I guess I knew better.
November 2011
7 posts
October 2011
9 posts
What's the best thing that's happened to you this week?
I’ve had several super awesome conversations with people so far this week, and really, there’s few things (perhaps nothing) I enjoy more.
Museums are for the Dead
Creation. Birth. Life. Death. Every. Single. Day. This is how the story has gone. No day goes by where you and I do not die. We were dead before we were born, because we were born to the dead, who were born to the dead, who were born to the dead. Because death begets life that is dead from the start. How can the dead come to life again? How can what has passed be renewed?
We’ve become a museum filled with relics of the past, as excavated and elaborate coffins line the halls. No curator can bring this place to life; we need a creator; A fresh breath, a fresh breath, a fresh fire to burn it all down. We like our relics and we clutch them with our death grips and we try to take them out the door with us as the fire consumes. But our corpses are highly flammable, and they yearn to come to life. The dead are alight, but will they be alive?
Recreation, reignition, rebirth is a painful thing, but the real pain is on the one who gives the new life and not the newly born. For how can the dead complain? Are they not already dead? Yes, the dead want to be alive again, and so they begin to listen. A whisper grows. The creator speaks. We come alive, not again, for we were never alive. We come alive, for the first time. When love moves, life begins.
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Earlier this year, Bill DeMain introduced us to 15 Wonderful Words With No English Equivalent. Now that you’ve integrated those into your vocabulary, here are 14 more.
1. Shemomedjamo (Georgian)
You know when you’re really full, but your meal is just so delicious, you can’t stop eating it? The Georgians feel your pain. This word means, “I accidentally ate the whole thing.”
2. Pelinti (Buli, Ghana)
Your friend bites into a piece of piping hot pizza, then opens his mouth and sort of tilts his head around while making an “aaaarrrahh” noise. The Ghanaians have a word for that. More specifically, it means “to move hot food around in your mouth.”
3. Layogenic (Tagalog)
Remember in Clueless when Cher describes someone as “a full-on Monet…from far away, it’s OK, but up close it’s a big old mess”? That’s exactly what this word means.
4. Rhwe (Tsonga, South Africa)
College kids, relax. There’s actually a word for “to sleep on the floor without a mat, while drunk and naked.”
5. Zeg (Georgian)
It means “the day after tomorrow.” Seriously, why don’t we have a word for that in English?
6. Pålegg (Norweigian)
Sandwich Artists unite! The Norwegians have a non-specific descriptor for anything – ham, cheese, jam, Nutella, mustard, herring, pickles, Doritos, you name it – you might consider putting into a sandwich.
7. Lagom (Swedish)
Maybe Goldilocks was Swedish? This slippery little word is hard to define, but means something like, “Not too much, and not too little, but juuuuust right.”
8. Tartle (Scots)
The nearly onomatopoeic word for that panicky hesitation just before you have to introduce someone whose name you can’t quite remember.
9. Koi No Yokan (Japanese)
The sense upon first meeting a person that the two of you are going to fall into love.
10. Mamihlapinatapai (Yaghan language of Tierra del Fuego)
This word captures that special look shared between two people, when both are wishing that the other would do something that they both want, but neither want to do.
11. Fremdschämen (German); Myötähäpeä (Finnish)
The kindler, gentler cousins of Schadenfreude, both these words mean something akin to “vicarious embarrassment.” Or, in other words, that-feeling-you-get-when-you-watch-Meet the Parents.
12. Cafune (Brazilian Portuguese)
Leave it to the Brazilians to come up with a word for “tenderly running your fingers through your lover’s hair.”
13. Greng-jai (Thai)
That feeling you get when you don’t want someone to do something for you because it would be a pain for them.
14. Kaelling (Danish)
You know that woman who stands on her doorstep (or in line at the supermarket, or at the park, or in a restaurant) cursing at her children? The Danes know her, too.
