hermionesviolin: (train)
[personal profile] hermionesviolin
I wonder if State Street sells grenadine, 'cause it would be cool to make Tequila Sunrises. Though really, the question is whether State Street sells tequila.

"No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I bite my thumb, sir."
Kate says i have a "dainty English major" way of flipping people off. We discussed insulting gestures, so i got Gestures: Their Origins and Distribution by Desmond Morris et al (1979) out from the library.
The forearm is a phallic gesture. The forearm with its clenched first represents a super-normal phallus and its jerking movement imitates the thrusting of the penis. The slap of the left hand against the upper-arm seems to indicate that the super-penis has been thrust into an orifice as far as it will go, and has met resistance which prevents it from going further. To be specific, therefore, the forearm jerk gesture represents maximum intromission. (80)

the middle-finger jerk was so popular among the Romans that they even gave a special name to the middle digit, calling it the impudent finger: digitus impudicus. It was also known as the obscene finger, or the infamous finger, and there are a number of references to its use in the writings of classical authors. For instance, Martial (Epigrams VI.LXX): 'he points his finger, and the insulting one at that, towards Alcon, Dasius and Symmachus.' The emperor Caligula is thought to have used the extended middle finger when offering his hard to be kissed, as deliberately scandalous act. And, according to Suetonius, Pylades was banished from Italy for making the obscene middle-finger gesture at a critical member of an audience who was trying to hiss him from the stage. (81-82)

The way in which Shakespeare plays with this phrase ["I bite my thumb (at you)."] suggests that it would have been well known to his audience and that they would have understood the seriousness of the insult, had it been specifically directed at someone. But there is no clue here as to why such an apparently harmless action should be so intensely provocative. A clue does come, however, in a work published four years after Romeo and Juliet. In Wits Miserie, by Thomas Lodge, which appeared in 1596, there is the phrase: 'Giving me the Fico with his thumb in his mouth', which is generally assumed to be the same gesture. It has been interpreted as a variant form of the fig-sign, with the thumb going to the mouth instead of between the fingers of the closed hand. When we discussed the more typical fig-sign earlier, we mentioned the story of the humiliation of the Milanese by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1162, when he forced his captives to pluck a fig from the anus of a mule with their teeth. It is this origin which is seen by some as the explanation of the teeth flick gesture. The gesturer, by plucking his thumb (the symbolic fig) from his mouth, and aiming it directly at his victim, implies that the latter was a 'fig-plucked', in other words, a man who was prepared to humiliate himself to save his life. The phrase 'a fig for you' is sometimes used in connection with the gesture, and this would seem to confirm that the anger aroused by the teeth flick results from its message: 'you are a degraded, humiliated coward.'
     It has been argued that perhaps the 'biting a thumb' gesture was a completely different action from the teeth flick, but there is an instruction in a seventeenth-century etiquette book, The Rules of Civility, which suggests that they are, in fact, one and the same. It reads: 'Tis no less disrespectful to bite the nail of your thumb, by way of scorn and disdain.' From this it would appear simply that 'to bite the thumb' is no more than a popular contraction of 'to but the nail of your thumb', a fact often overlooked by Shakespearean actors, who tend to but the whole of the thumb, rather than just flick the nail from behind the upper teeth. (199)


After dinner we watched "Dish and Dishonesty" 'cause Kate was being masochistic and we wanted to improve things. I had forgotten how wonderful that season of Blackadder is.
"Still; for me, socks are like sex: tons of it about, and I never seem to get any."

assorted links from my dad:
-interesting juxtaposition of billboards
-asexuality
-homosexual necrophiliac duck

There are, of course, official British standards for the preparation of coffee (standard number BS 6379-4:1991) and tea (standard number BS 6008: 1980).
Clearly we have learned from the incident on The Heart of Gold ;)
"Dying for a cup of tea, are we?"

Sometimes when [livejournal.com profile] sk8eeyore talks about Jan i am reminded of Liz Carr. I mentioned Sarah and Jan tonight (Liz asked me, "Are you going to grad school?" and i started talking about all my friends who are going places.) and it turns out Liz knows Jan (college chaplains and all).

fandom as mafia

"Other early- to mid-90s TV shows I miss include Dangerous Minds (which was on Tuesdays at 9 PM on ABC starring Annie Potts and I loved it so)"
-fox1013

"There's a certain something about waking up in the morning and taking a a quizilla quiz, first thing. I mean, I can't lie and say I didn't always suspect that deep beneath my human, collegiate exterior there lay the beating heart of an alcoholic My Little Pony, but it's best to have these things confirmed by quizilla as fast as possible. That way you know how you stand."
-nifra_idril

Date: 2005-03-10 05:25 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bella-loki.livejournal.com
Honestly wouldn't know about tequila (duh), but if they don't have grenadine I know some of the other places around town do (possibly Cornucopia)

Date: 2005-03-10 05:37 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sk8eeyore.livejournal.com
...Yeah, I have pretty much ceased to be surprised by the whole Six Degrees of Jan thing. Still, squee! And... *feels really special, having been talked about and all* :D

Date: 2005-03-10 05:49 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] hermionesviolin.livejournal.com
:)

Sometimes i think i should really meet Jan one of these days (though it's way lower down on the list than meeting you and [livejournal.com profile] wisdomeagle) but then i think i'd hate her and that would be awkward 'cause you love her so and thus really it's better if i never meet her (and by "meet" apparently i really mean, have sustained interaction with her).

