harpojaeger.com

Konkapot. Enough said. And Hephzibah Heights.

I never got a reply back from NASA, so I left them another message. Hopefully this time they’ll send me a working link.

Based on my experience at the strike yesterday, and the show in general, I have created a law that applies to the use of tie line (the cord that is used for hanging cable in theaters). It is called “Harpo Jaeger’s Law of Tie Line Use” (or “Jaeger’s Law” for short), and reads:

You always need more tie line than you think, even if you take into account Jaeger’s law.

He’s still here. What a great way to spend an evening.

I’m back in town after the show (which was a smashing success) and strike (also a smashing success, and about as lengthy), and that same piano player is playing in the same place on the street.
Having coiled the longest S-Video cable known to mankind (125′ [to say nothing of the show or the rest of the strike]), I am very tired, and it is nice to know that some things remain the same.

I am going to bed, and I have found a box of tissues decorated with WALL-E artwork on my bed. I do not know how it got there. Presumably someone else put it there. I don’t know why. Regardless of the reason, though, this may be the highlight of my day.

…went very well.  I am very excited for tonight’s show, which I think will be even better.  I have worked out a few kinks tech-wise from last night’s show, and everything should run much more smoothly tonight.

Our refridgerator has been broken for several weeks, and since our second-floor tenant moved out recently we decided to use his fridge until this Saturday, when our new one will arrive. So every time we need something from the fridge (like this morning when we were all packing our lunches and eating breakfast) we have to go up and down the stairs to get it. Coming downstairs in the morning, one is liable to run into someone carrying a plattter with milk, cereal, and turkey, all headed for the refridgerator.
Our food supply has been laid waste to this fall by a combination of moths, mice (which we are trapping with great efficiency [but still no end in sight]), and the refridgerator breaking. Today was the first day on weeks we have had cereal in the house, and last night we had our first bread in at least as long.

Shortly after posting about my wonders on the etymology of “mugshot”, I received the following two emails from my friends.

Harpo, did you ever track down the origins of slang “mug”, meaning face? 

 Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (16th edition, 1995) didn’t have much on the etymology, but said that “mug” in “mugshot” doesn’t mean “criminal”, but rather “face”, which was my intuition.  ”Mugging” someone is “from the old slang use of ‘mug’ meaning to rob or swindle” and “mug” as a noun is also slang for “one who is easily taken in, possibly coming from the gypsy meaning, a simpleton or ‘muff’.”    

   The OED (1971 edition) says “mug” meaning “face” might come from the commonest sense of the word (something you drink from), because in the 1700′s mugs in the shape of grotesque faces were common.  The first citation of “mug” in this sense of “face” is a dictionary from 1812.  The first citation in context is from 1824.  

 The OED  didn’t have “mug” as a verb meaning “to rob” or anything along those lines, although it did have several other verbal uses of “mug”.  It agreed with Brewer’s about “a mug” being a dupe, so maybe those uses are related.   Besides for the noun usages I mentioned, the OED lists several others.

oed online (3rd entry, after cup and sheep):

1. a. A face, esp. an unattractive one.

1708 Brit. Apollo No. 2. 2/2 My Lawyer has a Desk, nine Law-books without Covers, two with Covers, a Temple-Mug, and the hopes of being a Judge. 1798 G. COLMAN Heir at Law III. ii. 47 Never let him clap his damned ugly mug in these here doors again. 1824 P. EGANBoxiana II. 412 His mug was often disfigured with the claret trickling down. 1850 E. FITZGERALD Lett. (1889) I. 200, I found A. Tennyson in chambers at Lincoln’s Inn: and recreated myself with a sight of his fine old mug. 1897 G. MEREDITH Amazing Marriage I. xvi. 186 Look at old Rufus Abrane. I see the state of the fight on the old fellow’s mug. He hasn’t a bet left in him! 1930 J. B. PRIESTLEY Angel Pavementii. 84 They were all tired of seeing his depressing old mug. 1955 A. WEST Heritage i. 16 This is for you because you’ve got such a funny little mug. 1986 L. CODY Under Contract xvi. 59 What! Miss a chance to get your ugly mug in the papers!

    b. A grotesque or exaggerated (and freq. humorous) facial expression; a grimace, a ‘funny face’.

