Blame it on Halloween last week: I got “boo” on the brain. Not the go-to ghost word “Boo!” but the slang term for a quasi-girlfriend/boyfriend, as in “I love my boo” or “It’s just me and my boo.“ I think boo is the best thing to happen to the English language since chortle.**
Doing research on the Internet is great and all, but from time to time it reveals its limitations. To truly get to the bottom of the etymology of boo, I would need to speak to a linguistics professor or a cultural anthropologist — the web didn’t help much. I found the following possibilities for the existence of boo:
– it’s from the French beau (pronounced “bo”) meaning “boyfriend or male admirer,” which found its way into Afro-Caribbean language through French colonization
– it’s a Southern-bred, derivative term of endearment, lineage going something like this:
poppet –> poopsie –> boopsie –> boo
– it’s just short for “booty”
Who can say? Well, Yahoo question boards can try (boy do they) but I’m not sure about any of these answers and that last one is straight up dubious. I feel confident that boo is a word born in black culture, though. The first time I ever heard it used was in that song “Dilemma,” by Nelly and former Destiny’s Child singer Kelly Rowland. The chorus went: No matter what I do/All I think about is you/Even when I’m with my boo/You know I’m crazy over you. Tsk-tsk, children. But until I meet a cultural anthropologist at a cocktail party whose studies include American Ebonics, it could be a long time before I know the true origins. I can still love the word, though, and I sure do.
I love boo because it names a real thing and it’s phonetically perfect for what that thing is. Let’s say, hypothetically, that I have a boo. You and I are having lunch and you ask me what I did over the weekend. I say, “It was me and my boo, just hanging out.” You could infer that my boo was male, because I am straight. You would know that this fellow is involved with me romantically, but you also know I don’t have a boyfriend. So is this person just a random, um, date? (We’re speaking hypothetically, remember.) No, boo implies a tenderness and a familiarity that elevates the subject into something more special than a frivolous fling. I mean, I wanted to hang out with him all weekend, so he must be worth hanging out with.
So I like the word because there do exist these kinds of relationships in the world: something not official, but not pointless. Something important, but not call-your-mother about it. My boo, my boo, my boo.
And then there’s the darlingness of it, the baby-like sound that the word is. It’s close to “goo,” as in “goo-goo, ga-ga” and close to “baby” and it’s also slang, which means you feel pretty street when you say it. I don’t know many people who wouldn’t respond positively if their partner, spouse, lover, etc., affectionately put their arm around them, pulled them close, and said, “Hey, boo.”
Try it. Don’t try it on someone you don’t have genuinely tender, romantic feelings toward, though, because it would be way too familiar. Kinda like calling your 60-year-old Spanish teacher in high school “senorita,” it just makes everyone a little antsy. And to all the boos who had good weekends together, hats off to you.
(But put your pants back on.)
** The word “chortle” did not exist in the English language before Lewis Carroll wrote Jabberwocky in 1871. A hybrid of “chuckle” and “snort,” it is but one of almost two dozen entirely new words introduced in that legendary poem. Now that’s a writer who can write. Check it out.
I dated a vaudevillian magician. Talk about confessions!
This was an astonishing eight years ago, before I got sick, before I got married and divorced, before all of that.
The Magician and I met at the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge, a legendary jazz club here in Chicago. If you are good at jazz, you work a long, long time to get to play at the Mill — all the known greats have done so, all the future greats will. But every Sunday night for the past twenty-five years, the Uptown Poetry Slam takes over the club and it’s “See ya later, jazz, hello, poetry.”
The show’s format includes a half-hour set from a feature performer. The night I met The Magician, he was that act. Usually it’s a poet in the slot, or on rare occasions it’s a music group, but because The Magician was/is a bit of a lyricist and, as he would tell you, a sesquipedalian, (lover of big words) he fit right in and his act was quite popular with the slam crowd. He wore a three-piece suit and he was in his thirties and he had this broad smile and a head of thick black hair and I was smitten. He saw me be a bloodsport poet onstage that night. I saw him pull a Queen of Spades from his shoe. We met and were laughing with each other in under twelve seconds. Et voila: le boyfriend.
