The Logo File

You may have noticed: I like words. I use them practically every day. And nothing pleases me more (hyperbole) than a clever neologism. (Note to cruciverbalizers: this does NOT constitute a license to make up any old thing just because it fits in the crossword grid.) I even collect words, like some people collect stamps or coins.

The Laxicon, a sloppily organized compendium of words formed by adding a letter (SUMICIDE: deliberately throwing oneself beneath a large Japanese wrestler), subtracting one (GYNASIUM: a health spa for women only), or changing one letter (ABANUENSIS: an assistant who runs off and leaves you in the lurch) from an existing word, is upwards of 1000 entries. If you would like to contribute, feel free to send in your words and letters.

Eventually, it would be fun to publish an Illuminated Laxicon—I can see the drawing illustrating “sumicide,” can’t you? Unfortunately, publishers won’t talk to me, so I am sitting in the literary equivalent of Schwab’s Drugstore, waiting to be discovered. If you know any publishers, give ‘em my e-mail address.

But there are some words that should have been laughed out of the lexicon (the real one) the moment they first appeared in public. It’s harder to get rid of them once they’re established, kind of like head lice. But it’s definitely worth the effort. I’m talking about words like PRE-OWNED. Whatever happened to “used?” Would you trust a “pre-owned car salesman?” Besides, even if “pre-owned” were allowed to exist, shouldn’t it mean “new”?

GAMING is another one, used only in commercials: it sounds so much more jolly and wholesome than “gambling,” don’t you think?

And what’s up with FITNESS WATER? Excuse me? Fitness water? If your shirt is too big, can you wash it in fitness water? But not only did that nonsense phrase slip into the language unmolested, it brought along its illegitimate half-brother, the new PROTEIN WATER. Water may be protean--it can take many forms, like ice or steam—but protein water has no place in my dictionary. Or anywhere else. VITAMIN WATER? LIFE WATER???

While we’re at it, how about a moratorium on any word that begins with “MEGA-“ or ends with “-GATE?”

And I’d like to see the media quit using FLAWED to refer to suspect elections like those in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Pakistan (oh, wait, that one’s been postponed), and that upcoming circus in Russia known as “Put In Medvedev.” The word you’re looking for is, um, let’s see, sounds like—oh, yes, “fraud.”

SHORTFALL is another of my personal favorites, a euphemism for impending disaster. It may be useful if you are talking about Tarzan missing the vine, but I say leave it out of discussions about the budget.

KWANZAA—now there’s a silly word. It started out life as “kwanza” (Swahili for “first”). Since the celebration refers to seven principles, it’s inventor wanted a word with seven letters so he just tacked another “a” on the end. Why is that better than “kkwanza?” I have no beef with the invention of a whole new holiday, but if you want a seven-letter name, surely there are plenty of real words to choose from. Christians honor (in theory) ten commandments, but nobody calls it Christmass.

CIA/military terms like RENDITION and COLLATERAL DAMAGE are perfectly good words that have been dragged into the bad part of town and tortured into unseemly applications, but they got me thinking about this in the first place. There are plenty of others, but I’ve gone on long enough. Which is to say, I can’t think of any more off hand. However, I am always open to suggestions; do you have any favorites?

I see them in my office, their look slightly haunted by the memories of having been here before, though not alone. Their fingers absent-mindedly trace the circle of their wedding band, as we talk not about their own illness, but about the struggle of getting up each day in a house grown bleak by absence. We talk about family, their church, support groups for the bereaved. They tell me how they all of a sudden look up from a book, wanting to read aloud the passage that struck them, and realizing, again, that the person who shared their days and nights all these years is no longer there. After each encounter like this, I come home and give my love an extra hard hug and a kiss, having been reminded once more how ephemeral our lives are, and how each moment of shared happiness is such a great gift. Loss is an inevitable part of our lives. The following poem speaks to this struggle.

Alone

i’m trying to follow your wishes

work hard

find something you love to do

and just go for it

we had plans

the future before the diagnosis

art and painting for me

politics for you.

but after five months

the artist brushes are heavy

they seem stuck in rubber cement and

moving them around the canvas

to put the paint down

became difficult.

i’m sure you’d say just push through

don’t get lost in your head.

easy words for you

i was there

when your screams reverberated through the city in the middle of the night

i was there

to hold you, to give you kisses

to whisper hope in your ear

yes you had plenty of friends and they were all very encouraging

but I was there

when death leaned hard and

you struggled to keep him hidden from friends and family

you’re not here now

to help me

when I could really use your hugs and whispers

to carry me along

and lighten the brushes

brighten the days

erase the clouds

when emptiness heaps up and

rushes over me

in an avalanche of loneliness.

Frank DeCicco

New beginnings are hard. Sometimes we make a conscious choice to start over again, or at least change directions. At other times, the decision is forced upon us, ala Mr. Spitzer. Regardless how it comes about, change represents both danger and opportunity. In my world, we are awash in a sea of changes, most not of our choosing. All this brings me to the following poem:

Poem not containing the word snake

This morning on the garden path I find a whorl

of scaled collodion shed overnight, complete

from corneas to tail, a sinuous coil

of glistening membrane, its former occupant

now rippling the grass. I wonder

when that time arrived, what signal flared?

Restrictive pellicle, old eyes dim –

no  thought of venom, then, or prey.

Which reminds me of our talk

last night, how hard it is to change

oneself for good. How hard to know

the right time to slip off

a useless skin, the right time

to begin again.

Ted McMahon

The earth has completed another elliptical swing around the sun, signifying the passing of another year in my life. The event was celebrated by those closest to me in the sharing of cards, phone calls, cakes, bottles of wine. I managed to be out of town for the actual day, not by design, but by happy coincidence. You remember when you were young, and birthdays couldn’t come soon enough, representing sought after milestones in life: staying up later at night, a new driver’s license, the start of the dating ritual. Now, our focus has changed, as we congratulate each other on having survived yet another year, making not very original jokes regarding feared loss of bodily functions, not the least of which is memory. I have been rather fortunate in my life, with blessings in greater numbers than tragedies, and few, if any, regrets. One of my favorite writers, Mark Twain, once observed, “The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.” I am grateful that I have been granted the grand essentials of happiness: something to do, something to love, something to hope for. I also appreciate that the ride is short, and we all have to get off at some time. Therefore, the following poem:

Identifying the Body

At the morgue dead are reduced

to a face

horizontal

smaller than life.

My father: gray-orange

handsome, not cold.

I touched the hard cheek

and remember him

even in my fingers.

My wife could not view

her mother.

After twenty-five years

I remember her both ways, still.

Loss is persistent as bone.

When they raise the sheet on me

do this last kind thing:

tell them, That’s him,

my husband.

Husband once meant tiller

of soil or master of the house

but words have more lives

than skin.

Just say, Yes.

I will be in your hands.

Gary Stein