– Definition: adj. 1. strongly reminiscent or suggestive of 2. fragrant or sweet-smelling
– Used in a sentence: This halvah is redolent of faded rose-petals.
– Why: One can never have too many adjectives for describing the senses.
Tag: creating
Making stuff: up, real, and nicely.
Home Again
Unless you are at home in the metaphor, you are not safe anywhere.”
— Robert Frost
Words To Bring Back: “Desultory”
– Definition: adj. marked by lack of definite plan, regularity, or purpose
– Used in a sentence: Except for my relatively brief writing career, my life has been a desultory yet full one.
– Why: It seems to characterize much of our post-Y2K (remember that?) popular culture. In the late 1990s, we had a nice fin-de-siecle sort of desperation. But ever since the Great Odometer rolled over, meh.
Final Edition
Death steals everything except our stories.”
— Jim Harrison
Metaphoraging Roundup: 2018
IF A GOOD FRIEND HADN’T died this year and cured me of a years-long writer’s block, I wouldn’t be posting this.
But he did, so I am, proffering 2018’s Top 10 Viewed Pages and Posts at this writing:
1. Home page / Archives: (683 views) marks people who have happened by from seeing my URL posted in various places (including email .sigs, business cards, our local radio station and Facebook), and/or those exploring more than the seven posts visible on each “page.”
2. Fie on Death, and the Pale Horse He Rode In On (180) is John Wheeler’s cyber-eulogy, its link posted in numerous online fora where his friends could see it. Continue reading “Metaphoraging Roundup: 2018”
Words To Bring Back: “Trenchant”
– Definition: adj. 1. vigorous or incisive in expression or style. 2. sharply perceptive
– Used in a sentence: What we need is more trenchant male characters, unlike Peter Jackson’s Aragorn or the ubiquitous “Bumbling Dad.”.
– Why: These are not timid times, and our language should reflect that. It shouldn’t go so far in that direction as to become self-parodying, but I think it’s important to “stand for” something — and to understand as well.
Words To Bring Back: “Proffer”
– Definition: v. t. To offer for acceptance.
– Used in a sentence:To you the reader, I hereby and humbly proffer my Cook For Any Price stories.
– Why: It implies a social contract somewhat different from its rhyming synonym; I think of it as a kinder, genteeler sort of offer.
First Graf: Understanding Comics
THIS BOOK WILL CHANGE THE way you think about (as author Scott McCloud concisely defines it) “sequential art.”
McCloud takes us inside the art form to explain how and why comics/graphic novels work. He tracks the 3,000-year history of Sequential Art from its Egyptian origins to the present day (well, the book’s 1993 publication anyway), breaking down the elements of composition, line, color, symbols, time, and the use of words; he even has a chapter on the unspoken relationship between panels and the space between them. Let’s let the chapter titles speak for themselves: Continue reading “First Graf: Understanding Comics”
Words To Bring Back: “Cubit”
– Definition: n. A unit of measurement; the distance between one’s elbow and middle-fingertip (approximately 18 inches)
– Used in a sentence: My cat is almost exactly two cubits long, including his tail.
– Why: Sure, we could always double the distance and call it “a yard” — but cubit is more organic, deriving as it does from our bodies. And I think measuring the Universe using our bodies is both a good metaphor and a fine aspiration.
The Knot’s Tale
THERE I WAS, TYING AN intricate bit of decorative knotwork in the Golden Hinde II‘s hold, and feeling more than a little proud of myself. I was then just a beginner at that sort of thing, and the glow of self-regard was warming my busy hands.
Comes the captain, a grizzled veteran of a hundred-and-one voyages in a hundred-and-one vessels, to peer over my shoulder. I paused, waiting for him to tell me how grand was my creation.
“That’s what it’s supposed to look like,” he said gruffly, and walked on.
To say I was crestfallen would be an understatement. Continue reading “The Knot’s Tale”
Words To Bring Back, Special Edition: “Wheeler”
– Definition: v. To unconsciously, persistently and innocently pocket other people’s stuff. Continue reading “Words To Bring Back, Special Edition: “Wheeler””
Words to Bring Back: “Ambit”
– Definition: n. A space surrounding a house, castle, town, etc. A precinct.
– Used in a sentence: It is my ambition to diligently guard my ambit against encroachment.
– Why: Where I live in semi-rural Northern California, such things are known as “open space,” “green space” or “urban growth boundaries” and are considered sacrosanct against development. But “ambit,” being more compact, sounds like something to strive for rather than something attained.And isn’t the journey always better than the destination?