INSPISSATE AN IMBROGLIO IN THE INGLENOOK

100 Most Beautiful Words from an online dictionary, alphaDictionary.com via the joys of keeping up with Bookninja.com.
Enjoy, Savor, Luxuriate!:
1 adroit Dexterous, agile.
2 adumbrate To very gently suggest.
3 aestivate To summer, to spend the summer.
4 ailurophile A cat-lover.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
5 beatific Befitting an angel or saint.
6 beleaguer To exhaust with attacks.
7 blandiloquent Beautiful and flattering.
8 caliginous Dark and misty.
9 champagne An effervescent wine.
10 chatoyant Like a cat’s eye.
11 chiaroscuro The arrangement of dark and light elements in a picture.
12 cockle A heart-shaped bivalve or a garden flower.
13 colporteur A book peddlar.
14 conflate To blend together, to combine different things.
15 cynosure A focal point of admiration.
16 desuetude Disuse.
17 diaphanous Filmy.
18 diffuse Spread out, not focused or concentrated.
19 dulcet Sweet, sugary.
20 ebullient Bubbling with enthusiasm.
21 effervescent Bubbly.
22 efflorescence Flowering, the opening of buds or a bloom.
23 elixir A good potion.
24 emollient A softener.
25 encomium A spoken or written work in praise of someone.
26 ephemeral Short-lived.
27 epicure A person who enjoys fine living, especially food and drink.
28 epiphany A sudden revelation.
29 erstwhile At one time, for a time.
30 eschew To reject or avoid.
31 esculent Edible.
32 esoteric Understood only by a small group of specialists.
33 ethereal Gaseous, invisible but detectable.
34 etiolate White from no contact with light.
35 evanescent Vanishing quickly, lasting a very short time.
36 exuberant Enthusiastic, excited.
37 felicitous Pleasing.
38 fescue A variety of grass favored for pastures.
39 foudroyant Dazzling.
40 fragile Very, very delicate.
41 fugacioius Running, escaping.
42 gambol To skip or leap about joyfully.
43 glamour Beauty.
44 gossamer The finest piece of thread, a spider’s silk.
45 halcyon Happy, sunny, care-free.
46 hymeneal Having to do with a wedding.
47 imbricate To overlap to form a regular pattern.
48 imbroglio An altercation or complicated situation.
49 imbue To infuse, instill.
50 incipient Beginning, in an early stage.
51 ingenue A naïve young woman.
52 inglenook The place beside the fireplace.
53 inspissate To thicken.
54 inure To jade.
55 jejune Dull; childish.
56 lagniappe A gift given to a customer for their patronage.
57 lagoon A small gulf or inlet in the sea.
58 languor Listlessness, inactivity.
59 lassitude Weariness, listlessness.
60 laughter The response to something funny.
61 lilt To move musically or lively, to have a lively sound.
62 lithe Slender and flexible.
63 loquacious Talkative.
64 luxuriant Thick, lavish.
65 mellifluous Sweet-sounding.
66 missive A message or letter.
67 moiety One of two equal parts, a half.
68 mondegreen A misanalyzed phrase.
69 nebulous Foggy.
70 niveous Snowy, snow-like.
71 obsequious Fawning, subservience.
72 odalisque A concubine in a harem.
73 oeuvre A work.
74 offing That part of the sea between the horizon and the offshore.
75 onomatopoeia The creation of words by imitating sound.
76 paean A formal expression of praise.
77 palimpsest A manuscript written over one or more earlier ones.
78 panacea A complete solution for all problems.
79 panoply A complete set.
80 pastiche A mixture of art work (art or music) from various sources.
81 peccadillo A peculiarity.
82 pelagic Related to the sea or ocean.
83 penumbra A half-shadow, the edge of a shadow.
84 peregrination Wandering, travels.
85 petrichor The smell of earth after a rain.
86 plethora A great excess, overabundance.
87 porcelain A fine white clay pottery.
88 potamophilous Loving rivers.
89 propinquity An inclination or preference.
90 Pyrrhic Victorious despite heavy losses.
91 quintessential The ultimate, the essence of the essence.
92 redolent Sweet-smelling.
93 rhapsody A beautiful musical piece.
94 riparian Having to do with the bank of a river or other body of water.
95 ripple A small, circular wave emanating from a central point.
96 scintillate To sparkle with brilliant light.
97 sempiternal Forever and ever.
98 seraglio Housing for a harem.
99 serendipity Finding something while looking for something else.
100 surreptitious Sneaky.

