eyes wide closed

I've been a napper for as long as I can remember. I was a preemie, and my mother says I've always needed more sleep. I invoke that to defend any nap, anytime, all these years later. About twenty years ago, a colleague and I would leave our workplace and drive to Snooze Alley, as my co-worker labeled it. Near a strip mall a mile down the road from our office, we would eat our lunches in our respective cars and then take a little snooze. Chris would go all in, reclining his seat all the way back. I was not that radical. Nevertheless, we never overdid it. Our snoozes never made us late for returning to the office. Close, but not quite. A good 15 or 20 minutes was fine. This was before the term "power nap" came into vogue. Chris and I believed in the restorative benefits of our nearly daily habit. In Japan, sleeping on the job is a sign of diligence. It's called inemuri, "sleeping on duty." It says, in effect, that this person is working so hard they need a break. But it is fraught with cultural distinctions. Men get away with it more readily, as does upper management. No inemuri on the assembly line. The culture also dictates that inemuri practitioners obey unwritten norms regarding form and space. In other words, don't sprawl out under the conference table, or take up half the subway seat or park bench. I suspect drooling is frowned upon. Don't you agree that America could use a healthy dose of inemuri? I do. Along somewhat different lines, the Japanese have traditionally put employees out to pasture in ways that differ from ours. Sometimes an employee regarded as a has-been is assigned to become a window watcher, a member of the “madogiwa zoku,” or the “window seat tribe.” They sit by the window, with nothing to do, and get paid for it. This would not be allowed in our Puritan-work-ethic-driven society. I guess the idea is to force the members of this glum lot to resign. I suppose they could simply sit by the window and snooze, combining the best of inemuri and madogiwa zoku. These practices make me want to go to Japan, or to evangelize such practices in America. America has forgotten the virtue of laziness. People in hot countries enjoy their siestas. They've been around a lot longer than we have. In the long run, they are not lazy. They are sensible and human. This year, France instituted a law that limited after-hours emails. Workers have a right to disconnect. Volkswagen did this with its employees in 2012. Glad I have a 2007 VW Rabbit. Time for a nap. See ya.

epigoni: word of the day

I choose "epigoni" as today's word. How? I randomly browsed through a recently given copy of The Lexicon by Wm. F. Buckley, Jr.

The word reminds me of Republicans reciting select portions (no unpleasant reminders of slavery, please) of the U.S. Constitution on the House floor today, an exercise in textual fundamentalism, puritan rigor, and showy self-righteousness.

So, why "epigoni," which means disciples, or in Buckley's phrasing: "Close followers, given to imitating, or being bound by, the star they become the creatures of"?

I see these aforementioned crusading moralists as the epigoni of the so-called Tea Party movement, or perhaps would-be epigoni of the Tea Party -- until such stance is not politically beneficial or not sufficiently subservient to the high priests of conservative orthodoxy.

The irony (fully intended) is that Buckley's example in his book lampoons the left, of course.

The singular of the word is epigonus.

According to Merriam-Webster, the pronunciation of both epigoni and epigonus puts the stress on "pig." (No comment.)

The trusty Online Etymology Dictionary sheds more light:

epigon, “undistinguished scions of mighty ancestors,” (sometimes in Latin plural form epigoni), from Gk. epigonoi, in classical use with reference to the sons of the Seven who warred against Thebes; plural of epigonos “born afterward” from epi (see epi-) + -gonos, from root of “to be born” related to gignesthaigenos "race, birth, descent"

Back to our regularly unscheduled blather.

'God's No Puritan'

In a comment to my previous post, Dafath wrote,

"God, you know, was no Puritan."

Presumably, Dafath would be willing to recast that sentence into the present tense or future tense. By Puritan I assume he's referring to the legalistic, "pure," and precise "godliness" of those in the 1560s and beyond who claimed a pure and unadulterated holiness. (I don't want to engage in theological debate, but I will say that despite its flaws, Wikipedia is enlightening, entertaining, and exhaustive [note serial comma] in its entry for this word.)

Today I witnessed natural evidence of the "God is no Puritan" view.

Snowmelt.

With temperatures reaching into the sixties (Fahrenheit), Old Man Winter shed a ragged coat of snow, leaving torn and tattered shreds of dirt-speckled icemelt. Sidewalks arose like volcanic islands out between snowbanks. Yesterday we had maybe 18 inches of snow in most places; it's down to 8 to 10 inches in most spots today. It's an untidy mess, it is. Snow pockmarked with decaying dogshit, candy wrappers, lost newspapers never delivered, branches, last fall's dead leaves. Gone is the pristine blanket that quiets the night and day equally (of merely days ago!). Where does this dirt like pepper mixed into a bowl of salt come from? It looks as if it's been raining detritus, dust, and black dandruff against the formerly alabaster melting surface. Mud percolates under it all awaiting our shoes (and dog's paws) to track into the house.

But wait.

The forecast is for rain in the next few days.

The tainted snow needs a good washing . . .

. . . in advance of the snow predicted for this weekend.

As Soren Kierkegaard might say,

Either/Or.

Either snow or rain, either winter or spring, but both and all?!