Archive for the ‘Movies and tv’ Category
September 6, 2026
The big scheme is Pleasure as Therapy: something I do for pleasure (or play or engaged curiosity) turns out to be excellent therapy, alleviating some affliction of mine or extending my life. These are unintended, but gratifying, consequences. Gravy.
Previously on this blog, the story of my singing Sacred Harp hymns in communities of shapenote singers, a practice that moves me deeply, sometimes taking me into an ecstatic state. That’s the pleasure. Then my pulmonologist — who had me using breathing apparatus to strengthen my lungs — discovered this and said that my singing full-out was much better therapy than his, and I should do it as much as possible, ideally some every day. I see this as getting a prescription to eat cake. Or, to pick a different metaphor, go for the gravy.
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Posted in Age, Language and medicine, Lexical semantics, Linguists, Metaphor, Movies and tv, Music, My life, Play, Social interactions, Social life | 2 Comments »
August 26, 2026
Little Poll Parrot
Sat in his garret
Eating toast and tea.
A little brown mouse
Jumped into the house
And stole it all away.
— nursery rhyme
If you like the parrots and getting caught in the rain
If you like making love at midnight under the trees on the cape
Then I’m the love that you’ve looked for, write to me and escape
— The Parrot Song
Well, yes, tariffs (by Canada, against those levied by the Grabpussy administration of my country), not my misheard parrots. But I was taken by the idea of billions of dollars in parrots, bright parrots in the air.
And so was led down the psittacine path of associative memory. Some highlights on the path …
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Posted in AI, Errors, Language and animals, Memory, Mishearings, Movies and tv, My life | 3 Comments »
August 23, 2026
The ultimate topic here is my sleep patterns, which I will post about more systematically in a while. Here I’m trying to take some of the burden of background material off that posting by stashing it for easy reference later. Picking an item — the revival by Harvard’s American Repertory Theatre of Ionesco’s play Rhinoceros — that I also view, in desperation, as carrying an urgent message about today’s sociopolitical climate.
It will start with odd everyday routines of no consequence, but will end with contemplating literal dehumanization, staring evil in the face. I’m touchy on the point, having never fully recovered from the shock of seeing the Nazi death camps exposed when I was a child. And understanding that that could happen to me. (No, I don’t think children should be protected from such knowledge. They should be treasured and supported, as I was, but they should also see the dangers clearly, so that they can arm themselves against them.)
But first, the routines. (If you think I’m just a nutter or a pathetic neurotic in need of professional care, fuck off; it’s none of your business. I’m doing stuff that works for me; why should you care?)
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Posted in Education, Language and politics, Language and the body, Movies and tv, Music, My life, Play, Plays, Pop culture, Princeton, Sleep, Surrealism, Writing | Leave a Comment »
August 20, 2026
Having just done two little postings on brief subjects this morning, I’m now going to wade into a few somewhat meatier subjects that have the potential to explode into larger matters of some weight.
The first of these came to me in tv commercials for the Liberty Mutual insurance company, featuring a Struggling Actor character — all of which delighted me and made me laugh out loud. One of my favorites, “Biberty Bungle” (the one with the bubbles), you can view here.
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Posted in Acting, Actors, Errors, Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Humor, Identities, Language in advertising, Masculinity, Movies and tv, My life | Leave a Comment »
August 20, 2026
The Wayno / Piraro Bizarro of today (8/20), depicting a preposterous cartoon event:
It’s a Renaissance Faire and a Ren & Stimpy Show animated cartoon (if you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Wayno says there are 3 in this strip — see this Page)
A crossing of the decorously ornamental and the enthusiastically down-and-dirty.
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Posted in Events and occasions, Linguistics in the comics, Movies and tv | Leave a Comment »
August 19, 2026
In the last few days, I’ve returned to two movies from long ago that gave me great pleasure then and have just brought me fresh joy. From 1953 (when I was in high school, in Pennsylvania), Roman Holiday, starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck (which came up on a free classic movie channel on my cable service). And from 1963 (when I was in grad school, in Massachusetts), Tom Jones, starring Albert Finney and a cast of wonderful character actors (which I had just gotten the DVD of in the mail).
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Posted in Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Movies and tv, My life, Smell | Leave a Comment »
August 18, 2026
(Raunchy content, which some will prefer to avoid)
From WIRED on-line, “The Gooner Music Video Boom Is Here”, by Jason Parham on 6/26/26, in summary:
Porn music videos have circulated on the fringes of the internet for years. Featuring everything from narrative-driven stories to hypnosis, they are proliferating across X as “bate fuel” for gooners.
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Posted in Language and the body, Language of sex, Movies and tv, Music, Pornography, Slang, Taboo language and slurs | 2 Comments »
August 16, 2026
It starts with the movies, dwells on a paradox of dementia — that it can allow someone to experience something again for the first time — and picks up another paradox — that it’s possible for someone to forget everything and still successfully follow enormously complex routines. I will illustrate the first from my guy (my husband-equivalent) Jacques Transue in the early stages of his life-ending dementia and the second from myself under the sway of a powerful steroid drug. This will be a lot less grim than it sounds.
Then some professorial reflections on what it’s all about. I’m sorry; the professor comes along with the story-teller, it’s a package deal.
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Posted in Language and medicine, Memory, Metaphor, Movies and tv, My life, Terminology | Leave a Comment »
August 9, 2026
The headline news yesterday (8/8) was about a Jetstar plane nearly colliding with a Qatar Airlines plane at the Sydney airport. But what I heard from my tv was about, omigod, a Death Star plane. Death stalks Sydney.
Well, jet and death are in fact quite similar phonologically and so are easily confused. Meanwhile, the Australian economy airline is fresh news for me, while I’ve been steeped in Star Wars stuff since 1977. So everything tips my perceptions towards death.
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Posted in Mishearings, Movies and tv, My life, News, Phonology, Psycholinguistics | 1 Comment »
