adoxograph's New Writeups

cardigan (thing)

2001-01-05T04:18:15Z

Cardigans are, in fact, named for the seventh Earl of Cardigan, James Thomas Brudenell. This particular Earl of Cardigan is also the Earl of Cardigan who lead the Charge of the Light Brigade during the Crimean War,memorialized in the poem by Tennyson, but the man himself, one of the charge's few survivors, is mostly remembered for his choice of sweaters.

hurple (thing)

2000-12-20T04:55:18Z

A verb meaning to hunch one's shoulders, scrunch down one's neck and shiver, vainly trying to make one's self as small as possible while walking through the cold without one's long underwear. Easily spotted in Chicago and surrounding environs. I hurple. You hurple. That funny-looking guy in the business suit without a coat looking for a taxi in December is hurpling.

Scaramouch (idea)

2000-12-20T04:11:35Z

Tiberio "Scaramouch" Fiurelli was an Italian posture-master, a man who performed feats of agility in the 17th century. However, his name became associated with braggarts and fools and men who were valiant by word only. Makes you wonder exactly how good he was at his job, eh?

Those Queen lyrics make so much more sense now.

Sam Pickering (person)

2000-12-14T15:20:59Z

A professor at the University of Connecticut. He taught children's literature and nature writing at 8 and 9 in the morning, Monday, Wednesday and Friday because he figured the early hour would frighten off students that weren't serious about the classes. Given the nature of the University while I was there, he was pretty much correct in his reasoning. He received a certain amount of notoriety for some time because the gentleman who wrote the movie Dead Poet's Society based Robin Williams's character on Professor Pickering. Professor Pickering wouldn't mention it, but he did have a shirt on it that said Carpe Diem.

Persoanlly, I think I caught him on a bad year. his classes were mis-scheduled, far more than he would usually permit, and anyone who reads from his own work as inspiration for his class doesn't quite sit right with me.

The most memorable moment I had was when showing my little sister, a junior in high school at the time, why she shouldn't go to…

Driving on the Kennedy in a blizzard (idea)

2000-12-11T20:09:14Z

I should have left last night. I should have followed through on my plan to go to the grocery store at 3 am to see if they were out of milk and bread, but not flour and yeast and all the other things that you can use to make bread. Instead, nestled under blankets, contentment tucked under my chin to keep out cold breezes, I went to sleep.

As a result, I find myself on the Kennedy Expressway, the merging of routes I-90 and I-94 into and out of Chicago, in a blizzard. I'm driving like a Sunday driver, 35 miles an hour, and thanking whatever patron saint there is for safe travel every time we have to pause for whatever. Each time we pass an accident, I tell myself not to look. Just get home, just get home.

A van from New York passes me, and as the driver changes lanes, a beautiful spraying wake of slush arcs over two lanes of traffic to splatter across my windshield, blinding me. As the wipers restore my sight, I read on the back of the van the business…

corset (thing)

2000-11-28T18:59:00Z

One of the earliest known examples of a corset appeared on a sculpture of a snake goddess from Crete. The sculpture dates from about 2000 B.C. and depicts a laced structure that, while leaving the breasts bare, pushed them up and out.

Amazing how things can (not) change in 4000 years, eh?