Ho ho

Published by peter on 2017-04-01 in Humour and Language. 0 Comments

Yo, mofos and ototos!

Oi, oi! This is just too-too for Hulu! If you’re chatting with a go-go dancer playing with a yoyo solo in Kokomo, or wearing a kimono in Beaudo visiting with ScoMo (who’s no bozo) and Joe Rokocoko about CoCo bonds or lobo loans pro bono from MoFo or the crisis with NoKo, here’s the low-do to write a promo in bopomofo quomodocumque (to publish in HoPoS):

Saw FloJo and schlomo toe-beau toy-boy BoJo, fresh from Xoyo, at a HoJo in SoHo go bomo poco a poco with Coco and majordomo Tojo (ignoring kodo-ha) – listening to Moloko, Kokoroko and El Topo play joropo on the koto and the shoko, singing in SeSotho about the dodo, with kokoro. Have robophoto, but it’s no podo. Their ro-ro pogo is to eat faux pho, fro-yo, choko gateaux and an iced vo-vo at a toro table while drinking toso at smoko with the Poqo povo at Xoxo listening to Radio Station Kozo, and later watching a slo-mo doco about Hagoromo in mono with Koko, Komo, Mo-Do, a hobo and okomo Perry Como in the so-so rococo Po-Mo rojo bobo boho lodo BoCo CoCo gogo dojo, “Spodo Komodo“. Bolo.

Fogo? No no, fomo! Whaumau! Indeed, fomo con moto! With added mojo! paMoto! Yolo! Makorokoto! OTOH, they’re loco about their okoto. So, nodo, RoPo popo, no no. Loto.

Domo arigato. XOXO.

KEY:
Yo – Hey (salutation)
mofos – mother f***ers
ototos – younger brothers
Oi, oi – Hey (salutation, ancient Greek)
too-too – overly
Hulu – American video-on-demand service
go-go dancer – nightclub danced employed to entertain patrons
yoyo – child’s toy
solo – alone
Kokomo – a city in Indiana
kimono – Japanese garment
Beaudo – Beaudesert, Queensland
ScoMo – Scott Morrison, Australian politician, now Prime Minister
bozo – idiot
Joe Rokocoko – New Zealand rugby union player
CoCo bonds – Contingent Convertible bonds
lobo loans – lender option, borrower option loans
pro bono – for the good of the public (Latin)
MoFo – US law firm Morrison and Foerster
NoKo – North Korea
low-do – low down
promo – promotion
bopomofo – a transliteration system for Chinese
quomodocumque – in whatever fashion (Latin)
HoPoS – Journal of the History and Philosophy of Science
FloJo – Florence Griffith-Joyner, American athlete
schlomo – lazy person
toe-beau – foot-fetishing lover
toy-boy – younger male lover
BoJo – Boris Johnson, British politician
Xoyo – a nightclub in London, England
HoJo – Howard Johnson (hotel chain)
SoHo – South of Houston street, area of Manhatten
bomo – black out make out (kissing or petting while intoxicated)
poco a poco – little by little (Italian)
Coco – character in 2017 Pixar/Disney animated movie
majordomo Tojo – Hideki Tojo, Japanese military leader and Prime Minister
kodo-ha – imperial doctrine (Japanese)
Moloko – English pop duo
Kokoroko – London, UK, Afrobeat group
El Topo – Puerto Rican musician, Antonio Cabán Vale
joropo – creole musical style from Venezuala and Columbia
koto – Japanese stringed instrument
shoko – Japanese gong
SeSotho – the language of Lesotho
dodo – flightless bird
kokoro – emotions, feelings (Japanese)
robophoto – automated photo
podo – pants down
ro-ro – stupid person or behaviour
pogo – making fun of someone behind their back
faux – false (French)
pho – a type of Vietnamese soup
fro-yo – frozen yogurt
choko – a type of vegetable, common in Australia
gateaux – a cake
iced vo-vo – a type of biscuit in Australia
toro – a tree from New Zealand
toso – spiced sake (Japan)
smoko – smoking break (Australian)
Poqo – the armed wing of the Pan-African Congress of South Africa
povo – the people (Zimbabwe, from the Portuguese)
Xoxo – an arts festival in Portland, Oregon
Radio Station Kozo – radio station in Branson, Missouri
slo-mo – slow motion
doco – documentary
Hagoromo – a Japanese Noh play
mono – a single audio stream
Koko – a gorilla who knew sign language (died 2018)
Komo – Nigerian-British rap artist
Mo-Do – Maureen Dowd, American journalist
hobo – homeless person
okomo – a very fine person
Perry Como – American singer
so-so – mediocre
rococo – excessive late Baroque style
Po-Mo – Post Modern
rojo – vulgar fashion
bobo – bourgeois bohemian
boho – bohemian
lodo – Lower Downtown, precinct of Denver, Colorado
BoCo – Boulder, Colorado
CoCo – Co-creative co-working space
gogo – energetic, upbeat (a style of music with non-stop drum beats across multiple songs)
dojo – martial arts studio
”Spodo Komodo“ – a priest mentioned by Mrs Doyle in the Christmas Special of Channel 4 TV series Father Ted
Bolo – Be on the look out
fogo – fear of going out
fomo – fear of missing out
whaumau – fomo (Maori)
con moto – with motion (Italian)
mojo – personal power, force
paMoto – on fire (chiShona)
Yolo – you only live once
Makorokoto – Congratulations (chiShona)
OTOH –  on the other hand
loco – mad
okoto – achieving one’s life’s passion
nodo – nothing doing
RoPo – Rohnert Park, California
popo – the police
Loto – Lock out, tag out
Domo arigato – Thankyou (Japanese)
XOXO – Love and Kisses

