Friday, February 20, 2004

 
"What's love got to do with it?"
Or: The Squaw/Gash Canon Falls?(1)
Or: Belgian Stout?


Dipwadidy, doowadadoo......she looked good, she looked fine, wedding bells are gonna' chime.....sorry, having a "Stripes" moment. It may have been the late Richard Grenier, writing for *Commentary*, who asserted that that movie marked the beginning of an era in which movies treated the military and patriotism with some respect-after the trauma of the War in Vietnam. I won't bother to Google it, but have no doubt that the pre-induction interview of the characters played by Bill Murray and Harold must be on the web somewhere, given that it's one of those memorable bits that couples will work into their conversation, cementing the honey-bunny-pair-bond and probably causing others to gag.
now where was I? got distracted by the nine year who was using the broadband connection to establish some non-face time on Dad's dial-up..The most ancient arguably *alleged* antecedent of "Dipwad" was "You killed Ted, you medieval dickweed!" in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.
That the "Great Destroyer"didn't prevent acts of love or sumthin' not like it, in times 'n places closer to our own than medieval europe, can be seen in Kevin Costner's "Dances With Wolves." Well, it can be seen if you are more clever than I, or have read Grenier["Indian Love Call" *Commentary March 1991]: "On the way[to Costner's Dunbar's meeting with the Sioux], by sheer coincidence, Dunbar encounters a Sioux woman who appears to have injured herself and is bleeding. It emerges that she is a young widow who, in mourning for her late husband and in accordance with Sioux custom and is gashing(1(2)) her legs in grief. Although this is one of the story's few authentic references to Sioux culture(the Sioux made a great cult of self-inflicted pain), audiences have no way of discerning that the woman is slashing her legs deliberately and can only assume that she has had an accident." Not in a being in a position or mind to emulate the British in the matter of *suttee*, Dunbar bides his time, marrying the woman only after a tribal leader tells her that she can finally stop mournig. I don't recall if that couple had any cute 'n cuddly or squishy pet names for one another as appealing, if not as private, as the "honey bunny" or "pumpkin" of the robbers of the diner in *Pulp Fiction.*
In closing, one should register some protest against Derbyscheisser's use of the old "beast with two backs" which has something of a peasant's not so much bawdy, as nervous giggling about what should be an sacred act- no, gift- of beauty. In the manner of Steve Martin's denunciation of degrading terms for breasts, it is hereby decreed that all such terms will be replaced by "bumping uglies."
-well not quite-still have to whine about Mark Steyn's Arf de Triomphe(3) today: that SOB (son of a Belgian(4)) *is* very, very, very good.

2. It would have not only been politically incorrect, but also gratuitious for Grenier to have used the word "squaw" here. For more on this term of endearment click here.
3. Gotta stop Googling puns to check for their originality-too often results are downloadright depressing.
4. -too lazy to check my own archives, but blogged or emailed some recollections that some(NatLamp?) have lamented the lack of epithets for Belgians and that Geipel notes that the name for the ancient tribe of the "Belgae" can be translated as "stout fellows." -not to insult Mr. Steyn; in a pub, he is no doubt, an ale fellow well-met. -"somebody stop me".....








http://www.straightdope.com/columns/000317.html