Althouse: At the Lungwort Café...

May 26, 2013

At the Lungwort Café...

... splatter your words.

44 comments:

Peter Hoh said...: Which variety? Is it Mrs. Moon?; 5/26/13, 10:11 AM
edutcher said...: I thought one spluttered, rather than splattered.; 5/26/13, 10:28 AM
Tyrone Slothrop said...: All I know about lungwort is that its inflorescence is a terminal scorpioid cyme, with bracts. But you knew that already.; 5/26/13, 10:35 AM
David said...: Splatter your words?

All is forgiven, Titus.; 5/26/13, 10:55 AM
Anonymous said...: Words can be
Splattered, Sputtered, Muttered, Slathered,
Southern, Buttered, Sing-song, Mad-Hatter'ed,
Salacious, Gracious, Gratuitous, Greek,
Superfluous, Pernicious, Preemptive, Weak,
Rambling, Redemptive, Reactive, Wrong,
Rhyming, Silver-Lining'ed, Defining, and Strong,
Bob Dylan Robot could turn this
into a Bob Dylan Song.; 5/26/13, 11:09 AM
Anonymous said...: Words can be
Pernicious, Repetitious, Salacious, Plagiarized, Flattering, Solicitous,
Sincere, Misguided, Received, Rejected, Appropriated, Apposite, Inappropriate to time and place, Prescient, Salacious, and splattered across the Internet for all the world to ignore, or worse.; 5/26/13, 11:39 AM
Anonymous said...: Bob Dylan Robot examines the following lines from "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands":

"The kings of Tyrus with their convict list
Are waiting in line for their geranium kiss"

Replacing "geranium" with Lungwort in this lyric would substantially alter the import of the lines.

The cunnilingual connotation of "geranium kiss" is Obvious: it is believed that Geranium can act as a balancing stimulant for female organs and nervous system (http://www.soapgoods.com/Rose-Geranium-p-322.html).

Lungwort, however, is associated with a far less sensual bodily context: the scientific name Pulmonaria is derived from Latin pulmo (lung). In the times of sympathetic magic, the spotted oval leaves of P. officinalis were thought to symbolize diseased, ulcerated lungs (Wikipedia).

While one can easily imagine the "kings of Tyrus" waiting in line for flowering vagina, their waiting in line to kiss diseased, ulcerated lungs makes sense only in the context of Norwegian Death Metal.

Bob Dylan Robot does not choose to interpret Norwegian Death Metal.

Unless there is a Norwegian Death Metal Cafe.; 5/26/13, 11:57 AM
lemondog said...: It's time to get off our war footing; 5/26/13, 12:09 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: My spanish connects pernicious with legs ... better naked than dressed.
Scandals have legs and so do robots.; 5/26/13, 12:11 PM
Anonymous said...: Bob Dylan Robot does not choose to interpret Norwegian Death Metal, but Bob Dylan Robot makes an Exception for Classic Norwegian Death Metal.

Consider the lyrics to Mayhem's 1987 song "Deathcrush,"from the Album of the same name:

"Demonic laughter your cremation
Your lungs gasp for air but are filled with blood
A sudden crack as I crushed your skull"

While the song does not specifically reference Lungwort, the line "Your lungs gasp for air but are filled with blood" is -- Obviously -- Thematically Consistent.

This Thematic Consistency is also found in their Song "Chainsaw Gutsf**k," from the Same Album:

"Bleed down to the f**king core
You're going down for f**king more
Screw your slimy guts
Driving me f**king nuts!"

Indeed, this Thematic Consistency with Lungwort is found throughout the Album, in songs such as "Necrolust" and "Pure F**king Armageddon."

Bob Dylan Robot does not Condone of Such Lyrical Content, but Lungwort must be assessed in all its Lyrical Connotations.; 5/26/13, 12:22 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: You know something is afoot when a cartoon meant to be critical of Obama makes him look more like Bush.; 5/26/13, 12:25 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: Legs? It does? My Spanish connects arms with trees, dar me brazos up here en me árbole.; 5/26/13, 12:27 PM
Anonymous said...: RE: "At the Lungwort Café.... splatter your words."

