A Few of My Favorite Words

On one my Facebook groups, there is a discussion of people's favorite words. As a language lover, I thought I would list some of my many favorite words and phrases here. Some are my favorites simply because of how they sound, others for what they mean, most for a combination of the two. Here they are, in alphabetical order, with brief definitions and notes.

Antediluvian literally "before the deluge," used to describe the time before The Biblical Flood. Also: old. Avuncular: of or relating to an uncle; benign.

Bellicose. Such a pretty word to mean warlike or combatant. Likewise, I love the country name Belarus, which means something like "White Russia." Bemused which many confuse with amused but actually means bewildered. Betch--my favorite way to say bitch. Blasé, which I believe I first learned from Titanic. Bloody hell is a favorite as both British slang and profanity.

Chimera--a gargoyle that isn't actually a waterspout. Also: fancy, fantasy. Cosmopolitan. Such a sophisticated word to mean worldly and sophisticated. Coup de grâce--deathblow. Pronounced more like "grass" than "grace."

Dendrites. One of the SUU counselors was obsessed with this word. It has to do with neurons and brain stuff. Dénouement: the falling action/resolution of a narrative. Love the barely-there "nt" at the end. Detritus. Dulcet: a sweet and soothing word to mean just that.

Effulgence: radiance. Like many of my favorite words, it flows with Fs and Ls and soft Gs and Cs. Élan: stylish elegance; panache. A frequent crossword solution. Ennui: "Listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement." That is so my life. Ephemeral. Another word with the soft F sound. Eschatological. From the branch of theology dealing with the end of the world. First learned reading Graham Greene's Brighton Rock. Ethereal: sounds similar to ephemeral. Evanesce: to vanish.

Fecund. I love/hate this word. The hard consonants and short vowels. It's fun to say but also sounds dirty. Foppish. Fuck. It can be used as nearly any part of speech. The short "u" and hard "ck." Highly effective.

Gruyère. A delicious cheese and delicious word. "Don't be shy. Say it with me: Gruyère." Gerrymander. A fun word meaning to unfairly map political districts. Learned in AP American History.

Hella janky. Learned on TBTL, meaning inferior quality. Hubris. "Good. Cause you know why? Cause hubris always wins in the end. The Greeks taught us that."

Iconic. Iconoclast: a destroyer of (esp. religious) images; a subversive. Ineffable: incapable of being expressed. Internecine: mutually destructive.

Je ne sais quoi: that intangible, attractive x factor. "Jeuge." Or is it gjush? or zsuzsh? Learned from TBTL via this video about folding jeans. Actress Emily Watson says "It's kind of term for a bit of fancy stuff."

Kummerspeck: a German word for weight gained from emotional overeating. Literally, "grief bacon."

Liminal: relating to the threshold or transitional process. Loquacious: chatty. Luxuriate. It's a wonderful word to luxuriate in.

Mellifluous: melodious. Such a pretty word to say. Métier.: forte. Munificence: generosity; largess.

Occipital. I first came across this word reading Marianne Moore's poem, "To a Snail." Fun to say.

Penultimate: second to last. First learned the definition from Gilmore Girls. Perfidy: deceitfulness. Perspicacious: ready insight, understanding. Also heard on Gilmore Girls. Phantasmagoria: fantastic imagery as in art; associative, dreamlike imagery.

Queue. What an excessive use of vowels. Quixotic: unrealistic and impractical, after Don Quixote. I learned this word in 10th grade AP Euro.

Sagacious. Sanguine: cheerful; having to do with blood. Savoir faire: able to do or say the right thing; social graces. Literally: "to know, to make." Schadenfreude: pleasure from another one's misfortune. Good ole' German words. Shibboleth: watchword, from the Book of Judges. Solipsism. I first learned about this word when studying Virgina Woolf. Somnambulism: sleepwalking. I first came across this word from Charles Brockden Brown's short story "Somnambulism" in Am Lit I. Sonorous.

Teleological. Troglodyte: cave man; hermit. Truculent: isn't this word succulent? It means defiant, aggressive.

