Monster-about-to-chomp-babe poster of the day: ‘Barracuda’ (1978)

Monster-about-to-chomp-babe poster of the day: ‘Lake Placid 2’ (2007)

Monster-about-to-chomp-babe poster of the day: ‘Lake Placid’ (1999)

Headline hall of fame: ‘Hagar’ + ‘stimulation’ + animal part

‘Sammy Hagar Stimulated by Chickenfoot’

Tired of the tequila-friendly party shows that he's been performing for the last 13 years with his post-Van Halen solo band the Waboritas, Sammy Hagar tells Billboard.com his decision to form Chickenfoot with guitarist Joe Satriani, former Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith was a challenge he desired as an artist.

Hey, it happens to the best of us.

A conversation with Roberto Benigni

‘Only comedians can talk about death, life, God and Virgin Mary. If I was a tragic actor, I couldn’t allow myself. But I can talk with death in person because I am a clown.’

I was extremely fortunate to interview Roberto Benigni recently for a piece about his show “TuttoDante,” which he is bringing on a short North American tour.

Here Benigni is best known, of course, for “Life Is Beautiful.” But he is also an accomplished Dante scholar. He has been giving public readings of the Divine Comedy in Italy for years, and since 2006 “TuttoDante” has been his main gig, seen by millions. In it he riffs on history, language and politics, and recites a canto from memory, in Italian. The tour opens in San Francisco on Tuesday and comes to New York on Saturday.

I met Benigni on May 21 at a hotel off Times Square. He was charming and uproariously funny, as you’d expect, but he was also one of the warmest and most down-to-earth celebrities I’ve met. He began by asking about my Italian heritage. I told him that my grandfather was born in the Aeolian Islands, and he said that once the mayor of Vulcano greeted him with a Sicilian marching band.

My tape begins in medias res ...

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Do you get that kind of reception everywhere in Italy?

No, not like with a band. But in Italy, you know, people recognize me and they see me like a friend. They touch me. They don’t say, “Oh, Mr. Benigni ...” No, they touch me physically. They want to taste, physically, my body. When you touch somebody, it’s always a sign that you really like him.

You invite that, don’t you?

I use the body a lot. I hug people, I embrace, I want to touch. This is why I like so much to be on stage. That’s why I like the Divine Comedy, too, because the book is alive. For Dante Alighieri, the body is very important. It’s the only real body in the reign of shadows. So continuously he says “my body, my body, my body.” Also, in the Gospels the body is important. The resurrection is a sign of the body for Jesus Christ. This wonderful body, resurrected. “Touch me,” he says to St. Thomas, “touch me.” The body is as important as the soul. So it’s a sign of allegria, a beautiful thing.

OK, we start the interview. Thank you to be here again.

I’m honored to meet you. So tell me, why did you decide to bring “TuttoDante” to America?

My God. The United States is the goal for every show, of course. The United States is the show. In Europe and in Italy I decided to start very low-profile. I started three years ago in Patras, in Greece, just to try to do something that I loved very much. And the reception was so wonderful that I decided to continue, just to try. I was thinking, “Maybe I am going to lose some audience, but I’m doing what I really love.”

The Divine Comedy is one of my favorite things. So beautiful, full of image. It’s really a show. In my mind it is the most marvelous poem, the most glorious imagination of modern poetry. It’s like a friend to me. Dante Alighieri, you know, I really want to touch him, to call him by phone and say, “What are you doing tomorrow?” Because when I was reading the Divine Comedy, it was Dante Alighieri reading to me. This man, he knows me profoundly, more than any other body. So I said, this is a real friend, a close friend of mine. I was just going to ask the phone number for Dante Alighieri, to take a walk with him: “Hey Dante!” I really like him. He’s somebody we have to thank forever, for eternity.

So I decided to make it in Italy. And much to my astonishment, the audience increased, like for a rock concert. They were following me with Vespas in Florence. [Here I take out a DVD of one of his performances in Italy, from a series distributed through the newspaper La Repubblica.] Which number of this? The 11th. This was in Florence. You see the amount of people was like 6,000. The average of every show we did in Italy was 6,000 or 10,000. Sometimes in Siena and in Padua it was about 40,000 people. It was incredible. It was like for Springsteen, [with people] asking me for some cantos: “Hey Benigni! When are you going to act Paolo and Francesca, Count Ugolino?”

Were they there for Dante, or for you?

I cannot compare myself to Dante. But the way I present Dante, maybe the two things together: Benigni and Dante. I feel embarrassed to say these names together, of course. But there is something, a spark. Because I think people now need somebody who talks simply about life and death, about our destiny. These are the simple questions that everybody, at least once in a day, we have to ask ourselves. And Dante does this. He talks to us simply. It’s like to [look] in an abyss and see our secrets of life and death. And also because the goal of the Divine Comedy is beauty. The beauty. It is something that you present, like a peach tree. It’s modern, it’s ancient — what can you say about a peach tree? It’s a peach tree.

Why is “Inferno” the most popular part of the Divine Comedy?

I also did “Paradiso” on TV, the last canto, the most difficult, we can say incomprehensible. And there was the maximum of audience, 50 million people watching the last canto of “Paradise.”* They weren’t expecting such an enormous number of people watching TV for the last canto. It was really incredible. But I must say that “Inferno” is the most popular because it’s especially profound. It is unequaled for imagination, for emotions, for image and sound, like a movie.

In “Paradiso” there is some tercets, triplets here and there — insuperable. “Purgatory” in my opinion is the perfect cantica. It’s really mature. And the profound “Inferno” is unrivaled for the strength — la forza, the force — of the creation. Insuperabile. That is why I choose “Inferno” for this tour, especially Paolo and Francesca, which is the first circle of hell. And when I am here in New York it can remind me a lot of “Inferno,” in a good way ... [Chuckles.]

We know how to sin.

So it’s really very popular, and I decided to continue, and to come to United States. And now I am full of emotion because it’s my first time in United States with a show onstage. And you know, my English is not acceptable. It’s really revolting. First I decided to make the show in Italian, but you know it was something ... Now I don’t have time, and I am too old to study English in a correct way. So, as Dante did, I try to invent a new language. It is incomprehensible. [Laughs.]

But anyway it is so healthy to talk about incomprehensible things, as Dante did. It’s very good for our health to talk about something that we cannot understand. We really need this. Like why need food for our body, this is a really wonderful food for our soul. Nobody talks about these kinds of things. Church in itself, they don’t talk about this. So we have to thank Dante that we have opportunity to talk about this kind of thing. And in New York, you know, this is the center of paradise and hell together.

There are some things lost in translation, of course. But when I recite the fifth canto by heart at the end, it’s important to listen. We need to have the nerve to understand why a man with a big nose 700 years ago had the heroic shamelessness to write. Really this is the most daring, bold poetry ever. In 2,000 years of Christian poetry they never surpassed this. They never produced such a scandal of beauty. Never, never, nobody. Our planet is too little to allow the luxury of ignoring Dante. There is no other poet that put the human suffering and the human conscience at such a high point.

You said the poem is marvelous, glorious, heroic — but you didn’t say funny.

The title is Comedy. They added “divine” in 1555, but Dante called his work Comedy. Just La Commedia. Using low style. And he uses a lot of comic style. If you read the 21st, 22nd and 23rd cantos, it’s like Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, or Totò and Peppino in Italy. It’s like a farce. You really laugh. And there is the occasion to laugh a lot, especially in hell, in Inferno. Because in Purgatory you can smile, and in Paradise you don’t laugh — you just stay there to watch. How can you laugh when you see a rose blossom? You stay there in a stupor. And the stupor is the commencement of art. When you finish reading the Divine Comedy there is only one word you can say: incredible. When you read Shakespeare or Walt Whitman or some others, you can say, “This man is a genius; he is a genius and he’s really talented.” But for Dante, no. For Dante there is only one word: incredible.

Now I want to tell you, I don’t do commentaries or notes. I am not a literature or critical man, or a professor, or an emeritus professor. I am a showman and a comedian above all. So I am doing the show as a comedian can do it. Respectfully. But still I am a comedian, so I have to try to render it in a way popular and understandable. The show is very simple. There is only one man there, with a reading desk. We need the conversion of our imagination. Dante forces you to imagine everything. The stage is really full of devils, objects, animals, insects, monsters — and our soul is full of this. This is the stage. It is like a poem embodied with all this. And it is so deeply, psychologically spiritual. This is the strange thing, the strange mélange, the strange link that only Dante could dare to try things like this.

In the first part of the show I am, repeat, a showman. So I am improvising. That’s why I cannot use subtitles, because I never produce the same show. And also because everything Dante says is concerning us, very specifically. The first part of the show, I repeat, is about our times. Although all the great creators, they don’t write for their times. They write for everybody, always. They write in an eternal present.

Italians grow up on Dante. But do you think it will be difficult for Americans to grasp the details of the Comedy? When it comes to Francesca da Rimini, Guido da Montefeltro or whatever, doesn’t all that take more explanation?

