Grown-Up (Part Deux)

Here's the next bit...hopefully you aren't finding this (my penchant for wordsmithing) tedious?

Goodness.

Did you know that, although it is impossible to count the number of words in the English language, there are - at a conservative minimum - over 250,000 distinct entries?

interrobang: ahh okay so this one actually isn't in the OED...but Oxford isn't right absolutely all of the time (hmph) and occasionally we leet individuals just have to take defining the world into our own hands.  This is an interrobang.  Note: not to be confused with an irony mark.
 
limerence: there once was a man from Nantucket...hm?  Oh sorry...this one means 'the state of being romantically infatuated or obsessed with another person, typically experienced involuntarily and characterized by a strong desire for reciprocation of one's feelings but not primarily for a sexual relationship.'  Leaving college means leaving words like 'crush' behind, apparently.
 
mallemaroking: if I can once use this word in context in my lifetime, I will be able to die happy.  It refers to the boisterous and drunken carousing of sailors aboard whaling ships near Greenland (or other extreme northern waters).  Take that, aglet.
 
obstreperous: clamorous, boisterous, vociferous.  Noisy and difficult to control.  I like the feel of this one in my mouth.

petrichor: oh, this is the word you never knew you always needed; it is the term which describes the pleasant smell of fresh rain after warm weather.
 
pogonotrophy: hint 1 - the one thing that Sidney Crosby fails at...hint 2 - it's a Greek word.  Yes, pogonotrophy is the cultivation or growing of a beard.  (It's playoff season, baby!)
 
qualtagh: the first person one meets after leaving home.  Traditionally, the first person one meets after leaving home on a special occasion (Christmas, New Years), but any sort of occasion works these days.  Also, I believe this just might be the first word with Celtic roots on my list!
 
runcible: If you know Edward Leary, you will be familiar with runcible spoons.  Somehow, my five-year-old brain thought runcible had something to do with those pointy grapefruit utensils, but the truth is rather stranger.  These days, 'runcible' is most commonly used in connection with 'spoon', which is in fact a specialized utensil...you guessed it, a spork.  However, Mr Leary most likely coined this useful word by altering 'rouncival', which means anything from a type of pea (the veggie, yes), to a type of wart, to a heavy fall, to a type of alliterative verse, to a woman of large build and boisterous or loose manners.  A dangerous sort of word.
 
schadenfreude: Oh, the Germans.  If anyone could have more words than us English-speakers, it's them, with their lovely habit of compounding.  Anyway, we English-speakers have borrowed schadenfreude - as I am sure you know - in order to describe the malicious enjoyment of the misfortune of others. 

spanghew: transcribing directly from the dictionary...to throw or jerk violently; to cause (a toad or frog) to fly into the air.  You read that right, we've got a special word for amphibian-tossing.  Hooray!
 
syzygy: this one's got mathematical, biological, astronomical, theological, and poetic definitions, which makes things a little confusing.  I had a professor tell me though that it essentially connotes a union in which the sum exceeds the parts.  Which I like.  Plus, three y's!
 
tmesis: at last, a word to describe words!  Sadly, in English we don't do this so much...add infixes, I mean.  In fact, the only two instances of tmesis I can think of at the moment are abso-bloody-lutely and in-f***ing-credible. 
 
tyromancy: not a typo!  You are going to love this one, though - divination by means of cheese.  I know, but it's not a joke...it's in the dictionary!  Sadly, it's now a bit obsolete...we must bring it back.  Double, double, toil and trouble, Fire burn and fondue-pot bubble? 

ultracrepidarian: everyone knows one.  Here we have the official term for a know-nothing know-it-all.  Throw this word at them next time and see how they react, I dare you.

zugunruhe: I'm ending on this one because, well, it's the only word I've got that starts with the letter z, but also because of context...it means, quite succinctly, migratory restlessness.  At the end of my university career, with nowhere particular to go, it's what I'm feeling.  Back to Pittsburgh tomorrow!

