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glossary
AC/DC (ACK-dack): the fourth-greatest rock and roll band of all time.
Advanced French (a-VALST flalsh): a form of the French language in which only the present tense is used. Primarily employed for telling time and for describing the activities of this one guy named Jean and this other guy named Claude.
Advanced Placement (ud-VANT-udgd po-LEES-munt): classes that are far easier than regular classes and for which students receive inflated grades. Rumor has it that “work” done in some AP classes can even count as college credit, though it is doubtful that the sort of college that would accept such credit is the sort of college you’d ever want to put on a resume.
anglophile (an-GLOF-eh-lay): someone who is under the mistaken impression that there is something cool or impressive about trying to speak in a fake English accent.
ankh (ANK-ul): the ancient Egyptian symbol of life, often worn as a pendant or tattoo, or emblazoned on drug paraphernalia.
atheism (AUT-iz-im): a religion for people who figure they probably already know everything there is to know about everything.
The Bad Seed (dee BUD sayd): the charming story of a typical American childhood. The second-greatest movie ever made.
Bayeux Tapestry (bay-OOKS tap-ESS-tree): a long strip of material embroidered in the Middle Ages that illustrates 333
the events leading up to the Norman Conquest of England.
Starring the Pope, William the Conqueror, a guy named King Cnut [sic], and a lot of guys with swords dressed up as chess pieces.
The Beatles (the RUTT-ulz): four mop-topped lads from Liverpool who set the toes of the world a-tapping. Then they turned into hippies.
be-in (BE-ing): back in the sixties, hippies used to have these, where everybody took drugs and tried to feel important. I think it’s pretty much the same as a “happening.”
bête noire (bait nwah-RAY): “black beast” in nonadvanced French. It’s slightly worse than a pet peeve, though not as bad as a bane, as far as I can tell.
The Bible (the bibble): a big creepy book, the contents of which have influenced and formed the basis for much of the history and culture of Western civilization for thousands and thousands of years. Mention of this book is forbidden in public schools and in progressive right-thinking households, thus ensuring that substantial chunks of history and literature and the culture at large will be virtually incomprehensible to a sizeable minority of the country’s population. Highly prized by religious and other wrong-thinking people for these and other reasons.
The Big Chill (tha BEEG cheel): a nauseating movie about everybody’s parents. If anyone has ever tried to make you dance around to oldies while doing the dishes, you have this movie to thank for it.
bitch (beetch): an uncooperative female. Also, a cooperative female. Additionally, among girls, a rival. Or ally.
Black Sabbath (BLAY-ack suh-BAWTH): pentagrams, in-verted crosses, capes, tights, drugs, de-tuned guitars, un-limited recording budgets—what could go wrong? The eighteenth-greatest rock and roll band of all time.
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Blue Oyster Cult (blue iced occult): maybe rock and roll music wasn’t meant to be this intellectual and sophisticated, but they’re still the twelfth-greatest rock and roll band of all time.
Boomers (boh-OM-ers): the Most Annoying Generation.
bourgeois pigs (bore-GOYCE pegs): what people in the sixties used to call their parents.
Brighton Rock (BRIG-a-thon rawk): the best book ever written.
bubblegum (BOOB leh-GYOOM): this is, in the end, more or less the Lord’s music.
Jimmy Buffett ( JUM-ee boo-FAY): a weird old hippie dude featuring Hawaiian shirts and terrible music. On special occasions, a boomer dad will sometimes put on a little Jimmy Buffett costume, fix drinks with umbrellas in them, and bring them over to his “old lady,” biting his lower lip and doing this weird, slow-motion dance-walk. If there is a more gruesome scenario on this earth, I cannot think what it might be and do not want to know in any case.
callipygian (CALL-ippy-DJEE-ahn), also callipygous: Describes a woman with large, shapely, or otherwise lovely, remarkable, or impressive buttocks. By way of the Greeks, those ancient, horny, clever bastards. The day I learned there was a word for this was the day I regained my interest in living and faith in humanity.
Carrie (CARE-ree-AY): normal students stage an elaborate Make-Out/Fake-Out on a shy, freaky girl, joke-electing her prom queen and then dumping a bucket of pig blood on her head. She turns out to have special powers and destroys them all. All proms should turn out like that. The fourth-greatest movie of all time.
The Catcher in the Rye (KAT-sha-rin R’lyeh): don’t fight it.
Relax. Clear your mind and let the magic take hold of you.
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You’re floating, floating on air. Take the book. Go on, take it. You know you want to. That’s it. Nice and slow. Isn’t it so much easier this way? One of us, one of us, one of us . . .
Cocksparrer (HOT-spur): working-class English punk band who could have been the Sex Pistols if they had played their cards right. But they didn’t.
cock tease (kok TAYCE): an attractive female whose behavior is erratic, unpredictable, or otherwise unsatisfactory.
collage (koe-LODGE-ay): a piece of paper with things cut out from magazines glued on it in an attractive or arresting pattern. Has replaced the expository essay as the preferred means for assessing a student’s academic progress in American public schools.
concupiscent (con-koo-PISK-unt): wide open and up for anything.
D and D (DAN-dee): a role-playing game played only by very cool guys.
dilettante (dial-TAN-tay): one who can never stick with anything for more than a couple of minutes. An unjustly ma-ligned lifestyle.
The Doors (duh DERZ): there is an extremely well-organized conspiracy among boomers to cultivate the fiction that this band doesn’t totally suck. The worst thing in the history of the universe.
Dr. Dee (der DAY): Queen Elizabeth I’s astrologer. He put a hex on the Spanish Armada, saving England and ensuring that, four hundred years later, the Beatles would end up singing in English rather than Spanish. He was also given a weird code by angelic beings he saw in a crystal, and probably needed medication that hadn’t been invented yet.
Dr. Who (dra-WOO): a more sophisticated, English version of Star Trek.
Bob Dylan (BAY-bee ZIM-er-mn): there was a time in my 336
life when I fervently wanted to be Bob Dylan. Then I realized that practically everybody else in the world wanted to be Bob Dylan, too, and that if we all got our wish, being Bob Dylan would be so common that it would be completely meaningless to be Bob Dylan, even for the actual, original Bob Dylan, and the world would essentially end up exactly the same as it was before. The alpha Bob Dylans would beat up the less alpha Bob Dylans, the female Bob Dylans would confuse the hell out of the male Bob Dylans, the teacher Bob Dylans would make the student Bob Dylans read The Catcher in the Rye, the parent Bob Dylans would call continual inane family discussions with the kid Bob Dylans, and the sadistic, psychotic structure of the universe would be more or less preserved. Nature is a bitch.
epigraph (a-PIG-rape): an obscure quotation at the beginning of a book designed to make the author of the book seem smarter and more well-read than its readers. An epigraph that doesn’t make the reader feel confused, small, worthless, and stupid is an epigraph that has failed.