alienation of affection

It's a rather poetic term, isn't it?

Alienation of affection?

Did you know it dates to at least the 1800s and is a legal term associated with tort cases involving adultery?

I didn't know that, did you?

Who is doing the alienating?

Who the affecting?

Who is alienated from whom?

From whose affection?

What would "alienation of affectation" mean?

Does alienation of affection therefore result in bonding of disaffection?

Who doesn't feel alienated from affection now and then?

Know what I mean?

How would one insource such outsourcing of affection?

Do you think this is all just fun and games, merely wordplay?

How do you measure alienation?

How do you assess affection?

When do you know you've reached the state of "alienation of affection"?

What's the cure for alienation of affection?

What is this, twenty questions or something?

Are we done here?

It Is written, Or Is It?

Two weeks ago last Saturday -- oh, who cares when it was. Does it matter? So, I'm standing by the doorway inside Chipotle (which nearly everyone pronounces as if it were spelled Chipoltee), on Marshall Street, in Syracuse. I'm observing people accessible and visible on the sidewalk, easily seen through the big plate-glass window comprising the store's facade as they busily stream by. I see this bearded fellow walk by, wearing a Boston Red Sox wool cap. Wait. We both catch each other's eye. Wait. Hold it there a sec. There's that expression "double take." Or, as Merriam-Webster.com puts it:

"a delayed reaction to a surprising or significant situation after an initial failure to notice anything unusual"

Merriam-Webster says the first known use in English was in 1930.

In 2012, we both did a double take. Just like on TV or in the movies.

Stopped in our pedestrian, quotidian tracks.

We each did a take, then stopped, then did another take, maybe even a third and a fourth take.

Then I opened the door and advanced outside.

"Dan?"

"Paul?"

"Paul?"

"Dan?"

We laughed. But, knowing Dan, he was not totally surprised. Knowing me, I was not totally surprised. Yes, we were in Syracuse, but Dan lives in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. We see each other maybe once a year, maybe once every few years. We've gone stretches of hardly having any contact for -- what? -- a decade? So, the coolest thing is we were surprised but not surprised. Dan, knowing me, and vice versa, admits of such providential possibilities. And vice versa. (There's an expression: vice versa. Why isn't there an expression "virtue versa"?)

In the movie "Lawrence of Arabia," if I recall correctly, Lawrence says to one of the Arab tribal leaders: "It is written." Wait. Wouldn't it make more sense if someone said it to T.E. Lawrence? "It is written." By whom? And is it? If I remember the movie correctly, Lawrence ends up thinking nothing is written.

For reasons I find hard to explain, the phrase "it is written" resonates with me more readily than "it is God's will" or "God has a plan for us" or "God has a plan for me." And yet. Why? One sounds more mystical? Or mysterious? Or more respectful of free will? Can't explain that.

And yet.

So, was this written? Or pure coincidence?

And does it matter?

Why?

Or why not?

killing me unsoftly

This is not an insensitive rant. It offers no disrespect to victims of violence. It's a semantic commentary, a diatribe on diction. A reflection on language. In the last few days on TV or radio news reports I've been hearing the phrases "brutally murdered" or "brutally beaten." Really? Would it be "kindly murdered"? Or "gently beaten"? I don't think so. I don't think the phrase "killing with kindness" is meant to summon those meanings. And I don't think those who utter such phrases do so with Shakespearean irony, as when Hamlet has some wordplay over the murder of his father (if I recall rightly): "a little more than kin, and less than kind."

risk-free questions! now! join the millions who...

"Try Smarmy absolutely risk-free."

"And now FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY you too can try Smarmy at no risk."

1. Risk, to whom? You? Or me?
2. What kind of risk? Medical? Financial? Moral?
3. What is "risk"?
4. Why should I believe your "risk-free" claim?
5. Doesn't everything have some risk potential, including reading THIS?
6. Isn't all time "limited"?
7. What is the limit of your time?
8. What is the limit of your space?
9. Is poetry risk-free?
10. Would you mind if I dehyphenate risk free?
11. If you concede risk is not "absolutely free," then what is its cost?
12. What is the best currency to use when paying for the cost of risk?
13. Do you get irritated and sore with me when I drivel on like this?
14. Do my interrogatives put you at the risk of losing your composure?
15. Are you one of the millions, or one of the few, the proud?
16. Am I the only one whose ears prick upward, like a dog's, at the sound of "risk-free"?
17. Are any of our politicians risk-free?
18. Is that what got us into this pickle, expecting our so-called leaders to guide through so-called risk-free times?
19. Who is doing the calling when something is "so-called"?
20. Who is doing the answering to these twenty questions?
    

insourcing

You are hearing it here first: "insourcing" will be the word of the year for 2012. If that prediction turns out to be correct, the dotted red line I am seeing under the word insourcing as I compose this blog post, indicating a strange word or a misspelling, will disappear into the cyber-ether because the word will have entered the realm of Common Parlance. I'm hearing insourcing a lot. (For me, "a lot" totals one or two times, on an NPR report.) (Notice, my self-appointed style guide calls for initial quotes, and then no more quotes after the word's first instance. Also note that I've zoomed through the lexicographical journey of two words to hyphen to one word solid.) Insourcing sounds suspiciously like one of those words used by corporate managers or HR people to assuage their guilt for sending American jobs to India, Bhutan, or Burkina Faso. Insourcing says, "Out with outsourcing and in with insourcing, comrades! You have nothing to lose but your prefix! [Or your prix fixe!]) Insourcing is the bright and shiny bauble intimating the bubbling and simmering of a new economic stew, that will come to a tasty and nutritious boil just before Election Day, sending Barack Obama to a second term and totally grouchifying wealthy, white-shirt, starched Republicans, who have always wanted Obama's doom more than America's boom. Doesn't insourcing sound vaguely derived from the porn industry? "Hey, Mason, let's shoot that scene over! We need way more insourcing, babe!" barks the morose director, somewhere near LA, wearing shades and baring a hairy chest adorned with tacky bling. Insourcing is your brand-new resourcing for 2012. Welcome to the year of insourcing. Insourcing for one and all. Insourcing for you and me and the commonwealth. (Incidentally, "commonwealth" is a great word. But so 1780s. It won't even be in the top ten of the #word_ of_the_year list for 2012. Pity.)

downtown vibe

space

not just a container

but an atmosphere

tone

fabric

pulse

happening

at Jefferson & Salina Streets

#downtown

Syracuse

may it flourish

nurture

grow

seed

bloom

cooking

bought a recipe magazine

then purchased the required ingredients

"special section! 30 entrees in 30 minutes or less" did it for me.

would be 2nd straight day of actually cooking

this could end up being revolutionary

but let's not get carried away

yet