Ten Insults for the Modern Man

1. FRENCHIFY (v)

Definition: 1) To make French in quality or trait 2) To make somewhat effeminate, and 3) To contract a veneral disease (a 19th century slang).

Analysis: We have the English to thank for this word. Most people implicitly understand that it means to become more like the French, but not a lot know the second or the third meaning. We’re still not sure which is more insulting.

Find the rest here. Thanks, Mr. Perlin!

Photo of the Week: Soldier Graffiti

Ali Al Salem, Kuwait, 2006.
Graffiti written by soldiers
on the walls of bathroom stalls.

--once again, via GOOD

William Shatner Finds the Poet in Palin

--via the beatniks at GOOD

P.S. See the OG here. And while you're at it, check out Vanity Fair's masterful remastering.

Bankroll...

Swiss franc

More on currency design, here.

Beer-Fueled Diplomacy

For more than a week a debate on racial profiling has raged in American press quarters. Did police mistreat Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the esteemed Harvard professor, because he's black? Clearly, it's unclear.

And so, in a move promoting both racial harmony and drinking, President Obama has invited his pal Gates and the arresting officer to the White House to share in a cold one and discuss.

It started out as a casual suggestion: three guys working out their differences over a beer. But President Obama's offer to play host to the cop and the professor entangled in a debate over racial profiling now carries the imprimatur of high-level diplomacy.

--via LATimes, on the so-named "Beer Summit"

The Monks Remembered

The Monks, receiving their signature 'do

The Monks were a band of GIs who overstayed in West Germany following their Vietnam-era discharge. They shaved their heads, dressed in robes and made abrasive music that everyone hated (including one of my favorite songs, "I Hate You").

Forty years later, a reissue of their album, Black Monk Time, and the DVD release of the documentary Monks: The Transatlantic Feedback are rescuing the group from obscurity--if only for a time. Their sound was rarely loved.

Their insistent rhythms recalled martial beats and polkas as much as garage rock, and the weirdness quotient was heightened by electric banjo, berserk organ runs, and occasional bursts of feedback guitar. To prove that they meant business, the Monks shaved the top of their heads and performed their songs -- crude diatribes about the Vietnam war, dehumanized society, and love/hate affairs with girls -- in actual monks' clothing.

--via All Music

And from Fresh Air:

The band went on German TV when [Blank Monk Time] came out, and the tape is excruciating: the band does its best, but the kids are utterly confused. The Monks toured, but audiences remained mostly hostile. ... Finally, in September, 1967, the band called it quits. ...

The Monks remained unknown until they were rediscovered during the punk era, although they had influenced some of the later generation of krautrock musicians. Polydor reissued the album, which again didn't sell.

They're up against Lady Gaga now. Hard to imagine the album will sell this time around, either.

Teach Teens How to Drink?

That's one idea from The Atlantic:

High-school seniors tend to hold romantic notions of college life: newfound freedoms, enlightenment, keg-fueled free-for-alls. But the last attraction has lately achieved a new prominence: at one major university, student visits to the emergency room for alcohol-related treatment have increased by 84 percent in the past three years....

So what might states...do differently? They might license 18-year-olds—adults in the eyes of the law—to drink, provided they’ve completed high school, attended an alcohol-education course (that consists of more than temperance lectures and scare tactics), and kept a clean record.... Binge drinking is as serious a crisis today as drunk driving was two decades ago. It’s time we tackled the problem like adults.

The Ghost of Michael Jackson

Oh my!

Photo of the Week: Equine Styling

The work of Sascha Breuer (via TIME).

My Long, Sad Journey to Become an Italian Citizen

I just got this email from the Italian consulate, which never, under any circumstances, ever answers its phone:

With regard to your application to be recognized as an Italian citizen, please be informed that the Italian citizenship is an individual judicial recognition act therefore you will have to apply in person the day we will give you the appointment.

An appointment is scheduled upon receiving the attached form.

Except I already applied. Three years ago.

A Film Festival for the Blind

Check it out. (Hat tip, Keach Hagey)

Back Again

Outline for "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold"

I'm still blogging at Trueslant, but my focus there is mostly Mexico. Here I'll continue posting other things--sometimes about Mexico, and often not.

Today's find is an interview with Gay Talese in the Paris Review. A friend told me about it weeks ago and I finally looked it up. I'm fascinated by process, and Talese is a case study in habit and precision:

INTERVIEWER Do you use notebooks when you are reporting?

TALESE I don’t use notebooks. I use shirt boards.

INTERVIEWER You mean the cardboard from dry-cleaned shirts?

TALESE Exactly. I cut the shirt board into four parts and I cut the corners into round edges, so that they can fit in my pocket. I also use full shirt boards when I’m writing my outlines. I’ve been doing this since the fifties.