When I first began researching proverbs in Spanish, or dichos, I sent an e-mail to my family soliciting their favorites. I got a flood of responses, with a surprising amount of crossover. Which actually makes sense considering most of them probably originated with my grandmother in the first place. She didn't e-mail me any herself, but through a complicated family phone tree that stretched all the way from her home in Durango, Mexico to me here in Boston, I was reminded of a few more of her favorites. (And then there was the ever-so-helpful note from my cousin who jokingly asked, "You mean like when you "dicho" school?" Thanks, Jason.)

A few dicho-loving readers also wrote in, including one who described himself as fascinated by "cosas Latinas" (all things Latino).

So here's a random assortment of memorable dichos, along with their English translations or equivalents, that were omitted from the original story solely for the sake of space:

"No hay mal que por bien no venga." (There is no bad that doesn't come for good.)   This favorite of my grandmother's was also passed along by Mark Stephen Caponigro of New York. My cousin Laura (yes, there are a lot of us cousins) feels the the English equivalent of "Every cloud has a silver lining" is probably a bit too optimistic. But it's close. Mr. Caponigro offered: "You know it is not bad, if it turns out OK." And the more religious: "Even if it is really bad, the Big Guy Upstairs is going to make it turn out OK."

Reader Jack Hansen from Walla Walla, Wash., sent in what he suggests are words of caution directed at those contemplating crossing the border from Mexico into the US: "Lo más cerca de los Estados Unidos, lo más lejos del Dios." (The closer you are to the United States, the further you are from God.)

"Más vale malo por conocido que bueno por conocer." (Evil that you know is better than good that you haven't met.)

"Más vale pajaro en mano que cien volando." (A bird in the hand is better than a hundred flying.)

"De tal palo, tal astilla." (From such a stick, such a splinter.) Or, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

"Al que madruga dios lo ayuda." (God helps those who get up early.)

"Date a deseo y oleras a poleo." (Give yourself sparingly, and you'll smell like poleo – a type of mint.) Basically, absence makes the heart grow fonder.

"El flojo trabaja doble." (The lazy person works double.) So, do things right the first time!

"A tu burro le das palos." (You're hitting your own donkey.) Meaning, you're only hurting yourself.

"Como me ves te verás." (The way you see me you'll see yourself one day.) This is a retort used by viejitos (older folks) when muchachos (children) make fun of them.

I'd never heard this one, which comes from Venezuela, but I really like it. "No creo en brujas, pero vuelan, vuelan." (I don't believe in witches, but they do fly.) Or, I'm skeptical, but you never know...

Have a favorite dicho or something else you'd like to share? Please write us at Weekend Zone.

by Teresa Méndez

So, the Frog network, the WB, is gone, but there are more than a few tadpoles from that pond swimming around looking for a permanent home. Some shows have resurfaced on the new CW Network, a few are waiting in the wings, but the most curious is the tail, oops, tale of the WB Network sitcom reject, the pilot-now-gone-viral-video, “Nobody’s Watching.”

This is the baby of “Scrubs” creator Bill Lawrence and his buddy, Neil Goldman. After the WB threw it back, it popped up on YouTube, the Internet video site, over the summer and has become a huge hit. The two leads, Will and Derrick have flexed their, um, little frog legs? and moved on over into now familiar commercial parodies of Mentos and soda. Meanwhile, NBC has come a courtin’, handing over some small change and the duo has been hired to produce some webisodes of the pilot.

Not content to swim around in the vast digital pond of the Internet, the team this week launched its very own website, nobodyswatching.tv, hoping to use it to convince NBC to take the full frog rather than the small tales, and put the actual sitcom on the air as a regular series.

The website is kinda fun, full of reader commentaries about why the TV sitcom is in such dire straits (I have to agree there – promotional DVDs of yet another season of “I Love Lucy” just came round, and watching those makes you wonder where comedy has gone so wrong), other videos by Will and Derrick, and some other content.

It's hard to say if the show will end up at the Prince’s ball, but the tale is a cautionary one for both the networks who think they know what people will watch and for the creative types who think Hollywood will recognize a Prince when they see one.

In any event, at least they all seem to be on the same page for now. In a very “Blair Witch Project” style of blending of fiction and fact, in a fictional press release about their new website, the fictional Will and Derrick coyly made this observation about the real head of NBC entertainment: “We each got a very light kiss on the forehead from Kevin Reilly, so we already consider this experience a victory.”

Princes-in-waiting, if ever there were ones.

by Gloria Goodale

People send me the weirdest things. As editor of the Weekend section, I’m accustomed to my mailbox being stuffed with press releases and media kits. But a “Dharma & Greg” yoga mat?

