"RAT is an anagram of ART. Do you think that inspired them, perhaps subconsciously?"

Asks Dr Weevil.

"A weevil is any beetle from the Curculionoidea superfamily. They are usually small, less than 6 millimetres... and herbivorous." Sounds delicious!

Dr Weevil. A nice portmanteau pseudonym. Combines Dr. Evil with our theme-of-the-day: pests.

Let's listen to Tex Ritter and Mantan Moreland:



10 things I judge to be interesting:

1. The term "portmanteau" originated in "Through the Looking-Glass," as Humpty Dumpty explains "Jabberwocky," within which, for example, "slithy" combines "lithe and slimy" and "mimsy" combines "flimsy and miserable." "You see it's like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word." (The word "portmanteau" already meant suitcase.)

2. "Portmanteau" comes from French — combining words for "carry" and "coat" — but the French don't say "portmanteau" to refer to "suitcase words." They say mot-valise — which they came up with by making a literal translation of the English term "suitcase word." That makes "portmanteau" something that's called a "false friend" (a term I did not know).

3. Tex Ritter's real name was Woodward Maurice Ritter. You'd think if he needed a nickname, Woody would have popped up. Think of all the Woodys that that had to stretch to get to "Woody." Woody Allen, for example, was named Allan Stewart Konigsberg. I can't discern how he got to Woody from his Wikipedia entry, which says: "It the age of 17, he legally changed his name to Heywood Allen." That sounds like he was setting up a knock-knock joke: "Heywood who?"

4. Now Woody Guthrie got to Woody quite directly. He was named Woodrow Wilson Guthrie. Born in 1912. You might say: Woodrow Wilson! Woodrow Wilson didn't even become President of the United States until 1913. Yes, but he was Governor of New Jersey. No matter that Woody Guthrie was born in Okemah, Oklahoma. It would be like somebody today living in some state that's not New Jersey naming their new baby Chris Christie Smith or Chris Christie Jones or whatever.

5. Back to Mantan Moreland, the other guy in the Tex Ritter "Boll Weevil" video. Looking at his Wikipedia page, I see he was in a surprising number of movies, including many movies I'd never heard of like "Freckles Comes Home" (1942) and "King of the Zombies" (1941). "He is perhaps best known for his role as chauffeur Birmingham Brown in Monogram's Charlie Chan series. (The lyrics of The Coasters' 1963 song 'Bad Detective' are sung from the first-person perspective of Birmingham Brown, Mantan Moreland's character in the Charlie Chan movie series.)" There's some very heavy racial context here. Spike Lee's movie "Bamboozled" appropriates some things about Moreland. And the Beastie Boys sampled something of his about mashed potatoes, and you can listen to the original (NSFW) here.

6. Moreland "was briefly considered as a possible addition to the Three Stooges when Shemp Howard died in 1955." And he was in the 1957 Broadway stage production of "Waiting For Godot." He played Estragon, the role played by Bert Lahr in the original production of the play.



7. In the "Waiting for Godot" with Moreland, Geoffrey Holder played the character Lucky.



8. You may remember Geoffrey Holder from 1970s-era 7-Up commercials.

9. The New York Dolls recorded "Bad Detective" — replete with the opening notes that you may well recognize as the music that was always used in the past to signify: This is Chinese.

10. Mantan Moreland was known for his "Incomplete Sentences" comic routines. They went like this (from some Charlie Chan movies):

The man who published all those dirty books... and turned down "Lord of the Rings" because he "couldn’t understand a word."

Barney Rosset, of Grove Press and Evergreen Review, dead now at 89.

Besides publishing [Samuel] Beckett, he brought early exposure to European writers like Eugène Ionesco and Jean Genet and gave intellectual ammunition to the New Left by publishing Che Guevara, Ho Chi Minh and “The Autobiography of Malcolm X.”...