Is this not Ann cryptically alluding to Norwegian Death Metal -- specifically Mayhem's "Ghoul?"

"The sweet smell of warm blood,
It fills the air
Your f**king guts
Splattered everywhere

Ghoul!!!!"

Bob Dylan Robot, Connecting the Dots.; 5/26/13, 12:30 PM
Anonymous said...: Bob Dylan Robot just did a Google Search for "lungwort lyric" and the Second Listing is this very Cafe.

More Dots.; 5/26/13, 12:34 PM
Rich Vail said...: "Blat" then...; 5/26/13, 12:38 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Pernicious sounds like 'piernas' delicious.; 5/26/13, 12:42 PM
Anonymous said...: Bingo.

Band Kalevala
Album The Cuckoo's Children
Genre Folk Metal
Labels Metalism
Song 7: Heady Lungwort's White Fire (4:22)

It is a Free Download.; 5/26/13, 12:44 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Theres is also 'pernil' and that is also delisioso.; 5/26/13, 12:46 PM
Anonymous said...: Returning to the more pleasant connotations of "Geranium," Bob Dylan Robot finds the following:

"The Old Garden Geranium" is a melodic death metal band based in Modena, Italy.

Sadly, Bob Dylan Robot cannot find lyrics from "The Old Garden Geranium," much less references to Lungwort. Bob Dylan Robot is Sorry to Let You Down.; 5/26/13, 12:52 PM
Saint Croix said...: Great article on Eric Holder in the New York Post.; 5/26/13, 1:13 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: The butcher said, "Use this pork butt for your green chili." And I said I don't want meat with the word butt in it. And he said it's really pork shoulder, butt of the shoulder, so I said, fine then but I'm still suspicious.; 5/26/13, 1:17 PM
Anonymous said...: Bob Dylan Robot asks: is there not a narrative arc connecting the lyric in Bob Dylan's song "Ballad In Plain D"

"I once loved a girl, her skin it was bronze
With the innocence of a lamb..."

with the following 2003 incident:

Norwegian Death Metal band Mayhem made headlines in 2003 when fan Per Kristian Hagen landed in the hospital with a fractured skull after being hit by a severed sheep's head that had been thrown into the audience from the stage (Wiki).

The Innocent Lamb becomes the Severed Sheep's Head: Norwegians.

Yet more Dots...; 5/26/13, 1:26 PM
Saint Croix said...: Nice connection here between Woodrow Wilson and Barack Obama, both "progressives" who see free speech as an obstacle. Wilson is the guy who signed all those laws that Obama and Holder are using to spy on journalists.

Read Liberal Fascism for some real Woodrow Wilson horror stories. Obama has a ways to go before he can unseat Wilson as America's #1 Fascist.; 5/26/13, 1:31 PM
Saint Croix said...: I should not use the word "connection" in a Betamax thread!; 5/26/13, 1:32 PM
Saint Croix said...: But there really is a nexus, damn it.; 5/26/13, 1:32 PM
Meade said...: Peter Hoh said...
Which variety? Is it Mrs. Moon?

Pulmonaria 'Raspberry Splash'; 5/26/13, 1:37 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: Liverwort Raspberry Splash, see those two don't go together. It's like, Bloody Wounded Suffering Christ on the Cross of Redemption Pre-School for Little Girls. I'll guess a variety of Bloodroot, um, candyapple, baby pink, sweet lips.; 5/26/13, 1:41 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: Pulmonaria is a lung disease?; 5/26/13, 1:44 PM
Anonymous said...: Re: "Pulmonaria 'Raspberry Splash'"

Obscure Death Metal Band?

If so: shouldn't it be "Raspberry Splatter"?; 5/26/13, 1:48 PM
Peter Hoh said...: Chip, yes.