Grown-up Words

Moving on, moving up, moving out...here is a somewhat lengthy list of words to savor (or to use in your next game of Scrabble).  No, they aren't all in my everyday vocabulary.  They are all legitimate, though; I verified them all in the OED (although not all of the definitions are Oxonian).

You can have the first half today, and some more tomorrow.

aglet: I know, I know.  It's just a warm-up.  But isn't it strange that we have words for such specific things as the ends of shoelaces?  And did you know that an aglet technically ought to be made of metal?  And! did you know there's a verb aglet, 'to put a tag on a point'...what does that even mean?

amaranthine: of or pertaining to mythological flowers that never fade; also, this color.

ameliorate: I think I like this one because it sounds like my name.  Sure, call me vain...it means to make, become, or grow better; to improve.
 
aplomb: confidence, self-possession.  Oh, you knew it already?  But did you know it's related to plumbers?  Yes, plumbers and plumb-lines (apparently steadfast little articles that invariably know the perpendicular) have lead - that is, Pb - in common, and some semantic extension does the rest.  Whatever, next word!
 
callipygian: of, pertaining to, or having well-shaped or finely developed buttocks.  Sometimes the OED just says it best.
 
cleave: I've already been over this one earlier in the year, but I'm just maintaining my position here that I like how it can mean either to cling together or to be forced apart.
 
cripes: it seems this one is a 'vulgar perversion of Christ'...but I do love all of these antiquated profanities... zounds (God's wounds), egad (a/by God), gadzooks (God's ??? no one has any clue), jeepers (Jesus), etc.
 
dandiprat: basically what you'd think - a little urchin boy, a contemptible fellow...or a dwarf, or a small coin - yeah, so it's what you'd think.  basically.

defenestrate: to throw out of a window.  You probably know this one, too, but it's a classic and I don't think we should exclude it just for the sake of familiarity.  For some reason, this word reminds me of babies, bathwater, and Falstaff.  I'm not sure why.
 
erinaceous: like a hedgehog.  Enough said.
 
exsibilation: hissing a person off of a stage, which is different from one person on a stage hissing to another...as Medea would have to Jason - "esosa se esosa hos issasi hosoi"...either way, good solid onomatopoeic alliteration. 
 
facetious: me.  No, really...so in the original French, this one means witty and pleasant.  These days, it's got slightly more of a negative spin - there's a feeling of flippancy that hasn't been there in the past.  The evolution of language, eh?

gamine: another one of those French-turned-English words, so much so that it's got two forms - gamin for boys and gamine for girls.  The two forms, strangely, have slightly separate meanings...gamine connotes an 'attractively pert', slim, mischevious, and generally elfin girl or young woman; a gamin isn't so much a Puck but rather an Oliver Twist.

ginglyform: hinge-shaped!  Isn't that fabulous?

Some Random Inspiration

It's not October...and there's no battle...

But since when did a little Shakespeare (via Mr K. Brannaugh) not help?



These wounds I had on Crispin's Day!

Idle Dogs

…He somehow could only feel how jolly it was to be the only idle dog among all these busy citizens. After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be resting yourself, as to see all the other fellows busy working. (from The Wind in the Willows)

Is it true?  I'm so close to finding out!

Interlude

Things are about to be a bit hairy around here...brace yourselves for single-line entries and lots of YouTube gems.

Snap Crackle Pop

Okay so everyone probably already knows this one, but I am still getting some ugly looks, and there are a lot of rumors circulating, so let's just put it to bed once and for all.

[drumroll please...] What's behind a cracking joint?

Why yes, now you ask, I have been feeling the teensiest bit stressed, and my fingers and neck sometimes crackle under the pressure.  And while it may sound ooky and unpleasant, there's no evidence that it's (a) giving me arthritis, (b) swelling/ enlarging, or (c) gradually immobilizing my joints.  Hurrah!

