vade mecum

Here's some Latin that's entered our English vocabulary.

vade mecum (vay-dee mee-kum) - n - Something a person carries about for frequent or regular use; a book for ready reference; manual; handbook.

And now, here's Florence King in a column first published in 1998.

The misanthrope's corner - year 2000 computer problem and other topics
by Florence King

IT TAKES an optimist like yours truly to see the bright side of the Year 2000 computer glitch. For example, the language alone is heartening. The doomsayers are predicting it will be a calamity, a disaster, and a catastrophe, but so far nobody has called it a ''tragedy.'' The mere fact that Y2K seems to be immune to the most misused buzzword of our time makes it a consummation devoutly to be wished.

According to the worst predictions, planes and elevators will stop, dams and bridges will jam, banks will fail, the stock market will fall, the global economy will collapse, nuclear missiles will launch themselves, and the world will be destroyed, all because computers think it's 1900.
That's how pessimists see it, but I have a song in my heart, a rainbow in my pocket, and sixpence in my shoe. Show me a cloud and I'll show you a silver lining. Show me a darkness and I'll show you a dawn. Show me a King with a January birthday and I'll show you a dreamer.
I have a dream. Suppose we wake up on New Year's Day 2000 and find that the computers are right -- it really is 1900. . . .

At a rock concert celebrating the brave new century a heavy-metal artiste tries to sing ''Punchin' Out My Ho'' but a strange thing happens: each time he tries to pronounce ''ho'' it comes out ''lady of the evening.'' He gives up and launches into ''My Black-Leather Bitch,'' only to find himself singing ''Sunbonnet Sue.'' Next he tries his award-winning Nineties pimp song, ''Sent My Ho to Sell Her Bootie,'' but it turns into ''Seeing Nellie Home.'' He can't understand it; all the songs he used to know have been wiped out of his memory and replaced with a whole new repertoire.
Stranger still, the crowd loves it and demands an encore, so he sings the most sexually explicit song his reprogrammed brain can come up with: ''You Are My Honeysuckle, I Am the Bee.''

The new-old pop sound of 1900 solves problems we thought would never go away.

Monica Lewinsky's father finds his manhood: ''Every man standing by had a tear in his eye, for some had a daughter at home.''

Viagra suddenly becomes unpopular and soon vanishes from the pharmacopoeia: ''Her beauty was sold for an old man's gold, she's a bird in a gilded cage.''

Nina Burleigh learns to tone down her slutty expressions of gratitude to Presidents who brush her bicycle-scarred legs under card tables: ''I gambled in the game of love, I played my heart and lost, I'm now a wreck upon life's sea, I fell and paid the cost.''

Sexual-harassment lawsuits stop as women relearn the lost art of righteous indignation: ''My mother was a lady, like yours, you will allow, and you may have a sister who needs protection now.''

The number of dead babies found in toilets and dumpsters drops dramatically: ''Over my slumbers your loving watch keep, rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep.''

Public schools change overnight: ''Reading and writing and 'rithmetic, taught to the tune of a hickory stick.''

Our eardrums are no longer blasted with regular reminders to dial 10-10-321, but long-distance service is not interrupted and in fact improves: ''Hello, Central, Give Me Heaven.''
Our long national nightmare of hypochondria ends as Americans stop obsessing about the perfect health-care plan: ''The doctor has said that she will be dead when the leaves from the trees start to fly.'' Now that health is no longer regarded as a ''right,'' we develop a realistic acceptance of the bleak truth that sometimes things can go very wrong even when there is no Amtrak: ''Baby's face brings pictures of a cherished wife that's dead, but baby's cries can't waken her in the baggage coach ahead.''

No more cases of anorexia or bulimia are reported. In the new 1900 the toast of Broadway is Lillian Russell, who at five-foot-five and 165 pounds is said to have the best shape in America -- the word ''figure'' is now obsolete. When the Russell dimensions are reported, England is rocked by an earthquake registering a perfect size 16 on the Richter scale, said to have originated as a rolling movement under a small island at Althorp.

Best of all are the public notices of the new 1900. LADIES ENTRANCE . . . UNESCORTED WOMEN WILL NOT BE SERVED AT THE BAR . . . THIS SUBWAY CAR RESERVED FOR WOMEN ONLY . . . LADIES DAY! WOMEN ADMITTED FREE! Even better are the signs at City Halls. POLL TAX DUE ONE MONTH BEFORE ELECTION DAY . . . LITERACY TESTS GIVEN IN REGISTRAR'S OFFICE . . . JURY ROOM -- MEN ONLY.

SUCH is my dream. The feminist website that recently cited me as a ''force for reaction'' got it right. I freely admit that I'd like to dismantle the whole shebang and start all over again, but many others share my anarchic urges. I don't mean the survivalists, who are bound to be in clover. Nor do I necessarily mean vengeful computer nerds, though any unusually intelligent person in Regular Guy America is bound to be a little dangerous.

I mean the earnest Op-Ed Cassandras with their apocalyptic quotes from ''experts'' advising us to buy gold, dried food, and shotgun shells in case of Y2K ''social disorders.'' The note of glee under their ''concern'' takes me back to the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, when people raced through the supermarket in their brand-new farmers' overalls, buying enough dried beans to lift the Hindenburg and trying to look solemn when they said ''Isn't this terrible?'' Our winter of discontent had barely begun in 1962 but the America of today is an unsolvable problem enclosed in an inescapable conundrum wrapped in a curtain of charity.
Anarchy may be tempting, but there's a catch. Suppose, come January of 2000, the President has to declare martial law and assume emergency powers, and uses Y2K as an excuse to stay in office indefinitely?

Many a heart will be aching, even the girls once in thrall, we thought he'd be gone but now breaks the dawn and he's still there after the ball.

atelier

Here's a French word to make up for my churlish oversight a few days ago. Speaking of French: "Ou sont les Van Zandts d'antan?" (Yes, I know I'm wearing that one out, but still: "Where are the Van Zandts of yesteryear?")

atelier (ah-tel-yay) –n - A workshop or studio, esp. of an artist, artisan, or designer.