Month: January 2011

Random 10 1-7-11

So last week’s lyrics puzzled — or were ignored by — many. It was, after all, a holiday, when the champagne flows freely and random song lyrics from somebody else’s iPod are the last things on anyone’s mind. But now, as we settle more snugly into 2011, here’s another chance at lyrical-guessing glory:

  1. “Get it While You Can” by Janis Joplin, guessed by Kim
    You know everybody’s fighting on with each other
  2. “Subterranean Homesick Blues” by Rickie Lee Jones (orig. Bob Dylan), guessed by Clayton
    Twenty years of schoolin’ and they put you on the day shift
  3. “Good Girls Don’t” by the Knack, guessed by Kim
    And her parents won’t be coming home till late
  4. “Watching the Detectives” by Elvis Costello, guessed by Eric B.
    She looks so good that he gets down and begs
  5. “Seven Years in Tibet” by David Bowie
    And I’m holding your brains, the old woman said
  6. “Loose Lips” by Kimya Dawson
    We won’t stop until somebody calls the cops
  7. “Stolen Car” by Bruce Springsteen
    At first I thought it was just restlessness
  8. “Kettering” by the Antlers
    Those singing morphine alarms out of tune
  9. “The Acid Queen” by the Who, guessed by Betty
    Gather your wits and hold on fast
  10. “David” by Nellie McKay
    Days offer spades of hurled outcries

As always, good luck!

Too too toozled

Today’s Forgotten English, in case you were wondering, is the delightful-sounding word “toozle,” meaning:

To pull about, especially applied to any rough dalliance with a female.

Touzly, ruffled, shaggy. In the phrase, “to touzle one’s top,” to make one’s hair stand on end.

Alas, it was only the second of these two definitions, and then only thanks to static electricity and my winter hat. Otherwise, the day was once again largely uneventful.

I did purchase the final stock photo on this one book I’ve been working on, so that was nice to get off my plate. It worked out to be easier if I paid for it myself, so I’ll have to make sure I get reimbursed.

I’m very happy that tomorrow is Friday. Less because this was a horribly difficult week, or anything like that, but because it feels like a week, like I’m back in the swing of my regular work schedule. If that makes any sense.

Thursday various

  • A fascinating story about a young writer who disappeared. Although it’s arguably a story that has precious little to do with her having been a child prodigy and more the difficult circumstances of her life following her parents’ divorce. [via]
  • With New York bracing for more snow tomorrow, I think it needs to be said again: Bloomberg and the rest of the city really botched it two weeks ago. [via]
  • Meanwhile, New Jersey wants to seize your unused gift cards. I honestly don’t know enough about how gift cards work to know whether or not this is a terrible idea, but they’ve already been struck down in court. I’ve always been led to believe that stores view unused gift cards as essentially free money — they get the giver’s cash, but then never have to part with merchandise in exchange — but again, the bare-bones economics might be different. [via]
  • Meanwhile, Virginia revokes what may be the greatest license plate ever. Won’t somebody think of not eating the children? [via]
  • And finally, Inside the Battle to Define Mental Illness. A fascinating article — and I think not just to folks like me who happen to work in the field of mental health publishing — about the battles being fought over the forthcoming DSM-5.This exchange is particularly revealing:

    I recently asked a former president of the APA how he used the DSM in his daily work. He told me his secretary had just asked him for a diagnosis on a patient he’d been seeing for a couple of months so that she could bill the insurance company. “I hadn’t really formulated it,” he told me. He consulted the DSM-IV and concluded that the patient had obsessive-compulsive disorder.

    “Did it change the way you treated her?” I asked, noting that he’d worked with her for quite a while without naming what she had.

    “No.”

    “So what would you say was the value of the diagnosis?”

    “I got paid.” [via]

Bag of nails

Today’s Forgotten English is “bag of nails,” meaning:

American thieves’ cant. Confusion; topsy-turveydom; from “bacchanals.”

Yet today was remarkably unremarkable. Not a bag of nails to be seen.

For want of a bag of nails, the kingdom was lost.