What do a word processor, Steve Miller, R&B and Coney Island have in common?

What do a word processor, Steve Miller, R&B and Coney Island have in common? I get an e-newsletter from Nisus Software, (that’s NICE-us, not NISS-us, says the guy at the booth at MacWorld. Endlessly). Their flagship product is a word processor called, surprisingly enough, Nisus. It’s a pretty good word processor, and it has actually won some awards. Another one of their products is a Thesaurus. In their previous newsletter, they talked about how they couldn’t figure out what a word in the Steve Miller song The Joker meant. What does “pompatus” mean? As in Some people call me Maurice, / Cause I speak of the Pompatus of love.

Turns out he stole it from an old R&B tune. Kinda. Sorta. A movie was made apparently about a bunch of people sitting around and trying to figure out what “pompatus” means. This was directed by the same guy who made an unusual film (sampled by Godspeed You Black Emperor! ) about Coney Island .

(And I’m sure Kevin Bacon fits in there someplace).