Astounding Quakebuttock
Thursday, July 16, 2009
I know that I'm not supposed to notice these things, but I do: Last night I returned to the low glow of my computer following two hours of delicious So You Think You Can Dance (yes, those dancers, those choreographers, that gorgeous-but-never-haughty Cat Deeley make me cry) to discover that my blog had had, shall we say, a swarm of visitors.
What in the world?, I wondered.
It became clear, upon further investigation, that a single term, "quakebuttock," had brought the masses to me. Quakebuttock, you read that right. Clearly somewhere out in the universe (not on MY TV show, mind you) the term had been used, and as I'd once and playfully written a post about the word (in a Roy Blount Jr. inspired entry called "Superior Persons"), I suddenly had people knocking at my door.
For a nanosecond, then, it's quakebuttock, a term which Peter Bowler has defined as "a nicely scornful word for coward," that puts me on the map. Not my books. Not my poems. Not my writing process entries. Not my photographs. Not my dancing. Not my thoughts. Nothing of the sort. What, indeed, have I been thinking all this time? What have I been doing?
My considered advice of the day is then this: Want to move from beneath the veil of the literarily obscure? Use quakebuttock freely in whatever you write. Mutter it under your breath. Erect a cathedral in its name. Prepare the cheese and crackers.
For the record: The photograph here was taken on a cold winter day at the New Jersey shore, just ahead of a lemmings moment. None of these people are quakebuttocks, for sure. Today's photo-type pairing is about opposites, not similars.
On another note: I'll be at the Doylestown Bookshop tomorrow night. I will say the word thrice in a row, if you come.
