Now, in the cool fresh start of the third post, I want to examine the words "cosmic" and "oddball" and reflect on the phrase that popped up out of the blue.
The OED tells me that "cosmic," originally and obsoletely, meant "Of this world." In that sense, we're all cosmic, even the most mundane among us. Everybody is a star. (But not everybody is a porn star.)
Non-obsoletely, "cosmic" means "Of or belonging to the universe considered as an ordered system or totality; relating to the sum or universal system of things." Not quite. Ah, this is better: "Characteristic of the vast scale of the universe and its changes...." It's hyperbole for "huge." Fine.
An "oddball" is "An eccentric or odd person; a person of unconventional views or habits."
Okay. In the light of reason, research, and reflection, I stand by "Trump — that cosmic oddball."1943 Tucson (Arizona) Daily Citizen 11 Sept. 12/1 Bovingdon was not only expiating his own oddity..but paying off the score for too many other ‘odd-balls’ who had gravitated to Washington since it became a sort of political Hollywood....1952 B. Malamud Natural 59 The place often resembled a zoo full of oddballs, including gamblers, bums, drunks, and some ugly crackpots....
I offer it as an epithet:
An epithet... is a descriptive term (word or phrase) known for accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage... for example, Pallas Athena, Phoebus Apollo, Alfred the Great, Suleiman the Magnificent, and Władysław I the Elbow-high... Edward the Confessor, William the Conqueror, Richard the Lionheart, Æthelred the Unready, John Lackland and Bloody Mary....
H. W. Fowler complained that "epithet is suffering a vulgarization that is giving it an abusive imputation."...
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Epithets for our last few presidents:
William Lackpants
George the Malaprop
Barack Pen and Phone
Donald Bunkum
Joseph Unsteady
Cosmic oddball?
"Like Never Before!"
The phrase suited him and the moment perfectly. I would even say that the phrase is poetic -- it works subconsciously. Let it sit as a gem. Ultimately, you cannot define what made your instinct choose it.
I suspect, Ann, that you called him that cosmic oddball, because you have always felt that he was jiving’ us with that Cosmik Debris.
If Trump is an oddball, cosmic, galactic, or even universal, what are those deranged anti-Trump folk? They act like the mad priests in a Cthulu story, prayingto be driven mad by the Old One arisen, so as to avoid the pain of the end times.
Happy Easter@
What if Trump is just on the spectrum?
B. Malamud, The Natural, page 59: "On weekdays the stadium usually looked like a haunted house but over the weekend crowds developed. The place often resembled a zoo full of oddballs, including gamblers, bums, drunks, and some ugly crackpots. Many of them came just to get a laugh out of the bonehead plays. Some, when the boys were losing, cursed and jeered, showering them […] with rotten cabbages, tomatoes, blackened bananas, and occasionally an eggplant."
Baseball fiction to justify an author defining the word "oddball?"
"Say it ain't so, Joe!"
Pallas, as in Pallas Athena is an epithet, but not a descriptive one as in Homer's "goddess grey-eyed Athena" (thea glaukopis Athene). Nor is Phoebus Apollo. Both epithets are alternative names relating to their respective biographies (assuming an immortal god has a biography). Pallas refers to Athena's friend, the nymph Pallas, one of the many daughters of the sea god Triton. Being a goddess of war the newly born Athena (hatched? former headache?) liked to play with weapons, though Pallas preferred more lady-like things, such as gathering pretty shells by the sea. At any rate, Athena accidentally killed Pallas with her spear, and grief-stricken, she added Pallas to her name in tribute to the slain nymph.
Phoebus honors Apollo's grandmother, the Titanide Phoibe, a goddess of prophecy who was deposed by the Olympians. Before being exiled to the Underworld, Phoibe bequeathed her oracle at Delphi to her grandson. Thereafter Apollo used her name to declare his overlordship of prophecy, wisdom, and clairvoyance.
Trump can get enough votes to win.
The 75 million he got in 2020 plus newly found 'fortified' votes like the dems are using.
This is cosmic: https://gardenofcosmicspeculation.com/
my understanding is : Ancient Greeks contrasted [the world as]
Cosmos with Chaos or
organized and ordered v not so
He was such an oddball that he was honest and kept his promises. That is unheard of in DC and immediately made him the enemy of all. Our government has been largely corrupt since Watergate or at least since Clinton. Trump was alone as Perot would have been in 1992. The Deep State was not as entrenched as it became after 9/11 but it was there.
The definitions of "cosmic" I see relate "to the universe or cosmos, especially as distinct from the earth."
Anyway, is Trump cosmically sui generis?
Sgt Oddball - Donald Sutherland's word defining role from the movie " Kelly's Heroes".
Addendum: An exploding paint shell fired into the rear of a Tiger tank. The look on the face of Sutherland's character is priceless.
"Non-obsoletely, "cosmic" means "Of or belonging to the universe considered as an ordered system or totality; relating to the sum or universal system of things." Not quite. Ah, this is better: "Characteristic of the vast scale of the universe and its changes...." It's hyperbole for "huge." Fine."
It's hyperbole for "yuge."
How could you let that one go?
Don't leave out Ivar the Boneless.
That ain’t cosmik debris, quayle.
That be cosmic slop.
Robert Christgau on Jim Morrison: "Ass man, schlockmeister, cosmic slimeball -- that's where Jim Morrison's originality lies...."
Standing on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite spaces, — all mean egotism vanishes. I become a cosmic oddball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.
I think "cosmic disruptor" is a bit more accurate.
That term also helps explain why the establishment (Dems, progressives, neocon never-trumpers) hates him so.
SNL had quite a good sketch this weekend imagining a CNN app designed to soothe and relax Trump haters. I was a little surprised to see a sketch that seemed to me to be openly mocking the anti-Trump folks, but then I realized that a lot of the anti-Trump folks were likely to interpret the sketch in a very different way. Sure enough, the comments on the YouTube video supported that conclusion. Well done.
Cosmic oddball...I like it.
No matter what, there is only one Donald J Trump.
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