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| The Love Potion - 15th c. Belgium |
It's raining in Los Angeles this morning, a soft, gray rain that doesn't stifle the crows squawking outside my back door but relieves the lot of us from the pressures of sunshine. I ripped a page off my tiny desk calendar, a copy of the painting that I posted above. Isn't it weird and fantastic? The man at the door, the curlicues, her shoes -- what's happening here? I have a few new readers on my blog or old readers who've chosen to comment. Welcome! One of them pointed out that she received the same email in her inbox about the drug Perampanel, the one I mused about the other day, wondering why its other name was Fycoma. Well, it turns out that I missed a letter p and that the drug is actually called Fycompa. So much for our wondering who the hell named an epilepsy drug suggesting the deadening of the brain. Here's the thing, though. I looked up compa on the Internets and saw this definition in Urban Dictionary:
1. compa: Spanish slang for compadre. Ei compa, get you ass over here.
2. compa: Pocho slang for compadre; pal, chum, dawg. Yo compa, bust out with the yesca...
Fy in the Urban Dictionary stands for Fuck Yeah! and even Fuck You!
Fycompa, then, could possibly suggest that after luring you to take it -- get you ass over here! -- there's the very obvious possibility that you will be seizure free -- fuck yeah! -- or fucked over -- fuck you!
New Reader, I stand corrected but ever valiant.
I should have been a drug namer, don't you think?
Writin' to you from Ecuador. Compa here has a bit of a more positive connotation--like instead of "compa--get your ass over here" it's, "Aaay! Compa! ¿Como te va?" Kind of an excited greeting. Not to suggest at all that there can be anything positive about seizure drugs--I've been on enough of them to know. Your posts are really beautiful. I hope Sophie is doing well!!
ReplyDelete~Julianna
Drug names never make any sense and yet, I imagine they sit around and try to come up with names that subtly influence us to buy them. Part of the whole racket.
ReplyDeleteFuck yeah!
ReplyDeleteI adore naming things. In addition to Nixtocin for the fictitious anti-cheating drug that I invented after reading the Atlantic article, it could also be called Dick-i-talis or Prozip.
You should absolutely be chief of the MInistry of Naming Anti-seizure Drugs. After I'm head of the Ministry of Naming Anti-cheating Drugs, we could meet for lunch and share our secrets.
Wow - that picture is so surreal and strange and wonderful!
ReplyDeleteAnd, yes, you ought to be in charge of naming things. I love that you looked up the component parts and crafted some meaning from them.
Drugs would be a lot more interesting if you named them! I wonder what the potion was called that that guy obviously administered to that woman?
ReplyDelete(Or long time readers who are sadly a month behind on their readers!)
ReplyDelete