Date: 2005-03-10 07:42 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sk8eeyore.livejournal.com
Any particular reason you think you might hate her? I think I can guess, but I don't want to get into a response until I know for sure.

Ooh, I get to meet [livejournal.com profile] wisdomeagle NEXT WEEK! Assuming that the Mary Baldwin thing still works out... It'll be a Jan-and-us party! Obviously you need to come to Virginia and meet us *all*. :)

Date: 2005-03-10 10:34 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] hermionesviolin.livejournal.com
Dude, your tempting is evil. I'm on Spring Break next week and everything. You two wanna split the cost of a plane ticket for me? ;)

Jan? Well, the short, snark, and not entirely inaccurate response is, "Wellm she's a liberal, isn't she?" Oh me and my loathing of humanity. I think there have been maybe 3 times that you've shared a Jan story to which my mental response was "If i ever hung out with Jan, there would be badness," and i can't remember any of them. (I remember being distressed by something you mentioned her having said about Mary and the Annunciation and such, but i'm not sure if that was a "Must control fist of death" moment.) There are lots of people i love and adore who infuriate me at times, and it's entirely possible i would get along with her just fine. (And obviously i'm capable of being civil to people; it's more a question of whether i'll click with my friends' friends or whether we'll rub each other the wrong way.)

Date: 2005-03-11 12:47 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sk8eeyore.livejournal.com
Lindsey and I are actually going to be in MA in two weeks--we're visiting Harvard and Yale divinity schools, and L has an interview at Hartford Seminary where she's applying for the M.A. program in Islamic Studies. It looks like our schedule is going to be extremely tight, and I don't know how we would manage to squeeze in a side trip to Smith. :( We *will* meet sometime, though, I'm sure of it.

:) That's pretty much what I expected you to say... But that's a reaction I have about people sometimes, too, so I can sympathize. I've been giving it some thought today... Yes, Jan's very much a liberal (though religiously, I think of her as much more of a traditional than a "liberal" Christian), and politics is a subject that she and I avoid... The few occasions on which she has said things that troubled me were in settings where she probably felt that she could get away with a flippant remark (like in a class I took with her in which I was probably the only vaguely conservative person, and when talking to Confirmed Democrat Lindsey <3). And it's not that that excuses it, because I hate when people say things like that, ever, and I wish that I had challenged her. But, on the other hand, in the vast majority of my interactions with her, I've known her to be extremely fair, especially in working with religious conservatives (of course many in her family are conservative and even fundamentalist, and I don't think she necessarily loves that, but she's spoken of the absolute necessity of open and honest communication in situations like that). So, I do validate your concern, but I also find it difficult to imagine that, if you engaged with her on an issue, she wouldn't be totally impressed with and respectful of your position and willing to discuss things dispassionately. Plus, she just *beams* with so much love that it's hard not to warm up to her even when you first meet her.

Date: 2005-03-11 01:41 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] hermionesviolin.livejournal.com
Smith's at least an hour and a half drive from Boston (and i suspect from Hartford as well, though i really don't know). But yes, we will meet someday. We have the rest of our lives, after all ;)

*clicks on link* Oh yeah, i remember that one now. Yup, i definitely would have imploded (hell, i did implode when i read it -- not that i am always 100% fair myself).

Yay for respectful discussion.

Date: 2005-03-10 06:23 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] eard-stapa.livejournal.com
state street definitely sells tequila, and i'm pretty sure they'd have grenadine; i've seen other drink mixes there. and with the supermarket being adjacent, and them having all those sorta speciality products, probably. :)

also, we were making biting thumb jokes a couple hours ago and quoting at each other and... sigh. i have to say, i love smith.

Date: 2005-03-10 11:01 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] hedy.livejournal.com
They have both! Mmm, tequilla sunrises...memories of Mexico.

Date: 2005-03-11 05:20 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] arrrgyle.livejournal.com
i've bought tequila at state street. or, as i almost put it, i've bought state street at tequila. man, i miss having a liquor store soooo close.

Profile

hermionesviolin: an image of Alyson Hannigan (who plays Willow Rosenberg) with animated text "you think you know / what you are / what's to come / you haven't even / BEGUN" (Default)
Elizabeth (the delinquent, ecumenical)

June 2025

S M T W T F S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22 232425262728
29 30     

Style Credit

Page generated Jul. 13th, 2025 09:31 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios