It would seem like we’ve made it, folks. The short-lived tenure of this little vocab blog has reached its end; let’s not get all sentimental about all the words we’ve learned.
I’m going back to the land of Muncie, Indiana, where we don’t have cool stuff like altweeklies or rideshare competition, which you can read about in this week’s cover story. We have to like, walk home from a night out like the plebeian college students Nick ran into, because who can pay someone $24 to drive them home? That’s more money than I’m going to lose if I get jumped while walking.
Anyway, I wish the future copy of CityBeat the best of luck until there’s a new copy editor and from now on, you’ll have to rely on context clues to decipher CityBeat writers' language.
Acrimonious: caustic, stinging or bitter, adj.
If something is acrimonious, I bet it sounds like a really bad song. It’s like harmonious, but acidic. Except, not at all.
In the issue: “Hurricane Katrina forced a lengthy stay in Austin, Texas in 2005 and the following year saw the acrimonious departure of Huston,” in Brian Baker’s Sound Advice on The Iguanas. Maybe Huston just wished they had stayed in Houston instead of Austin and that’s why he left. Sounds sad. Looks like the rest of the band is still doing alright without him, playing shows and selling albums and whatnot.
Mandala: a schematized representation of the cosmos in Oriental art, n.
In my head I pictured this as a mandolin, a menorah and gondola all combined, but that’s just me. This is the first word in today’s blog under the category of Nouns You May Not Have Known and Will Never Use.
In the issue “The first and last paintings in Elvis Suite are more like multi-bordered mandalas or horoscopic charts,” in Steven Rosen’s Art Shook Up (what a clever title) about the Elvis Presley portrait exhibit currently at the Carl Solway gallery. Yes, if you haven’t read the article yet, that’s right. There’s a series of calendar art focusing on Elvis of which the first and last pieces are schematized representations of the cosmos because that has so much to do with Elvis.
Morass: a troublesome situation difficult to get out of, n.; and "maelstrom": a disordered state of affairs, n.
These words go great together. Next time you’re really upset just run around and be like “This is a maelstrom and a morass!”
In the issue: “Maybe, in all the morass and maelstrom of confusion, violence and power play …” in Kathy Y. Wilson’s column, "Elevators," where she talked about domestic violence and briefly mentioned that elevators serve as a catalyst for it before talking about more serious things than elevators.
Tulpa: a being that is created in the imagination through visualization techniques such as in Tibetan mysticism, n.
This is the second and final word of the day under Nouns You May Not Have Known and Will Never Use.
In the Issue: Again in "Art Shook Up," Laffoley, the artist, said he wants to “take calendar art and turn it into a meditation series in which the fans attempt to recreate Elvis’ existence as a tulpa.” You read that right. That went from calendar art to mysticism real fast.
I take back what I said earlier. You may use this word again. You may in fact use it if you take Laffoley’s advice and see these images of Elvis, he will become a choose-your-own-tulpa-Elvis: Will you pick the Christmas Album Elvis or the Aloha From Hawaii Elvis?
Rachel Podnar writes "From the Copy Desk" weekly from her desk as CityBeat's intern copy editor. Her job is to find and correct everybody else's mistakes, occasionally referencing a dictionary to check one of our more
