However - in my post-England depression - I decided to go and purchase a several books form the "humour" section of Barnes and Noble. A word on the humour section - I am also not one for knock knock jokes or books about how to seduce a vampire - BUT - this section also has all of the witty random facts and bizarre stories on men on sysiphisian tasks such a reading the encyclopedia or living a year as Biblically as possible. Since I don't really collect tangible things (though due to my pack-rat tendencies on could say I collect EVERYTHING) - I collect random facts. I have ever since me and my best friend in grade school Donna played dress up. The pay-off hasnt really been present until very recently when I realized I can cream everyone at Trivial Pursuit and at on-line trivia games so long as pop culture isn't involved (or dates. I was SO MAD AT MYSELF for missing "what year was Gandhi assasinated - three hours after I had read an article about the life of Gandhi and his transformation through clothing - complete with a picture taken in 1948 right before he was ASSASSINATED!) I'm a bad history major - I'm rubbish at dates. (To be FAIR - all my history teachers told me dates weren't important - just even and the chronology and major ideas.)
ANYWAY - random fact humour books seemed to be just what the doctor ordered. The first was THE ANIMAL REVIEW - which was actually a bit disappointing - less factual and more two dudes going off about stupid people are for thinking great white shark's only mission in life is to kill humans - and the only reason they jump out of the water is to try and eat humans flying around in airplanes) an - and how lame Pandas are. Needless to say - MUCH on-line fact checking was required. I did learn what an alpaca was - and that snails are truly ridiculous creatures and octopuses are way cooler than I ever knew - and that octopuses is preferred over octopi - but overall - a disappointing. F-U - PENGUIN actually was more factual - and that WAS supposed to be just someone ranting over how stupid humans are when they see cute things...but at the end of every entry was an interesting fact about the animal.
The one I'm reading now is READING THE O.E.D. (Oxford English Dictionary.) It is about a man- who I believe is in many ways my hero - who read the entire OED in a year - and then wrote an extremely witty book about the process. And it is providing MUCH amusement and MANY laugh out loud moments in addition to increasing my vocabulary for ridiculous scrabble words. For instance - I had to text JP the word "debag." to remove someone's trousers by force. This resulted in funny conversation about how JP wants to debag the world and us deciding he is DEBAGGER MAN! Maybe it's funnier if you know JP. Porporate is someone who wears a lot of purple. IIIII wear a lot of purple Aspectabund = someone with an extremely expressive face. Cachinator - someone who laughs way too much and way too loudly. Agathokakological = comprising of good and evil. Kat, Laura, and I are STILL trying to say that one out loud and not sound as though we are speaking a foreign language. We spent about 15 minutes yesterday working on that one. Epizeuxis = repitition of a word with vehemence and emphasis. (I immediatley think of the final scene in King Lear - but I suppose this is usually used when someone is expressing obscenities. Paneity = the state of being bread. I really want to use that one in a sentence! Constult = to act stupidly together. So do people consult to constult? My PERSONAL favorite word of the day is Disasinate - to deprive of stupidity! I want to disasinate the world - though I suppose one could argue that my writing this entry is completely an anti-disasinating process. Oh well.
The author is in many ways my hero because he does take on this ludicrous Sisyphean task - because he can - and because he LOVES reading dictionaries. He would rather sit and read a giant dictionary for the fifth time than do just about anything else on the planet. He owns Australian Dictionaries, American Dictionaries, Dictionaries from the 17th century, dictionaries written by ex-NBA players (Walt "Clyde" Frazier's Word Jam: Guide to an Awesome Vocabulary), basically if it has words in it - he has read it or will read it. Dictionary reading makes NO money - and apparently (according to him) impresses no friends - and - really you can't say -HEY PEOPLE OUTSIDE STOP EPIZEUXING! I'M TRYING TO SLEEP! It's useless - but he LOVES it - and instead of working a "real" job - he supports himself and his habit by working as a moving-guy - driving a gondola - and being a street musician. He is dating a former lexographer and has a unit of friends who also - collect dictionaries. Apparently one lady - Madeline - has an entire apt. dedicated to JUST dictionaries.
So I figure - HEY - this guy - literally spends his entire life on this quixotic love of dictionaries - and he does whatever it takes to read as many dictionaries as many times as possible - AND - found a girlfriend who COMPILES words for dictionaries - I can MY quixotic adventures too. Alright - so - I may have to be a tour guide and teach pilates and ballet to 3 year-olds - and be an extra in bar scenes on t.v. shows and write Transcripts for Austin - but isn't it worth it to read dictionaries? I mean - create great theatre? Sure - my heart doesn't race when I smell an old dictionary form the 1800s - BUT - it does when I hear a Shakespeare quote - when I hear the overture of a beloved musical - when I finish 32 fouette turns. And I'm HAPPIEST when engaging in any theatre-related activities - it's just finding band-aids for my soul when I'm not engaging that hurt. But hey - I'm a pretty cool person - I can do this in a pretty cool way. And I will be happy doing so. Thank you strange dictionary obsessed man for showing me this!:)
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