Merry Christmas, 2012!

A Very Setzer Christmas, 2012

Merry Christmas! We sent T off to the bustling metropolis of Ephraim, Utah (pop. 6135) to study pre-engineering at Snow College. His comment: “College is way better than high school!” J is studying German and working on his Eagle Scout. Except, in German, igel means hedgehog, so J aspires to become the first Igel Scout, ever. He’s making dog beds for the Humane Society out of old awnings and PVC pipe. E is preparing to dance as an evil spider in Babes in Toyland, Steve is working for a company in Boston from his desk here at home, and I, Lee Ann, am writing this Christmas newsletter.

Humor writer Dave Barry occasionally interrupts his musings to note that certain ridiculous word combinations would be Good Names for Rock Bands. Here’s our running list from this year. We thought about starting a rock band, but there were just too many excellent names to choose from. As a service to you, if you start a rock band, you are welcome to use one of our names:

Moose Satellites	Norm the Minotaur
Heroic Spiders	Flaming Mustache
Intergalactic Wombat Lions	Doomed Goons
Runaway Electric Toothbrush (from a Garfield comic strip?)	Summation Pie Evil Lunch
Trained Earwigs	Hedgehogs in Training
Perpetual Doink (when the cat presses his forehead against you, then takes a nap in that position)	Black Tapioca Talented Cardboard Left-handed Drunk Wrestlers
Outsourced Umbrage (Unfortunately accurate description from my writing group, about a story I wrote. It’s better now. I hope.) Group Hallucination	Two-Degree Angle (the angle of a ruler             placed with one end on Steve’s head, and one on E’s. Still in Steve’s favor…but not for much longer.)
Mail-Order Fruitcakes	Sith Kittens
Delicious Ankles	Caffeinated Soap
Marshmallow Villain-Lizards (thank you, Kellogg’s Spiderman cereal!)	Darn Fine Tupperware (I suppose we’d need permission for this one…)

For your further enlightenment, we’ve also been collecting tongue twisters. We decided that the mark of a really good tongue twister is if you can’t even pronounce it right in your head.

Weird Ward                             Real Werewolf

Real Weird Werewolf Ward

Stale snail shell                        Irish wristwatch

Black Yak                                Respectable spectacles

Soap and snowflakes              Soldier’s shoulder surgery

Sith Kittens (the only entry that makes both lists)

And now, folks, let’s say it five times fast for the Sith Christmas Kittens!  (cue applause)

Merry Christmas, from Steve, Lee Ann, T, J, and E

Random Research: Hair and Fur

All fur is hair, but all hair isn't fur.

Hair may be related to reptile scales and bird feathers, which all represent different expressions of the same protein.

Hair takes even longer to decay than bones do.

Theories abound as to why people are hairless when our ape ancestors aren't. Temperature regulation? Pest control? Sexual selection? Or some combination: perhaps having less hair kept us cooler by day and kept the lice down, and we had clothing and shelter to keep us warm at night...thus allowing us to choose less hairy mates without our children freezing to death. Or something.

If you google "hair evolution", you get a lot of funky hairstyles, and a lot of beauty products with the word "evolution" in their names.

How to Pronounce Eclat

In the absence of a little accent thingy for the "e", here is a pronunciation tutorial for the word eclat:

Wow. What happened to your arm?
My cat happened.
I'll say he did — with all 20 claws.
No. Just a claw.

The Eclat of a Proverb

In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy are dancing in nearly complete silence at the Netherfield ball. Elizabeth gives this explanation for their lack of conversation:

      "We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to posterity with all the eclat of a proverb."

On about my dozenth time through the book, I finally looked up "eclat," which, it turns out, means "social distinction or conspicuous success."

Mr. Darcy tells Elizabeth, "This is no very striking resemblance of your own character, I am sure," and she demurs to "decide on [her] own performance,"  regarding her analysis of his character.

I, however, have determined that Elizabeth's description is quite apt as regards this blog. I'm not taciturn and unsocial in daily life, but most of the time when I think of a topic to discuss here, I instantly reject it as lacking eclat (which should have an accent thingy over the e).