There are several possible causes for what exactly is making that unseemly noise, which I shall now lay out for you.  The primary postulate is that the snapping sound is the sound of gasses being released from between joints.  I don't particularly want gassy joints, so I'm all for this theory.  Apparently there are fluid-filled cavities in the spaces between bones, and when these are stretched, squished, or contorted, air is rapidly released with a pop.  Like my mom cracking her chewing gum. This is the most accepted explanation, but a couple others are noted - and for the sake of completeness, I'll note them as well.  Firstly, scar tissue or ligaments scraped quickly across protruding bones might make a raspy snapping noise (argh bad!)...something like a rubber band being snapped, I'd imagine.  Or, ligaments stretching quickly might make a noise (as you can imagine); so, too, would actually breaking the connective bits between bones.

I'm not sure about these other explanations, though.  While I'm sure they would be noisy, they would also most likely be painful, and I'm not experiencing any pain at all.  In fact, twisting around in my chair between physics problems has quite a "palliative effect"...so I'm going to treat joint cracking as the equivalent of an ossean antiflatulent.

B Flat

You guys can have some fun with this whilst I study like mad for these last two finals...

Peace out!

Warning: Less Pseudo, More Science

I'm done with undergraduateness!  Forever!

Here's a link to the .pdf of my thesis; I submitted it just last night.  It is kind of convoluted, but I'm pretty proud of it...at nearly fifty pages, who wouldn't, I suppose.  (Don't worry.  There are pictures.)

Yeah, so if you want to go through it to find out what I've been doing for the past year, I wish you luck.  The abstract, intro, and discussion are probably the most user-friendly.  And I would be happy to answer any questions or re-hash it out of science-speak and into English if you continue to be interested.

WOOOO!

Recommended Band Names

Thursday has come to mean (loosely, at least) music day.  I don't have any music for you to listen to today, but I haaave been fiddling around with my brand new Bananagrams set.  So if you like to make music and not just listen to it, but you haven't got a cool band name...look no further.  Several of these are Brianna's brainchildren (?) from when she came to visit, but I'm sure she won't mind me posting them here so they aren't lost to the mists of braininess.

By the way, according to my reckoning, there two cool band names - at the very least - in the above paragraph.

So we've catalogued (alphabetically...I was going to list them by prospective genre, but then I thought I'm not about to do all of the work):

Able Bertram
The Dimwit Brides
Dour Fandango
Goat Wiper
Hedge Nation
Iwi Jucu Quail
No Jeebies Tonight
Quaverrrrr
Thaw me Thursday
Xiphoid Process

Really though, this is only the tip of the iceberg.  So no more of this "Blankety-Blank and the Blank Band" business, okay?

Craft Time

Well, I've got an official plan for the summer.  No, not a job.  Also, no, not befriending Sidney Crosby through stealth, strategy, and my winning good looks.

It's called a dorodango...I'm not entirely sure it can be done...but if you've got dirt, you've got potential.

These are some instructions from a Japanese website.

1. Pack some mud into your hand, and squeeze out the water while forming a sphere.
2. Add some dry dirt to the outside and continue to gently shape the mud into a sphere.
3. When the mass dries, pack it solid with your hands, and rub the surface until a smooth film begins to appear.
4. Rub your hands against the ground, patting and rubbing the fine, powdery dirt onto the sphere. Continue this for two hours.
5. Seal the ball in a plastic bag for three or four hours. Upon removing the sphere, repeat step 4, and then once again seal the sphere in a plastic bag.
6. Remove the ball from the bag, and if it is no longer wet, polish it with a cloth until it shines.

Easy, right?  Now who's with me?

Lepidoptera

I saw a yellow butterfly today, first time I've seen one for a while...so has anyone else heard the saying that if the first butterfly of the year is a yellow one, it's going to be a good summer?

What other butterfly sayings/myths/folklores can you think of?

Culture of Honor

What do the Ancient Greeks, the Nuer tribe in Africa, the Navaho, the Celts, and the archetypal American Cowboy have in common?