It’s universal. Talking about Dante as [just] a Christian or an poet Italian poet would be to abate his universality. It’s not important to know where Ravenna is. Who cares? When I read Melville I don’t need to understand what kind of sea. No. Every single word of his book belongs to me. When you see “The Bicycle Thief” — Naples, Rome, who cares? It can be anywhere around the world. It’s there to convey the sentiment. Great poets, they invent sentiments. Everything in the Divine Comedy is expressed with emotion. And emotions are the same around the world. If we think like this, it’s thanks to people like Dante.

The image of Eros is changed after the Divine Comedy. The relation with women is changed also, because a character like Beatrice is insuperable. We cannot understand — unfathomable. All we know is the image of a girl. It is written in the eyes of this girl: “You are eternal.” Dante is really first the modern poet. He said that we are the masters of our life and death, of our destiny. Before Dante, no — we are guided by gods, like in Homer. With Dante starts the modern poetry, the modern human being.

In the first part I also talk about Berlusconi, which to convey is very easy. [Laughs heartily.] For Berlusconi the entire hell is not enough. We have to build another personal circle for Berlusconi. You know, Berlusconi, he passed a lot of laws just for him, just for one man. So maybe his punishment could be to build for him a circle in hell, but very personal, just for him: “Eh, this is just for you, Mr. Berlusconi!” [Laughs.] Or if I could do in movies this wonderful book, which is impossible, but as a comedy, a parody, I would like to find Berlusconi in every single circle. The lustful: Berlusconi is there. Fraud: Berlusconi is there. Or the corruption: Berlusconi there. Liars: Berlusconi is there. [Laughs.]

People say you used to be a lot harsher on Berlusconi. But it doesn’t sound like you’re any friend of his.

I am a comedian. And my duty is to joke with the people who have a lot of power. Berlusconi now in Italy, he has no power — he is the power. So it’s a duty for me now.

Are you still as political as you used to be?

Everything we know is political, directly or indirectly. Sometimes I am directly political, especially on TV, or on stage. So, I repeat, it is [slightly mocking tone] my duty to protect citizens from the powers, the governors. And for a comedian, Berlusconi is really a wonderful thing they gave me. “Benigni, you are very lucky you have Berlusconi ...”

We had Bush.

[Laughs.] Very good for comedy, Bush. And they were very good friends, Bush and Berlusconi.

Is Obama funny?

No. It is not the right word for Obama. I like very much Obama. Obama is really an illumination. Obama gave back to the United States the image that we had when I was young. But I believe in image. And the image of Obama is the image of beauty, in the poetical way, in a metaphorical way. It’s really a wonderful image.

He’s in the “Paradiso”?

He’s in “Paradiso,” for sure. But I like him because he is a real man. “Paradiso” but with some “Inferno.” That is good.

He smokes.

He smokes. And I don’t like just saints in Paradise; it’s very boring. So yes, some “Inferno.” Very good. That’s why I like him. He smokes, he plays cards.

Why did you decide to do Canto V on this tour?

Canto V is one of the most popular, very loved by Dantists, and above all by boys, ragazzi. [Benigni’s manager corrects his translation: “kids.”] They love it because he is talking about sex, passions and love. Telling us the roots of love. Can we fall into hell if we love somebody? It is a metaphor for the hell of our lives. If we take the sentiment in the wrong way, our entire life [becomes hell]. But Dante is never talking about love in a schmaltzy way. [Makes mushy sounds.] Very tough, very rude. No, not rude — rough. Love is the sentiment that moves the sun and the other stars.† So it’s a sentiment that scares you.

And the fifth canto is the first circle of hell. So it’s very good to tell because we enter hell physically, bodily. In order to tell the story it’s important to start from the beginning. And talking about the most important sentiment: love, sex, passion. Dante is very carnal. He is not a priest; he is a man. Nobody during the middle ages could write such verses, talking about bodies, describing when they make love. He is telling us about lust. And about women. The first name in hell is the very ancient empress Semiramide. And the first monologue is done by Francesca, who is another woman. Paolo and Francesca, they are together, embracing, but Francesca is talking and Paolo is there crying. It’s the opposite of what happens normally: man they are talking and female they are crying. Dante was very modern. And he wrote the poem in order to see again the girl he loved so much, Beatrice. And the last canto is about the woman for excellence, which is the Virgin Mary. So it’s a female poem.

And I chose the fifth canto because it’s beautiful. But every single canto is beautiful. The music, it’s not like Milton, or some poets [in whose works] the tune and the music is always the same for every character. Dante changes the music. To hear different styles of the rhythm and the music, it’s like to hear Beethoven and Duke Ellington together, or Bach and Jimi Hendrix playing together. It’s exactly like this.

You’ve been doing these readings for three years now. Do you want to continue? Is this what you want your main focus to be?

I would like to stop, but I am not able to stop. Because they ask for this show around the world — in Japan, in Korea, in South America. It’s incredible. Just for Dante Alighieri. I think I will continue in Italy because I left behind some towns in previous shows. So I go now to Verona. They ask for two more shows, that I did already three years ago, with 24,000 people. So have to I repeat. But then I have to stop. Because I would like to make not a divine comedy but a comedy — a movie. I would like to do a comedy very strongly. But I don’t have any idea because I am so completely so immersed in Dante, in the abyss of God.

After “Life Is Beautiful,” was it difficult to go back to making funny movies? Did that feel like a step back?

Of course my life changed a lot after “Life Is Beautiful.” It also changed the reception from other people to me. When I met somebody after “Life Is Beautiful” they treat me like a maestro. Before it was [big voice] “Hey, Benigni!” Then it was [little voice] “Oh, Mr. Benigni, how are you ...” They changed. [Laughs.]

Four years ago I was taking lessons for piano. That I liked. But I stopped because the man I called to have a lesson with, he called me maestro. [Laughs.] Said, “Maestro, put the hand here ...” No, maestro, you are the maestro! It was exactly after “Life Is Beautiful,” and I understood something was changing. [Big voice] “Hey maestro! Do re mi!” [Little voice] “Maestro, this is do ...”

Has that made things difficult in your career? How can you top it?

Ah, but this is good. This happens once in a life. I don’t want to repeat this moment. I just continue to make what I love. And the Divine Comedy I love very much. What I did before was comedies. This is the normality.

So you don’t want to do more serious roles. You want to do comedy.

In my life, everything I did, inside there was always something, you can call it profound, but this is not the right world. Something that goes that in the way of moving a little. Also in “The Little Devil,” or “Johnny Stecchino,” or “The Monster” — there was a vein of ...

Serious? Dark?

No serious, no dark. A little more profound. Something that goes inside, to touch for a moment. This has been my style. But in the beginning it was 90 percent comedy and 10 percent [the other side]. Now it is a little more 50-50. It’s my style. But we are going to find our style during our lives. So I start with this little part of more deep, then I go more 50-50 if can call deep what I’m doing. Something that can move. I feel this. I feel very sincere. Because I like it, when I go through Dante, through this immersion in this abyss, really, of God. I like to talk about this, and I can allow myself because I am a comedian. Only comedians can talk about death, life, God and Virgin Mary. If I was a tragic actor, I couldn’t allow myself. But with this accent I can do it. I can talk with death in person because I am a clown. Yes. And I am proud to be a clown — very much.

Italians know that you have another side to you. But I don’t know if Americans do.

In Italy they know that I am a real clown sometimes, but now they really are expecting from me something more profound. In the United States they know me only for “Life Is Beautiful,” which is a real tragedy. The style of “Life Is Beautiful” is not comedy. It is a comic body inside a real tragedy. Tragedy in two words is something that starts in a happy way and ends up in a very dark and sad way. And this is “Life Is Beautiful.” The Divine Comedy is called comedy because it’s the opposite: it starts in a very sad and terrible way and ends up with a happy ending. Happy because he is describing physically the face of God. And he telling us, “You are God.” He is describing your face, my face. Really this is shamelessness — incredible. [Laughs.]

How does it feel when you are doing the show?

I am full of emotion, of course. Because I am not able to find a way to be quiet there and to act in a professional way, like Laurence Olivier. I am always discombobulated. How do you say, when you are in a flurry, in tumult. Especially when you are physically in front of people. There is always something you cannot hold back, something you cannot manage. My feelings are ... great.

After “Life Is Beautiful” a lot of Americans expected that you would be making Hollywood movies. But the films you made were Italian, and they didn’t do very well over here.

Yeah, I know. Like my previous movies they didn’t do well here. Just “Life Is Beautiful.”

But I received a lot of offers, from the United States especially, also from France and from Spain, etc. Americans and Hollywood, they were very generous, especially giving me three Academy Awards. And I was sincere when I jumped on chairs. Because I tried to fly. For the surprise. I didn’t really expect my name to be told by Sophia Loren, screaming “Roberto!” And in order to demonstrate my gratitude, with all my exuberance I tried to fly, really to fly. Because this was like a big kiss, an embrace.

I received a lot of offers, sometimes to make a sequel of “Life Is Beautiful” or something related to the concentration camps, or during this period of history. Never in my life will I do this, never. And they offered me a lot of money. [Sleazy voice] “So, do a sequel ...” My God, you have to torture me, torture me. I received many, many subject ideas about this. Some were interesting. But I can’t, I can’t. Really, I can’t.

