbox (also hot box) — (railroads) overheated axle bearing on rail cars and engines …
400 Books
I’ve just finished my 400th book since I started tracking such data back in June of 2015. The book which saw me cross this fictional milestone was an interesting look at the Soviet Union just after World War II, Why They Behave Like Russians, written by John Fischer and published in 1947. Fischer visited the …
Friday Vocabulary
1. frowsty — musty, hot and stuffy I knelt by the bed the better to hear his wispy words and tried to ignore the sickbed stench in the frowsty attic room. 2. hoick — (colloquial) to pull or lift up with a jerk Uncle Slim leapt out of the truck, hoicked my cousin out …
Friday Vocabulary
1. gantry — framework or platform supporting a crane; framework across railroad tracks for showing signals; scaffolding framework for rockets I chose to say nothing to Black Tom, waiting instead until the last moment to fall down on the boxcar roof, letting the signal gantry sweep my enemy and his Colt .45 off the train. …
Friday Vocabulary
1. diligence — public stagecoach of early 18th Century, esp. in France I told the innkeeper to run out and hold the diligence while I gathered the soi-disant baroness up from the floor, along with her physical baggage. 2. bedizen — to dress up, esp. in a vulgar manner His green plaid waistcoat was …
113,000 Songs
Just 80 days after my last such notice, I have just heard my 113,000th unique iTunes track, the slightly desultory Grateful Dead song “When Push Comes To Shove”, from the Dead’s show at Frost Amphitheatre on May 2, 1987. This particular file was digitized from my own tape of the show, which I was at …
Friday Vocabulary
1. callipygian — having shapely buttocks I gladly followed the callipygian blonde up the narrow trail and—not for the first time—gave silent thanks to whomsoever had introduced yoga pants into the realm of fashionable casual wear. 2. manustupration — (archaic) masturbation For centuries the detrimental effects of manustupration upon the body, the psyche, and …
Friday Vocabulary
1. orpiment — yellow arsenic sulfide used as pigment Although most commonly associated with ancient painting, orpiment has many, many uses, and in India and Iran is not infrequently used as a depilatory. 2. bort — low-grade diamonds and fragments of good diamonds, used commonly as abrasive Though over half of mined diamonds are …
Friday Vocabulary
1. pluviophile — lover of rain and rainy days As the storm subsided into a steady shower, Daniel looked out into the comforting grey sky and he realized how much he had missed rainy days, realized that he had always been a pluviophile, perhaps since he used to visit his grandfather in the little county …