Brain Farts

January 14, 2009

What do you get if you dry grapefruit? Raisinfruit?

Invention Idea #2017:

It's a trampoline. It's a shelter. It's a . . . Trampo-lean-to!

I make; I made.
I wake; I wade.
Right?

I take; I took.
I bake; I book.
Damn.

I've just learned that there's plant called Euonymus. Good name, eh?

Baby gnus are known as calves. What do you call old gnus?

Find, found. Bind, bound. Grind, ground. Mind, mound. Yes?

I'm still learning English.

A tuba player is a tubist. So someone from Cuba is a Cubist, right?

I've been having toe woes. Are ingrown toenails something one can outgrow?

What would you a call a person from a place named Peanut Butte?

There's a trailhead in Glacier National Park called Goat Haunt. Now that I've seen my first mountains goats since moving to Montana in July, I'm ready to go taunt a goat at Goat Haunt.

Bearded Barbie just makes sense, no?

In Minneapolis one can stand at the corner of 5th and 5th, while a friend who stands at the corner of a different 5th and 5th wonders why you haven't shown up as arranged.

Some alternative state mottoes:

Alas, alack, Alaska.
I came, I saw, Idaho.
Missouri loves company.

My grandma had so many knickknacks. She was a staunch tchotcke-ite.

Why is it called research when you're doing it for the first time?

What if you were to teach a pair of short classes on how to wear ballet dresses to a South African Nobel Peace Prize winner? You'd be teaching two tutu tutorials to Tutu.

Is today yestermorrow?

If mal is bad, then dismal must be good, oui?

Composer John Cage was an amateur mycologist, a real fun guy.

Self-wrongteousness: The unjustifiable feeling of having screwed up badly, especially of screwing up frequently, often accompanied by verbal self-abuse.

Some Irish constellations: Oona Major and Oona Minor, O'Ryan, and the Seven Sisters (Colleen, Caitlin, Erin, Fiona, Maeve, Sinead, and Siobhan).

Hindsight allows one to see into toilets.

For sparrows, talk is cheep.

Every living space should have a breathing room.

Eating porridge is a grueling experience.

Every time I salivate I have this odd urge to ring a bell.

What do you call a compilation of facts about children's feet? A pedopedopedia, no?

Everyone who asks rhetorically, "Too much time on your hands?" doesn't have enough time on their hands.

Imagine a library that has satori time for children.

Soilidarity: Mutual feeling shared by people who get dirty together.

Both of my aunts named Ruth have died. I'm ruthless.

Why doesn't "suburban" mean "beneath the city"?

Why is it called "deodorant" if it smells?

I'm advocating for a new holiday, Ardor Day. On this day everyone celebrates their greatest passion.

Looking at a map of Oklahoma I see a town name: "Manitou" (Great Spirit). Sheesh. Imagine a town named God.

I'm partial to generic raisin bran, although I'll buy the brand name stuff if it's on sale. I have no bran loyalty.

We're all temp workers, really.

Louis Sullivan had an edifice complex.

Why did people come to be named after colors? Gold White Black Brown Green Gray-- all common surnames. Weiss und Schwartz. I even know two Blues and an Orange but I have never heard of anyone named Yellow. Why not? Purple and Red-- these neither. Please explain (or guess).

A Ta'i Chi program on cable TV could be called "The Qi Gong Show."

I walked past my dentist's office yesterday. It was a transcendental experience.

Cigarette brands interest me. I saw an empty packet on the ground recently: Winners. (I swear.) So, how about God cigarettes? They'd have be good, yes? "Holy smokes! God, they're great."

Curiosity knows no "no".

I was raised as part of a family that encouraged humor. You might say I was wry bred.

What's up with street signs that read WATCH OUT FOR CHILDREN? It's adults that cause trouble. Those signs oughta say WATCH OUT FOR ADULTS.

Usually I live in the here and now. But occasionally I visit Sometime Sometime Land.

"It's pi o'clock.' "It's my birthday o'clock." Does anyone else do this?

Pseudonym I'm going to use when I start my next newspaper: Tab Lloyd.

Book title I'm waiting to see: Chicken Soup for the Vegetarian's Soul.

I'm a fool, but I'm a sentientfool.

Protest chant I'm still waiting to hear:

What do we want? Homemade bread!
When do we want it? Now!

My advice is "Don't take my advice."

Is the pope Jewish?

Why does he wear a yarmulke?

"Would you like smoking or non-smoking?"
Both, please.

Not Important + Not Important + Not Important + Not Important = Important

Children's books use large type; academic journals have small print. This is so backwards.

All canyons are grand. "Freeway" is a misnomer.

Thinking about putting together a magazine section on tiny homemade houses. I can see the captions for the photos now: Hut 1, Hut 2....

"False hope" is an oxymoron.

I've designed a new flag for Naples, Italy. It has three vertical bars, one light brown, one white, one pale rose. It's making me hungry.

Bending over to tie my laces recently, I let out an audible exhalation: A sighing of the times.

