Two orphaned lines

1.  “A greenstick fracture on a growing limb”
2.  “lived at a high pitch in a minor key”

I was hoping to use these in a song (not the same song) at some point.  #2 actually has a tune.  #1 is five iambs and surely could fit somewhere.  The problem with #1 is that the CK in greenstick and the FR in fracture are bumping against each other.  You can’t have four consonants in a row and expect to enunciate.  Here’s what the song WOULD be about if I could write it:  the way in which a mind can break along the fault lines caused by an earlier (adolescent) episode of mental pain.  I’d probably put some neat facts about bone growth in there to underscore that joy is always a regenerative faculty, and innocence probably is too.


When did “decadent dessert” become a thing that is okay to say on a menu?  I hate the idea of anything being decadent.  Decadence, to me, connotes real iniquity (not the same as inequity) and lack of cadence.  Decadence is a bad thing.  It doesn’t have anything to do with chocolate.

How ’bout some invert sugar (cf. this blog, April 2012)?

JFK Would Approve

On the redeye train to DC, in the middle of New Jersey, I saw a sign in (I think) the Metropark Amtrak station advertising the JFK Breast Center.  I squinted at the sign in the darkened station and saw that it advertised a breast health clinic at the JFK Medical Center.  The affinity of our 35th President for the female form is legendary, so I can’t help but think he’d be pleased at the wording.  It sounds like the center–far from clinical–might be a gallery of his favorites.

Invert Sugar

So, one last pre-Passover caramel last night… and one of the ingredients was invert sugar.  I have always wanted Invert Sugar to be the name of a gay nightclub.  Or a drag queen who…cooks?  “Invert” was a term for queer folks around 90 years ago, give or take 10 years, but I’m afraid the joke would fall flat because no one uses the word anymore.

The Levin in the lump

In the book The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, the title character sometimes tells one of her students (I forget which one because I haven’t read the book in 20 years) that she is the leaven in the lump.  This phrase came to mind because it is almost Passover and I have cleaned out anything leavened, anything that could potentially be leavened, etc.

I worked with a lovely lawyer once whose last name was Levin, and I sometimes thought of him as the Levin in the lump, although I certainly never told him that.

The last name “Levin” comes from the tribe of Levi, the Levite priests (Christian readers will recognize the term Leviticus).

“Leaven” must have something to do with lightness.  “Luft” in German is air, as in the military term Luftwaffe and the sometimes affectionate term “luftmensch,” which means head-in-the-clouds-person and is actually Yiddish.  Levitate and levity also denote/connote lightness.  I love that levity is the opposite of gravity.

Private Bag

As part of my job, I need to get scientific articles from New Zealand from time to time.  The correspondence address on these often includes the term “private bag.”  A private bag is what we in the US call a post office (P.O.) box.  But I always picture a reticule* or some kind of supportive undergarment.  OK, Kiwis, I know I’m a perv.

*reticule=a little purse with a drawstring, used in 18th and 19th century (I think–I don’t have time right now to do research on costume history)