The Latin name and the common name for Lungwort are based on the old notion that plants that looked like something in the human body (in its healthy or diseased form) could be used to treat an ailment affecting said body part.; 5/26/13, 1:50 PM
Peter Hoh said...: Meade, good pick. I have 'Raspberry Splash' in my garden. Nice early color in the shade garden, and lovely foliage afterwards. While it's not very long-lived perennial, about the time that one dies out, there are a couple that sprouted nearby, ready to take its place.; 5/26/13, 1:53 PM
Anonymous said...: "Bob Dylan Robot examines Prince's "Raspberry Beret" and finds no references to Lungwort. However, the following lines:

"I was working part time in a five-and-dime
My boss was mr. mcgee
He told me several times that he didn't like my kind
Cause I was a bit 2 leisurely"

do invoke the Spirit of Bob Dylan's Maggie's Farm":

"I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more
I aint gonna work on Maggie's farm no more
Well, I try my best
To be just like I am
But everybody wants you
To be just like them
They say sing while you slave and I just get bored
I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more."

Prince furthers this Connection with the line

"And-a we went riding
Down by old man johnsons farm"

-- could Old Man Johnson be "Maggie's pa?, and Bob Dylan and Prince work symbolically -- and unappreciatedly -- for the same Man?

Bob Dylan Robot believes this could very well be True: songwriters do not necessarily make great clerks or handymen.; 5/26/13, 2:01 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: And-a we went riding
Down by old man johnsons farm..

As long as old man Johnson's is still in healthy form I have no qualms.; 5/26/13, 2:13 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: Lungwort are based on the old notion that plants that looked like something in the human body (in its healthy or diseased form) could be used to treat an ailment affecting said body part.

How does this plant possibly look like a lung?; 5/26/13, 2:28 PM
Saint Croix said...: John Marshall captured the anti-fascist ideal when he wrote, "we are a government of laws, and not of men." A fascist, by definition, will not follow anything but his own will.

Thus fascists--including the unelected dictators sitting on our Supreme Court--routinely circumvent our laws, primarily by deconstructing words so they no longer mean what they clearly say (i.e. lying).

Wilson's Anti-Sedition Act is a clear and unequivocal violation of our First Amendment. But Wilson ignored this constraint on his authority. And that is how fascists operate.

This is why Justice Blackmun's arbitrary memo is so important. It's one of the rare judicial memos that is floating around on the internet. Why is that?

Because fascists are arbitrary. They are not following the Constitution. They dictate whatever they want.

Contrast Blackmun's memo in Roe v. Wade with his rather frantic insistence in Casey that viability is the best of all possible points.

The viability line reflects the biological facts and truths of fetal development; it marks that threshold moment prior to which a fetus cannot survive separate from the woman and cannot reasonably and objectively be regarded as a subject of rights or interests distinct from, or paramount to, those of the pregnant woman. At the same time, the viability standard takes account of the undeniable fact that as the fetus evolves into its postnatal form, and as it loses its dependence on the uterine environment, the State's interest in the fetus' potential human life, and in fostering a regard for human life in general, becomes compelling.

And yet, since 1973, roughly 1.2% of abortions happen after viability, or 22 weeks gestation. As pro-choice people routinely tell us, that's a very small percentage. But as they fail to tell us, there have been close to 60 million abortions since 1973.

In other words, over 700,000 viable babies have been murdered.

So Blackmun's opinion in regard to the importance of viability is a lie. It is a desperate attempt to pretend that he and his Court have respect for the baby's life. And yet, as his opinion makes clear, he and his Court continue to define even viable babies as sub-human property.

No member of this Court--nor for that matter, the Solicitor General, Tr. of Oral Arg. 42--has ever questioned our holding in Roe that an abortion is not the termination of life entitled to Fourteenth Amendment protection.

That is true. But of course millions of Americans have indeed questioned his holding. So like fascists everywhere, Blackmun ignores what the people think. He cites his wholly corrupt associates, and his equally corrupt advisers, and ignores any and all popular dissent.; 5/26/13, 2:35 PM
Anonymous said...: Is there a Connection between "Xs on the eyes that signify death in the language of comics" and the Umlaut adorning the Names of many Heavy Metal Bands?

If Lungwort was a Norwegian Death Metal Band would they have an Umlaut?

Furthermore, if Umlaut was a Norwegian Death Metal Band would They be Umlaüt?

George Harrison (who was in the Travelling Wilburys with Bob Dylan) named his Music Publishing "Umlaut Corporation": not concrete Evidence that Bob Dylan was Connected to Norwegian Death Metal, but it certainly Does Not Prove the Absence of Connection. Bob Dylan Robot will need to Consider the Matter further.

