Friday, July 15, 2011

"Buttercow"

Once upon a time, someone posted some kind of irrelevant blather in a comment box here on the Gondola Blog, and in his ever-wry way, Sean Jamieson came back with a ridiculous barrage of pointless trivia about buttercows.
Buttercows are, of course, cows sculpted from butter.

Decades ago in Iowa, a woman named Norma Lyon gained attention for her remarkable skill at sculpting cows out of butter.
These creations became all the rage at the Iowa State Fair.

I wouldn't have known any of this if not for the fanaticism of Sean - gondola operator in Coronado, California, and afficionado of all things buttercow.

After the comment exchange, "buttercow" became a slang term here for any comment deemed to be totally irrelevant.
Someone would go off-topic, and someone else would simply write "Buttercow!"
Or they would go into detail as to how that was a "buttercow remark".
Folks were even accused of "buttercowing".
A new bit of lingo was born right here on the blog.
Of course it's probably not used anywhere else to describe what we call "buttercowing", but I still get a kick out of it.

Now Sean has brought this piece of news to my attention:
The buttercow lady has passed on.
It could be said that she's gone to the Big State Fair in the Sky.
We will miss her.
But thankfully there are several others who now carry the torch, so there will still be buttercows out there - just not Norma Lyon originals.

This whole post is totally off-topic, has nothing to do with gondolas, Venice, or any kind of rowing.  Realistically, this blog post is a great big example of what it is to "buttercow".

Thanks for the news, Sean.
You know, this whole thing is entirely your fault.
(well, yours and Norma Lyon's)

For more information on Norma Lyon and her buttercows,
Take a look at this New York Times article that Sean sent me:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/us/28lyon.html?_r=1

Now if you've read this post all the way to the bottom, then you're worthy of this next step.
Feel free to launch your own bit of buttercowing in the comment box of this post.
Keep it clean,
But make it weird, outrageous, or at the very least...off topic.

Anyone?
Anyone?
Bueller?

2 comments:

Gondola Sean said...

who are we going to get to carve us the full size buttergondola?

Il Paradosso said...

Sang at a wedding this weekend. The cake had a great buttercream frosting.