The Muller Report

You read that right: we are all about “mulling” in this post and have nothing to say about the recently released report by one Robert Mueller (expect to note that I have known people with this surname and they called themselves “mule-ler” not “muller”, as this fellow has been dubbed). Instead, this is another entry in the “Words About Words” part of this blog. While a good word can charm, fascinate, and inspire, as we know, there are words that can enrage and annoy (territory also covered elsewhere in this blog).

I have run across one of these pesky annoyances in my house right on the front page of the newspaper: “Mull.” I personally have nothing against this word and I furthermore respect the choice, which I know (having taken classes in graphic design and journalism) was likely selected for brevity in the interest of saving space. However, my spouse has no patience for this word, which he says is vulgar and too lacking in color. Every time it appears in the paper he snaps, “Here we go ‘mulling’ again!”

We all have our personal white whales in the word world. Mine might be “basically”, an overused word that rarely has anything productive to add to a sentence. However, I can’t get myself as worked up as my husband over mine. To be fair, I can’t get myself anywhere near as worked up about most of the things he rails about but that’s marriage for you I suppose. Basically.

And Then Nextly…

I’m not sure, but I think this is my new favorite word: “nextly.” I encountered this word in a surreal sort of setting (as perhaps befits a tidbit so striking). My husband and I were out for a walk on our semi-rural road when I spotted a piece of tattered lined paper with writing on one side lying on the tarmac. I couldn’t resist snagging the paper and taking a look.

There in the neat, rounded pencil printing of a school child I found the word “procedure” followed by eight numbered directives that appeared to form the opening part of a child’s science paper, no name or date specified. Number five began with “nextly” but other than that the grammar and spelling were all spot on (except for minor internal disagreement about how to spell “cricket,” as the unfortunate subject of the directions was apparently a captive cricket).

I shared the paper with my husband, a former science teacher, and asked what grade he would have given. He deferred judgement other than to suggest that the author was a perfectionist, like our son, who had at a young age the habit of tearing up homework not up to his standards. The paper did indeed look as if someone had stuffed it out a bus window and maybe poked it a few times with the pencil just for good measure.

The fate of a cricket might not make the most interesting subject for a story, but I could see how the discovery of a scrap of writing in the road would make an excellent start. What’s on the paper? What does the style or instrument of the writing tell us? Were there pictures? What should one do if the foundling paper seems important or can’t be forgotten? In other words, nextly what occurs?

The Escape Claws

While the world watched British police drag a scruffy Julian Assange away from the Ecuadorian embassy in London this weekend, NPR had its eye on Mr. Assange’s more dignified (and better dressed) flatmate: his dapper cat. If anyone has ever cried out for an autobiography to be written, this fellow is the one. There’s plenty of pathos and drama (not to mention a plethora of puns) in the NPR profile of “Embassy Cat,” whereabouts currently unclear, enough to get a nice meaty narrative going.

Cherish is the Word

One of my favorite columnists, Gina Barecca, recently published a piece in which she rhapsodized about favorite words (and “rhapsodize” is one of mine) and invited readers to explore their own. I’ve heard it suggested that one make a list of such words, chosen for their meanings or their sounds or their forms or for whatever reason they delight, as fodder for poetry. Although I’m not much of a poet, I did use one of the words on my own list (“syncope”) as a spark and title in the small poetry book I posted at Smashwords. Some of the words on my list are esoteric (“willywacks” and “puckerbrush” are uniquely Maine ways of saying “the middle of nowhere”) while others are here because of the image they evoke (“gobsmacked”). One is pretty much my signature at work (“persnickety”, which I, perhaps erroneously, use often to mean “uncooperative” or “difficult” as in ’email is being persnickety today’ or ‘that’s a persnickety problem’). Two have musical implications: Rapture (my favorite part of Blondie’s Rapture is the long, breathy ‘raaapppptuuurrre’, not the rap written by first graders high on Kool-aide and cookies) and Fandango (always and forever evoking Bohemian Rhapsody, also home to a great word for which I have never found a use: “Scaramouche”). Here is the list I banged out between meetings today:

Rapture

Rapacious

Persnickety

Syncope

Xenographic

Gobsmacked

Willywacks

Puckerbrush

Hirsute

Pugnacious

Wanderlust

Atrocious

Tarnation

Finagle

Fandango

No Bull(rushes)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: someone leaves a baby in a basket in a place where it will be found, in hopes that it will be given a better chance at life….A local paper published this story recently regarding a man who was left on a doorstep in Maine in the 1930’s and is now hoping to find a trace of his birth family. It happened that being laid up I was watching Netflix that day and had chosen the movie Stardust which introduces its hero in just this fashion. That baby eventually finds a happy ending that includes a family reunion, since this is a fairy tale, but the Maine man is still looking.

This all brought to mind a relative who told me the story of another distant relative who woke up one morning to find a baby in a basket on the dining room table. Flash forward nineteen years and the baby, now a pioneering young woman off to college (in what must have been unusual times for a female student given the long-ago time line), accidentally encounters her birth father, a professor at the same school. The professor beseeches her to accept him as a parent and establish a relationship. She denies him, telling him he has used up his one chance and the family that raised her is all the family she needs. I’ve always thought that was an interesting nub of a story but never made use of it myself. Nevertheless, I can see where the next time you feel completely stumped, you can picture a baby in a basket being placed and go from there: Who left it? Why? Will they be watching? What will the recipients do? What will this baby be like? How does everyone feel? What else is in the basket?

