The word texas (tejas, tayshas, texias, thecas?, techan, teysas, techas?)
had wide usage among the Indians of East Texas even before the coming
of the Spanish, whose various transcriptions and interpretations gave
rise to many theories about the meaning. The usual meaning was
"friends," although the Hasinais applied the word to many
groups-including Caddoan-to mean "allies." The Hasinais probably did not
apply the name to themselves as a local group name; they did use the
term, however, as a form of greeting: "Hello, friend."
...
[T]he name Texas, the state motto, "Friendship," carries the original
meaning of the word as used by the Hasinai and their allied tribes, and
the name of the state apparently was derived from the same source.
After recent submarine sightings off Sweden (suspected Russian), leading
some Swedes to demand more vigilance, the Swedish Peace and Arbitration
Society suggested repelling the subs with a sonar system called
“The Singing Sailor” sending the message, “Welcome to Sweden. Gay
since 1944,” which would surely tighten Russian sphincters.
The Local (Stockholm) ------------ Damien's note: Sorry, I couldn't find a photo online of Mr. Gay Sweden 1944.
The semester is drawing to a close and that means papers to grade, finals to prepare and mark and grades to turn in. Add to that my responsibilities with the Kappas and the ongoing mystery about the missing documents ...
Hank/Tag is still living in the guestroom at the apartment. At least I have the fraternity director's suite to retreat to when necessary. But I will lose that at the end of the semester. I just hope Hank is gone before that happens and before Daniel gets back. For everyone's sake. Even the cats are beginning to look haggard. Anyway, still looking forward to the summer break. The daughter of a friend is getting her doctorate in Chicago in a couple of weeks. With luck, Daniel will be back from Durham and we can attend the ceremony together. If I don't get back to you before then, have a good Memorial Day weekend!
1. something that strongly attracts attention by its brilliance, interest, etc.: the cynosureof all eyes. 2. something serving for guidance or direction.
Although that sounds pretty flattering, the word comes from the Greek (via Latin) -- Kynósoura, theconstellationUrsaMinor,equivalenttokynós --dog's(genitiveofkýōn) + ourá-- tail. It refers to Polaris, the brightest star in the constellation. They thought it looked like a dog's tail. (Ever wonder why the Bears -- Ursa major and Ursa minor -- had a long tail?)
Kind of makes you think, huh? Lots of folks who are getting tons of attention are perhaps just the rear end of a dog.
The Lemuralia or Lemuria was a feast in the religion of ancient Rome during which the Romans performed rites to exorcise the malevolent and fearful ghosts of the dead from their homes. The unwholesome specters of the restless dead, called lemures or larvae, were propitiated with offerings of beans. On those days, the Vestals would prepare sacred mola salsa, a salted flour cake, from the first ears of wheat of the season. In the Julian calendar the three days of the feast were May 9, 11, and 13. Ovid notes that at this festival it was the custom to appease or expel the evil spirits by walking barefoot
and throwing black beans over the shoulder at night. It was the head of
the household who was responsible for getting up at midnight and
walking around the house with bare feet throwing out black beans and
repeating the incantation, "I send these; with these beans I redeem me
and mine" (Haec ego mitto; his redimo meque meosque fabis.) nine times. The household would then clash bronze pots while repeating, "Ghosts of my fathers and ancestors, be gone!" nine times.
Because of this annual exorcism of the noxious spirits of the dead, the whole month of May was rendered unlucky for marriages, whence the proverb Mense Maio malae nubent ("They wed ill who wed in May"). ---------------- Damien's note: It is odd that the story of the ghost at the play Sunday night will not go away. Perhaps I need to suggest that President Samiam process barefoot through the library at midnight, tossing black beans over his shoulders. The Kappas would probably be willing to bang on pots for him.
Ricardo Dominguez, associate professor at the University of
California-San Diego, is asking students to pose naked for a final exam
as a “nude/naked gesture,” one of a number of gestures that take place
in his class “Performing for Self.”