The Stinson Crash

Published by peter on 2017-02-19 in Heroes, History and Poetry. 0 Comments

Today, 19 February 2017, is the 80th anniversary of the crash of the Stinson in Lamington Ranges National Park in Southern Queensland, half a kilometre from the border with New South Wales, in 1937. I attended the 50th anniversary commemoration in February 1987, where I met some of the original rescue party, as I reported here. The plane was the Stinson Model A Brisbane.

The plane was on a scheduled Airlines of Australia flight from Brisbane to Sydney, with 2 pilots and 5 passengers on board. Both pilots and 2 passengers died in the crash. One passenger, James Westray, went for help, but died after falling down a waterfall.  Judith Wright, who later lived in nearby Mount Tamborine for two decades, wrote a poem about Westray, The Lost Man. The two survivors, John Proud and Joseph Binstead, owed their rescue to the intuition and perseverance of legendary bushman Bernard O’Reilly.

The passengers and crew were:
Joseph Robert Binstead, wool broker, of Manly NSW
John Seymour Proud, mining engineer, of Wahroonga NSW
William Walden Fountain, architect, 41 of Hamilton, Brisbane QLD (originally from New Jersey)
James Ronald Nairne Graham, Managing Director, 55 of Hunters Hill NSW
William James Guthrie Westray, Insurance Underwriter, 25 of Kensington, London, England
Commercial Pilot, Beverly George Merivale Shepherd, 25 of Sydney NSW
Commercial Pilot, Reginald Haslem Boyden, 41 of Randwick NSW.

Proud (1907-1997) went on to a prominent career as a mining engineer and executive, and was a generous philanthropist.  Some more information can be found here.

A report in the Beaudesert Times on the 80th anniversary trek is here.
 

Three Potters

Published by peter on 2017-01-28 in History and Literature. 0 Comments

Surfing idly, I encounter a reference to one Andrew Onderdonk, an international lawyer who visited with George Santayana (1863-1952) in the 1920s. The question that immediately entered my mind is the one I am sure occurs to you too: Is this man a descendant of the second Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Pennsylvania?

That was Henry Onderdonk (1789-1858), who was supposedly replaced as Bishop due to a problem with alcohol. Bishop Henry’s successor, the third Episcopal Bishop of Pennsylvania, was a mathematician and philosopher named Alonzo Potter (1800-1865), whose grandson Warwick Potter (31 October 1870-11 October 1893) was a student and close friend of Santayana’s at Harvard. Santayana wrote a very moving quartet of sonnets to him, following his early death. One sonnet is here, and posts on Santayana here. I imagine Warwick Potter would be completely forgotten now if not for Santayana’s consoling poems.

It seems that Andrew Joseph Onderdonk (1889- ?) had also been a student of Santayana’s at Harvard, and was still alive in the mid-1960s, when he offered to sell Santayana’s writing chair to journalist Joseph Epstein.