Or sometimes they offered me the cliché of Italians: the pizza man, the mafia man in a parody of the mafia, or fireworks with Italians in United States, with the south Italy family. But I am not south Italian. I like very much the south of Italy. But I am well known in Italy as Tuscan. And to find a character for a comedian is not that easy sometimes. We talked about a project with Jim Carrey, who I respect and like very much. Or Robin Williams.

I also received offers from many major companies to stay here in the United States, in Hollywood, to write with somebody. They give me a little house there to study, to write. But what can I do? My roots are in Italy. My life is there. I prefer to continue my life, to try to have a normal life, to do what I like. Maybe sometimes I have been wrong with some movies. Maybe “Pinocchio” didn’t receive the success I was expecting. Maybe something was wrong. Anyway, I try to do my best. I was sincere. I was honest. But I am sure this path that I took is the right path.

I still think of “Down by Law” ...

Ahh, it was beautiful.

... as a definitive moment in your career, as the Italian guy in America who doesn’t really fit, but you do your thing anyway.

Thank you. You’re right. This was another magic moment. Not easy to repeat. It happened one time, with Jim Jarmusch. He is a kind of director who is so respectful for foreign cultures, and he is a very cultivated man. My friendship with him is very close still. Once a week we call each other.

I talked to him the other day, and he said that over the years he has written a number of things with you in mind, but none of them happened. Why not?

I was busy with something, he was busy. But we did “Night on Earth.” It was tentative with another. I think we will do something again. There is a great feeling between me and him. But to repeat this character Roberto from “Down by Law” ...

About Dante: You said you view yourself as primarily an entertainer, not a professor. But clearly you know this subject very, very well. What sort of research or preparation do you do to talk about this for two hours?

My God. First of all, when you like something it’s easer. I really like Dante, so I read everything I find about him. I read a lot of commentaries, notes. And I also read aloud. Because it explodes the cosmos of illumination when you recite aloud. And I study the way to recite the canto at the end, because I am an actor above all. I am not a Dantist. When I do the commentary I try to be right, the way that I like. Because commentaries about Dante, there are billions. It is not enough, an entire life, just to read commentaries about one canto. There are really buildings of books about Dante.

I try to recite in a way that nobody did before: very simple, putting me behind Dante, not in front of him. Actors, normally when they recite Dante, they put themselves before him. Me, I am back, low-profile.

Is that difficult? I can’t imagine you being low-profile.

No, no. Because in this case, with the low profile you explode. You explode. You present the beauty, so you are part of this beauty. Otherwise you are a shadow of Dante. Putting me in the shadow of Dante, I become illuminated. It’s like a candle trying to illuminate the sun.

[Here Benigni discusses some technical, phonetic details of his performance, including how he pays close attention to individual syllables and the accents of each line, and particular aspects of Tuscan pronunciation.]

You know, in the United States there are the greatest Dantists in the world, more than in Italy. It’s incredible. Each year there are 20 translations of Dante in English, and 15 are from the United States. Last week I received a translation from Korea, from a professor. No joking. I can show it to you. If you see my room in Rome, I have a room only with translations of the Divine Comedy from around the world. “Try to read this, why don’t you come...” The latest is in Korean, and also in vernacular. Because Dante wrote not in Latin but in the vernacular language.

You use the Hollander translation. Why do you use that one?

In the United States there is Pinsky, Mandelbaum. My God, you have really great translations, maintaining the triplets, or blank verse. But Hollander my favorite because he not trying to write a book in his notes. Many, many commentators, they write another book with their notes. The most serious, mature way to look at Dante at this moment, in my opinion, is Robert and Jean Hollander. I did for Robert Hollander — he translated “Paradiso” — I did an introduction for him.‡ My introduction was very funny, it was not serious. It was a letter to Dante, asking if he received the rights — money. Because everybody now is talking about him, and maybe he’s not receiving money. His money goes to the society of rights, and I don’t know how they use this amount of money. And poor Dante, he’s now in Purgatory ...

Really?

Yes. He put himself in Purgatory, with the superbos [i.e. the prideful]. “I am the best.” He put himself there. He is really a superbo. He knew that he was the greatest poet. So he knew his position was amongst the pride.

Anything in particular that you’re hoping to teach Americans about Dante?

I am not here to teach. I’m here to make a show. There is a difference. What I am repeating is the Divine Comedy is beautiful. This is my end. We can live without reading the Divine Comedy. We can live also without seeing the ocean, but it is better if you see it once. My God, you see only lakes. You say, “My God, the ocean.”

I am full of emotion to be in the United States. Because there are some cantos in hell where he is describing Los Angeles when you are landing, or New York.

What parts remind you of New York?

Oh, la bolgia ottava, the 26th canto — full of little lights when he is landing, looking from a skyscraper like this, looking at the bolgia — infinite lights, traffic, people. The fraud. Describing like a landing in New York or in Los Angeles. We can think that Dante flew in the Middle Ages, because he is describing a landing. [Getting up from his seat, growing more animated.] And the 26th is also when Ulysses goes in the mountain in Purgatory, and it is set in the United States 200 years before Columbus. Because he is describing the journey of Ulysses with his friends in the ship. They go and the direction is Spain: left, south-left, south-left. And describing the moon and the other part of the planet, the equator. They go exactly there. It’s San Salvador — about Florida. In Florida before Miami, there is the mountain of Purgatory. He has described the new world there. If you read it, it’s unbelievable. So it’s related very much to the United States.

In the 26th canto, Dante describes the lights like fireflies, like a farmer who sees billions of fireflies. And every single firefly is hiding a fraud — people like Madoff. Very cunning, very shrewd. These people are hiding inside the flame because they are hiding in life. The Florentines, you know, they invented finances. The fiorino — in the Middle Ages it was like now the dollar, for the change ...

Banca ...

Banca, exactly. Banca rotta is from Italian: bankrupt. Rotta means break. It’s a single word, invented during this period, from Florence. When they couldn’t pay they came and they broke the banks: banca rotta, broken bank. When you go to the bank now and they destroyed everything, this is bankrupt: rotta la banca. So finanza is a Florentine name. The first time people started to make money back from money, from nothing, that now we are ruined for this. Change, cambio, credito, casso — it started during Dante.

Caro Ben — I thank you very much.

---

* He may be exaggerating here. According to my Italian sources, his first reading, in November 2007, had about 10 million viewers, a 36 percent share. Others, which aired late at night, averaged 2.2 million. That may not be 50 million (the entire population of Italy is only 60 million), but it’s still huge.

† “L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle” (“Paradiso” XXXIII.145), the last line of the Divine Comedy.

‡ Actually, according to Hollander, it was for a special Italian edition of “Inferno.”

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Ancient history: Thurston Moore, Al Green, Lou Reed, M.I.A., Stew.

‘Black-folks prom, white-folks prom’

Fascinating piece in the Times Magazine today about segregated proms. The author, Sara Corbett, visits a high school in Georgia that has a prom for white students on one night and another for black students the next. Corbett says the phenomenon is common throughout the South; at one school in Mississippi, for example, Morgan Freeman offered last year to pay for an integrated prom, an idea embraced by students but rejected by parents. (In July HBO will have a documentary about it, “Prom Night in Mississippi.”)

More on Georgia:

Black and white students also date one another, though often out of sight of judgmental parents. “Most of the students do want to have a prom together,” says Terra Fountain, a white 18-year-old who graduated from Montgomery County High School last year and is now living with her black boyfriend. “But it’s the white parents who say no. … They’re like, if you’re going with the black people, I’m not going to pay for it.”

“It’s awkward,” acknowledges JonPaul Edge, a senior who is white. “I have as many black friends as I do white friends. We do everything else together. We hang out. We play sports together. We go to class together. I don’t think anybody at our school is racist.” Trying to explain the continued existence of segregated proms, Edge falls back on the same reasoning offered by a number of white students and their parents. “It’s how it’s always been,” he says. “It’s just a tradition.”

My one complaint: the story is way too short. The issue brings up a lot of important questions — about “separate but equal” Constitutionality, about the opinions and rights of parents, about subterfuge and sabotage by school officials — that can't be properly addressed, let alone answered, in 1,034 words.

Monster-about-to-chomp-babe poster of the day, special Lego edition: ‘Jaws’

(Via Speckyboy, via Geekologie, via Johnny Ripped/Moecheezmo/Jason.)

Whoa: Alan Moore meets Mike Patton, Justin Broadrick. (Sort of.)

Billboard reports:

He may have insisted his name did not appear on the “Watchmen” movie. But legendary comic book writer Alan Moore has been enthusiastic in his partnership with U.K. indie Lex Records on the release of a new work including an audiobook and soundtrack.

Moore has already recorded the two-hour audio book for the deluxe package of the semi-autobiographical work, which is likely too appear in early 2010...

