Tag Archives: The Tuesday Prude

Wildely Tart

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SONY DSC“Paradoxically though it may seem, it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.”
― Oscar Wilde

If dear Oscar could see art these days he may have added to the above little aphorism:
“and heaven help us all.’

Let’s start with an assumption: TV is a 21st century artform. (Work with me here)
And let’s, given the 21st century’s fascination with word smash-ups,
call this merger of
TV and art
‘Tart.’
(For purposes of this article we refer almost solely to the manifestation of Tart called ‘dramas’ since comedies make few attempts at portraying life realistically and ‘reality shows’ are so divorced from reality as to be classified ‘science fiction.’

Life, imitating Tart, would mean;

-the most dangerous job, bar none, is security guard. When, on TV cop shows, do security guards ever not get killed?

-when thieves or snoops sneak into a house, they will find it perfectly tidy, bed made, dishes done, paperwork filed and fridge shelves polished to a Turtle Wax glow.

-anyone trying to hack into someone’s (crumb-free) computer will need no more than 5 tries to figure out the private password.

-law enforcement comes to a house looking for a suspect/witness/person of interest. After 2 quick knocks and an ‘Anybody home?’ bellow they will enter via the (usually) unlatched door. And they never, ever, consider that the suspect/witness/P.O.I could be in the loo/lavatory/restroom.

-once in, there is a 98% chance they will find a dead body. Perhaps the loo was the best place to be after all.

-those desiring  a dangerous job but preferring to avoid the 100% mortality rate of the security guard profession, might consider law enforcement. Guaranteed job security (unless your network contract is up) and thrills that come from being shot, concussed, bruised, kidnapped, and compromised. Applicants should have a deep secret in their past and/or family member(s) killed by someone evil. Must be willing to devote all free time and several seasons tracking this evildoer.

-great coworkers abound, who love each other so much that they spend major holidays with each other instead of extended family.

-serial killers are more common than mudhens.

-those leaping from 2nd/3rd story windows to escape any given serial killer will land in the back of a dump truck filled with something soft and buoyant. When this cushiony substance is impacted by the escapee’s weight, a chain of dump truck events is triggered. These include the ignition turning over, gears being engaged and the unsuspecting truck chauffeuring the escapee to safety.

-cars (built according to Tart specifications) will explode on impact. Any impact.

-cars (built according to Tart specifications) self-steer. As miles of scenery whirl merrily past, the driver can chat, face-to face, with the front seat passenger.

-victim-types will go alone to a deserted spot to meet an avowed enemy, this in spite of the decades of disastrous consequences experienced by predecessor (and deceased) Tarts who did the same thing.

-anyone put in the witness protection program because something that shouldn’t have been seen was seen, will have a teenage offspring along. The offspring WILL climb out a window to meet friends and endanger themselves, the family, and national security.

-innocent types, on the run from gangsters in a city of 5 million people, will bump into them when turning a corner.

-a sports team of out of shape, clueless non-athletic, lovable quirky loser-types, in less than one season, will improve to the extent that they will beat the buff, haughty, talented jockkids who have been training in this sport since the cradle.

-pregnant women will deliver a spotless 15 pound infant after 30 minutes of labor, anywhere but a hospital and by anyone but a doctor.

And finally, because Tart is where we gain wisdom and comfort and joy—

-when one is in the midst of deepest despair and self-doubt and failure, a wise sage will offer those remarkable, magical, those life-changing words, (or what we like to call the
SweetTart):
“I believe in you. Now you must believe in yourself.”

Too bad the tragic Oscar Wilde didn’t have Tart around to imitate.

Synecdoches, Synecdo-don’ts

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Next time some literary snob type tells you, in a world-weary sort of tone:
“ I suppose you don’t know what a synecdoche is,”
You can answer:
“Everybody knows that. Synecdoches form images in our minds with a convenient sort of shorthand. They help create our understanding of the entirety via a glimpse of only one part. So there.”

