'era il maschio,' diceva marisa borini.

--giac--

 

three thoughts on turkeyday

1.  'thanksgiving is just a blip between hallowe'en and christmas.'  this comes from a boomer who loves to cook for 10-20 family members at a time.

2.  'isn't it sad that we celebrate thanksgiving by killing turkeys?'  this comes from a barely twenty-something who must've smelled chickpeas on my breath.

3.  'of course mass murder and genocide make it hard for indigenous peoples to celebrate turkeyday.' this comes from a way-cool, possibly now unemployed, presenter on npr at 4:15 turkeyday morning.--giac

Otiosity

Jett,

  Let us begin our trek to an instinctive universal language--would you like to call it Ietspik, after your own name?--with a peep at the station from which we're starting.

  Here is a list meant to wear you down with tedium and dismay.  Supply as the context for one and all this preparatory statement:  'Giac and I discussed ideogrammatika at the coffee-shop, then . . . .'



Giac left

Giac hurried out

Giac walked out

Giac stalked out
Giac strode out

Giac dashed out

Giac sped out

Giac went away

Giac walked away

Giac walked out

Giac departed

Giac skipped

Giac skipped (literally) out

Giac vamoosed

Giac toddled out

Giac sidled out

Giac limped out

Giac ran out

Giac jogged out
Giac fled
Giac slipped out
Giac marched out
Giac waltzed out
Giac flounced out
Giac galumphed out

Giac disappeared

Giac vanished

Giac escaped

Giac crawled away

Giac mounted his high horse and rode off into some imaginary sunset

 

  Well, basta, I quit.  Albeit Shakespeare could've gone on quite some.

  The ideogram that best conveys the information in the preparatory statement is a selfie with GPS, therefore streetview, and time incorporated, with a soundbite involving the word 'rhetorical.' 😉  Follow this by my selfie as the doors close behind me . . . .

  Many of the verbs add a little colour to the story.  But whether I left, walked through the store and out, departed, went through the store and out, vamoosed--somewhere otiosity enters the pictogram, I mean, the picture.  In many verbs, your intuitive, speculative, interpretation of my mood colours the picture.  Even if I limped out, why mention it unless you personally sprained my ankle during the discussion?

  O how I love to talk piffle, o how I agree with Harriet Vane.  O how I love to play with my words before I let them mean anything.

  O how I love to quote Umberto Eco: 'Un libro è fatto di segni che parlano di altri segni, i quali a loro volta parlano delle cose.'  But you and I and Plato and Stephen Hawking know better when it comes to those squirrelly 'cose.'

  Ietspik is not an attack on Shakespeare.  Ietspik, instinctive and intuitive language, begins by stripping the cultural accretions to bare reportage.  Ietspik, unlike Esperanto, is equal opportunity.  The Mandarin, the Maori, the Quechua, the Brit and Frenchy have equal possibility of understanding it at first sight: 

                                                                                          

 🚶   →

           ← 

 

  Capito?  Your very first sentence in Ietspik.--Giac

 

Lingua Uniuersalis

Jett,

  Sì sì, oc oc, once upon a time there was a Universal Language, every educated person read it, most wrote and spoke it.  It lasted 2 millennia, indeed, it gave us the word 'millennium' and its exotic plural.

  Every educated person, I mean to say, who wasn't educated in China, India, practically all of Asia, all of Australia and Antarctica, all but the top fringe of Africa, not to mention North, Central, and South America.  And associated islands.

  As Latin faded into a sort of indistinct, dusky afterlife with tantalising glimmers of stunning eroticism and braininess, Esperanto came into being to take its place.  Esperanto:  66% Latin, 33% Anglo-sassone.

  It was obvious to its inventor that the Brits and Austrians and Hessians, the French and Spaniards, and, magari, Italy and Romania, would forever rule the world.

  It is not obvious to me that that is likely to be the case bimeby.

  O just beat me over the head with Milo, I'm so veddy veddy pc. 

  And yet, the only reason, me seemeth, that Chinese will not become the lingua franca soonishly, is that it is way too difficult to learn.  At least Hindi is Indo-European.  Linguists know the tricks to devolve the modern words back to their roots, and then evolve them forward into a cousin modern language.

  Pace Captain Fantastic, a lingua uniuersalis must be as accessible to a Quechua or Maori as it is to Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan.  Moreover a lingua uniuersalis must be as intelligible to Seth, aka my pc, as it would be to Baudolino (compulsive Umberto Eco allusion, je suis désolé).

  On the path to Ietspik . . . .--Giac 

Jett Works Magick

   I'd paid for my espresso, joked with the barista, taken a sip.  It tasted as if someone there still troubles to clean the machine every night.

   I turned, you'd materialised from thin air. 

   Magick!

   Alas, as long as there are susceptible folk, who want to be characters in novels, there'll be Magick.  From now on, whenever I sip an espresso, I'll turn and make excuses if you aren't there.  A mistake in the rite, an error in the spell.  My fault, no doubt.

   Povera Ifigenia!  Padre predisposto, vittima lui stesso di un prete furfante.  Povera Ifigenia, niente bidente sfortunato come sosia.

 

   I was so startled by your apparition, I hadn't time to pretend to be glad to see you.  So I didn't pretend.

 

   Catulli Carmen l.  That's how it was.  Whatever theme you started, I developed.  Whatever theme I started, you developed.  Like the 8-year-old boy, our minds had been working through the night.

   Ideography.  Esperanto.  Catullus.  Caluus.--Giac