obtenebrate

obtenebrate: v.t. darken; cast shadow over.

source: Dictionary of Difficult Words, and Ben perusing the unabridged dictionary I won in a third grade spelling bee.

Add comment July 17th, 2009

Scentless Apprentice

I recently finished Patrick Suskind’s wonderfully vivid Perfume, a book, of course, which was a favorite of Kurt Cobain’s and the subject matter of the song “Scentless Apprentice”. So when the song came up on shuffle a couple of days back, I paid closer attention to the lyrics and Googled them to see what the hell he’s yelling during that chorus.

Most lyric transcribings I could find have the lyric as something like “go away”. This time, however, with the knowledge of the backstory firmly in hand, I heard something different. I contend that what he’s actually yelling is the name of the scentless apprentice himself, the book’s protagonist, Grenouille (grahn-way-ee). Give it a listen: Grenouille

Add comment May 10th, 2009

Basically Driving Me Mad

Usually prefacing an involved explanation of something very technical, I would conservatively estimate that I hear the word “basically” used in a sentence a couple of hundred times a week. I also hear it used in the middle of any particular sentence, presumably to describe a simplification of what’s being said. In reality, I think it’s become just a bridging word, but its use has become overwhelming.

It wasn’t driving me quite so insane, of course, until Amy noticed, and we started pointing it out to one another. Now that the secret is out, I can’t help but suppress a slight cringe.  At first, I would smile to myself, but now I can’t even use it — or even replace it with its cousin, “essentially”– and I find my spoken sentence structure has a more tightened, perhaps even erudite, quality to it, due to the lack of vague transition phrases.

A quick Googling of the word shows that it’s a popular word in all sorts of business names, particularly ones that begin with the letter “B”: Basically Babysitting, Basically Beds, Basically Bushwalking Club, Basically Brazil…

Add comment June 26th, 2008

NaNoWriMo Go!

November is NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, a phenomenon I just learned about last week through a book I picked up (“No Plot? No Problem”) by the guy who started the NaNoWriMo. The goal, such as it is, is to write a novel, defined as 50,000 generally cohesive and sequential words; it is very much about the act of writing and producing quantity, rather than creating An Important Piece of Literature.

Rather than wait until November, or, indeed, even start and end within a single month, my personal NaNoWriMo started July 5th and will go until August 5th. I’ve got a few hundred words in– a palpable start– and I’ve recruited one other person in on this journey already. And we’ve got a little side-wager on the event, as added incentive, so this should be an interesting month.

So finally I will be able to say, I’ve written a novel, my weighty collection of prose and poems notwithstanding (which, incidentally, falls just shy of 44,000 words, so we’ll call it “a good start”). Come August 5th, I’ll let you know how I’ve done…

Also in the spirit of the thing, I’ve dusted off the trusty iBook, because (a.) it doesn’t have nearly as many distractions on it as my well-abused PowerBook, and (b.) the “d” and “r” keys work a lot more regularly, which is much more conducive to quantity writing.

Add comment July 8th, 2007

Book Reviews In Brief: Palahniuk; Murakami; Dr. Strange

Rant, Chuck Palahniuk.

Palahniuk definitely has a penchant for some graphic and graphically disturbing writing– not unlike a Paul Verhoeven of print. Rant is no exception. It explores familiar themes (for this author) of megalomania, urban distrust and unrest, and the dual beauty and grotesqueness of the life as a human, through spider bites, car wrecks and a touch of the fantastic. As you read this book, you will learn new things, about disease, about psychology, about cars, and about the nature of time itself.

They say magic happens at borders– at bayshores, in doorways, in the twilight hours…

Rant was an enjoyable read for me, more engrossing than his last full novel, Diary, and just ultimately an interesting story.

After Dark, Haruki Murakami

A solid and swift entry by a great writer, who often uses shades of fantasy to color his deeply introspective novels. One might liken a Murakami work such as Hard-Boiled Wonderland to Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, in that respect. Nothing quite so grand here in After Dark, but it is a modest, thoughtful, and interesting read.

Dr. Strange: The Oath

I don’t get down to the comic store as often as I used to, but when I was younger, the character of Dr. Strange always allured me. “Marvel: Ultimate Alliance” on the Wii? Yeah, that’s Doc on my team.(Northwest Avengers Assemble!) I almost picked up these comics individually, but I was glad to see that they put the story in one graphic novel, because the they didn’t have issue #1.

The Oath is just awesome. It is just clichéd enough to be the Dr. Strange you love, even to the verge of self-mockery at parts, but the story is novel and engrossing, with characterization built off of more than repeated one-liners. If you were ever a fan, pick this one up.

2 comments June 7th, 2007