‘Synecdoche’ possibly isn’t one of your top 100 daily words.
(But if you want to haul it out at your next party make sure you pronounce it right.
Sort of like Schenectady)
Your synecdoche-comprehension is, however, perfect.
If I told you I got a ‘new set of wheels’ you wouldn’t congratulate me on a tire purchase.
You’d know I was talking about my (mythical) new car.
You celebrate with bubbly, sign your John Hancock, count heads and pay with plastic and you are a MASTER of the synecdoche.
‘All hands on deck’ demands more than just hands, but isn’t it so much more fun than asking all competent personnel to come topside? A Romeo and Juliet couple is headed no place good and if someone calls you Charlie Brown they don’t necessarily mean you are well-drawn.

Charlie Brown carries the burden of all lovable losers on his narrow shoulders. He can handle it. He’s made of ink, for goodness’ sake. A Venus is a synecdoche for lovely women while a Jane Eyre-type is plain but will get the blind bigamist in the end. It’s OK. The originals aren’t real. Elmer Fudd can be a stand-in for cartoon hapless hunters but don’t think for a moment he represents the whole of the real world of hunters.

With all that said, let’s check your synecdoche prowess.
‘Single mother’ What pops into your head?
How about ‘Homeschooler?’
‘Young black male?’
Is your brain ready to explode with the millions of different single moms, homeschoolers and young black men?
Are you shouting,
“Is that Tuesday Prude crazy? How can one single mom possibly stand for all single mothers? How can one homeschooled kid or young black male create our understanding of the whole?”
You know it isn’t possible.
Not everyone has your grasp of the obvious.
Some will take a hard-working single mother and use her to convince us that ‘single mother’ is synonymous for ‘hard-working.’
Someone whose identity has been stolen by a single mother will use her as a synecdoche for every single mother.
Kids schooled at home are kids. Some neatly dressed who call adults m’am or sir, some with Supreme Court-level comprehension of the Constitution, some playing video games all day in their pajamas. But there are folks out there—really, I have met them—who assume that the single homeschooler they’ve had access to must represent all those who are homeschooled.

Wisecracking Will Smith-type rascals, noble George Washington Carvers/Martin Luther King Jrs, or hardened African American gang members are incapable of helping us comprehend that entire elusive classification of ‘young black male.’
One single mom can’t represent all single moms. No woman can bear that burden. Since homeschooled kids are as varied as otherly-schooled youngsters it would be an impossible waste of energy to find one synecdoche for the whole.
Young black men, like young black women (or whatever hue or gender) face enough challenges. They barely know themselves. Heaven forbid one of them function as stand-in for everyone in their bracket.

Synecdoches make great figures of speech but lousy stereotypes.
Like literary device elitists, they must be kept firmly in their place.

Writing without widgets

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falling_rocks
I am a rock. I am an island.
(Simon and Garfunkel ‘I am a Rock’)

That is me. An rock of oblivion and an island of inflexibility
standing firm in the raging torrent of social media.
Here’s the thing about rocks and islands.
We don’t stand firm because we are strong
and steadfast and resolute.
We are stuck.
Have you ever seen an island pull up stakes to follow the crowd?
And rocks. Not known for trendiness.

Several years ago I thought it would be fun to start writing a book.
Once I got some impetus going I thought it would be fun to finish it.
What could be more fun than finishing a book?
Submitting it to a publisher!
Oh! Oh!
And then getting it published!
Having family and friends buy it!
This rolling stone was gathering no moss.

Until, in a parallel universe—the actual one—I came to realize that the rolling, moss-shedding author
was a temporary illusion.
The real me is the unmoving rocky island with roots to the center of the earth.
An atoll (there are very few synonyms for ‘island’) who is learning that writers eventually  run out of family and friends to purchase one’s book. The glorious ‘I am a published author’ ride
hits the rocks.
And one needs to
PROMOTE.