One morning months later, I was lounging in his spacious apartment in Logan Square, beaming at him as I watched him rehearse. He was always rehearsing because being good at magic was his profession (it still is.) Magic is all that he does, work-wise, and he’s made his living doing it for over twenty years. I was admiring his dedication and also his jacket and tie; he always wore a jacket and a tie, always. He didn’t own bluejeans. I thought that was so cool.
“Would you like to see something special, Mary?” he asked me. I nodded and clapped and bounced in my seat. Watching magic tricks makes you seven.
He took a rose from his magic case. He kind of shook himself once to loosen up and focus. Then, talking to me sweetly while he moved, he tilted his head back and brought the stem of the rose up to the tip of his nose. That is where he placed it, the tip of the long-stemmed rose, right there on the end of his nose. And then…he let go.
He was balancing it. I couldn’t believe it. He made microscopic movements to the right, back, left, left, backforward, backright to keep the rose upright, right there on his nose! He had definitely stopped talking. I didn’t even breathe. This was not a fake rose, a trick rose. This was a rose rose, and he was magnificent, like a seal or a cartoon come to life. My boyfriend kept it there for fifteen seconds or so until “ah!” it tipped over and he caught it and bowed deeply.
“Wow,” I said, mouth hanging open. “That was so cool! Do it again! Do it again!” And he did do it again for me and many times after that. But I’ll never forget what he said when I asked him how long it took to be able to do it.
He said it took him about ten years.
“Ten years??” I pictured him practicing tilting his head back every day for ten years. All those roses!
“That’s right. Ten years of daily practice for ten seconds of your enjoyment,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. He turned back to his case and began to put away his tools. I sat and thought about the time it takes to really learn something, the years that we spend to get good at what we do, and how there are no overnight successes. Roses fall off noses for years and years and then, with a pinch of luck, we keep them up there. And someone sees.
It’s a baby bunny who is seems to be clapping? This is inarguably good. Keep reading.
There’s a Chinese parable I like. It basically goes like this:
“There once was a farmer whose only son grew up to be a great horse rider. ‘How good it is that my son is masterful with horses!’ the man said, and the villagers exclaimed, ‘Yes, it is wonderful that he is so good with horses,’ and no one could disagree.
One day, the boy was thrown from his best horse and injured badly. Both his legs were broken and his back was broken also. ‘A tragedy!’ cried his father, and the villagers lamented the crippled boy, agreeing that it was a terrible tragedy that the boy was thrown from his horse. The farmer cursed the day he taught his son to ride.
Not a week later, soldiers came to the village to take the young men away to war. When they stopped at the farmer’s house, they saw his crippled son and did not take him to fight because he was injured. ‘What luck!’ cried the farmer. ‘How good that my son was thrown from his horse!'”
The point is a question: what is ‘good’ and what is ‘bad’? I was diagnosed with a terrible disease several years ago; that felt pretty bad. But through my illness I found a sweetness to life that was until then unknown to me. Was it good, then, to be ill? Debatable, but…well, solidly debatable. Getting invited to my first cool kid party in high school was so very, very good for a nerd like me — but then I drank mass quantities of rum and apple juice, the room began to spin, and I wanted to die. That was, um, bad. (Rum and apple juice?? Oy. Youth is wasted on the young.)
But isn’t there a hard stop on this? Aren’t there some experiences or ideas or situations that are unequivocally good or unequivocally bad? Coming up with examples is not an easy exercise, but neither are squat thrusts and we all know how good those are for you. Just for fun, here are two straight-up “good” situations to be in and two clearly “bad” ones, at least according to me, at press time:
GOOD
– kissing the boy (or girl) you have a crush on for the first time
– getting a paycheck
BAD
– having to hide in a broom closet, quickly
– gum in your hair
Well played! Courtesy DailyDoseOfCute.net — no artist name was given.
Man! All the empathy and the bummed out fourth graders around here are starting to get to me. Today, a diversion. Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you The Cantaloupe Poem, a little ditty I wrote awhile back and the first in my series of fruit poems.
Enjoy, and read aloud if you’re able. The meter is entertaining and you can do voices if you want.
The Cantaloupe Poem
by Mary Fons
Say, friend! Could you spare some time, For the timid cantaloupe? That humble fruit whose name don’t rhyme, ‘Cept with “antelope.”
