Word, Mot, Wort

December 15th marked the birthday of L.L. Zamenhof. creator of the international language known as Esperanto, and would've-been proud winner of the 1859 freestyle beard contest. I know this because Google told me so and because, recently, I came across a similarly linked, extraordinary find during my last StumbleUpon binge, which I'll explain in a Prisencolinensinainciusol minute.

Language is fascinating to me. I have no idea why - how people speak, how they interact with each other, and how powerful words can be in any language is just a wonder. In my Junior year of college, in what could have only been a NyQuil-soaked night as I battled my insomnia and prepared for my roommate to arrive at four in the morning to begin his ritual A.M. pot cleaning, I devised in my head a plan to create a universal language. Whether it was to foster peace, achieve fame or simply to appease the Biblical demons that were dancing on my desklamp at the time, I was going to be the first person to combine the Arabic, French, German, Japanese, and Russian languages. I decided, as the new benevolent dictator of dialect, to allow the Spanish to keep their silly dead language.

But damned be those born before me. I had not even two years to begin my project when I found that someone, a certain Adriano Celantano, managed to time travel to my sophomore year, steal my idea, and whisk it back to 1972, whereupon he created this acid-dipped masterpiece, called Prisencolinensinainciusol, a musical examination of how English sounds to Europeans. Not exactly my idea, but close enough to smack the bastard with a posthumous copyright infringement suit. Click that crazy word and prepare to have your mind obliterated. (I've learned most of the dance moves, because I am groovy.)

Speaking of speaking and December highlights, I was disappointed when I realized I didn't commemorate a certain event on the third of December, the date Madeline Kahn passed away in 1999. Unfortunately, what reminded me of this was the grim news of Brittany Murphy's death. While she might've not been as epic as the Kahn, I thought she was a fantastic actress and it's sad to think she was taken away at such a young age. On those same lines, I anticipate a very teary and excellent Dr. Parnassus, Heath Ledger's final movie, coming out this Christmas. Suck it, you Avatar-lovers.