The score that accompanies the book is being worked on by Andrew Broder of alternative act Fog and spoken word artist Adam Drucker. Brown says musicians in the frame to provide key elements of the soundtrack include Mike Patton of Faith No More and Justin Broadrick, formerly of industrial metal band Godflesh.

Patton is working on separate Lex project with Tunde Adebimpe of U.S. alt-rock act TV on the Radio.

Press release of the day: Honoring a blind traffic reporter

State of Connecticut to Proclaim Day in Honor of America’s First Blind Traffic Reporter in Millford.
Nation’s first blind traffic reporter Tommy Edison will honored by State of Connecticut and local Officials tomorrow Thursday May 21, 2009 at 11 a.m. in a special ceremony and press conference at [REDACTED]. The Governor the [sic] proclaiming the day for him for his remarkable dedication to helping others in traffic while being completely visually impaired since birth. While playing music in local bands, he is a life-long Connecticut resident and has worked for radio station Star 99.9 for the past 15 years. He also enjoys skiing. Friends, family, co-workers and local residents will also be attending the governments [sic] special Tommy Edison Day tribute.

O.K., I can understand talking about traffic jams without necessarily being able to see them; it’s been commented on before. But skiing?!

(Also, it’s spelled Milford.)

Monster-about-to-chomp-babe poster of the day: ‘Raging Sharks’ (2005)

Monster-about-to-chomp-babe poster of the day: ‘Island of the Fishmen’ (1979)

A.K.A. L’Isola degli Uomini Pesce, A.K.A. Screamers.

Vernon Boulevard

Monster-about-to-chomp-babe poster of the day: ‘The Crater Lake Monster’ (1977)

cool, adj., adv., and int.

[Cognate (with variations of declensional class) with Middle Dutch coel, coele cool, moderately cold, peaceful (Dutch koel), Middle Low German kl cool, cold, Old High German kuoli cool, refreshing (Middle High German küele, German kühl) calan (seeCOLD adj.). Derivative verbal formations from the same Germanic adjectival base are shown by COOL v.¹ and KEEL v.¹; see further discussion at COLD adj.] 

    A. adj.

    1. a. Of or at a relatively low temperature; moderately cold, esp. agreeably or refreshingly so (in contrast with heat or cold).
  In early use not always distinguished from cold.

eOE Metres of Boethius v. 13 Swa oft æspringe ut awealle of clife harum col and hlutor. eOE Bald's Leechbk. (Royal) III. xxvi. 324 Wyl sian on buteran.., do on blede..& hrer mid sticcan o æt hit col sie. OE Vercelli Homilies i. 18 a stodon hie..ær æt am fyre & wyrmdon hie; wæs æt weder wel col [OE Bodl. 340 wæs æt weder ceald; L. frigus erat]. a1300 Vision St. Paul (Jesus Oxf.) l. 82 in R. Morris Old Eng. Misc. (1872) 149 at fule pool at euer is hot, and neuer cool. c1400 (?c1380) Patience l. 452 Al schet in aschae at schaded ful cole. ?a1475 Promp. Parv. (Winch.) 90 Cole or sumwhat cold. 1535 W. STEWART tr. H. Boethius Bk. Cron. Scotl. II. 202 In mid winter quhen that the wedder is cuill. 1598 SHAKESPEARE Loves Labours Lost V. ii. 89 Vnder the coole shade of a Siccamone. 1624 J. SMITH Gen. Hist. Virginia II. 21 The Northwest winde is commonly coole. a1650 G. BOATE Irelands Nat. Hist. (1652) vii. 54 The water of these Well-springs is for the most part cool, clear, and pure. 1722 D. DEFOE Jrnl. Plague Year 6 The Weather was temperate, variable and cool enough. 1776 Trial Maha Rajah Nundocomar for Forgery 32/2 He was then in a cool sweat, with a low pulse. 1860 J. TYNDALLGlaciers of Alps I. xxv. 177 We were in the cool shadow of the mountain. 1881 D. G. ROSSETTI Ballads & Sonnets 293 O leave your hand where it lies cool Upon the eyes whose lids are hot. 1935 E. BOWEN House in Paris (1983) II. viii. 131 It was summer; cool in the house but glaring hot in the streets. 1981 G. VIDAL Creation I. ii. 9 The day is cool but not cold. 1992 Flora Internat. Mar.-Apr. 14 Place in water in a cool place for a few hours.

    b. fig. and in figurative contexts.

1597 T. MIDDLETON Wisdome of Solomon Paraphr. XII. xiv. sig. P^v, If hot anger smother coole delight, Hee'le mould our bodies in destructions forme, And make our selues as subiects to his might. 1604 SHAKESPEARE Hamlet III. iv. 115 Vpon the heat and flame of thy distemper Sprinckle coole patience. a1616 SHAKESPEARE Henry V (1623) III. iii. 113 The coole and temperate Wind of Grace. 1737 POPE Epist. of Horace I. i. 9 Our Gen'rals now, retir'd to their Estates, Hang their old Trophies o'er the Garden gates, In Life's cool evening satiate of applause. 1751 T. GRAY Elegy xix. 9 Along the cool sequester'd vale of life. 1767 W. HANBURY Hist. Rise Charitable Found. Church-Langton 108 The country, seeing the cool water thrown on it [sc. a scheme]. 1838 J. GILLMAN Life S. T. Coleridge ii. 67 The lecturer [sc. Coleridge]..addressed them as follows:..‘What is to be expected, gentlemen, when the cool waters of reason come in contact with red hot aristocracy but a hiss?’ 1940 ‘N. WEST’ Untitled Outl. in Novels & Other Writings (1997) 759 The woman who had come along to lead them out of the lush patches of yellow reporting into the cool, green fields of the purer but arid desert of the higher journalism. 1991 R. CHAMBERSRoom for Maneuver 249 A certain primitivism that needs to be tempered by a return to the cooler climes of theory.

    c. Of clothing, fabric, etc.: that produces a sensation of coolness, that keeps a person cool; that does not admit or retain heat.

1614 T. ADAMS Diuells Banket v. 234 Our will desires in the Summer a lighter and cooler garment, in Winter a thicker and warmer. 1671 tr. J. de Palafox Conq. China xxxii. 569 When they shall have more experienced..the heats in the Southern Provinces, they will proportionably wear cooler Clothes. 1745 R. POCOCKE Descr. East II. I. IV. viii. 266 The boors..in summer are always clothed in white,..imagining that white is a cool dress. 1774 E. LONG Hist. Jamaica II. III. vi. 523 Nothing is more likely to subject a person to catch cold, and a fit of sickness, than a sudden change from an habitual light and cool dress, to one twice as hot. 1858 D. LARDNER Hand-bk. Nat. Philos. 374 The helmet and cuirass worn by cavalry is a cooler dress than might be imagined, the polished metal being a good reflector of heat. 1864 E. SARGENT Peculiar xxix. 283 Ratcliff entered, habited in a cool suit of grass-cloth. 1907 Times 28 May 10/1 (advt.) The great array of cool fabrics issued for day-time wear. 1932 ‘B. ROSS’ Trag. of Y I. ii. 50 He was dressed in a cool linen shirt.2002 Manch. Evening News (Nexis) 1 June 12 His wife likes a thick duvet and soft mattress, while he prefers cooler bedding and a firm mattress.

    d. Med. Of medicine, treatment, etc.: that lowers the temperature (of the blood, body, etc.); cooling. Cf. COOL v.¹ 3b. Now rare.

1614 S. LATHAM Falconry II. xii. 100 Contrariwise ouer much heat in it self, may be the cause of that weaknesse [sc. in a hawk's stomach]... You must of necessity coole it with some coole thing that is meet for it. 1793 T. BEDDOES Observ. Nature & Cure Calculus 151 The cool treatment of small pox. 1857 T. D. MITCHELL in J. Eberle Treat. Dis. & Physical Educ. Children (ed. 4) II. xxxvi. 442 In all cases [of measles], save those in which the powers if life are rapidly waning, the cool treatment is decidedly more rational and safe. 1981 Social Sci. & Med. 15 137/2 Folk illnesses such as ‘fright’..are also hot conditions which are met with cool remedies. 2005 New Eng. Jrnl. Med. 353 1619 (title) Systemic hypothermiaa ‘cool’ therapy for neonatal hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy.

    2. a. Of a person or a personal attribute, quality, etc.: not affected by passion or emotion, dispassionate; controlled, deliberate, not hasty; calm, composed.
  cool as a cucumber: see CUCUMBER n. 2b. to play it cool: see PLAY v. 17d.

