Chrisonomicon
Journal & Weblog Write to Save Your Life April 18, 2003

Wordlog

steatopygia
Anthropology: The condition of having large deposits of fat on the buttocks, as in Hottentot and Bushmen women. The stylized steatopygia of an Upper Paleolithic statuette found in southern Europe indicates the possbility that this present-day Capoid specialty may have been commoner in Caucasoids at this early period. Derived from Greek stear, steatos, fat, and pyge, buttocks. (In other words, "baby got back").
(Language of the Specialists)

imprecate
to invoke evil or utter curses on
(Merriam-Webster Online)

calumniate
to utter maliciously false statements, charges, or imputations about
(Merriam-Webster Online)

 
Booklog

Coin Locker Babies by Ryu Murakam
The woman pushed on the baby's stomach and sucked its penis into her mouth; it was thinner than the American menthols she smoked and a bit slimy, like raw fish.

Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges
In 1517, Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, feeling great pity for the Indians who grew worn and lean in the drudging infernos of the Antillean gold mines, proposed to Emperor Charles V that Negroes be brought to the isles of the Caribbean, so that they might grow worn and lean in the drudging infernos of the Antillean gold mines.

Finished

 
Howard Dean for President, 2004

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"Daypop Word Burst: Oulipo"
posted Friday, February 28, 2003:

I'll play along: Oulipo.

Apparently this whole thing started when Jim Flanagan made a connection between a talk given by Sun Microsystems' Guy Steele and a group of French artists (for some reason, the description of the group's founding reminded me of the rules of Fight Club). I'd say that Steele's paper is less artistic wordplay and more a systematic approach to semantics, however. (It's very similar to FORTH, a programming language that relies heavily on defining new words based on previously defined words, creating a pretty compact application that basically folds in on itself.) Neat stuff, though. Writing an entry using only one vowel (With nihilistic insight, I, Chris, will pimp this minxish gimmick) or other similar system of rules seems like a good exercise for creativity.

Oulipo meme success can be verified at Daypop. «

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