I love Carmex.
What's not to love? Just like the sun, just like love itself, Carmex is bright, sticky, and just a little bit sweet. Also, it's cheap.
Carmex was invented in 1937 by Alfred Woelbing and the company, Carma Lab, is still a family-owned business. Alfred Woelbing died in 2001 at age 100. He never officially retired. Was the gooey wonderfulness of Carmex responsible for his longevity? No one knows for sure.
Personally, I think it's incredible that a product whose packaging goes out of its way to scream that it's FOR COLD SORES is wielded by men and women without shame. Good for you, America.
The Carma Lab geniuses at go out of their way to let you know that the stuff is not addictive. I never realized being addicted to Carmex was a problem. And you know what? It's not.
Illustration Credit: Paula Becker
The coat of arms for Sambir, Ukraine - formerly Sambor, Galicia (part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, 1772-1918).
Why the arrow through the stag's neck? Ah, you see, this is a well-established symbol of, er, I have no idea.
My maternal grandfather Efraim Hirsch "Herman" Baum was born in Sambor on Dec. 9, 1902. His parents were Markus Baum, a merchant, and Pesie Baum (daughter of Chaim Eliai and Teizi Marienstraus).
Herman was Jewish. I doubt he ever hunted a stag. Eventually his family and hundreds of thousands of other Jews were driven out of Galicia by the pogroms. Herman went to Palestine and moved on to Detroit, where he used his bricklaying skills to build bagel ovens.
This Sambor coat of arms has virtually nothing to do with my family, but hey, Grandpa Herman, this stag's for you. If only I could hang a little bagel over one of those antlers... maybe poppyseed?
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.
Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.
- Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955)