That particular item was sent from a PR firm trying to drum up interest in the DVD release of Jenna Elfman’s TV comedy. (Opening the package containing the yoga mat, complete with the sitcom’s logo emblazoned on it, made me laugh more than the show ever did.)

Over the past year, Hollywood has sent me dozens of tchotchkes. So many, in fact, that I can now spell tchotchke, which is the kind of word that judges use only as tiebreaker in the finals of the National Spelling Bee contest.

Among the more notable items:

• A fake severed ear in a fast-food container to promote a horror movie. (I’ve yet to receive a chainsaw from the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” people – why didn’t anyone think of that?)
• An “Ice Age” snowglobe. (Rumored to be on Al Gore’s list of rejected promotional items for “An Inconvenient Truth.”)
• A Dennis Franz bobblehead doll to draw attention to “N.Y.P.D. Blue.” (Did they take the bobblehead of Dr. Phil and superimpose it on the body of Detective Andy Sipowicz? Because that’s what it looks like.)
• A trophy - with my name emblazoned on it - featuring a "differently abled" runner frozen awkwardly midstep, to coincide with the release of "The Ringer," a comedy about The Special Olympics. (Note to publicist: Try flattery next time.)

Thanks to the constant indundation of promotional items, my desk now resembles a shelf at a Hasbro factory. Most of the items are made in China, which is ironic considering that Hollywood, which has had dozens of movies banned by Beijing this summer, probably imports more from China than it actually exports.

Colleagues stop by my cubicle to check the time on my clock – which features a picture of Harold Lloyd, the bespectacled silent-movie comedian, dangling from a clock tower in 1923’s “Safety Last.” Or they pick up the talking Napoleon Dynamite figurine that was delivered upon the movie’s DVD release. Among its catchphrases: “This is pretty much the worst video ever made.” (I guess there is something to be said for truth in advertising, after all.)

Do these marketing-campaign blitzes work? Yes and no. On the one hand, a package containing a plastic soldier’s helmet and dog-tags with my name on it can’t help but draw my attention to the military drama “Over There.” But it doesn’t mean that we’ll necessarily give it coverage or a good review.

Heck, we wouldn’t be swayed even if Hollywood hired Jack Abramoff to lobby us with a suitcase full of cash. The Monitor has a strict ethics policy that says, among other things, that “employees may not solicit or accept anything of value in exchange for the inclusion of any matter in, or the exclusion of any matter from, any article.” The policy goes on to state that all gifts or favors must be rejected except where they are of trinket value.

I’ve been saving up all this swag just for such an article so that Monitor readers can get a glimpse at the excesses of the Hollywood machine. And now, dear reader, please excuse me: I think it’s time to purge all of it. Except for that trophy – that goes on the mantelpiece.  

by Stephen Humphries

A month ago, in the run-up to Super Bowl Sunday, the Monitor's Weekend section ran a story entitled “Culture’s magnetic forces,” ranking those common subjects where, in an increasing fractured entertainment landscape, we still speak the same language.  Here’s our Top 10 list:

1. Breaking news
2. Super Bowl
3. New Year's / July 4
4. Oprah Winfrey
5. Harry Potter
6. American Idol
7. The Oscars
8. Cyberspace hangouts
9. The Da Vinci Code
10. U2

Needless to say, we received a deluge of reader mail. A few people thought we got the list about right. More felt we were off our rockers. Some even accused us of being 9th-graders. (Our sincere apologies to 9th graders everywhere.) And if you haven’t read the original piece, please do so, and let us know what you think. (Our inner 9th-grader promises not to be offended.)

How could you possibly list the “Da Vinci Code” or Harry Potter over the Bible? More Americans have read the Bible by far, many have read it multiple times, and quite a few read it daily – and they talk about it regularly! Belief is the single most unifying force in our culture, and the one that has the most impact.
– Karen, Sarasota, Fla.

Indeed, the Bible is the most-read book in the world. But the purpose of our story was to look at pop culture only.

If those are our cultural bindings, we have virtually no culture. Americans, at least, if your list is accurate, probably were descended from apes, and now seem to be regressing rapidly to that original state. Your list, if true, is one proof of this regression.
– Wayne Sheridan (address not given)

America, land of Wal-Mart and strip malls, is often accused of having no culture. But the US, indeed, has a rich cultural history: in music (it’s the land of jazz, country, blues, hip-hop), art (painters such as John Singer Sargent, Andy Warhol, and David Hockney), and literature (writers Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Edgar Allen Poe, to name a few). The French Impressionists were once seen as vulgar; now they are seen as Masters. It’s possible that, years from now, some of today’s standout American filmmakers (Quentin Tarantino? Steven Spielberg? David Lynch?) or musicians (Kanye West?) will be seen as part of a great era of cinema and music – and American culture. Perhaps we’re just too close to it right now.