Ululation: to howl, wail, or lament loudly.

Voluptuous. What a sensual word.

All of these wonderful words remind me of a poem I like called "Saying Things" by Mariyln Krysl. Check it out.

Sh!t People Say

So when Dain was home around Christmas he told me about the "Shirt Girls Say" videos that have gone viral. Since then we have seen many, many parodies. Here are four of my favorites:

Sh*z Mormons Say
A catalog of all the "swear words" Mormons use.

see also: Things Mormon Girls Say

Sh!t the Dowager Countess Says
You are watching Downton Abbey right? If you're not, Maggie Smith is Cousin Violet, the Dowager Countess and HBIC who is totally gangsta--well as gangsta as an elderly uppercrust British lady can be in the (post) Edwardian Period.


Sh*t Liz Lemon Says
By the hammer of Thor, I can't believe it took someone this long to make one of these for Liz Lemon. What the what?! Though I suppose there are already several Lemon videos on YouTube. Nerds!


Shit Girls Say to Gay Guys
This is probably my favorite.

Ha ha ha ha ha! So true. and funny!

Do you have any favorite parodies?

Policy Wonk for Beginners

In the February issue of GQ featuring a sultry Michelle Williams spread and accompanying article, the magazine lists the 50 Most Powerful People in Washington. This list includes liberal blogger Ezra Klein (no. 34) at the Washington Post with Wonkblog and neoconservative Charles Krauthammer's (no. 45) syndicated Post column. A sidebar listing the most powerful people of the campaign season includes New York Time's blogger Nate Silver (www.fivethirtyeight.com) for his use of statistics and The Daily Show's John Stewart for satire.

Anyway, I haven't been paying too much attention to politics lately, but these are the people I'll be reading and watching in hopes of better understanding what's happening in Washington and on the campaign trail.

Sundance

On Thursday night I was watching The Good Wife, my new obsession (only three years after it premiered), when Rae texted me. She’s in town for Sundance, had an extra ticket, and wondered if I would like to join her. Yes, of course! Who fills a theater seat better than me? The show was at 8:30 in the am—I haven’t been up for one of those in a while—so on my way to Park City, I swung by Starbucks. Their new thing is blonde coffee meaning lighter roasts whereas I prefer a bold, dark roast myself. But it was that or Pike Place which I detest. The Veranda roast ending up kicking my ass. I was so wired, I was literally jumping out of my skin during the screening. I thought I would shake right out of my seat. The people next to me must have thought that I was some kind of junkie going through withdrawals. Nope. I had just had a small coffee, lightly roasted. What the what?!

The film we saw was Your Sister’s Sister from writer/director Lynn Shelton, best known so far for Humpday (which I enjoyed). Your Sister’s Sister, which first debuted at Toronto, was the perfect way to kick off a day at Sundance. It stars Emily Blunt, Rosemarie DeWitt, and Mark Duplass (whom I’ve been lusting after since Humpday). Shelton is associated with the mumblecore film movement (“the new talkies”) which often focuses on characters and dialogue. These are two of my favorite things. Duplass plays Jack, a man whose life if going nowhere. I can relate. His best friend, Iris (Blunt), who was dating his recently deceased brother, convinces him to go off on a personal retreat at her family’s island cabin somewhere in the Puget Sound. There he unexpectedly runs into Iris’s lesbian half-sister, Hannah (DeWitt). Things get complicated when Jack and Hannah drunkenly hookup and Iris shows up for a surprise visit. The film is hysterically funny and quite heartwarming as these quirky characters figure out the next step in their lives—which the movie leaves open-ended. It’s such a great film! I just had the best time. I can’t wait for it to finally show up sometime later this year in select cities. In the meantime I can rewatch Humpday and catch up on Shelton’s and Duplass’s previous projects.

