I’m an effing exercise in aesthetic inconsistency: I love design that’s super-busy and forces me to take it in just a little at a time (which, I believe, is what she said) while I’m also a fan of minimalism. Hence why my blog looks like it does: busy Victorian-wallpaper background and large blank white spaces. There’s just something so cool about minimalist design, especially when it’s in another language. Particularly German.

This nativity set by artist Oliver Fabel, available in English or German (coming soon in Esperanto*), complete with free-standing un-pose-able in-action figures, rocks.

The “Donkey” figure should clearly be labeled “Ass”, though. I quoth myself, from my short-lived but critically acclaimed (by me) podcast:

Did you know that the word arse (from the Proto-Germanic ars-oz) has been around for over a millennium? It’s true. And the same with the word “ass”, although it’s not until relatively recently that those two words meant the same thing. “Ass” as most people know, is another word for ‘donkey’, whereas the word arse has always referred to the back-end of an animal or person or thing. The use of ‘ass’ to refer to a human-being’s rear end was not popularized until 1930 (before that it had been a nautical slang term, meaning a term used by sailors, those infamous potty-mouths) and the compound word ‘ass-hole’ didn’t show up until 1935 and referred to a “woman regarded as a sexual object”. The term arse-hole, however, has been around since the year 1400.

Additionally, the word ‘donkey’, which replaced the word ‘ass’ for us Americans, didn’t even exist until 1785.

And on that note, a little story. A friend of mine was in a car crash several years ago, nothing serious, no injuries or anything, and he was telling his family what happened and his little (10-year-old or so) sister wanted to know if he’d cursed when he’d got in the accident. She wanted to know if he said something naughty or lewd presumably so she could chastise him for it. So she asked him “Did you say the F-word?” and he said ‘NO!”  So she asked “Well then did you say the S-Word?” to which he also replied “No.”

She became a little frustrated and asked him “Well, what did you say?” and so he said, “There I was, mere milliseconds from impact and I balled up my fists and slammed them down on the steering wheel and exclaimed, at the top of my lungs ‘ASS!!’” which was a word that was edgy enough to placate her, without being too offensive.

Also, quick question: who the eff is Maria?

* Not really.

Tags: arse, ass, donkey, jesus, joseph, maria, minimalist, nativity scene

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 at 11:58 am and is filed under Quite Interesting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.