Side note: adding an Umlaut to "fürther" gets you Dangerously Close to Führer.

The Umlaut: two more Dots in the Greater Connectivity.; 5/26/13, 2:44 PM
Anonymous said...: Woodrow Wilson coveted The Umlaut.; 5/26/13, 2:47 PM
Anonymous said...: (Trying to Bring the Ship around to St. Croix's Premise...); 5/26/13, 2:48 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Speaking of The presidents Words...

I was asking the other day for us to look into instances were Obama used words that were not the words of a "nice guy". Where we might surmise where his minions might have been getting their marching orders from.... While not directly saying "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest", Obama used other words to direct people to do the things that have now, just conveniently recently have come to light.

And you, President Obama, a law professor!

...the Supreme Court came out with a big free-speech decision yesterday, and President Obama's response was that he needs "to develop a forceful response to this decision. The public interest requires nothing less."

Now that the cloak of "nice guy" is in tatters, Obamas words, directing people to be proactive, are more clearly visible for us to find... if we look for them.; 5/26/13, 2:53 PM
Saint Croix said...: LOL, Betamax; 5/26/13, 2:56 PM
Michael K said...: Speaking of splattering, I was just walking Winston when he started to take off for something behind the trash bins. I couldn't see what it was but it was moving. A bird ? No, a skunk!

Fortunately, he was on the leash.; 5/26/13, 3:17 PM
lemondog said...: Woodrow Wilson coveted The Umlaut.

Also Obama with umalot.; 5/26/13, 3:58 PM
Peter Hoh said...: Dust Bunny Queen asked: How does this plant possibly look like a lung?

From the wikipedia entry for Pulmonaria: In the times of sympathetic magic, the spotted oval leaves of P. officinalis were thought to symbolize diseased, ulcerated lungs, and so were used to treat pulmonary infections.; 5/26/13, 11:30 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: Speaking of pretty things with ugly names, howzabout a beautiful thing, like the word for "beauty" represented by sheep asophagus asphagus asophagus windpipe and heart. Ick. It looks like a banjo. The egyptian hieroglyphic does.

(I just realized the .pngs are mine) Oi, how embarrassing, because I'm a student.

So here's the thing, you see it all the time and don't even know it. Well, they do, museum people see it all the time. Goes like this: you have a necklace made for your prettiest little princess, one that actually says in gold charms "beautiful," this necklace says "youth,beauty,goodness," as a single concept, a hundred times, I didn't count, I just made up that number. Her favorite thing, chiseled it in stone even. Easily missed, but if you look closely the whole necklace says the same word repeatedly chiseled in stone.

There is a seed with that shape, vaguely, they'll say a cornflower seed but that hardly makes much sense as corn is a New World plant that doesn't actually flower but there you go, it is a blue flower, the cornflower is, and its seed is a bit elongated with fuzz, so a necklace can be made of these seeds and pretend it is saying the word for "beauty, youth, goodness," but it is seeds this time and not a gold charm and it doesn't match exactly in fact it is a bit vague, as art representation goes, so something easily missed is now REALLY easy to miss so just try telling a curator their placard is missing something essential like that, all you get is [necklace, cornflower seed] Then to show that the whole thing is really not understood at all there are then modern representative necklaces made of gold charms in the shape of cornflower seeds, and even those, produced, bought, and sold, say "youth, beauty, goodness" without ever knowing it.

The symbol is a triliteral n-f-r, generally pronounced nefer. It is a very important symbol.

It can be used pun-wise to say the modern city name DENVER, D+NFR

But you see how that is a pun, what is needed is two biliterals, DN+VR, but alas, there are no biliterals for those sounds, not even D(j)N nor FR nor even BR, I could settle for that, but no, they do not exist. So it would have to be spelled out D-'-N+F-'-R. That little ' mark is drawn as a human arm and sounds like "eh". So for Denver the signs would go, human hand, human arm, zig-zag water, horned snake, human arm, human mouth. Jeeze, a lot of human parts there just for the sounds in "denver," all that makes my pun look pretty good especially since it contains the word "beautiful." It's just the sort of thing an Egyptian scribe would opt for.; 5/27/13, 2:10 AM