Not fit for tarts, no good for pie, Pale melon sits, dejected. “I’m tasty!” you can hear it cry — But to whom’s the call directed?
The lady ne’er looks its way, While enjoying her fruit salad, “I’m sure the flavor’s swell,” she’ll say, “But the color’s rather pallid.”
The men all pass it up and shout, “Cantaloupe’s for fairies!” (Yet they’re always ready to flip out, For oranges and strawberries.)
The fruit tends to befuddle Those coarse and less refined, The pastel melon’s flavor’s subtle — Not counting, ‘course, the rind.
Do enjoy some, like with ham! Wrapped ‘round a slender slice! You’ll quickly say, “Well, damn!”
“Now that tastes really nice!”
Or smooth it in a blender On a hot midsummer’s day, Then sit back and surrender To a cantaloupe sorbet.
Oh, friends! Do reassess Any anti-melon feeling; Say not “no” but “Yes, yes, yes!” And soon I’ll hear you squealing:
“Cantaloupe, I love you! How firm and how delicious! There’s now no fruit above you! You’re yummy and nutritious!”
That’s my folder this semester. But do I have a cubby??
And now, without asking for it and likely not wanting it, I present my grad school application essay. It’s a bit of a longer read, but it is essentially the story of how I was robbed in January and the story is pretty good. I labored so on this piece that my writer’s ego won’t allow me to let it gather dust in Google Docs forever.
Editor’s Note: WordPress doesn’t do footnotes, so I’ve cobbled together a blog version of the two I included; it should be clear. Also: I got into the program!
Fons Writing Sample University of Chicago MLA Admissions Spring ’13
“To philosopher and historian the madness and imbecile wickedness of mankind ought to appear ordinary events.”
– David Hume, Treatise of Human Nature
Kill a man’s family, and he may brook it, But keep your hands out of his breeches’ pocket.
– Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto X, Stanza 79
For well over an hour I stood, arched over glass cases, chatting with the guys at the fancy pen shop. We looked down at the different models. I learned about barrels and nibs, the difference between this Italian manufacturer and that German one. I was shopping for An Official Pen, the first in my life. I had decided to become a woman of letters even if I was the only one who knew it and I needed the proper tool for the job.
I auditioned several before I found an Italian rollerball made of heavy white resin with gold details and a nice heft. It fit my hand just right and streamed ink onto paper with an almost wanton quality. This sexiness, mixed with the solemnity and significance one expects from An Official Pen, ended the search. I paid, tucked my purchase into my handbag, and my new pen and I sailed through the shop doors onto the street. I do write so many words each day; now the already pleasurable act was getting this insane upgrade. How was it possible to be so happy?
Less than an hour later, my purse was stolen. Just like that, my pen was gone, and I went from bliss to panic. For a time I was inconsolable, but in the hours and days that followed, I considered an argument that challenged my reasons be upset. According to this argument, no one had actually taken my purse: in fact, there was no such thing.
* * *
Had he been at Panera that evening, 18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume would’ve patted a hysterical me on the shoulder and asked me to consider the lily.
Hume made many significant contributions to the world of philosophy, but the one that concerns us here is his controversial ‘bundle theory.” Bundle theory is the ontological assertion that there really is no such thing as a lily. What there is is your sense of smell, your perception of flowers, your memory of previous “lilies,” atoms of water and carbon, your understanding of height and weight and how such things are measured, and so on. In other words, a lily is no more than a collection of its properties; without all of these pieces sliding into place, a lily might as well be a hippopotamus, or a war missile, or Greenland, or nothing at all.
There in the cafe (better: there in a square space delineated by slabs of brick and mortar wherein one conceives of ‘soup’ and ‘sandwich’) my purse had been deleted. None of its physical properties were available to me any longer; I had only a memory of them — a pretty flimsy “property,” if you ask me. And though I believed I was adequately describing the purse over the phone to the police, there was so much adrenaline pumping through me at that moment, even the picture in my head was shorting out. Perhaps to the thieves “my” purse still physically existed (was it “theirs” now?) but to me, my beloved handbag was suddenly nothing more than a concept — an expensive black Italian leather one that held the contents of my organized life. What was a handbag? What was any object that could be so empirically with me one moment and gone the next? Do handbags exist, Mr. Hume? Mine certainly didn’t, not anymore. The bundle had left the building and was probably halfway across Chicago at that point.
