![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRC6_llSj8y7zKZ8ClGTrikbWYIEbg7K5XGId-baip9v7fg_HWYkg3fzTOweOueLihzogsxObHPwdFBZBYcLbPBrTZPyVtUaz2eyQs0nxFYTHHck4kduQ8RZ687fZkx2at0y_yWUesXTGh/s400/found004.jpg)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2CWlUencRPhKrtFiNmJkQqWsTYrY-jcwWReAXU8a6brwBjV7zMIVQjexzfh0A-y5AGz3tzTNLY4jIusgAkAu8oR35uIXsjst99xheI18osC2wRiqDs8mE3OAdDK8DnnGm-uD083Adrzvt/s400/found005.jpg)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQgYbTBBNpCdU92_r2-5VCcjvvf2iaP0q1MVDTduBK0_SoRqdS3z8wCEmFgo_4pvdMYJjBSI23dgNCydXIeVXdBg3N31lZIeLzPHAbiG56EmPOhdhHc9Qbf4ZjFjT8FbVHQGasrMp9N-Ga/s400/found006.jpg)
I found these photographs at an antique book store in northern New Hampshire.
Ropin' in the awesome since May 2008
Though this word is rare to the point of never being used in its ostensible sense, but only as a keyword to initiate discussion, it has been keeping illustrious company, since its few appearances in print have been in works by G K Chesterton, J R R Tolkien and Charles Dickens.
Dickens invented it, if that’s the right word to use. He mentions it in his autobiography, when he describes his poverty-stricken youth:
"In the door there was an oval glass plate, with COFFEE-ROOM painted on it, addressed towards the street. If I ever find myself in a very different kind of coffee-room now, but where there is such an inscription on glass, and read it backward on the wrong side MOOR-EEFFOC (as I often used to do then, in a dismal reverie,) a shock goes through my blood."
In his biography of Dickens, Chesterton said that it denoted the queerness of things that have become trite, when they are seen suddenly from a new angle. Tolkien read more into it still in his work On Fairy-stories:
"The word Mooreeffoc may cause you to realise that England is an utterly alien land, lost either in some remote past age glimpsed by history, or in some strange dim future reached only by a time-machine; to see the amazing oddity and interest of its inhabitants and their customs and feeding-habits."
This [cultural] transition has produced some new status rules. In the first place, prestige has shifted from the producer of art to the aggregator and the appraiser. Inventors, artists and writers come and go, but buzz is forever. Maximum status goes to the Gladwellian heroes who occupy the convergence points of the Internet infosystem — Web sites like Pitchfork for music, Gizmodo for gadgets, Bookforum for ideas, etc.
The creator is dropped when we get to the long tail "pocket of profit" because the long tail is not profitable for the creator. It's profitable only for the audience and aggregators.
Nine-year-old Lin Miaoke became an instant global celebrity when she ostensibly sang "Ode to the Motherland" Friday night, clad in a red party dress and her hair in pigtails. But the voice heard around the world was that of 7-year-old Yang Peiyi. Officials have said that while Ms. Yang's voice was "perfect," Ms. Lin's appearance was more suitable.