Afterward, I got to catch up with Rae as we rode buses and taxis around Park City trying to get tickets for other showings that day. On one cab ride with two fabulous East Coast lesbians we got their tickets for Shorts V as they couldn’t go. That was pretty awesome. Or so we thought—we’ll get to that later. We both needed protein as well, so we found a diner that was crammed with people and had far too many Gregs which caused confusion. But I finally did get my English muffin which helped stop the shaking. After I got waitlisted for Middle of Nowhere, we hung out the hotel and gossiped waiting for the show. When we got there, someone ended up having an extra ticket so I didn’t have to wait in the standby line after all. Festival goers in Park City are awesome!

The film Middle of Nowhere, in its world premiere, was written and directed by Ava DuVernay. It’s a domestic drama that takes place in the greater Los Angeles area as a wife waits for her man who is in prison. The wife, Ruby, is played by Emayatzy E. Corinealdi who is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen (she was also there in real life for the Q&A). Hopefully we will see more of her; she deserves to become a difficult-to-pronounce household name. Despite some slow parts, this drama was very well written and acted and avoids cliché to truthfully depict these characters’ lives. Just as her husband Derek is about to be paroled after four years of good time, his record is sullied when a fire breaks out in his wing and other details come to light. Just as he is facing an additional four years in prison, Ruby begins a relationship with her bus driver, Brian (David Oyelowo, who is also gorgeous. and English!). It’s beautifully shot and full of close-ups which draws us into the drama. Also, I had a possible Chris Pratt sighting. If it wasn’t Chris Pratt, it was a very attractive man wearing very expensive clothes who looks exactly like Chris Pratt.

Afterward, Rae and I chatted over pints of Guinness and shots of Jameson at an Irish sports bar. The service was terrible—we never did get our nachos!—but in the end our server bought our beers which was at least semi-decent of her. We then went to dinner at the J&G Grill at the St. Regis Deer Valley, the treat of Rae’s fiancé. I can’t even tell you how amazing it was. First, we had to ride up to the restaurant in a funicular—look it up. We had the best wine I have ever had. For an appetizer we ordered the black truffle pizza which was divinely decadent. For the entrée, I got the glazed Niman short rib with jalapeno-apple puree and rosemary crumbs. Oh. My. God. I have never had short ribs before, and now I am obsessed. Obsessed. It is one of the best things I have ever tasted in this life. And for desert, apple crisp. Now that was fine dining. I now know how the other half (and by half I mean 1%) lives, and why they don’t want to give it up. I was Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, only with slightly better table manners. Last night, I had fish sticks. Fish. Sticks. I have surrendered the ruby necklace and am back to my shitty hooker’s apartment. *sigh*

To end the night, Rae and I went to see Short Films V. WTF? Seriously, what the fuck? That’s all I have to say, except that I’m going to say a lot more. There were seven short films, each one worse than the one before. They were shocking, disturbing, and exploitative. And not in a good way. I did not find any of them artistic and/or meaningful. After each one a piece of my soul died. If this was the crème de la crème of all the shorts submitted, I have to tell you that it’s curdled cream from a rotten crop. Dear Sundance, if you need someone with eyes, ears, and taste to help go through the shorts submissions, I would like to humbly volunteer. Let me briefly tell you about a few of them. The second short was basically gay porn as a guy is looking for some action in a public mall restroom. At first nothing was shown, it was all implied. But then there were flashes of masturbation and fellatio. I’m not a prude and like seeing cock on screen as much as more than the next person. But if you’re going to use hardcore sex in a film please try to do it as tastefully and meaningfully as John Cameron Mitchell (see: Shortbus). People were laughing but only because it was uncomfortable, outrageous, and well, okay, slightly funny. People stopped laughing when there was use of religious imagery that bordered on blasphemous. There was a strange Bolivian film that began with the Official Sundance Selection seal, which at first seemed funny and self-aware. It was interminably long, boring, and painful. In the end I think that seal was used in all self-important seriousness. There was one set in the Scottish highlands where past and present collide. However, it was the goriest thing I have ever seen (between splayed fingers) and full of very black humor. However, I think it jumped the shark from what could have been interesting and funny to something tasteless and sickening. The coup de grâce was the last film. At least I think it was the last film. Rae and I—and half the theater—walked out before the credits had finished to even see if there was any more torture to be endured. Walking out of a festival screening is a pretty big faux pas, but we were well and fully done. Only Dain and Elise know about that bizarre animated short with the chicken and the eggs and the pirates that was absolutely traumatizing. This was even worse and more horrifying by a factor of a lot—and more soul-crushing than all the other films combined. And I was only listening, because from the first ten seconds I knew this was something I could not handle, mostly because of the animation style. So I closed my eyes for most of it. The motto of this year’s festival is “Look Again,” but every time I opened my eyes and glanced up at the screen, I was given a good reason to shut my eyes again. And it was SO LONG. It just would not end. At the end I felt like standing up and saying “I reject you!” much like Jen Andrews does before she walks out of weekday matinees where no one is there. But that’s pretty daring to do in a full theater, especially when the directors are sitting five rows in front of you. I was surprised that no one booed—during any of them. But maybe that’s something they only do at Cannes. Remember how those New York lesbians were just looking to give their tickets away? They knew what was up. “Because they don’t sleep with men, their other senses are heightened.”

