Some More Thoughts

ARTLE

Have you tried it?  I really like it.  As I've mentioned, you are provided with pictures of four works by an artist and are asked to identify that artist with four guesses. I'm not sure if they keep track of your score, but it doesn't matter to me.  I think it's fun to play.

I was able to identify today's artist, but I missed yesterday because I had never heard of him or seen any of his work.  I looked him up in a number of places and saw hundreds of beautiful etchings, paintings and sculptures that he had created way back in the 16th century! 

Bare Facts

Baltimore's own H. L. Mencken wrote about a lot of interesting things in his "American Language," but I like this best.

At one time he was writing about job titles.  He said that workers feel better about what they must do if they have a decent title.  For instance, "sanitary engineer" sounds so much better than "garbage man." 

While he was editing his articles, he received a long telegram from a distraught lady.  She said that she was a "strip-tease artist," and that title causes people to consider her a second-class citizen.

She had heard how Mencken had been writing about improving job titles and wondered if he could come up with a better name for her profession.

With tongue in cheek, H.L. responded to the lady: "... Unfortunately, no really persuasive new name suggests itself.  It might be a good idea to relate strip-teasing to the associated zoological phenomenon of molting.  Thus the word moltician comes to mind, but it must be rejected because of its likeness to mortician.

A resort to the scientific name for molting, which is ecdysis, produces both ecdysist and ecdysiast. ... "

Mencken heard nothing further from this lady, but soon learned that she and her press agent had decided to adopt ecdysiast, and it was sticking.

A few years later, the Association of Ecdysiasts, Parade and Specialty Dancers was established.

Gypsy Rose Lee refused to adopt the new name and said the following: "Ecdysiast, he calls me. Why the man is an intellectual snob. He has been reading books. Dictionaries.  We don't wear feathers and molt them off ... What does he know about stripping?"

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