Let’s review some of the places I’ve been today.
Planet Ketchup
I followed a link from Metafilter. I do that sometimes. I had been led to believe that Henry John Heinz had inadvertently invented ketchup while trying to reproduce chutney, but both Planet Ketchup and the Heinz website offer decidedly different versions of what happened. Honestly, it’s bottled tomato paste, and I can’t really bring myself to care.
PROMT’s Online Translator
I was trying to see if the phrase “struck dumb”, when run through an English-to-Russian translator and back, really does yield the phrase “beaten senseless”. Apparently I was lied to again.
The Academy of American Poets: Emily Dickinson
Via e-mail, someone suggested that you can sing Lewis Carroll’s poem “Jabberwocky” to the tune of “Amazing Grace”. I replied that I had been told (perhaps once again erroneously) that you can sing any Emily Dickinson poem to “The Yellow Rose of Texas”. This is primarily why I have never bothered to learn the music to “The Yellow Rose of Texas.” I like Emily Dickinson. I have the feeling that would ruin her for me.
The hills are alive with the sound of…vampire slaying!
I didn’t watch last night’s episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (it was taped for me by a very nice person), but I was naturally intrigued by this Salon article. I like what author Stephanie Zacharek writes:
Unlike “The Practice” or “The West Wing,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” isn’t a show made by a guy who’s working overtime to show us how much drama there is in the prosaic; it’s made by a guy who understands that when you’re living high drama, you long for the prosaic. What Buffy Sommers wouldn’t give to be a presidential aide or a lawyer arguing a malpractice case! Instead, in a setup that’s formally classical despite the fact that the characters wear the latest fashions and live in Southern California, she’s destined to slay demons and vampires for the rest of her days — and possibly beyond.
Jabberwocky Variations
Just making sure I really do have it memorized. All mimsy were the borogroves.
Top Ten X-Files Episodes
Looking for a specific quote: “I didn’t spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons without learning a little something about courage.”
Medieval Themes and Topics: Some Interesting and Essential Stuff
A brief line in that Buffy article about melancholy as one of the four humours led me to wonder what the other three were. I’m an inquisitive sort sometimes.
Are You a Blogaholic?
Another one of those links from Metafilter. I am told that I am “a casual weblogger. You only blog when you have nothing better to do, which is not very often. There’s nothing wrong with that. But if you’d post a little more often, you’d make your readers very happy.” Do I have readers?