Into The Kaleidoscopic World Of Arnie And Gardenia Schickelbaum
Don't fret, I checked and I've not done one of these for over two months, so it's well beyond due. No idea if this will be a single-subject blog, though the probability is high.
To the uninitiated: Conrad, as you should surely know, is pretty much addicted to the crossword-variant known as a Codeword, where every letter of the alphabet is given a number, you get two or three and work out the other twenty-three or twenty-four. The thing is, which mildly enrages me, the compilers keep using obscure, obsolete or foreign words as solutions. Being a creature of habit and rote, I make a note of these words - and use Arnie and Gardenia as a framing device to list said words, in an hilarious fashion. Art!
Hilarious I said! Laugh or it's the Remote Nuclear Tormentor for you!
ANYWAY I have another list of excoriating Codeword solutions that I vehemently object to. So let's get it on. Art!
A satyr
SATYR: Arnie was feeling a little glum. He had put a written proposition to City Hall about renaming one of the days of the week, changing it from 'Saturday' to 'Satyrday', and had paid for it to be notarised and hand-delivered with proof of receipt, only for it to be shot down in a one-word reply: NO. Bold and in capitals. The city did not have any red ink to hand or they'd have used it.
In case you were wondering, and even if you weren't, a 'satyr' is one of a class of Greek sylvan deities, initially depicted as half-horse, later as half-goat. They drank to excess and danced and frolicked as companions of Dionysus, chasing the nymphs. They were supposed to represent wild animal passions. Quite what Arnie was thinking in renaming Saturday to Satyrday is beyond my ken, and I'm the one writing this.
What's that, Arnie? You thought it would express the untrameled exuberance and verve of New York? Yeah right. What's that horrid noise in the back - O! Gardenia is singing. Okay.
CONTRALTO: The lowest female voice, usually having a range of approximately from F, a fifth below middle C to D and a fifth above it. I looked up the definition in my dictionary, can you tell? Usually shortened to 'Alto' especially when a member of a choir. Art!
A famous contralto (it says here)
No danger of Gardenia becoming one, she sounds like a cat being put through a mangle. Art!
FANDANGO: Possibly the opposite of an ADAGIO, which we will come to. A fandango is an old Spanish courtship dance in triple time, between a couple who dance closely and provocatively, and definitely not the sort of word to ever belong in a Codeword. Art!
Arnie and Gardenia are a bit past courtship dancing.
ADAGIO: This is Italian, a bit more to A & G's taste as it's an instruction to be played or performed slowly, from the Italian 'Ad' meaning 'At' and 'Agio', meaning 'Ease'. Art!
Truly wonderful stuff
Now, if you're paying attention to this scrivel, you might well be wondering exactly what Arnie's trade of veeblefetzer repairman involved. Or you might not. Either way, it involves the use of -
ALKALIS: These are a soluble base or a solution of a base, also being a soluble mineral salt that occurs in arid soils and some natural waters. From the Arabic 'Al-qil' - what a refreshing change from Greek or Latin! - meaning 'The ashes of saltwort'. Art!
Both salty and worty
BEVEL: A good veeblefetzer repairman will also be an expert in bevels, or 'cants', which are surfaces that meet other surfaces at an angle other than a right angle, or the action of cutting a bevel. From the Old French - hurrah! - 'Bevel' meaning Unattested'. Hmmm? Art!
GUMPTION: As stated above, this is what a good veeblefetzer repairman needs, rather than sticking to the rulebook in every circumstance. For South Canadian readers the word means 'resourcefulness or common sense', except common sense is - you may be ahead of me here - not that common. It has it's roots in Scandinavian, meaning 'Attention'. Art!
'Gumption' according to AI
EXTEMPORE: What veeblefetzer repairman cannot be, because a faulty veeblefetzer can take out a city block. It means 'Without planning or preparation, impromptu' and is from the Latin <hack spit> 'Ex tempore' meaning 'Instantly'. Gardenia, on the other hand, being a free spirit, is fond of off-the-cuff activity. Just thought I'd mention her, too. Art!
Flax
FLAX: One of Gardenia's plant-based hobbies is making linen fabrics from the stems of flax, which you see above, that she grows in the back yard. These are herbaceous plants of the genus Linum, such as Linum Uscatissimum, which have blue flowers, in case you were curious. Gardenia takes the dried stems, strips them into fibres and weaves them into cloth. The name has a long heritage, arriving via Old English 'Fleax' which itself is derived from Frisian. Art!
All the work of Gardenia's fair hands
VALANCE: A short piece of drapery hung along a shelf, canopy or bed, or across a window - see above - to hide structural detail. Possibly originating from the French town of Valance, known for it's textiles. Just marvel at how adept Gardy is with her arty handiwork. Art!
Weeds!
BURDOCK: Yes, there were intruders in Gardenia's garden. Burdock, to be exact. The burdock is a coarse, woody Eurasian (then how did it get into a New York garden?) of the genus Arctium, having large heart-shaped leaves, tiny purple flowers surrounded by hooked bristles, bur-like fruits. The name is derived from 'Bur' and - you may be ahead of me here - 'Dock'. The burs on this plant apparently inspired the invention of Velcro. Wowsers! Your Humble Scribe was also passing fond of a soft drink dubbed 'Dandelion and Burdock' in his long-ago youth. Gardenia dug up the roots, washed them, and cooked them, apart from one, which she kept to make a medical poultice. Yes, the roots are edible. Art!
Those are big roots, it must have taken a lot of effort to dig them up. Poor Gardenia.
FORCIBLE: Done by, involving or having force. See those roots above.
IMBRUE: As per that poultice that Gardy made up from the burdock roots, she used it to treat a bit of eczema on her elbow, staining her skin in the process - or 'imbruing' it. Normally this word is associated with blood and bloodstains but I couldn't work in a way to have Gardy exsanguinate herself with a trowel. Art!
The word comes from the Latin 'Imbuere' meaning 'To stain'.
You may be wondering how fecund the Schickelbaum's back garden was, the answer is very, thanks to a generation back when -
LEVEE: A word as used by South Canadians and it has NO BUSINESS being in a British Codeword. An embankment alongside a river, produced naturally by sedimentation or constructed by man to prevent flooding. Or an embankment that surrounds a field to be irrigated. From French and before that Latin 'Levare' meaning 'to raise'. The nearby Salt Flats river broke it's levee and the abundant mud brought forth in the flood enriched the property that Arnie and Gardy ended up buying. Art!
And with that, Vulnavia, we are DONE!
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