1844 E. R. LANCASTER Manager’s Daughter (ed. 2) in Oxberry’s Budget of Plays I. 110/1 Who does he suppose was to cut comic mugs before noblemen, without being paid double sals.? 1865 Leaves from Diary Celebrated Burglar xxxiii. 109/1 Many were the queer ‘mugs’ put on by those who had been ‘gone through’… Artful..shook with suppressed laughter at the victim’s bewildered and doleful phiz. 1907 J. M. SYNGE Playboy of Western World (1979) II. 51 He’d be..making mugs at his own self in the bit of a glass we had hung on the wall.1914 D. H. LAWRENCE Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd I. ii. 26 Oh, indeed! You think I’ve got to pull a mug to look decent? You’d have to pull a big ‘un, at that rate. 1929 K. S. PRICHARD Coonardoo xvii. 169 The obstinate little mug Mollie had drawn her face into. 1995 Christian Sci. Monitor 10 May 13 Mary Alice leans forward and scrunches up her face into a delightfully comic mug: eyes wide, mouth open, and shoulders in a shrug.

    c. orig. U.S. A photograph or other likeness of a person’s face, esp. in police or other official records. Cf. mug shot n. at Compounds.

1887 Lantern (New Orleans) 9 July 2/2 He had his mug taken in fireman’s clothes. 1889 C. T. CLARKSON & J. H. RICHARDSON Police!xxiii. 323 Circulating thieves’ photos… Pushing the mugs round. 1940 R. CHANDLER Farewell, my Lovely vi. 43 Nulty turned over a photo..and handed it to me. It was a police mug, front and profile. 1982 L. CODY Bad Company vii. 46 We’ve been showing them the books, natch, and some women picked out a mug.

    2. The mouth.

1820 J. H. REYNOLDS Fancy (1906) 22 Speak, Mrs. Tims; open thy mug, my dear; Mouths here are made to speak, and not to eat. 1835T. C. HALIBURTON Clockmaker (1837) 1st. Ser. xx. 202 Hold your mug, you old nigger. 1896 E. TURNER Little Larrikin xvii. 192, I was afraid I must have said ‘Shut your mug’, or ‘chump’. 1939 S. SPENDER tr. E. Toller Pastor Hall 64 Shut your dirty mug!

    3. The act of throttling or strangling a person. Usu. in to put the mug on (someone).

1862 Sessions Papers Cent. Criminal Court 26 Nov. 41 Roberts..said, ‘You want me for putting the mug on, do you? I will put the bymug on you.’ 1862 Sessions Papers Cent. Criminal Court 26 Nov. 41 Mug is slang used by thieves; it means garotting. 1902 H. HAPGOODAutobiogr. Thief (1912) 271, I explained how I would ‘put the mug on her’ while my husky pal went through her. 1940 Amer. Speech 15121/1 To put the mug on (a mark), to put a stranglehold on a mark who grows obstreperous after he has been fleeced. 1955 Publ. Amer. Dial. Soc. XXIV. 171 A strangle hold is applied… This hold is called..a mug on the East Coast.        

 COMPOUNDS    mug book n. U.S. (a) a book in which business or professional people publicize themselves and are exhibited in flattering photographs; (b) a book containing photographs of people’s faces, esp. in police records.

1902 C. L. CULLEN More Ex-tank Tales iv. 85 I’d often seen him in New York, and I’d seen his mush in Byrnes’s *mug book, too.

mugfaker n. a street photographer.        

1933 ‘G. ORWELL’ Down & Out xxxii. 236 A *mugfakera street photographer. 1934 P. ALLINGHAM Cheapjack iv. 40 Thirty years on the road with a mug-faker and I come to Southend and graft to a bunch of grinnin’ Lakes o’ Killarneys.

mug shot n. orig. U.S. a photograph of a person’s face, esp. in police or other official records (cf. sense 1c).

1950 in H. Wentworth & S. B. Flexner Dict. Amer. Slang (1960) 349/1 Police passed around a *mug shot of Willie.

Now I know the answer(s).  And I didn’t even have to look it / them up.

Grown tired of others using my bath towel, I decided to take extreme action.  This should make them think at least twice.