It wasn’t until I applied Hume’s theory to my situation that I began to feel even slightly better. If the purse was a concept now, it was a concept an hour before the crime as well; I just felt more comfortable with it back then. There was another purse I had yet to encounter that would be attractive to me as a replacement. The pocketbook, the keys, the day runner, the phone — these were all just bundles of properties, I told myself, not items of true substance that existed on their own, certainly not items that I could feel real affection for. (Full disclosure: the Chanel lipstick was tough — I loved my “La Somptueuse” very, very much and of course that particular shade has been discontinued; in the end I had to admit that lipstick is only pigment, water, and sexual possibility; nothing more and not anything less. It’s hard to be actively devastated when you decide to bag emotion and consider objecthood instead. An hour later I stopped crying and straightened up.
My purse never existed. My purse never existed. My beautiful, beautiful purse.
Though I was somewhat less distraught after considering all this — calling my mom helped, too — my inquiry into the nature of material things wasn’t quite finished and now threatened to disturb me more profoundly than the theft itself. In terms of causing long-lasting trauma to a person, I do consider the battle of petty crime vs. metaphysical crisis an even match. As I walked up Michigan Avenue the next morning carrying exactly two personal effects (1), I felt positively weightless. Weightlessness is a feeling with a good reputation, but actually it’s awful. This is because it defies one of the the most fundamental properties of all material objects: gravity. Even if they are all just a big bundle of this and that perception, even if we’re making all this up, blink by blink, material objects (e.g., apples, purses, small dogs), are spooky if they suddenly start floating in the air.
Everything on my body seemed subject to fling off at any moment. I fully expected to be robbed again, was anticipating it, bracing myself for another thief who might divest me of my coat, even the shoes on my feet. My glasses weren’t a given: they might pop off my face and go flying into the sky. What, exactly, was keeping them from doing just that? Wasn’t everything else gone? Hadn’t my fellow man betrayed me once? My previous relation to objects and other humans (more objects!) was now absurd. We believe we own things, that we “have” them, that they exist because we see them; after the purse snatching, these ideas flagged and dropped. Not a very good place from which to go to the D.O.T. for a new driver’s license, but I went anyway, brow furrowed. (2)
* * *
I have replaced my pen.
The shop guys gave me a YPT (“You Poor Thing”) discount and two free ink refills, which was awfully sweet of them. The argument that there is no such thing as a thing, a concept I might not’ve considered at such length had I not been unceremoniously divested of many precious things, did help me cope. But bundle theory, like arguments for or against deism, does kind of end up in a similar, dare I say impotent spot: either there is a god or there isn’t; either there are substantive things or there aren’t; we still have to pay the electric bill. We still have to pee. We still have to make sure we’ve received and read through a particularly strong graduate school applicant’s materials thoroughly.
Are you sure you have everything?
——————————
(1) Passport, mint.
(2) A final dispatch from ground zero: As I passed WGN, it seemed the most natural thing in the world that the radio would report the story.z “Popular Chicago resident Mary Fons was robbed yesterday. Police say her Marni handbag, itself valued at over $1500, was stolen at a cafe at Congress and State around 4pm. Cafe staff assisted Fons in placing calls to cancel credit cards, including Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, and Citibank. A report was filed with Chicago police. “They made me call 311 because this is a non-emergency,” Fons said, “But as a woman’s brain is located in her handbag, I may require an ambulance.”
I wrote “The Maine Camper’s Slug Song” a few years ago when I was doing a play up in Maine. This was an ode (ode?) to the truly enormous slugs that emerged at night and also an exercise in meter: the inspiration for the piece was John Betjeman’s “A Subaltern’s Love Song.” Yes, I know that the creatures I saw aren’t actually sea slugs — sea slugs live in the sea — but it paints the correct picture of the Atlantic Oceanic monsters that made me lose sleep many a night. Enjoy!
The Maine Camper’s Slug Song
by Mary Fons
The sea slugs of Maine, the sea slugs of Maine,
Lengthened and strengthened by Northeastern rain,
What frightening sizes you all seem to be,
There in damp grasses, too close to me!
Like hot dogs or cowcumbers – oh, how to describe?