Warwick Potter’s father was Major-General Robert Brown Potter (1829-1887), a Civil War general on the Union side and subject of a famous photo, taken around 1864. The photo is mainly well-known because the photographer, Mathew Brady (1822-1896), included himself in it. One would be tempted to call this action post-modernist, if painters from the renaissance onwards had not done the same – for instance, Raphael in his “School of Athens” (1511). Brady’s louche posture against a tree on the right of the picture contrasts with the formality of comportment of the General, standing hatless at the centre of his behatted men, who all face him while he faces us. I wonder about the names and fates of the other soldiers in the photo.

Alonzo Potter’s first wife, and the mother of Robert Potter, was Sarah Maria Nott, the only daughter of Eliphalet Nott (1773-1866), President of Union College, Schenectady, New York, from 1804-1866. Warwick Potter had three brothers and a half-sister: Robert Burnside Potter, Abby Potter, Austin Potter and Frances Tileston Potter. He was born on 1870-10-31 in Lemington, near Newcastle-upon-Tyne and died on 1893-10-11 in Brest, Brittany. I find it most consoling that I am able to place Warwick Potter in his family, with both his father and paternal grandfather being identified, and help preserve his memory. He has now, for me, a local habitation and a name.

Our Glad

Published by peter on 2017-01-22 in History and Politics. 0 Comments

New South Wales tomorrow has its first premier of Armenian descent, Gladys Berejiklian, leader of the Liberal Party, who is also the second woman to be premier.  Her first language was Armenian, and she only learnt English once she went to school. Her great-grandparents were apparently killed in the Ottoman genocide of Armenians in 1915.

In addition to the majority Anglo-Celts, the state of NSW has had premiers of Hungarian, Italian and American descent. Her only fellow female premier, Kristina Keneally, was born in the USA. Until recently, the Governor of NSW was the very admirable Professor Marie Bashir, who is of Lebanese descent. There was a moment in 2010 when it was women all the way up!

As far as I am aware, the only American Governor of Armenian heritage has been George Deukmejian, Governor of California from 1983-1991.

Some previous discussion of leaders from minority groups here.

Recent Reading 12

Published by peter on 2017-01-06 in Argumentation, Books, Communism, Fiction, History, Intelligence and Espionage, Literature and Recent Reading. Closed

The latest in a sequence of lists of recently-read books. The books are listed in reverse chronological order, with the most recently-read book at the top.

  • Edward Fulbrook [2016]:  Narrative Fixation in Economics. UK:  College Publications.
  • Pamela Vass [2016]:  The Power of Three:  Thomas Fowler, Devon’s Forgotten Genius. UK: Boundstone Books.
  • Charles Babbage [1835]:  On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures. UK:  Charles Knight.
  • Timothy James Burke [1996]:  Lifebuoy Men, Lux Women:  Commodification, Consumption and Cleanliness in Modern Zimbabwe. USA:  Duke University Press.
  • Petina Gappah [2016]:  Rotten Row. UK:  Faber & Faber.

    • Continue reading ‘Recent Reading 12’

Transitions 2016

Published by peter on 2016-12-25 in Obituaries and Transitions. 0 Comments

People who have passed on during 2016, whose life or works have influenced me:

  • Edward Albee (1928-2016), American playwright
  • Myrtle Berman (1924-2016), South African political activist and resistance fighter
  • Daniel Berrigan SJ (1921-2016), American priest and political activist
  • Pierre Boulez (1925-2016), French composer and conductor
  • Victoria Chitepo (1928-2016), Zimbabwean politician
  • Harold Cohen (1928-2016), British-American artist and AI pioneer
  • Ronnie Corbett (1930-2016), British comedian
  • Umberto Eco (1932-2016), Italian writer
  • Bob Ellis (1942-2016), Australian playwright and journalist
  • Tom Hayden (1939-2016), American political activist
  • Chip Heathcote (1931-2016), Australian statistician
  • Bobby Hutcherson (1941-2016), American vibraphonist
  • Peter Maxwell Davies (1934-2016), British composer
  • Diana Mitchell (1932-2016), Zimbabwean historian
  • Yukio Ninagawa (1935-2016), Japanese theatre director
  • John Satterthwaite (1928-2016), Australian engineer and Bishop
  • Thomas Schelling (1921-2016), American game theorist and strategist
  • Garry Shandling (1949-2016), American comedian
  • Lois Weisberg (1925-2016), Chicagoan connector
  • Alexander Yessenin-Volpin  (1924-2016),  Russian-American poet, mathematician and dissident.