Maybe it’s the cultural bias of New Yorkers on this end, but almost everything you list as pop glue is something that anyone I know would avoid like the plague. I can think of very people who observe the Super Bowl ritual (or care much about football, for that matter). Most share an equal revulsion for the middling views and platitudes of Oprah and her guests. Ditto snooze-inducers “American Idol,” “The Da Vinci Code,” or – IRK! –the dreaded Bono and his U2. And don’t get me wrong, we’re not a bunch of clucking intellectuals – I do know a couple of folks who are into those Harry Potter masterpieces. But in general your list is for the suburban masses we’ve moved away from in the first place.
– Louis Lafreniere, New York

Our list is, to some extent, nonscientific and subjective, but we tried to identify 10 popular-culture phenonema that are common denominators for broad swath s of the population. So, yes, Middle America holds a lot of sway here. (That said, we decided against including NASCAR – it's extraordinarily popular but doesn’t hold much appeal to Americans on either coast.) To make the list, each phenomenon had to be very familiar to everyone.

I thought you covered it pretty well.
Congrats!
– R. Pinkus, Yardley, Pa.

I nominate Warner Brothers cartoons (Bugs Bunny et al.). They’ve united us now for over 70 years, which is more than can be said for most of the items on the list. Who’ll care about “The Da Vinci Code” or “American Idol” in 10 years? I’m pretty sure I don’t already.
– Bob Watson, Elmhurst, Ill.

I thought the first three were dead on, but I would have put “American Idol” after the 4th of July and then Harry Potter. The other five I can’t identify with. I think Instant Messenger or any of the messengers could have been included and also China. I think China already has a huge impact on America culturally and will have even more in the future. iPod, too.
– Dale W. Stemen Jr., Detroit

We debated including Netflix and the iPod (and the same idea applies to IM-ing): We felt that while many people have iPods or subscribe to Netflix (or instant message with friends), those are things that actually separate us – everyone is listening to something different on their iPods or staying home to watch movies.

I’m shocked at the triviality of this list. I refuse to believe that these things “unite” us; certainly they matter to a large audience, but these choices cater to the lowest common denominator. I don’t know a single person who watches “Idol,” for example. This is a 9th-grader’s list.
– Sandra Scofield, Missoula, Mont.

“Unite” may be the wrong word. It’s more like: If you were standing around the water cooler, and someone mentioned Kelly Clarkson (“American Idol” winner from Season 1) or something he saw on “Oprah,” would you wonder who or what they were yammering on about?

Wow, I am really out of it! The only ones I found mildly interesting were the Super Bowl, 4th of July/New Year’s, and U2. And I haven’t been interested in any of them for years either. Maybe I should just crawl back into my cave for another 20 years.
– Ana Byrne, Mesa, Ariz.

Ask not what you left off – ask Monitor readers how many of the Top 10 cultural magnets represent their interests! I certainly enjoyed this article for its cultural/social implications, but I suspect like many Monitor readers, I could only identify with a few of the common denominators. For me it was 1, 3, and 9. 
– Linda Bell, Livermore, Colo.

While I agree these things bond Americans together, it saddens me that these things are completely superficial topics. Breaking news only grabs our attention because the news media make things like car chases through L.A. seem important while other stories that are acutely of some value (government corruption, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and others) get little in depth coverage. I am not saying I don’t love to read “Harry Potter” – and I’m a “Beauty and The Geek” kind of gal myself – but I also care for the more important things. It blows me away in my Santa Barbara City College classes when people don’t know what the IRS stands for or didn’t know that Turkmenistan is actually a country. Sorry for the rant, but I just wish youths like me would actually take the time to learn something and not just gobble up what the mindless box spits at them.
– Elizabeth Cota, Santa Barbara, Calif.

You have left out the Olympics. For that matter since I only follow numbers 1,3, 7, and 8.... no wonder I don’t follow American society as a whole. I can’t believe that we have stooped to classifying ourselves by pop culture interests.
– Curtis Doman, Johnson City, Tenn.

The Olympics almost made our list but we felt that interest in it had waned somewhat. Our decision proved prescient when “American Idol” trounced the Winter Olympics in the TV ratings. Even a repeat episode of “C.S.I.” drew more viewers than that night’s broadcast from Turin.

Where on your list are “The Boys of Summer”? Baseball is still the most played, most watched, most enjoyed pastime/sport in North America.
-Robert Lewis, Barrie, Ontario

Certainly millions of people go to baseball games each year. The same could be said of basketball or NASCAR. The fact is, baseball, like other major sports, has become more of a niche form of entertainment. Its influence has diminished over the past decade or so, surpassed by football as the national pastime.

Stephen Humphries and David S. Hauck