Bruner Blog: Rick Bruner's self-indulgent rants, peeves, trivial obsessions, etc.

This is the coolest bike in the world for short trips around town, the Strida. Folds in seconds, relatively light, rolls when folded, stores easily, grease-free Kevlar belt (instead of a chain), able to fit easily on subways and buses. I've had mine for almost 3 years and love it! Perfect for NYC. Click here to visit the site.

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I Saw a Pretty Girl Eat a Booger
Just ask my friend Mike. We were on the subway and I spotted her, maybe 25, not a knock out, but pretty enough, grinding the ole thumb and forefinger up her nose. It was a pretty crowded subway. Discretely, I turned to Mike and told him to look. "She's eating it," he replied. Incredibly, when I looked back, sure enough, there she was, gnawing on the same fingers. Times like that I really wish I had a digital camera.

- 3/7/2003
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David Rakoff: Vocabulariologist
Last night I finished reading David Rakoff's book of collected essays titled Fraud, which I thoroughly enjoyed, in a similar vein to David Sedaris (whose Me Talk Pretty One Day I also recently read and enjoyed; now I just have to start reading the works of Sarah Vowell to go for the This American Life trifecta).
The guy is a very talented writer and extremely funny. Here's just one sentence of evidence, talking about his having once frozen a sample of his sperm (in advance of cancer treatment):
Like millions of tiny Walt Disneys, they wait, frozen, until the day I will return to have them conjoined with some willing ovum and thereby fulfill their zygotic destiny, growing into children who will eventually go on to break my heart and not talk to me.
One thing that really stood out for me, however, is the guy's vocabulary. I'm a writer myself (more or less; a former journalist, anyway), but I'll admit I don't have the world's greatest vocabulary. But I am still something of a self-improver in that regard, inasmuch as I often make notes as I read of words on the edge of or beyond my vocabulary. Rakoff's highfalutin magniloquence is really something unwonted. (Okay, I used a thesaurus for that sentence.) So, at the risk of coming off as a giant dunderhead to those of you who did better on your verbal SATs than myself, here is a list of some of the choicer words I noted while reading Fraud. For the record, I did actually know some of these words, but let's just say I think they're all worth at least reminding myself of. I've helpfully linked to the definitions on Dictionary.com (which, sadly, is acting quite flakey tonight, so try reloading the page a few times if it comes up 404 first try):

novitiate

gamine

augury

thrumming

insouciant

oleaginous

synecdoche

anodyne

unguent

selvage

rill(ed) (his adjectival use is not even in Dictionary.com)

vermilion

bier

antimacassar

motile

trillium

chimera

gloaming

delectation

execrable

nimbus

tatterdemalion

striation

succubus

rictus

peristaltic

logorrhea

copse

prandial

tumescence

quotidian

coruscating

purling

skein

reticule

aphasic

vulpine

trope

UPDATE:
I've been assured by two smart people that most of these are, indeed, big words and that I'm not so dumb after all.
FURTHER UPDATE:
Of course, now that a few weeks have gone by, I'm not so sure, as I've seen many of these words repeatedly since I first noted them here. Hmmm.

- 3/6/2003
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