OE Beowulf 282 Gyf him [sc. Hrogar] edwendan æfre scolde bealuwa bisigu bot eft cuman, ond a cearwylmas colran wura. c1430 (c1386) CHAUCER Legend Good Women(Cambr. Gg. 4. 27) (1879) l. 258 Thow..thynkist in thyn wit that is ful cole That he nys but a verray propre fole That louyth paramouris to harde & hote. 1570 P. LEVENSManipulus Vocabulorum sig. Niii^v/1, Coole, quietus. 1600 SHAKESPEARE Midsummer Night's Dream V. i. 6 Such seething braines..that apprehend more, Then coole reason euer comprehends. 1611 Bible (A.V.) Prov. xvii. 27 A man of vnderstanding is of an excellent [margin coole] spirit. 1679 W. PENN Addr. Protestants I. ix, in Wks. (1825) III. 39 A descreet and cool hand may direct the blow right..when men of fury rather ease their passion, than mend their youth. 1736 BP. J. BUTLER Analogy of Relig. II. vii. 270 Some of them were Men of the coolest Tempers. 1781 GIBBON Decline & Fall (1787) III. xxx. 167 (note), The bloody actor is less detestable than the cool unfeeling historian. 1839 T. BEALE Nat. Hist. Sperm Whale xiii. 164 The line is running through the groove at the head of the boat..the headsman, cool and collected, pours water upon it as it passes. 1855TENNYSON Maud XXII. i, in Maud & Other Poems 74 While she wept, and I strove to be cool. 1890 C. KING Sunset Pass 56 Don't get stampeded. Just keep cool; watch and listen.1938 Los Angeles Times 11 Jan. A14/2 The yips and a turn of jittery nerves were suddenly turned into a cool head and a stout heart. 1992 W. HORWOOD Duncton Rising xxv. 335 The Master Stour, now cool, calm, and collected, smiled benignly. 2002 N. LEBRECHT Song of Names ii. 35 He can still unsettle me like nothing on earth. This cannot continue: get a grip, stay cool.

    b. spec. Of the blood, as the seat of a person's emotions or passions (cf. BLOOD n. 5). Freq. in in cool blood: without excitement; (esp. with reference to violent or cruel action) not in the heat of passion, with calm deliberation; = in cold blood at COLD BLOOD n. 
  In quot. OE: lacking potency.

OE Sedulius Glosses (Royal 15 B.xix) in H. D. Meritt Old Eng. Glosses (1945) 38 Frigidus col [L. prolemque negebat frigidus annoso moriens in corpore sanguis].

a1500 Consail Vys Man in R. Girvan Ratis Raving & Other Early Scots Poems (1939) 396 Weng [= venge] nocht quhil thi blud be cule. 1606 J. MARSTON Parasitaster I. i. sig. A4, How cooler bloud wil behaue it selfe in this busines, would I haue an only testimony. 1607 R. C. tr. H. Estienne World of Wonders I. xxv. 203 Blasphemies vttered in coole bloud without choler, passion or heate of affection. a1616 SHAKESPEARE Cymbeline (1623) V. vi. 77 We should not, when the blood was cool, haue threatend Our Prisoners with the Sword. 1658 Whole Duty of Man (1684) 86 That without any provocation at all, in cool bloud, as they say, they can thus wrong their poor brethren. 1720 D. DEFOE Mem. Cavalier 229 Those very Wretches who..with unheard of Butcheries, had massacred so many Thousands of English in cool Blood. 1768 J. WESLEY Let. Dec. (1931) V. 377 Notwithstanding all the tragical exclamations which have been made concerning it, what is this to the killing a man in cool blood? 1838 J. H. INGRAHAM Burton II. ii. 33 General Washington..has a good deal of the lion's irritability.., and your own blood is not over cool. 1881 MRS. P. O'DONOGHUE Ladies on Horseback II. v. 72 No horse that ever was foaled could do it [sc. a big leap] in cool blood. 1903 Times 22 Sept. 9/1 When it is considered in cool blood it must be admitted..not to constitute in any sense an attack upon the present political régime. 1915 T. ROOSEVELT Amer. & World War ii. 26 The rights and wrongs of these cases where nations violate the rules of morality..can be precisely determined only when all the facts are known and when men's blood is cool. 1988 Polity 20 685 The murder in cool blood of whole political classes which Machiavelli seems to admire.

    c. Of a thing or action: characterized by or exhibiting calmness, composure, or a lack of passionate emotion.

1579 G. FENTON tr. F. Guicciardini Hist. Guicciardin VIII. 411 To holde faste that that hath bene gotten, is a cooler iustificatorie to enhable the tytle and interest of the thing.1592 A. DAY Eng. Secretorie II. sig O3^v, In coole matters thou art hotte: in the hottest causes, cold. 1646 R. CRASHAW Musicks Duell in Delights Muses 106 Shee qualifies their zeale With the coole Epode of a grave Noat. 1663 J. SPENCER Disc. Prodigies (1665) 22 When fear hath..disabled the mind for a cool and sedate judgment and valuation of things.1717 LADY M. W. MONTAGU Let. 16 Jan. (1965) I. 296 Upon cooler refflexion, I think I had done better to have let it alone. 1788 T. REID Ess. Active Powers Man (1803) III. II. i. 159 Some cool principle of action, which has authority without any impulsive force. 1798 CAPT. MILLER in Ld. Nelson Dispatches & Lett. (1846) VII. p. clviii, I caused a cool and steady fire to be opened on them. 1850 F. W. ROBERTSON Serm. 1st Ser. (1866) xvi. 266 These words fall short: they are too tame and cool. 1883 American 6 41/2 To the ‘pornial fire’ of the Elizabethan period had succeeded an age of patient research and cool criticism. 1917 F. H. SIMONDS Hist. World War I. I. vi. 116 The battle was not the sudden rally of..hundreds of thousands of soldiers. It was the result of a clear, cool, and deliberate plan. 1988 Australasian Post (Melbourne) 9 Apr. 10/1 She was the bouncer at the Waikato, a tavern described as being wild... Anne..managed to keep the whole place cool.

    d. Of a person, an action, or a person's behaviour: assured and unabashed where diffidence and hesitation would be expected; composedly and deliberately audacious or impudent in making a proposal, demand, or assumption.

1723 A. HILL King Henry V IV. i. 39 Look back on all this dreadfull Pile of Baseness,..and then, In the cool Insolence of Pride, and Majesty, Ask me againif I can wish Thee dead?1787 G. COLMAN Prose Several Occasions II. 44 Considering Mr. L. is but a common acquaintance,..I never saw a more consummate piece of assurance. The cool impudence of it startled me at first. 1825 C. M. WESTMACOTT Eng. Spy I. 80 A right cool fish. 1873 W. BLACK Princess of Thule xxiv. 394 He certainly knew that such a request was a trifle cool.1874 J. P. MAHAFFY Social Life Greece viii. 256 The cool way in which Plato in his Republic speaks of exposing children. 1926 S. ANDERSON Tar vi. 142 Henry would walk right out and take it as cool as you please. 1988 M. SENDAK Caldecott & Co. (1989) I. 140 Mr Yorinks has the cool audacity to mix absolute nonsense with cockeyed fact. 2005 D. ARSCOTT Maracas in Caracas 9 Then I find a good half of my contracts are being siphoned off into the new Jeavons venture. Cool as you like.

    e. orig. U.S. Of jazz music: restrained or relaxed in style (opposed to HOT adj. 12h). Also: performing or associated with music of this type.

1948 Bridgeport (Connecticut) Telegram 13 July 9/1 Hot jazz is dead. Long live cool jazz!.. The old-school jazz created a tension, where the new jazz tries to convey a feeling of rhythmic relaxation. 1955 L. FEATHER Encycl. Jazz (1956) 30 Cool jazz to most musicians and students denotes the understated, behind-the-beat style typified by the arrangements and soloists on the Davis records. 1957 H. PANASSIÉ in S. Traill Concerning Jazz 61 The ‘cool’ musicians..stopped using the traditional jazz technique and tone.1963 L. JONES Blues People xii. 207 Obvious innovators and masters who might not be ordinarily identified as members of the ‘cool school’. 1992 Jazz No. 12. 10/1 [The] band was exploring its cool, dark Miles vibe. 2002 List (Glasgow & Edinb. Events Guide) 4 July 65/3 (advt.) Tenor saxman Redman invests his cool jazz sounds with hip hop and funk influences.

    3. a. Lacking in fervour or zeal, unenthusiastic; lacking heartiness or warmth of interest. Cf. COLD adj. 7a , LUKEWARM adj. 2.

OE Beowulf 2066 [Sy]an Ingelde wealla wælnias, ond him wiflufan æfter cearwælmum colran weora.

1592 T. ROGERS tr. T. à Kempis Soliloquium Animae vii. 46, I was not zealous enough in my proceeding, I did not encrease in zeale, but, which is woorser, I waxed cooler and cooler. 1631 BP. J. HALL Occas. Medit. (ed. 2) §cxxxviii, Oh give me a true sense of my wants, and then I cannot bee coole in asking. 1710 R. STEELE Tatler No. 192 2 Sometimes the Parties..grow cool in the very Honey Month. 1743 H. FIELDING Journey from This World to Next XIX. vii. 244 My Imagination, which had thus warmly pursued a Crown, grew cool when I was in the possession of it. 1765 D. GARRICK Let. 10 Mar. (1963) II. 449 Do the Town in general really wish to see me on y^e Stage? or are they..as cool about it as their humble Servant? 1815 DUKE OF WELLINGTON in J. Gurwood Dispatches X. 169 The people are a little cool both at Vienna and in England in respect to the Bourbons. 1858TROLLOPE Dr. Thorne III. ii. 25 The zeal of the master waxed cool as that of the pupil waxed hot. 1874 J. S. BLACKIE On Self-culture 70 An honest hater is often a better fellow than a cool friend. 1915 Times 25 May 8/5 The idea of war with Italy left the Germans rather cool. 2003 Europe-Asia Stud. 55 422 The President seemed markedly cool about Sobyanin's candidature.

    b. Exhibiting or demonstrating a lack of warmth of affection; not cordial, unfriendly. Cf. COLD adj. 8.

1641 EARL OF MONMOUTH tr. G. F. Biondi Hist. Civil Warres Eng. I. II. 97 The Dolphin who well weighed these alterations, grew somewhat coole towards his father in law [It.s'andaua raffredando co'l suocero]. 1675 in Essex Papers (1890) I. 319, I found him at first cooler in his reception then when I left him. a1706 J. VANBRUGH Mistake I, in Wks.(1840) 442/1 Were I to meet a cool reception. 1751 E. HAYWOOD Hist. Betsy Thoughtless IV. viii. 78 The cool reception he had given her sent her home in a very ill humour.1800 E. HERVEY Mourtray Family III. 77, I am rather upon cool terms with him. 1854 THACKERAY Newcomes II. xxv. 237 But she did not care for Mrs. Clive, and the Colonel, somehow, grew cool towards us. 1924 P. G. WODEHOUSE Bill the Conqueror 31 For many months now this tendency to a cool formality on her part had irked Bill. 1997 T. MACKINTOSH-SMITH Yemen (1999) iv. 90 His reception was cool, but he avoided any serious incident.

    c. App.: possessing little vitality or force; ineffectual. Obs. rare.

1669 A. MARVELL Corr. in Wks. (1875) II. 282, I reckon they have but a coole patent of it, and I suppose should they bring it into Parliament it will prove not only impossible there but ridiculous.

    4. a. Providing no comfort or encouragement; chilling. Cf. COLD adj. 10. Obs.

c1350 (a1333) WILLIAM OF SHOREHAM Poems (1902) 102 Hys red was to coul at let man to suich meschyf. c1425 (c1300) Chron. Robert of Gloucester (Harl.) 131 Wat segge emaistres..at eue at cole [c1325 Calig. colde] red To bi nyme blod and my lyf.

    b. Lacking hope; dispirited, discouraged. Obs. rare.

c1540 Destr. Troy 9255 en comford he caght in his cole hert.

    5. a. Of a taste or smell: producing a sensation analogous to coolness of temperature; fresh, crisp; refreshing. Of food, drink, etc.: having such a taste.

1589 T. CATES Summarie Drakes W. Indian Voy. 14 Within this white of the nut [sc. the coconut] lyeth a water,..which water and white rine before spoken of, are both of a very coole fresh taste. 1697 W. DAMPIER New Voy. around World xi. 314 It drinks brisk and cool. 1734 P. SHAW Enq. Scarborough Spaw-waters I. iv. 45 The Characteristicks of pure Nitre, or Salt-Petre... Its particular sharp, or penetrating, cool, and lightly bitterish taste. 1815 MISS PRICKETT Warwick Castle I. vii. 126 The cool scent of roses..appeared to revive him. 1826 P. G. PATMORE Mirror of Months 194 The cool, crisp, and refreshing Nonsuch [apple],eating, when at its best, like a glass of Apple-ice. 1848 THACKERAYVanity Fair iii. 20 ‘Try a chili with it, Miss Sharp,’ said Joseph, really interested. ‘A chili,’ said Rebecca, gasping. ‘Oh yes!’ She thought a chili was something cool, as its name imported. 1925 Woman's World Apr. 64/2 (advt.) Forhan's [toothpaste] is cool, antiseptic and pleasant to the taste. 1997 J. FLETCHER Fresh from Farmers' Market 118 The clean, cool taste of the sliced [fennel] bulb.

    b. Of a colour, esp. a blue, green, or grey: suggestive of coolness. Cf. COLD adj. 15 , WARM adj. 15a.

1758 R. DOSSIE Handmaid to Arts I. I. ii. 83 Verditer is, when good, a cool full blue, but without the least transparency either in oil or water. 1799 J. HULL Brit. Flora I. 342Acris,..Gills reddish buff, 4 in a set, branching, pileus cool brown, viscid, shining, oblique.., stalk whitish, shining, eccentric. 1845 Punch 7 June 247/1 The following terms are indispensable, and may be used pretty much at random:‘Chiaroscuro’, ‘texture’, ‘pearly greys’, ‘foxy browns’, ‘cool greens’, ‘breadth’, ‘handling’, ‘medium’, ‘vehicle’. 1859 D. H. JACQUES House 161 A cool gray..may be obtained as follows:..Raw umber, half a pound [etc.]. 1884 Cassell's Family Mag. Apr. 271/1 The beautiful cool grey-green of the silver wattle. 1936 Fortune Oct. 42/1 (advt.) The cool amber of a Martini, the deep glow of a Manhattan, the subtle satisfaction of a Side Car. 1991 Artist Nov. 23/3 He employs a restricted palette based on a division between warm and cool colours... The cool palette consists of French ultramarine, Prussian green, lamp black and titanium white.

    6. Hunting. Of a scent or trail: not fresh or recent; faint, weak. Also in extended use. Cf. COLD adj. 12a , WARM adj. 5.

1647 N. BACON Hist. Disc. Govt. 253 Though..they lost ground and hunted upon a coole sent. 1822 A. T. DE VERE Julian Apostate 32 It is in truth a cunning hound, and keen too; No nose like his to hunt a cool scent up. 1831 New Sporting Mag. Oct. 416/2 Those who ride well to them with a good scent, are indifferent about being forward with a cool one.1893 A. RIVES Athelwold V. ii. 87 Osw. Let this vext matter sleep. Ed. Thou know'st me not..when thou speak'st Of pausing here to let the scent grow cool. 1990 Times (Nexis) 5 Oct., The trail may have gone cool for New Model Army but Bob Dylan has lost the thread completely. 2001 R. BASS Colter xvi. 160, I walked briskly to keep up with Colter's [sc.a hunting dog's] bold casts. It was a beautiful, awe-provoking thing to see, the way he consumed that little forty [acre spur]: scouring it left to rightcatching every molecule of cool scent.

    7. colloq. Used to emphasize the size of a quantity, orig. and chiefly a sum of money. Only in attrib. use.
  Originally preceded by a with hundred or thousand; subsequently also with any numeral (cf. A adj. 3b).
  N.E.D. (1893) suggests that the sense was ‘perhaps originally “deliberately or calmly counted, reckoned, or told”, and hence “all told”, “entire”, “whole”’.

1721 C. CIBBER Refusal I. 10, I owe Crop the Lender a Brace, and if I have a single Simon to pay him, rot me: But the queer Coll promises to advance me t'other three, and bring me home, provided you will let him sneak into your List for a cool Thousand. 1749 H. FIELDING Tom Jones III. VIII. xii. 263 He had lost a cool hundred, and would play no longer.1771 T. SMOLLETT Humphry Clinker II. 110 My table alone stands me in a cool thousand a quarter. 1844 B. DISRAELI Coningsby II. IV. v. 54 Lord Monmouth had the satisfaction of drawing the Whig Minister at Naples into a cool thousand on the event. 1861 DICKENS Great Expectations III. xviii. 303 She left that cool four thousand unto him. 1870 ‘W. BRADWOOD’ The O.V.H. 264 To save me a cool seven hundred a year. 1941 H. VAN ZELLER Jeremias xiv. 137 Hanameel..got a cool seventeen shekels for a piece of land. 1958Punch 27 Aug. 283/3 Some depressing Yank writer who takes a cool six hundred pages to chronicle the twenty-four-hour doings of a single character. 2007 Globe & Mail(Toronto) (Nexis) 22 Sept. R8 Last Christmas, he gave his parents..a cool million dollars, and $50,000 to each of his two sisters.

    8. colloq. (orig. U.S.).

    a. Attractively shrewd or clever; sophisticated, stylish, classy; fashionable, up to date; sexually attractive.
  The evidence indicates that this sense originated around the second decade of the 20th cent.; it is probably not exemplified by quot. 1884, in which the exact meaning of cool, from an article containing a list of undefined interjections (not all expressing approval) is uncertain; it could be a comment on a person's audacity (i.e. sense A. 2d).

