Frequently Asked Questions Page

Q. What is the meaning of life? A. Yes.
Q. Have You seen Elvis lately? A. No.
Q. Are paper clips really the larval form of coat hangers? A.  Maybe.

Q. Is this an Adult site.?

A. See our Privacy and Standards Policies for the answer. (Hint, yes we use adult words which may be deemed inappropriate for children.) We are not geared for children and cover the arts in all its boisterous diversity -- which these days means children 12 and under (at least), in our opinion, should definitely only be here if monitored or okayed by a parent or guardian. Some might raise the age appropriateness limit of this site all the way to 18. Check out the  Privacy and Standards Policies to see what you think.)

Satirically speaking this site has not even reached puberty, although, even so, it is constantly battling senility, but that's a horse of a differing cholera. But, seriously folks, we think that this site is adult and mature in the sense that the 1950's TV series Have Gun, Will Travel was adult and mature when compared to the 1930' movie serial The Tales of Lash LaRue. NOW STOP IT! There is NO hidden meaning in the word Lash. Really! Thank the heavens that we didn't mention James Fennimore Cooper's LEATHER Stocking Tales. It is an interesting comment on our culture that one cannot describe a site as adult and mature without being in danger of conjuring images of fetishism and lasciviousness.

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Q. What is "censorial sic" or "cs" ?

A. The term censorial sic is our own invention, you'll find it throughout GazetteOfTheArts.com™. When we make references to sites which might have tacky titles or require the use of tacky words in their description we will bowdlerize the reference or description (We've always wanted to bowdlerize something and now we have a chance.) To indicate that we've done so, we will place the words censorial sic or the initials cs in parentheses after the bowdlerization.

Note: Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825) was an English doctor, man of letters, and foolish prude who is most famous for his 1818 edition of Shakespeare's works in which he boasted "those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family." The American College dictionary defines bowdlerize as "to expurgate prudishly."

Our bowdlerization will be accomplished by replacing the offending word with: 1.) English phrases or words with no affective strength in modern parlance, 2.) obsolete or quaint expressions , and 3.) Latin, Greek, or other foreign phrases.

As an example if we have a link to a cookbook whose subtitle is The Blow Health Out of Your Fundament (censorial sic) Cookbook anyone visiting our site who does not want to be confronted by the unseemly popular slang expression for the gluteus maximus is spared. Anyone who wishes to see the original wordage in the linked site is just a click away. Thus we can censor, without censoring, a delightful concept. Also, we are vouchsafed the fun of coming up with the alternative word or phrase. So, we hope, everyone will be amused and happy which, after all, is one of the principal aims of our web site.

Since the term censorial sic is our own invention, here's the definition:. Censorial simply means we're acting like censors; sic is a Latin notation, usually placed in text to indicate that the author has made a mistake and, that the editors know it is a mistake but, are leaving it in anyway. This is usually to maintain textual faithfulness to the original and a certain literary integrity and respect for the author of the errant word or phrase. The censorial sic has no truck with this original integrity business, you can get that on the linked site. Use of the censorial sic means that we have changed the original, which we know introduces an inaccuracy but, we're doing it anyway. You can see the correct, unbowdlerized text by simply visiting the referenced internet site. You can score yourself on how well you guessed the word or phrase we bowdlerized -- or, you can avoid possible offense by avoiding the referenced web site.

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Q. What is the SPQR Award?

A. The GazetteOfTheArts.com™ SPQR (Roman Sewer Awards) Look for this symbol of the Roman Sewer Award, throughout GazetteOfTheArts.com™, when we present areas of modernity that make us especially proud that 25 centuries of Western Civilization have led to this.

THE EMPIRE LIVES ON.* NO LEGIONS -- BUT, THE ROMAN SEWERS FLOW ON

For example,  Demi Moore and the makers of The Scarlet Letter are Lifetime  Award Winners for what is arguably the most fascinatingly insipid and perverted adaptation of a great literary work to ever hit the silver screen, not excepting the 1965 teen exploitation film adaptation of H. G. Well's The Food of the Gods. The Village of the Giants starring Tommy Kirk, Beau Bridges, and  Ron Howard and featuring The Beau Brummels and Freddy Cannon.