Word Thursday - Aesthete

My word for today came on my dictionary module on My Yahoo. I like learning new words or renewing my acquaintance with words I once used but have lost touch with. My word for today falls into that latter category. Aesthete is a perfectly good word but it has gone out of favor since the days of President Richard Nixon and his Vice President Spiro Agnew. It became popular at that time to be rude, crude and socially unacceptable. A fine tradition what was revived and honed by G.W.Bush.

The word aesthete began to take on the darker parts of its definition -  dilettante, professes to have, and indifference to practical matters. Artists and people that had a sensitivity to beauty were seen to be light in the loafers or of little use. Art itself was devalued. Beauty had value only if it could be mass produced in China and marketed at Wal-Mart.

A funny thing has happened as we have waded through the economic crisis, and as an artist (an aesthete) I have noticed, people seem to be returning to a love of beauty over quantity or just drinking in the beauty at galleries or tops of mountains or owning one small piece of art they truly love. Consumer is becoming a bad word and aesthete is once again taking on its good definitions.

aes⋅thete

–noun

1.	a person who has or professes to have refined sensitivity toward the beauties of art or nature.

2.	a person who affects great love of art, music, poetry, etc., and indifference to practical matters.

Also, esthete.

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Origin:
1880–85; < Gk aisthēts one who perceives, equiv. to aisthē- (var. s. of aisthánesthai to perceive) + -tēs n. suffix denoting agent

Synonyms:
1. connoisseur. 2. dilettante.

Word Thursday - Getting Out of Dodge?

This is my version for the week of Word Thursday. Getting out of Dodge is one of my favorite phrases for when it seems necessary for my mental health to leave my little valley. I have been trying to get out of Dodge for two weeks now and things keep coming up like memorial services and pet sitting gigs and legal appointments. I am settling this morning for going over the pass to shop for necessities in Taos, but a longer sojourn seems impossible at this time.

This morning I began to wonder from where came this phrase of mine so I Googled it. And the Urban Dictionary says: "Get the hell out of Dodge" is a reference to Dodge City, Kansas, which was a favorite location for westerns in the early to mid 20th century. Most memorably, the phrase was made famous by the TV show "Gunsmoke," in which villians were often commanded to "get the hell out of Dodge."

The phrase took on its current meaning in the 1960s and 70s when teenagers began to use it in its current form of meaning - just leave and leave soon. For me it means I desperately need a change of scene. And I can even use it to mean get out of myself; stop obsessing over an issue.

A metaphysical friend of mine maintains that there is something to getting out of Dodge that does change the mindset. Going ten miles or crossing a natural barrier such as a river, mountain pass, or geological fault can change the energy. So lacking the time this week to go see my sister and best friend for a few days I will instead content myself by going over the mountains to Taos and roaming the aisles of the grocery store.

The above photo is of Dodge City, Kansas in 1870. And if history is correct there were a lot of reasons in those days for getting out of Dodge which was the destination for many a cattle drive because it was where the trains came. It had a lot of saloons and law enforcement issues.

Word Thursday - Private

The old Y!360 used to have a Word Thursday. I even hosted that weekly event for some months. I found it quite informative as it always sent me searching for a new word or seeking the exact definition for a word I thought I knew and certainly used enough.

Today on Facebook I was suddenly overcome with an intense need for privacy. Yes, I know that Facebook privacy is an oxymoron (I will let you go look that one up). But despite the fact that I post four blogs, have a website for my business, a studio open to the public, and have an active Facebook account I am really a very private person. I don't attend high school reunions or trod the old college campas or go tripping through the Internet looking for old friends. This is now and that was then.

Nor am I on all these social networks for the sake of finding new friends especially. I have met some great new people admittedly but I trust slowly. And I find that my friends are almost as private as I am. Today I made a comment on comment on the FB page of a more public friend of mine and was ambushed by one of her friends. I immediately deleted my comment (not because I am wrong but because I was afraid of catching something - cooties maybe) and dashed back to my settings and cranked everything down to friends only so the friend of a friend could not follow me back to my lair.

