First time commenters on this site and, I suspect, others who change the parameters of their discourse (for example, changing their email addresses to something like “fantisticasshat@hotmail.com” to underscore a point) have their comments held in a “moderation queue.” I attend to these comments as quickly as I can, sifting and winnowing, weeding and pruning, generally chucking out most of the penis enlargement and obscure tranquilizer advertisements while allowing the direct solicitations from big Swiss pharma firms seeking experimental subjects for designer drugs (”Would you like thorazine with that?”)
Yesterday, writing in a comment to a month old post from a Cox Communications IP address in Atlanta, Georgia, “D man” (not, I think, his real name) asked what may have been a non sequitur but was certainly a thoughtful question. Here it is, just as I received it:
dude when was popcorn invented
This one stumps me, but perhaps you - gentle reader - have an answer for “D man.”
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
re D Man,
I dunno, Frank, but we were all uh-maized
u d man stu
What my binary is attempting to say, Stu, while finding additional layers of meaning at a phonemic rather than strictly lexical level, is that you are indeed “the man,” neither “de Man” (whose Nazi collaborationism certainly confused a generation or two of theorists) nor “demain” as in tomorrow, because you are a man of today with a building stack of yesterdays lending referential signification to your pronouncements (or “pronunciamentos” as we say in the Mento munching south of Oyropa).
I found this at “google” …
http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/PopcornHistory.htm
And then there is this homage to the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota…
http://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/culture/places.html
Frank, at first I took that to be an overly subtle attempt at extortion. As in, “nice website you have here. Be a real shame if someone trolled it”. But I soon realized that it was, in fact, a cry of existential pain and a yearning for the schadenfreude that would ameliorate it. “D man” is short for Democracy Man, and he yearns for the day when our republic sloughs off its royalist hangover. He wishes to eat a nice snack while watching the trials in den Hague. The real question, for me, in this matter is would D Man want buttered popcorn, with a light sprinkle of salt. If so, I think I might have found a kindred spirit.
I think you need to go over and giggle at Making Light
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/007425.html
Two of my favorites
he was the hunter, and she his query
rot iron (Glen Fisher)
thirty yacht six (Greg London)
J. Alva: This isn’t some kind of Madame Defarge thing, is it? Because, if it is, I’m against it. I oppose the death penalty even for treasonous dogs like Bush, Rumsfeld, and Cheney.
Liz: I was just over there reading Theresa’s tipsy middle English, at your suggestion I believe! I’ll check out these latest laffs and giggles.