He defied censors in the 1960s by publishing D. H. Lawrence’s “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” and Henry Miller’s “Tropic of Cancer," ultimately winning legal victories that opened the door to sexually provocative language and subject matter in literature published in the United States. He did the same thing on movie screens by importing the sexually frank Swedish film “I Am Curious (Yellow).”

Grove Press also published "Naked Lunch" and "The Story of O." And Evergreen Review published Allen Ginsberg's "Howl."

What a great free speech hero! Thanks, Barney! RIP.

"If you have freedom of speech, you have freedom of speech," he said.

"Fatwa banning Muslim women from touching bananas and other penis-shaped foods makes Internet rounds."

"Unconfirmed religious order says the phallic foods may spark sexy thoughts."

Hmmm. Emphasis on "unconfirmed." I don't believe it, and I've passed up on writing about this story because I think propagating rumors about a religion is a very bad practice.

"If women wish to eat these food items, a third party, preferably a male related to them such as their a father or husband, should cut the items into small pieces and serve," the cleric supposedly dictated.

Carrots and zucchinis pose a similar threat, according to the Muslim decree.

I'm writing about this now, not because I want to amuse you — though, admittedly, it's amusing — but because I'm acknowledging that this is now a meme. Memes about religion penetrate deeply. Use protection.

But... why am I resisting this? Phallic symbols are a long — really long — -term topic on this blog. And if the Muslim cleric thinks women ought to refrain from touching carrots, I'd like to caution the men about fingering onion rings. Remember? Old times on the Althouse blog: "Let's take a closer look at Bill's carrot and Hillary's onion ring."

And, by the way, I say that cleric — if he really exists — is bragging: Even a vague reminder of the shape — and size! — of our turgid man-parts sends our women swooning with desire.

ADDED: Literary reference:

He turns, advances to edge of stage, halts, strokes banana, peels it, drops skin at his feet, puts end of banana in his mouth and remains motionless, staring vacuously before him. Finally he bites off the end, turns aside and begins pacing to and fro at edge of stage, in the light, i.e. not more than four or five paces either way, meditatively eating banana. He treads on skin, slips, nearly falls, recovers himself, stoops and peers at skin and finally pushes it, still stooping, with his foot over the edge of the stage into pit. He resumes his pacing, finishes banana, returns to table, sits down, remains a moment motionless, heaves a great sigh, takes keys from his pockets, raises them to his eyes, chooses key, gets up and moves to front of table, unlocks second drawer, takes out a second large banana, peers at it, locks drawer, puts back his keys in his pocket, turns, advances to the edge of stage, halts, strokes banana, peels it, tosses skin into pit, puts an end of banana in his mouth and remains motionless, staring vacuously before him. Finally he has an idea, puts banana in his waistcoat pocket, the end emerging, and goes with all the speed he can muster backstage into darkness. Ten seconds. Loud pop of cork. Fifteen seconds. He comes back into light carrying an old ledger and sits down at table. He lays ledger on table, wipes his mouth, wipes his hands on the front of his waistcoat, brings them smartly together and rubs them....

Good to be back in my den in my old rags. Have just eaten I regret to say three bananas and only with difficulty restrained a fourth. Fatal things for a man with my condition.

"19-year-old man... was buried in sand up to his neck for two hours..."

... after he dug a 7-foot deep hole and — as a joke — jumped into it. It took 60 rescue workers to dig him out.

ADDED: Reminds me of the Beckett play:

Auto-correct hilarity.

The Frisky picked out 10 great examples from Damn You Auto Correct. (Via Instapundit.) They had me screaming in hysterics with tears running down my face.

Looking to extend my hysteria, I went to the source blog (Damn You Auto Correct) and got pulled into a somber reverie by this one, where the question "How jealous are you?!" brings the response "Spool!" That was supposed to be "soooo!" The texters both hope that "Spool!" will become a new exclamation.

All I can say is: "Krapp's Last Tape"!

Our beer taste test.