Promotion is double horror for a rock and an island:
One needs to be confident and outgoing. Creative and fearless. Rocks are not known for these qualities. We prefer to blend into the scenery and have people sit on us.

And one needs to have moved from newspaper interviews/genteel bookstore readings and into Twitter feeds and author pages and likes on Facebook and blog widgets and avatars and all the things islands just can’t cope with.

But the world of social media and self-promotion is lapping at my rocky shores.
I’ve cajoled and convinced everyone I know to buy my book and I can’t make new friends or relatives fast enough to generate glowing book sales.

So I’ll do what I can to appear that I am busily promoting, without actually moving.

*************
I wrote a book folks! A suspense/romance mystery!
It’s called ‘Winter Watch’ and my real name (really) is Anita Klumpers
Publisher: Prism Book Group
Available in paperback and ebook from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords
and various other online sites.
*************
There.
That didn’t hurt a bit.
But my editor is heading this way with a few sticks of TNT.
My island days are numbered.
Look for bits and pieces of my rocky self bobbing along in the social media world,
gasping out tweets and hanging onto a widget for dear life.

Lily-Livered Literary Devices

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Real life wreaks havoc with perfectly good literary devices.
In the hands of professionals, these devices make the world of literature a finer place.
When rank amateurs throw them around, the term ‘verbal abuse’ takes on a whole new meaning.

The simile, saying something is like something else, requires an imaginative mind and clarity of expression:
He uttered a sound much like a bull dog swallowing a pork chop whose dimensions it has underestimated. (PG Wodehouse)
Let an American teens get hold of it and the simile turns into:
‘I was like, just standing there and he, like, winked at me and I, like, died!’

When Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote, “I like humanity, but I loathe persons.” she was brilliantly employing an oxymoron.
When we speak of government intelligence or peacekeeping force or media integrity or red licorice we just use one word in the phrase to cancel out the other.

Anthropomorphism, attributing human characteristics to animals (sometimes interchangeable with personification) raises our consciousness with totalitarian critters in ‘Animal Farm’ or raises an entire generation of anti-hunting protestors with ‘Bambi.’
Now, commercials try to work up sympathy for lonely cleaning products pining for love in attics. Movies like ‘Toy Story’ and ‘Brave Little Toaster’ convince us that we can’t throw out broken plastic playthings or obsolete appliances because they have feelings too. That just raises my blood pressure.

Euphemisms. Ah. A way to take something prosaic, unpleasant or distressing and make it palatable.
Lucy wasn’t pregnant in ‘I Love Lucy.’ She was expecting. Sometimes women in the 1950’s were in the family way or on the nest or visited by the stork but they were NEVER pregnant.
‘The Godfather’ movies made threatening the life of another sound positively appealing by ‘making someone an offer they can’t refuse.’
See how clever these euphemisms are?
Compare them to the politician who has lied, cheated and stolen. Will he admit to lying, cheating etc? No. He will admit that ‘mistakes were made.’
Collateral damage, friendly fire and enhanced interrogation all have a pleasant ring to them.
Someone had the bright idea to call  taxes ‘revenue enhancements.’
See how clever those euphemisms are?

Portmanteau is that fun little device that joins 2 words to make a new word. Lewis Carroll combined ‘lithe’ and ‘slimy’ to make the great word slithy in Jabberwocky. Smog? I can handle that. Motel? Very clever. How can human beings who come up with a delight called brunch also have infomercials and Brangelina and TomKat?