Well, if you read the title...you're right, a strict code of honor.  Yeah, sorry, this wasn't some setup for a hilarious man-walks-into-a-bar joke.  But there's more to it.  According to the book I'm reading (Evolution for Everyone; I don't always agree with it, but it's been quite thought-provoking in areas), these cultures are ruled by a rigorous code of behavior that rewards honorable intentions - more importantly, actions - and punishes transgressions through violence.  The violence bit especially is not only useful for these cultures, but a necessary way of life.  Interestingly (the author points out), young children live by this same standard...but I haven't put them into the above list because they don't fit this next statement.

Because another thing all of these societies have in common is that they're all based on herding.  When you're manning flocks of sheep, herding goats, roping steer, etc., you're dealing with mobile property.  You're usually alone, vulnerable, and there usually isn't a governing, law-enforcing body in easy access.  Self defense, therefore, means having a strict honor code where everyone in the in-group knows it's 'toe the line or die'.

Sounds like a man's world, eh?  But then, a couple paragraphs onward in this book, we get a passage by a Confederate soldier from America's Civil War, who describes his mother giving him a musket, telling him not to disgrace it, and that she would rather her sons all died honorably than turned their back on battle; and then giving him a golden ring inscribed simply "honor".  After the Civil War ended, when asked why the South continued to fight, the reply was given, "We were afraid to stop...Afraid of the women at home...they would have been ashamed of us."

...And this has been reported to you LIVE! from Richmond, VA, capital of the Old South (although sadly I'll be leaving in a very few days).

New Shoes!

I've used up my birthday money and bought these new shoes that will doubtless cut me off at the ankle and make me the most fashionable stubby-legged person this side of Paris (if they even have stubby-legged people in Paris).

Voila!

Seven Wonders

If you ever get sucked back through time to the Ancient World and are able to do a bit of tourism, be sure to put these at the top of your 'not-to-be-missed' list. 

The Statue of Zeus at Olympia:  This was basically a giant sculpture of Zeus.  It filled up an entire Greek temple and was made entirely of ivory and gold...what's not to love?  The sculptor Phidias allegedly drew inspiration from Homer's Iliad, so that makes it literary as well as opulent.  Unfortunately, this thing no longer exists in the modern day; it most likely survived Caligula's designs on it, but it either burned in its temple, or was carted off to Constantinople and destroyed by fire in 475 AD.

The Lighthouse of Alexandria: On the island of Pharos in Alexandria, Egypt, this lighthouse was the tallest building in the world for several centuries.  Illustrations of it actually look quite modern...well, neoclassical, which I suppose makes sense.  There's a fun story behind this: legend has it that the architect, Sostradus, was forbidden to carve his name into the structure by the king.  But Sostradus was clever, and in secret wrote his name on the base and covered it with plaster, and then carved the name of the king in this.  Over the centuries, however, the name of the king, and then the plaster, wore away, revealing Sostradus' legacy...until, at least, earthquakes destroyed the tower in the 1300s.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon: These were said to have been built in about 600 BC by King Nebuchadnezzar the Second for his wife...they were lovely and lush and reminiscent of Persia and full of aqueducts and whatever else.  An earthquake destroyed them in about 200 BC.

The Colossus of Rhodes: Another giant Greek god, this time Helios.  Over a hundred feet tall, made of iron and bronze, and situated at the harbor (although, not probably as often 'romantically' illustrated standing astride the harbor entrance), this colossus was felled by yet another earthquake.  I didn't know the Mediterranean region even had this many earthquakes..?  The ruins lay where they had fallen for nearly a millennium, but were eventually lost.

The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus: This temple took well over a hundred years to build and was funded by Croesus...just goes to show.  Today there are some remnants of carvings and so on in Turkey (and in museums elsewhere), because the whole thing was burned to the ground on the very night Alexander the Great was born by Herostratus, whose motive was simple yet strange: the pursuit of immortalizing fame. 

The Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus: This was a giant tomb for a Persian governor by the name of Mausolus...which is actually where we get the word mausoleum.  The structure was built in a courtyard on a hill, and carved with warriors and Amazons, horses and lions and centaurs.  A combination of earthquakes and pirates seem to have put an end to this memorial to mortal remains, however, before the 10th century. 

The Great Pyramid of Giza: Good news - this one is still (mostly) standing!  It's also one of the oldest, being build before 2500 BC.  Everyone knows what it looks like, no one knows how it was created, the polished white limestone casing stones are mostly gone, but the pyramid is impressive in terms of art, engineering, and architecture.

This list of wonders was more nearly, in its time, a guidebook, most likely originally compiled by the Greek historian Herodotus (although his original recommendation is lost to history and we only now know about the list through reference).  Kind of sad that only one of the most impressive sites of the Classical Period now exists...still, I suppose it's a marvel that anything man-made at all has lasted so long.

*Note: Some alternative lists have the Ishtar Gate as part of the Walls of Babylon as one of the sites instead of the Lighthouse.  If you like, you can see fragments of the Gate in various museums around the world.

Sky Phenomenon

 

Polar Lights: Starting off with the big shots, aurora borealis and aurora australis.  Best spotted near the north and south poles respectively, these have nothing to do with weather and everything to do with magnets.  Molecules of oxygen or nitrogen in the upper atmosphere are ionized by solar wind racing along the Earth's magnetic field, and then regain an electron or return to ground state and release energy by emitting light.  Nitrogen makes blue or red; oxygen is green or red.

Crepuscular Rays: I used to call them God rays when I was a kid...okay, or maybe I still do.  Anyway, the crepuscular bit means they're visible around sunrise and sunset.  They can occur in either air or, less often, in water, but the reason they happen at all is because mountains, clouds, etc. shadow all but a small fraction of the sun's rays, which then get diffracted/reflected/scattered by tiny suspended particles.  Apparently they're most common in Antarctica.

Sundogs: Scientifically known as parhelions, sundogs also occur at dusk or dawn when the sun is low in the sky.  Although it may look it, these are not photographic effects - a sundog is caused by atmospheric ice.  The ice needs to be crystallized...either by being flat and hexagonal and found in cirrus clouds, or something known as 'diamond dust' that's lower in the atmosphere and occurs at colder temperatures.  If the crystals are high, a full halo forms around the sun.  If they're lower, two bright spots - sort of fake suns - can be seen on either side of the real sun.

Green Flash: Admittedly, I'd never even heard of this one until Cpt. Jack Sparrow came along, but it's not just a Hollywood effect.  These always occur at sunset, are quite brief, and can be seen over any horizon (although a flat one - like the sea, or a cloud bank, or any plain really - works best).  The reason, again, is simple refraction, although there is a list of optimizing conditions that make this flash more...flashy.

Light Pillars: Ice crystals again!  Tiny flat ones in the air during the winter that reflect light up from the ground or down from the sky.  Similar to a sundog, but linear.  These can be caused by the sun, the moon, or even man-made light sources.

[All of these photos are from National Geographic, with the exception of the green flash, which I have re-blogged from webexhibits.org]

Obscure 80s Weekly

It has come to my attention that just perhaps the songs (and their respective videos) that I think of as mainstream 80s EuroPop and New Wave classics are not as familiar to certain people as they are to me.  Don't get me wrong - I'm not calling into question everyone's 80s hits knowledge - and it could very well be that you hold the following as near and dear as I do...but it's nearing the end of my final undergraduate year, and I've absolutely no idea how I'm going to (a) finish in time and (b) find something to do for the rest of my life, so some comforting familiarity might just hit the spot!

Without further ado...this Thursday's Obscure 80s Weekly: The Not-So-Obscure Edition.  You know the songs; do you recall the videos?

