6 minute read
GLEBOUS & COMICUS
The Glebe
according to Zeus
A GUINEA PIG’S PERSPECTIVE ON THE GLEBE
Christmas photo shoot turns to class action suit!?!
CONTENT WARNING: Some of the allegations may deeply shock and upset guinea pigs and other small rodents. Caution is advised.
At least three Glebe guinea pigs hired for the annual GiddyPigs.com holiday campaign allege poor quality food and ego damage in their $8.50 class-action suit filed yesterday.
Excerpts from the lawsuit provide the harrowing details of what took place on set in a November afternoon photo shoot for the conglomerate’s renowned Christmas catalogue.
“The tinsel on set was old and tasted of 2021!” allege all three plaintiffs. “I shudder to remember it,” said Bruno, the model pig chosen for the high-profile scene. “We could barely eat even a few strands during set up. Awful!” added Sam, junior lighting technician and aspiring model.
Despite the horrors, some suspect the suit may just be a cash grab since the guinea pigs made no complaints until several weeks later. Counsel for the class-action suit responded that it was impossible to file sooner because the pigs were hospitalized, suffering from acute dashed promises and intense disappointment. Indeed, according to the lawsuit, “The guinea pigs were told they would feast on imported Christmas parsley from Italy and sweetgrass from Peru, followed by relaxing chin rubs. But all they got was hay.”
The guinea pigs are also suing for ego damage due to the ugly clothing they had to wear and/or handle, in particular the hats. Damages of $1 per pig are being sought as well as gift cards to Gucci.
Zeus, CEO, CFO, COO and POO of GiddyPigs.com, was not available for comment at press time. But an Instaham post from the same day shows him enjoying a chin rub whilst eating what looked to be imported parsley and sweetgrass...
Frabjous:
another literary invention
By Sophie Shields
From alligator to scrumdiddlyumptious, writers have been adding words to the English language ever since the invention of Gutenberg’s printing press. But who are the authors behind our words and how did these neologisms (new words) come into being?
Let’s begin with the common words, used each and every day as if they always existed. The bard himself, William Shakespeare, is credited for over 2,000 of them, including a few rather surprising ones: alligator, leapfrog, eyeballs and more. Similarly well-known for his neologisms is Dr. Seuss, without whom we would be floundering without a way to describe those obsessively smart people often caught wearing retro circle-framed glasses – nerds.
When the word was used in Dr. Seuss’s If I Ran the Zoo, it referred to an imaginary animal that the narrator wanted to collect; not until 10 years later did it adopt today’s meaning! Another unexpected literary invention is the word blatant. First used in Edmund Spenser’s epic poem “The Faerie Queen,” the word originally described a thousand-tongued beast. Centuries later, it has come to mean instead something that is glaringly inyour-face – like Spenser’s beast.
Of course, many authors have their fun when inventing words, treading into the territory of nonsense. For instance, Roald Dahl’s scrumdiddlyumptious, defined as “extremely scrumptious,” leaves much up to the imagination, just like his adjective frothbungling, used to refer to something mind-boggling. Another author celebrated for his literary inventiveness is Lewis Carroll, known for combining words to create new ones, such as frumious (“fuming” and “furious”) and frabjous (“fabulous” and “joyous”).
Whether it was a desire for precision or a sudden burst of creativity, it’s hard to know how exactly these literary inventions came into being. Next time you are reading a frabjous book, take note of the author’s made-up words. You won’t want to be frothbungled when your fellow Glebites begin using them in conversation!
Sophie Shields is a Carleton student studying global literature and a proud Franco-Ukrainian who is learning German. She is the social media coordinator for the Glebe Report.
Happy Holidays
from all of us at the Glebe Report
Prague’s historic Jewish cemetery.
Memento mori: Prague
By Douglas Parker
The cemetery is located in the heart of Prague, hidden behind a high stone wall as if to protect it from vandals and the profane sounds of a vibrant and busy city full of people who are still alive. It is, after all, a holy, hallowed place whose holiness must be both acknowledged and respected. After I buy my ticket, I see a wicker basket full of yarmulkes. I look at the man tending them; he sees the question in my eyes and nods with a smile. I put one on my head, a clumsy gentile gesture. I walk in feeling an awkward reverence and find myself in Prague’s historic Jewish cemetery.
I am struck immediately by a number of things. The first is the deathly silence of the place. Only a few feet beyond the wall, Prague life goes on; inside the wall, it is death that goes on. The second is the size of the place; it is astonishingly small even though, as the pamphlet says, it houses over 100,000 people. Adding to the sense of its size are the 12,000 memorials and tombstones, jammed together, haphazardly, creating a sense of both intimacy and chaotic jumble. Seemingly, no one tends this cemetery except time, and time has not been kind to it, sweeping away and erasing many of the inscriptions, which I couldn’t read in any case because I lack the language; clearly, I’m a foreigner here in several senses. Many stones, like old, arthritic men, lean against their neighbours that seem to assist and support them lovingly. The whole impression is of a place in a state of decay and disuse, as if letting observers know that what they see reflects the decay that now lies hidden. Stones as markers; stones as symbols. Paradoxically, for what it represents, the place holds a certain ruinous, sad and tragic beauty.
The cemetery dates from 1439. The last burial occurred in 1787. Jews were not allowed to be buried anywhere outside the ghetto, which explains, I suppose, the cheek-by-jowl placement of the 12,000 tombs. To accommodate all the dead in this confined space, bodies were buried on top of each other up to 10 deep, like extended families living together in the same house but on different floors. Philip Larkin’s phrase, “a serious house on serious earth,” pops into my head. I wonder about this enforced intimacy, bones intermingled, individual identities subsumed into the collective, bones embracing other bones indiscriminately. A kind of unity amongst people who, for no comprehensible reason, have been throughout history despised in life by – one must admit and acknowledge it – others, monstrous others. The humble Jewish cemetery in Prague, “a place to grow wise in” to cite Larkin again, an ossuary and reliquary of the quiet dead.
Douglas Parker is a long-time Glebe resident with an interest in English Reformation literature, history and theology.
They belong here.
From kindergarten through graduation, these friends have been part of a community.
Elmwood students are science enthusiasts, art lovers, athletes, math whizzes, and writers. And they support and celebrate one another as they discover their aspirations and head out into the world to make them happen.