So to recap: Your Sister’s Sister is the best thing I’ve seen so far in 2012. The shorts were the worst thing I have ever seen. Ever. Short ribs are fucking delicious. Also, driving down Parley’s Canyon is terrifying, especially in the dark. The End.

I'm the Hero of This Story

Hello friends,

It's a new year and time for a new post. Perhaps one of my resolutions should be to post more often. A weekly writing assignment would not be a bad idea for me. Besides, it might force me to lead a more interesting life just so I can write about it.

Other resolutions? A la Liz Lemon, I want to say yes to life, yes to love, yes to staying in more! I already stay in plenty, but I do want to be open to trying new things, and as I haven't had a date in a year, I should put myself out there more. As Luke Burbank would say, I want to get my health on. I've really let myself go in the last few years--this is a twofold problem of discovering alcohol and discovering how to cook. (How to cook with Grburbank: use butter. use salt. delicious. the end.) My family has a family pass to the local rec center which has elliptical machines and other such nonsense. So I should take part. Besides, I would get to buy gym outfits and create workout playlists. I want to be a better friend--I don't have a lot of friends. Much like Liz Lemon, I don't like a lot of people. So I want to be a better friend to those I do have. Perhaps my biggest resolution is to find that professional library job and start the next phase of my life.

Because being unemployed is lame. Sure it was fun at first--a bit of a break after getting my master's and before starting a professional career (for the rest of my life. or until all my student loans are paid off. same diff.). But I've done diddly-squat with my life in the last six months (see: this blog).

But really, what have I done recently? Well there was my third Thanksgiving dinner, or rather Friendsgiving at Elise's where I had an amateur moment. I hadn't eaten much that day in order to eat more turkey, and then when I got there I quickly drank liquor (g&t, whiskey and coke), high point beer, and wine. Thusly, I passed out on Elise's bed and missed dinner. Fortunately, I didn't throw up as there was no Champagne, Tequila, or Oreos.

Then it was December replete with awkward family parties and yuletide cheer provided by Amazon.com. On Christmas Eve my sister and brother-in-law came over and we all got r/c Hot Wheels. So on Monday, we had the first (and last) annual Burbank Grand Prix. (It did not go well.) Christmas morning we were up bright and early (with no coffee!) to eat Christmas breakfast and open presents. Then I took a nap while my family went to church. At Christmas dinner we had an middle-aged bachelor neighbor over, and it made me realize that when I'm single, childless, and older, I'll have to a find a neighbor family of my own with whom to celebrate Christmas.

