Curious Spuriosities

Intercourse, PA: What the @#$%#?

How quaint. And to find it in the middle of Amish country is even quainter.

Intercourse, PA

Don't ask me how it got that name.

Don't ask me what was wrong with "Cross Keys".

And don't ask me to make up any double entendres. That would be an exercise in superfluity.

Oh Say Can You See...

The Bar-strangled Spanner?

Good fences make good neighbours

Good fences make good neighbours
Originally uploaded by baabuzz.

One fine morning in the Scottish Highlands

One fine morning in the Scottish Highlands
Originally uploaded by baabuzz.

Muff, County Donegal, Ireland

       
Originally uploaded by baabuzz.

Located in a narrow delta-shaped inlet just south of a large wooded area in Ireland's County Donegal is the warm and welcoming town of Muff.

Not featured in many travel guides, Muff might be hard to locate at first. I know -- I took a couple of wrong turns and went up a couple of blind alleys before finding my way in myself. The locals assure me that once you're familiar with the geography, you'll be able to slip in and out of Muff with ease.

       
Muff's climate is especially inviting: warm and moist for most of the year -- making it a haven for watersports, especially diving. So bring your snorkel!

And when you finally come up for air and are feeling like a nibble, Muff also boasts excellent seafood from its bountiful estuarine location. Its famed clams are a real treat, (although beware of the crabs as they are likely to be imported rather than sourced locally). And if it's wild game you're seeking, try the hare pie. Even fast-foodies won't be disappointed with big juicy burgers on the menu.

       
So, when you're next in Ireland -- head down to Muff. You're sure to find yourself agreeing with the locals when they say, "once in Muff is never enough".

Florence: musings from a Renaissance Man

By the time I hit Florence, I reckon I'd just about seen the greatest hits collection from the brush tips of the Renaissance masters, only to discover the richest treasure trove yet in the Uffizi Gallery

Now, I fancy myself as a bit of a Renaissance Man -- albeit only because I like wearing tights, playing the lute and discussing the polemics of bad Dan Brown novels -- so I feel somewhat in a position of authority to dole out my deeply considered opinions on the finer points of post-dark ages art and culture. Firstly an overview, painted in broad brushstrokes, if you will, and secondly a wrap up of all the big hitters in the painting and sculpture caper.

Renaissance Art:
Virgins : what is it with painters and virgins? I'm up to here with 'em, let me tell you. I reckon I've seen enough Madonnas to fill a convent! And all she does is sit there smiling serenely, bouncing the little holy bubsy on her knee. I've had a quick browse through the Good Book, and for mine there are dozens more interesting shielas in there to cover the canvasses. For starters, where are all the Jezebels, Bathshebas and Delilahs? Give me a slyly seductive Queen of Sheba on a leopard skin with a little gossamer off-the-shoulder raiment any day.

Holy Infants : Plump, ugly and remarkably well-behaved. I don't know how those medieval painters got him to stay still during the sitting. Not a tantrum, dirty nappy or spat dummy in sight. Probably drugged the poor little mite.

Dead Jesi (I believe this is the correct plural) : Jeepers, this pre-occupation with humiliation, flagellation and crucifixion is a bit over the top. For a real rip-snorter, check out Grunewald's classic from the Northern Renaissance.

The Crucifixion

Saint Sebastian : The old gaydar goes into meltdown whenever you get within fifteen foot of one of these things. Now, I know most of your Florentine flourishers were shirt-lifters, but they really went to town on this guy. The all-time gay icon. Enough to beat the trousers of your Davids, Adones or Appollos.

The Big Hitters :
(in strictly Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle order)

Leonardo : What can i say that hasn't been said? A true genius in every field. I even hear he could sing and play the piano as well. A bit like having Wally Lewis, Rod Laver and Don Bradman all rolled into one.

Mona and friends. The Louvre, Paris

Michelangelo : Another true genius. Never did anything by halves. Great, powerful, muscular works. Would have been the Paul Sironen of the marble-chipping league in his day. One small note (and I know I'm splitting hairs here), but for all the hours he spent lovingly carving every little wrinkle in the world's most famous foreskin, did anyone ever bother to tell him that David was Jewish?

David

Donatello : Beautiful, lyrical and sensuous. Certainly wore his homoerotic heart on his puffy, silken sleeve. I reckon if you raided his studio, it'd be choc-a-bloc full of teenage rent boys swanning around semi-naked in thigh-high suede boots and plumed hats.

David

Raphael : I'm going out on a limb here and say this guy is rubbish. Grossly overrated. Certainly doesn't belong in the same pantheon of the guys above. Pitiful colour coordination, lifeless composition and a disturbingly feathery touch with the brush.

Madonna dell Granduca

So if Raphael's out, who's in?
A couple of considerations:

Filippo Lippi : Largely forgotten and totally underrated. Arrived a bit early on the scene, but a true craftsman. Exqusite composition and flawless rendering skills. A deft hand with the old paintbrush. his rendering of the human face and form is without peer.

Madonna and Child with Stories of the Life of St. Anne

Botticelli : You just gotta love that blond chick that keeps popping up in all his paintings. Another one who showed up a bit early in the piece, but certainly pulled the art of painting kicking and screaming out of the dark ages.

Caravaggio: The shadowman of the late Renaissance. Intense, powerful and moody... and I'm not just talking about his oils. Like a good donnybrook, as well as being aprofligate wine soak and a real pants man. Until his untimely end, seemed to keep just one step ahead of the law.

