October 2008 Archives

I do not know if it is a recent trend, but lately I have noticed the use of -asm and -gasm as suffixes for consumer products. Last week I spotted a store called "Shoegasm," and a few months ago a wine bar called "Winegasm" opened in my neighborhood. 

I guess sex and sexuality pervade our society just enough to allow sexual climax to be associated with seemingly non-sexual products. Shoes and wine are one thing, but where are we a society if flour and wheat are to come with sexual climax suffixed to them?

I understand the joke, of course, even if I am not one to publicly express sensual delight over something like footwear or alcoholic imbibement. Food and clothing are, to me, not sources of pleasure but basic requirements for staying alive.

I think the first time I was introduced to the word "orgasm" in a seemingly non-sexual context was in a discussion about the movie "The Wild Bunch," directed by Sam Peckinpah. The violence in that film was described as "orgasmic," a term which I have also heard in other places, such as discussion of guns in the movie "Taxi Driver" and in talk of Jackson Pollock's "action" paintings.

None of this has any bearing on "Chiasm," and no connection to that word is expected. As with most words on this Word of the Day, I chose it because I liked how it sounded, not for its meaning.

My mother has long bragged that she was present at the first live performance of "Rock Around the Clock" performed by Bill Haley and the Comets. I've always thought that was pretty cool. An amusing comment she also frequently has made (paraphrased) "is Who the hell was Buddy Holly?" As someone who followed Rock and Roll pretty attentively during the 1950s my mother found it alarming to learn of Buddy Holly's existence during the 1980s. She never heard of him! I am no student of that era but I think for some people Buddy Holly falls into the same category as a group like The Band, an influential group among other musicians but not particularly well known by their name. The poet Elizabeth Bishop is sometimes described in a similar way: The poet's poet. The Band was the band's band. I believe it was Joan Didion who described Norman Mailer as "essential."

I like words that use "sooth" as its pronunciation is harder-edged than the word "soothe." Forsooth. Soothsay. Heresooth. "Sooth" itself is a one-syllable word but it seems to have two stresses at SOO and TH. To my ears this brings a certain desperation to the word.

I do not have a copy of the screenplay for Oliver Stone's film "Nixon" but I seem to remember hearing Mary Steenburgen use the word "forsooth" in a scene with her (playing Hannah Nixon) and the young Richard Nixon. It's funny how that one word as it was used in that movie stands out in my mind even now.

The book of Micah decries soothsayers, associating them with witchcraft, and delivering a stern warning that "thou shalt have no more soothsayers."

10 And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD, that I will cut off thy horses out of the midst of thee, and I will destroy thy chariots:

11 And I will cut off the cities of thy land, and throw down all thy strong holds:

12 And I will cut off witchcrafts out of thine hand; and thou shalt have no more soothsayers:

13 Thy graven images also will I cut off, and thy standing images out of the midst of thee; and thou shalt no more worship the work of thine hands.

14 And I will pluck up thy groves out of the midst of thee: so will I destroy thy cities.

15 And I will execute vengeance in anger and fury upon the heathen, such as they have not heard.

 Whoosh!

Fortunately, trephination is not something I've had performed on me, nor do I have any reason to expect this procedure in or on my future skull.

The idea of trephination reminds me of a time I threw up at an eye doctor's office.

In the waiting room I found a copy of a science magazine -- something like Nova or Discover or a similar title.

I think I was about 11 years old that day when I opened that magazine to a full-page photo showing brain surgery being performed on a human. A square opening had been sawed through the skull, exposing the brain inside the head, as the brain surgeons prepared their instruments for slicing into the brain matter. The piece of skull lay in a nearby metal tray. Underneath this photo was a quote from the oddly enthusiastic brain surgeon, who said something like "Going into the brain is like going to the moon!"

This image of the open skull would have little effect on me today, but at that age I was prone to sudden fits of vomiting. My stomach was sensitive, and this image sent me straight to the nearest bathroom. I remember in particular that the image of the wet brain itself, as gross as it was, is not what made me want to throw up. The idea of the saw grinding into the skull put me over the edge.

I remember not telling anybody about this. I also remember being glad this was a visit to the eye doctor and not the dentist, since a dentist would have had questions about any post-barf smell or residue in my mouth.
 

At Barney's on Madison Avenue I saw a thin slip of a t-shirt on sale for $499. The shirt looked like nothing extraordinary, and it was on a rack of what looked like 100 or so identical t-shirts. Similar shirts at Barney's sold for $699, other nondescript things sold for $799. I felt unworthy of even touching these garments. They looked fragile. I thought the shirts might disintegrate, or go poof into a cloud of glitter, making me responsible for the cost of the item while having deprived someone of the opportunity to shield themselves from the wind and rain with these apparently superb articles of clothing.

Based on today's definition these shirts would appear to be the opposite of slops, produced by the type of vendors who (in modern times, at least) might invoke words like "slops" to enhance their own stature. "Slops" today bears the weight of the more commonly used word "sloppy" or "slop" itself, meaning garbage or junk.

I have at times imagined that the wealthy, in their casual moments, dress in shirts sprinkled with gold while sipping waters that their Life Coach says will let them live for an eternity.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they just wear slops.