Invective. If you have ever read the comment section on YouTube videos, blogs, opinion columns,  etc., you’ve probably run across invective. Invective is that nasty, spiteful, lewd, venom-dripping-from-each-word sort of response Internet trolls like to use. Like real trolls, these scourges of social media have a limited vocabulary and use the same 4 letter words over and over and over.
Compare invective in the hands of a master. Shakespeare’s King Lear addresses his faithless daughter’s servant as such: “A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking, whoreson, glass-gazing, super-serviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir to a mongrel bitch: one whom I will beat into clamorous whining if thou deni’st the least syllable of thy addition.”(William Shakespeare “King Lear”, II.2)
Maybe when Internet trolls start using words like ‘ beggardly’ and ‘lily-livered’ and ‘filthy worsted-stocking knave’ we can take them more seriously.

Somalia is the new Bangladesh

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As children grow and develop their humor sense, they learn the delights of shared ridicule. If we’ve raised our children right they won’t ridicule peers or authority figures or those different from them. They’ll mock us.

A gaggle of post-littles/pre-teens guffaw as they cross eyes and loll out tongues.
“Your mom says your face will stay that way? Mine does too!”
Or, “Does your mom ever say, “If your friends were all jumping off a cliff would you?”
And then one will chime in,
“My folks always say, ‘wait till you have kids of your own.’”
At this point they all laugh uproariously. Kids of their own?
That day is, like, a million years in the future.

And then comes the inevitable: “My mom always says, ‘Eat your vegetables! There are starving children in Somalia!’ So I say, ‘If they want my Lima beans so bad they can have them!’”

Some moms might sub in India or the Sudan or North Korea.
But the Momism is the same. When I was growing up the children in Bangladesh were starving.
I wondered how eating my liver and Brussels Sprouts would fill their stomachs.

It wouldn’t. So why don’t moms can this ridiculous phrase? Its been around longer than I have.
As long as America has had so much food that almost half of it goes to waste.
As long as children see buffet lines with more options than their phones have apps.
As long as first world children have never known the gnawing ache of hunger.
Not temporary hunger pangs, but the
agonizing starvation that distends little tummies while shrinking little bodies to loosely fleshed skeletons.

As long as our children can pile food on their plates and after a few bites toss the rest, words about starving children have little impact.

Moms have a lot to deal with. Children have food preferences and sensitivities. Many moms need to keep kids safe from allergens and pesticides. We don’t want our kids falling into eating disorders so we don’t tell them to clean their plates.

We have so much food that sometimes we view it as an enemy instead of realizing how precious it is.
We need to learn ourselves and teach our children that full tables and refrigerators and pantries aren’t our right, but a blessing and privilege.

Let’s exercise our imaginations. Picture one of those little ones from India or Somalia or somewhere in our own city who doesn’t have enough to eat. Imagine them watching us scrape good food into the trash. Imagine a child—who washed dung from seeds for something to eat—sees us turn up fussy noses at meat, potatoes and 2 kinds of vegetables.
Or liver and Brussels Sprouts.

I, too, need pictures of those empty babies with the puzzled eyes
next time I am too lazy to heat up leftovers and order out for pizza. Or when I wait till the food in the fridge turns green and I can just dump it.

“You have so much,” the hollow voices say. “Please, respect it. We do.”

Another Momism: We don’t know what we have till its gone.

An attitude of humble gratefulness and stewardship can grow and spill out. It creates empathy which creates people who not only enjoy the blessing of food, but share it.

Lord, this Thanksgiving, let me be thankfully aware. Let me be alert for those who don’t have tables groaning with provision. Let me be a steward of this bounty. And please, let me partake with gratitude and amazement.

‘I’ is Understood

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Prudes are often self-appointed grammar nannies, (making sure apostrophes are tucked in the cozy correct spots and participles don’t dangle dangerously.) The Tuesday Prude, however, hated diagramming sentences in school. Maybe it looked too much like math. When it was time to explore the beautiful world of grammar with our home schooled prudlings, we choose a curriculum that didn’t technically require diagramming.

It was a good program and they learned enough not to embarrass me. The closest they came to diagramming was the requirement to pull prepositional phrases from each sentence and label the leftovers:  subject, verb, direct object etc.
Occasionally an imperative sentence reared its imperious head:
Shut the door.
Stop strangling your brother.
Rescue that dangling participle.

