#a-good-word – Page 2

Again?

I wanted to steer clear of the second February groundhog day screeds.

Only to find out that Fred had died before making his predictions. Who was Fred? He was to Canada what Phil is to Punxsutawney** (PA). I had to say something on Fred’s behalf.

**Punxsutawney is perhaps one of the reasons I wanted to abstain from this year’s reporting. It exhausts me to spell it out or write it.

Fred was a well-loved Quebecois billed as “Fred la marmotte.”

Phil made his prediction for a prolonged winter today. Ever the contrarian, our friend from Staten Island, Chuck says it’ll be an early spring.

We will never know what Fred would have said.

Seasoning

Salt was once a precious mineral. It was locked away the way you might lock up your 50 year old single malt.

It was once mined under grueling conditions hence the chilling term “salt mines.”

It’s hard to believe this history as you sprinkle salt willy-nilly on a bunch of fries Salt is a seasoning and we have a very casual relationship with it these days.

Kind Friends

You have been admonished in the most colorful way. “Do more of what makes you happy” is phrase enough to make me happy.

Kindness and friendship are not activities but I am grateful for both.

The person who wrapped these lovely flowers in that lovely tote offers me both kindness and friendship.

I am a very lucky person. She is one of many kind friends that have gathered around me.

My heart swells with gratitude to all of them. You know who you are!

I have also been fortunate in having strangers come to my assistance. I may not know who you are but I am very appreciative of your aid. And, of course, your kindness in all those unexpected acts of friendship.

Freedom Fight

Mari S. Gold with the hat that inspired this post

This was the location at which our morning meeting took place. In simpler parlance, we had breakfast at ***Innocent Yesterday.***

How far off-track can I take this blog today? Yes, breakfast was great. Company was better. But back to the fight for freedom and democracy.

Defending democracy is a battle that right-minded folks like Mari cannot abandon. She headed to mid-town to join a rally in defense of American freedoms. It’s fitting that this rally was held on the second anniversary of the insurrection.

Electronic greetings

From the desk of Bill Gates “Email is not a good way to get mad at someone. . . . You can send friendly messages very easily since those are harder to misinterpret.” (A 1994 New Yorker story by John Seabrook.)

The angry among us found our way around Gates’ caveat. SIMPLY USE CAPS. We can shout at each other even in an email.

Happy holiday

Holiday trees etc over the past week or so

Why we watch

When I judge films, I consider the narrative. I want to be told a story. A movie’s success in my eyes has to do with how cogent a tale it tells.

What if the story isn’t the point? This is a visual medium. Pictures might be what you want to see. Sometimes the visuals are the story.

Splashes of color, images moving speedily or in slo-mo, all carefully superimposed over a generational chronicle are what you’ve come to see.

Or perhaps it’s just the art or the movement without the annals and references. Some films need no consistent content to be great or great fun.

Early films, before we had color to beguile us, were often short comedies, like the Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton movies or Western dramas or sometimes long dark fantasies like Nosferatu or Metropolis.

I hear, for instance, that Avatar 2 is spectacular. By all appearances that doesn’t mean I would find that it makes sense.

Likewise, I hear that Babylon, by the LaLaLand team, is another beautiful spectacle. In this case, based on its predecessor it likely has a lovely plot.

My assessments about a movie may need an overhaul. Just as I have come to like the ridiculous slapstick of The Stooges and the confusing dialog of the Brothers Marx, perhaps I can absorb and value fantastical ramblings in technicolor and beyond.

New worlds…er words

The sun is always a welcome sight, isn’t it? It’s warmth in winter is referred to by the archaic apricity.

The word derives from the Latin and is a cousin to apricots.

The 2022 Merriam Webster words of the year included the less sunny gaslighting.

Slang is source for new tacks in approaching life’s conundrums. This year reveals touch grass courtesy of teens who want to keep it real as we might have said older school.