Today’s word is a noun that is defined in general terms as, “any plant whose fruit, seeds, roots, tubers, bulbs, stems, leaves, or flower parts are used as food.” It comes from the Late Latin word vegetābilis which means “able to live and grow.”
Basically a vegetable can be any edible part of any plant. This means that all fruits are vegetables. However, not all vegetables are fruits.
A fruit is the fleshy part of the plant that develops from the flower or blossom. The strawberry is a typical example of a fruit. Fruits are meant to be eaten and are essential components of the plant’s reproductive system. The sweet fleshy part is merely window dressing for the all important seeds. Mother Nature has it all figured out, you see. In theory, an animal eats a fruit, seeds and all. Later on that same animal excretes those seeds completely intact and conveniently encased in their own little envelope of fertilizer.
Many of the things that we think of as vegetables are actually fruits. Examples include tomatoes, avocados, and red hot chili peppers. The fruit that is, not the band.
One of my favorite quotations is, “Knowledge is understanding that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.”
The Swedish word for vegetable is “grönsak” (literally “green thing”) despite the fact that not all vegetables are green.
At the edge of this night the Great Swan dips,
Grazing my eyes with her feathery tips,
Then Caer Ibormeith unleashes her song,
It settles upon me, draws me along,
She and her Aengus from Bruigh na Boinne’s walls,
Melding their voices as night gently falls,
Stirring prophetic dreams – conciousness thins,
I shift into sleep, the magick begins.
I often refer to myself as a Luddite, but I’m mostly kidding. Although I have an affinity for writing with pen and paper, old tube-powered guitar amps and recording on reel-to reel tape machines, I still maintain a friendly relationship with technology. I couldn’t live without my iPod, I was happy as a kid on Christmas morning to finally get a ridiculously powerful digital audio console at work, and I consider the internet to be pretty much the best invention in human history. I grok tech. Still, there are times when the old ways just work best.
I was driving to my office the other day, and heard a song on the local college station that blew me away. I glanced at the readout on my stereo and discovered it was “Saying Goodbye” by a band called The Greenhornes. A few minutes later at my desk, I looked them up and listened to some other tracks- great stuff. I decided to buy the album, so I opened iTunes and found it within seconds.
Those of you who grew up before the internet can appreciate how awesome this is- back in the Bad Old Days this process would have taken days or weeks. First you either get to a phone (no cell phones back then) and call the DJ, or wait for them to back announce (this isn’t foolproof either- the first time I heard the Pixies I thought they were called The Laughing Academy due to a back announcing miscount). Then you had to drive to a record store that stocked “new” music besides Ratt and Whitesnake and hope they had what you were looking for. There used to be records that took me months (in some cases years) to find. Oh, and forget previewing the other tracks on the record unless you knew someone who already had it. There are those who argue that the modern instant gratification model devalues music and our relationship to it, and they have a point. At that moment though, I was just psyched to hear the album mere minutes after discovering the band.
This is where things start to go awry. For some reason, my iTunes account was screwed up and I couldn’t access it. After about half an hour of screwing around I figured fuck it, I tried, and began searching torrent sites for free downloads. Within a minute or two I located a torrent titled “GREENHORNES DISCOGRAPHY” that contained an impressive collection of the band’s albums, EPs, singles and compilation tracks. However, it was a couple years old and didn’t have the album I was looking for in it. I considered simply recording the three songs (including “Saying Goodbye”) off the band’s music player on their website, but I really wanted the whole album.
Technology had failed me, so I reverted to old school methodology. A quick check of the internets revealed that there was still a brick and mortar record store near the college, so I decided it was a good time to load up the office recycling and take it to the recycling center (which, conveniently, is near NCSU). Half an hour later after dumping a shitload of cardboard and soda cans I entered Schoolkids Records for the first time in about ten years. The current location had been a pawn shop back when I used to troll Hillsborough Street looking for obscure indie records and cheap vinyl, but the gig flyers and hipster movie posters looked the same as ever. Long rows of vinyl record bins were obviously a thing of the past, but I was dismayed to find that the CD racks were thinner than I remembered and a large chunk of the floorspace was taken up with DVDs, magazines and T-shirts. I made my way to the “G” section, quickly located my prize, then stood at the counter for a few minutes trying to flag down the pachouli-drenched clerk.