MILK IT

Well, I saw "Milk" the other night. Directed by Gus Van Sant. His movies always sound good but never are. I've been duped for 20 years now. I used to see a lot of movies, so that's how I stumbled onto his first one, "Mala Noche," which I don't remember except I hated it and remembered the name Gus van Sant, like, I will never see another movie by this guy again. But like an idiot, I went to see "Drugstore Cowboy" and "My Own Private Idaho" and even Nicole Kidman's stuck under an ice pond, "no one's anything unless they're on tv," what the hell was that called? Oh yeah, "To Die For."

The best thing he's done is the scene-for-scene remake of "Psycho." Although how did he fit Viggo Mortgensen's ass in there? Wait, it's better than Hitchcock!

"Elephant" was okay, I guess. It was Columbine if the shooters were gay. See? Just be gay and all violence will cease. Or, the opposite? Well, let's just say the question's more important that the answer.

"Milk," I'm sure you've heard, has Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected to high office, as supervisor in we're-not-in-Kansas-anymore San Francisco of the 70's. He and the Mayor, George Moscone, were shot down by Dan White, a disgruntled fellow supervisor who felt both Harvey and Moscone were thwarting his career. The movie focuses on Milk's rise from closeted office worker in New York to gay activist organizer in San Francisco-- specifially, his successful attempt to defeat proposition 6, which would have banned all gays from teaching in California schools, on the premise that gays, since they can't have children, need a source for "recruitment."

The defeat of Prop 6 was his shining achievement, but he started small and grass roots, getting a liaison with the police to stop them from raiding gay bars in the Castro district gayborhood of San Francisco. Hard to imagine that in 1975 in the gayest neighbourhood in the gayest city in the world, cops would just charge into bars and start beating people up. Jesus Christ, to think, just 7 years later, I was basically going to my suburban high school with a teasing comb in one back pocket and a black eyeliner in the other. For all you straights, that's code, but I won't say for what.

Maybe that's why I found the movie so, um, moving. I mean, Jesus Christ, I wanted to be there in 1975, getting pummeled by billysticks and shoved and groped by hot beefy cops. I'll do anything for the cause.

But it was only after the lights came up and I had surreptitiously wiped the tears from my eyes that I realized the movie was bad and flat and manipulative. I mean, anyone who's seen the great documentary "The Times of Harvey Milk" knows it's a fucking great story. It's hard to not make it affecting. But the whole damnd "Milk" movie is peppered with such clichés. The gay teenagaer in a wheelchair who happens to call and inspire Harvey at his lowest. The scene at the end after Harvey's death-- oh, hope I'm not giving anything away-- with Harvey's two friends at a deserted City Hall asking, "doesn't anyone care?" "Oh, I hear something's going on in the Castro," says the other. Cue procession of lighted candles-- oh, they do care!

Or the scene with James Franco, as his boyfriend, Scott, slamming dinner down on the table and shouting he doesn't want Harvey to talk about the campaign or politics or anything-- and Harvey says, "can I just say this is delicious?" Oh, cue relieved laughter and hugs and reconciliation! That scene, by the way, is the only suggestion there's any tension between the two, so it comes as a surprise when Scott walks out of Harvey's life.

Scott is the only character with any actual personal relationship with Milk, so why couldn't they make it more, you know, personal? Scott just seems to be there most of the time, hanging around. Perhaps they were trying to keep it historically accurate, but if they can invent a kid in a wheelchair, why couldn't they accentuate the relationship with Scott?