Where is the subject in the above sentences? We learned that the imperative is addressed to ‘you’.
‘You’ shut the door.
‘You’ stop strangling your brother.
‘You’. . .
You get the picture.
Their job was to label the subject as ‘You is understood’.
It was sort of fun to say. ‘You is understood.’

The fun didn’t stop when my boys finished school. There is a new way to use this rule.

It keeps the world from knowing just what an egomaniac I (aka The Tuesday Prude) am.

One of the first rules a good writer learns: avoid beginning every sentence with the word
I.
Even in a blog, even on a Facebook status, or personal communication—start too many sentences with ‘I’ and readers get the notion that the writer is self-centered.

My readers would be right.

Ever hear the phrase ‘She thinks the world revolves around her’? Try as I will to convince myself that the world actually revolves on a tipsy axis, my id, ego and superego all argue the opposite. In the world of the self-centered I am firmly in the middle.

Narcissism, however, wears thin with readers. As a budding writer I don’t want to alienate readers. They want to believe I am interested in them, and I am. Truly I am, but this nasty little core of me wants to make sure no one bumps me from Centerville. Because no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary, deep down in my fascinating self is the idea that everyone else should be captivated with ME.

So I develop strategies to hide my egomania. Look back and you’ll discover the sneaky ways I wrote an entire post about ME without once starting a sentence with ‘I’. And I didn’t even hide behind The Tuesday Prude.
The Tuesday Prude, while a great 3rd person subject to hide behind, doesn’t always address the issues at hand.
All this means that sometimes, unfortunately, it is almost impossible to keep the
I-word anywhere but the engine part of a sentence.

That is where my ‘You is understood’ training comes in handy.

Instead of writing
“I am trying to avoid starting sentences with ‘I’”,
I drop the ‘I’ at the beginning of the sentence and it becomes a friendly, informal
‘Trying to avoid…”

The ‘I’ is understood but it sits modestly out of the reader’s line of vision, understanding that I am really the subject of me but not trumpeting the fact.

It gets easier:
“Loving this organic casserole that just came out of the oven!”
“Going to buy a new pair of jeans in a smaller size!”
“Just enjoying the cutest grandbabies on earth!”

All the above are just underhanded ways of saying:
“Wondering if everyone heard that the earth’s axis shifted? Pretty sure they know who it rotates around now!!”

How to celebrate the 5th of November

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Don’t you hate this awkward holiday wasteland between Halloween/Reformation Day and Thanksgiving? While The Tuesday Prude strongly encourages the observation of Veterans Day, it is one of those sober, reflective sort of holidays. But the trick-or-treating candy is running low and it’s too early to defrost the turkey. Is there anything to celebrate?

Happy Guy Fawkes Day!

If you are British you already have your Guy Fawkes day cards sent, your Guy Fawkes bonfire laid, your Guy Fawkes effigy stuffed. If you live west of the Atlantic you may need a little history lesson:
In 1605, Guy Fawkes and his 12 co-conspirators planned to blow up the government in general and King James in particular. Guy was caught trying futilely to ignite barrels of old gunpowder he’d hidden in the basement of Parliament. Poor Guy’s days were dramatically shortened upon this discovery.

Every Nov. 5 since, bonfires are lit all over England, Guy Fawkes is burnt in effigy, fireworks are set, money is begged (sort of like the monetary form of trick-or-treating) and candy called Treacle Toffee is made.

Maybe we Yanks should start gathering the ingredients to make Treacle Toffee (brown sugar, cream of tarter, black treacle and corn syrup.) Because word on the street is that some folks want to bring Guy Fawkes to this side of the Atlantic.

We are all in favor of more holidays, especially ones that include bonfires and black treacle. But Guy Fawkes Day may present some challenges for multicultural, slightly schizo, holiday crazy Americans.

