grubby, wormwood, absinthe, raunchy, rocketed into

A report by Ireland's former public prosecutor puts an end to the grubby drama that has consumed Scottish politics for the last two years

The Wall Street Journal

It was a dirty job, helping auto-repair shops clean oily tools and parts. But Donald Brinckman saw potential.
WSJ.COM

Obituary: Donald Brinckman Found a Grubby Business and Turned It Into a Wall Street Darling


PBS NewsHour

"I don't think about the reader. I think about the book....The book begins to make its demands."




Remembering Philip Roth, prolific American writer and ‘ruthlessly honest observer’
Philip Roth died Tuesday at age 85. His 1969 novel "Portnoy's Complaint" rocketed him to fame for its raunchy tour of a teenage boy's lustful urges…
PBS.ORG

Rocketed - Idioms by The Free Dictionary


https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/rocketed





[for a projectile] to ascend into the sky or into space; [for something] to shoot rapidly into something. The space shuttle rocketed into space. The locomotive rocketed into the darkness.
raunchy
ˈrɔːn(t)ʃi/

adjective

informal



1.energetically earthy and sexually explicit.

"his raunchy new novel"

2.

US
shabby or grubby.

"the restaurant's style is raunchy and the sanitation chancy"


The Screwtape Letters is a work of Christian satire by C. S. Lewis first published in book form in 1942. The story takes the form of a series of letters from a senior demon, Screwtape, to his nephew, a junior tempter named Wormwood, so as to advise him on methods of securing the damnation of an earthly man, known only as "the Patient."


grubby
ADJECTIVE

1Covered with dirt; grimy.

‘the grubby face of a young boy’
1.1 Involving dishonest or disreputable activity; sordid.

‘the grubby business of selling arms’


gall and wormwood



蔡珠兒在奧林匹亞宙斯神廟。
希臘 Archaía Olympía ·






《苦艾》
奧林比亞有個小植物園，在裡面認識了苦艾（wormwood)，一大片，高及人胸，毛絨絨的銀灰裂葉，柔黃如毛球的小圓花，天熱，氣味蒸騰四溢，帶辣的菊蒿味濃烈撲鼻，香到近乎嗆臭。
艾草是古老的文明植物，學名（屬名）Artemisia，來自希臘神話的狩獵與原野女神Artemis（也是阿波羅的龍鳳胎妹妹，可見其重要性），有很多品種，東西方都使用，兼具醫療與民俗功能，我們至今還在吃艾粿，炙艾絨，洗艾皂，端午節在門口插艾草。

苦艾很早就入藥典，公元一世紀時，希臘的醫生Dioscorides是羅馬軍團的隨行軍醫，他寫了著名的《藥物論》，書中就提到，用苦艾治療黃膽和瘧疾。
然而說到苦艾，最出名的是苦艾酒(absinthe，來自苦艾的種名absinthium )。以前讀翻譯小說，尤其是法國的，主角在酒吧總喝苦艾酒；美術館裡更常見，德加（Edgar Degas，1834-1917)的「苦艾酒」，那兩個人對著苦艾酒，木然卻又複雜的表情。捷克的奧利瓦(Viktor Oliva，1861-1928)更靈動，那個喝苦艾酒的人，醺然恍惚，見到綠精靈。
第一次喝苦艾酒，是在巴黎，加水後攪勻，變成牛奶般的乳白，酒氣濃烈，辛辣灼熱，像在吞火炭，吞完了苦意源源而來，灌了很多水才沖淡。嚇到了，從此敬謝不敏，大約因此也沒靈感，從來沒見過綠精靈。