The biggest letdown, of course, was the big kiss between Sean Penn and James Franco. The way Franco's been talking about it on talk shows, you'd think there was a Busby Berkely routine with whips and midgets and and a fucking singing Boy Scout jamboree-- well, maybe that's what he saw, but all I saw was a kiss, like 30 seconds? If you're suggesting there's a goddam marathon of kissing going on I want to see faces going blue from lack of oxygen and muscular collapse and lacerated tongues and James Franco's face with brillo tracks-- that was one mangy beard Sean Penn was wearing.

BUY 1 GET 1 FREE, CREEPO

For the chattering should-be-castrated cult leader in your life; biting, bitter blogger; piercingly over-matrimonial polygamist; or for the snuggle-starved subzero boner of your little Star Wars enthusiast.
A Snuggie XMAS for all!

DUCK, LAME PRESIDENT, DUCK!

Bush and the art of dodging reporters.

FILM STUDENTS' WET DREAM OF THE DAY

My biggest regret: not fucking John Cassavetes, boom mike hovering.

CHOOSE ME FOR ONCE

The Atlantic points to something that I've never been able to articulate; a gnawing discomfort with the For gay marriage argument. The 'lifestyle vs. biological' talk (uggh, 'lifestyle', hate that). The assumption that no one would choose to be gay, or black (racism being the correlation that quickly follows), because it's naturally lesser than heterosexual and white. I would not have chosen to be a woman and certainly not an Armenian woman, but still, the assumption is offensive. I'm sure there's some fat ugly self-hating Turkish freak out there who yearns to be an Armenian enchantress, alabaster olive oiled breasts swelling, able to for once acknowledge the genocide (whew, what a relief!).

Here it is from another Atlantic writer, Ta-Nehisi Coates:

"Several people referred me to Huck on the Daily Show yesterday. Good stuff. But here's one thing that's been boggling my mind lately. The case for/against gay marriage is hung-up on this idea of choice--i.e. we should frown on gay marriage because it's a deviant lifestyle. Or we shouldn't frown on it because it isn't a lifestyle, it's a biological fact. This is where the comparisons with race come in. But I always hated this argument. Whenever people say, "You should not discriminate against people because they didn't chose to be black," I hear the mild tones of wild liberal condescension.
Implicit in that logic is a kind of judgment, the notion that if I could choose, I obviously would choose to be white. But what if I just like being black? What if I could choose and would still choose black? Ditto for homosexuality. So what if you do choose to be gay? I understand that a lot of the science says you don't, but why do we accept this implicit idea that heterosexuality is, necessarily, what everyone would chose?"

Also, I understand Stewart's exuberance and need to crush Huckabee's argument, but he's got to learn to shut up, frankly. It's not an interview, it's a scolding. Plus, it's like stomping a puppy. Huckabee is so likeable, even when he's spewing shit. It's disorienting. His smooth-tongue and Kevin Spacey-dimples (GAY dimples) get me every time.

Thanks to The Atlantic

BAD DATE

re: Officers tried to cover up attack.

Okay, so what does that look like up there? We know dicks are guns, dicks are missiles, dicks are swords (just to get medieval on your ass); I've just never seen the weapon so, um, lifelike. I mean dildo-like.

Sounds like my last date: a little treesmoking, a little conversation, then ooo, out comes retractable Mister Billy club and get down to business! Okay, that was my last date except without the trees. And I didn't get to meet Billy.

A piercing artist in Brooklyn was smoking maryjane on the street when he was approached by three officers who began questioning him. The piercer threw the maryjane to the curb and hightailed it out of there, running down the street and into a subway entrance. The officers caught him next to the ticket booth, threw him down on the floor, and sodomized him with a retractable Billy club. I mean, it was the middle of the day. There were people around. There are security cameras. How did they think they'd get away with it?