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States-rights, libertarian types will hold Guy up as a hero and wear masks to honor him (he looked like a cross between a Pilgrim Forefather and one of the Three Musketeers). Supporters of big, centralized government will join their British cohorts and burn him in effigy.

Those who want to see their 2nd amendment rights upheld will celebrate Guy and his gunpowder. Those who believe the right to bear arms is outdated and dangerous will burn him in effigy. Well, maybe they won’t burn him. Just wave a can of pepper spray.

Guy wanted to blow up Parliament and the king because they were Protestant, and Guy wanted England to return to its Catholic identity.  Maybe, in the spirit of good, ecumenical fun, Catholic parishes would dress up in the Guy masks while those who identify themselves as Protestants might sing the little ditty below:
Remember, remember, the 5th of November
The Gunpowder Treason and plot;
I know of no reason why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes,
‘Twas his intent.
To blow up the King and the Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below.
Poor old England to overthrow.
By God’s providence he was catch’d,
With a dark lantern and burning match

So, holler boys, holler boys, Let the bells ring.
Holler boys, holler boys, God save the king.

The multitude of Royal Family fans in the States will shudder at the thought of ANYONE daring to hurt one of precious little Prince George’s ancestors and give the Guy Fawkes effigy a piece of their mind. High fructose corn syrup haters will experiment with Stevia sweeteners in the treacle toffee and radical environmental groups will picket wood-burning bonfires. Hallmark will make Guy cards and ornaments and we’ll have big inflatable Guy Fawkes in our front yards.

Has something about this made you a bit uncomfortable? Maybe you are reminded  of a shameful period in our nation’s past that involved burning symbols as a means of intimidation?  The Tuesday Prude agrees. The idea of burning anything that is supposed to resemble a person brings back too many bad memories.  But Americans can still have fun with this holiday! The bonfire (sans a stuffed Guy) can be the ultimate form of relative fun. It can represent whatever you want it to.

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Whether you are pro or con big government, Catholic or Protestant, want to abolish weapons or stockpile them, love the House of Windsor or can’t name a single person who lives in Buckingham Palace, Guy Fawkes Day can be a great way to fight back the dark November night.
We can do this, my fellow Americans. We can turn this bastion of British merry-making into an American-flavored holiday.
Holler boys, holler boys.
And see if we can have a Charlie Brown Guy Fawkes TV special ready by next Fifth of November.

All we are saying, (la la) is give civility a chance

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The Tuesday Prude has a daydream.
A dream in which thousands of people from all walks of life, sporting skin tones from freckly pink to glorious midnight, join for the next big March on Washington.
We won’t come together because we agree on everything. As a matter of fact, we agree on very little.
The Tuesday Prude brings a bevy of priggish types who propound the glories of modesty and genteel understatement, (body parts consist of ‘chestal regions’ and ‘hindquarters’, babies come about via procreation, couples in the throes of warm emotions engage in smooching). Our mission also promotes good manners and proper semi-colon use.
We meet up with the ‘America Gets Nekkid’ folks, who arrive clad only in sturdy walking shoes and an admirable sets of goosebumps.

The ‘Call a Spade a Spade ’ Society are in D.C. too. They organized several years ago to convince the world how archaic and unnecessary euphemisms have become.
Grammar Anarchists trickle in. Known best by their slogan ‘For all intensive purposes; we could care less’ they champion for, among other linguistic improprieties, a participle’s right to dangle.
More assemblages join us, like a small, unnamed but vocal group who hold etiquette responsible for the world’s inequities.

What, in The Tuesday Prude’s dream could bind such a disparate group?  What do we have in common?

A desire for civility.

So we come together, holding firmly to individual convictions, but demonstrating jointly for a fundamental cause.
This is the Civility Rights March.