Today you can relive the moments with: Men Without Hats - Safety Dance

Friday, sample: Morrissey - Suedehead

For Saturday: Billy Idol - White Wedding

Sunday's video is: Modern English - I Melt With You

For Monday, try: Soft Cell - Tainted Love

Tuesday: Devo - Whip It

And Wednesday, of course: A-Ha - Take On Me

There you go...have a good week with this bunch.

Therapy

HSP

Are you a highly sensitive person?

I am...NOT.  Go figure (and take that, Mom)!  Although, as psychology quizzes go, this one is kind of lame.  I wonder if I'm not highly sensitive because I don't particularly want to be highly sensitive.

LOL(lard)

What is a Lollard?  Probably not what you think...no, this is not some new leet term along the lines of noob or haxor; a Lollard is someone who practices - or practiced - Lollardy, a religious movement occurring from the 13-1500s. 

Three interesting Lollard facts for you:

First, the term itself most likely comes from a Dutch word (lollaerd) that means 'to mumble', which is exactly what the Lollards did.  They believed that no human intercession was necessary for communion with God, and apparently gained a reputation for walking around muttering prayers under their collective breath wherever they went.  True, there are some other suggestions for why Lollards are called Lollards - Wikipedia lists the Latin lolium, a type of weed; Lolhard, a Waldensian preacher from Cologne; and loller, Middle English for an idler...but I prefer the first explanation.

Next, Lollardy is based on the teachings of John Wycliffe of Oxford, an interesting guy in his own right who was heavily involved in the church, the school, and the state (before he suffered a stroke, died, was buried, was exhumed, excommunicated, burned, and thown into the River Swift).  Perhaps not as excellent a death as Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer, but pretty good nonetheless.

And finally (for now), Lollards were fairly decentralized in beliefs, but all agreed that the Bible ought to be translated into English.  Hooray!  For more Lollard thoughts, you can look into the Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards...but as for me, I've got several schoolwork to do, so I'll let you do the research on your own.

Lucien Victor Guirand de Scévola

...is an interesting artist whom I can discover almost nothing about.

Salt

Part one of a 4-part, 45-minute Good Eats episode on salt!



Learn a little bit about the history (and science) of humanity's most important mineral-turned-spice, and get a couple of recipes out of the bargain as well.

And if you want more history, check out Salt: A World History.  Good stuff.

The BBC has diagrams for everything...

Ever wonder how potholes form?  Well now you know...

A Slip of the Tongue

I hardly think Freud comes into it at all 99 times out of 10...

Here are some terms you can use when your friends make a linguistic gaffe that will make them feel extra stupid.

Malapropism: the term itself comes from French, meaning inappropriate. Nothing innately risque about this one though; it's just what happens when two similar-sounding words are confused: they sat at the table and enjoyed an evening's riposte.  People who are trying to use bigger words than are good for them do this a lot.  Also nerds like me; Snorlax and Snorkack was an especially awkward blunder from the other day.

Spoonerism: named for Willliam Archibald Spooner, an Oxford don, these are the punny ones where bits of words get switched around within a phrase: George Carlin's don't sweat petty things and don't pet sweaty things.  I'm wondering if one of my favorite lines from Arrested Development counts (it's as Ann as the nose on plain's face), but I'm not sure about that one...it doesn't really involve metathesis.  A side note - apparently if you're in Poland, these are known as Marrowsky, after a verbally-confused count.

Mondegreen: a misheard lyric due to homophony.  The term was coined by Silvia Wright, who as a child misheard they had slain the Earl of Moray / and laid him on the green as ...Lady Mondegreen, but there are other (better) ones, such as the immortal 'scuse me while I kiss this guy (Jimi Hendrix is many things, but Wikipedia doesn't mention any relationships with other dudes).

Eggcorn: this is where a word is mistook for a similar one.  I'm not sure how this differs from mondegreens, actually - perhaps it extends beyond songs?  Anyway, eggcorn is an example of an eggcorn (it's really acorn)...a more common example might be duck tape.

