The Lunxicon

One of my favorite TV shows of all time is the British bizarro-comedy League of Gentlemen (first season only). The show follows several characters who live in the small town of Royston Vasey. Almost all of the major characters are played by the same set of actors who make up the comedy troupe from whose name the show’s title was taken. The first season of the show is dark humor at its finest. The residents of Royston Vasey are a disturbingly hilarious bunch who leap prodigiously over the line separating eccentric and insane–characters such as Pauline, the unemployment counselor who treats her students like remedial third-graders; Harvey Denton, the toad- and masturbation-obsessed man who chastises his nephew Benjamin for having the gall to drop a deuce in the bathroom; and Hilary Briss, the butcher who peddles a mysteriously addictive meat to those select patrons who are in the know. Continue reading An Egregious Decline In Funniness…

On the train coming home today, I heard someone say “Well, irregardless, I still think you should have given more notice.” Ugh. I hate that word. What do the extra two letters add? Nothing, that’s what! Generally assumed to be a combination of irrespective and regardless, it is alarmingly commonplace in daily conversation. It is the spare part of adverbs, and you should both mock and chastise anyone you know who uses it with any degree of frequency. Continue reading Memo From The Department Of Redundancies Department…

On Saturd ay I went to a party at a friend’s new apartment. Meats were grilled, beers were swilled, and a good time was had by all. Point being, one of my friends responded to a comment by his girlfriend with “pish posh!” I was inspired. I say that all the time and would like to imagine that it is spreading thanks to my (over)use of the term. In fact, when it was said, my lady friend and I turned to each other, our eyes wide with glee, and said “pish posh! fuck yeah!”
Continue reading Eating Meat Is Cruel? Pish Posh!…

Yeah, I said it. What?

By “What,” of course, I mean, “Whatever happened to saying ‘FACE!’ to someone after zinging them super hard?” I mean, I guess I understand the idea that if you really tear someone down, then you should just let the zing speak for itself. After all, humility and modesty are admirable virtues, and following up with a sharp “FACE!” can be both corny and inappropriate—kind of like saying “oh, snap,” after your own quip. But every now and then I like to rub shit in even more.

Continue reading FACE!…

So, in his or her (blast these, uh, problematic names) review of the movie Hot Fuzz (which, coincidentally, I am going to watch tonight), Manohla Dargis describes one of the characters as “an unctuous toff with a twinkle in his eyes.” Since it’s an English movie, I will respond to this excellent description by saying that I think Dargis’s diction is wicked ACE. Thanks to the leg touchee for the link.

Carry on.

Also, just a little FYI: updates will be sporadic the next couple of weeks as I work on assignments and study for finals. Yay, graduate school!

Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure is an all-time classic, no questions asked. (What’s that? You have a question? Get in office now—fired!) The heartwarming tale of two bumbling, metal-loving teen buffoons was more than just a hilarious comedy about time travel; it was an educational experience for an entire generation. Who knew, for example, that Napoleon was such a swine-like fellow with a passion for ice cream and water slides? Or that Joan D’Arc loved aerobics?

Continue reading Wyld Stallyns Was A Totally Bodacious Band!…

Another post about a term from my adolescence. It seems this blog is more like Vincent’s memoir disguised as something else. Anyway, an old friend of mine whose name I won’t reveal unless, by some bizarre stroke of coincidence, homeboy actually reads this and asks me to do so, used to refer to people in the best way. We would go out on weekends with a relatively large circle of people from our school and other international schools. As such, rather than just being able to hang out with your crew of, say, five or six or however many people, you’d have to deal with a bunch of people you didn’t like. It’s like going to a bar and seeing all your coworkers. No thanks.

Continue reading Toss Out Those Spare Parts…

At least, that is what I was told in high school. “Vincent,” my English teacher once said, “you are such a recalcitrant young man.” At the time, I felt this was a bit of an exaggeration. I wasn’t disobedient or particularly anti-authority; I just wanted to be left alone to read, headbang, play video games, and think about girls I would never talk to (let alone touch the legs of). In hindsight, though, perhaps drawing out the Slayer and Sepultura logos instead of writing notes about Thomas Hardy and proclaiming that Hardy was a masturbatory boor and that Sylvia Plath should’ve just offed herself as a child so we wouldn’t have to read her “whining” were offenses great enough to put me in that category. In any case, Mr. Milnes seemed rather surprised that I understood his complaint, and when I told him that I wasn’t recalcitrant, just bored, I was met with the bitter stare of a man who hates his job.

Continue reading I Was A Recalcitrant Child…

Unctuous. What a great word. I just love the way it sounds—the juxtaposition of the short and sharp with the long and drawn out: How the first half sounds like the cry of a mildly retarded child who has just scraped his/her knee. This is quickly cut off by the hard “t” sound, which transitions into the vowel-heavy second syllable, elongated by the “s” at the end. (Yeah, so I’m no linguistics expert, but I’m also rather lazy, so I wasn’t gonna look up the proper terms to describe the above.)

Continue reading Her Unctuous Smile Was Nauseating…

One of my favorite courtesy titles for the fine, fair females of the world is, “toots.” Maybe it’s because Dustin Hoffman was a total babe in drag; maybe I just like the sharp sound of the word—the consonancy of the hard T’s at either end, dragged out by that sneaky S. Over the years, however, “toots” has lost its popularity. It seems to have taken on a negative connotation. This is due in part, no doubt to its originating in an age of much greater sexual inequality. It’s the sort of word you imagine a hard drinking, chain smoking, womanizing private detective from the 50s tossing out there at the various clients he has ravaged. Continue reading To Toots Or Not To Toots…