top vocabulary words

. . . Hughes' chief business rival, with whom he maintained a cordial hatred.

we normally do not see "cordial" outside of salutations in invitations.

. . . determined to use the tragedy of 9/11 to arrogate as much power as they could.

the opposite of abrogate.

poetic devices in hip hop II

you will see zeugma used copiously in almost all styles of hip hop in all ages.

here is a good example from Lil' Wayne:

you . . . fall back like orcas

entra na roda

the cops came and they led the dog away, who went eagerly because it is a sweet dog. pit bulls are not considered a good dog to be unbound.

since i have some free days before returning to work, i am trying some techniques for preparing food. there is cultured butter, which i finished this morning. it made so many dirty dishes that were all greasy. a food processor would make the task easier. if you make your own butter, you get free buttermilk. if you make your own cheese, you can get free ricotta. there is also yogurt that i will attempt. i want to preserve the flavor of the indian yogurt that surya bought.

i formalized some arrangements recently, offering my good name en gage. to avoid the charivari mob, i agreed to attend a class at a church, but the church requires prior baptism. meum dictum, meum pactum.

i have a good suspicion about how "Catch a Kangnam Mother" is going to end.

day you're here baby

i always sound like a crazy man trying to explain that hip hop is more innovative as poetry than other forms of popular music.

here is a good example, from UGK's "One Day"

'cause tomorrow ain't promised to me
the only thing that's promised to a player is the penitentiary

the last three syllables of each line make a dactyl, with the same three vowels. [ɨ] - [ə] - [i]

a metaphor for life

the cook is american. he says to the owner, a korean immigrant, "tomorrow i'm planning to work from two to nine. i'm not going to come in early again."
the owner says nothing, and the cook repeats himself, "so, the day after today. i am not coming in early. i am coming in later instead of early. it is not good for me to work early. in the morning time. not today. the day after today."
the owner understood everything, he just didn't like what he was hearing.

subprime

First, homeownerships that begin with a subprime purchase mortgage end up in foreclosure almost 20 percent of the time, or more than 6 times as often as experiences that begin with prime purchase mortgages. Second, house price appreciation plays a dominant role in generating foreclosures. In fact, we attribute most of the dramatic rise in Massachusetts foreclosures during 2006 and 2007 to the decline in house prices that began in the summer of 2005. link

lebwyeta

No translation can expect to equal, much less to excel, the original.
The excellence of a translation can only be judged by noting how far it
has succeeded in reproducing the original tone, colors, style, the
delicacy of sentiment, the force of inert strength, the peculiar
expressions native to the language with which the original is written,
or whatever is its marked characteristic. The ablest can do no more, and
to want more than this will be demanding something impossible. Strictly
speaking, the only way one can derive full benefit or enjoyment from a
foreign work is to read the original, for any intelligence at
second-hand never gives the kind of satisfaction which is possible only
through the direct touch with the original. Even in the best translated
work is probably wanted the subtle vitality natural to the original
language, for it defies an attempt, however elaborate, to transmit all
there is in the original. Correctness of diction may be there, but
spontaneity is gone; it cannot be helped.

-Yasotarro Morri, foreword to English translation of Natsume Soseki's Botchan, 1918.

as for inspiring things written in bad english, I was editing an essay for a freshman basketball player who is from Cameroon. The essay was supposed to be about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. at the end, he wrote a statement that he attributed to his grandfather, a Tupuri chief in the North. it didn't make sense, so i asked him to translate it from Tupuri to French, then i put it in a more idiomatic English:


When you allow someone to talk,
his ideas are formed when he speaks,
and by ideas the universe is defined.

this is probably as good a formulation of the hypothesis as Sapir or Whorf would have made, and it is an old proverb from a clan of nomad warriors.

refinement

luxury goods: they exist to convince us of the benefits of earning more money.

i went to a luxury grocery store to buy cd-r's. there is an explanation for my choice of emporium:
a) nine roma tomatoes teetering between ripe and rotten.
b) about 150g of boiled shrimp, also poised to spoil.
c) an advertisement from a local business offering me a free burrito, which tastes bad even when it is free.
d) something to do with cd-r's.

that's why. i went in to get cd-r's and a package of dried pasta. i walked out with fresh basil, dried pasta, a $16 époisse and two top loin beefsteaks.

the last two items are luxury goods.

luxury goods are a kind of item that you cannot enjoy fully without careful study, a clear mindset, attention to detail and proper upbringing. if you are able to enjoy a luxury good, then you can feel like you are urbane.

a rich animal is not rich unless it can properly enjoy luxury goods. it is, instead, a poor animal with money.

a poor animal with money is popularly known as rich, and a rich animal is popularly known as a snob.

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II.

duylinh and i went to one of my favorite burger restaurants today. i hate it and i vowed never to return. it is impossible to know why. the quality of the food may have changed, and/or my ability to appreciate the food it serves may have changed.

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III.

steady state:
don't buy anything. it only tastes good if it's made with love. your commercial relations do not love you, unless it is the love inspired by the knowing glance of complicity in corrupt dealings. but a modern economy is not made of jacks of all trades. nothing can be made with love. everything tastes bad.

non-steady state:
buy less than you did at a previous time. it only tastes good if it's made with more love than before. your commercial relations do not love you unless they are corrupt. but a modern economy has fewer jacks of all trades than an economy of the good-old times. fewer things can be made with love than before. everything tastes better if it is obtained through corruption. everything tastes better if it is taken from some arbitrarily cruder state and refined with love.

Sic ait, atque animum pictura pascit inani,

the last week or so has produced a creaking forth of my writing sample, my artfully weaving in the phrase "debuccalization", matters that seem interesting only on paper.
-the juicer, cause of infinite marital strife, you only bought the juicer because you want to lead a healthier life, not because you love me, produces delicious juice from any of our favorite 80% water fruits or vegetables. so far, i have made persimmon, orange, apple, pear, celery, tomato, and carrot juice, and one misguided bloody mary. i got eighteen pounds of valley valencia oranges, yearning towards my birth right. the end is to make carrot wine.
-tandoori pizza, scotches starting with glen-, an awkward cocaine deal at a billiard hall, i on the sidelines all along. a man came up to me and said to my threadbare shirt, "that is a dutch cruise line. i'm sorry to disturb you." thirty minutes later, he sets down his cue and walks over to shake my hand, as an apology for having pointed out the coincidence of my threadbare shirt, provenance of his estranged courtesan's former employer.
-the new orleans breakfast. dredge thin-sliced pork cutlets in seasoned flour, brown in butter, remove. brown celery, capsicum, onion, add tomato purée, stock and the cutlets. simmer to thickness. ladle over grits enriched with butter and mascarpone.
-pimp c's death made me get around to listening to his album, and hey, maha was right about UGK.