They get less and less official sounding you go down, don't they...

One last note: watch out for oronyms, as they confound the listener more than the speaker.  This is where two meanings exist in the phonetics of one phrase, as in the stuff he knows can lead to problems / the stuffy nose can lead to problems.  Different, of course, from what happens to Benedict in Much Ado About Nothing: Beatrice's against my will, I am sent to bid you come into dinner throws him into a state of (semantic) confusion, but that may just be the brilliance of Shakespeare.

Pickle-iscious

More fun with pickles.

Pickle Brine

Upon request!  My hilarious suitemate actually texted this idea to my sister while in DC.  That is how crucial this information is to the American people.

Did you know...that by changing the flavor of brine, you can actually get a different pickle?

It is true.

Without further ado...here are three different brine recipies:

water
coarse Kosher salt
fresh flowering dill
whole peeled garlic
bay leaves
allspice berries
mustard seeds
coriander seeds
celery seeds
peppercorns
hot red pepper

white vinegar
apple cider vinegar
coarse Kosher salt
sugar
onions
allspice berries
mustard seeds
celery seeds
red pepper flakes
cinnamon stick
cloves
turmeric

water
sea salt
fresh flowering dill
whole peeled garlic
cherry leaves
horseradish leaves
peppercorns

Yep...pick one, add cucumbers, and wait, I guess?

The Venerable Bede

The name really says it all, I think...but just for fun, I suppose I'll go into a bit more detail.

It's hard for us to imagine today, with printed books and the internet, but there was a time when one copy of a manuscript was all that existed.  And that period was the Dark Ages. (They're called 'dark' - I believe - not because someone turned out the sun, but because so little is known about the period.  When only one informative scrap of paper...well, parchment...exists, it's awfully easy for that scrap to get lost over the years.  I mean, you should see my desk, and that's only been eight months.)  Maybe it's just me who has some trouble wrapping my mind around that idea, but hmmmm.

Anyway, it's in large part thanks to Venerable Bede that we know anything about the Dark Ages at all.  Bede was born in Northumbria in the early 670s and entered a monastery before he turned ten.  After surviving a plague breakout in 686 that killed all but two of the monks, Bede rose rapidly through the ranks of the ecclesiastical system.

At the time (and for a long time to follow) the Church was not just a place to pray, although it was certainly that.  Monasteries also functioned as publishing houses and schools.  It was in this last shelter against the darkness of ignorance and anarchy pouring across Europe that Bede gained the title 'Father of English History'.  Working at times for kings, bishops, or schoolchildren, Bede wrote over sixty books in his lifetime, from grammar and geology to science and music to histories of saints and of the local English people.  His most famous work is The Ecclesiastical History of the English People...although my personal favorite title is definitely The book of the life and passion of St Anastasius, which was ill translated from the Greek, and worse amended by some unskillful person, I have corrected as to the sense.

For his time, Bede was quite cosmopolitan.  He traveled fairly extensively, he was literate and well-read (Okay, tangential rambling: who was the last person to have read all the books published - either in their lifetime, or through all time?  I swear I heard somewhere that this person existed...only now I can't find it.  Right, sorry...carry on.), he kept up quite a correspondence with several important and influential Europeans. 

And we have him to thank for a good bit of what we know about our past.

Happy Easter!

Christ has not only spoken to us by his life but has also spoken for us by his death.
Soren Kierkegaard

¹After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.
²There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. ³His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. ⁴The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.
⁵The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. ⁶He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. ⁷Then go quickly and tell his disciples: 'He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.' Now I have told you."
⁸So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. ⁹Suddenly Jesus met them. "Greetings," he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. ¹⁰Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me."
Matthew 28:1-10

Wish List

From Tony Perotti, the Lorenzo Messenger Bag (in cognac):

It has a certain je ne sais quoi...

Stress Relief

Even if you don't like modern art...

Nonsecret Handshake

I can show you because it's not a secret anymore.

Look at those ruffly sleeves!