Trombonist Benjamin Jacobs-El, who toured with jazz great Lionel Hampton, calls from Huntsville, Alabama, to say that Hampton regularly addressed friends and band members as gate, as in Hey, gates, how’re you doing? Is that because good jazz...
Politicians have to repeat themselves so often that they naturally develop a repertoire of stock phrases to fall back on. But is there any special meaning to subtler locutions, such as beginning a sentence with the words “Now, look…”...
shot berry n.— «I spoke to Paul Vossen, Sonoma County farm adviser, about your question. He says that your olives are producing what is known as “shot berries,” tiny fruit that isn’t pollinated and then drops from the tree...
Remember when no one ever thought about adding the suffix “-gate” to a word to indicate a scandal? Now there’s Troopergate, Travelgate, Monicagate, Cameragate, Sandwichgate, and of course, the mother of all gates, Watergate. Grant...
cinema jazz n.— «The same goes for moving pictures, whether it’s the grainy old educational clips or the handcrafted abstract strips with which the trio create, and in fact improvise to a degree, a luminous collage of loops and layers...
fleche n.— «On Sunday, May 21, community bike clubs will sponsor the first annual Southeast Iowa Regional Bicycle Fleche to Geode State Park, near Danville. Fleche is a French term for a bike ride that starts from three different...