Sunday Sundries, 281

1. HBOTW [Human Being of the Week]: Deborah Pinnell, owner and manager of Open Door Coffee Company, has been so kind to me over the years she's been in business here--including (and especially) during Pandemic Time. Pulling open that coffee-shop door in the morning (and afternoon!) is one of my great pleasures ...

2. I finished one book this week--the third of Christopher Moore's three comic volumes about the Pocket the fool and his huge and fairly dim apprentice, Drool. This one--The Serpent of Venice (2014)--is a wild one (even more so than the other two).

When the novel begins, Pocket is grieving for the loss of his wife (a famous Shakespearean character whose name I won't supply here--in case you want to read these novels). Pocket has gone to Venice, where Moore promptly weaves together the plots and characters of The Merchant of Venice, Othello, and even, I guess, The Creature from the Black Lagoon (that 1954 film) and the 2017 Oscar-winner, The Shape of Water, which, of course, appeared several years after Moore's novel. (Link to some Creature video.) Oh, and we even get a breath of Macbeth. And a cameo by Marco Polo.

Pocket finds himself embroiled in some of the most famous scenes from those plays--though Moore supplies lots of naughty (and funny) dialogue and actions--including some serpent-sex. (And, yes, there's a serpent in the canals of Venice!)

Technically, Moore shifts from 1st to 3rd person, drops in lines from some other plays (Julius Caesar; Henry VI, Part 2; Hamlet; The Taming of the Shrew); there are no doubt others, but I remember these. Oh, and he employs a Chorus, as well (who's nearly as naughty as Pocket!). And Jessica (from Merchant) decides she wants to be a pirate (a cliched one--think: that guy in Dodgeball).

As usual in these novels, Moore's plot does not resolve like the Bard's--and sometimes we are glad, sometimes not. I leave it to you to decide on this one ...

3. This week, in the evenings before Joyce joins me in bed, I've been streaming bits of a film (via Netflix) called Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life (2016)--a title that appealed to me for a variety of reasons (for one: I taught in a middle school for about thirty years).

The story is fairly simple: a very creative young man is stifled in a school that cares only about standardized tests. Running the school are a couple of rigid authoritarians--who, of course, aren't all that swift but use a rule book that's as thick as Infinite Jest. There's a Good Guy teacher who "understands." A girl with whom our hero gets involved. A bully. A loving mother. The loving mother's doofus boyfriend (Rob Riggle).

The filmmakers employ animation from time to time--taking the boy's drawings (or imagination) and then filling the screen with animated versions thereof. I enjoyed those parts.

The plot is absurd--but, hey, it's satire, not Grim Realism.

Three guesses: Do the boy and his friends emerge victorious? (Link to film trailer.)

I'm gonna watch 8th Grade next--a film out a year or so ago.

4. Had a short porch-visit last night with our son and his family (minus the older son); they'd driven up from Green, Ohio, their home. Good to see them--it's been a couple of weeks ... all of us masked and socially distanced! And, of course, all of us armed with cameras that none of us thought to use.

5. I actually went into our Acme Fresh Market yesterday (while Joyce waited out in the car for our online order to come out)--had to get a couple of things not available from their website. Well-organized in there--Plexiglas between the customers and the cashiers--all employees masked--most patrons masked (not all, however). Got out of there pretty quickly--after thanking the employees I saw for what they're going through (no fun to work in a mask all day, for certain).

6. We're enjoying a series on Acorn TV--Dead Still--a new series that takes place in the later 19th century and involves a photographer who specializes in taking photographs--lifelike ones--of the recently deceased. Sounds grim, I know--but it's actually very entertaining. Link to some video.

7. Final Word--a word I liked this week from one of my online word-of-the-day providers ...

     - from Oxford English Dictionary

pandemain, n. White bread of the finest quality; a loaf or cake of this bread.

Etymology: <  Anglo-Norman pain demeine, pain demaine <  pain bread (see pain n.2) + demeine (see demesne n.), after post-classical Latin panis dominicus (from early 13th cent. in British sources), panis de dominico (late 11th cent. in a British source).

It is uncertain whether the following should be taken as showing the Middle English or the Anglo-Norman word:

1327  in  H. E. Salter Mediaeval Arch. Univ. Oxf.(1921) II. 175 Walterus de Dunsterre habet I payndemayn Bastard.

1378  in  H. T. Riley Munimenta Gildhallæ Londoniensis(1860) III. 424 Etiam cum uno payndemayn.

1417  in  H. T. Riley Memorials London(1868) 644 [White loaves..called] painman.

Now historical.

 

c1390  G. Chaucer Sir Thopas  1915 Whit was his face as payndemayn [v.r. a peyndemayne], Hise lippes rede as rose.

c1440 Sir Degrevant(Thornton) (1949) 1409 (MED) Paynedemayne [v.r. Paynemayn] preualy Scho fett fra þe pantry.

a1450  in  T. Austin Two 15th-cent. Cookery-bks.(1888) 11 (MED) Kytte fayre paynemaynnys in round soppys, an caste þe soppys þer-on.

a1475 Liber Cocorum(Sloane) (1862) 40 (MED) Take floure of payndemayn, and make þy past With water.

?a1500 Nominale(Yale Beinecke 594) in  T. Wright  & R. P. Wülcker Anglo-Saxon & Old Eng. Vocab.(1884) I. 788/32 Placencia, a payman.

a1525 Coventry Leet Bk.  300 To wit, ccc paynemaynes, a pipe of Rede wyne, a dosyn Capons of haut grece.

c1530  A. Barclay Egloges  ii. sig. Kiii Incresyd is thy payne, Whan thou beholdest before thy lorde payne mayne.

1973  C. A. Wilson Food & Drink in Brit.  vii. 241 The best white wheaten bread..was in the Middle Ages called wastel bread..or pandemain.

Compounds:

†pandemain-baker n. Obsolete rare

1454  in  H. Nicolas Proc. & Ordinances Privy Council(1837) VI. 226 William Brynklowe, yoman paymenbaker.