The long, skinny, tube-like shapes that do hide
In grasses in yards of Tom, Dick, and Jane,
We are weak from your grossness, oh sea slugs of Maine.
Oh sea slugs of Maine, oh sea slugs of Maine!
How could I possibly sleep once again
Without nightmarish visions of slimy long necks
And trails of your travels and nocturnal treks.
For an encounter occurred tonight in the fog,
While islanders slept, sawing log by large log,
I met with a sea slug and had to then log,
My experience in this internet blog.
Nearby the front door, after some time away,
I found one of you, smack dead in my way–
Dead, yes indeed, I’d prefer you remain,
You foul gastropod! you mollusk of Maine!
But lo the courage I found I had not
Sufficient enough to kill on the spot–
What would I use? My shoe or my fist?
How might one murder a foe such as this?
For your body was tensile; gooey and brown,
And I had no stomach for stooping way down
To meet at the ground with the whites of my eyes
A creature’s existence which logic belies.
And so with a shrug and a shiver of spine,
And a curse for a world that created its kind,
I sidestepped and wide-leapt its long, curvy line,
Dignity shattered but otherwise fine.
Oh sea slug of Maine, oh sea slug of Maine,
I am bested tonight – and this is quite plain,
But sleep with eyes open – all four of them,
For one night we’ll duel and you’ll not find luck then!
It’s not that I hate them or wish them great pain,
But g-ddamn they’re disgusting, the sea slugs of Maine.
Just when language pleases me from the top of my capo to the tip of my tarsals, it goes and does it all over again. Ladies and germs, I present “quaintrelle,” a word I discovered yesterday when I wasn’t looking for it.
Quaintrelle
(n.)
A woman who emphasizes a life of passion, expressed through personal style, leisurely pastimes, and cultivation of life’s pleasures.
I’m signed up for that one. The leisurely pastimes part is the only part that I can’t get 100% on board with. In my head, “leisurely pastimes” translates to “strolling” or “a spot of tea with Freddy and the Rumsfordshire sisters after a pleasant game of squash on the lawn.” I’m a long way from squash on the lawn.
The rest of it, though, has pretty much been my M.O. since ’95. They say relationships take work. It’s true; but we have a relationship with ourselves, as well. This relationship takes just as much work, maybe more. Today, I shall set a goal: I will take a pleasure in life and cultivate it one step further than usual. I will be a quaintrelle I can be proud of.
Oh, misconceptions. You crazy little guys! I can think of a few:
– when you fall in love, it will be forever
– “He’s got the whole world/in his pants”
– black licorice doesn’t taste good
– the expression “loaded for bear” comes to us from the nautical world
Let’s look at that last one. Last night, I was set straight by a comrade. We were in conversation at an almost handicappingly dim restaurant, nibbling on burrata and tomatoes so fresh they were still mooing.
“Well, there I was, and let me tell you, I was loaded for bear!” my dinnermate said. I stopped him in his tale to ask about the provenance of that expression. It was a nautical term, wasn’t it? I knew what it meant, that a person was ready for a fight, ready for a major event, equipped and prepared to do serious business. But I have operated my entire life (at least since I could read or whatever) that “loaded for bear” referred to the maximum level of cargo or freight a big ship could carry at one time. I was using “bear” as in “bearing weight.” To me, “loaded for bear” meant that a massive ship was packed to the hilt, loaded up “for bear,” perhaps a sailor’s way of saying, “the full weight.” Don’t know where I picked it up, don’t know who might’ve misled me or if I just made it up, but I’ve used the expression properly for a long time and never thought to question it.
“No, no,” said he. “No, it means you’ve loaded your gun for big game. Like a bear.”
I smacked his shoulder. “Get! Out! Really?? A bear?? It means an actual bear??”
“Yes,” he said, and smiled in that way that men smile when a girl in a dress swats them on the shoulder. Happy girl, silly hitting. Lovely hitting.
What a revelation. A bear. I like animals a lot — in the abstract — and when an idiom has been employing one right in front of my face without my knowledge, well, my day is made upon discovery of that.