“Uh, can I help you?” he finally asked with the magical mixture of indifference and disdain that only a clerk at a college record store can muster.
“Well I was gonna buy this, but I can just shoplift it if it’s easier for you” I relied with the dripping sarcasm only a middle-aged asshole can truly master.
I paid $5 more than the download would have cost me, had to spend time and my boss’ gas money and now have another CD to add to my unmanageable mountain of media, but dammit, I spent the rest of the day rocking out to the fucking Greenhornes. Mission Accomplished.
As long as we’re all preoccupied with the Rapture and the Apocalypse, we might as well discuss what to do if Armageddon occurs. And I’m not talking about the astonishingly bad Michael Bay film from 1998. In religious/biblical terms Armageddon is the final epic battle between Christ/Good and the Anti-Christ/Evil. However, in more general terms it can be pretty much any “great and crucial” conflict.
The 2012 Phenomenon is considered to be part of the Armageddon mythos. If the Mayan Calendar is anything to go by, in 2012 the earth will be subjected to a series of unavoidable disasters and catastrophes which will culminate in the end of the world as we know it. So, your basic Armageddon.
You probably wouldn’t be at all surprised if I told you that there are several websites out there with important safety tips and “How to Survive” information for the coming disasters of 2012. For example this website discusses how to survive the “polar shift” (this is a misnomer for geomagnetic reversal) which will inevitably occur during 2012.
Those of us living in Northern Europe will probably be okay, but pretty much anyone living in the United States is screwed big time. Might as well start charging up those credit cards right now folks since you probably won’t survive Armageddon 2012.
Because after all, even if the world is coming to an end it’s important to make sure the family jewels have the support one has come to expect from a brand as reliable and well-known as Calvin Klein. And at £18-£30 for a package of three, they’re not only essential survival gear, they’re also a bargain.
Because after all, even if the world is coming to an end it’s important to be as fabulously dressed as possible and with the proper accessories. It would never do to show to up to Armageddon with your everyday black leather handbag.
(As today is supposed to be the Rapture, I thought some Rapture-based poetry would be most appropriate. Not my own, this time. )
Fab Five Freddy told me everybody’s fly
DJ spinning I said “My, My”
Flash is fast,
Fash is cool,
Francois c’est pas flashe non due.
And you don’t stop,
Sure shot.
Go out to the parking lot,
And you get in your car,
And drive real far.
And you drive all night,
And then you see a light.
And it comes right down,
And it lands on the ground,
And out comes the man from Mars!
And you try to run,
But he’s got a gun,
And he shoots you dead,
And he eats your head.
And then you’re in the man from Mars!
You go out at night eating cars.
You eat Cadillacs,
Lincolns too,
Mercuries and Subarus.
And you don’t stop.
You keep on eating cars.
Then when there’s no more cars you go out at night,
And eat up bars where the people meet.
Face to face.
Dance cheek to cheek,
One to one,
Man to man,
Dance toe to toe.
Don’t move too slow ,
‘Cause the man from Mars is through with cars,
He’s eating bars,
Yeah wall to wall,
Door to door,
Hall to hall,
He’s gonna eat ’em all!
Rapture!
Be pure.
Take a tour through the sewer.
Don’t strain your brain.
Paint a train.
You’ll be singing in the rain.
Said don’t stop to the punk rock.
Well now you see what you wanna be,
Just have your party on TV.
‘Cause the man from Mars,
Won’t eat up bars where the TV’s on.
And now he’s gone back up to space,
Where he won’t have a hassle with the human race.
And you hip hop,
And you don’t stop,
Just blast off,
Sure shot!
Because the man from Mars stopped eating cars,
And eating bars,
And now he only eats guitars!
Get up!
This entails being physically removed from the earth in the midst of the turmoil of Judgement Day and sort of beamed up to heaven. Recommended for those most eager to meet Jesus in person. This would mean repenting our sins or something.
2. The “completely over-the-top, extravagant orgy of total hedonistic abandon” option.
No further explanation needed. This was Mark Base’s idea and that’s good enough for me.
Random Misanthrope 