Reportedly, the gesture takes place in a dark room lit by candlelight.
In an e-mailed statement, Dominguez says students were “aware from
the start of the class that (the gestures are) a requirement.” He says
that he has taught the class for 11 years without complaint.
“It was clearly outlined in the first class (just like any other
first day where professors go over the syllabus) that the final gesture
would be a ‘naked’ one and what we could expect that day,” Dominguez
says.
Dominguez says he makes this an assignment because nudity has been a core part of performance art since the mid-20th century.
“The core canvas for many performance artists has been, and continues
to be, the nude or naked body,” Dominguez says. “If students are to
learn about performance art as practitioners, this history of the medium
is crucial for them to experience.”
While the gestures are necessary to complete the course, getting
completely naked wasn’t the only way to pass. Students learn they can do
the gesture in a number of ways without having to remove their clothes.
“One can ‘be’ nude while being covered,” Jordan Crandall, chairman of the university’s visual art department, says via e-mail.
Crandall adds, “the ambiguity around the question of ‘nudity’ and
‘nakedness’ is intentional. It is intended to be provocative, to raise
issues. That is what performance art does.”
The final assignment has gained some negative attention from current students in the course.
However, Shanise Mok, a former student who took the course in 2012,
says the gesture allowed her to “challenge (herself) intellectually.”
“We were not ‘forced’ to do anything,” Mok says. “I was only…forced
to think about how I can take my own art to another level. We all had
the choice to drop or to find our own creative way to meet the nude or
naked prompt as artists should.”
Crandall says the class is an “extremely successful one” in the visual arts department.
For students that feel uncomfortable with the assignment or feel the
gesture “will be too hard for them to do,” Dominguez says. But they can
drop the class since it’s not a degree requirement.
Dominguez adds, however, that he usually helps students throughout the assignment.
“I have always been willing to work with students to help them
navigate the process, during my office hours and in the context of the
class,” Dominguez says. “Our advising team is also very willing to
discuss the options for doing the performance without having to be
actually nude or naked.”
While some students are against the gesture, Mok says she’s glad she
took the course and that her classmates and professor made it a
welcoming place.
“I personally feel strongly about making the human body an okay thing
to talk about,” Mok says. “We all have a body — nipples, butts and
pubic hair in all their glory — and it doesn’t need to be sexualized by
the news – which is why artists step in to desexualize it and turn the
human body into something we can love and appreciate as an art form.”
Former Virginia state Delegate Joseph Morrissey, already scheduled for
trial for submitting false documents in one case, was foiled in March
qualifying for a state Senate primary because 750 of the 972 voter
signatures he submitted were found to be bogus. (Morrissey was sworn in
as Delegate in January while wearing an ankle monitor as part of his
sentence for having sex with an underage girl, but resigned to run for
the Senate.)
Well, the final performance of The Charter -- that was the name of the play, not sure if I ever mentioned that -- turned out to be quite a show. But not in the way anticipated. The play itself went off okay. But that was not the real drama of the night. As the audience was making its way up from the lower level of the library where the play had been staged, lights suddenly went out. There was a sound of shattering glass accompanied by a few gratuitous screams. The Kappas who had been assigned to help the library security shone flashlights and ordered everyone not to move until the power could be restored.
It only took a couple of minutes to get the lights back. Long story short: a specially constructed display case containing two important historical documents belonging to the City of Barona, documents that were the inspiration for Hank's play, had been broken into and the documents stolen. Missing, at any rate. At this point, that's about all I know. There are all sorts of wild stories about who took the papers and why.
The Kappas could talk of little else this morning at breakfast naturally. They reported that Hank had been regaling Chief Doyle, head of the campus police, with stories about ghosts while the mayor of Barona gesticulated and percolated in the background. But there is no need to burden you with their fancies or Hank's. If, however, anyone offers to sell you a town charter signed by Abraham Lincoln, let us know, will you? Meanwhile, it looks like Hank will be hanging around for a while and that my confident predictions that this would all be over last night were too sanguine.
