Flick Lives

“Flick Lives” is a reference to a character in many stories by radio humorist and writer Jean Shepherd. Flick was one of Shepherd's childhood friends  tales from his Indiana days. You might know him as the kid who gets his tongue frozen to a pole in the film A Christmas Story.

Fans and listeners to Shepherd's WOR-AM late night radio show in New York would often write “FLICK LIVES” as graffiti. Like the way that soldiers during WWII once wrote “Kilroy was here,”  it was not only a way of marking your turf, but also show that your were one od Shep's "night people."

Yes, people used to sometimes join the L and I in Flick to create a totally different message to the world.

Poor Flick gets his tongue frozen to an icy metal pole in A Christmas Story

Arctic

The Arctic is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth, and it consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Alaska (United States), Northern Canada (Canada), Finland, Greenland (Denmark), Iceland, Norway, Russia and Sweden.

But interestingly, its name comes from the sky above that predominantly treeless permafrost-containing tundra. The Great Bear Constellation, officially Ursa Major, comes from Latin where it means “greater she-bear.” Go back earlier to the Greek arktos which is the word for bear.

The name Arctic, meaning bearish, describes not only a land of the polar bear but also the parts of the Earth where the Great Bear constellation dominates the heavens even more than in the rest of the Northern Hemisphere.

A very large constellation, Ursa Major is best known for its famous asterism (star grouping) the Big Dipper.

Hygge and Hugs

Hygge (pronounced hue-guh) is a Danish word used to mean something is cozy, comfortable, and charming. This coziness philosophy became the topic of a bunch of lifestyle books and blogs the past few years.

Hygge values the idea of cherishing yourself, candlelight, bakeries, a warming fireplace, dinner with friends, values experiences over possessions, and treasuring a sense of community.

The word hygge comes from a Norwegian word meaning "wellbeing, it is also said that it might originate from the word hug. Hug comes from the 1560s word hugge, which means "to embrace". The word hugge is of unknown origin but is highly associated with an Old Norse term, hygga, which means "to comfort", which in turn comes from the word hugr, meaning "mood." Go back further in etymology and we arrive at the Germanic word hugyan, which relates to the Old English hycgan, meaning "to think, consider."  I think that's a lot of hugging.

Hygge is not a new term. It first appeared in Danish writing in the 19th Century. While hygge has exactly the same meaning in Norwegian as in Danish and is a widely used word in Norway "hygge" as a cultural philosophy is mostly a recent Danish phenomenon. In Norway "hygge" is just a word, similar in status to "cozy" in English-speaking countries.

But the hygge lifestyle has moved beyond Denmark and it is taking hold in the United States.