We're comparing:

1. St. Bernardus Abt 12, our classic favorite over the last year.

2. Trappistes Rochefort 10, the new upstart. New for us.

I tasted blind. Meade, having set up the test, was non-blind. Meade picked the St. Bernardus. I favored the Trappistes Rochefort, for its fascinating extra dimension of flavor. It's been made by monks at he Abbey of Notre-Dame de Saint-Rémy since 1595. "There are approximately 15 monks resident at the monastery. The monks are very secretive about the brewing process, and the brewery is not open to the public...." Good work, secretive monks! "[T]he beer is only sold in order to financially support the monastery and some other good causes." Well, then! I feel like a real humanitarian.

***

And no jokes, please, about us (or me) being blind drunk. We attended a play last night, and, in that play, blindness was batted about:

I am blind.

Perhaps he can see into the future.... 

I woke up one fine day as blind as Fortune. Sometimes I wonder if I'm not still asleep.

And when was that?

I don't know.

But no later than yesterday—

Don't question me! The blind have no notion of time. The things of time are hidden from them too.

Well, just fancy that! I could have sworn it was just the opposite....

Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed time! It's abominable! When! When! One day, is that not enough for you, one day he went dumb, one day I went blind, one day we'll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second, is that not enough for you? They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more.

"... concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown in spite of the strides of physical culture the practice of sports such as tennis football running cycling swimming..."

"... flying floating riding gliding conating camogie skating tennis of all kinds dying flying sports of all sorts autumn summer winter winter tennis of all kinds hockey of all sorts penicillin and succedanea in a word I resume flying gliding golf over nine and eighteen holes tennis of all sorts in a word for reasons unknown in Feckham Peckham Fulham Clapham namely concurrently simultaneously...."

We got [l]ucky and went to the theater last night. Waiting for the show to begin, we ate popsicles on the patio, overlooking the woods...



... and Meade saved me from a tick.

Later, the next morning, we reminisced and danced The Net. You know the new dance craze, The Net? You dance as if you are entangled in a net.

Why are so many Democrats still doubting Obama?

What does he need to do to close the deal?

IN THE COMMENTS:

1. Some people want me to answer the question for myself, but have you forgotten that I've taken a vow of cruel neutrality? Obama is not the one to close the deal with me. The grand force of time will close it. One way of the other.

2. Ricpic says something that makes me propose a "Waiting for Godot" parody contest.

"Samuel Beckett, not known for displays of strong feeling, cried his eyes out over 'Effi Briest.'"

The 5 best books about marriage. "Anna Karenina" and "Madame Bovary" don't make this list, but don't complain unless you've read these 5, which of course, you haven't.

Those "Germanic compounds."

John Updike has a nice, long review of Jed Perl's "New Art City."

The thesis of the book, to be blunt about it, is that art in Manhattan passed in midcentury and beyond from the nighttime creations of existential, heroic, romantic, art-history-minded revolutionaries hardened in the 30's to the daytime works of empirical, eclectic, unheroic, relatively theory-free individualists who had ripened in the shadow of the action-painting giants.

I want to break out a criticism of Perl's writing:

In his commendable desire to stretch the language of visual perception and philosophical understanding, Perl coins compound adjectives as if hyphens were snowing upon his word processor. We have: "the individual's at-an-angle relationship with society," "go-with-the-flow neighbors," "an increasingly knit-together, everything-is-one-thing, homogenous character," "knock-you-in-your-teeth actualities," "the wacky-bleak fascination of a play by Samuel Beckett," "this everything-becoming-something-else moment," "more-than-material yet grounded in the materials of art," "the whatever-happens-happens nihilism," "Ashbery's go-with-what-amuses-you attitude," and "the stark, nobody-knows-you-when-you're-down-and-out decrepitude." Some of these Germanic compounds, like "at-an-angle" and "go-with-the-flow," are handy enough to be used more than once, but they are, along with stretch adverbs like "amazingly," "infinitely" and "immensely," and such tenuous concepts as "everydayness," "brownishness" and an "ordinariness" that "melts into the silveriness of the images," symptomatic of the stresses placed on the vocabulary of those who would write about art.