I'm thinking about converting to secular Judaism.

Arugula! Arugula! That's the sound of automobile horns in Europe, says my pal Sara (who also rightly points out that "disgruntled" sounds as though it should mean its opposite).

Blue cheese. What color does it turn when it goes bad?

An ocean I definitely don�t wish to sail: Mer de Merde.

Some year the Olympics will finally be held in Tucson, Arizona. Then a new track-and-field event will be added: the javelina throw.

The motto of Clearwater Beach, Florida, ought to be these words I saw on a sign in front of a motel there:

NO VACANCY
WELCOME

For a side dish tonight, may I recommend the blackened chard?

If a flashing red light means STOP, what does a flashing green light mean?

Fitting epitaph for a librarian: "YOU'VE GOTTA READ THIS."

What would circadian rhythms sound like if speeded up to 78 r.p.m.?

Decade, shmecade. Century, shmentury. Millennium, shmillennium. Why the big hoopla? It�s all because of what�s on our hands: ten fingers.

Spoor ye shall always have with you.

Yesterday I was morose. Today I'm a little less ose.

D'n certain �ge is getting older every year.

What number do I call to schedule my disappointment?

To carve a bear, cut away everything that is not a bear.
(Tchotchkes for anyone who can supply a source quote.)

"Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder," is one of many curvy-edge tenets.

Only in New Orleans: gumbo machines.

You have two bonbons. I take one away. C'est bon?

A straight-haired person goes to a stylist and gets curly hair temporarily. Why is it called a permanent? Shouldn't it be called a temperament?

Song lyrics can be difficult to decipher. What did Marvin Gaye mean by "sack/shoe/wool healing"?

How come a toothbrush is not called a teethbrush?

My partner and I were engaged in mutual exacerbation the other night. One of us was ranting about the impeachment vote along party lines and how that indicated a total lack of courage and independent thinking. Suddenly it occurred to me that the state mammal of Arkansas is the peccadillo. That's all.

An impetuous response to writings about a rhyme for the word "orange":

Popping bottle's lid from flange,
Beltless, I tied off my arm,
Heated spoon, drew the syringe.

Injecting it, a warm
Flush came; flames of red-orange
Licked my face. No fault; no harm.

Pardon the silence. I've been without eccentricity for a few weeks.

Is there somewhere people go to learn how to be obsequious? There certainly seem to be a lot of smarm school graduates on the loose.

What is it with people who name car models
"Aspire" and "Aspen"? (The latter means "shivering or trembling.") Why not something strong? Say, "Espresso."

And what's with "Dakota" and "Cherokee"? Why not "Mensch"?

I was maybe eight years old. An aunt and uncle I was visiting in Oneonta, New York, knew that I was interested in museums, so they took me to one at Hartwick College there. There were display cases of crafts, probably from indigenous woodland people...and I just happened to be wearing a beaded "Indian" belt which was starting to come unsewn a little bit. The spirit then possessed me to scattered some belt beads onto a locked display case which held beaded items.

...a jokester even then.

At what point does a groove become a rut?

Have you seen the new U.S. commemorative stamp sheet featuring folk musicians? There's Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, Josh White...and a solo Sonny Terry. Hey! What about Brownie McGhee? Sonny and Brownie were a performing and recording duo. This is comparable to choosing Sam but not Dave. MusicHound blues calls Sonny and Brownie "as important a team as Lennon and McCartney were in rock 'n' roll." It's a conspiracy, I'm sure.

The alternative-to-dairy beverage section of my supermarket is growing. No rice drinks, for me, though. If I were marketing a new product I'd call it Yo Soy!

My body is a temple. Specifically, it's the Masonic Temple on the corner of 38th and 4th Avenue: a little rundown, but still going.

What kind of surgeon does it take to remove a spiritual growth?

I'm mortified, having confused "peccary" with "pessary." At least I didn't do it in polite company.

How about beer jello? If you like Belgian beer, such as cherry lambic, try preparing cherry gelatin using a cheap lager instead of water. For more robust taste, use cream stout (e.g. Mackeson XXX) instead. For a one-dish meal: beer jello with diced wienies. Mmmmm!

Pushed over the edge by JoAnna M. Lund's ostensibly serious Cooking healthy with the kids in mind: a healthy exchanges cook book (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1998) which includes recipes for cream cheese and peanut sandwiches, green bean pie, jello salads, "tuna krispie bake," macaroni and cheese with frankfurters, "creamy franks and rice," root beer float pudding, and "Baby Ruthy Delites."

Exercise equipment has gotten so high tech. What I wanna know is, why not exercise machines which simulate doing hand laundry, shoveling snow, ironing, digging a garden, and vacuuming? To flip it around, why not real washtubs, shovels, irons, spades, and vacuums which have mini-computers analyzing elapsed time, rate of stroke, heart rate, etc. It's not like I'm losing sleep over these things... This occurred to me while I was on a treadmill.

Email: stlibrarian at yahoo.com