So my word today is private.

pri⋅vate 

–adjective

1.	belonging to some particular person: private property.

2.	pertaining to or affecting a particular person or a small group of persons; individual; personal: for your private satisfaction.

3.	confined to or intended only for the persons immediately concerned; confidential: a private meeting.

4.	personal and not publicly expressed: one's private feelings.

5.	not holding public office or employment: private citizens.

6.	not of an official or public character: private life.

7.	removed from or out of public view or knowledge; secret: private papers.

8.	not open or accessible to the general public: a private beach.

9.	undertaken individually or personally: private research.

10.	without the presence of others; alone.

11.	solitary; secluded.

12.	preferring privacy; retiring: a very private person.

13.	intimate; most personal: private behavior.

14.	of, having, or receiving special hospital facilities, privileges, and services, esp. a room of one's own and liberal visiting hours: a private room; a private patient.

15.	of lowest military rank.

16.	of, pertaining to, or coming from nongovernmental sources: private funding.

–noun

17.	a soldier of one of the three lowest enlisted ranks.

18.	privates. private parts.

—Idiom

19.	in private, not publicly; secretly: The hearing will be conducted in private.

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Origin:
1350–1400; ME < class="ital-inline">prīvātus private, lit., taken away (from public affairs), special use of ptp. of prīvāre to rob. See deprive, -ate ¹

Related forms:

pri⋅vate⋅ly, adverb

pri⋅vate⋅ness, noun

Synonyms:
2. singular, particular, peculiar. 10. sequestered, retired.

Antonyms:
2. general, public.

All I have to add to this is Yes. That's me really.

Because I am an artist I have a public personna but I am inside an intensely private person.

Word Thursday - Dulcet

One of the many community based themes I got involved with on Y!360 was Word Thursday. There was a Word Thursday, an Art Sunday, Poetry Wednesday, Movie Monday, Friday Five, Book Tuesday and Song Saturday. It drove you nuts if you tried to participate in all of it.

Several of my 360 friends are here now that 360 is but a memory. Nicholas V is now Intelliblog. He generally has a blog up for many of the days of the week. Dangerous Meredith is the Adventures of Dangerous Meredith here and she has a post for Word Thursday. Bee at Bee's Blog posted for Poetry Wednesday as did I on Creative Journey where I have decided to keep alive Poetry Wednesday in its new Multi-blog form.

I used to be a fanatic about Word Thursday but I am realizing that was in part because I used it as a vehicle to slam GW Bush. And as Nixon said, "we don't have him to kick around any more." Though to be frank his V.P. is still very much a target. But I now have Travels With Charley for my political rants. So to do Word Thursday or no? I think I will.

My friend Lynn who is on Profiles and Blogger did a post this morning about the movie August Rush (now out on DVD and available on Netflix). She posted a video which fits into no particular theme but gave rise to the word Dulcet for me.

dulcet

adjective:

1. Pleasing to the ear; melodious; harmonious.

2. Generally pleasing, soothing, or agreeable.

3. (Archaic) Sweet to the taste.

Quotes:

If you want to catch up with our most famous songster, the nightingale, just visit Minsmere at the end of April, or early May, and stand on the edge of the car park. You'll soon hear the dulcet tones of the poets' favourite bird.

-- Stephen Moss, "Birdwatch", The Guardian, October 23, 2000

Amanda . . . rages at her young 'uns in a voice that may have been full of dulcet notes when she turned the heads of her gentleman callers in her youth, but has now grown hard-edged and ringing, like a cracked bell.

-- Hal Hinson, Washington Post, November 11, 1987

Just as my eyelids started to get heavy and my brain began to relax its hold on wakefulness -- bam! -- the less than dulcet tones of Britain's top breakfast DJ started to emanate from my radio alarm.

-- "Secs in the City", The Guardian, July 30, 2001

Origin:

Dulcet comes from Old French doucet, diminutive of dous, "sweet," from Latin dulcis, "sweet."

Aaah, the dulcet tones of the morning birds here in Black Lake as the sun makes its appearance over the mountain to the east.