[1884 J. A. HARRISON Negro Eng. in Anglia 7 257 Interjections... Dat's cool!] 1918 Bodleian Q. Rec. 2 152 A case, A lad, A head, A cool kid, all words for expressing admiration for another's cleverness or cunning. 1924 in M. Leadbitter & N. Slaven Blues Records (1968) 155 (song title) Cool Kind Daddy Blues. 1947 C. CALLOWAY et al. Hi-De-Ho Man(That's Me) (song MS) 2 Stay solid an' mellow a groovey cool fellow an' then you're gonna be sharp as me. 1949 F. LOESSER Hamlet in R. Kimball & S. Nelson Compl. Lyrics F. Loesser (2003) 150/3 She was a cool put-together chick That made men thrill. But Hamlet, he thought She was from Uglyville. 1952 Herald-Press (St. Joseph, Michigan) 23 June 14 To be ‘cool’ is the desire of every teen-ager but the title of ‘book gook’ (book worm) is to be shunned. 1959 Observer 25 Oct. 29/8 They got long, sloppy haircuts and wide knot ties and no-press suits with fat lapels. Very cool. 1972 G. LUKAS et al. Amer. Graffiti (film script) 33 (stage direct.), Terry continues to cruise the main drag, slouched low and looking cool in his newly acquired machine. 1990 M8 Dec. 63/2 I'm too cool to be suckered by the hype. 2000 Elle Sept. 329 For years, anything more than a slick of Vaseline or a brush of mascara was considered too try-hard to be cool.

    b. Originally in African-American usage: (as a general term of approval) admirable, excellent. Cf. HOT adj. 12c.
  Popularized among jazz musicians and enthusiasts in the late 1940s; cf. sense A. 2e , cool cat n. at Special uses 2.

1933 Z. N. HURSTON in Story Aug. 63 And whut make it so cool, he got money 'cumulated. And womens give it all to 'im. 1950 Neurotica Autumn 46 This is a cool pad man. 1951Newsweek 8 Oct. 28/3 If you like a guy or gal, they're cool. If they are real fat, real crazy, naturally they're real cool. 1957 Sunday Mail (Glasgow) 10 Feb. 11/6 Gonethe best, in the top rung, the coolest. 1970 R. THORP & R. BLAKE Music of their Laughter 5/2 It never ran, but it was a cool car. 1980 A. BEATTIE Falling in Place (1981) vii. 73 These jeans are so cool. 2007 Hello! 17 July 64 But people were coming up and asking me for my numberand asking if I wanted theirshow cool was that!

    c. In weakened use: all right, ‘OK’; satisfactory, acceptable; unproblematic, safe.

1951 J. KEROUAC On Road: Orig. Scroll (2007) 189 He [sc. the marijuana dealer] was absurdly cautious. ‘Got to look out for myself, things ain't cool this past week.’ 1952 G. MANDEL Flee Angry Strangers 257 Go on home to the Bronx, Dinch. You'll be cool up there. 1959 Esquire Nov. in R. L. Gold Jazz Lexicon (1964) 66 ‘Do you want to go to the movies?’ ‘It's cool with me (acquiescence).’ 1974 O. CLARK Diary 18 Apr. (1998) 13 Uptight Meeting with a complete breakdown. Have I burnt my boats? No, it's cool. 1984 A. THOMAS Intertidal Life i. 39, I am ‘laying another trip’ on him but that's cool, he can deal with it. 2001 G. JOSEPH Homegrown xxii. 308 He had seen Devon in the street and hid from him, unable to smile in his face and say that everything was cool.

    B. adv.    = COOLLY adv. (in various senses).

1673 J. RAY Observ. Journey Low-countries 252 [The streets] are made so on purpose,..partly to keep off the scorching beams of the Sun in Summer time, for the conveniency of walking cool. 1789 E. BUTLER Jrnl. 17 Apr. in E. M. Bell Hamwood Papers (1930) 200 He says he will fight any man who looks cool at him. 1800 Sporting Mag. 17 90/2 Nor did he ever look cool, even upon his enemies. 1861 T. PARKER Serm. Theism, Atheism, & Pop. Theol (ed. 3) x. 332 A woman wishes to walk cool in the summer's heat. 1944 L. ARMSTRONG in T. Brothers Louis Armstrong (1999) 86 They treated us rather cool when we went to work. 1970 Globe & Mail (Toronto) 26 Sept. 38/2 He sits cool and has the ability to bring his horse off the pace.

    C. int.    colloq. (orig. U.S.). Expressing approval or assent: ‘All right!’ ‘OK!’ ‘Great!’

1948 New Yorker 3 July 28 The bebop people have a language of their own... Their expressions of approval include ‘cool’! 1957 C. K. MYERS Light in Dark Streets 79 Guess I'll head for the old lady's pad. It's uptown, only ten stops. Cool, man, cool. 1969 Phylon 30 198 Cool, man. 1994 Globe & Mail (Toronto) 21 Apr. A 20/5 Cool, this program does everything! 1997 C. BROOKMYRE Country of Blind (2001) vii. 172 ‘Staun oot the way an' let us get on wi' it.’ ‘Aye. Nae bother. Cool.’ 2003 R. LIDDLE Too Beautiful for You (2004) 161 ‘Uh’. ‘Oh right’. ‘Sure, cool’. We all say.

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    PHRASES

    colloq. (orig. U.S.). too cool for school: coolly self-possessed; extremely fashionable or trendy, esp. (freq. depreciative) self-regardingly or arrogantly so.
  In quot. 1981 with literal reference to a school.

[1981 Washington Post 12 Mar. (Virginia Weekly section) 1/3 As Pat likes to describe it, he was too cool for school. Instead of class, he preferred shoplifting.] 1985 Houston Chron. 9 May VI. 7/2 It feels pretty silly to adopt a too-cool-for-school facial expression..and then realize it is the wrong car. 1997 Mediaweek 17 Feb. 22/3 Is it a stretch to imagine the sideburned, too-cool-for-school guy..leading..a snake dance at a wild animal farm? 2004 L. SHORTER Hedonist's Guide Tallinn 82 The interior looks like a pull-out from Wallpaper magazine: easy on the eyes and a bit too cool for school.

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    SPECIAL USES

    S1. Predicative and parasynthetic. See also COOL-HEADED adj.

    a. cool-looking adj.

1819 A. REED No Fiction ix. 120 How grateful, at noon, in the shade of a tree, Which spreads within view of a *cool looking alley. 1941 Chicago Defender 5 Apr. 8/7 That cool looking cat that is taking Lucinda..around these days. 1992 H. MITCHELL One Man's Garden vi.119 The white..[flowers] with red eyes are cool-looking in the summer heat. 2002H. RITCHIE Friday Night Club (2003) III. viii. 276 This place is crammed with cool-looking twentysomethings.

    cool-rooted adj.

1820 KEATS Ode to Psyche in Lamia & Other Poems 118 *Cool-rooted flowers. 1904 W. DE LA MARE Henry Brocken 147 The cool-rooted flowers.

    cool-sheltered adj. Obs

1767 S. PENNINGTON Lett. III. 171 And here, *cool shelter'd from the mid-day sun.

    b. cool-brained adj. = COOL-HEADED adj.

1765 London Mag. Mar. 118/2, I am..neither what he calls a teacher, nor disposed to be a blind follower, either of an hot headed one, or of the *cool-brained Publicus. 1869 ‘M. TWAIN’ Innocents Abroad xxxviii. 126 Thick-headed commentators upon the Bible..work more damage to religion than sensible, cool-brained clergymen can fight away again.1930 Classical Jrnl. 25 376 What greater difference could two Athenians show than the difference of temper between this cool-brained realist..and Xenophon. 1985 Financial Times (Nexis) 24 Feb. (Weekend FT) p. vii, Cool-brained indeed is the traveller who can resist the odd few pence off a litre of Scotch.

    cool-hearted adj. = COLD-HEARTED adj.

1748 Humble Addr. Progress of Popery 4 Our lethargic, *cool-hearted and indifferent great Masters of Wisdom. 1856 La Crosse (Wisconsin) Independent Republican(Electronic text) 10 Sept., They will..show a degree of cool hearted villainy..on the part of the public officers. 1915 P. GRAINGER Let. 25 Dec. in All-round Man (1994) 15, I have always looked upon..the English as a somewhat cool-hearted but jolly clever..lot. 2006 New Yorker (Nexis) 7 Aug. 64 A writer often accused of being too cerebral and cool-hearted.

    S2. cool bag n. chiefly Brit. a bag made of insulated material, used for keeping food and drink cool.

1971 E. Afr. Standard (Nairobi) 10 Apr. 2/1 (advt.) For the best selection of..*cool boxes and bags. 1989 Grattan Direct Catal. Spring-Summer 578/1, 17 litre Populaire cool bag. Ideal for beach, picnics and frozen food shopping. 2003 N. BROWNLEE Everything you didn't need to know about UK 120 Special coolbags were given free to guests,..packed with goodies including champagne, smoked salmon wrap, ‘Jubilee Chicken’ and strawberries and cream.

    cool-blooded adj. = COLD-BLOODED adj. 2; cf. sense A. 2b.

1767 New Coll. Lett. Persons of Eminence II. 307 Would you believe that such a *cool blooded boy could ever become delirious? power, alas! 1816 SCOTT Black Dwarf vi, inTales of my Landlord 1st Ser. I. 125 That cool-blooded, hardened, unrelenting ruffian. 1865 G. MEREDITH Rhoda Fleming (1912) xxvi. 279 I'm not cool-blooded enough to bet against favourites. 2006 West Austral. (Perth) (Nexis) 7 Sept. (Features section) 22 You'd be a cool-blooded soul not to spare a passing thought to terrorism as you approach a visit to London these days.

    cool box n. an insulated container or compartment for keeping food and drink cool.

