Today’s Zits:
All summer, Jeremy and Sara have been glued to one another (a situation that has alarmed Jeremy’s parents). Now, it seems, they have become a single entitly, referred to by a one-word name — a name that historically originated in a coordination of names, but is now (like JeremyandSara) indivisible.
Today’s One Big Happy, with a setup for a pun on the idiom level playing field:
Hard to believe that Ruthie would have come to this on her own; she’s just serving as a channel for the cartoonist’s language play.
On cable tv this morning, an episode of Law & Order: SVU (the disturbing “Damaged”, s4 e11 from 1/10/03) with Erik Palladino as the tough but sympathetic Det. Dave Deuthorn. Palladino’s another hard-working regular in both tv and movies.
Passed along by Mike Pope, this supremely annoying video clip in which a man poses what sounds like a question riddle to a woman, who can’t interpret the question, and the man, chuckling offensively, just goes on repeating the question. But if she didn’t get the trick early on, she’ll be stuck indefinitely in her incomprehension — and by the time her tormentor finally provides hints that might let her see the trick, there’s no hope she’ll get out of the processing hole she’s in.
I would label the man as an asshole or a total dick, but since the speakers are British, I prefer to call him a first-class twat.
But check it out for yourself:
On Law & Order: Criminal Intent on cable this morning, an episode with a very familiar face that I couldn’t put a name to. The man turned out to be named Geoffrey Nauffts, but I still couldn’t place him. He’s a veteran actor on tv, in the movies, and on stage, as well as an award-winning playwright. And he’s openly gay. Here’s the playwright at his desk:
(#1)
A particularly nice error I committed in writing up “Late summer porn sales” (here):
now that Independence Day and gay pride days are past and Memorial Day is about six weeks in the future
Memorial Day instead of Labor Day.
This is, first of all, a semantics-based word retrieval error, rather than a phonologically-based one; Labor and Memorial are not at all phonologically similar, but they are semantically similar — both names of US holidays. Even better, they are semantically opposed: in a convention of US culture, Memorial Day is the beginning of the summer season, Labor Day the end of it.
On cable, episodes of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (the original CSI, set in Las Vegas) go by, including recent ones with Ted Danson as a crime scene investigator. Danson made his mark in the memorable sitcom Cheers, an ensemble comedy that addressed many serious themes during its 11 years.
Two similar brand names, both kinds of portmanteaus, but otherwise very different: acoustic insulation, sturdy soles for shoes.
Yesterday’s Calvin and Hobbes:
Calvin continues his art criticism, now providing an artist’s statement in defense of his sidewalk art. (I have an aversion to artist’s statements, especially if they use the word Weltanschauung.)