I must say I love "Germanic compounds" -- when they are properly expressive. I see Updike uses them himself -- e.g., "art-history-minded" -- and doesn't seem all that critical of Perl for writing like that. It gives me the feeling of someone talking excitedly about specific ideas that have just formed in his head -- when it's done well.

Small and large falls.

Today, I was struggling to drag out the gigantic, three-paneled whiteboard contraption in my classroom when the handle came off, and I fell on the floor right in front of fifty students. The class was Constitutional Law, and the subject of the day was the Watergate Tapes case. Thematic unity: my humiliating and idiotic, little fall and Nixon's far grander and far more painful fall.

Speaking of Nixon, here's a nice Criterion Collection DVD of "Secret Honor," Robert Altman's film with Philip Baker Hall playing Nixon. We see the fictionalized Nixon in his study, mulling and raging over his downfall. The DVD includes a lot of archival footage of Nixon speeches, including the meandering, overemotional farewell speech he made to the White House staff on the day he resigned.

I would double-feature this with Atom Egoyan's short film (in this set) of the Samuel Beckett play "Krapp's Last Tape." This has John Hurt monologuing and agonizing over the past while playing audiotapes. I assume "Secret Honor" was inspired by "Krapp's Last Tape" -- Krapp is uncannily Nixon-like. Both actors -- Philip Baker Hall and John Hurt -- do a phenomenal job in a part that is entirely about an old man alone in his room, remembering and suffering, ridiculously and tragically.

But don't watch "Krapp's Last Tape" on Valentine's Day, not unless you want to feel the horrible pain of passing up the love of your life. Which reminds me, as I write about falling: the best falling for Valentine's Day is falling in love. Not falling splat on the floor as you lose a struggle with an oversized whiteboard on which you were hoping scrawl things like "sensitive national security secrets" as you expatiated about United States v. Nixon.

UPDATE: This brought some email.

I'm very sorry about your fall! Did any of your students come to your aid, and treat it as a situation in which real injury could have occurred?

Thanks. I'm fine. A student did come help me up, and no one laughed, even though I'm sure I looked quite ridiculous. It's quite incongruous for the teacher to fall down. But it's not the kind of incongruity that provokes laughter. I saw it happen once in law school, so I know what it's like from their perspective.

I vaguely remember a comedy show where it has Nixon and...Dean?... and they're reminiscing about what was actually going on during the infamous recorded conversations. The two are shown joking around, mooning the "hidden" microphone, covering it up to make wisecracks about other cabinet members... I didn't really get it, because I think I was about six and barely knew who the President was at the time (Reagan), but my parents thought it was funny. Any idea what show that was?

You saw a rerun of this old episode of "Saturday Night Live" with the great Dan Aykroyd interpretation of Nixon and the great John Belushi playing Kissinger. Here's a photo of how they looked in this skit that was based on the scenes of Nixon and Kissinger portrayed in "The Final Days." In the skit, Nixon and Kissinger were talking about how all the bad things on the Watergate tapes were just jokes. We see a flashback of them saying the various damning quotes, but making faces and gestures that showed they were just kidding. But people took it the wrong way, because they only had the cold transcript. Note: that sketch was written by Al Franken.

It's really weird: I remember how I hated Nixon, but I now don't think he was so bad. He was really a moderate in many things and, putting aside his unfortunate paraonoia, was a pretty effective president. When I look at the current political scene with our preacher-in-chief, I feel a definite odd nostalgia for ol' ski-nose.

One of the reasons "Secret Honor" is so affecting is that, with the distance of time, we feel sympathy for the man, especially because we are aware of how Nixon-hating had a lot to do with a very personal reaction to the man. There was a sort of loathing that wasn't about politics, but about the way he looked and spoke and certain personality qualities of the sort that would have made him unpopular even as a child. And the truly challenging thing to think about is how he could have been politically effective if he repelled people on a deep psychic level.

Bush-haters of today might try imagining themselves thirty years in the future, looking back at him as a mere man.