I'm so thrilled with the little break downs people have in public. Like, "I know there are people around, but I'm just so into what I'm doing that I don't care! It's just you and me and our own little world!" It's just like being in love.

I've been scouring these news items to get down to the brass tacks, I mean down to the bone, I mean I need details! Did the officer rip the guy's pants off? The lawyer for the complainant said he had a "gashed anus." Gross. I mean, really. They must've ripped the guys pants and boxers right off his pierced little body. What I want to know-- how come these guys are so hot to see another guy's cute little butt? And even more, his, um, you know. I know it's getting harder to recruit police officers these days, but don't they have some kind of screening process? Like, multiple choice:

A suspected felon gives chase. You apprehend said suspected felon, then you:

a) handcuff him
b) read him his rights
c) throw him face down to the ground, forcibly strip off his underthings, locate his hiney-hole and pierce with closest available weapon.

Okay, I know your answer, and that's why you're not cops! Or shouldn't be!

ANDROGYNE-ELECT

This one's for my friend, you know who you are, who loves the androgyne, who needs to shave more than her husband does. I'm not averse to smoothness, however I like a little scratch where I itch. Those lips though--we know what that's all about--purple!

"On Wednesday, Barack Obama addressed Bill Richardson's shaven beard, stating "It was a mistake for him to get rid of it. I thought that whole Western rugged look was really working for him....we're deeply disappointed with the loss."

But perhaps the disappointment was more personal than the president-elect let on. In a September 20, 2006 article in The Hill about how voters prefer politicians to be clean-shaven, Obama told reporter Betsy Rothstein "I can't grow facial hair... I get whiskers."

Thanks to Huffingtonpost.com

I JUST JI**ED IN MY PANTS

I can't believe you people elected a poet to the White House. How can things turn around so drastically. Incredible. Art and Science!

"The president-elect said his administration is interested in "elevating science once again, and having lectures in the White House where people are talking about traveling to the stars or breaking down atoms, inspiring our youth to get a sense of what discovery is all about."

"Thinking about the diversity of our culture and inviting jazz musicians and classical musicians and poetry readings in the White House so that once again we appreciate this incredible tapestry that's America," he said.

"Historically, what has always brought us through hard times is that national character, that sense of optimism, that willingness to look forward, that sense that better days are ahead," Obama said. "I think that our art and our culture, our science--you know, that's the essence of what makes America special, and we want to project that as much as possible in the White House.""

One of Obama's poems from his undergraduate literary magazine, Feast. It's not great but when will his coolness end? I'll tell you when. It'll end when he mentions Maya Angelou, that's when.

UNDERGROUND

Under water grottos, caverns
Filled with apes
That eat figs.
Stepping on the figs
That the apes
Eat, they crunch.
The apes howl, bare
Their fangs, dance,
Tumble in the
Rushing water,
Musty, wet pelts
Glistening in the blue.

Thanks to Huffingtonpost.com

THE DIZZINESS OF FREEDOM

That's me at the end there, still not getting it, confused, anxious in the face of too many choices, watching my buddies scuttle ahead to the dog park with blissful certainty where a bright future and happiness awaits.

Thanks to fourfour.com

MY PLEASANT MORNING

New Yorker writer Hendrik Hertzberg told Politico that he had never been invited to appear on "The O'Reilly Factor," as host Bill O'Reilly said last night on-air.

"That's an outright lie," Hertzberg said.
"I love you, Hendrik," said me.

Thanks to Huffingtonpost.com

WHAT'S THE 411 GRANDPA?

Finally a phone for grandpa! Although, I'm sorry to tell gramps, there aren't any live operators anymore? At least none outside of Asia? So if he's looking for someone to connect him to Butterfield 8, he may still have to call the super to put the call through.

And why "Operator"? Why not just a big "0." And why "tow"? Why not AAA? Why any of them? Really, shouldn't the buttons read "I've fallen and I can't get up," "I need to be wiped," and "you rotten kids, why, in my day..."