My parents had a book of poems that I loved to read as a child. It was a collection called The Best-Loved Poems of the American People. As an academic, I note that it did not call it the best American poetry.
Memorization came easy to me, and poems are easier to memorize than prose. One of the bits of doggerel I recall went something like this:
The optimist fell ten stories,
And at each window bar
he shouted to his friends,
"Doing all right so far!"
That is a bit the way it feels with the play. It is ... okay. No disasters ... yet.
As I predicted, the local audience is pleased with it because of its local setting. The Pulitzer Prize committee, on the other hand, need not worry about wasting any time with it. Friday's performance was fairly smooth, tonight's even more so after the small cast got over opening night jitters. Hank/Tag is torn between authorial pride and superstitious dread of something going wrong. Tomorrow (Sunday) there is an afternoon performance and then the evening show will be the end of it all.
Keep your fingers crossed!
PS -- One other poem, or part of a poem, I remember vaguely from the book was about dried apple pies:
I loathe, abhor, detest, despise
Abominate dried-apple pies...
Tread on my corns, or tell me lies,
But don't pass me dried-apple pies.
I liked this because of the language. Actually I was quite fond of dried apple pies.
Approved by the Texas House and Senate, the bill banning fracking bans is expected to be signed by Governor Greg Abbott. Photo credit: Shutterstock
In response, citizens banded together to form Frack Free Denton to fight for home rule. The group has put together a powerful film, which premieres on Friday, documenting their fight to ban fracking within city limits in the heart of oil and gas country. The vote comes despite recent findings by a team of researchers from Southern Methodist University that linked the earthquakes in one area of Texas, which did not have earthquakes prior to the fracking boom. Marketplace′s Kai Ryssdal and Scott Trang discuss Texas’s
ban and other states considering similar bills. “The bill would provide
what’s called state preemption and that is state law here would trump
anything that local jurisdictions, cities and towns pass,” says Trang.
A similar bill, in Oklahoma, passed one chamber. “The sponsor of that
bill said he wants to ‘get ahead of what we’re seeing in other
states,'” reports Trang. Ryssdal asks if there is a group connecting all these state lawmakers. Trang’s response? You guessed it: ALEC.
The play is coming up at the end of the week. It opens Friday night and there will be performances Saturday night, Sunday afternoon and Sunday night. Tag is in full drama-queen mode, and that has a lot of the Kappas on vibrate. Bobby Dunn in particular is very jumpy and so is Chuck Willoughby. Bobby I can understand, since this is his brainchild to save the fraternity's charter and finances in one fell swoop. Chuck is a drama major, a drama princess at the moment. He is not in the play although he tried hard to get a role. (Don't ask!)
The play is okay, I guess. It is one of those local history things that everyone in town will come to see and that no one else would drive ten miles to see. I'm no drama critic, but it plays exactly like what it is -- a project done for the partial fulfillment of requirements for a Masters in Fine Arts. Tag creates more drama around himself on a daily basis than he did in the play.
Don't ask! But you didn't hear that from me. I'm just trying to keep him on track for a few more days. Well, after next weekend, we can all breathe a sigh of relief and turn our attention to finals. At least I will. I doubt the Kappas plan to do any such thing.
In the Julian calendar the three days of the feast were May 9, 11, and 13. Ovid notes that at this festival it was the custom to appease or expel the evil spirits by walking barefoot
and throwing black beans over the shoulder at night. It was the head of
the household who was responsible for getting up at midnight and
walking around the house with bare feet throwing out black beans and
repeating the incantation, "I send these; with these beans I redeem me
and mine" (Haec ego mitto; his redimo meque meosque fabis.) nine times. The household would then clash bronze pots while repeating, "Ghosts of my fathers and ancestors, be gone!" nine times.
My parents had a book of poems that I loved to read as a child. It was a collection called The Best-Loved Poems of the American People. As an academic, I note that it did not call it the best American poetry.