Pieter Brueghel (the Elder) : Ok, a bit of a long shot. A late-comer and a bit north of the border, but I could stare at his genre paintings for hours. Lively, colourful and bursting at the seams with humour and pathos.

The Wedding Feast

So the ball's in your court now -- who else deserves a guernsey in the Renaissance All-Star team?

At first I thought it was a firm that made Italian suppositories

But then I realised that the Italian word for suppository was "innuendo"

Barcelona: Might as well see what's on the telly

If I never see another "living sculpture" in my life, I will die a happy man.

Sample A: Legionaire's Disease

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of buskers and "street entertainment" in general. However, I'm not sure that this fits snugly into that category.

We're going back a few years, but dang it, in my day a modicum -- be it the faintest whiff of a glimmer -- of talent was the general prerequisite for life on the professional entertainment circuit.

Nowadays, in the world's busking centers -- Barcelona, Edinburgh, Montreal, Toowoomba -- A permit is required, guaranteeing you a reserved space on the lucrative, hat-filling footpaths that line the tourist strip. These are selectively apportioned only after a written submission (with video reel), references, monetary deposit and face-to-face interviews. Only the best get through.

So why-oh-fucking-why have the municipal councils of the world given in to these charlatans, these humans-in-statues-clothing who dare to put "entertainer" in the column following "occupation" on their passports?

Bogus Bogart -- No-one's lookin' at you, kid

Where's the talent, ferchrissakes? From my seat in the stands, it looks like all that's required is a rental costume, a can of bronze spray paint, a hat to stick in front of you and an all-abiding urge to do as little as possible.

CleoPRATra, Queen of Denial

Give me your jugglers, your clowns and your puppeteers!
Bring on your fire-eaters, mimes and barber shop quartets!
Huzzah indeed for magicians, ventriloquists and ballon twisters!

But stand in the baking sun watching some prat dressed like the Unknown Soldier do nothing for eight tedious, mind-numbing hours? Not a living hope.

For a station that's right up your alley, tune in to...

Unfortunately, the reception is crap

The Most Beautiful Word?

Thanks to everyone who dropped by with there favourite words. Some real chestnuts there. I think I would just like to roll naked in all them them, but being a high-stakes, winner-takes-all contest, there had to be just one.

THE WINNER
Why, its "haberdashery" of course! A wonderful, quaint, somewhat old-world term to describe the premisis of either a gentlemen´s outfitter or a purveyor of tailoring materials. In the between-war years, no self-respecting department store or high street would have been without one.

And is a lovely, malleable 5-syllable number as well. Special thanks to Dave Whittle down in Sydney for that one. Your drawing is in the mail... and will be posted on this site soon.

THE HONOURABLE MENTIONS
1. The Runners-up.
This was a tough one, beguiled and seduced as I was by (in no particular order):
a) Alabaster (Cindy F)
b) Sizzle (Jo R)
c) Pugnacious (Stevie B)
d) Galumphing (Cindy F)
e) Inperpetuum (Lavina)
f) Gimble (Cindy F)... again!
g) Sylvan (James L)
h) Oblate (John M)
i) Volition (Nicchia S)
j) Lush (Emma S)

2. The "most spurious word" award:
Goes to John Mallen for "cur". We know that your entry was a complete diddle. But we laughed all the same.

3. The "most curious word" award:
Goes to Mark Wiebusch for "crampon". I love 'em when they're loaded with double meanings. And I love 'em even more when those double meanings are vaguely sexual or scatalogical. And I love 'em the most when they actually have utterly mundane, work-a-day meanings.

4. The "why use a one syllable word when there´s an even better 4-syllable one" award:
Goes to my brother Pete for "dirigible". I agree. Blimp just leaves me limp.

5. The "why not go for 7 syllables?" award:
Bill Lindsay's hierarchy-topping "plenipotentiary". I want that on my business card.

6. The "innaugural Rex Mossop matching trophy and barbeque set for the most visceral word" award:
I couldn't go past Pete Wildemuth's, gloriously bone-rattling "Sironen". Especially when bellowed at full volume with a hearty chuckle beforehand, and delivered at the moment he pounds those mighty knees and busts through the first line of defenders... There should be a Sironen class of Tank or armour-shredding missile or brand of wrecking ball.

7. The "effective invective" award
Though outside the bounds of the orginal terms and conditions, "fuckwit" does the trick every time, without a hint of a shadow of a doubt. Thanks Mallen.

8. Most "eliocephalocratic attempt at a word" award.
Despite the competition having nothing to due with expanding the vocubulary, I dips me lid to "eliocephalocratic", even if my equally eliocephalocratic brother James did invent it.

9. The "best almost-a-word word" award:
Harley Sparke for "enanthema". Is it an athem? Or an enema? Or an anthem to an enema? Or is such analysis completey anathema to the purpose of this contest?

10. The "Why don't we have that in English?" award
I tried to keep it all within the already burgeoning confines of the Englsh language. But when a blouse-buster like "soutien-gorge" rears its rather attractive head from the enemy trenches, I say let's take a few prisoners! Thanks Emma.

THE DISHONOURABLE MENTIONS
1. Quite easily, "mucus" (thanks Hugo Byrne) drew the most groans from the crowd. Sometimes the sound and the meaning get inextricably intermingled.

2. Jerry Keim for "arsewipe". Functional, yes. Beautiful, no.

3. Nicchia Schutt for "pedagogy". If it's not already a crime, it should be.

4."Scrofulous" (my brother James again). I don't even want to look that one up.