The Tuesday Prude’s pipe dream continues. Maybe, before even arriving at our nation’s capital, everyone who thinks civility has for too long been trampled agrees to the following:

CIVILITY STATEMENT OF RIGHTS
1) We will not mock, scorn, or call those with opposing viewpoints nasty names.
2) Interruptions, speaking out of turn and out-shouting others is not tolerated. We all have a chance to express opinions, but only while holding the Stick of Civility.
3) We do not make our opponent appear foolish, or take remarks out of context.
4) Under no circumstances, no matter how major our differences, do we  engage in fisticuffs.
5) We vow to use the proper facilities for dealing with bodily functions, leave said facilities looking better than when we came in, and inform management if facilities require attention.
6) We will not litter.
7) We promise to guard the above rights of civility via the use of civility against any and all who might come and try to undermine the rights of civility.

This is our daydream. Someday, demonstrators will come together to actually demonstrate what civility looks like…
Perhaps we overhear a Grammar Anarchist say: “Ain’t nobody going to tell me apostrophes aren’t for plural nouns.” Instead of mocking the extensive overuse of negatives (“So someone IS going to tell you how to use apostrophes?”) we tell them we enjoy their use of the vernacular ‘ain’t’ and any time the language subversive wants to discuss punctuation more fully we are ready and willing. They thank us and admit to occasional appreciation of subject/verb agreement.

Maybe a member of the ‘Call a Spade a Spade’ Society hears a male prude (they do exist) announce, “‘In the future I want to see a woman’s chestal region treated with the same dignity accorded to the hand that shakes the Queen’s: it will be fully covered.”
The pro-CASAS resists, in the interests of civility, taking his statement out of context to make him appear foolish or hypocritical.  (“I want to see a woman’s chestal region.”)

The most rabid of full-body coverage zealots realizes that even anti-clothing extremists get cold. While looking the au natural directly in the eye (and only in the eye) the super-modest type won’t say, “Serves you right.” Instead she offers a blanket for the birthday-suit clad nonconformist to ward off the chill. (“No, I don’t need it back when the temps warm up. Really, you keep it.”)  The personage in the all-together, recognizing the prudish-types’ sensibilities, willingly covers public seating areas with newspapers or napkins before settling down.

And even though the throw-off-the-yoke-of-etiquette people believe salad greens stuck in the teeth or dangling dried nasal secretions are symbols of liberation, they know they haven’t won over the entire world to their perspective. Therefore, upon seeing a dab of marinara sauce on the chin of a dainty etiquette-lover, our napkin-hater refrains from outward rejoicing and tactfully points it out.

Cleanliness, while not akin to godliness, certainly lifts the spirits. We all dash about emptying trash cans and making sure every facility has toilet paper and running water.

Protests seldom go well. The 60’s antiwar demonstrations always drew a crowd who defended America’s policies. Bitter recriminations erupted from both camps. Those who picket abortion clinics in turn are picketed by their polar opposites and the Occupy Anything people are met by vocally indignant Go Home Now and Get a Job groups.
They all employ their constitutional right to protest. Sadly, many assume this means they also have the right to scream and belittle and deface what isn’t theirs.

But at our Civility Rights March, any misguided prudes who come planning to humiliate our opposition will find themselves politely shushed. We won’t tolerate name calling, finger pointing, or twisted words.
Disagree with us, or disagree with those we disagree with.
Do so in an uncivil manner and we will inform you how we plan to defend the rights of civility.  And then we will courteously point out the little piece of spinach in your teeth.

Prude Stew

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Not Prude Stew. For illustrative purposes only.

The past few weeks we’ve spent browsing the Prude Munitions Vault.
You’ve learned to identify your means of defense and your ‘concealed carry’ weapons. All we have left are the Weapons of Mass Prudery.

Please bear in mind that with great prudishness comes great responsibility.
So before we move to reveal the Big Guns, the prude’s version of a nuclear submarine,
we need to establish ground rules. To brandish armaments at the highest level
of prude warfare requires not only training, but understanding the underlying code of honor.

