Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Sexagon

Guys, I have made it big. My dream as a blogger has finally come true: today, I received my first kick-back! Our faithful midwestern nail polish correspondent Suzanna has sent me some nail polish that is the perfect combination of beautiful in color and hideous in name. (A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but I think we all know that tamely-named nail polish just doesn't have the same sparkle.) Thanks, Suzanna! However, I would like to assure you all that my devotion to strict journalistic integrity remains intact. I remain firmly committed to revealing and reviling the stupid names of the nail polish world (however, have I mentioned what a lovely name Suzanna is?)



Anyway, what is going on with Sexagon? I wish I could believe that this was just an unfortunate result of someone mixing up her Greek and Latin prefixes, but my time in nail polish academia has taught me cynicism. In fact, the reference is much more literary. I am pretty sure that this is actually the title of Edwin Abbott-Abbott's lesser-known and extremely pornographic sequel to Flatland.

An excerpt:

Their vertexes locked across the room. The sexagon slid boldly over the plane until he stood before the lithe young triangle. "Hey, baby," he said. "If I told you that you had a beautiful perimeter, would you hold it against me?"

The triangle blushed and looked shyly at her smallest angle.

"Come on, doll," the brazen sexagon continued, "Don't be obtuse. It doesn't suit acute one like you. You don't want to be a square, do you? I'm not going to stand here and complement you all night. Let me buy you a gin and conic."

"No, thanks," the triangle said. "What's your angle?"

"My angle? You could fill the null set with all the other guys in here who would give you the coordinates of the origin. Look, you know you're the right triangle for me. Let's go back to my place and we can give it an ol' whirl around the XXX-axis. Tangentially, it's cool if you're bisectoral, you can bring a friend."


I'd go on, but I have underage readers. Anyway, don't worry, moralists! I don't want to spoil the plot, but it all wraps up satisfactorily when the deviant sexagon does some hard time in high-security prism. The shy triangle realizes the error of hanging out in shady parts of the coordinate grid, joins the convex and becomes a nonagon.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Forgive, Forget, For Me I Will

Look, I know that the economy is rough right now. It can be hard for companies selling non-essentials like nail polish to make ends meet. But can I make a suggestion? If you must downsize your entire nail polish naming and marketing staff and replace it with one work of literature, make it a dictionary. DO NOT, under any circumstances, use the poetry journal of an eighth-grader whose nom de plume is Mistress Raventwilight Sorrowgoth.


(photo courtesy of Vampy Varnish)

"Forgive, Forget, For Me I Will"? What IS that? I want to call it a sentence fragment, but I think that is too generous. Sentence fragments make sense with additional words placed before or after them, but all that I can think might come after this is "The dark miasma of my tortured soul cries out. / Brandon didn't ask me to the Homecoming dance. / Life is an endless shadow."

Misa, it is no coincidence that when I tried to find a picture of this nail polish, the first page of Google search turns up this:



Forgive this naming travesty? I don't think so. Forget it? I'm trying as hard as I can. Do you think sacrificing a hamster to our Dark Wiccan Vampire Lords would hasten the sweet caress of blessed oblivion?