Trailer Trash

This is more than an opportunity to link to Mark Hamil’s hilarious visual pun, spawned in answer to the question “When will we see the new Star Wars trailer?” Answer: Right now! And it stars me! This post is in fact about how a well-crafted ad can be the springboard to a longer work. Hey, if Disney can make a ride into a movie why not a short vignette with a promising storyline? I can’t take credit for this thought, since it was my college film professor, the aptly-named  John Schott, who pointed us in this direction. His particular fascination back then was for music videos, which were just becoming popular.

One of my recent favorites is this Geico commercial set on a starship. Now, this is a t.v. series I would watch. Best of all, the tail end of the video linked above invites you to an interactive adventure with the hero because he “hates being alone.”

Then there is this recent social media hit, a Centrum vitamin commercial in which the English actor Tom Hiddleston serves ‘you’ breakfast, looking like he may have spent the night sleeping in the trunk of his car. Many interpret the situation as inviting the viewer to imagine themselves married to or in a romantic relationship with this man, perhaps because he serves a heart-shaped egg. For my part, however, as the mother of a young man in his…er…post-teens, I am seeing something else.  My reply to this ad is: “Wait…what do you MEAN you can’t find time over the ‘next several weeks’ to visit me? Nice try kiddo, but you’re not getting back into the will. However, bacon would have helped.”

For Want of a Suit

I’ve written before on this blog about the impractical way that women get costumed and accessorized in fantasy and science fiction but, as usual, real life is even further behind in terms of accommodating the realities of their bodies. Much has been written about how NASA’s plan for the first all-female spacewalk was scuttled by a lack of available appropriate attire. As a person interested in organizational theory, my first question would be at what point did the planning break down on this mission? My guess is 1954.

Now 100% Ghost-Free!

I realize that there is a preponderance of ghosts on this blog and this post isn’t going to help, but who could resist a story about a haunted supermarket, especially when the spokesperson for the chain issued an official response that “as far we know, all of our stores are ghost-free?” [Can’t you imagine that at the bottom of their next print ad?] Better yet, the same person came up with an ingenious afterthought that makes fine wine of this possible lemon: “If there’s anything to it, she’s probably attracted to our Victorian-era prices.”

Dangerous Decorations

What arrests me about this piece on “haunted furniture,” besides all the delicious possibilities for storytelling it exudes, is the question of how a “haunted bedroom set” expresses itself. The piece brings to mind a local landmark here in Maine that is chock full of curious objects. If ever a place existed that sold haunted furniture, this place must be connected to it. One of my husband’s relatives once came upon a small airplane stowed in the back of one of the bays of the massive main barn. The poor fellow yearned for that plane, speaking of it fondly on many occasions when we met, but saner heads prevailed and prevented him from purchasing it (perhaps by pointing out that he had no idea how to fly it).

The Battle of Turkey Burger Hill (Hold the Mayo)

Recently, Saturday Night Live (SNL) ran a sketch wherein a dinner party goes to ruin over the question (insignificant to some of the guests, especially the spouses of the main opponents) of whether the band Weezer has recently had any good albums.  Finally one of the participants snaps after declaring himself “ride or die” and storms out (headed, as he sings, to “Beverly Hills”, referencing a Weezer song). The writers noted in this interview about the concept development process that they had written a similar sketch about an argument with new in-laws over the movie Shrek and wanted to explore the idea again.

Truly, there is a bottomless well (pit?) of topics along these lines. I was reminded of a favorite book from childhood, Phyllis Diller’s Housekeeping Hints, which I happily inherited, unidentified stains and all, from my grandmother in the end. I always loved the quirky illustrations and the witty hints hit my funnybone in just the same places as my they did my grandmother (must be genetic). A particular favorite was the suggestion to “make sure you discuss politics and religion at the table” at a dinner party in order to distract the guests from your less-than-stellar cooking. A self-satisfied Phyllis sits perched on a chair in the accompanying cartoon placidly watching as guests take each other to the mat in frenzied combat, ignoring the loaded table.

In the past two years, there have been droves and cartloads of essays (too many to cite here) about how politics in particular drive conflict at the table and how to deal with it, one method being to change the subject to something less anxiety-provoking. This essay suggests talking about food instead as a “pleasant and neutral topic”. As the writers of SNL know, however, people can be “ride or die” over even the most innocuous-sounding topic. For that matter, having spent thirteen years working with public health nutritionists, I don’t know why food is considered a “non-threatening topic” (just see what happens when you try to tell an audience of mothers that the latest wisdom on feeding kids includes trying different vegetables until they find ones they like and not insisting they “belong to the Clean Plate Club” before they leave the table).

Food talk is too full of beliefs, values, landmines, and insights to be neutral and can certainly turn unpleasant. At a recent family gathering, there was a brief comic dust-up about sandwich composition. Anyone (including the SNL gang) wanting to mine the “dinner party gone wrong for seemingly silly reasons” trope further might consider asking some of the following of a test group and seeing what happens: Can you put mustard on turkey? Is it right to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches “raw” (not grilled)? What kinds of lettuce are permissible? Which goes with your sandwich—milk or soda? Do you cut diagonally or vertically or not at all? How imperative is it to have the two slices of bread in your sandwich be symmetrical and matching? Can you have more than two slices on any sandwich or only certain types? Can you eat a hot dog on a rolled up piece of ciabatta? Is “Fluff” an actual food? Which is best: chunky or smooth peanut butter? Is “American Cheese” really cheese? Why is ketchup on the table but mustard guarded like plutonium?

Weezer may have the final words (from “Pork and Beans“):

Imma do the things that I wanna do

I ain’t got a thing to prove to you

I’ll eat my candy with my pork and beans

Excuse my manners if I make a scene