This blog, like Mr. Darcy, needs to loosen up, and follow Elizabeth's example:  "I hope I never ridicule what is wise and good. Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies, DO divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can."

I have lots and lots of follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies and shall make a concerted effort to laugh at them more consistently here on the blog. Perhaps if I'm not so taciturn and unsocial, I'll even find some of what is wise and good to share.

Coming up: proper forsythia coiffures, the evolution of hair, and a shocking revelation about reading glasses.

Muppets and Messiah

Our recent entrtainment choices have ranged from

Sublime: "Joyful Noise," a play about George Frederick Handel writing "The Messiah"

 to

Ridiculous: "The Muppets"

"Joyful Noise"
There was a lot of yelling in "Joyful Noise," about artistic choice, and shameful past choices, and which soprano stole whose parts, and whether stage actresses (*= gasp!) should sing in entertainment establishments * about the Savior.* My kids loved the frequent funny parts. Handel said the line that's sticking with me: "God belongs in the mud"—out where the people who need Him live. Each character—Handel, the warring sopranos, the indignant bishop, the King of England—made a journey from grief and resentment to redemption, beautifully depicted and sung. I wished they could have sung the whole "Messiah" at the end. But the point wasn't the music, it was the redemption.

(sensitivity caution: One character had a sordid past, rather vividly described.)
For Utah friends: "Joyful Noise" is playing at the Covey Center for the Arts in a vanishingly tiny theatre. If you can't get tickets this year, go next year!

"The Muppets"
 One day when I was very small, my mom said, "There's a new TV show you might like." It was "Sesame Street"—maybe not the pilot episode, but definitely close. I grew up on Sesame Street, and when "The Muppet Movie" came out, I loved that, too. (Howard Tayler said it better than I did here.)

When  saw the trailer for "The Muppets," I was appalled. I'm definitely the epicenter of the target audience of life-long Muppet-lovers. But, a Muppet re-make? "Re-make" usually means flatulence humor, bad words, double entendres, and drearily bad writing. Was nothing sacred?

But we read some surprisingly positive reviews, so we ventured and came out completely converted. Just like Muppet productions of former years, the movie was funny, off-beat, innocent, and full of feel-good heart. They also punched holes in the "fourth wall" whenever they felt like it. For instance, when it was taking too long to round up the old gang, someone suggested they finish the job "by montage." One three-minute montage later, the car was full of old friends.

This show was apparently Jason Segel's brainchild. I encourage you to send this man money. We will go see this picture, full price, lots of times, to thank him for getting the Muppets right, and to encourage him to do it again!

At least while swirling around in my mind, these two works ended up expressing similar themes.

"Joyful Noise" asks "Can fallen mortals hope for redemption and joy?"

"The Muppets" asks, "Is there hope in the world for innocence and laughter?"

The answer in both cases is a resounding "Yes" for hope!

An icky word for Halloween

Random Research led us this week into the realm of sleepy sand—that grainy stuff in your eyes when you wake up in the morning, whatever your family calls it. Its real name is

Gound (pronounced "gowned")

We also learned another of its nicknames: optiboogers. And we agreed that Optiboogers would be an excellent name for a rock band. Also Gingerbread Godzilla. And Giant Pez Dispenser. Stay tuned for gingerbread Godzilla, whom we all decided should make an appearance this Christmas.

Anyway, gound is composed of mucus, tears, and/or dust, and it forms because you're not blinking those things away when you're asleep.

What is your family's word for gound?

The CAKE OF THE APOCALYPSE!

It took however long it took (long!), but we have finished reading the New Testament as a family. We generally celebrate scripture-reading milestones with a cake, and this one merited a big cake. Since the New Testament ends in the Book of Revelation, that was on everyone's mind when we started cake designing. And John's vision lends itself to expression in Legos and cake. So here we have...

The Cake of the Apocalypse!


 Note the 7-headed beast.

Also the Pearly Metal Detector (they might have taken some poetic license).

Everyone had a much better time designing hell than heaven. Much cake was had by all!