Wednesday, December 26, 2007

A Dictionary for Martha

'Tis no longer the season—or year—for Martha Stewart jokes, but she brought a bit of this on herself by describing what she did in the hoosegow:

Martha built nativity scene in prison
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The Christmas season brought Martha Stewart one fond memory of her stay in a West Virginia prison.

On the Christmas Day episode of her television show, Stewart showed off ornate clay forms of the baby Jesus, Joseph, Mary, three camels and others she sculpted at a pottery class at the Federal Prison Camp in Alderson, W.Va.

"Even though every inmate was only allowed to do one a month, and I was only there for five months, I begged because I said I was an expert potter - ceramicist actually - and could I please make the entire nativity scene," she said.

Her creations were all fired and glazed at the prison. She completed the effect with tiny artificial palm trees imported from Germany by a New Jersey distributor.

Stewart was imprisoned in 2005 for lying about her sale of ImClone stock.

It would have been fine for her to call herself a potter. "Ceramicist," though, isn't the preferred alternative. That would be "ceramist." Leave it to Martha Stewart to make things more complicated, though. For the record, her recipe for pear tart works just as well without the splash of $28/bottle pear brandy.

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