1919 L. R. BALDERSTON Housewifery viii. 216 In building a house, it is well to provide a *cool box built on the outside wall of the house. 1970 Cape Times 28 Oct. 26/6 (advt.) Coleman cool boxes. 2005 Trav. Afr. Autumn 13/1 The boys had..wedged the cool boxes under a picnic bench, but the baboons had these after only a moderate workout.

    Cool Breeze n. (also with lower-case initials) (chiefly in African-American usage) used as a nickname or familiar form of address, esp. for a person regarded as shrewd, fashionable, or amiable.

1925 Pittsburgh Courier 17 Oct 10/3 Mr. Elwood Gardner, alias ‘*Cool Breeze’, is playing the Roosevelt Theatre. 1967 M. BRALY On Yard (2002) xiii. 197 Cool Breeze jus' bogart his way in. 1995 Charlotte (N. Carolina) Observer (Nexis) 14 May 18V, What's up, cool breeze? 2002 W. ELLIS Spiritual Exercises xxiii. 139 ‘Hey, Cool Breeze,’ Carl said, ‘What's happening?’

    cool-burning adj. (a) characterized by simultaneous sensations of heat and cold; (b) that burns at a low temperature.

1843 Q. Rev. Dec. 310/2 In the delirium of her agony, she talks of ‘*cool burning tears’. 1898 Times 7 Apr. 10/1 Having obtained this rapidity in combustion di-nitro-toluene was introduced as a taming ingredient and by its introduction produced a comparatively cool-burning powder with a combustion that was gradual. 1907 Practioner June 864 Arhovin..is a yellowish liquid of aromatic colour and slightly cool-burning taste. 1989 Industr. & Engin. Chem. Res. 28 431/1 Triaminoguanidine nitrate..has been used primarily as an oxidizer in cool-burning gun propellants for rapid fire weapon systems.

    cool cat n. an admirably fashionable or stylish person; spec. an enthusiast of jazz; cf. CAT n.¹ 2c , HEP-CAT n.

1942 Chicago Defender 23 May 10/6 Perry Givens played a *cool cat at the May dance Friday. 1957 N. MAILER in Dissent Summer 288 Still I am just one cat in a world of cool cats, and everything interesting is crazy, or at least so the Squares who do not know how to swing would say. 1991 C. EDDY Stairway to Hell 203/1 Three cool cats of the jazzistic variety.

    cool chamber n. (a) a special compartment or piece of apparatus which is kept cool or contains cool air; cf. hot chamber n. at HOT adj. and n.¹ Special uses 3; (b) a room kept cool for the storage of perishable goods; cf. cool room n.

1801 J. ANDERSON Recreations in Agric. V. 354 Let another opening be made in the roof, or higher part of the stove, communicating either with the open air, or with the *cool chamber above. 1884 Times 4 Jan. 12/3 They [sc. sheep carcasses] are hung from a rail in a cool chamber 1992 Logistics & Transportation Rev. (Nexis) June 207 They examine individual shipments, adding dummy variables for hazardous cargo and cargo requiring cool chamber storage. 1995 Proc. National Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 92 6370/1 Electrophoresis was conducted on cellulose acetate gels..in a cool chamber (4°C) at 200 V for 30 min.

    cool-crape n. cant Obs. (a) a type of fabric (see quot. 1699); (b) a shroud.

1699 B. E. New Dict. Canting Crew, *Cool-crape, a slight Chequer'd Stuff made in imitation of Scotch Plad. 1725 New Canting Dict., When a Person dies, he is said to be put into his Cool-crape. 1785 F. GROSE Classical Dict. Vulgar Tongue, Cool crape, a shroud.

    cool cup n. Obs. = COOL TANKARD n.

1775 DUCHESS OF NORTHUMBERLAND Short Tour 28 We..had a *cool cup made to drink with it. 1856 A. F. HECTOR Agnes Waring II. xiii. 265 It's a cooling trifle I've brought you, a drink I'm introducing among the benighted creatures here; we call it cool cup at home.

    cool customer n. a person who is calm and composed, esp. where alarm, dismay, or diffidence would be expected (cf. senses A. 2a , A. 2d); cf. CUSTOMER n. 5.

1823 SCOTT St. Ronan's Well I xiii. 293 Yonder Tyrrel looks like a tevilish *cool customer..I can promise you he is mettle to the back bone. 1869 Ballou's Monthly Mag. July 98/1 (heading) A cool customer... A lathy fellow entered his place and ordered a double stew of oysters... ‘Seventy-five cents.’.. ‘I haint got any money.’ The last we ever saw of him he was walking very leisurely down the street. 1941 A. CHRISTIE Evil under Sun v. 96 Cool customer. Not giving anything away, is he? 1997 N. DEMILLE Plum Island xxviii. 379 He must have known that I knew both his secrets, yet he was not ruffled... A very cool customer, indeed.

    cool-drawn adj. Obs. (of oil) extracted or expressed without the aid of heat; cf. cold-drawn adj. at COLD adj. Special uses 3a , hot-drawn adj. at HOT adj. and n.¹ Special uses 4.

1774 T. KIRKLAND Treat. Child-bed Fevers ii. 145, I would recommend the application of linen cloths, wet in *cool-drawn linseed oil. 1795 Hull Advertiser 10 Oct. 2/1 Whale Oil of this and last year, Cool Drawn.

    coolhouse n. a greenhouse kept at a cool temperature.

1869 B. AUERBACH Villa on Rhine 69 There he is, in the *cool-house. 1958 Listener 21 Aug. 275/1 A Luculia growing up the back wall of a cool house. 2006 Belfast News Let.(Nexis) 4 Jan. 10 The large six-roomed house..with its own barn, smokehouse,..and coolhouse built over a spring.

    cool one n. N. Amer. colloq = cold one n. at COLD adj. Additions.

1955 San Antonio (Texas) Light 12 June 11A/1 One day before payday servicemen who have run out of cash can claim their dollar, have a few *cool ones while they sweat out the payline the next day. 2008 Above Law (Nexis) 22 Feb., Plaintiffs had been throwing down a few cool ones at a neighborhood watering hole.

    cool room n. a room kept cool (esp. by refrigeration) for the storage of perishable goods; (now) spec. (chiefly Austral. and N.Z.) one which forms part of a shop or other commercial premises.

1939 Agric. Hist. 13 88 All Northwestern apples..were sent in refrigerator cars to the Atlantic seaboard and transshipped on steamers equipped with *coolroom space. 1977Weekly Times (Melbourne) 19 Jan. 62/2 (advt.) News Milk Bar, deli. fruit and vegs, coolroom, freehold, 3br residence. 1996 N.Z. News UK 28 Feb. 11/2 (advt.) We require the services of..service persons with supermarket rack, coolroom and commercial refrigeration experience. 2003 Age (Melbourne) (Nexis) 25 Jan. 13 Fruit and vegetables languishing in cool rooms or freezers for weeks, even months, before they are brought out.

    cool store n. chiefly Austral. and N.Z. a building or room kept cool for the storage of perishable goods; cf. cool room n.

1906 Jrnl. Soc. Compar. Legislation 7 447 Any produce that has been seized must be kept, if possible, in a *cool store pending the result of legal proceedings. 1959 N.Z. Listener18 Dec. 8/1 The trees were all about..and only occasionally between them was a gleam of the sun... ‘Like being in a cool-store, isn't it?’ 2001 Weekly Times (Austral.) (Nexis) 24 Oct. 4 About 70-80 per cent of the electricity used on Mr Ahmet's Shepparton property goes to power his cool store.

    cool-touch adj. (of electrical equipment) having an outer casing or surface which is cool to the touch.

1954 Los Angeles Times 25 Apr. I. 9 (advt.) ‘*Cool touch’ handles. 1980 Evening Capital (Annapolis, Maryland) 11 Feb. 6/1 (advt.) Heated curling brush... Cool touch nylon bristles keep heated core away from fingers. 1995 M. LAWRENCE et al. Which? Guide Home Safety & Security i. 14 Keep small children away from the hob and ovenespeciallyits glass door, unless you have a cool-touch type.

    cool-trough n. (also (Yorks.) cou-trough, col-trough) now hist. a trough of cold water used by a blacksmith to cool hot iron.

1565 T. COOPER Thesaurus at Ferraria aqua, Smithes water in the *cole trough [wherin] they quench yron. 1659 C. HOOLE tr. J. A. Comenius Visible World 141 He quencheth Hot-Irons in the Cool-trough. 1888 S. O. ADDY Gloss. Words Sheffield 52 Cou-trough, a trough of cold water into which a blacksmith plunges hot iron. It is sometimes called col-trough. 2002 J. UNWIN in M. C. Beaudry Findings (2006) v. 121 Joshua Russell, d. 1698, had a smithy with two hearths and a complement of tools for eachbellows, stock, anvil, cool-trough, hammers and tongs.

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