Monkey's Dad's definitions

Silent Spring

The title of a non-fiction account, published in 1962, of the environmental damage caused by pesticides, written by Rachel Carson, with great foresight.

"Silent Spring" carried eerie echoes, he thought, seeing the trees outside his window beginning to flower, the earth returning to life in a largely silenced human world. Spring of 2020 would be a season of great and unsettling quietude.

by Monkey's Dad March 30, 2020

Missing Definition

A word or phrase on Urban Dictionary which enjoys a fine and happy life, generating views and many thumbs up and down. It enters the language triumphantly, good people everywhere now using it. Then, in an instant, the word or phrase mysteriously vanishes from Urban Dictionary, and no one seems to know why.

He hunted for the missing definition. It was gone from his own pages. For a day or two it still showed up in the search bar, and in a Google search, then went completely AWOL. The author, deciding to re-submit it, got the "oops" message - the definition already existed - even though it didn't. Paging Sherlock Holmes.

by Monkey's Dad April 10, 2020

stand down comedian

A professional, on stage in a comedy club, who suddenly understands there is no humor in our predicament, nowhere he can take us that is any more absurd than the facts, and walks off.

Oh, he had material ... Mexico building a wall to keep Americans out... Ivanka's first act as president, pardoning her imprisoned daddy, children dying so the school cafeteria staff could return to work... but he saw that we had fallen beyond the reach of laughter. He was finished, a stand down comedian, and others would silently follow.

by Monkey's Dad July 15, 2020

The Religious Left

Liberals who have their own definition of "the right to life".

Unlike members of the Religious Right, the Religious Left doesn't advocate ripping children from their mother's arms and putting them in cages, putting prisoners to death when witnesses have recanted and they have been refused the legal admission of DNA exoneration, or the necessity of carrying assault rifles into church. Just sayin'.

by Monkey's Dad March 12, 2020

XYZnophobia

Fear of a broad array of foreigners.

Today he was blaming the Chinese for the 'foreign virus', yesterday, the Mexicans for allowing the Central Americans to get anywhere near our border, and whom he might fear tomorrow was anyone's guess. The president actually seemed proud of his XYZnophobia, blind to the leveling properties of the pandemic, and the lesson it offered, that we are all made of the same stuff.

by Monkey's Dad March 22, 2020

psygh

A long, deep, audible breath which sounds like a sigh but has a pathological source.

For the tenth time in two minutes she heard him psygh, and realized that confinement was making him crazy.

by Monkey's Dad April 9, 2020

personal disappearance

The care we take with how we look, when there is no one to see us.

Saturday night in a city under lockdown, another date with her laptop. She brushed her hair and put on makeup, knowing that for the foreseeable future, she would be the only one to take pleasure in her personal disappearance.

by Monkey's Dad March 18, 2020