I’m writing a series of poems about fruit. Each poem focuses on a single fruit, each written in a different style. Some are almost childishly simple — there are those among you who may remember Cantaloupe In Chorus — while others are more thinky, e.g., Pomergran, a commentary on faith vs. reason modeled after Lewis’ Jabberwocky. I’ll post that one day, too.
Right now, I’m working on a piece about pineapple and I am enjoying the heck out of this one. I’ve titled it The Preposterously True Tale of Pru Huntington’s Pineapple and as you read the first half of it, I recommend doing so aloud to get the meter right. Remember: there is a “grace note” of sorts that one can exploit in these things; I assure you, my meter has been tested and retested for accuracy.
ED. NOTE: Damn! My formatting didn’t make it into the WordPress quotation template. Forgive me; I know it’s wonky.
Oh, and one other thing: the second half takes a wild, utterly unexpected turn. It involves a song — not sung by any human…
“The pineapple’s here!” she cried, “Be a dear, Louisa, and go to the door?”
Pru stood, quite amazed, at the window and gazed at the fruit
She’d been waiting for.
Huge, golden yellow — the fruit service fellow had trouble just lifting it up;
“A centerpiece for the century,” Pru mused, “All the gentry
Will scarcely believe their good luck.”
The deliveryman soon was to stand in the foyer of Huntington House;
He was swiftly paid and excused by the maid, Louisa,
Who wore a silk blouse.
The party that night was the unmatched delight of the
in-the-know every December; A-listers all fought to be given a spot: On the guest list of VIP members.
The house was festooned (be-ribboned!) and bloomed with bouquets
stacked floor to the ceiling;
They spared no expense, decorating like this;
(The party, it gave Pru’s life meaning.)
Are you in the mood to hear of the food that awaited each last sparkly guest?
Delights for the eyes and stomach, no surprise,
(Worth making dear Prudence so stressed.)
Piled high on the tables inside the great room, the dishes,
they steamed and they bubbled;
Whatever you please, there were tureens of these,
A spread of deliciousness, doubled.
Racked lamb and partridge and baked ham to boot,
the butcher’s best efforts in meat,
Chicken with waffles, deep-fried falafels;
A trip ’round the world you could eat!
Dessert was a feat of sugar and cake, so heavy the table would droop;
Ice cream? Oh, please! There were dozens of these,
Get a bowl, get a spoon, get a scoop!
But in all of this bounty, a royal spot saved — centerstage,
surrounded by flowers —
It was for the pineapple — Pru’s precious pineapple!
No other food had the fruit’s powers.
Hospitality emblem, oh lighthouse of grace, rough from the stem to the stalk;
Its sweet, fleshy inner was relished at dinner
Throughout the grand Belle Époque.
Let’s turn to Pru, our esteemed hostess who,
at this moment was placing her prize
High on its stage, a fruit for the age,
The Missus had pride in her eyes.
At a quarter to eight, the guests had arrived
and swiftly bestowed with Champagne;
They drank up the stars as valets parked men’s cars,
And hung furs for Anne, for Elaine.
Mingling done, Pru and Barry appeared at the top of an ornate staircase;
And a “Hip-hip Hooray!” for King and Queen of the day,
He donned tuxedo, She — lace.
“Thank you, comrades,” Barry boomed from his post,
Pru so glad she could cry;
“And now let us dine and drink casks of good wine,
To the great room, for dinner is nigh.”
The oak doors were opened, the guests “Ooh’ed” and “Ahh-ed,”
“Tally ho! You’ve outdone yourselves,”
Said Silas The Barrister, then to Pru, to embarrass her:
“Did you hire an army of elves??”
Before they could eat, Pru had a brief speech
which she gave at the party each year;
She stood at the center, Pineapple Presenter,
Elocution loud enough they might hear:
“A pineapple means welcome, and hospitality, too; truly the Huntington way;
We wish you prosperity vis a vis this fruit rarity,
Now let’s all dine and be gay!”
Fair reader, I beg you: believe what I say just then, the party plot thickened —
It turns, it turns, the relentless, uncaring wheel;
Blind, wise; a soundless roar rushing in the ear of every man —
Hark! The child’s cry, the mother’s soothing;
These be the sounds of Wheel’s beginnings!
And woe! For even in the tend’rest eye:
Death minds with patience — or alas, for some, with none;
The wheel shall shudder, in time —
For to close the old mill down.
