I'm
watching a one-hour murder mystery on TV, and a new character seems
to appear every few minutes. Later, when a character says
I suspect that Edith had a hand in this, I'm at a
loss. Who's Edith? Is that the mayor's secretary or the
elderly housekeeper? I here highly resolve that in the future,
whenever someone new is introduced I'll write down a name and
description for future reference. Of course we know what happens to resolutions. In preparing episode 14 of season 17 of the Canadian series Murdoch Mysteries, scriptwriter Keri Ferencz tried to make things easier for me. The surnames she gave many of the characters provide hints. The story revolves around bees, which are wingéd and shiny. They're the villains in a horror novel by an author with the unlikely name of Anthony Winghed-Sheen. Anthony is the first suspect when a university dean is stung to death by bees and then burned in a fire. The police talk to a melittologist (a bee expert), Leonard Beezbruch. (The former hockey goalie spelled it the Belgian way, Vanbiesbrouck.) Then they question a fire expert, Demetre LaFlamme, and finally a pretty student, Cornelia Sweet. The latter turns out to be the real culprit, and the scriptwriter makes it clear that Miss Sweet has been overlooked because she's a sweet young girl.
When
she tries to pedal away, the police inspector comically chases her
on a bicycle, accompanied by the music of Rimsky-Korsakov's The
Flight of the Bumblebee.
How do I know that? One of my earliest childhood memories was of a moment at a picnic. Some ice had been discarded and a fuzzy bumblebee had landed on it. I tried to pet it.
DECEMBER
26, 2014 In televising college sports, I often encounter first names, or spellings of first names, that Ive never seen before. For example, on womens basketball teams in the Atlantic Coast Conference, there are players named Aaliyah, Arica, Ataijah, Ayisa, Brielle, Chanelle, Chania, Cortnee, Daneesha, DeAshia, Emiah, Emilee, Emmonnie, Erykah, JaeLisa, Jassany, JKyra, Kaela, Kalia, Karima, Kelila, Keyanna, Keyona, Khadedra, LenNique, Lyneé, MaKayla, Markisha, Millesa, Myisha, Mykia, Necole, Nigia, Nylah, Oderah, Roddreka, Shakayla, Shakena, Shawnta, Shayra, and Xylina among others. Their parents gave them their unusual monikers. When you have several kids and every other family on your block has several kids, you dont want them to bear tired old names like Erica. You need to invent something distinctive like Arica or Erykah.
I think sometimes parents, particularly African-American parents, choose random euphonic syllables and then concatenate them to form a musically pleasing combination. Or they use existing names that fit that pattern. In many cases, its the middle syllable thats accented, as in Natasha and Malia Obama. Mormons from Utah, on the other hand, don't go for poetic-sounding neologisms. They prefer to show how orthographically unconventional they can be. They're too clever, say I. We almost had a President named for a baseball glove. I wrote a little poem imagining what Utah fatherhood might be like, using actual names from a couple of videos (for girls and for boys) that demonstrate LDS nomenclature.
DECEMBER
23, 2024 A peek behind the curtain: Sometimes I draft little essays and file them away for future use. When I need an article for this website, I can pull an item from that file and polish it a bit. But sometimes I fail to remember that I have actually done so and that I have neglected to erase the original item from the file. During 2024, I posted one item about automated customer service on February 28 and again on October 29, and I posted a different item about the dangers of drinking on August 26 and again on November 13. Sorry!
Another
observation of excess: TV live studio audiences have
become unnecessarily rowdy. On December 19, comedian Nate Bargatze hosted a CBS variety hour from the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. One expects musical numbers to be followed by warm applause, but the Tennessee fans repeatedly leaped to their feet, even rising for a standing ovation during a song. I thought the performances were fine but hardly worthy of such unrestrained celebration, which I find distracting. Two nights later, NBC aired the final Saturday Night Live of 2024. Seated in a leather chair, Tom Hanks began the cold open with the word Hello. As soon as his image appeared on the monitors, rapturous screaming and hollering began. It persisted for 22 seconds, and he had to raise a hand for silence twice before he was able to continue. More former hosts came to the stage and were greeted with the same enthusiasm. The constant interruptions disrupted the pace, stretching what I'm guessing was a six-minute script into more than nine minutes. Eventually there were 11 folks on stage to proclaim, Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!
Later,
when Weekend Update mentioned popular murderer Luigi Mangione, there
was similar loud cheering and clapping. I was brought up to keep respectful silence even between movements of a symphony. I prefer to listen to the performers rather than to the audience.
When I look outside the window, first it's night, then evening, then it's night again. That's what Aleksei Navalny wrote last year. He never saw the spring, mysteriously dying on February 16, 2024.
DECEMBER
18, 2024 Astrologers carefully study the night sky.
So
do their modern counterparts: astronomers. This fall,
the latter predicted a 95% chance that a faint star called T Coronae
Borealis, normally too faint to see with the naked eye, could go
nova before the end of the year. (It hasn't happened
yet.) The explosion should be the brightest nova, or new
star, since 1975. It will shine for about a week, glowing
as brightly as the north star Polaris. Do changes in the night sky somehow predict events that will happen here on earth? A few astrologers in ancient Babylon thought this was the case. One of those men tells his story in my new article, The Nova.
DECEMBER
15, 2024
But my village of Richwood will have carolers and carriage rides through the park this Thursday, made possible by Pat's Print Shop (above) and VFW Post 870. The Richwood Area Business Association promises, It's going to be a truly magical night.
Is Eric a bearded piano player? Why, yes; yes, he is. But two months ago today, he revealed two other personal characteristics both of which are big parts of who I am, he says. Neither is his Defining Characteristic, but they may be surprising to some of his readers. What are they? Click on Snidely Tweeting 3 if you dare!
DECEMBER
4, 2024
On the radio this morning, the conversation was about toy overabundance. Anytime someone visits, they bring along something for the kid, who plays with it that day. Is it thrown away afterwards? No, it's left within easy reach on the floor. Eventually it finds its way into a leaf-bag of small objects out in the garage, to be discarded after the kid has grown up. (No wonder our oceans are becoming polluted with plastic.)
Last holiday season, NBC aired a live broadcast of The Sound of Music. This year theyre doing Peter Pan. It airs Thursday. Of course, there have been many other versions of Pan over the 110 years since J.M Barrie first wrote a play about Peters adventures in Neverland. I remember especially the 1953 Walt Disney movie.
It was near the end of the last B1G Network football telecast of the regular season. According to the closed captioning, the announcers thanked their replay colleagues who were working in the tapeworm.
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