Smorgasboard

1) Just got this book in the mail: Defiant Gardens: Making Gardens in Wartime. Hopefully, it doesn't suck, cuz I've posted the cover image now and am committed. It should be interesting: hope it goes beneath the idea that gardens are acts of refuge, protest, and beauty surrounded by the most depraved things we can do to one another, et cetera, and says something more unique in some way about some thing. It covers all sides from WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Iraq....

2) Am rereading and teaching Rafael Campo's What the Body Told to the advanced po people. I am still amazed with this book--what he says AND how he says it, and how he uses received forms, twisted just a bit to fantastic / fresh effect, that means much to poets. And their readers. And gay physicians from Cuba, I suppose. What a collection....

3) It is insanely gorgeous outside in Lincoln, NE. I walk through my 1-dimensional garden and can see--breathlessly--what it will be like in June. My lord. Being outside today is like really, really, really good....

4) Each year I enjoy this (English nerd I am), and luckily it was forwarded to me by....

The Washington Post's Mensa Invitational once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are this year's winners. Read them carefully. Each is an artificial word with only one letter altered to form a real word. Some are terrificallyinnovative:

1. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
2. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
3. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people, that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The Bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
4. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.
5. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
6. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
7. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
8. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.
9. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
10. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.
11. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
12. Glibido: All talk and no action.
13. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
14. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.
15. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
16. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.
And the pick of the lot:
17. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.