I got some cool stuff like Habibi by Craig Thompson, movie tickets to the art house theater, the Cook's Illustrated Cookbook (which is mostly the same as The New Best Recipe cookbook just without all the lengthy explanations), the first season of Gilmore Girls, Burberry Touch parfum (I had asked for London, but Macy's lied to my parents and told them that London has been discontinued--not true, shop girl!--so they got Touch instead which is a lot less good), a French rolling pin for perfect pie crusts (along with the vodka pie dough recipe from Cook's Illustrated!), The Lexicon by William F. Buckley, Jr. (which means that many of the citations are from his conservative writings which pisses me off only just a little), Break, Blow, Burn by the provocative Camille Paglia, and Night of Hunters by Tori Amos.

Night of Hunters. What to say? For some it's her best album in the decade since Scarlet's Walk, for other fans it's another straw on the camel's back that started with The Beekeeper. I'm somewhere in the middle. Amos has lost a lot of the passion, rage, and sorrow that won her a large, dedicated fan base. This is probably largely due to marriage, motherhood, and growing older. And maybe she just had a golden decade from 1992 (Little Earthquakes) to 2002 (Scarlet), and now that's over. Anyway, NoH is another concept album, produced by Deutsche Grammophon, that's a 21st century song cycle based on classical music and Irish mythology as we chart the relationship between a couple over the course of a night and how the hunter and hunted exist within all of us. To which I say, "Oh, reallo? I meant to say 'really.' I misspoke. Continue." I have been listening to it a lot over the last week or so, and while I haven't sat down with the liner notes, the lyrics do not seem particularly strong, which is sad because her lyrics were always my favorite part. However, the music (instrumentation and musicianship) is amazing. So much so that I bought the "Sin Palabras" edition ($5 on amazon.com!) which is just the music. If you would like to listen to the original classical pieces that Tori based her variations on you can listen to the YouTube playlist I created here. Lovely.

Then it was Saturday, New Year's Eve. My sister is going on a mission to Anchorage, Alaska, and her farewell was on Sunday, the 1st (at 9:00 am! ugh.), so the Sorenson family party was Saturday. And since many family members were staying overnight, the party continued at our house. This made some of my friends (i.e., Ellen) upset so I swung by Ellen's house (party game, fireworks, cider) and then to Elise's where I actually rung in the New Year with some sort of terrible sparkling raspberry wine and a New Year's kiss. After I drove all the way home I got to sleep on the couch and wake up super early (again with no coffee!) and go to church. Then all sorts of people came to our house and ate and ate and ate.

In the first week of 2012, I've already been the cinema twice, though both movies were 2011 releases. On Monday, Dain and I went to see Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I hated the book and have mostly forgotten the Swedish film, but I thought the Fincher version was well done. I thought it stayed true to the book while streamlining it in the best way possible (the book needed to be streamlined). It's no Social Network despite Rooney Mara (as an excellent Lisbeth), computer hacking, and Trent Reznor, but it still makes for a dark, visually compelling, well-made film.

On Wednesday I saw Melancholia the cheery film from that most humane and loving of directors, Lars von Trier. While this nihilistic film does end with the utter and total destruction of the planet Earth (NOT a spoiler), I didn't feel it was quite as bleak and hateful as Dogville, the only other von Trier film I've seen. It's an operatic and stunningly visual ode/farewell to his battle with depression in the mode of German Romanticism, and is also indebted to Ingmar Bergman (a positively warm and fuzzy humanist next to von Trier). The next day I made meatloaf.

And if all goes well, I will see Young Adult today. It looks like a delightful dark comedy from Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody. And I love me some Charlize Theron. She's the best!

I've also finished two books this year already! First was Tina Fey's book Bossypants. While it was very funny, I actually liked Mindy Kaling's book better. Not that we have to compare the books, but I did, so whatever. Maybe it's because I'm more in Kaling's target demographic than Fey's. But it's okay, Tina, I still love you! I am basically Liz Lemon.

The other book was By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham. He is back to form after that weird conceptual detour of a novel, Specimen Days. It doesn't quite have the vigor and rough-hewn edges of his first two novels and it may be more polished and precious than The Hours, and possibly sadder than all of his previous books, but it's still a rather good novel and beautifully written. It is Cunningham, after all.

Anyway, that's what's been going on lately. Here's to a happy and more productive 2012!