Dr. Weevil » 2006 » December     @import url( http://web.archive.org./web/20210225163558cs_/http://www.drweevil.org/wp-content/themes/hybrid/style.css );                                                                                                              Dr. Weevil Pedantry, Poetry, Politics, and Pie           Contact me: E-mail: (turn it backwards)gro.liveewrd@liveewrdAny e-mail sent to this site is fair game for quotation in full or in part, with or without refutation, abuse, and cruel mockery of the spelling, style, and syntax, unless the writer specifically asks not to be quoted. Even in that case, if the e-mail is slanderous or offensive, I may and will feel free to print it and hold it up to ridicule. You know who you are, and you have been warned.

  Testimonials: Anonymous student evaluation in Latin 102:“God-like and unimprovable . . . can destroy small-minded creatures with a single thought” The Safety Valve:“the Abominable Dr. Weevil” James Lileks:“adamantine nuggets of erudition” Bjørn Stærk:“first up against the wall” (one of only 22 on his Stalinist hit-list) Pejman Yousefzadeh:“I find the bug drawings . . . creepy and worrisome” Robin Goodfellow:“kinda newsy / kinda thinky” Pseudo-Hesiod:“petty, small-minded, pinched, and boorish” Silflay Hraka:“pitch, turpentine and rosewater” Max Sawicky:“rude, unedifying, and unamusing” Protein Wisdom:“urbane and erudite” Noam Chomsky:“Stalinist methods of argument”    December 2006   M T W T F S S     « Nov   Jan »      123   45678910   11121314151617   18192021222324   25262728293031      Search:        Category Archives:  Ancient Joke of the Day  Ancient Text of the Week  Anecdota  Blackfriars Playhouse  Classics  Economics  General  Literature  Metablogular Musings  Music  Orbilius  Poetry  Politics  Science  Theater Reviews  What I've Been Listening To  What I've Been Reading  What I've Been Watching    Monthly Archives:  August 2013 March 2013 October 2012 August 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005   Old MT Archives: January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 February 2002 January 2002 November 2001     Powered by WordPress

     Sunday: December 31, 2006  Looking Back Filed under:  What I've Been Watching — site admin @ 11:57 PM UTC   Over the last year, I haven’t had time to read a lot of books, but have finally started to catch up on some of the movies I’ve missed out on over the years. Some were checked out of the U.N.C. library, some I bought, but most came from Netflix. In 2006, I watched 98 movies, one of them twice, only two previously familiar, plus 20 shorts. (At least half a dozen more I’d seen many years before, but more or less forgotten.) Some brief notes:

  Best: perhaps Smiles of a Summer Night — I hadn’t realized that Bergman could be funny. All I remember from college is The Seventh Seal, Virgin Spring, and some contemporary scenes of emotional torture and self-torture. Worst by far: By Brakhage — what little I watched of it was pretentious crap. On a scale of one to five stars, I gave even The Abominable Dr. Phibes one and a half, but By Brakhage earned a special score of zero stars. Most painful to watch, at least for a bibliophile: I, the Worst of All, which features both a book-burning scene (1:06) and another in which philosopher-poet Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz is forced to sell all of her books and scientific apparatus (1:39). Best adaptation of a novel I’ve read: Schlöndorff’s Coup de Grâce. I’ve looked into Young Törless (the book) but not read it yet. Worst adaptation: The Driver’s Seat. Most suitable for showing bits of in 6th-grade Geography class: Ozu’s Good Morning.  I will add to this list if I think of anything else.

   Comments Off     Archives Filed under:  General — site admin @ 11:50 PM UTC   I have restored the Movable Type archives, which were left with many dead links when Earthlink stole my previous domain name. Many of the comments were lost in the transition to WordPress, but the posts themselves are now readable, if anyone wants to read them.

   Comments Off     Quotation of the Day Filed under:  Literature — site admin @ 11:26 PM UTC   A fictional Prussian soldier of fortune in 1937:

 After fifteen years I can scarcely recall just what did happen in that confused struggle against the Bolsheviks in Livonia and Kurland, in that whole corner of the civil war with its hidden complications and sudden eruptions, like a fire not quite put out, or some skin disease. Each region, for that matter, has its own kind of war, a local product like rye or potatoes.

  Marguerite Yourcenar, Coup de Grâce, translated by Grace Frick)

   Comments Off    Friday: December 29, 2006  Last Words Filed under:  Music Politics — site admin @ 9:50 PM UTC   What his jailers could (and should) be playing for Saddam Hussein right about now: Johnny Cash’s “25 Minutes to Go” (lyrics here).

   Comments Off     Mazomanie Filed under:  Orbilius — site admin @ 9:38 PM UTC   Ann Althouse ends a post on Wisconsin cuisine with a linguistic comment:

 . . . isn’t it cool that there’s a town called “Mazomanie.” It sounds sounds like a form of insanity. A cute and amazing mania.

  It does indeed sound like a form of mania. Though unattested in dictionaries, ‘mazomanie’ looks like a properly-formed ancient Greek word. Maníe (three syllables) is the Ionic dialect form of manía, “madness”, and mazós is the Ionic and Epic dialect form of mastós, as in ‘mastectomy’ and ‘mastodon’, so ‘mazomanie’ would be Herodotus’ word for a mania for female breasts. It is one of the commoner manias, particularly among adolescent males, but not many women would describe it as “cute and amazing”. Is there a Hooter’s in Mazomanie, Wisconsin?

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