Today, let’s raid the Chivalric Code icebox to make our own Prude Stew.
Please bear in mind that these are actual virtues as listed by an actual Chivalric Knight.
(We here at the Tuesday Prude don’t want you to think we just pull this stuff out of our hat.) You may also note the shocking mix of metaphors in this post but if one figure of speech is good, two can’t help but be better.

PRUDE STEW

Faith, Charity and Justice comprise the broth in which all the other prudish virtues
simmer. Readily available in the distant past, today you may have to hunt for them. WARNING: Don’t be tempted to eliminate any one virtue just because they are rare. Keep looking—Prude Stew is worthless without each one.
Sagacity we wanted— for obvious root-wordish sort of reasons— to be the sage flavoring. But since sagacity is a cool word for good judgment and prudes are all about discernment, let’s call it the potatoes. Not glamorous, but filling. Just be cautious about letting sagacity sit unused in a dark corner for too long. It will sprout useless eyes and start to stink.

This is a 3-meat stew, chock full of the goodness that sets it apart from Hollywood Bisque, Wall Street Chowder, Washington Pottage or Fashion Week Soup.
Our special proteins are found in Prudence, Temperance and Resolution. Each meaty virtue is guaranteed to build strength of character. Prudence, though it tends to be tough and chewy, develops a healthy sense of caution. Temperance might taste bland, but is inexpensive and ensures a well-balanced system of moderation. We don’t need to add much flavorful Resolution. It’s pricier than all the other ingredients and a little goes a long way.

Don’t forget to salt your stew with just the right amount of Truth. Too little and the virtues seem insipid, too much truth just for the sake of truth overpowers everything else. Toss in some colorful carrots of Hope, Diligent celery (you can never have too much) and season with the Liberality of your choice.

Stir it up with Valor and viola!
Prude Stew!
Nourish yourselves on it this week, so when you return next Tuesday you’ll have the strength to dash back to the weapon analogy and flourish your heavy ammunition with skill and flair.

Birthday Suit? Or Civil Suit?

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Prude-approved Birthday Suit

Here’s a prude pop quiz:

What does the Tuesday Prude consider civilization’s chief threat?
A. The creeping view of clothing as obsolete
B. Escalating use of really, really bad words
C. Decreasing moral standards for behavior
D. All of the above but with one prevailing concern.

Oh, that all quizzes were so obvious!  Of course the answer is
D.
You might ask: what could concern a prude more than the looming possibility of runway models wearing little more than a blingy belt between their pouts and their platform shoes?

While A,B and C, and of course the Birthday Suit trend in fashion all give prudes the shivers, we’re noticing a deeper, more fundamental crack in the bedrock of civilization.
Civility is disappearing.
Civility is becoming as rare, as difficult to find as prudes. So little civility to be found on television, in politics, religion, the workplace, the classroom, in families, among friends and amidst strangers.
So much incivility rushing to fill the void.

Sometimes incivility is disguised with wit or sarcasm, or excused because of strongly held beliefs and passions.
Boorish, discourteous behavior is almost expected in certain realms such as the editorial page and Washington DC, but now it has gurgled up, slobbered out, and mucked over everything else. Incivility is ubiquitous.

The Tuesday Prude would like to carve out a little section of the world that, at its core, is cordial.

Most prudes hold strongly to particular beliefs on religion, politics, education, society, language, nutrition and global stewardship. But this is not the venue to share them all.

We prefer not to mock, deride, satirize or condemn those whose views don’t match ours.
Not that we believe all opinions and ideas have equal validity.
Not because we don’t believe in absolutes.

But because this blog aspires to be one hundred percent courteous, one hundred percent of the time.

You don’t need to agree with everything the Tuesday Prude propounds. But we hope you share our desire for a more civil world.

NEXT WEEK: A PEEK AT A PRUDE’S ARSENAL