Friday, June 29, 2007

The Other Kind of Nut

Please note that I am not talking about genuinely ill people, simply those slightly exotic folks whom we often refer to by euphemisms and colloquialisms such as fruitcake, dingbat, crackpot, etc. Speaking of euphemisms, there is a list of them on the BBC page on Madness (about 3/4 of the way down the page). The English language can be fun to explore. Just look under "crazy" or "foolish" in a thesaurus and you'll find many synonyms. Here's a challenge for you--try to come up with a synonym using every letter of the alphabet without using a thesaurus. I'll get you started: A = asinine B = balmy

So how about watching a film about eccentricity? We have Zorba the Greek [DVD ZOR], Monty Python and the Holy Grail [DVD MON], After Hours [DVD AFT], The Madness of King George [VIDEO MAD], The Gods Must Be Crazy [VIDEO GOD], Cosi [VIDEO COS] (okay, this one takes place in a mental institution, so the characters are ill, but it is a fun film), King of Hearts [VIDEO KIN] (this one takes place in an asylum also, but really, I'm not poking fun at the mentally ill). I just realized we don't have Crazy in Alabama in our collection! We'll have to remedy that!

One last suggestion. Listen to the song "Crazy" by Patsy Cline on her 12 Greatest Hits CD [CD COUNTRY CLI]. If you didn't know it before, you'll learn that love can make you a little nutty!

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