...and got into my brain. And another hundred jellyfish got tentacles today on their way to becoming the cover art for the Montessori school music festival programs. It was mass production medusas this afternoon.
I don't know my Stephen Sondheim from my Susan Sontag. Driving home after the play Saturday night, hearing A Night On the Town on WRR 101.1, I listened to songs from "Company". The one that became an auditory barnacle was "Another Hundred People". It's stuck in my head. I can't get it out. It's making me dread another hundred programs, but we're forging ahead.
Now to get medusa I go to the Online Etymology Dictionary:
"jellyfish," 1758, as genus name, from the name of one of the three Gorgons with snakes for hair, whose glance turned to stone him who looked upon it (attested in English from late 14c.). Her name is from Gk. Medousa, lit. "guardian," fem. prp. of the verb medein "to protect, rule over" (see Medea). The zoological name was chosen by Linnæus, suggested by the creature's long tentacles.
My big red dictionary explains tentacle (and also tenacious):
An elongated, flexible unsegmented protrusion, such as one of those surrounding the mouth or oral cavity of the hydra, sea anemone, or squid....Something resembling a tentacle, especially in ability to grasp or hold. [New Latin tentaculum, from Latin tentare, variant of temptare, to touch, feel TEMPT.]
Our tentacles are tissue paper, cellophane, and the irridescent crinkly plastic for filling gift bags. Grasping and gluing it requires tenacity. Photos soon.
© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder
1 comment:
Now that song will be tenaciously stuck in my head all day!
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